Somehow I was going to get them.
Four days later, I knew the night watchman's routine as well as he did, even if I did nod off in science and math (never literature or history). I waited until the bell-tower clock boomed out two, dressed in my darkest clothes, and tugged on a pair of thick black socks; shoe-sole prints could be traced, but wool was wool. Then I slipped out the window into the night.
The cricket sang, a shrill soprano, but the owl had fallen silent. Overhead the sky was awash with brilliant stars, none of which my uneducated mind recognized but which lit my path even in the moon's absence. A quick rush took me to the inner corner of the building and behind some clustered bushes, not grand enough to be termed a hedge in England. I crouched in their lee as a flashlight beam rounded the corner of the wing. My breathing came in shallow puffs, despite the shortness of the dash, and I couldn't restrain a stupid little grin. The night itself spoke to me, like an extension of my senses into something older and deeper than myself, and it was glorious.
The watchman's beam swept across the garden between the wings, paused on the fourth-years' open window, then swept back. Heavy footsteps thumped across the lawn. Beneath their tread I heard the rapid drumming of my heart as I willed him away. Then the light and footsteps vanished around the next corner and the night's adventure stretched before me.
Another quick rush and I peered through the fourth-years' window. Beneath my nose stood a nightstand the twin of my own, right down to the lamp and the reader. To the left stretched a twin bed, the shadow of another off to the right, and from both came raucous snores. The depths of the room were impenetrable, but the rest of Hardenbrook's fourth-years, five of them according to my admittedly inadequate math skills, had to be back there. The possibility of being caught, rather than unnerving me, only made my heart beat a trifle faster and brought that ever-ready grin back to life.
I squirmed over the casing into the dorm. My eyes had adjusted to the night and the tow hair splayed across one pillow was as clear as the dark across the other. The louder snores came from Cartier, sprawled on his back with his mouth hanging open, and the sight aroused not a whit of pity. A clique was forming amongst the first-years to force these two to let us alone. I'd made no move to join; if my plan was successful, theirs would be moot. Besides, my role as class pariah, while getting old, had not yet worn so thin that I was in any hurry to change my attitude.
The footlocker at the end of Cartier's bed was padlocked. Perhaps I could pick it, but there was no need. His slacks were tossed across a nearby chair, his navy sport coat with its rugby pins beneath it, and in one pocket was the key. The hinges didn't even creak.
I suppose there was some noise as I scrabbled about inside the footlocker. Off to the right, near the head of the room, a sleepy voice called, "Who's that?"
I froze. It sounded like Thomasson, the prefect. To my sensitive ear there was no suspicion in his voice, only accusation. He lived with the class bullies, so he knew all about them. Would he mistake any noises made by my thieving self for their latest shenanigan? If there was a hue and cry, could I escape out the window and lose pursuit by cutting through the greenhouse? Or, failing that, by doubling back through the bell tower? Anticipatory tingles shivered up my spine and all the way down my arms to my fingertips, buried in Cartier's violated underwear.
"You bloody sods." Thomasson already sounded half-asleep again. Bed springs creaked, linens rustled, and the room fell into an uneasy silence.
My groping fingers closed on something hard and cylindrical, and the push of an indented button proved it to be a penlight. After that, it was easy. The narrow beam flickered over tumbled clothing — shirts, socks, tightie-whities. And buried amongst the pile was the good stuff, a spyglass and Swiss Army knife, beneath them the crinkly pages of a magazine. I slipped those three plus the penlight into my pockets, eased down the lid and locked it, returned the key to its proper pocket — resisting the urge to put it into another one for fun — then squirmed out the window.
The security guard required thirty minutes for each lap of the building and the bell-tower clock hadn't yet chimed the half. So I ducked back behind my friends the privet bushes and waited until his flashlight beam swept back and forth across my dazzled eyes, then dogged his thumping footsteps halfway around the building to the greenhouse. I hid the goods beneath the piled ceramic pots and put myself back to bed, my grin bigger than ever.
