STAGING WARS

by Grace Topping

  “Why are we always plagued with cell phone problems?” Nita asked, reminding me of the problems I’d had in the past with an old phone and poor connectivity.

  “Come on, let’s think of an excuse to visit Anne on our way there.” We stepped outside to discover that it had started raining, and the temperature had dropped considerably. I grabbed a jacket hanging on a peg near the back door and offered one to Nita. She declined, saying she had one in the car.

  When we pulled up in front of Anne’s house, we saw her car was gone. “Don’t tell me we missed her!” Nita groaned.

  “Let’s knock. She may be parked out back somewhere.” We ran to the house to avoid getting wet in the drizzly rain. Stepping onto the porch, I twisted the old-fashioned door ringer built into the middle of the door. When we didn’t get a response, I tried again. The ringer’s grinding noise would have woken anyone sleeping in the house.

  “Nita, look at this.” We peered through the window in the upper half of the door and I pointed to the two large suitcases sitting just inside.

  Nita grinned. “Good. She hasn’t left yet. Maybe she went for gas or something. Do you think she’s going on vacation or escaping before things get too hot for her to stay here? Maybe she’s going on the lam.”

  “I don’t know. If she’s going on the lam, as you say, the police might never find her. This could be our only opportunity to gather the evidence and catch her before she leaves.”

  Nita tried the doorknob. It turned easily. “Since Anne didn’t answer, do you think she could be inside sick or injured? Maybe she hurt her back lifting those suitcases and is lying upstairs helpless? We should go inside and check on her.”

  “Wouldn’t that be unlawful entry?” I asked. Between the two of us, I was the one who adhered to the rules more often.

  “She could be dying in there. Do we quibble about it being unlawful to go in and check on her when she might need help?”

  The thought of Anne getting away was more than I could bear, especially if she had packed any of Doris’s remaining artwork in her car. “Okay, but only to check to make sure Anne is okay.”

  Nita pushed open the door and went in first, with me following. “What do you notice?” I whispered.

  “Spicy cologne. Was that what you smelled before?” Nita asked.

  “I could never forget it. Now I know we’re on the right path.”

  Nita tiptoed further inside. “Anne, are you here? It’s Laura and Nita. We didn’t get an answer to our ring, and we want to make sure you’re okay.”

  We got no response. “It doesn’t appear she’s here. Why don’t you check upstairs to see if she is lying on the floor up there, and I’ll search around down here? Oh, and check the closets and under the beds.”

  “Closets and under the bed?” Nita asked, looking perplexed.

  “For any artwork,” I whispered.

  “Oh, right.” With that, she tiptoed up the stairs. “Anne, are you up there?”

  After searching the living room, peering behind and under the sofa and chairs and not finding anything except dust bunnies, I quickly searched the dining room and kitchen. No signs of any paintings. I peered out the back window. No garage out back, so there wouldn’t be any paintings stored there. That left the dreaded basement. I doubted she stored them in a damp, cold place, but I couldn’t risk missing them if they were there in a humidity-controlled storage cupboard.

  I pushed open the door and peered down into the basement. The musty odor from stale air and dampness hit me. I hated basements—especially basements in old houses. It brought back the memory of my experience staging the Denton mansion. My first instinct was to close the door and run, but I couldn’t leave without making sure we’d checked the whole house. We needed those paintings to prove Anne Williamson had been stealing them from Doris.

  Anne could say Doris had given them to her, but that would be hard to prove, especially since Anne had signed her name to them and been passing them off as her own. If we could prove that, we might be able to prove she had a motive to murder both Ian and Damian to keep her secret.

  From the top of the stairs, I looked around for a light switch. When I didn’t see one, I looked on the wall outside the basement door and found a switch on the kitchen wall. I flipped the switch and saw a single bare light bulb illuminate. It hung from the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs, spilling a weak circle of light that was just enough illumination for me to find my way down to the cement floor. The homes in this area of Louiston were about a hundred and fifty years old, and electricity had been added to them well after they had been built. It wasn’t unusual to find very little lighting in the basements.

  As I started down the stairs, the sudden drop in temperature sent shivers over me. I wrapped the front of my jacket across my chest, thankful I’d grabbed something warm to wear earlier when we’d dashed from my house.

  As I slowly made my way down the stairs, I reached out to steady myself and felt the cold foundation that consisted of stacked rocks. The rocks in this house had been whitewashed, which helped make the basement feel less like a dungeon—but not by much.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I scanned the area looking for places Anne could have stored any of the paintings—if she still had some in her possession. The basement felt cold and damp, even in summer. The rain earlier hadn’t helped.

  I couldn’t imagine Anne would store the paintings down here given the damp conditions, but she could have if she were desperate enough to ensure no one saw them.

  From where I stood, I could see a wide-open area filled with a haphazard collection of things that must have been stored there for years. It was covered not in dust but grimy soot. Two old-fashioned wooden highchairs stood in a corner, surrounded by galvanized buckets, wooden crates filled with colored soda bottles, and a wooden ice cream churn. Various pieces of lawn and gardening equipment filled one end of the basement, which meant there must be an exit to the backyard. But I didn’t see one.

