“We’re in a room with only one exit and three hundred wine bottles to absorb our voices. What information do you need?”
Giulia’s messenger bag began to emit an electronic whistle rising and falling over a short scale. They both stared at it. Giulia set it on the floor and took out her phone.
“WeeEEEeeeooo. WeeEEEeeeooo.”
“It’s my EMF detector.” Like the Winchester brothers in Supernatural, she aimed the phone at the nearest wall. The irritating noise stayed at the same volume. The wine racks also caused no change. The opposite wall, ditto. Then she came back around to the corner with the painting supplies. The whistle turned into a screech.
“EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO.”
Giulia held down the phone’s volume button and forced the screech below ear-piercing level.
More screams came from behind them. They turned and saw Melina in the doorway staring at the corner. Her arms were stiff at her sides and her face stretched into a Greek theater tragedy mask.
Cissy ran to her. “Melina, stop it. Melina, I said stop it.” When the screams continued uninterrupted, Cissy reached up to Melina’s shoulders and shook her.
Melina gasped and hiccupped. “A ghost. A ghost in the cellar. I knew it. I knew it.” She slipped into rapid Spanish. Giulia caught most of it: Melina was repeating the Our Father with barely a breath between phrases.
While Cissy kept trying to calm Melina, Giulia knelt in the corner. The EMF meter continued to wail. Giulia moved the paint supplies.
“Cissy, when was this wall repaired?”
“I don’t know.” The irritation in her voice faded. “I should know. That’s odd.”
Giulia brushed plaster dust from her hands and stood. “Can someone bring a shovel?”
Cissy sent Melina, who returned in less than two minutes with Mike carrying a well-used shovel. He looked excited rather than frightened as he set the tip of the shovel in the dirt at the corner, put a foot on it, and pushed. It sank into the floor much too easily.
“That’s weird.” He looked over his shoulder at Cissy. “I thought this whole floor was packed as hard as stone to support the wine racks.”
“It is.” Cissy couldn’t seem to decide whether to be angry or frightened.
Giulia took pictures as the excavation continued. She wrinkled her nose at the sour odor of old dirt. The shovel knocked against the wall. A chunk of plaster fell inward.
Anger won. “Which of you has been tampering with the house? Where’s Georgia?” Cissy’s face rivaled Giulia’s teacher glare.
“Not me, Ms. Newton, honest,” Mike said.
“Never, Ms. Newton,” Melina said. “I never touch any part of the house not assigned to me.”
Giulia pocketed her phone and crouched at the shallow hole. “Wait a minute, please.” She pulled away pieces of plaster, more of it crumbling as she worked. “There’s something behind the wall.” Her heart lurched when she realized the bits of white were not shards of plaster. “It’s a baby’s skeleton.”
Fifty-One
Mike scrambled backward, knocking the shovel into the opposite wall with a clunk. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
Melina began screaming again. Georgia appeared in the doorway, saw the inhabitant of the wall, and added her screams to Melina’s.
Cissy clamped her hands over her ears, but Giulia got a strong impression she was trying to shut out the fact of the little skeleton, not the cacophony.
Elaine appeared in the doorway, and Giulia learned a new definition of cacophony. She moved behind the farthest wine rack to block some of the clamor and called 911.
Money being powerful, two uniformed officers, two detectives, and the coroner arrived within ten minutes. Before their appearance, the combined efforts of Giulia and Mike got Melina and Georgia to stop screaming. Cissy shelved her own reaction and took charge of Elaine. Elaine’s high, breathless shrieks—Giulia had hoped never to hear them again—continued all the way upstairs.
Giulia was explaining the discovery to one of the detectives when Pip loomed over her shoulder.
“Ms. Driscoll, our house will never lack excitement while you’re around.”
Giulia finished her statement to the lead detective rather than reply to Pip’s passive-aggressive attempt at humor. Fortunately for her temper, the detective recognized Pip and they moved out into the main cellars.
