Tails, You Lose (A Witch City Mystery Book 2)

by Carol J. Perry

Aunt Ibby was in deep conversation with the city councilor, and she probably knew most of the rest of the people there, as well. I saw Mr. Pennington make his way through the crowd to greet my aunt with smiling enthusiasm, and I noticed that River had ducked out right after the ribbon cutting, giving a quick wave in my direction.

  Darn! I’d hoped to get a minute with River so she could tell me what she knew about the top-floor ghost.

  Primrose had disappeared early, but I hadn’t noticed where or exactly when she’d gone. Duke and Sammy stood in line together at the refreshment table.

  It was early afternoon by the time I rounded up most of my class—only Primrose was still missing—and we gathered in the classroom. I turned them loose to investigate the equipment and answered their rapid-fire questions as fast as I could. Therese was curious about how things worked, and displayed a surprising amount of technical knowledge.

  With such a small class, it didn’t seem necessary to assign seats, so I just waited until everyone had found a place where he or she felt comfortable. Therese and Kelly sat side by side, much the way they had when I first met them in the director’s office, except that now they didn’t look bored or uncomfortable. Thom and Sammy selected seats with a couple of empty chairs between them, and Duke Martin sat in the big leather chair behind the faux news desk.

  “I don’t know what’s become of Primrose,” I said, “but I expect she’ll be back soon. Meanwhile, let’s talk about you.” I glanced around the room. “What made you choose this school? This class? Sammy, how about you?”

  When I first met Sammy, I’d expected him to have a high voice, because of his short stature. Just goes to show how wrong generalities can be. The ex-jockey had a voice worthy of a news anchor.

  “Thanks, Ms. Barrett,” he began. “Most of you guys know I used to be a jockey. Pretty good one, too. Had a bad fall a little while ago and can’t ride anymore. I’d like to be on TV. Maybe I’d like to be a sports commentator. Or even an actor. You don’t have to be tall, you know. Look at Danny DeVito.”

  “Shoot, honey. You’re taller than me,” Kelly announced. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Want to tell us about yourself, Kelly?” I asked.

  “Me? I’m just a coal miner’s daughter. Like Miss Loretta Lynn,” she said. “’Cept I can’t sing a note—”

  “Coal miner’s daughter?” Duke interrupted. “Your daddy runs a bar. Ain’t no coal miner.”

  “Used to be. Got sick in his lungs and had to quit it,” Kelly explained. “But he likes running the tavern. I like it here, too. Closer to New York and Boston, where the big TV stations are.”

  “What’s your story, Duke? How did you happen to choose the Tabby?” I asked the big man.

  “I’ve done a few movies,” he said. “Mostly Westerns. Small parts. I was shooting a commercial in Boston when I read about this place. Never did much TV. Want to.”

  “We’ll do all we can to get you there, Duke,” I promised.

  But you might have to lose the cowboy getup.

  I hesitated to ask Therese why she’d chosen the Tabby. I knew the answer, but I had to ask, anyway. “How about you, Therese?”

  “Same as Kelly,” she said. “I just really like Salem.” She paused, then added, “Oh, and people always tell me I have a nice speaking voice, so my folks thought I should learn how to make money with it.”

  Thanks for not mentioning witches.

  “Your voice is pleasant,” I said. “And you seem comfortable around the equipment, too. That’s a big plus in the TV business.”

  She colored slightly but didn’t answer.

  “And you, Thom?” I turned to the handsome young man. “Your mom says you already have a modeling career going pretty well.”

  “Oh, my God. I saw her handing out those darn pictures. So embarrassing.”

  “She’s just proud of you,” I said, “and of how hard you work.”

  He shrugged. “I get a few modeling gigs around here. And I tend bar most every night. Have ever since they opened.”

  Primrose chose that moment to make her entrance.

  “Holy crap!” She sounded breathless. “Are all the big shots gone?” She plopped into a chair next to Sammy, red velvet miniskirt riding dangerously high. “Those ribbon-cutting dudes aren’t going to be hanging around here all the time, are they?”