Cartier's magazine turned out to be a glossy, full-color rendition of adults and near-adults of various persuasions in what, even at my age, were compromising positions. I knew sooner or later such ought to interest me, but in those days it simply didn't draw. Saturday morning I stuffed it inside the journal at what I considered the most incriminating entry, wrapped both in a bit of sacking, and dropped the bundle onto the soccer field before breakfast. First-year tryouts that day would prove interesting enough to attend.
As luck would have it, it was Langstrom who, while sending a graceless kick toward a ball that any fool could tell was going to spin away from him, sprawled headfirst across the bundle. Perhaps he wasn't utterly useless after all.
From the stands, I watched as Hardenbrook trotted across the pitch, arriving as Langstrom scrambled up. They conferred for a few mutually delighted moments — and I sneered at the spectacle — then Hardenbrook lifted the sacking. He caught the journal as it tumbled out and Langstrom snatched the magazine. My sneer morphed into a grin. A bully I wouldn't be, but this was an unexpected treat.
The protected little sod's eyes nearly popped from his skull as he stared at the spread, pun intended, before him. Unaware of the magazine's reception, Hardenbrook glanced through the journal, said something, and finally glanced down. By then, Langstrom had turned three pages.
Needless to say, tryouts came to a screeching halt. And needless to add, Cartier and Darrow were sent packing that afternoon.
I felt like a hero, single-handedly vanquishing the scourge of the first-years' dorms. Nothing less than a knighthood, in my unbiased opinion, could repay the debt. Unfortunately no one besides myself had any idea said debt even existed.
To rectify that situation, I had to share the secret of my success. It went against my secretive grain to take anyone into my confidence. But by the end of the second week, even I had become lonely. None of the other first-years seemed inclined to break through the layers of reserve erected to protect myself from parental disregard and William's perfection. I suppose I came across as stand-offish. But the prospect of spending seven years this way was daunting even for the most dedicated loner, and I decided to take the step upon realizing that, all day Friday, I spoke with no one.
After considering the selection of first-years, I settled upon Langstrom. He seemed a clever enough sort if conventional, eager and cheerful within what I deemed rigidly restrained parameters, and it had been such a delight to broaden his horizons. And if he looked like an egghead, well, that wasn't his fault.
It took me years to understand why I really selected Langstrom, and what he had that I wanted.
On Saturday morning I showed him the Swiss Army knife, the spyglass, and the penlight, still hidden in the greenhouse, and gleefully related my adventure. But when he stiffened, I realized he was a tad green about the gills where the naughties were concerned and I'd led him outside those parameters mentioned above. The bottom dropped out of my stomach to match the angle of his jaw.
"When this comes out," he said, eyeing me sideways, "you're going to be in big trouble. No one really believed you when you said you wanted to be a thief, you know."
Ridiculous. "Why should it come out?"
His expression turned blank at my question and his jaw stayed down. It didn't occur to me that, because of our different standards of parental control, I was used to getting away with pranks and he wasn't. Instead, I jumped to what seemed the obvious conclusion.
"You're going to tell."
"I'm not!" When he flared with anger, he flushed and looked like an Easter egghea
d. "I'm not a snitch. But Tufton's going to find out. You wait and see."
Yeah, I thought as I stalked away. Right, the man's magic. Tufton could just go hang himself with that supposedly admirable anatomy of his as far as I was concerned. And, after that clear-cut rejection of me and my behavior, so could Langstrom, whatever his own anatomy might turn out to be.
That was when I decided to get even with Langstrom, too.
Chapter Four
current time
It was tempting to show off for Caren and crack Aunt Edith's hidden safe, even though I knew the combination perfectly well. I could pretend I didn't and use the Hollywood routine, ear to the door and all, and watch her eyebrows go up. She'd have something funny to say and I'd have another laugh. Tempting, yes.
It seemed I did want to get back together with her. My behavior and tumbling emotions were certainly giving me something to consider.
