by Bill Hopkins
“We go to The Four Bee first.”
“And your landlady will pat our heads and let us search her house?”
“Listen to this.” Rosswell sketched his idea.
When he finished, Ollie said, “Judge, sometimes I think you might be the genius in this relationship.”
Rosswell reached a hand over his shoulder and patted himself on the back.
“Although,” Ollie said, “I don’t know why you’re so short.”
“I was taller but when I was in the military, they beat the crap out of me.”
Chapter 24
Saturday Afternoon
“Mrs. Bolzoni, I want to introduce my friend, Ollie Groton. You may have seen him around.” They’d driven to The Four Bee after leaving McDonald’s.
Mrs. Bolzoni, clutching a broom and standing on the top step of the front porch of her bed and breakfast, peered down at Ollie shuffling on the sidewalk. Shading her eyes from the afternoon sun with her hand, she angled her head first left, then right. “This thing on your head, this purple thing, is what should I think?”
“It’s a purple star, Mrs. Bolzoni.”
“Looks like spider.”
Ollie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Purple?”
Ollie nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You got reason for purple spider drawn on the top of your head?”
“Good question, the answer to which escaped and is wandering loose.”
Mrs. Bolzoni caught Rosswell’s eye. “It’s a good question says he, somewhere running around.” She turned to face Ollie. “Why all the grease?” She sniffed the air. “You smell like oil well.”
“It’s Vaseline, ma’am. It keeps my bald head from chafing in the heat and the wind.”
“Mrs. Bolzoni,” Rosswell said, “Ollie and his daughter own a restaurant downtown. Mabel’s Eatery. Maybe you’ve eaten there.”
“I don’t go to the downtown.” Her eyes squinted and her lips pursed, as if the idea was worse than biting into a French fry. “I fix good food right here.”
She began sweeping the porch, aiming for things that Rosswell couldn’t see. Women, he’d decided long ago, had evolved the detection of dots of dust to a much higher degree than men. In fact, he admitted to himself, that skill was lacking in men altogether.
She said, “I’m busy. Go away.”
“Please, Mrs. Bolzoni. You should hear this. Ollie discovered a method to keep all the bugs out of his restaurant.”
Mrs. Bolzoni smiled and shook her finger at Ollie. “You do good thing then. Keep all them frogs out of your restaurant. Not good to have frogs where decent people eating. No frogs allowed here.”
Ollie scratched the purple star. “Frogs?”
Rosswell whispered to Ollie, “Shut up, I’ll tell you later,” then closed his eyes and prayed to Whoever was listening for strength. When he opened his eyes, he saw the look of love shining in Mrs. Bolzoni’s countenance. She stared at Ollie in rapture. “No, Mrs. Bolzoni, not frogs. Bugs.”
“Oh. Bugs.” She started the sweeping routine again. “They bad too.”
Ollie said, “I’m quite the genius, you know.” He reached for his wallet.
Rosswell leaned forward and again whispered to him, “Leave your Mensa card in your billfold.”
“Okay.” The wallet returned to Ollie’s pocket.
Rosswell climbed the steps so he could stand closer to Mrs. Bolzoni. “You know how the health department is, all snoopy and scaring up things to bother restaurant owners with.” The closer he got to the house, the stronger grew the delicious odor of beef stew—tonight’s special. And pouring a big helping of stew over a chunk of cornbread would be the closest approach he could make to heaven this side of death. When supper was over, he’d be cast down to earth by the nap monster that followed him after large meals. “Ollie’s process can help you keep the health department bureaucrats happy when it comes to certain issues.”
“Like bugs.” Mrs. Bolzoni spit on the grass. “Health department all over people who let the bugs roam free.”
“Right.” Rosswell moved closer to Ollie. “This man right there has found a way to get rid of roaches. And it’s a way the health department approves of.”
“Why you tell me this stuff?” Mrs. Bolzoni waved her hand, starting inside. “I got to fix the rest of the food. No time to listen to purple spider men about roaches. Good thing I don’t got no roaches.” She put her hand on the knob to the front door of The Four Bee.
