Granny Smith Is Dead

by Chelsea Thomas

  5

  Defunded and Defunct

  Once inside, I felt as if I’d stepped into a strange dream. Everything was slightly distorted. OK, it was more like a nightmare. Someone had broken an antique writing table into shards. Rust dappled a beautiful copper mirror. Garbage bags covered a few of the windows. And a rotten smell drifted through the foyer. I inhaled and coughed, as much out of shock as from the stench.

  Near the staircase, a small display stood as the sole reminder of the home’s former glory. A poster-board boasted facts about the historical significance of the home and the Beacon family. A dozen artifacts from the Revolutionary War sat in a row along a rickety folding table.

  There was a copper bowl, a hairbrush, and a shoe that looked like someone had cobbled it ten thousand times. I felt a drift of nostalgia tug at my focus, but the foul odor brought me back to the present.

  “It looks like Granny Smith was here to set up this morning,” I said.

  Miss May picked up a hairbrush and put it down. “You’re probably right. There’s not even a single fleck of dust on this thing.”

  “I know. Those artifacts look so well-preserved. But what happened to this house?”

  Miss May sighed. “I heard that the state had defunded several historic preservation sites... But this is unconscionable. I had no idea.”

  “So this great old house has been abandoned,” I said.

  Miss May nodded. “It must sit empty all year. And it only comes to life again when Granny Smith gives her tours.”

  Miss May crossed the room and peeked out a curtain. The floorboards moaned like wounded soldiers as she walked. Or was that the house moaning in pain? Neglected, abandoned, banished from memory...

  “Oh stop with your thoughts of poetic despair,” Miss May said. “All this place needs is a little TLC.” Speaking of initials, did Miss May have ESP? “I’ll reach out to Mayor Delgado on Monday. See what she can do about getting a crew in here for clean up.”

  “I’m surprised Granny Smith hasn’t already done that,” I said.

  “I’m sure she has,” Miss May said. “But Dolores has a way of asking for help in a manner that makes people not want to help her.”

  Truer words. “Yeah, that’s for sure. But I bet Mayor Delgado would do this. Especially since she’s up for re-election soon.”

  “Yeah, although no one has announced that they’re running in opposition,” Miss May said. “Still, Linda always wants to improve her image. Even if that means helping Grumpy Smith. I mean, Granny.” Miss May smiled at her Freudian slip.

  I looked around. “It’s so weird that Granny Smith’s not here right now. Ricardo said she was on her way.”

  Miss May sighed. “I know. She wouldn’t miss one of these tours unless something bad had happened.”

  “Like what?”

  Miss May looked over at me as if to say, “What do you think?” Then she walked past me and trudged up a rickety staircase. I followed.

  “You think Granny Smith is in the house right now?” I asked.

  “Her materials are here.”

  “But her car isn’t. Maybe she came last night to set up.”

  “Ricardo said she left to come here this morning.” Miss May looked back at me. “Something is off.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “What if she came this morning, set up, then had to run home for her glasses or something?”

  Miss May shook her head. “One road in and one road out. We would’ve passed her.”

  “Then where’s her car?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Miss May poked her head into the bathroom and gagged. “But I found the source of that smell.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s the toilet.”

  Miss May gagged and nodded. “Someone has been utilizing the facilities here. And I don’t think it was Granny Smith.”

  “That’s enough for me!” I turned on my heels and went back downstairs. “‘I’ll be downstairs. Let me know when you’re ready to go. And hurry up!”

  Miss May called back, “OK.”

  Moments later, I stood alone on the first floor and scanned the ruins of the Beacon home. Despite its derelict condition, the house still had shadows of a warm abode.

  Families had lived happy lives in the home and I could feel their presence. I could imagine children running down the stairs on Christmas, young couples dancing in the drawing room, grandparents rocking in the living room.

  In the kitchen, an old farmhouse sink caught my roving gaze. I could sense the energy of all the delicious meals that families had cooked and cleaned up there. And I could almost smell the baking bread. Suddenly, I felt a longing for my parents. For the life we’d had together. A childhood interrupted.

