1 The Ghost in the Basement

by SUE FINEMAN

“They’re still tearing those bricks out so they can work down there.”

  “They’re not going to work all night, are they?”

  “No, there’s no hurry at this point. Whoever is buried down there has been there for a good, long time.”

  Hannah gazed into his eyes and understood why Grandpa didn’t want her staying in the house alone. She’d never thought of herself as a fragile, needy person, but today she felt like a piece of bone china in someone’s slippery hands. Any second now she could hit the floor and shatter into a million pieces. And when she did, no one would ever be able to glue her back together again.

  Soft snoring came from the living room. “How can Pop sleep through all that noise?”

  “He can sleep through anything,” said Donovan. “Mom used to tease him about it.”

  “Grandma said the house could burn down with the smoke detectors going off and he’d never know it,” said Billy.

  Donovan backed into the hallway and motioned to Hannah.

  As they walked into the living room, he said, “This is now an official murder investigation, and Detective Constantine Cordelli is taking over. Hannah, he wants to search the house.”

  “Why? What do they expect to find after this long?”

  “It’s a routine part of any murder investigation. If they have to, they’ll get a search warrant, so you might as well cooperate.”

  Didn’t she have enough work to do without cleaning up after a search team? “What’s Cordelli like?”

  “I don’t like the man or his methods, but it’s out of my hands. He’ll search the house and the crew downstairs will remove what’s left of the body. After the people at the lab determine a time and manner of death, I imagine it’ll be dropped. There are too many recent crimes to work on without spending a lot of time on an old murder.”

  “But Grandpa wanted—”

  “I’ll take a few days off work. We’ll find those diaries and dig out the answers ourselves.” It was what Sonny wanted, what he’d asked in his letter.

  Cordelli wouldn’t do much investigating. He never did. When he was finished harassing Hannah, he’d put the case in the dead files.

  Today had been a tough one for Hannah. Donovan wanted to tell her the worst was over, but he knew better. Judging from the flurry of media interest, it would be on the news. If he could shield her from it, he would. “Like unpopping corn,” his mother used to say. It couldn’t be done. Those stairs had already been opened, the body found, and they couldn’t pretend nothing had ever happened here. The killer buried the body in the basement, sealed up all the openings, and Sonny’s family continued to live here as if it hadn’t happened.

  Donovan checked on progress in the basement and then found Hannah upstairs in Sonny’s bedroom, the one on the right side of the hidden stairs. A ragged rip in the wallpaper showed the opening to those stairs.

  Hannah pulled a drawer from the dresser and put it on the bed. “Do you think the guy in the basement was killed for the stock and gold coins we found under the attic steps?”

  “I don’t speculate until all the evidence is in.” People had been killed for a lot less than the value of those coins, but he didn’t want to tell her that. He didn’t want to discuss the murder with her until he had some facts, and right now they didn’t have a whole lot of evidence. They had the bones in the basement, the hidden staircase, and the knowledge that her family had lived here since the house was built. And they had the bricks from the wall the killer had built to hide the body. What they needed were the diaries Sonny mentioned in his letters. The information in those diaries could pull everything together. Donovan hoped the diaries would reveal the name of the victim and the killer, but they wouldn’t know until they found the diaries.

  He had a feeling nobody in this house would get much sleep that night. Hannah was trying to find the right diary before Cordelli did. What she didn’t understand was that the book – all the books – were a part of a criminal investigation, and if she did find them, they could be confiscated. He almost hoped she didn’t find them until after Cordelli and his men were finished here.

  “Did you feel the cold down there?”

  He nodded. “It’s a basement, Hannah, and it wasn’t heated.”

  “No, the other cold. Something came out of the dirt when I stepped on the bones. What if we released something evil?”

  It took him a few seconds to find the right answer, one that wouldn’t scare her even more. “Hannah, Sonny knew there were spirits in the house, and he asked me to open the house. I assume he meant the hidden staircase. He knew what we’d find, because he was a little boy when that man was killed. He wouldn’t have wanted us to release something evil, so we have to assume the spirits are friendly ones.”

