Larcency and Lace

by Annette Blair

  Eve glanced at her diver’s watch, then picked up Chakra, one-handed. “Hi, baby girl.” Chakra and Eve were pals. “Probably past Dolly’s bedtime, anyway,” Eve added.

  “True.”

  Dolly Sweet and the late Dante Underhill had been lovers, mid-twentieth century, a huge secret that everybody in Mystick Falls knew, even before he left her his building and his fortune.

  Dolly was dying to see Dante again.

  Five

  I want to do my best to take care of the planet by designing with recycled and eco-friendly materials. I think we all have to start with what we know . . . I design clothing, so I figured I’d start there.

  —DEBORAH LINDQUIST

  “I’ll bet this place was beautiful in Dolly’s day,” Eve said examining my building, known for years by the locals as “the Shack.” As of last month: “Maddie’s Shack.”

  “Hell, I’ll bet Dolly was beautiful in Dolly’s day,” she added, taking another sip of her coffee.

  “Beauty-pageant beautiful.” I’d seen her wedding pictures. “But, Eve, you should know that I thought this place was beautiful when we were kids.”

  She spewed a mouthful of coffee my way.

  I jumped back in time to save my Prada blouse, pencil skirt, and spikes, but not my rare Lucite box bag.

  “Watch it,” I said. “This is a valuable collectible.” I wiped it with my napkin.

  “Sorry.” Eve chuckled as she dabbed coffee off the protesting Chakra. “Speaking of collectibles—not. Here comes Jaconetti.”

  Nick’s refurbished military surplus Humvee had alerted us both to his approach before he turned the corner.

  “Good thing he makes his own fuel for that guzzler,” Eve said, wincing at the sound.

  “The bio-diesel? Yes,” I said over the roar as he drove into my parking lot and took up two parking spaces. “He makes it in his garage with used French fry oil and a couple of reagents. Imagine. Very eco-friendly.”

  “That’s me,” Nick said. “You’re eco-friendly, too, ladybug. You recycle clothes.” He swooped in for a hell-lo kiss and communicated the added longing that went with a good-bye. A kiss, very well executed. Gentle but hungry. Respectable, yet French.

  Nick and I shared a long-standing relationship built on a white-hot charge of spontaneous combustion and a mutual fear of catching fire.

  I could live with that.

  Eve could not. She faked a gag.

  Nick pulled from the kiss and gave her his “Evie eye.”

  She shook a finger his way. “You get five points for fuel conservation, Boy Toy, and minus ten for noise pollution.”

  Nick shook his head. “Love you, too, Meyers.”

  I chuckled, leaned into him, and noticed, in one of my upstairs windows, Dante crossing his arms and frowning down on us.

  Hah, a jealous ghost. What a spook.

  A minute later, I spotted Dad’s six-year-old Volvo, and behind him, Aunt Fiona in her 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. The ultrarare one with the split window. I wasn’t sure what the original color might have been, but sunshine over the years had mellowed it to a warm purplish red.

  I surmised that her car was one of two reasons why she and Dad didn’t get along. One: she and my mother were witches together, which/witch Dad would rather forget and didn’t know I knew. And two: Aunt Fiona owned a car that my practical (read: stuffed shirt, though you didn’t hear that from me) father coveted, but would never lower his frugal, Connecticut Yankee standards to buy.

  Both reasons amused me.

  After quick hellos, conversation being stilted between Dad and Aunt Fee, we headed for my shop. “Nick?” I asked. “Can you help me take in these boxes?”

  “What are they?” Eve wanted to know.

  “Vintage—and I use the word loosely—donations from our neighbors.”

  Everyone grabbed a box and together we brought them in. “Put them in the first hearse stall,” I said.

  After we finished stowing boxes, my father indicated the interior of my shop. “So what do you think?”

  No longer the storm cloud who’d growled when I told him I was quitting my well-paying, prestigious job in New York to open a vintage dress shop, he asked my opinion with pride.

  “Dad, it’s gorgeous.”

