“I think it was,” I said. “I couldn’t tell Pete everything about tonight, so I’m going to tell you now.”
I filled her in on all the supernatural details I’d left out earlier.
“That must be why O’Ryan had tiny chips of dried-up old red paint in his fur,” she said.
“It must be.” I realized I’d been talking for nearly an hour.
Do I dare to tell her about the yellow car? Not yet. Maybe someday.
“So there we were, in the parking lot,” I said. “Sammy had pushed me into the car, and he just stood there with his door open, checking the lot to be sure all the police were gone. All of a sudden, another car came whipping across the lot, clipped the door, knocked Sammy onto the ground, and took off.”
“That car might have saved your life, Maralee,” she said. “Did the police catch whoever it was?”
“Nope. None of them even saw it,” I said truthfully. “But one of the officers said he saw tire tracks where the old driveway used to be, on the side street behind the tavern.” That was true, too. “Pete thinks it was just a lucky hit-and-run.”
“Lucky? I should say so . . . more like a miracle! Tell me, did Pete say anything about the gold?”
“Not much,” I said. “He just mentioned that Joe Greene had given Thom a gold coin, and he knew that Mary Alice had given Joe a box of gold. But I suppose Joe must have admitted that he’d been looking around down there for the rest of Mary Alice’s gold when he found Bill.” I paused and thought about that. “Mary Alice. M. A. It all goes back to her, doesn’t it?”
“It really goes back to Tabitha,” she said, “and to President Roosevelt’s gold.”
“Captain Gable never betrayed Tabitha’s secret,” I told her. “Sammy didn’t know about the gold at all, and River thinks I’m supposed to help Tabitha cross over, that she’s earthbound because of something that needs to be done—the same way Ariel couldn’t leave until her killer was caught. But I don’t know for sure what Tabitha wants me to do.”
“That’s easy,” my aunt said. “She wants the president’s gold to go back to the United States Treasury.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “The Treasury Department has all those letters from Tabitha stating exactly that. I’ll call Pete tomorrow and tell him I’m pretty sure where that gold is hidden.”
“You mean you think you can find the playhouse again?”
I thought about where I’d been standing when Tabitha had faded away. We’d been right in front of the red door. One step back, and I’d been facing Sammy. It had to be a spot where the two tunnels met, and it was next to the brick wall with the hole in it where O’Ryan had hidden. The cat had come out of the hole with chips of dried-up red paint on his coat.
“If Pete will take me back into the tunnel, I’m sure I can show them exactly where to take down a wall,” I told her. “And I don’t have to mention Tabitha’s ghost at all.”
I did just what I’d told my aunt I’d do. On Saturday afternoon Pete picked me up, and we drove to the Greene’s Tavern parking lot.
“You’re sure you’re ready to go in?” he asked, taking my hand as we approached the bomb shelter. “It’s awfully soon after what happened to you there.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “And Joe will be surprised when he finds out how close he’s been to the gold all along.”
The bomb shelter doors were open, both front and back. Only two strips of yellow tape separated us from the tunnel entrance. Pete was right about it being awfully soon after the most terrifying moments of my life. I fought back momentary panic, then stepped into the brick-walled area.
“It has to be right behind there,” I told Pete, pointing to the wall with the crack in it. “That’s where O’Ryan got into the old red paint.”
“Megan said the playroom had a red door,” he said. “No other reason for red paint to be in the tunnel that I can see. You could be right.”
“I’m pretty sure I am,” I said, taking one step into the tunnel. I was standing just about here when Tabitha waved good-bye and disappeared, I thought.
I’ll never know what prompted me to look down at just that moment. If I hadn’t, I would have missed it, and it would have been lost forever in the dirt and clay. It was such a little thing. I bent down and picked up the white satin-covered button and slipped it into my pocket, next to the lucky quarter Pete had given me.