  I looked around for more light switches to help me find the outside door, or perhaps some ceiling lights with pull chains or cords. Not finding any, I opened a wood-paneled door, and from the dim light near the stairwell, saw a furnace and water heater. There must be lights around here, but not knowing where they were, I couldn’t find them to turn them on. The grimy walls in one corner showed that coal had once been stored there. That meant this area faced the street, where the coal would have been unloaded.

  Finding nothing stored there, I turned to leave and ran into long cobwebs hanging from the wood beams overhead. They stuck to my face and hair. I hated cobwebs. And even though I knew they were harmless, it was all I could do not to screech.

  Nita called from the doorway. “You okay down there?” She started down the steps. Perhaps she didn’t have the aversion to basements I had.

  “Yeah. I just ran into some cobwebs. This place is pretty well locked up. I don’t see any windows or doors to the outside.”

  Nita joined me in the furnace room. “The windows were probably covered over to keep people from breaking in through the basement.”

  “Could be. I also didn’t see any exits to outside,” I said. “But it’s so dark a door to the outside could be here, but I just don’t see one.”

  “Did you find any paintings? There weren’t any upstairs. Maybe we are on a wild goose chase.”

  “So far, no paintings down here either.”

  We left the furnace room and started to the other end of the basement, where I could see a large metal cabinet.

  Just then I heard footsteps overhead. My heart skipped a beat. Before I could react, the basement door slammed closed, and the light went out. Weak as the light had been, it had still been better than nothing. We found ourselves enveloped in total darkness. My pulse quickened, reminding me of the growing panic attacks I’d experienced when facing unreasonable deadlines in the corporate world, a
nd I reminded myself to stay calm.

  “Beatrix Potter!” Nita gasped and reached out and grabbed me. It wasn’t only the blackness around us that frightened me. An unnatural stillness filled the house. If we couldn’t hear much from outside, would anyone outside be able to hear us if we shouted for help?

  My first instinct was to remain silent. Perhaps Anne shut the door and turned off the light thinking that she’d left them that way earlier. If so, she might not realize we were down there.

  “Nita, are you okay?”

  “I guess. But what do we do now?”

  “Stay calm. Maybe we can bluff our way out of this.” Who was I kidding? Anne probably knew somebody was down here. If not Nita and me, then somebody else.

  The darkness was so total I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I was disoriented and unsure of what direction I was facing. As my eyes started to become more accustomed to the dark, I could see faint light coming from beneath the door at the top of the stairs leading into the kitchen. Not a lot of light, but enough to guide us to the stairs.

  “Stay here for a sec. No sense both of us falling down the steps.”

  I carefully felt my way up the staircase, holding on to the railing on one side and the whitewashed stone foundation on the other. At the top, I turned the door handle. It turned easily. But when I pulled, the door held firmly closed. A lock on the handle wasn’t keeping it from opening. I tugged again and the door gave way slightly but still didn’t open. Then I remembered seeing a hook near the top of the outside doorframe. Once fitted into the eye on the door, it would hold the door firmly closed.

  The thought of being imprisoned caused my body to quiver. What would happen if we couldn’t get out? Who would take care of Inky?

  No more waiting for Anne to leave. I pounded my fist on the door and shouted, “Hello! Anyone there?” No response. I pounded louder until pain shot through my hand and radiated up my arm.

  That’s when I heard a light knock on the door and a familiar voice.

  “Hello, Laura. You really should have minded your own business.”

  Anne? I decided to play the innocent. “Hi, Anne. It’s me, Laura, down here with Nita. We came looking for you and decided to see if you were down here. Can you please let us out?” I tried to keep my tone light. “Maybe we can have that cup of tea together we’ve been meaning to have.”

  “Now, Laura, you and I both know I can’t do that.” Anne sounded so normal and not the least like a cold-blooded killer.

  I tried to sound just as normal and not like a trapped prisoner possibly left here to die. “Sure you can. Just unlock the door, and when we come out, we can talk about this.”

  “Sorry, dear. As soon as I finish packing my car, I’ll be on my way. You really should have stayed out of my affairs. This is most inconvenient.”

  I heard her footsteps as she walked away. “Drat.”

  Earlier we’d seen suitcases in the hall. We knew she was planning to leave town. Could she be so coldhearted as to leave us prisoner in her basement? The answer to that was pretty evident. She had killed two men without a qualm. Would two more people make any difference to her?

  I began feeling like a character in Edgar Allen Poe’s “Cask of the Amontillado,” when a man tempts his rival into a cellar with the reward of a fine cask of sherry and imprisons him there. Was that what was happening to us? We were being imprisoned, and we didn’t even have a bottle of sherry to warm ourselves. Why, oh why, had we left our bags locked in Nita’s car with our cell phones in them?

  Drat, drat, drat. And we hadn’t told anybody where we were going.

  Chapter 45

  Empty basements, attics, and closets as much as possible to show ample storage space.

  “What are we going to do now?” Nita called from the bottom of the steps. “She’s going to get away, and we can’t do anything to stop her stuck down here.”