Rosswell spoke in a low, yet distinct voice. “You have roaches.”
The old woman froze. Rosswell listened to her breath, rasping as she started panting. “No.”
“Mrs. Bolzoni, I’m sorry, but you have roaches. I’ve seen them.”
“That’s a cockroach and bull story. I’ve not seen them bugs.” She whirled around, stomped down the steps and skidded to a stop, within an inch of Ollie’s midsection. With one hand, she raised the broom above his head. “You try to steal an old lady’s life savings. I saw about this on the television.”
“No, ma’am. I won’t charge you anything. You see, this method I’ve got, while it’s wonderful, isn’t perfect. I’m trying to get all the bugs out of it.”
Mrs. Bolzoni clamped her mouth shut. When she relaxed, she said, “You get bugs out of it? I thought you try to get bugs in of it.”
Rosswell said, “Ollie, cut the corny jokes.”
“Mrs. Bolzoni, I promise you that you will not see one roach in your house when I’m through. But you won’t pay a cent. I’ll get my money from the customers I help after I help you. When they hear you praise me, they will line up at my door, asking for my help.”
“Don’t chase off my ghosts. I charge extra for the ghosts talking.” Mrs. Bolzoni’s free hand grabbed Ollie’s belt buckle. “You try to mess with this old woman and she cut you.” Clutched in her other hand, a broom waving close to his head emphasized the threat. The sun glinted on her thick glasses, throwing a sparkle into Ollie’s eyes.
He winced. “Yes, ma’am, I believe that.”
“We are Italian. My daughter got paper to shoot gun. You hurt her momma, she shoot you. You try something funny, I cut you.”
“Not a doubt in my mind.”
“Mrs. Bolzoni, Ollie believes you. Now, can we poke around for the roaches?”
“Where you poke first?”
“We’ll start with the parlor, if that’s all right with you.”
“Okay,” she said, “but if this purple spider guy messes with me, I cut him and feed him to the fishes down there at that river.”
Mrs. Bolzoni absented herself into the kitchen. Rosswell and Ollie huddled in the parlor at a table under the three-tiered chandelier, consulting the plan Ollie had gotten from the assessor’s office. The old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs cast a bright, colorless light into the room.
Ollie rapped his knuckles on the table. “Any ghosts here?”
“Mrs. Bolzoni tells everyone the place is haunted. Guests who stay in the attic have to pay more than folks on the ground floor because, she says, the ghosts up there are far superior to the lower level ghosts.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” Ollie reached into his pocket. “I got something better than we had last time. These are little but strong.” He displayed two black flashlights. “Ultra-bright LEDs. About three thousand candles in each of them. Good for five hours. Lithium battery. We won’t go blind into a dark place this time.”
“Thanks.” Rosswell shoved one of the flashlights in his pocket, then traced a path on the paper. “There’s a passageway right behind that bookcase.”
Rosswell knocked on the wood at the back of the bookcase. He reckoned it measured about twelve feet high, eight wide, and stretched from floor to ceiling. Nine shelves held a lot of stuff, mostly books, knick-knacks, souvenirs, and other unidentifiable stuff.
A hollow sound resounded when Ollie again tapped the back of the bookcase in a different place. “There! Something’s not back t
here.” He rapped once more. “What’s missing is a solid wall. The plan is right so far.”
Rosswell checked the parlor door. “Locked. Mrs. Bolzoni won’t bother us.” He also tapped different places. “Do you think we can open it and snoop around a bit?”
Ollie ran his hands over the edges of the bookcase. “It’s got piano hinges floor to ceiling, not two or three dinky hinges like you’d find on a regular door.”
“If you can see the hinges, that doesn’t make for a secret passageway.”
“The assessor told you and I told you. They’re not a secret.”
Rosswell needed to make his point. “Still, shouldn’t the hinges be invisible to the naked eye? At least for aesthetic reasons.”
“This thing was built God knows when. Why did the builder let the hinges show? I don’t know. I gave up guessing motives in 1998.”
“What happened in 1998?”
“I stopped wondering why people did things.”
Why do I let Ollie trap me in his silly word games?
