by Paula Munier
“Sure,” said Amy. “What about the whiteboard?”
“Let’s leave it up for now. All these questions aren’t going away.”
“That’s for sure,” said Brodie.
“Leave her alone, Brodie. She needs to think. She’ll figure it out.”
Mercy hoped that Amy was right. She packed a basket full of essentials and treats for the little black kitty. Elvis unwound himself from the sofa and came over to help her, sticking his nose in the treat drawer and pulling out a package of the peanut butter doggie biscuits he and Sunny enjoyed so much.
She pretended not to see, grateful that the ailing shepherd appeared to be getting back to normal, letting him nab the bag of cookies and steal back to the sofa to share them with the golden unnoticed. Elvis tore open the sack, scattering the biscuits; he and Sunny gobbled them up in a matter of seconds and retreated to the couch once more.
Certainly his appetite was back in full force. That had to be a good sign. She threw on her coat, grabbed her pack, and picked up the basket.
“I’m off,” she yelled to Amy.
Elvis and Sunny raised their heads.
“Stay,” she told the dogs sternly, heading for the door.
Sunny obeyed, but Elvis ran after her.
“No.” She pointed at the sofa. “Bed.”
The Malinois didn’t move.
“Elvis, you have to stay here. You’re not well.”
He tilted his triangular ears at her in rebuke.
“Seriously, you have to stay here. Stay.”
Elvis stood his ground.
“I’m leaving and you’re staying. End of story.” She opened the door, basket on her hip, and before she could shut it behind her the shepherd slipped past her and raced for the Jeep.
He stood at attention by the passenger door barking furiously to be let in.
“You’re getting yourself all worked up. It’s not good for you.” Mercy sighed. “Okay, but I’m not opening this door until you calm down.”
Elvis stopped mid-bark.
“Very funny,” she told him. “Not.”
When they got in the Jeep, Elvis curled up on the back seat and promptly went to sleep. Well, at least he could take his nap, as Claude advised.
The dog clearly didn’t want to go anywhere without her. Even after nearly dying. How could she let Hallett have him, even if he were safer with him, if he really didn’t want to go? Her mother would see to it that Elvis stayed with her if that’s what she wanted; Grace was a fierce attorney who rarely lost a case. Hallett wouldn’t know what hit him.
If that’s what she wanted.
Too many questions to which she had no answers.
About the case, about Elvis, about her life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mercy steered her Jeep through town to the north end of Maple Street. The address seemed familiar to her somehow. She knew this part of town; one of the girls she’d been to summer camp with as a teenager lived close by. But it had been years since she’d been up here.
This was one of Northshire’s oldest and most beautiful streets, where large homes sat on wooded one-acre lots on a hill overlooking the village. Bea’s elegant two-storied home dated back to the early nineteenth century. With its pedimented gables and open-entry porticos supported by Doric columns, the well-kept Greek Revival house was a standout even in a neighborhood celebrated for its classic residences.
Bea Garcia must spend a fortune keeping it up, thought Mercy. The Cat Ladies had told her that Bea was a woman of means, her late husband having left her a considerable fortune. Apparently, she’d been very generous to local charities, including the Cat House and other animal rescue organizations.
Mercy remembered after she rang the bell and the barking began that Bea had told her she’d adopted two Labrador retrievers. Elvis stood beside her, ears perked and curlicue tail aloft, ready to assess the newcomers and maybe make a couple of new friends. Maybe.
Bea Garcia opened the door, pretty in jeans and a coral silk sweater. She was holding a pair of lively black canines by their collars, one in each hand. She was losing the battle, as they were nearly as big as she was, and the sight of Elvis didn’t help. “Please give me a minute.”
She pulled the labs back and kicked the door shut. While they waited, Mercy looked around the front lawn, which would be breathtaking by mid-May if its many neatly groomed flower beds were any indication. She amused herself by picturing the garden in full bloom, awash with tulips and daffodils and hyacinth, pansies and petunias, primrose and snapdragons, azaleas and more. It was an act of active imagination, since right now the ground was bare of anything but dirty snow and gray slush and brown mud covering dead grass.
The front door opened again.
“I put the dogs in the backyard,” said Bea. “Come on in.” She stepped aside to welcome them into a light-filled rotunda.
Mercy stopped to admire the spectacular staircase that took center stage in the rotunda, rising up to a circular landing that graced the second floor. She looked up beyond the second floor to the ceiling of the domed rotunda. Sunlight poured through the dome, filling the entire space with light. “This is breathtaking.”
“Thank you.” Bea smiled. “I do love this house.”
“I can see why.” Mercy smiled back. “How’s the kitten?”
“He’s good. He’s been neutered and vaccinated and groomed. He’s ready for his forever home.”
“I know Mr. Horgan will be thrilled to have him.”
“Come on back to the kitchen with me.”
“Sure.” Mercy certainly wanted to see the rest of this house. She started to follow Bea through one of the doors at the back of the rotunda, but Elvis stayed put.
“Come on, boy.”
The Belgian shepherd did not start toward her; instead he gracefully sank down into his classic Sphinx pose. Elvis was alerting to the bottom of the stairs.