  There were puzzled looks all around.

  “Why?” Duke asked. “You got a problem with them?”

  She shrugged, patting her hair and straightening her skirt. “Oh, I guess it’s no big deal. Just ducking out on somebody I didn’t expect to run in to. Here, of all places.”

  “I suppose they can visit whenever they want to,” I said. “You going to be okay?”

  “Sure. I can handle it. Don’t worry about me.” A nervous smile, a glance over her shoulder. Then, in a conversational tone, she added, “How come the cops are back? I just saw a couple of ’em going down the basement stairs.”

  Primrose was right. The police presence was back. It didn’t take long to find out why.

  Mr. Pennington, in his quest for funding the basement project, had arranged for a low-cost “feasibility study.” A first-year media engineering student from Salem State, with a measuring tape and a ball-peen hammer, had discovered what the police had missed.

  Junior Sullivan had been correct when he reported that his father had gone into the basement and had never come back upstairs.

  Even the cat had been right. A fall from a height had almost undoubtedly caused Bill’s broken leg.

  The celebratory mood of opening day at the Tabby changed in minutes to one of confusion, consternation, and near panic. Mr. Pennington’s voice over the newly installed loudspeaker system announced that students and faculty were to vacate the building in an orderly manner.

  If my class was any example, the exodus was less than orderly. The old shoe department had its own entrance, so we grabbed our jackets, coats, and purses and were outside in less than a minute. We crossed the street and huddled together, watching people pouring from all available exits.

  “What do you think happened?” Therese asked, clearly frightened.

  “Probably just a bomb scare,” Duke offered. “They’ll call us back inside in a minute. Don’t worry.”

  “I have a friend in the police department,” I said, reaching for my phone. “I’ll find out.” So violating all my self-imposed restrictions on nosing into Pete’s police business, I called him.

  He answered on the first ring. “Hi, Lee. It’s okay. The place isn’t under attack. No danger. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Then what’s going on? They’ve evacuated the whole school.”

  “I know. It’s the damnedest thing. Seems some kind of a hole has opened up underneath the Trumbull building. Might explain what happened to your friend Sullivan. I’ll call you later.”

  CHAPTER 9

  We stood there for a while, clustered together, watching as police cars and fire engines converged on Essex Street.

  “It’s kind of pointless to just stand here in the cold,” I said. “Let’s go find someplace warm with a TV. That’s probably the quickest way to find out what’s going on in there. My friend says whatever it is isn’t dangerous.”

  “Let’s go to my pa’s place,” Kelly offered. “Big booths, huge TV, and even a fireplace.”

  “And cold beer,” Primrose said.

  Both Primrose and Duke had cars in the student parking lot. I called Aunt Ibby and told her where I was going so she wouldn’t worry when she saw the news, and then Kelly, Therese, and I piled into Primrose’s black Camry. The men rode in Duke’s 2002 red Dodge Ram pickup. It had real ram’s horns on the hood and an empty gun rack at the back of the cab.

  Greene’s Tavern was just as Kelly had described it. I could see why Salem folks had taken to the place so quickly. A lunchtime crowd of a dozen or so football enthusiasts was gathered around the giant TV. Kelly led us to a semicircular booth, grabbed an apron from behind the b
ar, and began assisting a man who was serving customers. I presumed he was her father, Joe Greene.

  Opening day at the Tabby was all over the news. But the ribbon cutting, the welcoming speech, the interviews with the superintendent of schools and the downtown development team were not there. The featured footage on every channel showed a four-by-four-foot square panel of the basement wall moving up and down. The panel opened, then slowly closed, and each time a nervous engineering student hammered lightly on a round metal disk imbedded in the wooden floor.

  “Look,” I said. “Junior Sullivan said his dad thought he saw a silver fifty-cent piece under the mannequins. He must have hit that disk somehow and opened the panel.”

