“I can see why it would appeal to kids,” I commented. However, I had no clue about how it could be tied to Cassandra’s murder.
I paid for the book, then said, “Would you mind if I sat here and read it?”
“Of course not!” Bonnie replied. “Just be careful not to trip over our resident pets. That’s Virginia Woof,” she said, gesturing toward the retriever. “Or Ginny, as we call her. And the cats are Dot and Dash, after Dorothy L. Sayers and Dashiell Hammett. Needless to say, only pets with literary names are allowed in a bookstore!”
I laughed. “No problem. I’ve been told I have a way with animals.”
I sat down in the first suitable place I found, a comfortable upholstered chair that reminded me of Papa Bear’s chair. My mouth was dry as I turned to the first page and began to read.
I turned page after page, glancing at the pictures and reading the simple but important story of a red rabbit who finally made his way home by getting advice from all kinds of other animals. At the end of the book, he invited them all over to his house for tea and cookies.
Yet as I read the last page and closed the book, a feeling of disappointment swept over me. While I’d been afraid that I’d be on a wild-goose chase, either not finding the book or learning that it had never even existed in the first place, I now realized there was one more possible outcome I’d neglected to consider. And that was the possibility that I’d find the book, read it, and not know any more about what Cassandra was trying to tell us than I did before.
I let out a loud sigh, causing Virginia Woof to glance up at me. She sighed in return.
If this book really is a clue about the murder, I thought, distractedly petting her head, I have to dig a little deeper. I have to figure out exactly what it meant to Cassandra.
That meant talking to someone who’d known her as a little girl. The good news was that the one person I had in mind also happened to be the only person in her life I felt I could trust.
As I bumped along the Thorndikes’ driveway, I noticed that, as usual, the place seemed oddly quiet. While there were cars parked on the property, there were no actual signs of life. The silence gave me an eerie feeling. Then again, I had to admit that these days I creeped out pretty easily.
I pulled up along the side of the house and got out. As I walked toward the back door, I noticed it was open.
Peering through the screen door, I could see the back of someone’s arm and shoulder.
“Mr. Thorndike?” I called, knocking on the wooden frame. “It’s Jessie Popper.”
“Jessie?” I heard Joan Thorndike say. I thought I heard a note of alarm in her voice but decided she was just surprised by my unexpected visit. “Dr. Popper! What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Gordon.”
“Come in, Jessie,” she said.
As I entered, she glanced up at me from the kitchen table and smiled. But I noticed she looked flustered. Quickly, she gathered up the haphazard array of papers spread across the table, putting them into a pile. Then she stretched her arm across them, as if she was trying to cover them up. She did a good job, too, since I couldn’t see anything aside from the fact that the pages in front of her were legal-size. “I wasn’t expecting anybody.”
“Sorry to bother you.” I craned my neck, trying to get a better look at what she was attempting to hide. No such luck. From what I could tell, the white pages could have been a legal document—or a long, chatty letter or even a bunch of recipes. “Is Gordon home? It’s really important that I speak to him.”
“He’s at the winery,” she told me.
“Thanks.” I hesitated. “Joan, is everything all right?”
“Of course,” she answered quickly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You seem a little distracted, that’s all.”
“It’s been a difficult couple of weeks,” she said. This time, the sad smile she offered up seemed sincere.
As I left the house and got back into my van, I wondered if I’d simply imagined that she was trying to conceal the papers on the kitchen table from me. After all, she wasn’t exactly exaggerating about this being a tough couple of weeks for her and her husband.
Besides, the only person who’d cast any suspicion whatsoever on Joan was Ethan. And I didn’t exactly consider him the last word in trustworthiness.
That dummy of his either.
As I made the turn into Thorndike Vineyards, the sun was low in the sky and the chill of autumn electrified the air. Usually, I love that feeling of crispness. This evening, however, I found myself wishing I’d brought along something warmer than my polyester fleece jacket.
There were only one or two cars in the parking lot. I pulled my van into a space near the main building, then checked my watch as I hurried to the front door. It was 5:30.
My heart sank as I glanced at the sign posted next to the door. HOURS: Monday through Friday, 10:00 to 5:00.
I tried the door anyway—and was relieved when it opened.
“Hello?” I called as I walked into the cool, somber building. Just like at the house, there were no signs of life. At least, not that I could see. But somebody had to be around, I figured, or else the door would have been locked.
I wandered through the gift shop and back toward the offices. As I slid past the Employees Only sign, I saw Cassandra Thorndike staring down at me from her life-size portrait. For a fraction of a second, I got the feeling she was trying to communicate something to me. But paintings were like animals. They never came right out and told you the things you needed to know.
“Hello?” I called. “Mr. Thorndike? Gordon? Anybody here?” As I made my way along the short hallway, I tried all the doors, rattling their knobs but finding every single one locked.
Finally, at the end, I found one last door. It was different from the others. There was no plaque hanging on it, for one thing, to identify the person whose office it was.
