The Corpse with the Crystal Skull

by Cathy Ace

  “Could be,” said Bud. “Or else Freddie really did usually keep the key in his pocket when he was inside the tower room. Some sort of weird possessiveness on his part? You said he was that type.”

  I pondered that issue for a moment. “Having seen what I’ve seen, and having built up a better picture of Freddie’s psyche, I have to say I now believe that putting that key into his pocket, even when he’d locked himself into the tower room, could well be consistent with his personality. Moving on, let’s discuss the next critical point I picked up from these reports.”

  “And that is?” asked Bud, placing his empty bottle on the floor beside him.

  “The note about the vomit. See how they just noted it, plain and simple. It doesn’t say they took samples for testing.”

  Bud shook his head. “Maybe it’s not standard procedure here? It would be back home. But, again, this is the report written when they thought he’d shot himself. I bet they’ll test it now.”

  “I bet they will, and the remains of that gloop I saw in a glass.”

  We sat in silence for a moment or two, then I said, “Look, Bud, we both know there’s no such thing as an impossible murder – there’s only a puzzle that hasn’t been solved yet. A secret entrance could allow for someone to come into, or at least get out of, the locked tower room, so I’ve been thinking about secret passages, and wondered if the walls of the tower are thick enough to accommodate a way in and out that wasn’t apparent when we searched the place. I believe we should go back to the tower room and do what we didn’t do before – which is to pull all that beautifully constructed furniture away from the walls and see if there’s anything hidden behind it…like a door, for example.”

  Bud looked surprised. “Get into the tower again? Move all that stuff? It’s under police guard, Cait.”

  “Yes, it’s under guard, but I bet they won’t have anyone posted there overnight. And no, not all the furniture, just some of it. I’ve been picturing it in my mind’s eye, and the bookshelves could easily slide somehow to allow you to access a doorway. It’s a great idea to build curved furniture for a round tower, but I think it’s been done with more than esthetics in mind.”

  Bud sighed. “You’re not Nancy Drew, Cait.”

  “And you and your chums aren’t the Hardy Boys, but we are trying to find out who could have killed Freddie, aren’t we?”

  Bud stood, and stretched. “Indeed we are, but is finding a secret entrance to the lookout room going to help us? I thought you’d naturally gravitate toward the why, not the how.”

  “You know me so well, Husband,” I said, then I talked him through the notes I’d made earlier that evening. Bud sagged a little when I spoke about Sheila, more when I spoke about Jack and John, but perked up a bit when I got to Lottie, and the others who were not our friends and confidants.

  “Not Sheila, Cait. She’s Sheila. She wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  “An ex-Mountie, trained in firearms? Suffering all that loss because of Freddie? She might have, and she possibly could have. But, if the killer used a secret doorway to access the tower, then it’s a lot less likely to have been Sheila, right? Because how could she possibly know about any secret entrances?”

  Bud smiled. “You’re sharp. You want to go to the tower tonight to see what we can find out, and you’re dangling the possibility of clearing Sheila like some sort of carrot, aren’t you?”

  “You see straight through me, Husband. And don’t drink any more of that beer.”

  “But we’d be entering a police-secured crime scene. It’s not something we can do lightly, Cait.”

  “If this killing were connected to your mission, and it helped you achieve what you called ‘a positive outcome’ to that mission, would you do it then? Would you see it as a situation where it’s best to break the rules first, and ask for forgiveness afterwards? Could your oh-so-high-up contacts in three countries get us off any associated charges? You know, the same way the original privateers like Henry Morgan were able to break the law with the support of their governments?”

  Bud groaned. “It’s a good thing I love you as much as I do.”

  “I’ll change my shoes. Flip-flops won’t work,” I said, and I dashed off.

  A Privateer’s Private Places

  I knew from previous visits that walking along the crushed-shell path to the tower was going to be too noisy; we could see the top of the tower from our bungalow, but not the building at its base, so we had no idea if there was any police presence, and we couldn’t take the chance of being overheard if there was.

  Before Bud and I set off, we agreed on our basic plan. “I have the key to the main building,” I told Bud. “If we skirt the edge of the estate, along the shoreline, we can get to the tower without making too much noise. We’ll also be able to wait there to see if there’s a guard of some sort.”

  “You do realize I know all this, don’t you?” said Bud wryly.

  “You’ve liked it when Lottie has shown she can take the initiative, Husband, so allow me to do the same, eh?”

  “You and that Lottie. You know she’s not nearly as bright, or beautiful, as you, don’t you?”

  “Aww, thanks,” I mugged. “You’ve got your mini-binoculars, right?”

  “They won’t be much use in the dark.”

  “No night vision paraphernalia hidden in the heel of your shoe, then?”

  “Cait…” warned Bud.

  I squeezed his hand. “I love the way you keep me so…”

  “Grounded?”

  “Tethered.”

  “If we’re doing this, let’s do it,” said Bud, looking serious. “We both have our phones. And I’ve left a note for Jack and John, in case anything goes awry.”

