Treasure in Exile

by S. W. Hubbard

  Where were you, man?

  How come you missed the test?

  Prof. was asking where you were.

  You OK?

  Shock hits me like a dodge ball in the gut. Ty missed his exam? Totally didn’t even show up? Oh my God—what if he pulled an all-nighter, then slept right through the test? He’d normally use his phone as an alarm, but he didn’t have it. And he wasn’t home where his early-rising grandmother could wake him.

  Our whole study retreat concept has backfired, big time.

  This happened to Maura once when we were in college, and the professor was totally unsympathetic. She prostrated herself and begged to be allowed to make up the exam and he finally relented after she burst into tears.

  Well, I know that’s not happening with Ty. He’d never beg anyone for anything. Not even his life.

  Eventually, Ty will wake up and realize what’s happened. He’ll come back to work angry and ashamed. And in another hour, no doubt Marvin Griggs will show up here. A double-whammy of catastrophe.

  Oh God—I’d love to run away so I don’t have to be here for all this agony. But I can’t abandon Ty in his hour of need. I have to wait and offer comfort and help him with a strategy to solve this mess.

  The minutes tick on. Lunch comes and goes with no sign of either Ty or his dad.

  Could he still be sleeping? No way. Ty’s not a teenager. He’s used to being up and working during the day. Is he just too ashamed to come to the office? A hopeful thought hits me. Maybe Ty’s professor is nicer than Maura’s was. Maybe Ty went straight to Palmer Community, spoke to his professor, and is taking his exam right now.

  I return to work feeling more cheerful.

  But another hour passes and still no Ty.

  And no Marvin.

  That combination is what’s making me really uneasy. There’s no way Marvin simply gave up on finding Ty. They must be together.

  Damn that man! He made Ty miss his exam.

  A wave of fury washes over me and some of Grandma Betty’s choicest curses run through my mind.

  I call Charmaine using Ty’s phone.

  “Ty? Thank God! Where are you?”

  “It’s still me, Audrey. You haven’t heard from Ty?”

  “No. Shit!”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “I don’t know. After we left your office yesterday, I went to pick up Lo at daycare. Daddy never came back to my apartment. He wasn’t there this morning when I left for work. I don’t know who he’s with. He doesn’t have any friends left in Palmyrton.”

  That clinches it. They’re together, somewhere. But where?

  I think about the moment yesterday when Ty’s face lit up as he figured out where he would go. He had a “Eureka” kind of expression that wouldn’t come from staying at a friend’s house. And Ty hates asking anyone for a favor. Then I remember he called Grandma Betty from wherever he was to let her know he wouldn’t be home. I hate the idea of calling her and getting her worried, but there’s no way around it.

  Just as I’m steeling myself to make the call, Betty calls me. “Charmaine just called me looking for Ty. He hasn’t come into work yet? What’s going on?”

  “I’m trying to track him down. Can you check your phone and tell me the number he called you from yesterday?”

  “I already called that number. It just rings and rings. Don’t even roll over to voicemail or an answering machine.”

  “Read me the number.”

  I write down the ten numerals and stare at them. I have a better memory for numbers than faces, and I can often recognize a number I’ve seen just once before. It’s a quirk that creeps out my friends and family.

  973-555-1818

  Have I dialed that number? I pull out my phone and look at the pattern the numbers make: three corners, the center, then the fourth corner and lower middle. Interesting pattern. I don’t think I’ve dialed it.

  Five-five-five is a long-time Palmyrton exchange. My grandmother’s number began with five-five-five. Could Ty be hanging out with an old person? That would explain his claim that there were no distractions where he was going.

  And yet the number looks familiar. I’ve seen it. I close my eyes and try to conjure up the image. And I see old-fashioned black typeface. A dingy beige background.

  I leap up.

  “The Tate Mansion! This is the number printed on the dial of the big, black phone in the office of the Tate Mansion. Ty has the key. It’s the perfect place to study—absolutely no electronic distractions whatsoever.”