CHAPTER 34
People all over Salem and most of Essex County who’d watched Tarot Time with River North that night talked about it for weeks afterward. Some of the big national paranormal programs began calling the school immediately after the show, wanting to arrange for their own crews to visit Tabitha’s room. But with the whole apartment so nicely spruced up, Mr. Pennington had begun making plans for accommodating “important personages from the world of music, stars of the stage and screen” in the historic venue, and he wasn’t sure a resident ghost would be a welcome amenity.
The director gave me permission to visit Tabitha’s room the following Monday morning, before anything had been disturbed. The school’s regular cleaning crew had refused to set foot in it, and I’d offered to rehang the picture and straighten out the bedspread, just in case any of those important personages happened by. No one except Therese and Duke had shown up for class, and I invited the two of them to come with me.
“Really? Me?” Therese was thrilled. “I’d love to. I hope Tabitha is still there.”
“Don’t think I’m afraid to go, because I’m not,” Duke said. “But I’d better stay here in case Primrose or Kelly shows up, so I can tell them where you are. Maybe Thom will come back, now that he’s out of jail.”
Thom was out of jail, but I didn’t expect him to join us again yet. According to his lawyer, when he’d run away from New York that night, he had made it all the way to Salem and had hidden far back inside the tunnel, remembering how the doors worked from his Christmas night adventure. But when he’d opened the back door leading into the bomb shelter in the morning, cold and hungry, he’d tripped over Wilson’s body. Grabbing the hedge clippers to keep his balance, he’d pulled them loose from the man’s throat. Horrified and in understandable shock, Thom had run outside, holding the bloody evidence. Someone had seen him there on the hillside and had called 911.
I told Duke that it would be okay for him to wait for the others if that was what he’d like to do. I already knew that Kelly and Joe were at the police station, pleading Joe’s case to Chief Whaley. I knew where Primrose was, too. I’d been right about the secret playhouse. Mr. Pennington’s skeleton keys had fit both the door and the toy chest, and the piano-roll boxes full of gold coins had been recovered. Primrose had gone to Boston in an armored car with Mr. Friedrich to deliver them to the Treasury Department.
“Text me if you need me, Duke,” I told him. “We won’t be gone long.”
Therese was close beside me, fairly wriggling with excitement, as we rode the elevator up to the Trumbulls’ apartment. We walked through the silent parlor and the dining room and peeked through the open doors of the ballroom, where there were still traces of blue glitter on the floor. Most of the doors in the long hallway leading to Tabitha’s room were closed, but hers stood open.
Sunlight streamed through lavender-tinted windows onto the rocking chair, with its new velvet cushion. The recently shampooed Oriental rug’s colors seemed to glow, and piano keys gleamed white against polished dark walnut. I picked up the fallen picture frame.
“Lucky the glass didn’t break,” I said, turning it face up. “The president looks as good as new.”
“What’s that writing on the back?” Therese asked. “All those numbers?”
I flipped it to the paper-covered back. “They seem to be birth dates. Here’s John Junior, 9/4/1951. And Joseph, 11/11/1970,” I read. “And look, here’s Kelly. 3/9/1993. Tabitha’s grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-granddaughter’s birthdays.”
“How cool is that? But what do these other numbers mean?” Theres
e pointed to a row of numerals and letters close to the bottom of the frame. She read aloud. “L four, R six, L zero, R seven, L two.”
“It’s a combination,” I said slowly, “and I’ll bet it’s the combination to the safe in Mr. Pennington’s office. Tabitha must have written it down so she’d remember how to open it.”
We rehung the picture and straightened out the bedspread, while I memorized the five-digit safe combination.
“Let’s get back downstairs,” I said. “I don’t want to forget the numbers. Mr. Pennington will be thrilled.” I couldn’t resist a backward glance toward the silent piano and the motionless rocking chair.
Good-bye, Tabitha.
As I’d expected, Mr. Pennington was delighted when I told him the combination. Therese and I watched as he knelt, almost reverently, in front of the safe, with its round dial and massive handle. He repeated each letter and number aloud as he spun the dial left and right, listening for the sound of falling tumblers. With both hands, he gripped the handle and pulled downward. The door swung open, revealing a single cardboard carton.