But what made it even more distinctive was that it was made of heavy, rough-hewn wood, rather than the same sleek, polished veneer as all the others. Thinking, What the heck, I tried that one too.
Surprisingly, this time the knob turned. In keeping with the same what-the-heck mentality, I pushed the door open. Even though the light was dim, I could see a long flight of stone stairs that appeared to lead down to the basement.
“Hello?” I called. “Anybody here?”
For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence. Then, from somewhere behind me, I heard a footstep.
I was about to turn when I felt a forceful shove against my back.
I let out a yelp, but it was too late. Before I could grab on to the rickety wooden railing, I plummeted forward, watching in horror as the stone steps grew closer and crying out again as my head slammed against something hard.
Chapter 17
“The cat has complete emotional honesty—an attribute not often found in humans.”
—Ernest Hemingway
Uh-h-h...” I let out a dull groan as I dragged myself to a sitting position on the cold stone floor. My head was spinning, not only from the fall but from the collision it had had with the wooden handrail that had specifically been put there to keep people from tumbling down the stairs. But I forced myself to take a quick physical inventory to figure out which body parts actually hurt.
My butt, for one thing. My ribs and the side of my left thigh too, which had borne the brunt of my slide down the sharp edges of the stone steps. My left cheek stung, telling me that one of those rough edges had sliced through the skin. Still, nothing seemed to be broken.
I stood up slowly, bracing myself against the craggy stone wall and blinking hard as I tried to adjust to the dim light.
Where am I? I wondered.
The hundreds of bottles of wine lining the wall gave me my answer.
Okay, I’m in the Thorndike Vineyards’ wine cellar, I thought, feeling moderately encouraged. In fact, some people would consider this a dream come true.
But not me. Especially give
n the way I’d gotten there. I only hoped I wouldn’t have too much trouble getting out.
I glanced up the staircase I’d just wrestled with and saw that the heavy wooden door was shut tight. Probably locked, I figured grimly, certain that whoever had pushed me down all those steps had made sure of that.
Still, I climbed back up, just to check. I moved as silently as I could, not wanting to give anyone who might be poised on the other side of the door any information about my activities—or my condition.
Gently I laid my hand on the knob, grasping it tightly in my fingers. I tried to turn it.
It didn’t move.
Just as I thought, I reflected, swallowing hard. I’m locked in.
I crept back down the stairs, wondering if my attacker was standing on the other side, listening.
Now what? I thought, trying to remain calm. Rather than focusing on being locked in, I tried to concentrate on the fact that the place in which I was being held prisoner wasn’t exactly terrible.
Still, I figured that finding a good hiding place was probably a wise move. I wandered through the cool, dimly lit maze of rooms. From what I could see, they’d been constructed with no obvious plan. Some opened into other rooms, while some of them were dead ends. Most of them had no windows—and the few I spotted were very high up, with very thick glass.
My chances of escape were looking slim.
It could be days before anyone comes down here, I thought woefully. I immediately reminded myself that October was the busiest time of year at the wineries, and that tomorrow was Saturday. The usual hordes of tourists would undoubtedly come pouring into this part of the island and into Thorndike Vineyards. Surely somebody would come down soon to look for a particular bottle of wine or to restock the gift-shop shelves.
At the moment, however, there were no creaking floors or footsteps from the level above. The gift shop and the tasting room were closed, and the tours were done for the day. I figured I shouldn’t expect anyone to come down until the following morning.
Except, perhaps, the person who’d locked me in here in the first place.
That thought not only quickened my heartbeat; it sharpened my senses. I noticed how cool it was down here and was glad I’d brought along my jacket.
I also noticed I was getting hungry.
Great, just great, I thought. I’d probably be spending the night down here. Maybe even longer, depending on how long it took before somebody came down here looking for a few bottles of 1985 merlot—or a nosy veterinarian who’d mysteriously vanished.
I couldn’t even help myself to a relaxing glass of wine. While I was surrounded by hundreds of bottles of the stuff, I didn’t have a corkscrew.
Water, water, everywhere, I thought wryly.
I didn’t really mind. Keeping a clear head seemed like a good idea, since somebody was obviously upset enough with me and my investigation of Cassandra’s murder that he or she saw fit to push me down an entire flight of hard, stone stairs and lock me in a wine cellar for who knew how long.
What I did mind was knowing that, right upstairs, countless boxes of crisp crackers and hunks of weird-smelling cheese lay in wait. Just then, my stomach let out a loud grumble.
“Quiet, you,” I muttered.
Telling myself that resisting the body’s cravings built character, I continued wandering. I was actually finding it kind of interesting, seeing what a real live wine cellar looked like.
Until I heard a loud crash.
I froze. It sounded like glass smashing against something hard, like brick or stone.
But it wasn’t the fact that something had broken that bothered me. It was the realization that I wasn’t alone.
My heart pounded so loudly I was afraid whoever was down here with me could hear it. So much for keeping my whereabouts concealed. I crept along the wall, glad, for the first time, that the cellar was dark—and getting darker by the moment as the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky, by this point casting only minimal light through the few high windows.