  I stepped toward the sink, almost involuntarily... Like a grand puppeteer was leading me to the specter of my lost family. I got closer and closer, and a warm pang swelled in my chest.

  My mother. My father. Me. I could see our faces, smiling, laughing, crying. I reached out toward the lip of the sink, feeling like my hand might pass right through the ceramic, like nothing I saw was real at all. My fingers grazed the shiny white surface, then...

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Heavy footsteps pounded from above. I spun around and backed up against the sink.

  “Hello? Miss May?”

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  My heart rate spiked. “Who’s there?”

  Creak.

  A door on the far side of the kitchen swung open. I stepped back and braced myself. To my great relief, Miss May walked through the door, plodding down the last few steps of what looked like a spiral staircase.

  “I love how these old homes have staircases in the kitchen,” she said. “So convenient. Midnight snack? Sure. Why not? Stairs connect the kitchen to the bedroom.”

  “A snack sounds great,” I said. “How about we run out of here as fast as we can and go get one?”

  Miss May held up a finger. “One second. I want to show you something.”

  “But—”

  “It’ll take two minutes. Then we’ll go.”

  I sighed. “Fine. Two minutes.”

  Miss May got down on her hands and knees. She felt around on the floor for ten or fifteen seconds. Then her fingers caught something. A latch. She pried open a large piece of the floor, revealing a square hole about two feet wide.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Miss May looked at me with a smirk. “It’s a door.”

  My voice wavered. “A door... to where?”

  Miss May climbed onto a ladder leading down through the door. She looked up at me with a smirk. “To the tunnels.”

  I had discovered a trapdoor on our last investigation. Despite my better judgement, I’d gone through it. And that door had led me to a dank basement filled with rotting food. So I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. Nonetheless, I stepped to the trapdoor and peered down as Miss May descended the ladder.

  “What’s in the tunnels?” I called down. “Is it scary?”

  “Will you stop, Chelsea,” Miss May said. “Just come look!”

  I gulped. Before I knew what was happening, my feet were on the ladder, carrying me into the depths of the infamous tunnels.

  I jumped the last two or three rungs of the ladder and landed on the floor with a thunk. It was dark. No surprise there. But it was really dark. Pitch black, but for a pinhole of light from above. I could barely make out the outline of Miss May two feet in front of me.

  I reached out for a wall and my hand found a slimy, cold surface a few feet away. The tunnel felt like it had been constructed of stone and mud. The slime was gross. But I kept my hand on the wall for guidance as I walked.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “I told you. We’re in the tunnels.”

  I jumped back. Miss May’s voice was right in my ear.

  She laughed, and it echoed forever. This was one long tunnel.

  “Closer than you thought?” Miss May asked.

  “Please
don’t scare me down here. I thought no one knew how to access these tunnels but Granny Smith.”

  “Nobody knows their way around but Dolores,” Miss May said. “But she gave me a special tour of the house, wow, almost ten years ago now, and she showed me that trapdoor. She was running for head librarian at the time and was sucking up to get my vote.”

  “Head Librarian is an elected position in Pine Grove?”

  Miss May chuckled. “Yup. And those elections get nasty, let me tell you. I don’t even wanna think about the actual mayoral election. Now hurry up and turn the light on my phone. Even I’m getting spooked down here.”

  Miss May handed me her phone. I turned the light on and handed it back. Then I turned on my phone flashlight and held it in front of me. The phone lights only illuminated a short distance in front of us, but that was enough to reveal some creepy new elements of the tunnels.

  A corroded old bicycle leaned against the opposite wall. We walked a few steps. A torn dictionary sprawled its pages across the floor. We walked a few steps. A rusty pipe dripped from the ceiling.

  We walked a few more steps, and I held the phone out in front of me like a candle. Miss May and I both whispered, even though there were no librarians to tell us to keep it down.