  She sat on the bed and hugged her arms. “What else did he say?”

  “He wanted us to find the diaries, open the house, and send the wandering spirits on their way. Hannah, Sonny loved Billy, and he wouldn’t have asked me to bring my son into the house if it wasn’t safe.” He paused a minute and then asked, “What did Sonny say in your letter?”

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  Now Donovan understood why Sonny didn’t want Hannah in the house alone. He’d look at the crime from a cop’s point of view, Billy would have something to talk about at school, and Pop would shrug it off, but Hannah’s eyes were filled with naked fear.

  Pop bought take-out from the Chinese restaurant around the corner for dinner, and as soon as they finished eating, Hannah said, “I’m going back to work upstairs. The other diaries have to be up there somewhere.”

  Donovan followed her. He searched the empty dresser in Sonny’s room and checked the bottoms and backs of the drawers. He flipped the mattress and searched inside the box springs, and Hannah had already searched the closet. There were no other diaries in the room.

  The only bedroom that hadn’t been cleaned was the one on the other side of the hidden staircase, so Donovan sent Billy to bed and helped Hannah search that room. The mattress was shot, and when Donovan tried to flip it, his fingers went through the rotten fabric on the side.

  Hannah wrinkled her nose. “This thing has to go.”

  He carried it downstairs and out to the kitchen porch, where Hannah had piled the garbage bags she’d been filling. She carried out two more bags, and he tipped the old mattress against the wall beside them. He’d have to borrow a pickup to take all this junk to the dump.

  Cordelli sauntered up to the kitchen porch. He was a big man, dark and swarthy, with hooded eyes. He needed a shave and smelled like stale cigar, as usual. Donovan hated the sight and smell of the man. What in the hell was he doing here at this hour? Surely he didn’t expect to question Hannah now.

  “Miss Taylor, we’d like to look through the house tomorrow.”

  “Can you make it after lunch? I’m a late sleeper.”

  Cordelli nodded slightly. “I have some questions for you.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do, but I don’t know anything about that body, Detective. I didn’t even know about the hidden staircase.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Since October third.”

  “How long had your grandfather owned the house?”

  She glanced at Donovan and back to Cordelli. “The house has always been in the Taylor family, if that’s what you’re asking. My great-grandparents had it built in 1918, when my grandfather was a little boy. He lived here the rest of his life.”

  Donovan stepped between them. This wasn’t the time or the place for a police interrogation. It was cold outside, and he wasn’t about to invite Cordelli inside at this hour. It was after eleven. “That’s enough for now, Cordelli.”

  Cordelli scanned Hannah’s body. “I’ll be back in the morning. Goodnight.”

  After Cordelli drove away, Hannah hugged her arms. “What a creep.”

  Creep didn’t begin to touch it. The guy was the worst the department had to offer. He should have been fired years ago, but someo
ne from above had been protecting him. Family political connections had not only kept an incompetent man on the job, they’d promoted him to lead detective, a position equal to Donovan’s.

  Donovan and Hannah locked up and went back to work upstairs. There was no box spring under the mattress, so the bed came apart easily. Donovan carried the slats and rails up to the attic. There was no sense keeping any part of the bed in the room without a mattress. They didn’t need another bedroom anyway. If Hannah needed a guest room, she could use Sonny’s room, after the investigation ended.

  While Hannah searched the dresser, Donovan carried the tarnished brass headboard and footboard up to the attic and leaned them against the back wall. He was tired, but he couldn’t leave Hannah to do all this work by herself. And he knew she wasn’t going to go to sleep until she was finished in that room.

  Hannah threw things on the bed and Donovan stuffed them in trash bags. She stopped to read something. “What’s that, Hannah?”

  “Vital documents – birth certificates and death certificates on every member of the Taylor family, including me. Grandma kept my report cards, too, although the last one was from the sixth grade. That was the summer Dad died.”