When I reached a doorway, I hesitated, trying to figure out a way to get across it without being seen. Impossible, I knew. I was just going to have to take a chance that whoever it was would be looking away. Either that, or stay where I was. That option was sounding better and better. True, I was in full view—but only if the person down here with me in this labyrinth of rooms happened to wander into my little corner of the basement.
I jumped when I heard another crash. By now, the urge to look was irresistible. I moved my head—just a little—so that I could peer through the doorway, into the room to the right, with my right eye...
“It’s you!” I cried aloud. And nearly burst out laughing with relief.
The mysterious stranger who was stalking me—and had accidentally given away her presence by breaking a couple of bottles of wine—was standing just a few feet away, staring at me with unblinking eyes. Next to her was a puddle of wine, pooling around jagged-edged shards of broken glass.
I hoped she hadn’t cut her paws.
“Come here, Coco,” I said gently. “Hey, remember me? I’m the one who took care of that nasty bladder infection.”
She came over and rubbed against my leg, purring as if she were as grateful as I was to find out that the other being who was stuck down here was a friend.
Then I realized something important: She wasn’t stuck down here. Coco hadn’t been pushed down the stairs, the way I had. Which meant she’d either come down here earlier, while the door was open—or there was another way of getting in and out.
“How did you get in here?” I asked, scooping her up and looking into her eyes. She just blinked, proving to be no more helpful than Cassandra’s portrait. Okay, so animals can’t talk. But at least they could answer direct questions some other way, like pointing to a picture with a paw or mewing or barking when they heard the correct answer.
I knew she wasn’t about to tell me anything. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t show me.
“Let’s get out of here, Coco,” I told her. “Show me the way. Please!”
She looked at me with her intense green eyes, then turned abruptly. Something told me that, somehow, she’d understood.
Sure enough, she led me through that room and into the next, then over to a small window I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t exactly large, but at least it was bigger than the others. It was hinged on the bottom and opened inward. At the moment, it was open a few inches, just enough for a cat to slink through.
But not a person. At least, not unless that person took something hard and used it to smash the glass.
I glanced around anxiously, desperately hoping to find a hammer or a piece of metal. No luck. In fact, pretty much all I could see was wine.
I grabbed one of the bottles, hoping it wasn’t one of those rare, extremely valuable wines that people spend thousands of dollars on.
Sorry, Gordon, I thought. I never meant to damage your property. But I’ll reimburse you for the window. Besides, I think we’ll both agree that it’s a small price to pay for me getting out of here and fingering your daughter’s killer.
I wrapped up my right hand with my fleece jacket, covered my face with my left arm, and smashed the window.
I let out a yelp of victory when I saw I’d created a hole big enough for me to crawl through. I knew I’d have to expect a few cuts and scrapes from the jagged edges that remained inside the frame, either to my skin or my clothes. At the moment, that didn’t seem to matter very much.
I climbed up the wooden shelves that housed the wine, hoping I wouldn’t end up pulling an entire wall of bottles down. Fortunately, they turned out to be stronger than they looked. I stuck my head through the broken window and wriggled through. Much to my surprise, Coco was waiting for me outside.
“Thanks, pussycat,” I told her. “I owe you.”
I planned to make it up to her too. There were definitely some chicken livers in this feline’s future.
At the moment, however, I had
more important things to do—like find Gordon and ask him about the meaning of the Red Rabbit book in his daughter’s life.
And I had to get to him quickly. Since the very beginning of this wrenching ordeal, the clock had been ticking. Now, it seemed to be doing double-time.
I found Gordon Thorndike in the building out back, the one that contained the temperature-controlled “tax room” I’d learned about during my winery tour. He was in a small storage room right behind it. Just like last time, he was surrounded by cardboard cartons. Only instead of moving them around, he was sealing them up with packing tape.
“Mr. Thorndike?” I said softly, not wanting to startle him.
He only glanced up for a moment. “Dr. Popper,” he said, immediately going back to what he was doing.
“I don’t want to bother you, but this is important.” I swallowed hard, thinking, Important enough for somebody to lock me in a dungeon as a warning.
Trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact, I asked, “This might sound like a strange question, but do you have any idea what the book Red Rabbit Comes Home might have meant to Cassie?”
He glanced up again, looking at me blankly. At first, I assumed that was a bad sign. But then his face softened into a smile.
“Of course. That was one of Cassie’s favorite books back when she was a little girl. I used to read it to her all the time. I’d be trying to get her to go to sleep, but she’d insist that I read it again....” His voice trailed off and he shook his head sadly. “Even then, that girl wasn’t about to take no for an answer. If she wanted something, she’d just storm ahead, doing whatever it took to get it.”
“But what about as an adult?” I asked, careful not to let my impatience show. “Did that book have any significance to her lately?”
He seemed surprised by my question. But this time his expression told me it was because I didn’t already know the answer.
“That’s the name she picked,” he said with a little shrug.
“Picked...for what?” I asked.
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