The coroner rose from his knees and opened his phone. “Professor Lembach, please…Herman? It’s Max. Drop everything you’re doing and get over to…” He jerked his bald head at one of the uniformed officers. “What’s the address here?…Did you hear that, Herman? Good. Yes, I mean right now. You’ll owe me a bottle of Stolichnaya Red for this.”
He pocketed his phone and said to the room, “This skeleton could be ancient, but it could also be artificially aged. Lembach is one of the best forensic anthropologists in the state. He’ll be here in ten. Nobody even breathe on those bones in the meantime.”
Cissy clattered halfway down the cellar stairs. “Pip, Elaine wants you.”
Pip held up his index finger in the “in a minute” gesture. “Detective Hansen, I only wish I knew how such a horrific thing happened in my house. If you’ll excuse me, I have to check on my wife.”
He mounted the stairs two at a time, squeezing around Cissy. She hesitated, took one step up, then continued down to the group in the cellar.
The other detective was interviewing Melina. One uniformed officer was working on Mike. The second uniformed officer finished with Georgia, then Detective Hansen sent him to monitor the front door.
“Ms. Newton,” he said, “I’d appreciate it if you could let me know when Ms. Patrick is able to be interviewed.”
All Cissy’s quills spiked out. “Ms. Patrick is extremely upset by this horrible discovery, as you can imagine. I doubt you’ll be able to speak to her today.”
The detective’s expression signaled his lack of sympathy. “Ms. Newton, this is a potential crime scene. The sooner I’m able to speak with Ms. Patrick, the sooner we’ll be able to resolve the situation and her house can return to normal.” He looked at his watch. “It’s not quite eleven a.m. I’m sure Ms. Patrick will recover herself before we have to leave.”
Giulia would’ve given a week’s allotment of coffee to scare Pip and Mike enough to hear them both scream like a girl. Too bad Mike’s initial reaction to the skeleton had been low-key, which swung the suspicion compass needle his way.
“Hello?” A man’s deep voice at the top of the stairs.
“Down here, Herman.” The coroner beckoned to the unseen male.
“I’m too old for steep stairs, Max.” The bass voice grew louder. “Are you trying to kill me?”
A dark man stepped onto the cement floor. He was smaller than Giulia and shaped like the Matryoshka doll round enough to hold all the rest. A wild fringe of white hair offset his chipmunk cheeks.
“Herman, if I had five bucks for every time you said that…”
“You’d be able to retire at fifty,” the Matryoshka said. “Are you going to disappoint me like you did last year with the Monongahela remains?”
The coroner’s mustached lip curled. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”
“Probably not. Well? Impress me.”
Giulia hadn’t mentioned the EMF meter’s antics. Neither had Cissy or Melina, from what she’d overheard of their interviews. Melina had gone on at length about ghosts and the noises they’d all been hearing. Mike and Georgia kept interrupting each other to add another haunting experience. By the time the Matryoshka arrived, the expressions on the faces of all law enforcement in the cellar, including the coroner, varied between humor and disgust.
Max led Herman to the excavated corner. All banter ceased. Herman creaked onto his knees and pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves. Intensity flowed from him like ectoplasm in a
séance. One by one, everyone stopped talking.
Stubby fingers touched the tiny, fragile bones with the delicacy of a confectioner working with spun sugar. He produced a jeweler’s loupe from an inside pocket. “Give me some light here, someone.”
Giulia stepped forward with the flashlight on her phone aimed into the recess.
“Thank you.” He didn’t look around. “A little closer, please.”
His inspection continued. Feet shuffled. The second detective turned a wine bottle label-up. Cissy slapped his hand. He backed away like a little boy caught stealing cookies.
Herman looked up at the group, an ecstatic smile on his face.
“This is marvelous, absolutely marvelous.” He clapped his hands. “I haven’t come across an intact specimen of such age in decades. Literally decades.” He pulled off the gloves and stuffed them in a different pocket. “Max, I owe you two bottles of Stolichnaya Red.”
The lead detective shouldered Giulia out of his way. “What have we got, Herman?”