“I’m almost afraid to look inside,” he said. “Not that it matters a whit what it is. Like with those two old keys, it’s been the not knowing that has perturbed me.”
He pulled the carton slowly toward him. The top of it was lettered in black marker—PERSONAL PROPERTY OF O. W. TRUMBULL. All three of us held our breath as he peeled back the cover.
I’d never heard Rupert Pennington laugh before, but he had a great laugh—hearty and uproarious. He moved aside so that Therese and I could get a look at Oliver Wendell’s personal collection of mint condition Playboy magazines—beginning with the very first issue in 1953. He closed the safe, stood up, and patted the top of it. My inner Nancy smiled. With the opening of that safe, the last piece of the puzzle clicked neatly into place.
“There’s nothing more to do. The mission was successful.” Mr. Pennington paused.
Therese and I waited.
“Hugh Laurie,” he said. “Arthur Christmas, 2011.”
EPILOGUE
Primrose and Duke finished the script, and Kelly and Thom performed as Tabitha and Oliver, as planned. Therese did the voice-over as Tabitha, and Duke surprised everyone by reading Oliver’s part in a near-perfect Harvard accent. The documentary was well received both by the local audience and the NEA. In fact, we’ve received another grant for next year.
Thom and Joe were fined five thousand dollars each and were given a year’s probation for moving Bill’s body—whether they knew he was dead or not. Joe got an extra six months’ probation for obstructing the investigation. The court decided that the gold coins his grandmother had given him as a gift were legally his, so he was able to pay both his and Thom’s fines—and for an extremely good lawyer. Thom’s picture was in the paper so often during Sammy’s trial that a Boston agency picked him up. Even though he can’t leave Massachusetts yet, he has plenty of work locally, both in print and television.
Duke and Kelly still work nights at the tavern. Therese is taking special instruction from Lady Megan in the studies of spells, rituals, and meditations, and she’s given up wasting her gift on gambling games. Primrose, with a brunette French twist, wire-rimmed glasses, and a wardrobe of business suits and fabulous shoes, accepted an assignment at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Mr. Pennington and Aunt Ibby attended the Woody Allen Film Festival and are still dating. So are Pete and I. We go to Greene’s Tavern sometimes. The police never found the hit-and-run car, but one night Pete showed me the tire tracks in the old driveway where he thought it had gone. Could I have imagined the yellow Corvette, because it was what I wanted to see? I still wonder.
The city returned Bill’s bag of coins to the Sullivans and sold the Playboy collection for enough money to begin building the new sound and light facility in the Tabby’s basement—to be named the Jonathan Wilson Studio.
The third floor of the house on Winter Street is almost finished, and Aunt Ibby surprised me with the fact that it’s to be my own suite of rooms, with a separate entrance. O’Ryan has already checked it out and seems to approve.
Will having a private space of my own mean that my relationship with Pete might become quite a bit closer?
We’ll see.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to three strong and beautiful women—fellow authors Liz Drayer, Adele Woodyard, and Laura Kennedy—for their gentle and perceptive critiques throughout the writing . . . and rewriting . . . and rewriting process.
A big thank-you to Chris Dowgin for both inspiration and information from his remarkable book on Salem’s secret underground.
Thanks to my editor, Esi Sogah, who unfailingly makes whatever I write a little better, and to the rest of Kensington’s extraordinary team of professionals for careful attention to every detail of publication and especially for the gorgeous cover art.
And, of course, eternal gratitude to my parents, Marjorie and Arthur Phelps, for raising me in the magical city of Salem.
Keep reading for
An excerpt from the next book in
The Witch City Mystery series
Available Fall 2015
From
Carol J. Perry
And Kensington Books
“Maralee, come here. You won’t believe this!”