  “Isn’t this crazy?” Miss May said. “According to Granny Smith, the military used this tunnel to hide supplies and shuttle soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Then it served as part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Granny Smith even claimed that Russian spies tried to use the tunnels under Pine Grove to gain access to New York City during the Cold War.”

  “And now it’s just me and my aunt, the local baker. And I do not understand why we’re here,” I said. “Oh here’s a wacky thought... Maybe we should go.”

  “Oh no. Oh my.” Miss May’s voice was deep and grave. “We can’t go.”

  She stumbled back against the wall and covered her mouth. I stopped walking.

  “What? What do you see?”

  Miss May trained her light on the ground a few feet in front of us.

  And there was Granny Smith. Face down with a knife in her back.

  6

  Days of our Knives

  Hands trembling, I scrolled through my phone to find Wayne’s number. But Miss May stopped me.

  “Don’t call anyone yet. Let’s have a look around first. See if we can find any clues.”

  I groaned. “Miss May. Normally, I’d be with you. All in. A hundred percent. But these tunnels are terrifying. Maybe we can sit this investigation out.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Miss May said.

  Again with the ESP. I sighed. “OK. You’re right. We’ll never have better access to clues than right now. But let’s make it fast.”

  “Deal,” Miss May said. “Before we start, I want to say, I don’t know, a few words about Dolores.”

  I nodded and bowed my head.

  Miss May sighed. “Poor Dolores. Uh... What can I say about her? Well, it’s no secret Dolores rubbed people the wrong way. But I always liked running into her. People like her are what make small towns so great.”

  “I agree,” I said. “And she loved Pine Grove more than anyone.”

  Miss May chuckled, lost in a memory. “I remember one time, Dolores showed up on the first day of December and tried to buy fifteen Christmas trees from the farm. I asked her why. She said, ‘I have fifteen enemies in Pine Grove and I want to make sure I have a better tree than each of them.’”

  “Wow. That’s... not nice.”

  Miss May let out another small laugh. “It’s not. But I love that she told me her plan without even stopping to think.”

  I nodded. “Did you sell her the trees?”

  “No. But I will find her killer.” Miss May exhaled. “Let’s see what we can learn down here. Do you notice anything?”

  I looked at Granny Smith, face down in the tunnel. “Well... Whoever killed Granny Smith snuck up on her from the back.”

  Miss May nodded. “What does that tell us about the killer?”

  “They didn’t want her to see them.”

  “Right. And why not?”

  I shrugged. “They didn’t want to look her in the eye?”

  “But why, Chelsea?”

  “I guess, maybe whoever killed Granny Smith knew her? I mean... Stabbing someone in the back... That’s how you kill someone you know without having to confront the evil of your actions.”

  Miss May touched her nose. “Exactly. What else?”

  “Uh, whoever did this followed her down here and took her by surprise.”

  “That’s one theory,” Miss May said. “But Granny Smith didn’t take her tour groups down here. So she had nothing to prepare in the tunnels. No reason to be down here.”

  I gulped. “Do you think it’s possible that the killer lured her down here then? Maybe they made a noise or cried for help. Waited for her to come down and investigate. Then they hid in the shadows and...”

  I covered my mouth. Although working as a sleuth had trained me to handle tragedy with poise, the cold hard facts could still upset me. Someone had killed Granny Smith, mere feet from where we stood. The thought made me nauseous, and I felt a sudden desperation to leave the tunnel.

  “Can we go?” I asked, my fingers still half-obscuring my lips.

  “Hold on.” Miss May reached up and pulled at a string hanging from the ceiling. A bare bulb illuminated a swath of muddy earth around us. “That’s helpful, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “I still want to go.”

  “Soon. Let’s just... keep looking for clues. Can you think of any other assumptions we can make about the killer?”

  I shrugged. “It was someone who knew she’d be at this house.”

  “Everyone knew Granny Smith would be here today. She plastered those fliers all over town.”