“Weird.” Mercy should have left him at home to recuperate. The shepherd was obviously not 100 percent yet. “Elvis, let’s go. There’s nothing there.” She slapped the side of her thigh, twice, and reluctantly he joined her, his nose touching her hip. They met Bea in a state-of-the-art kitchen big enough and well-equipped enough to feed half the town. She was preparing the cat carrier for its new passenger.
“The kitty’s in the library playing with my calico. They’ve become bosom buddies. You can fetch him if you’d like.”
“Sure.”
“Out through those columns to your left.” Bea pointed to the other side of the large room, where a pair of columns stood at the opening of a book-lined space, and they headed into it. To Mercy, this room had it all: two overstuffed burgundy velveteen chairs flanked by good reading lights, floor to ceiling books, and a mahogany and brass bar cart well stocked with wine and whiskey.
She ran her finger along the spines of the books on the shelf nearest her, reading the titles as she went: Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, Strangers on a Train, Devil in a Blue Dress, In a Lonely Place, L.A. Confidential, Die a Little, Eight Million Ways to Die.
Quite the collection of noir novels, Mercy thought. She pulled out what looked like a hardcover first edition of The Maltese Falcon, admired the dark regal bird on the yellow dust jacket, and flipped to the copyright page. Yep, first edition. She wondered how much it was worth, probably more than a year’s pay for the soldier she used to be.
She replaced the Dashiell Hammett classic, right where it belonged, next to the Patricia Highsmith classic. Strangers on a Train.
“Do you like noir?” Bea appeared behind her, cat carrier in hand.
“Sure. But my real passion is Shakespeare.”
Bea smiled. “You have good taste.”
Mercy shrugged. “I found the crime fiction, but not the cats.”
Bea pointed under one of the overstuffed chairs. “They’re under here.” She put the cat carrier down and knelt gracefully on the Aubusson rug and eased the kitten into her arms. She held it up to Mercy, w
ho took the bright-eyed kitten and hugged it to her chest. He was cute.
Elvis sniffed the little guy and licked his ear. Mercy placed the kitten in the carrier and zipped up the opening. “Good to go.”
Bea escorted them back through the rotunda to the front door. Again Elvis halted at the staircase and alerted to the bottom steps.
He really was not himself. Mercy cursed herself for bringing him with her before he was ready. The sooner she got him back home on his side of the couch, the better.
“Come on, Elvis.”
Elvis didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even bother to look up at her. He held perfectly still, wise as a pharaoh in his Sphinx pose. Ignoring her and her command.
“What’s he doing?” asked Bea.
“He was a sniffer dog in the Army.”
Bea laughed. “Well, there’s no bomb here.”
“That’s what Patience would have said a week ago.”
Bea looked at her with alarm. “You really don’t think…”
“I don’t know what to think. He’s been through a lot.”
But Elvis had been through a lot many times. That hadn’t affected his abilities to find what mattered, whether it was an explosive device or a missing child or a dead body.
“Always trust your dog,” Mercy muttered.
“What?” asked Bea.
But Mercy didn’t answer the woman. She was challenging herself to do the right thing. But what was the right thing?
Whenever Elvis alerted to something and she followed up on it, he ended up in danger. Well, they both ended up in danger. He was supposed to be retired. But he didn’t seem to know it.
And how could he? He went where she went. She didn’t seem to know it, either.
She wasn’t helping him ease into civilian life by putting him in these situations and then enabling him at every turn. She was going to have to stop that. She was a civilian now, and she needed to act like one. If only so Elvis could act like one, too.
As soon as she figured out what was up with these stairs. She examined the treads and the risers and the railing and ran her fingers along the lip of each step, starting at the bottom. There she felt the slight rise of a hinge. Mercy realized that the section of the stairs closest to the floor—the last three steps—must pull out. She unhitched the hinges and tugged.
Revealing an opening leading into a small underground room.
“Very clever of you to find it,” said Bea.
“What is it?”
“It’s a hiding place that dates back to the Underground Railroad. The original owner of the house, Horace Hopkins, was a prominent abolitionist.”
“That’s fascinating. I knew about these hidden rooms, but I’ve never seen one like this.”
“From what I understand, it is unusual.”
Elvis broke away from Mercy and leapt down into the hole.
“Elvis! Come back here!” She peered down into the hiding place, which appeared not much deeper than she was tall and no more than ten feet long and five feet wide. Not that she could see much as there was little light illuminating the space. “Elvis!”
“I’m afraid I’ve never been down there,” said Bea. “I don’t know what your dog may find.”
“I can’t see him.” Mercy pulled out her cell and turned on the flashlight function. “I’m so sorry, but I think I’m going to have to go down after him. When he gets like this, there’s no calling him back.”
“Of course.”
Bea watched her as she lowered herself down into the dark chamber, jumping the last few feet to the dirt floor beneath her. She shined her cell flashlight around the room. Which was more a tunneled-out cellar than a room. The old rock walls were dark with grime. At some point an attempt had been made to lay a rough planked floor, but the years had taken their toll. A rusted metal wine rack and some wooden crates stood against one wall, and an old gun cabinet nearly as tall as the room on the other. The latter held several rifles, all of which looked like they’d been there for years. Maybe they had.