“They’re hefty.” Rosswell glided his fingers along the exposed hinges. “Pure brass is my guess.”
“Piano hinges are a good thing.”
“You say that like there’s a bad thing.”
Ollie folded his arms across his chest, then lifted one hand to his mouth. He hemmed and hawed, muttered and stewed.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
Ollie examined a couple of the hundred or so books and inspected a few doodads in the bookcase. “If we open that and it tilts toward us, we could have a pile of books and those thingamawhackies falling on us. We’d be crushed like ants at a picnic.”
“I wonder when it was opened last?” Rosswell caressed the grain of the wood. “Oak. Heavy as the purse of a bad nun with a good run at a casino.”
“That’s another thing. Mrs. Bolzoni may not know about the passageway. Or if she does, she’s too scared to open it.” Ollie’s breath hitched, like a sob. “So am I.”
Chapter 25
Saturday Afternoon, continued
Rosswell chanted in a sing-song voice, “Fraidy cat, fraidy cat, ate so much, your head’s too fat.”
“Yeah, funny, real funny.” Ollie inspected the bookcase again, more slowly this time. “The hinges are clean, but dry. I think we can swing it open without making a big squeak or pulling the whole library down on us. Mrs. Bolzoni won’t hear a thing.”
“WD-40.” Rosswell flew out the door, jumped into the truck, and raced back with a spray can of the lubricating oil in a few seconds. He plunked it in Ollie’s grasp.
Ollie removed the cap from the can. “Got everything now? It’s really handy when you break into places fully prepared.”
“No worries. I’m totally organized.” Rosswell grabbed the can from Ollie, shook it fiercely a few times, then thrust it back. Ollie spritzed the hinges.
After several minutes of pulling, pressing, and poking, Ollie discovered the spot that, when pushed the right way, swung the bookcase open. Rosswell leaned against it as it eased into the parlor, the bottom clearing the floor by an inch.
Rosswell said, “Coming open, slowly but surely.”
“If we see any bodies in there, I’ll drag Gustave down here myself.”
Rosswell held up a hand, signaling Ollie to pause. “I’m never telling Gustave another thing. He’s bad.”
“Agreed.”
Rosswell nodded and they bent to the task.
Before the doorway into the lightless corridor fully opened, a thick book sneaked from a shelf and tumbled onto Rosswell’s left foot. The spine of the heavy volume caught him across the toes. A slight yet distinct crack sounded. Rosswell fell backward on his butt.
“Ouch, damn!” Rosswell curled into a fetal position. “That fracking book broke my big toe. Hurts like a mother giving birth to triplets.” Whining because the fetal position made his foot hurt more, he unwound, working himself into a squatting position. Afraid of losing his balance if he moved too fast, he scooted over to the tome, Moby-Dick. When he stood, a quote from the story hurried from his brain to his mouth. “ ‘The rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into the blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul.’ ”
“Off to the hospital, Captain Ahab.”
“I’m not that hurt.” Rosswell sucked in a deep breath. “If I can recall quotes, then my brain’s stronger than my pain.”
“Here’s some science to squash that positive thinking.”
“Give it to me.”
“You can’t walk with a broken toe.”
Rosswell leaned to one side. “Watch me.” Out of his pocket flew the green bottle full of pills. He selected a painkiller, chewed and swallowed it. “I’m good. Now get the duct tape out of my truck.”
Ollie hurried to the truck and back.
With the tape, Rosswell bound his big toe to its neighbor and stood. “It’s only cracked. That will hold me for awhile.”
A pall of dust whooshed from the passageway when the bookcase fully opened. Rosswell sneezed and wondered if the last people who lurked in there had lived before the Civil War. The passageway, built with narrow grooved boards running vertically, stood gloomy and silent, waiting for someone’s visit. Rosswell compared the taste of the dust freed from the passageway to the swirling motes of stuff in the bedroom at his grandmother’s house where he stayed when he was a child. When he opened the window those many years ago, the wind swept across cornfields, bringing grains of dirt and pollen gusting in. To a kid, the air in the bedroom had tasted like the Sahara, only grittier. His child’s eyes felt full of sand, especially after he’d fallen asleep at the window, waiting for his mother to reappear, as he knew she would. Rosswell’s grandmother—God (if there was one) rest her soul—had told him only that his mother was “called away on business.” Grandmother never spoke of his father at all. He’d never reappeared.