But Patricia was also in the house. With my luck she'd peer in at us and there would go the rest of her good opinion. Besides, this was a safe opened by touch, not sound, and I'd be impressing Caren with a lie. After Aunt Edith's and Uncle Hubert's examples of strict honesty, that was distasteful. So I opened the bloody thing the ordinary way, pulling out the two hearthstones camouflaging it from casual observation — they didn't appear to be disturbed — and kneeling on the hardwood floor in Uncle Hubert's study to twirl the dial. Caren sat at the big dark desk and watched, probably not impressed at all.
When I swung the door of the safe open, the papers inside were strewn helter-skelter and creased where they'd been stuffed back in, which was not like Aunt Edith at all.
"He was here, too."
"Will you know if anything is missing?" Caren asked.
"I think so." Well, perhaps. "Let's see, her will is in here, stock and bond certificates, of course—" I pulled papers and envelopes out and set them aside.
"She always seemed a smart woman."
"An investor to beat all, especially me — bank records, blank checks—" I set that little box aside "—contract with her estate attorney at Wynne Cameron Gamble et al., whom I've never met—"
"I suppose you should call him."
"Suppose I should—" But the thought scraped me raw with a sudden, sharp vehemence. I didn't want her to be dead and calling her attorney would somehow make it official. It took a moment, hands buried in the safe and eyes closed, to corral the pain. "—insurance policies—" Those were in large envelopes bearing the names and logos of the providers. I set them aside without letting myself consider their significance and sorted out the rest of the documents. "No, I think everything's here."
"Charles, what's that in the back?"
Little was visible deep within the safe except a shadow, and I didn't see even that until Caren mentioned it. I reached into the very back, pulled out a green velvet jewelry box, and opened it to find a woman's dinner ring. One fair-sized emerald glowed amidst a handful of smaller accent stones, encircling it with mixed pastel colors.
"It looks like Easter morning," Caren said.
"It's beautiful but, you know, I've never seen it before." And why hadn't the murderer taken it? It might not have been what he sought, but it was a choice morsel, easily fenced, and then he'd have something to show for his break-in. Granted, he'd left the other expensive, portable objects behind, as well.
"May I?" Caren held out her right hand with a turn of the chair. Her left rested demurely in her lap.
I gave her an ironic look and slipped the ring onto the appropriate finger. It didn't make it past her knuckle.
She thrust her hand and its decoration beneath the desk lamp and tugged the chain. The emerald's facets glittered, brilliant and beautiful. "This looks like a love gift." She glanced at me. "You never saw her wear it?"
"Aunt Edith never wears jewelry."
It took Caren aback. She slumped on the desk. "Never?"
I shook my head. "Not even a brooch to fasten her cloak against the wind. Just her wedding band."
For a moment I saw her hands, deft and precise, the gold band flashing in sunlight then vanishing as she drew on gardening gloves. It was so real, it might have been a hallucination rather than an unsought memory. Then it was gone, but the gash it hacked inside me remained.
Caren turned Uncle Hubert's swivel chair, took off the ring, and stared at it. "I can't remember if her ears were pierced."
"No."
She didn't glance up at the tightness in my voice. "How strange. I mean, of course, a lot of women own jewelry they never wear. But Edith always seemed so polished and perfectly presented. I guess I expected all the details to be in place." She gave the ring back and chewed her lower lip.
As I repacked and closed the safe, it occurred to me that, despite the grief, I'd gladly chew that lip for her. Having her around, it seemed, was influencing me more than I'd anticipated. And perhaps I was kidding myself with that thought about wanting more than just a lover. No woman had appealed to me since breaking up with Caren, and the obvious meaning kicked a hole in my ego to match the one in my world.
In our pause, her gaze turned to the massive, and massively filled, bookshelves lining the study. "Could the trespasser have been looking for something in here?"
"Can't imagine what." The weighty tomes, a good distraction, covered all eras of English history and were untouched by anyone except the cleaning lady and sometimes me since Uncle Hubert's death, fifteen years ago. "Nothing looks much disturbed, just pushed about a bit."