  The scene unfolding on the TV screen became even more dramatic. While a news anchor described the action, a cameraman, with a camera and a light attached to a hard hat, propped the panel open and crawled into the dark square. We watched as the man stood upright, then moved slowly along a dirt-floored passageway with aged brick walls on either side. The narrow passageway sloped downward for several feet and ended abruptly at a large, round hole in the ground. The cameraman leaned over the edge of the opening, illuminating what lay beneath.

  It looked like a very long drop to the bottom of that hole.

  A commercial break interrupted the story. “Stay tuned,” said the anchor, “for our exclusive interview with the young man who made this amazing discovery beneath the basement of Salem’s newest school and oldest department store.”

  “Oh, my God,” Therese said. “You think that poor old guy fell in that hole?”

  “Probably did,” Sammy said.

  “Yeah, but how the heck did he get out?” Primrose voiced the question that was on my mind.

  Kelly rejoined us, sliding into the booth next to me, order pad in hand. “You guys want a beer or a soda or something? We have nachos and hot dogs and stuff, too.”

  “I didn’t bring any money,” Therese said.

  “That’s okay, kid. I’m buyin’.” Duke flipped a credit card onto the table, waving away our chorus of protests.

  By the time Kelly had written down our choices, the commercial had ended, and the camera was once again focused on the young man who’d found the moving panel.

  “Tell us what happened when you went down into the school’s basement this morning,” the news anchor said, prodding, “and what you were doing there.”

  “Well, sir,” came the hesitant reply, “the director at the school—Mr. Pennington—asked me to look the place over, see what it would take to make a sound studio out of it. So I was, like, taking measurements and stuff. You know, checking how much insulation it might need and if the ceiling was high enough for the equipment they’re talking about.”

  “You have a degree in media engineering?”

  “Not yet, sir. I’m working toward it.”

  “I see. And how did you happen to discover the moving panel?”

  “I saw this round metal thing on the floor. I thought at first it was money. A coin, you know?” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “But it was, like, stuck to the floor. Imbedded in the wood, really.”

  “So, what did you do then?”

  “I took a hammer out of my toolbox and tapped it. Trying to get it out. Didn’t tap it hard. And that panel in the wall kind of creaked and opened up.” He smiled into the camera. “Scared me a little.”

  “Did you try to enter the passageway?”

  “Heck no. After a couple of minutes it closed itself up again. So I ran right upstairs and told Mr. Pennington about it.”

  The young man was thanked and dismissed before the anchor introduced a member of the Salem Fire Department.

  “We understand that the department has investigated. Can you tell us what’s down there?”

  “It’s definitely a tunnel. An underground tunnel with another, narrower tunnel underneath it.”

  “Two tunnels? Where do they lead?”

  The fireman shrugged. “We don’t know yet,” he said. “They both seem to branch out in different directions under the city.”

  “What does it look like down there?”

  “Well, the top one looks old. Really old and well built. The other one is more recent, and the construction isn’t as good.”

  Kelly had delivered our food and drinks and had joined us at the table. “Wow,” she said. “What about that? An old tunnel under the city?”

  “The tunnel might be old,” Sammy said. “But that mechanical panel looks pretty darned new.”

  Sammy’s doubt about the old age of the mechanical panel was just one of many topics that came up around the cozy tavern table that winter afternoon.

  “If there are tunnels under Salem, wouldn’t the city officials know about it?” Duke wondered aloud. “I mean, there must be pipes and telephone wires and stuff down there.”

  Therese thought the hole must have something to do with ancient witchcraft rituals, and Sammy said that it was probably just some kind of old-time aqueduct system, but he still wondered why there was a passageway to it from a department store basement.

  Thom didn’t offer an opinion as to the purpose of the tunnel. “This school tuition is expensive,” he said, “and I’m working my way through. What I want to know is, how long are they going to keep us out because of a stupid hole in the ground?”

  “That’s right,” Kelly agreed. “I’m in a hurry to break into TV. I don’t want to waste time.”