  She’d not only lost her father that summer. Because of Monique, she’d lost her grandparents, too.

  The closet was tiny, and it was filled with old clothes that looked like they’d been here since the house was built. “Leave them here,” said Donovan. “Go to bed. Cordelli will be back in the morning, and we need to sleep before he comes.”

  Hannah closed the closet door. “You’re right. I’m too tired to do any more tonight.”

  At one o’clock in the morning, Hannah finally turned out her bedroom light. She’d left her door open and her nightlight on. There was one in the bathroom, too. For some reason, Hannah was afraid of the dark. And finding that body today had left them all feeling uneasy.

  He’d felt the cold in the basement, and so had the crew working down there. He’d also felt it in various places in the house. Sonny’s wandering spirits were keeping an eye on everything that happened.

  One of those spirits was undoubtedly the murder victim. How many others were in the house? Was Charlie still here? What about Sonny and Virginia?

  He hoped the killer wasn’t among them.

  <>

  Donovan walked up to the attic early the next morning looking for Hannah. He found her sitting on the floor surrounded by old dresses and petticoats and bloomers. She was examining a corset with steel stays. “I’ll bet these things were designed by men. I can’t picture a woman wanting to be strapped into one. Why would a woman wear this?”

  “The same reason women today wear spike heels and fake fingernails, I suppose. Find anything interesting?”

  “Junk, old clothes, raggedy linens, but no diaries.” She lifted her chin and sniffed. “Do I smell coffee?”

  He sipped from his mug as she pushed herself to her feet and walked toward him. He pulled the mug away, smiling. She was so sexy in the morning, soft and rumpled. “What’s the magic word?”

  “Please.” She wrapped both hands around his mug and took several swallows. There was something intimate about sharing a cup, something Maggie would never have done. Maggie would never have been seen like this, either. Hannah’s hair was a mess, she wore no makeup, and the baggy sweats she wore this morning were the same ones she’d slept in the other night. One foot was bare and the other wore a sock that was half off. No polish on her nails. To Maggie, that would have been like running around naked.

  He set the coffee on the old dresser and dipped his head to give her a gentle kiss. She wasn’t wearing a bra under that sweatshirt, and her nipples hardened, little buttons pushing against the fabric. He felt himself thicken and harden as he brushed his hand over the front of her sweatshirt. Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away.

  Billy called, “Dad, are you up there?” and the moment was over.

  “We’ll be right down, Billy.”

  “There’s some guy in the kitchen with Pop.”

  Hannah backed away and tripped over her sock. Donovan grabbed her to keep her from falling, and the look of longing in her eyes held him there. They weren’t kids by any means, yet he felt like a shy sixteen-year-old trying to steal a kiss from the prettiest girl in class before the teacher caught them.

  “You’re needed downstairs, Donovan. I’ll be down to fix breakfast after I clean up.”

  He handed her his coffee and walked downstairs.

  Hannah sank to the floor in the middle of the mess with the nearly empty coffee mug. Her lips still tingled from Donovan’s kiss, and the slight brush of his hand over her nipples sent a bolt of heat lightning through her body. It had been so long since a man had kissed her, and even longer since she’d felt any desire. Now she had to fight to keep it under control.

  She drained the mug and took a deep breath. It would be foolish to let this continue, foolish to get involved with a man who wanted her house. They were sharing the house, not a bed, and the man was still mourning his wife. Or was he? If he was still mourning, he wouldn’t have kissed her like that. Would he?

  The last time any man had kissed her was before her divorce, when Trevor was trying to talk her into giving him money for something he just couldn’t live without. She refused, and he slept on the sofa. That night she realized it didn’t matter where he slept, as long as it wasn’t in her bed, because she didn’t love him. The next morning she told him she wanted a divorce.