"Have you ever taken these books down?"
"Whatever for?"
"To see if there's a false back to one of the shelves," she paused, "or a false book, for that matter." She slid one of those sideways glances my way. "This house is full of surprises."
"That's it." The proverbial light bulb lit up. "That's what's been bothering me. I know this house. I've lived here off and on for most of my life. I know where everything is in almost every room and I can't for the life of me figure out what he was searching for if it wasn't the safe."
She verbally jumped in. "Except for what?"
"The garret." But the thought was like a grenade to the guts. The day's sundry emotions — grief, horror, aggression, attraction — all tried to erupt from me at once. My grip on the granite hearthstone nearly embedded fingerprints, and I wielded the physical pain to defeat the emotional assault. The battle for self-control was getting harder to win with every skirmish but I refused to lose.
Caren stared, then laid a hand on my arm. "Charles?"
The emotions died hard. But it was the only possible answer and the solution to this mystery could be as close as the hidden staircase. Never mind that plague was preferable.
I carried both toolkits upstairs, Caren at my side.
"You seem uncomfortable about this," she said halfway up.
On the upper landing I paused and peered through the two high windows into the cloudless summer sky. Opening Aunt Edith's safe hadn't bothered me, because in our unusual relationship, money wasn't important. I knew all about her finances, her arrangements, and had helped draft her will, and she knew all about mine, too. Besides, she'd given me the safe's combination herself years ago.
But breaking into her garret was beyond wrong and it pounded at my conscience. It was an invasion of her privacy on a massive scale. It was a breach of trust, a violation of the treaty she and I had formed in my childhood, and even reminding myself she was dead and would never know made no difference to the looming, horrific guilt I already felt.
"I can say without exaggeration that, of all the nightmares I've had since I was thirteen, every one of them centered about the garret, even though I've never been inside it."
Caren rocked on her heels. "Goodness."
Aunt Edith's suite was through the double doors at the rear corner of the house, and I had to still my conscience again before pushing them open. The master bath was directly ahead, bracketed by tall ceramic vases holding dried red roses and sprigs of lavender, still breathing their he
ady scents into the air. To the left opened the bedroom proper, the king bed draped with a lovely green canopy that matched the swags over the two windows. The bench on the linen chest at the bed's foot and the seat of the chair before her dressing table were the same shade, and the carving in the doors of the big armoire were picked out with the maroon, lavender, and dark green of the flowers in the vases. Double closets with mirrored doors stretched along the far wall.
I refused to back out, no matter how shameless this invasion felt, and led Caren between the furniture. My reflection in the mirrors was accusing and I ignored it, too. Once we'd twisted past the armoire's camouflage, the hidden nook opened before us, and she gasped. We ducked around the u-turn and there, just as I recalled it, was an unlit staircase climbing over the closets to a plain, unvarnished wooden door. There was no knob; the lock — oh, how I remembered that beast — was installed flush with the door's surface.
On my knees before it, I used the penlight for a close examination, then felt its innards with my favorite half-deep hook. "Damn."
Caren knelt beside me. "I suppose this isn't an easy one?"
"Pick-resistant top pins. And six of them, at that."
"What does that mean? Should I start looking for a key?"
I sighed and sat back on my haunches, letting the challenge of the problem drown out my nagging conscience. "I don't have my pick gun with me and that would be the easiest way to get past this lock. I've already glanced through her bedroom today, looking for her kit, and didn't see a loose key hanging about that might fit this thing. Perhaps I can rake it."
Another quick examination of the lock with light and hook, then I selected a large rake, one with deep curves. I inserted my strongest tension tool into the bottom of the keyway. The rake followed until it nudged the back of the plug. I turned the tension tool left, and lifted and dragged the rake against the top pins, increasing the turning pressure as I did. A little jiggling, and three of the pins picked into place.
Trophies Page 5