  I took a breath. “We’re going to be fine, Bud. If there’s a guard we’ll have to come up with a different plan, because we cannot go hauling about pieces of furniture if there’s someone on duty there. The coast will either be clear, or we won’t be doing anything at all.”

  “True, but we have an operating procedure I need to follow. Jack and John know to check in with me. We have a system.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Don’t tell me, let me guess…all three of you have access to an email account where you save drafts of emails you never send, so you can all keep in touch but there’s no email trail to follow, right?”

  “An oldie, but a goodie.” Bud shrugged.

  We made our way out of our back door, through a gap in the greenery, to the beach, and hugged the line of the tropical plants as we made our way toward the edge of the property, where the tower was located. In the more than three weeks we’d been at the estate it was only my third trip onto the beach itself; I grew up on the beaches around Swansea, and haven’t liked sand between my toes ever since…something to do with the way Mum rubbed it off my feet when we got back to the car, I think. And the sea around Jamaica isn’t a place for someone who’s afraid of getting out of their depth in the water, like me. According to Ian Fleming, it’s packed with angry barracuda, poisonous lionfish, fearful octopus, and jellyfish that prefer to sting you rather than just glide past – so why on earth anyone would want to venture into it is beyond me. I know the man was a fiction author, but seriously? All those things that want to kill you, and can? Hence my preference for the pool. This journey onto the sand was for a different reason though, so I stuck my feet into its yielding embrace and plodded on.

  When we reached the part of the beach closest to the tower we pushed our way into the undergrowth as far as we could without making too much noise. It was a bit painful, but I managed alright. I was glad I’d put on deck shoes, because my flip-flops would have been a nightmare.

  We kept as still and quiet as possible. The nocturnal chorus was loud, especially as we were now sharing the habitat of the noisemakers. It was difficult to hear anything above the clattering of the crickets, the peeping of the tree frogs, and the breaking waves behind us, but we both strained ou
r ears in any case. By bobbing my head about I could see the building below the tower. In the moonlight I could make out the yellow and black crime scene tape; there was enough of a breeze to make the tape move, but not flutter. We waited. And waited.

  “There’s no one doing rounds, that’s one thing,” whispered Bud. “But they could have a static guard, somewhere out of sight.”

  “Wouldn’t the guard be keeping an eye on the door?”

  Bud shrugged.

  “What about if I walked up to the tower looking all innocent, to try to flush out anyone stationed there?”

  Bud shook his head.

  “But…”

  Bud shook his head again and grabbed my arm.

  “Tethered,” I whispered.

  He glared at me.

  We waited another five minutes, then he pulled gently at my arm, and nodded in the direction of the beach.

  I was already feeling stiff, having been immobile for all of ten minutes or so, and was glad to move. We padded along the sand, a little closer to the surf line than on our outward journey. I still felt the need for secrecy so whispered, “What about a frontal approach now? Both of us, on a moonlit stroll?”

  Bud didn’t answer at first, then he leaned in and said, “Okay, let’s do that. Along the path, cuddling.”

  I perked up. “Lovely idea.”

  By the time we reached the tower, this time via the crunchy pathway, we realized the reason we hadn’t seen anyone was that no one was there. We walked around the entire building; not a soul.

  We both felt a bit foolish, but we also agreed we’d done the right thing by taking the approach we had.

  “You can’t be too careful,” observed Bud. “And, speaking of being careful, we’re now entering a crime scene, so pop these on, okay?”

  He handed me a pair of latex gloves, and I wrestled them onto my hands. “These just happened to be in your pocket?” I asked.

  Bud chuckled.

  We slipped through the main entrance, and I locked the door behind us.

  We waited for our eyes to adjust to the complete darkness. “Shall we risk using the lights on our phones?” I whispered.

  “Yes, but just the regular light from the screen, not the flashlight app, for now. It’ll be good enough to begin with,” replied Bud. When he swiped his phone I could see what he meant; in the darkness just the screen itself gave a good amount of illumination.

  “Let’s start at the top,” I said.

  “Why not the bottom?”

  We hadn’t discussed our plan of action once we were inside the tower, which seemed like a serious omission.

  “There might be doors, or tunnels and so forth on this level that don’t go to the lookout room, and that’s the room we’re interested in, not this room, or the other floors. The only door barring access to the lookout room is at the top, so let’s start there,” I said.

  Bud grunted, and we mounted the stone staircase, more slowly than we had done in daylight.

  The police had chosen to not try to close up the door they’d damaged, instead, it stood open, inviting us inside. The windows were all shuttered.

  “Would it be better to open the shutters and let the moonlight in, rather than use our flashlights?” I asked.

  Bud looked around, moved to the windows facing the moon, and opened two shutters. “That’s the best it’ll get, and no one giving the place a casual glance would see our flashlights bobbing about.”

  Luckily the moon was large and bright, but, even so, the room was washed with only a partially helpful amount of light.

  “Let’s start with the walls over here,” I suggested, indicating the bookshelves. “Let’s see if these move at all.”

  “Wouldn’t they open? You know, by pulling a book, or pushing a secret button in the carved bits?” whispered Bud.

  “Okay, let’s try that first.”