“Good job,” she told Elvis, who was sitting at the other end of the room in front of an old trunk half buried in the floor. He did not even acknowledge her compliment.
She stepped carefully over to the shepherd, who’d assumed his Sphinx pose and was alerting to the trunk. “What have you got there?”
Elvis looked up at her, his triangular ears perked. Waiting for his reward. She gave him a peanut butter treat from her pocket to nibble on while she checked out the trunk.
The trunk was made of faded gray metal and looked much like an old Army footlocker. She pried open the rusted hinges and tried to raise the lid but the trunk was locked.
“Really?” She tugged her Swiss Army knife out of her pocket and released the thin lockpicking tool. She was getting a lot of use out of it lately. Martinez would be pleased. The locks on metal trunks were typically easy to pick, and this one was no exception, rusty as it was. She slipped the tool back into place and returned the knife to her pocket.
“Open sesame,” she said to Elvis, yanking the lid up and shining her cell flashlight on the trunk’s interior.
Guns. Mostly pistols, with a couple of sawed off shotguns. “No wonder you alerted to this place. Weapons everywhere.”
No ammunition that she could see. But there could be boxes of ammo under the pile of guns. She put on a pair of plastic gloves and carefully removed the weapons. There was no ammunition, there was nothing at all under the guns. But the depth of the trunk seemed too shallow.
A false bottom, she thought. She felt around the sides of the trunk’s interior until she found the mechanism to release the secret space. She lifted the false bottom out and shone the light once again on the inside of the footlocker.
Money. Lots of it. Stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills. She wondered whose it was and how it came to be here. Although she supposed as the owner of the house it was Bea Garcia’s now.
She put everything back the way it was before Elvis found it—the false bottom, the guns, the lid, the lock—and switched off the flashlight to save cell power. And rewarded him with another doggie biscuit. “Good job.”
She crossed the small room, Elvis on her heels. She peered up into the opening at the bottom of the staircase, but she couldn’t see anything. She called out for Bea, but she heard nothing.
“I guess we’re on our own.” The opening was too high up to make climbing out easy. She could always use the crates or the trunk for a leg up. She went back to the far corner where the crates were piled. They seemed sturdy enough.
Above her, Mercy heard a shuffling. Dogs barking. A woman screaming. Beside her, Elvis growled.
She twisted in the direction of the staircase just as Bea Garcia tumbled through the opening and landed hard on the dirt floor.
And the stairs slammed back into place.
Plunging them into total darkness.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Mercy switched her flashlight back on and ran over to Bea, helping her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” The small woman wobbled a bit. She was very pale, and Mercy worried that she might fall again.
“The floor is very uneven. Hold on to me and we’ll get you a seat.” By the light of her cell she guided Bea to the crates in the corner. She grasped Bea’s upper arm to hold her upright with one hand and overturned a crate with the other, creating a makeshift seat. “Sit here and catch your breath.”
Elvis trotted over to Bea and placed his muzzle on her lap. Mercy tried to text Troy. No service. Not unusual down here. She turned her attention back to Bea. “Can you tell me what happened up there?”
Bea stroked the shepherd’s ears. “Someone came up from behind me and hit me on the head. I fell down here. And then I heard the door slam.”
“Who was it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t see them.”
“No.”
“Was there only one
attacker?”
“I don’t know. I was only aware of one. But there could have been more.”
“Close your eyes. I’m going to shine this light on your head so I can see where you’ve been hurt.” Mercy found the bloody spot on the left side of Bea’s skull, and gently parted her brown hair to get a better look. “Okay, it doesn’t look too bad, but head injuries can be tricky. We need to get you out of here as quickly as possible.”
“How can we do that? They’re still up there.”
Mercy swept the light around the room. “Is there another way out of here?”
“There might be. They used to run tunnels from the underground rooms to the outside so they could move people and goods more discreetly.”
“Goods?”
“A lot of these hiding places from the Underground Railroad were used by smugglers during Prohibition.”
Mercy walked around the room, searching for any sign of another exit. Nothing stood out to her; the walls were all dirt and rock and rotting wood but she could see no evidence of a tunnel. The floor seemed relatively intact as well. There was only one place where you could camouflage the entrance to a tunnel.
The gun cabinet.
The old oak piece was about three feet wide and nearly eight feet tall. The bottom section was locked storage space fronted by two wood doors. For ammunition, she presumed.
The top section that held the old rifles had long ago lost its glass doors, but the guns seemed secure enough. She tried to pull the cabinet away from the wall, but it didn’t budge. She removed the rifles carefully, checking for ammo. None of them was loaded. She set them aside, and then checked the back of the top section. “It’s screwed into the rock wall.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“To keep people from moving it.”
Mercy sighed and retrieved her Swiss Army knife once more.
“What are you doing?”
“Sit tight.” She used the lockpicking tool to open the lower cabinet doors, revealing an empty space. No boxes of bullets, after all. She squatted down and pushed on the inside back panel of the bottom section. “Cardboard.”