  If I hadn’t been forced to work out my two weeks’ notice, he might never have approved my foray into self-employment. But making him Clerk of the Works while I was gone netted me a beautiful building and a father who now respected my career move.

  He rocked on his heels. “Amazing what a construction crew forced to answer to a stubborn academic can accomplish.”

  Nick slapped him on the back.

  “I didn’t know you had it in you,” Aunt Fiona said. “Good job, Harry.”

  Working together had equalized our relationship. Dad wasn’t treating me like his ten-year-old mothering her siblings, and I wasn’t feeling sorry for him.

  The exercise had taught me that his aimless-widower and absentminded-professor routines appeared only when his comfort was at stake. A ploy I would swallow no longer.

  Harry Cutler was as vibrant and sharp as ever. He’d proven it by acing my renovations. “Did you have a hard time getting the hearse upstairs?” I asked. “I wish I’d seen it.”

  My father looked toward the anomaly in my ceiling. “All I did was watch,” he said, but it was amazing.

  Huge, double doors were cut between the two floors. Upstairs, you could grab iron rings to haul each half door back and look down on the first floor.

  The block and tackle hanging from the ceiling above the double doors were used to haul things, like hearses, up there for storage. The construction crew had done exactly that before beginning construction on the lower level.

  As a result of the architectural anomaly, I’d given up on the idea of having a finished ceiling down here and had the exposed boards cleaned, stained, and finished.

  I liked the look.

  “That hearse is incredible,” my father mused. “The workmanship is impeccable.”

  “It’s collectible,” I said, tongue-in-cheek. “I’ll give you a great deal.”

  Dad about choked, but when he recovered, he wore a familiar expression. “From the day you’re born till you ride the hearse, ain’t nothin’ so bad it couldn’t get worse. Author unknown.”

  “A quote for every occasion,” I said. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you have one for a hearse, as well.”

  Eve hooked an arm through mine and dragged me toward the stairs. “So let’s go crack open the secret room, already.”

  “Scrap,” I said. “We may need a flashlight or nine. There’s no electricity up there, now that the circuits are split.”

  Nick snapped his fingers. “I’ll be right back.”

  He returned with a good-sized box and set it on the floor by the stairs. “These are NiCad Fluorescent Area Lights, but I’ve used them, so I don’t know how much battery time they have left. Here’s where you switch them on. I hope they help.” He checked his watch and kissed me. “Gotta go, ladybug. Got a plane to catch.”

  “Stay safe,” I said, nervous as always when he and my brother, Alex, his partner, went off on an FBI assignment.

  My father nodded. “Tell my son to take care, too. Alex and I talked on the phone this afternoon, but tell him, again, will you, Nick?”

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said, shaking my father’s hand.

  Scary when you didn’t know what kind of danger they were getting into. Nick kissed me once more outside, a ravenous “I’ll miss you like hell” kiss.

  I really didn’t want to let him go—we were like ships passing in the night—but I didn’t have a choice. “Will you be able to call this time?” I asked.

  “I will if I can. I don’t know yet where we’re going.”

  “And if you did, you wouldn’t tell me.”

  He tapped my nose, traced my lips, and walked away.

  I stood in the doorway until his Humvee disappeared, then I turned to the people
I loved, standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching me with concern.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Alex and Nick will be, too. Let’s go open the secret room.”

  Six

  For me, elegance is not to pass unnoticed but to get to the very soul of what one is.

  —CHRISTIAN LACROIX

  My father, carrying the box of NiCads, indicated that we ladies should precede him up the stairs.

  “Ever the gentleman, Harry,” Fiona said, going first. She liked getting her kicks by baiting my father with slip-stitched compliments that he could take either way.

  The day he started giving her as good as he got would be the day he saw Aunt Fiona for the first time.

  “Dolly thinks I’ll like what I find,” I said to break the silence as I reached the second floor. “She just can’t remember what it is.”

  Everyone there had already seen the hearse, the row of vintage caskets, and the ancient oval metal tub—once skirted and filled with ice to set beneath caskets at home wakes—so no one was skeeved by the knowledge of their presence in the shadowy darkness.