  Each of us started at one end and Bud – who is a few inches taller than me – pulled a stool from the other side of the room to stand on, so he could check the tops of the units, while I checked the bottoms. We slid our fingers across every inch of the wood used to construct the frames of the shelves, and we each pressed on anything that felt raised, or indented. I felt as though I was trying to play a piece of music on a completely uncooperative instrument. It seemed to take forever, but we were probably only at it for about half an hour before we both admitted defeat. There didn’t seem to be anything that shifted beneath our touch even a little bit. We tried pushing the boards at the back of the bookshelves; they were wide, and ancient, but also totally unyielding. Finally, we began to lift and replace every item on the shelves themselves, wondering if there might be some sort of weighted trigger. Nothing.

  We stood back, glowering at the bookshelves. We then tried to move them in their entirety, hoping they might slide, or magically swing open. Nothing. They didn’t budge. They were extremely heavy.

  “Stonework next,” said Bud, sounding unfazed.

  We took the same approach, feeling the knobbly stones, high and low, pressing and pushing as we went. Nothing. I sighed with exasperation. It had always been much easier to find a secret door in all the books I’d read, and films I’d seen, than this task was proving.

  “Ssh,” said Bud.

  “I can’t help it, the floor creaks,” I snapped.

  “Well don’t stand right there then, it’s only creaky there,” he snapped back.

  We both froze. Then we sank to our knees and started the now-familiar process on the floorboards. The only squeaky area was a few feet away from the shelves, close to where the desk was located.

  “Let’s see if we can move this lump,” said Bud, nodding at the desk.

  It took some doing; even though the feet of the desk slid easily, it was the weight of the thing that proved problematic. However, as we were shifting it a few inches at a time, it occurred to me that beneath the desk would be an excellent place to hide a trapdoor. Surely only the owner of the desk would ever go to such lengths to clear the floor it was protecting? Brilliant.

  Eventually we had completely removed the desk from the footprint it had once created, and we could see the floor that had been beneath it quite clearly. There was a noticeable set of scratches where the desk had been dragged across the wooden planks of the floor, but only one…made by us.

  “I’ll close the shutters,” I said. Bud nodded. It was obvious we’d need more than moonlight to examine the floor as closely as we needed to.

  Using both our flashlight apps it was easy to see that there wasn’t a straight line cut across any section of the floorboards, though there was a sort of vague area where the staggering between the ends of the boards was a little less pronounced than elsewhere.

  “There’s nothing here to prise open,” said Bud, kneeling. We switched off our lights, I gave Bud a hand up, and we stood looking at each other in the darkness, thinking as hard as we could.

  “Push?” I suggested.

  Bud nodded, and we began to push the edges of the squeaky boards, in turn, with our toes, then we put more weight into it. As we pushed in one spot, a plank groaned, then started to move. The far end of it lifted a little. The end we were pushing had a metal rod threaded through it that was acting as a pivot. Once we’d got it started, Bud was able to get his fingers under one end to lift it up. Once it was raised a few inches, we had an edge of the rest of the floor to lift, and we pulled with all our might. The movement was less than easy, but we persisted, and eventually we had a large section of the floor standing up at right angles. The trap door had an irregular edge, where the planks had been set into the general pattern of the floorboards; it was an extremely clever way to disguise its presence.

  Our flashlights showed us what looked like a wooden cavity below, probably about four feet deep.

  “There must be a much bigger space between the ceiling of the room below, and this floor, than we imagined,” I said. “That might be why the climb to this to
p floor seems so great. Are we going in?”

  “Me first,” said Bud. “I’ll lower myself down, and have a look around. See what we’ve got. If it’s worth investigating, then you come down. Can you pass me that stool, please?”

  “Why the stool?”

  “How are we going to get out again without it? I just don’t have the upper body strength to haul myself up out of there. Best I know my limitations and act to accommodate them rather than pretend I can do what I could twenty years ago.”

  I squeezed his arm, then watched him lower himself. I could see him flashing his light around. “Okay,” he said. I passed him the stool.

  “Be careful when you come down, Cait, these edges aren’t smooth.”

  I took my time, and was finally standing beside Bud. We both had to duck down to see exactly what was there. It seemed as though the entire floor area of the lookout room had a cavity beneath it. I couldn’t imagine that was merely an architectural decision. I also began to feel my claustrophobia set in; it’s not severe, but I really appreciate being able to get out of a small space if, and when, I want to. Bud understood, bent more deeply than I had to and said, “Let me explore the edges, you stay there with your head poking up out of the hole, like a meerkat.”

  “Ha, ha,” I replied gratefully.

  Bud shuffled and grunted, and kept on shuffling and grunting for a few minutes.

  “This runs to the outer walls, and that’s that. I’ll go this way now.”

  More shuffling, more grunting. “Cait, I need help.”

  My tummy clenched and I ducked down. “What is it?”

  “I need more than two hands here. There’s a sort of doorway in the wall, but I can’t hold the light and try to open it. Do you feel able to come here?”

  I shone my light toward him, and could see he was hunched against a door alright, but it was even smaller than the space we were in – the planks were about three feet square, set into the stone wall.