  Donna’s face contorts in horror. “Stay in that creepy house all alone all night long? Geez, it’s bad enough in the daytime.”

  “Yes, but Ty hates asking for favors. He could sleep there without inconveniencing anyone.”

  But if that’s where he went to study, why hasn’t he come back? Why did he miss his exam? Could this have something to do with Marvin? Does he know about the Tate Mansion? Could Charmaine have told him about it?

  I snatch up my car keys and head for the door. “I’m going over there. You hold down the fort here.”

  Donna scampers after me. “No! You can’t go there all alone. Call your husband.”

  I can just imagine that phone call. Honey, can you come help me find out why Ty missed his econ exam? “My husband is running a murder investigation. He can’t drop everything for me and my staff.”

  But even as I say that, I know Donna is right. It could be risky to go to the isolated Tate Mansion all alone when I don’t know what I’ll find. “Call Henry and ask him to meet me there,” I tell her.

  And while she’s busy dialing, I head out.

  I pull up the long driveway to the Tate Mansion. My heart sinks as I see no sign of Ty’s car. Was I totally wrong, or did I just miss him? I’ve come this far—I may as well go in.

  I let myself in the back door and experience the unvarying sensation of tumbling into a time machine. I expect a woman with permed hair wearing a shirtwaist dress to be pulling a pan of biscuits from the oven while Bing Crosby plays on the radio.

  But mixed with the musty smell of 1940’s nostalgia is something different. Something distinctly modern. Something...fried.

  I glance into the trashcan and pull out a crumpled white bag with a familiar red and yellow bird. CluckU Chicken—Ty’s favorite. The take-out that I, Jill, Adrienne, and now Donna consistently vote against. He was here last night.

  There are no crumbs on the table. Just like Ty to clean up after himself even if he was technically trespassing. So we must’ve crossed paths. I call Donna to report my success, but she says Ty still hasn’t shown up.

  “Henry says he’s coming over to the mansion. He should be there any minute. You wait for him outside, you hear me?”

  “Will do,” I say, but even as I’m reassuring her, my eye falls on a white rectangle lying on the floor of the hallway leading to the sitting room where Maybelle and Vareena spent their time.

  I pick it up. Gross National Product in Ty’s scrawl. I turn it over: “the total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year.”

  Ty left one of his study cards here. I put it in my pocket and stick my head into the sitting room. The lamp on the table between the two chairs is still lit, shining down on the rest of the study cards. Ty’s thick econ textbook lies upside down and half-open on the floor, as if it tumbled off his lap.

  An unsettling worm of worry crawls through my gut. I remember Ty complaining about how much that book cost him. He would never leave it here like that.

  Right above my head, I hear a noise.

  Did I imagine it because I want to find Ty walking around upstairs?

  But it wasn’t the sound of footsteps. Just a faint rustle.

  Mice?

  “Ty?” I call. My voice sounds croaky and weak in this echoing hulk of a house. I summon some power. “Ty!”

  With the second shout, I clearly hear the noise again. When I look up, the dangling ceiling light fixture is swaying slightly.
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br />   That’s not mice. Ty is definitely upstairs.

  Or someone is.

  If it’s Ty, why doesn’t he answer me?

  I venture into the foyer and stand at the foot of the big, turning staircase. “Ty? Are you up there?” I shout into the dim gallery above me.

  Nothing. Just the slow, steady tick of the grandfather clock.

  Who’s on the second floor? Why is Ty’s stuff here, but not his car? I don’t like this. Not one bit.

  I hear a car door slam and my heart kicks into overdrive.

  Heavy footsteps tromp through the kitchen.

  “Audrey? Where are you?”

  Henry! I’d forgotten he was coming. I run toward his voice and we nearly collide in the back hall. I’ve never been so glad to see his grouchy, reliable face.

  Quickly, I fill him in, ending with, “I hear someone upstairs, but whoever it is won’t answer me.”