“Your skeleton is at least one hundred years old. Possibly more, but I have to get it back to my laboratory for a thorough examination.” He fished a flip phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and issued orders. When he ended the call, he said, “I feel like a kid on Christmas morning thanks to this little lady. Don, have your lot look up all reports of vandalized cemeteries. Start with Pittsburgh’s oldest ones. We may get lucky.”
“It’s a girl’s skeleton?” Cissy said.
“Possibly; possibly.” He looked around at the walls and ceilings. “How old is this house?”
“The foundations were laid in 1797.”
He appeared to calculate. “A little modern, but within the realm of possibility.” His crinkled eyes gazed at all of them. “Do you know what I’m referring to?”
Puzzled glances.
Herman clapped his hands again, his wide smile making his eyes disappear. “Hitobashira, of course. Don’t they teach anything useful in school anymore?”
Giulia said, “Is Hitobashira the same tradition as the legend of the monastery of St. Columba and the monk Odhran?” One of Clark and Brad’s wild guesses had been correct. Did this enlarge her suspect list? How high would Clark Wagner’s falsetto reach, and had she missed a subtle hint with his insistence on pronouncing his last name like the composer?
“Yes.” Herman left the circle of police and castle staff and came over to Giulia. “Young woman, you could teach these Philistines something about history.” He balanced on the balls of his feet and assumed a professorial voice. “In ancient times, a human sacrifice—sometimes voluntary, sometimes not—was entombed in the walls of a building or one of the supports of a bridge to ensure the safety of all who used it.”
Cissy’s face had the “I smell something bad” look.
“Cool,” Mike said. “I mean, gross, but cool. Like that short story ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ right?”
Herman nodded and bounced. “Point to you, young man, for reading the classics. Although ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ was a revenge story.” He turned to Cissy. “Is the water table particularly high on this property?”
For once Cissy didn’t have an answer at her fingertips. “I have no idea. Would you like me to find out for you?”
A wave of the hand. “Perhaps. First my team and I will see if you have a true instance of Hitobashira or if we are dealing with a mundane grave robbery.”
Several different sets of footsteps hit the cellar stairs.
“Follow my voice,” Herman called. “We’re on the left.”
Two college-age women and one man crowded into the wine cellar. The tall, thin man carried a legal-sized plastic document box. The woman with a ’70s throwback ’fro held a professional camera with a lens case slung over her shoulder. The woman with short purple hair carried a smaller plastic box labeled “Samples.”
Herman snapped his fingers. “Amy, pictures of every square inch, please. Vivian, when Amy’s finished we need soil samples, plaster samples, and bits of anything in the niche not attached to the skeleton. Go.”
The camera flashed five, ten, twenty times. Giulia caught the edge of two flashes and turned away to allow the blinding spots to fade from her vision.
Vivian’s sample gathering began before Giulia could see again. Several plastic baggies held darkened or dusty cotton swabs. She used tweezers on molecules too minute for Giulia to see a mere four feet away.
A few tweezer plucks later she clicked the lid closed on her plastic box. “Done.”
“Carl,” Herman said.
The tall man stepped forward with the document box and all three began to move in a smooth, choreographed dance with their gloved hands. Carl and Vivian reached into the hole. Vivian cradled the skull in her left hand. Carl’s long fingers supported the ribcage and pelvis. Amy stood ready with the box.
“Easy,” Herman said. “Carl, can you do anything for the arms? Vivian, is one of the ribs detached? No? Excellent. Ease it out now.”
His assistants appeared not to need his mother hen advice. They freed the skeleton from its niche with Carl’s thumb and pinky stretched to their limit supporting the stick-thin arm bones. Amy eased the document box underneath. Still in sync, Vivian and Carl laid the little skeleton in the box, and Amy closed and locked the handles.