  I didn’t have any ready answers, and it was time for the first of the New Year’s Day bowl games to start, so no new information was coming from the TV.

  “They’ll probably let us know pretty soon about opening the school again,” I said. “But as long as we’re all here, maybe we could brainstorm a little about the documentary we have to make.”

  “Good idea, Lee,” said Primrose. “Can I call you Lee? After all, I’m older than you and we’re talking in a barroom.”

  “Sure. At least while we’re here,” I said.

  “Me too?” Kelly wanted to know.

  “Okay. We’ll keep things informal all around, but let’s concentrate on the documentary.”

  “Salem history, right?” Therese pulled a pen and a small pad of paper from her purse. “I think it should be about the witch trials.” She wrote, “Witch Trials” in neat, round letters.

  Duke shook his head. “Been done a million times. How about Salem as a tourist destination? We could probably get it on one of the travel channels.”

  “That’s a good one,” Therese said, writing quickly. “But mine’s better.”

  “Let’s do it about the tunnel,” Sammy said. “That’s part of Salem history, isn’t it?”

  Therese made a face but wrote, “Tunnel.”

  “I know,” said Primrose. “Let’s do it about Trumbull’s Department Store. Right from the beginning and up to when it got turned into a school.”

  “And got canceled the first day on account of a stupid tunnel.” A frown shadowed Thom’s handsome face.

  “I like the idea, though,” I said. “It includes pretty much everything that’s happened in Salem since they opened the old store back in the nineteen twenties.”

  Therese looked up from her note taking. “They still had witches back then, too, didn’t they?”

  “Shoot, honey. There’s always been witches,” Kelly said. “We even had ’em down in West Virginia.”

  “Really?” Therese started a new page and wrote, “Trumbull’s Department Store history, including witches.”

  The impromptu brainstorming session moved along quickly. We filled Therese’s little notepad and started writing on paper napkins.

  Ideas and questions flew around the table, and our stack of notes grew.

  The session ended abruptly when Sammy said, “Hey! Wait a minute. If the school is closed, does that mean that me and Primrose and Therese can’t sleep in our dorm rooms?”

  “Oh, my God! I forgot all about that.” Therese tossed down her pen and reached for
her phone. “I’d better call my mom to come and get me.”

  “I’ll call Mr. Pennington and find out,” I said.

  I called the director’s private number. “How about the people staying in the dorm?” I asked. “Can they come back inside tonight?”

  “Oh, Ms. Barrett, what a mess.” I could sense near panic in his voice. “The police and the fire department and the city engineers are all still here. They’re trying to determine if that wretched hole has undermined the foundation or some such nonsense.”

  “I have three of the dorm students here with me,” I told him, “and they need to make plans about tonight.”

  “I know. I know.” He sounded near tears. “There are twenty live-in students altogether, and they’re all trying to figure out where to stay. The Red Cross has offered to open a shelter, so at least they’ll be in out of the cold. Should I sign your three up for that?”

  “I’ll ask. Can they go to their rooms and get clothes and toothbrushes?” I glanced around at my group. All of them except Duke were on their phones.

  Mr. Pennington said that permission had been given for the students to gather their possessions. I covered the phone with my hand and asked my three temporarily homeless ones what they wanted to do.

  “Therese is going to spend the night here with me,” Kelly announced. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Sammy can use our guest room,” Thom said. “My mom says it’s okay.”

  “We have plenty of room at my house, Primrose,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay with us.”

  I reported to the director that we would not need the Red Cross, but that we’d be there shortly to pick up overnight bags. I was about to call Aunt Ibby to tell her I’d invited a guest when my phone vibrated. I hoped it was Pete, but the caller ID showed River’s name.

  “Hi, River,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up with you is more like it! You know I never watch the news, but everyone is talking about your old store and the big sinkhole, or whatever it is.” She sounded worried. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, River,” I said. “Please don’t worry. I’m at Greene’s Tavern with all six of my students, and we’re just about to go over to the school to pick up a few things.”