  Eve rubbed her hands together. “Open the damned doors.”

  “Wait,” my father said, putting the box of lights on the floor. “First we need to see the damned doors. He stood the giant flashlight-type thingies around the room, with two by the secret doors, switching them on as he went, turning the room to near daylight.

  “Figures,” Eve said, hands on her hips. “Leave it to Jaconetti to carry around a box of florescent phallic symbols. I’m surprised they don’t flash his name.”

  “Eve!” Aunt Fiona gasped, though she was grinning.

  One of the lights went out immediately.

  “Any batteries in that box, Dad?”

  “Afraid not.” My father frowned. “What the devil?” He stared aghast at the storage room entry and indicated a free-hanging splinter the size of his arm. “These doors didn’t look like this earlier.”

  “What time earlier?” I asked.

  “I left with the construction crew around seven thirty.”

  “And I got here a little after eight, so the intruder didn’t waste any time.”

  Eve and I glanced at each other. Fiona caught the glance. My dad didn’t.

  “Somebody must have broken in,” I said.

  Aunt Fiona stared into my eyes. “Madeira? You don’t sound too surprised.”

  Scrap. “Okay, somebody did break in. But he’s gone now, so it’s all good.”

  “He?” my father asked.

  I huffed. “Judging by the sound of him thumping down the stairs? Yes, it was probably a man.” A half-truth. “Someone with a heavy and robust build. I didn’t see him. It was too dark.”

  “Madeira!” my father and Fiona snapped, in sync for once.

  Eve chuckled. “Our Miss Fix-It chased him away by herself.”

  I picked up my baby cat and the butterflies in my middle stopped fluttering. “Chakra helped.”

  My father frowned. “Was the outside door open when you got here, because I locked it when I left.”

  “Locked. I had to use my key.”

  Given Dad and Aunt Fiona’s black looks, it was a good thing I was too old for a spanking. They made me recap every detail.

  By the time I finished, another of Nick’s lights went out while my Dad walked the perimeter of the room, hands fisted. “Here,” he called from the corner behind the caskets.

  “What’d’ya know?” I said, coming up behind him. “An open window. Is there a ladder out there?”

  “No,” my dad said. “He was a resourceful burglar. Probably the same one the night watchman heard. There are two huge wooden wire reels below the window, stacked, one atop the other.”

  Dad turned back to me. “You need to be proactive, Madeira. Get an alarm system. Now.”

  “I was proactive. I chased him away. But yes, I agree on the alarm system. I should have had it done during the construction, but this is Mystic, after all. I didn’t think it needed to top my list. I was wrong.”

  “Can you afford the expense of an alarm system right now?” Aunt Fiona asked.

  I sighed. “I expected to bleed money for a while. I’m okay, and I love this place. I really do.” Ghost, burglar, lack of second-floor lights, and all. “Now can we open the storage room?”

  “You need new locks on these windows, too,” my father said, checking them all. “Are you sure you don’t need an investor?”

  “No. Thank you, Dad. Just make a note. Window locks, an alarm system, and reel removal.”

  He pulled out his trusty notebook and started his list. He enjoyed this partnership, of sorts, as much as I did. I’d accepted his presence and his expertise, yes, but I would not accept his money.

  “Time for the grand opening,” I said. “We should have brought trumpets.” I attempted to insert the key that Dolly said would fit the lock. “Scrap! My key doesn’t work!”

  Another NiCad fluorescent went out.

  “Mad, didn’t you get a new front door?” Eve asked. “Which key are you using?”

  I sighed. Either my intruder upset me more than I thought, or my lack of sleep was catching up with me. “I’m using the new one, of course, also known as the wrong one.”

  “What did you do with the original, Madeira?”

  My father’s tone made me feel like a child. “I gave it to you.”

  Aunt Fiona smothered a chuckle.

  Dad shot her a look as he unhooked a hefty key ring from the key safe on his belt and began flipping through, somehow managing to identify most of them.