  Her marriage had been a three-year course in money management. The first lesson was not to marry a deadbeat, the second was not to let him use her credit cards, and the third was to cut him loose before he pulled her down with him. After three years of marriage to Trevor Ames, she was buried in debt, and since she was the only one with a job when they divorced, she got stuck with the bills. It took her another two years of working in a job she hated to pay them off. Trevor had a nearly new car, nice clothes, and all the expensive toys and electronics he’d bought with her money. She was left with nearly nothing, but she had the one thing that mattered. Her freedom.

  As she folded the old clothes and put them away, she wondered where Grandpa had stashed the other diaries. The locks on the two trunks in the corner of the attic were rusted. Nobody had opened them lately, so the diaries Grandpa told Mr. Clapp about couldn’t be in there.

  She had to find the diaries before the cops did, and she was running out of time. On the other hand, if she couldn’t find them, maybe Cordelli couldn’t find them either.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah pulled the stock certificates out of the kitchen drawer where she’d stashed them the day Donovan found them under the attic steps. “What am I going to do with these, Pop?”

  “Take them to Howard Bush and see if he can tell if they’re genuine.”

  “I doubt they are.”

  “You’ll never know if you keep them in the kitchen drawer.”

  She sighed. “I know.” She took the card Pop had given her for Howard Bush and punched the number into the kitchen phone. Minutes later, she had an appointment to see the investment counselor.

  Since she still didn’t have a car, Pop drove her downtown to Howard Bush’s office. She thought it was a waste of time, that the stock certificates had to be worthless after this long. “He’ll probably take one look and laugh.”

  Pop chuckled. “You might be surprised.”

  Minutes later, Hannah handed over the stock certificates. “We found these hidden in my grandparents’ home.”

  She waited to hear him tell her they were fakes, but Mr. Bush said, “These are in excellent condition for being so old.”

  “You mean they’re real?”

  “Yes, I believe they are. It’ll take me a few days to figure out what you have in today’s terms.”

  She shared a long look with Pop. “Maybe we’ll have enough money to replace a bathroom or two.” She’d reserve her excitement until after Mr. Bush did his research.
>
  On the way home, they stopped to buy groceries. The house was swarming with police and reporters when they returned. She and Pop fought off the reporters and brought in what they could carry in one trip, and Donovan carried in the rest.

  Hannah leaned back on the kitchen counter. “I hate this. Why won’t those reporters go away and leave us alone?”

  Donovan put two more grocery bags on the counter. “Because it’s news. This is one of the oldest houses in the city and a cop lived here for most of his life, a hero who was killed in the line of duty. And nobody knew about the body in the basement.”

  “They should have known,” said a deep voice behind Hannah.

  She whipped around to face Detective Constantine Cordelli. The creep that made her skin crawl. He said, “Anybody with any sense could see there was something walled off between those bedrooms upstairs.”

  Hannah felt the heat of anger building inside her. “Are you calling my father and grandparents stupid?” How dare this officer of the law stand in Grandma’s kitchen and say such a thing?

  He didn’t answer, and she came at him with a gallon of milk. “Get the hell out of my way.” She opened the refrigerator, slamming the door back into his chest.

  The silence in the kitchen was broken only by the men walking to and from the basement stairs. Donovan and Cordelli stood glaring at each other. There was enough testosterone in the room to choke on. Ignoring them was as impossible as not seeing a buffalo in the living room. It was big, it smelled bad, and it was about to poop all over the floor.

  Without a word, she opened the kitchen door and pointed, and the two men went outside. Hannah put the groceries away and started dinner, trying her best to ignore the two men arguing outside. Those reporters must be getting an earful, but Donovan and Cordelli seemed not to notice their presence.

  She was tired and irritated, and she didn’t like that detective staring at her breasts. Some of Monique’s men had looked at her that way, and the ones who’d dared to touch her were walking funny when they left. Monique always laughed it off, saying, “My sister doesn’t have the same taste in men that I do,” but Hannah despised being touched by men she barely knew and didn’t like. Cordelli’s eyes on her body made her feel dirty, like she needed a bath.