Now, Ollie saluted the inky darkness of the secret heart of the house. “Onward, monomaniac commander. Let us plunge into the blackness of darkness.”
Rosswell sneezed. “The white whale ate Ahab.”
Ollie grimaced. “I hope we meet no whales, white or otherwise, in there.” Rosswell stepped across the threshold into the passageway. Ollie followed. “This thing runs through the middle of the house.”
“If it ran along an outside wall, it wouldn’t have windows. The neighbors would gossip about a house that had no windows.”
Ollie pouted. “I knew that.”
They flicked on the flashlights and plunged further into the darkness, now lit by two beams of LED blue-white rays. The darkness, equivalent to the bottom of a sunless cave, swallowed the light.
Rosswell stopped and fell against the wall when he heard the noises—low-toned vibrations that punched his gut. The sounds made him shiver. Prickles, running up and down his arms, made his neck hairs rise straight up. Soft at first, the noises increased in intensity.
Barely above a whisper, Rosswell said, “Ollie.” Rosswell placed his fingertips to the wall where the noises emanated. “This place sounds haunted, like everyone says. Mrs. Bolzoni will raise the rates for the entertainment value.”
They pressed their ears to the wall. Moaning, sounding to Rosswell like it was human, grew louder, then softer. The noise recalled the eerie sounds Rosswell had heard deep in the desert during the war. The tuneless moaning happened at different times of day or night. Quite mysterious. No one had ever been able to explain the source of those murmurings in the Middle East.
Ollie spoke close to Rosswell’s ear. “Something is suffering, sounds like to me. Doesn’t sound human.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“I didn’t say it was a ghost. Something not human.”
Rosswell listened closer until he recognized the sound after a few seconds. “Oh. Wait. Never mind. Some of Mrs. Bolzoni’s guests. Afternoon delight.”
“Sounds industrious
.” Rosswell could hear the embarrassment in Ollie’s voice. “They’ll be tired.”
Rosswell whispered, “We need to make less noise.”
Ollie nodded. Rosswell limped forward as gracefully and quietly as he could. It was difficult for him not to bitch and moan over his pain in the darkness.
The tunnel, about five feet wide, ran straight for twenty feet until it ended in a brick wall. When they reached the wall, Rosswell said, “There’s no tunnel going to another house here. Or, if there is, it was sealed up long ago.”
“I like to call tunnels in a cave horizontal tubes.”
“Thank you, Mister Science.”
They shined the flashlights around, covering every inch of the wooden walls to their left and right, and the brick wall in front of them. At the same time, the flashlight beams crossed and landed on a large picture frame, hung by wire and hook on the brick wall about six feet off the floor. A drawing was visible behind the glass of the frame. Rosswell brushed at the dust and spider webs.
Ollie whispered, “It’s a map of some kind.”
“Ink on paper. Not faded one bit.”
“It’s been in the dark for a century or so. Ink doesn’t fade when the sun doesn’t shine on it. In addition, the temperature and humidity have been steady here for decades. A study done in Brazil during the 1990’s—”
“Ollie, shut up.”
Ollie shut up.
Each of them grasping one side of the frame, they lifted it from the hook, setting it on the floor. They kneeled in front of it, hunched over it, and examined it. The flashlight beams revealed a professionally drawn rendering, neatly lettered, and exquisitely detailed. Although the paper may have been a tad browner than it was over a hundred years ago, Rosswell was right. The ink appeared as fresh as the day it was drawn.
Rosswell said, “The map shows Nathaniel’s house.” He brushed dust from the middle of the glass. “These lines here must represent tunnels to these other two houses. I’ll bet my flashlight on that.” A basic plan of all three houses displayed the location of the passageways in each house and how they connected to each of the other houses. “And the cave is right here.” His finger rested on the north side of Nathaniel’s house.