Herman waggled his hands back and forth in the best Wallace and Gromit tradition. “Sublime as always. Now the fun begins. Don, text me if you get a cemetery hit. Don’t call. My ringer will be off starting now.” He clicked the side button on his phone. “I’ll call you as soon as we know anything definite. Amy, we’ll stop at the nearest grocery store for a case of Red Bull. No one’s sleeping until we identify our little bundle of joy. Up and out, people.”
Fifty-Two
An hour later everyone in the castle except Elaine sat at the dining room table eating Mike’s idea of “a little lunch.”
Pip layered bacon, avocado, and fresh tomatoes on a homemade wheat roll. “The Xanax kicked in after Elaine plugged herself into her sleep recording.”
Cissy nibbled roast beef and kale. “She didn’t try to sneak a second pill?”
Even Pip’s wry smile managed to be alluring in a heartthrob way. “She did, but I convinced her to give the first one a half hour to take effect.”
Anyone watching Giulia would see a hungry woman appreciating ham and cucumber on pumpernickel. Excitement made Zlatan send FEED ME messages. Satisfying his demands supplied her, the outsider, with good cover.
Mike, Melina, and Georgia sat in silence on the opposite side of the table from Giulia and Cissy. Pip had taken the chair at the table’s head. Melina took small, ladylike bites of lettuce and sliced chicken. Georgia added tomato to her chicken, and Mike was already into his second roast beef and coleslaw.
Silence reigned when Pip finished speaking. Giulia breathed an unspoken thank you to the manufacturer of Xanax for castle time free from hysterical screams.
Mike ate as though nothing had ever been discovered in the wine cellar except wine. Georgia and Melina might as well have been strapped to their chairs. Their movements consisted of the minimum necessary to convey food to their mouths.
Cissy gestured and they gathered plates.
Mike rose. “Should I make a plate for Ms. Patrick?”
“Yes. I’ll take it—”
Pip’s voice overrode Cissy’s. “Please do, Mike. I’ll take it up to her in a little while.”
Cissy squared off against him, but her rebellion lasted less than three seconds. Only the thin line of her lips gave the lie to her acquiescence.
Pip turned to Giulia. “Ms. Driscoll, I need to lock myself in the library for a web conference, but I’d like to speak with you before you go.”
“Certainly. I’ll make sure to find you.”
Pip went out the door and to the right up the central stairs. Meli
na and Giulia split the dishes between them and turned left toward the kitchen. Mike hefted the remains of the sandwich platter and followed.
Cissy beckoned to Giulia, and they closed themselves into the sun porch on the back of the house. She used a remote to turn on a flat screen TV mounted on the far wall of the long narrow space.
When the characters in The Young and the Restless began to pour out their relationship angst, Cissy spoke. “I didn’t forget why you came here. Since your gadget isn’t shrieking at us, I presume no one’s buried a skeleton in these porch walls.” She shivered despite the July afternoon heat. “What information can I give you?”
Giulia went right for it. “Two things: what is Pip’s financial situation in relation to Elaine, and do you know if either Mike or Pip has kept in close contact with Elaine’s aunt and uncle after they moved out of the castle?”
Cissy eased herself onto the pink flowered davenport. The scattering of freckles across her cheeks stood out against her pale face. Giulia sat in the yellow flowered chair kitty-corner to her and waited.
It took a good minute for Cissy’s spine to straighten. “Mike is a cousin on the Davenport side of the family, that is, related to Elaine’s mother and her sister, Caroline Emerson. He went into deep debt to pay his mother’s medical bills. I’m unaware whether he’s free of it even after all these years.”
A tap on the door. They both scowled at it.
Cissy stood. “Sometimes I think I should check my clothes for a tracking device.”
Melina handed her an envelope. “Another registered letter for you, Ms. Newton.”
She closed the door and Cissy tore off the envelope’s short end. Giulia thought Cissy had gone as colorless as humanly possible a minute ago. She’d been wrong. By the time Cissy finished the letter she could’ve haunted the castle herself. When she held the paper out to Giulia, swaying like an unstaked sapling, Giulia helped her sit before taking it.
The Clock Strikes Nun Page 22