  I held up a fluorescent to shed light on his quest as he tried several before one finally turned in the lock.

  “Woo-hoo!” Eve’s shout echoed in the cavernous room.

  “Don’t take that key from the lock,” I said, grabbing a bottle of Red Passion nail polish, industrial strength, from my purse. With the brush, I dabbed a spot on the faded tab that once identified the key. “Now we’ll always be able to find it.”

  My father cleared his throat at my efficiency after his scold. “I’ll have a copy made for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Dante appeared, probably because he was curious about the polish.

  When Aunt Fee grinned his way, he winked at her, and she blushed.

  Once the nail polish dried, I let the key disappear into my father’s stash. God knew, nothing could be safer.

  “Madeira,” my father said, stepping away from the doors. “Care to do the honors?”

  I tried pushing, until Dante told me to pull. The squeal level of the doors scraping the floor reminded me of fingernails across a chalkboard, or harbingers of doom. I shivered as Eve pulled the other half door in the opposite direction.

  When they finally stood open, they revealed a darker pit than any I’d seen tonight.

  The last of Nick’s fluorescents died as we stood there, unable to see our hands before us.

  “Faulty phallic symbols,” Eve said into the darkness. “What does that signify?”

  Fiona giggled and Dante chuckled.

  “Madeira,” Dante said. “The switch is a flat-topped, round button to the right of the doors.”

  “Got it.” Some minutes after I pressed the button, a pair of long old-fashioned fluorescent bulbs clickety-click-clicked, teasing us with the possibility of light, as they repeatedly glowed and dimmed, while emitting a weird smell.

  “That fixture needs a new ballast,” my father said.

  I was sure the fluorescent tubes would need replacing before we could see the storage room properly, but the fixture finally clicked one last time and shed a modicum of light, however uneven and dim. “Dad, will you add fluorescent bulbs to our list?”

  He raised his notebook in a “will do” salute.

  At first glance, the room might be someone’s attic—cluttered, musty, and dusty. Lots to see in the disorderly, pack-rat stash, including the additional hearse that Dolly hinted was here. But I could focus on only one th
ing: a set of perfectly aligned white enamel body drawers, four by four along the back wall.

  “We brought those up for storage,” Dante said beside me. “This wasn’t the embalming room.”

  “Do I want to know where it was?” I replied without thinking.

  “No, you don’t,” Aunt Fiona said, a warning in her look.

  “Downstairs,” Dante said. “In the basement.”

  My head came up. “I forgot about the basement.” The construction foreman said it existed but was inaccessible, and since my funds were limited, I’d told them to stick to the main floor.

  “Madeira?” my father asked. “Are you talking to yourself?”

  Great, I was so spooked by the body drawers, I’d answered a ghost that only Fiona and I could see and hear. I’d have to get better at ignoring Dante. “Yes and no, Dad. I just realized that the morgue and embalming room must have been in the basement.”

  “You’re right,” Dante added. “But you can only get to the basement via the casket lift in this room, behind the debris toward the front. It’s sealed on the main floor just below, in your dressing room.”

  I wanted to tell Dante that he could have warned me, but I guess ghosts lose their people skills after a while. At some point, I’d build a stairway to my basement, beneath the stairs that led up here. After I did, I could enlarge this room and my dressing room . . . and find out what lurked below. Shiver.

  Aunt Fiona nudged my chin up with a finger and looked into my eyes. “You knew the building’s history, dear, when you accepted Dolly’s terms. You shouldn’t let a little thing like body drawers throw you. You’re thrilled to have the place, remember? And you’re in it for the long haul.”

  She was right, but I had no chance to acknowledge it because a sluice of ice water ran up my spine, as if someone had stabbed me in the back with an icicle. The sensation brought a shivery, stomach-churning knowledge that had nothing to do with body drawers or embalming rooms and everything to do with—I whipped around to look behind me.

  Three side windows, with shared frames between them, overlooked West Main Street and the playhouse beyond. In this instance, a nightmare.