  His elevated eyebrows carve deeper grooves into his dark forehead. He doesn’t have to speak for me to know he thinks I’m a hysterical woman with nothing better to do than disrupt his hard work. He pushes past me. “Well, come on, girl. Let’s see what this nonsense is about. Ain’t got all day.”

  Together we climb the stairs. Hearing his heavy breathing, I’m acutely aware that Henry is over sixty years old and not particularly large. Still, his presence makes me bolder.

  We start with the rooms that face the back of the house, opening each door and calling for Ty. Checking each closet, even opening the two big armoires. Each room is empty, looking just as we left it prepped for the sale. Then we search the rooms on the other side of the hallway.

  Nothing.

  We trudge up to the third floor, to the tiny, empty rooms once used by the servants.

  Still empty.

  Where could he be?

  “Quiet as a graveyard in here.” Henry starts down the stairs. “You imagining things. Ty was here, but now he’s gone. The man can handle himself. Why you actin’ like he’s a lost chile?”

  Something is wrong. I feel it in my gut. But I’m not about to tell Henry I’m having a premonition. “Come down to Vareena’s sitting room with me. That’s where I heard the sound. I even saw the ceiling light move.”

  Henry pauses on the landing and turns to face me with his hands on his hips. “I thought you told that helper girl of yours not to talk about this place bein’ haunted. Now you tellin’ me you believe in ghosts.”

  I slip around him and hurry down the last flight of stairs. Of course the house isn’t haunted! The sound I heard was real and caused by a living being. Henry needs to hear it himself.

  We stand in the sparsely furnished sitting room. The only sound is the faint chirp of a bird outside the window. “Ty!” I shout.

  Immediately, the rustling sound begins above our heads. I nudge Henry. He hears it too. “Ty, where are you?”

  The rustle turns into a scrape and again the light fixture sways.

  Henry pushes back his cap and scratches his head. “He’s right above us. Which bedroom is above this room?”

  “It should be Maybelle’s. Her bedroom faces the backyard, just like this room does.”

  “We checked her room. We opened the closet and everything.” He heads for the door. “Let’s go outside.”

  I trail after him, not sure of his purpose. But at least now he believes I’m not crazy.

  In the backyard, we stand side-by-side gazing at the rear of the Tate mansion.

  Henry points. “Look how them windows is lined up.”

  The kitchen addition juts out of the back right side of the house. Beside it is the window to the little sitting room. Above that window is a blank spot on the second floor where an original window, partially covered over by the peaked roof of the one-story kitchen addition, was filled in with stone that doesn’t quite match the original. That’s what the librarian was complaining about when he said the addition ruined the lines of the house. After that blank space, the windows are lined up evenly, a mirror image of the left side of the house.

  “You think when they built the kitchen...”

  Henry jogs back toward the door. “There’s some extra space where that window used to be.”

  Henry and I thunder up the stairs and burst into Maybelle’s room. “Ty! How do we get to where you are? Make a noise.”

  We stand stock still, the only sound our ragged breaths. But we can’t detect the rustling sound we heard below.

  Henry begins tapping on the wall closest to the center of the house. “It has to be behind here.” Like all the walls in the house, the bottom half is covered in walnut wainscoting. The upper half is wallpapered in a busy print of vertical lattices covered in twining green ivy.

  “You know, the wallpaper in this room looks a little less faded than in the other bedrooms. They had to re-wallpaper up here after they finished the kitchen.”

  Henry runs his hands along the wallpaper. “There could be a seam that the pattern hides.”

  In the corner formed by the outside wall and the middle-facing interior wall-there is a built-in, triangular shelf that holds a vase full of dusty dried flowers. I examine the way the shelf is fitted to the wall, then run my fingers along the underside. The wood is smooth and glossy until my finger encounters a divot on the right side. I fit my finger into it. Henry staggers forward as the wall he is tapping turns smoothly inward.

  Chapter 31

  I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING in the dim interior, but I can smell.

  Musty age overlaid with the pungent scent of fresh sweat and coppery blood.