I hurried from my sparsely furnished bedroom to the kitchen, where Aunt Ibby sat on an unpainted and slightly wobbly wooden stool. She pointed to the new TV, which was propped against a carton of books on the granite countertop.
“Look,” she said. “It’s exactly the same, isn’t it?”
I pulled up a faded folding beach chair and peered at the screen. “You’re right,” I said, watching as a tall, gray-haired woman opened and closed the top drawer of an oak bureau. “It looks just like mine. What show is this?”
“Shopping Salem,” she said. “It’s new. The WICH-TV reporter goes around the city, interviewing shop owners. You should go right over there and buy that bureau before somebody else grabs it.” She glanced around the nearly empty kitchen. “Lord knows you need furniture.”
I sighed. “I know.”
My aunt had recently turned the third floor of our old family home on Salem’s historic Winter Street into an apartment for me. I was delighted to have the private space, but selecting furnishings had become an unexpected challenge. Who knew that deciding between red and blue, modern and traditional, oak and walnut could be so bewildering?
So far all I’d bought for my spacious new digs was a king-size bed, the television set, a coffeemaker, and a scratching post for our resident cat, O’Ryan—supplemented with assorted temporary seating brought up from the cellar.
I’m Lee Barrett, née Maralee Kowolski, aged thirty-one, red-haired, Salem born. I was orphaned early, I married once, and I was widowed young. I was raised by my librarian aunt, Isobel Russell, in this house and had returned home, to my roots, nearly a year ago.
“You’d better get going,” Aunt Ibby said. “A handsome bureau like that will get snapped up in no time. The shop’s Tolliver’s Antiques and Uniques, over on Bridge Street. Won’t take you but a minute to drive over there.” She tossed her paper coffee cup into the recycling bag next to the sink. “And you might pick up some proper coffee cups while you’re there.”
I had a special reason—besides my obvious dearth of furnishings—to want this particular piece. An identical one had long ago adorned my childhood bedroom and had later been relegated to the attic. Sadly, it had been destroyed by a fire that pretty much ruined the top two floors of our house. The damage to the structure had been nicely repaired, but the contents of the rooms, including my bureau, had proven pretty much irreplaceable.
“Do you suppose hers has little secret compartments, like mine did?” I wondered aloud.
“It does,” she said. “The woman on TV said that it has six and that she’ll give whoever buys it directions on how to open them.”
“I think I can remember all of them,�
�� I said, “but maybe that one is different.”
“Only one way to find out,” she said, and within minutes I was driving along Bridge Street, convertible top down, enjoying the bright June morning and looking forward to adding one more piece of furniture to my apartment, reclaiming a happy childhood memory at the same time.
Tolliver’s Antiques and Uniques wasn’t hard to find. The shop’s weathered silvery-gray exterior featured a purple door. Bright pink petunias in purple window boxes added more color, and the lavender shield-shaped sign suspended over the doorway spelled out the name of the place in black Old English lettering. I parked on a hot-top driveway next to the building and hurried inside. A bell over the door jingled a welcome, and the gray-haired woman I’d seen on television stepped from behind beaded curtains, right hand extended.
“Hello. I’m Shea Tolliver,” she said. “Welcome to my shop.” Her handshake was firm, her smile genuine, and the gray hair clearly of the premature variety.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Lee Barrett. I saw you on television this morning. I’m interested in the antique bureau you showed.”
“Yes, a lovely piece. It was made by a little-known Salem cabinetmaker back in . . .” She stopped midsentence and looked at me intently. “I’ve seen you on television, too. You were the psychic medium on that Nightshades show before it got canceled.”
She was right. I’d worked in television, one way or another, ever since I graduated from Emerson College. I smiled and held up both hands in protest. “That was me,” I admitted. “But I promise I’m not a psychic—just played one on TV. These days I’m teaching TV Production 101 at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts.”
She laughed. “Quite a switch. From soothsayer to schoolmarm.”
Tails, You Lose (A Witch City Mystery Book 2) Page 31