  I had to face the direction of Nita’s voice since I couldn’t see her or anything else for that matter. Nita was worried about Anne getting away, while I was worried about us being imprisoned in a cellar, in an empty house, with no one knowing where we were.

  “Right now, finding a way out of here is far more important than catching Anne.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll simply call Guido and tell him we’re here.”

  I sat patiently waiting for Nita to reach into her jacket pocket and discover her cell phone wasn’t there.

  “I can’t find it. I must have left it in my bag. Oh, no. I left it in the car. Please tell me you have yours.”

  “Nope. I left my bag locked in the car along with yours. Remember we decided to leave them there?”

  “Georgette Heyer!” Now she had gone to romance writers. “Laura, you got us into this. Now what are you going to do to get us out of here?”

  “I got us into this?” The stress of being locked in a basement, that was every bit like a dungeon, was starting to get to us fast. At this rate, how long would we stay sane? “You were the one who thought we should search the house using the feeble excuse Anne might need our help.”

  I was irritated Nita was blaming this on me. “Maybe we should try sending telepathic messages to Madame Zolta and have her come rescue us.” Madame Zolta was the local psychic Nita had brought to the house of a local homeowner who had been murdered to sweep the house of negative energy. Long story.

  “That’s a great idea.” She paused. “Do you think that’ll work?”

  “Of course it’s not going to work,” I said, more caustically than I intended. Nita made no response. She was fond of Madame Zolta and believed she had abilities most mortals don’t have. I knew I’d hurt her feelings.

  “Sorry. I was being sarcastic and shouldn’t have been.” I started slowly walking down the stairs, holding tightly to the railing.

  “From what I remember before the lights went out, there are no windows, or they are boarded up. There may be a door to the outside, but I didn’t see one. Our only option is trying to break down the door going into the kitchen.”

  “With what?” Nita asked.

  “Whatever we can find down here.”

  When I got to the last step, I reached out to determine if Nita was close. “I’m here. Take my hand. We’ll use the wall as a guide and make our way around the basement and search anything we come in contact with.”

  We felt along the stone foundation until we came to a metal cabinet. My hand came into contact with some handles, and I gently pulled the doors open. I didn’t want anything to fall on us. I stuck my hands inside and felt shelving. Starting with the top shelf, I slowly moved my hands along the edge, coming in contact with dusty jars with lids. Filled canning jars. They must have been there for years from the feel of the grime on them. The other shelves contained jars as well. No luck there. “I feel canning jars. Full ones. Depending on the condition of what’s in those jars, we might not starve for a while.”

  We continued to feel our way along the wall. My knee struck something hard. “Ouch!” I stopped and rubbed it. With each minute, I gained even more respect for Helen Keller.

  My knees began to wobble and I felt as though my system was shutting down. We had just eaten, so it more than likely wasn’t a low sugar drop. If it wasn’t a sugar drop, then it must be the early signs of a panic attack. I couldn’t let that happen when I needed to keep my head clear and my body functioning well. “Why don’t we sit down for a while?”

  We sat with crossed knees on the cold floor. The cold bypassed my flesh and went straight to my bones. I began to shiver. The rain and drop in temperature earlier in the day made the basement feel even colder than it would have felt this time of year.

  “I’m sorry. This is my fault,” Nita said, her teeth beginning to chatter. “I shouldn’t have convinced you to come in here.”

  “No sense placing blame. I could have said no.”

  W
e sat quietly for a while. “What if we never get out of here?” Nita said with a shaky voice.

  “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get out—eventually. Guido will be looking for you and someone will eventually notice that Anne has left town and wonder why.”

  “What if we don’t get out? Nita asked. “It’s times like this that make you evaluate your life.” She paused. “Do you have any regrets?”

  I thought about her question for a long minute. “Lots. But I particularly regret having an expired passport without a single stamp in it.”

  Nita laughed—a good sign she wasn’t panicking. “I regret that I left Guido with a huge stack of dirty laundry. Oh, gosh.” Nita jerked upright. “I forgot to give Guido the new password to our bank accounts. I just changed it.”

  “Relax. You can give it to him when we get out of here.”

  I heard Nita settle back down. “I’m getting really chilled.”

  “I know what you mean.” I thrust my hands into my jacket pockets, glad I had worn it when I left home. In one pocket, I felt my car key and pulled it out. I stared at it. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  “Look, Nita.” I held up the key, and then realized she wouldn’t be able to see it. “I found my car key in my pocket. If I trigger the panic button, it will set off the car horn and someone might come to investigate, especially if I keep doing it.” I held the key high over my head, pushed the button, and waited for the car horn to start sounding outside. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing.

  “We’re too far away from your car for it to work,” Nita said, disappointed.

  “Well, it was worth the try.” I put my hands back in my pockets. My fingers came into contact with something in my other pocket. I pulled it out, examining it with both hands. It felt like two small boxes of some sort. I held them up to my ear and shook them. Match boxes. How had they gotten into my pocket? Then I remembered Josh had given the matches to me the day I’d visited his shop with Geoff and Ron. I could hardly believe my luck finding them. Good old Josh. Had he foreseen my need for them?