  A low wattage bulb dangling from the ceiling reveals Ty crouched in a corner. A trickle of dried blood cakes his forehead. His eyes bulge in fear before he raises his forearm to protect them from the glare of Henry’s flashlight.

  “Good Lord, what happened to you?” Henry heads into the room ahead of me.

  “Water,” Ty coughs.

  I sprint across the hall to get it for him. By the time I return, he has left his prison and sits on the edge of Maybelle’s bed. His head hangs and his whole body shakes.

  “Oh, Ty!” I fling my arms around him and pull him close. He doesn’t resist. He drinks the water greedily, his eyes squinting against the bright daylight.

  Gradually, the tremors subside. I realize that I’ve seen Ty angry, and shocked, and worried, but I’ve never seen him terrified.

  “What day is it?” His voice is raw.

  “Thursday. Two-thirty.”

  He massages his temples. “I thought I was in there a lot longer. It felt like days. I thought no one would come until the sale. I didn’t think I could last that long.”

  “Audrey knew somethin’ was wrong and she came lookin’ for you.” Henry stands a few feet away, letting me take the lead in comforting Ty. “What happened to you? How did you get stuck in there?”

  Ty finally lifts his head and looks around, getting a grip on where he is and how he got there.

  “Take your time.” I examine the top of his head. “Where is that blood coming from? Did someone hit you?”

  Ty rubs the crown of his head. “Yeah. I blacked out for a while.”

  “My God—you must have a concussion. We should get you right to the hospital.”

  Ty waves me off. “No hospital. I’m okay now.”

  Henry has gone back into the secret room and returned to the bedroom. “What’d he hit you with? I don’t see anything.”

  “I don’t know. I was studying downstairs and I must’ve dozed off in the chair. A noise woke me up, and I could hear someone walking around upstairs, not even trying to be quiet. So I headed up—”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  Ty scowls at me. “How was I goin’ to explain to them what I was doin’ here?”

  “Well, you should have just slipped out the back door and called anonymously. It’s not on you to protect this place from burglars.”

  “You had my phone, remember? If I called from the landline, whoever was here might’ve heard me
.”

  “Let the boy talk,” Henry scolds. “You wanna hear what happened or not?”

  That’s normally the kind of response I’d get from Ty, and it worries me that he still seems too rattled to defend himself. “Go on. Just tell us what happened.”

  “So I started upstairs. I wasn’t even nervous. Somehow in my head, I expected it to be that Crawford dude.”

  “Crawford Bostwick? Why?”

  “Everyone knows the house is empty. Crawford heard us talking about what the house was like. And he needs a place to live, right? He wanted to crash at Miz Armentrout’s house.”

  “But—”

  Henry glares at me and I stop questioning Ty’s judgment. After all, I’ve made some questionable choices that have landed me in hot water in the past.

  “So I went up the stairs real quiet, and the person was banging around like he was looking for something. The light was on in Maybelle’s room. So I just peaked around the edge of the door and right away saw how that wall opened up. So that blew me away, ‘cause I worked on this room and never had an idea that door was there. I guess I got kinda excited to check it out, and I musta made some noise.”

  Ty gingerly touches the top of his head. “When I got close to the opening, this arm shot out and—wham!—slammed me over the head with something. Knocked me right out.”

  Ty swallows hard and takes a couple of deep breaths. His dark skin takes on a grayish cast.

  “Do you feel sick?”

  Henry grabs a little wastepaper can and offers it to Ty. He holds it in front of himself for a moment, gulping until the wave of nausea passes.

  “I’m a’ight. I’ve never been unconscious before. I came to and I was locked in the room. I tried and tried to figure out how to open the wall from the other side, but I couldn’t. I got kinda crazy—” His upper lip trembles and he can’t continue.

  Now I feel sick. What could be worse than being accidentally locked up when prison was the worst experience of your life? A shiver passes through me.

  What if we had never found him at all?

  Ty sits silently for a long while. I reach for his hand. He holds mine tightly and doesn’t let go.