  “Kind of sad, only two or three people showed up.” I said.

  “Not nearly the saddest thing about this home tour. Besides, lots of people show up late to these things. They straggle in after brunch. Dolores hated that.”

  Miss May gestured up ahead. “Did you see all this?”

  “What?”

  Miss May walked down the hall. I took a gentle step over Granny Smith’s body and followed. There, about ten feet down the tunnel, someone had covered the concrete walls in bright graffiti. The wall to my left featured amateurish and sloppy art. Happy faces and rainbows and stars. Like a small child’s doodles.

  But someone had adorned the opposite wall with several images, each of which were elaborate and beautiful. The focal piece, on the center of the wall, was a large painting of an African Tribal Mask with vibrant neon pinks, greens and oranges.

  “I’ve seen masks like this before,” I said.

  Miss May turned to me.

  “I bought some for a design client in the city. The client was a historian, she told me all about um, the purpose of the masks.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I turned to Miss May. “They were mediators. Used to bridge the world of the living and the world of the dead.”

  Miss May sighed. “Chilling.”

  I snapped a few photos of the art with my phone. “Have you ever seen graffiti in Pine Grove prior to this?”

  “Nope.” Miss May leaned in to get a better look at the images of masks. “But what an odd place for it to show up. I mean... I thought the whole point of graffiti was to put your name up everywhere for everyone to see. Why hide it down in these tunnels? Where no one will ever see your work?”

  “Mr. Happy Faces was probably ashamed of how bad his art is. But the other one... You’re right. Most graffiti artists in New York City try to find the most visible spot possible to display their work. The tops of buildings. On bridges. The more visible the better.”

  I glanced back at the central mask on the wall. Its deep eyes seemed bottomless. Haunting. Terrifying. “Can we go now?”

  Miss May crossed back over toward Granny Smith’s body. “One more thi
ng.”

  Miss May squatted beside the dead woman. “Look at this knife.”

  I winced. “Do I have to?”

  “Just for a second. C’mon.”

  I knelt beside Miss May and tried to remain focused as I stared at the blade in Granny Smith’s back. A sob swelled in my throat but I swallowed it down.

  The knife handle was small and white, only three or four inches long. It looked as if someone had made it from the bone or horn of a wild animal. Unfortunately for Granny Smith, the blade was in her back so I couldn’t see much of it.

  “I’ve never seen a knife like this,” Miss May said. “I mean... I haven’t seen too many stabbing knives in general so maybe this one is standard... But it looks special.”

  I nodded. “You’re right about that.”

  Miss May looked over at me.

  I continued. “We studied ancient artifacts in one of my art history courses. Tools, cookware, stuff like that. Sumerians, Mesopotamians. You don’t care. Point is, we worked our way to modern day tools. I can say for sure this knife is not modern day.”

  “So you’re saying this is old?”

  “Not Sumerian old. But check out the rivets.”

  I handed Miss May the flashlight, and she leaned in. “So?”

  “On the knives you and I use in the kitchen the rivets are perfect. That’s because the knives are made in a big, machine-based factory. But the rivets on this knife are uneven. That means they’re hand-pounded. So they pre-date factories.”

  “Wow. Someone was paying attention in college.”

  “It’s not hard when your only friends are reference librarians.” I gestured back toward the knife. “Also... Look at the decorative notches on the handle. They’re so pure and deep. I think they’re ivory.”

  Miss May let out a long, low whistle. “OK. So the knife is definitely old since you can make anything with ivory anymore, thank goodness.”

  “I think this knife is from the 18th century. Probably around the Revolutionary War.” I turned to Miss May. “Maybe the killer snagged this knife from the display of artifacts upstairs.”

  Miss May shook her head.. “That doesn’t fit with our profile for this killer. If he or she grabbed a random weapon upstairs, that would suggest this killing was a spontaneous crime of passion. But if you go to all the trouble to pick an isolated spot and lure an old woman into a tunnel... You probably pack a murder weapon.”