“Huh?” Frank was confused.
“Nice analogy,” I said.
Steve said, “See, Frank? See? There are some smart people out there in the world. I just happen to not be working with one. Mr. Cole, you still have our business cards, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Then we’ll leave you be,” Steve said. “But if you think of anything, or see anything, do give us a call.”
“I will.”
“And us, well, we’ll keep on digging.”
“And digging,” his partner said.
And back to sleep I went, though I didn’t have enough energy to get back to bed. The couch again.
When I woke up it was dark outside. I felt troubled. I dozed some, woke up, wondered about things.
If it was already dark, Paula should be here. I moved around on the couch. She’ll get here, I thought. She’ll get here.
Digging, I thought. Those poor detectives, digging. Looking. Searching. Like …
Like the killers of Maggie Tyler Branch. They apparently didn’t take anything from her antiques shop. Certainly hadn’t taken Felix’s antique silver service.
Like the crew who had broken into the Tyler Chronicle and had torn apart the cellar. They hadn’t stolen the silver sludge that everyone assumed had gone missing due to theft. Nope.
In each case it had been—papers. Old files. Back issues of newspapers. Information.
The crew had been looking for information?
And Maggie’s voice came back to me, pointing to her old wooden filing cabinets:
In there are old documents, papers, invoices, receipts, and such concerning the history of the Tyler family, the history of the town and its famous buildings …
“Famous buildings,” I whispered into the darkness. “Like the one I’m living in.”
It was there. Almost there.
And I remembered my incessant visitors from Albany, who kept on wanting to come into my house, again and again.
For photographs? For history? For something else?
Dave Hudson’s voice came to me as well:
The basics of your house, the foundation of your house, it’s remained the same …
It certainly has, I thought. Even with the fire, the extensive repairs, the earlier reconstruction. The basics had stayed the same.
I got off the couch with my cane, switched on some lights, grabbed a flashlight, and then went to the cellar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I switched on the light and slowly descended, one step at a time. At the bottom I had to sit on a step to catch my breath. I switched on the flashlight and examined the place.
Not much to look at, to be honest.
The floor was hard-packed dirt. In one corner was a small oil furnace and small oil tank that warmed the water for the radiator system that kept both floors heated. The foundation was old stone, carefully assembled and cemented in the old style from the mid-1800s. One old historian told me years ago that these types of foundations are rare. The masons back then took pride in their work, making sure every piece fit right and was level. Definitely not like today, when the goal isn’t doing it right, but doing it by next Thursday. I let the light move across the cellar, checking the stonework and the dirt. A couple of years ago, in a fit of energy and idealism, I had used a spoon and an old colander to dig some in the dirt down here, looking for archaeological artifacts from my predecessors. But I had come up with exactly nothing. Just dirt.
I closed my eyes, thought about Bobby Turcotte and his merry band of naval corpsmen, setting up a bar down here. Why in the cellar? Why not upstairs in the light and openness? Because it was easy to hide. It was easy to be out of sight, out of the way. To bring down giggling young girls, some of them just teenagers, to show them the world of the adults.
Booze, of course. Marijuana, definitely. And—other things, as well. Turcotte had said that. Other things as well.
I opened my eyes, heaved my way off the step, and with cane in one hand and flashlight in the other, I went up to the stone foundation. Started looking, examining, feeling foolish that this was the first time I had given this cellar—it was just a cellar, after all!—such a close examination.
The stone foundation went up to about head high, and then thick beams of wood called sills were on top, which supported the rest of the house. I moved along, moved along, and—
Came to a place where there was more than just a sill.
There was a length of dark wood, almost like a plank, that was nailed to the sill. The color of the wood neatly matched the sill. No wonder I had never noticed it before.
I leaned on my cane, breathing hard, feeling that pressure on my back that told me I really, really should empty my drains before I made a mess.
But it could wait.
It would have to wait.
I ran my fingers across the plank.
It was definitely out of place, definitely didn’t belong. So what was it doing here?
I set the flashlight on top of the oil furnace so it was illuminating the part of the sill were the plank was located, and limped back.
I put my fingers under the plank, gave it a good tug.
Nothing moved.
Of course.
I tried again, grunting and groaning.
Nope.
Upstairs in one of the closets was a toolbox, with screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, and a pry bar. All I had to do was to go back upstairs, grab the necessary tools, and come back down.
Right.
But I was a dumb and impatient man. I grabbed the cane from Felix’s uncle and managed to shove the tip of the cane underneath a small gap in the wood. I pressed, pressed, and there was squeaking as some nails started to let loose.
“Almost there,” I whispered.
I pushed in again and used the cane as a pry bar, hoping the spirit of Felix’s uncle would forgive me.
The wood came apart a couple of inches. I moved the cane down, and repeated the process two more times.
Now I had a good grip. I reached in, tugged up, tugged up hard, and
