Top O' the Mournin' (20 page)

“Don’t drop them. It could be wet down there.” I gave up the matches reluctantly, turned on my Maglite, and with an intrepid gulp, stepped down onto the first riser.

The damp coolness raised gooseflesh on my skin. The smell of mold, mildew, and stagnant water cloyed my nostrils. I shone the light before me to guide the way downward, and after descending more than a dozen ancient stairs that angled beyond the ring of light from the hall, I reached the floor of the dungeon, immersed in the kind of blackness that felt alive and crawling. Somewhere in the darkness I could hear the soft sounds of water trickling and plinking.

“This is so gross,” said Jackie beside me. “My pedicure’s getting shot to hell. What are we looking for?”

“I’m not sure yet.” I panned the light across the floor. The hard-packed earth was worn smooth, dipping and rising in places where ancient feet had strode. Small piles of avalanched rock were scattered about like cemetery stones, waiting to stub the toes of the unwary. Shallow pools of water lay like open wounds along the way, crusted with scum that gleamed slimy and yellow in the light. The walls were constructed of rough-edged stones cemented together with mortar, but water seeping in from the outside had caused the mortar to erode and dozens of stones to fall away, leaving the walls looking like a mouth full of crumbling teeth.

Pssssst. Pssssst.

I shone the light on Jackie. “What are you doing?”

“Spraying your air freshener. It stinks down here.”

“Cut it out! You’ll use it all up.”

“Not my fault. You should have bought the large economy size. Hey”—she sniffed the air—“this stuff isn’t bad.”

“Well, stop wasting it.”

I inched my way forward and directed my Maglite at a small barred window cut into a door whose hinges were dark with rust. Cobwebs hung from the corners like bridal netting and formed a gauzy tapestry over the window, making it impossible to see into the chamber beyond.

“Bet this is one door that hasn’t been opened in a while,” said Jackie.

“Can you get rid of the spiderwebs?” I asked.

She stepped in front of me.
PSSSSSSSSST!
She stepped back and squinted at the impenetrable mesh that still crosshatched the window. “Looks like air freshener doesn’t work on cobwebs. You think Eloise would consider that a helpful household hint?”

“You could use your hands.”

“Oh, sure. Like
that’s
gonna happen.”

We forged ahead into the blackness, me in the lead, Jackie following close behind. A multitude of doors studded both sides of the passageway, each one pockmarked and grimy and looking as if it hadn’t been opened for centuries. “How far do you think this thing goes?” asked Jackie. “You think there’s a torture chamber behind one of these doors? Remember that old Vincent Price movie,
The Pit and the Pendulum?
He had some pretty cool instruments of torture in—”

Blackness enveloped us.

I stopped dead in my tracks and slapped my Maglite against my palm. “Shoot!”

Pssssst!
went Jackie’s trigger finger.

“Not you!” I yelled, choking on the cloud of strawberry spray that surrounded my head. I waved my hands in front of my face, gasping when my flashlight escaped my grip and went flying into the air. It smashed into the stone wall with a kind of tinny sound and thunked onto the ground.

“What was that?” wailed Jackie.

“Don’t ask. You still have those matches?”

After a few moments I heard a sharp
phttttt
and saw Jackie hold up a solitary match that blazed eerily bright in the blackness. I searched the ground at my feet. “Do you see anything that resembles a flashlight?”

“Maybe it’s up ahead of you,” she said, cursing when the flame burned out.

I inched my way forward in the dark.
Phtttt!
Jackie struck another match. I hunkered down on my haunches, my eyes roving the shadows, and in a pocket of darkness close to the wall, I spied an object that was shaped like my Maglite. “I see something.”

The light faded to blackness again.

“It’s over this way,” I said, scuttling in the direction of the object. “Right about here.”

Phtttt!
Jackie held another match up and tiptoed toward me, hunkering down and angling the light above the place I indicated. I hunkered beside her, ready to snap up my flashlight, until I saw what I was about to grab. “Ooh!” I snatched my hand back. “A mouse.”

Jackie cocked her head, observing the dead rodent from another viewpoint. “It does kinda look like a flashlight though. Must be the rigor mortis.” She hoisted herself to her feet. “Okay, I say we forget the Maglite and blow this joint before we run out of matches. There’s nothing down here except puddles and cob—Ouch!” Blackness blanketed us once again as the match burned out. “That hurts,” she spat. I heard soft, slurpy sounds as she sucked her fingertips.

She was probably right. Even if there
was
something suspicious down here, we’d never find it without a flashlight. I stood up, discouraged, but secretly happy not to have to spend another minute in this place. “Did you burn your fingers very badly?” I asked.

“I’ll live.”

“You want me to take over the matches?”

She groped for my hand in the darkness and slapped the matchbook into my palm. “Be my guest.”

I fingered the matchbook, flipped open the cover, ripped off a solitary match, and struck it against the friction strip on the back.
Phtttt!
I pivoted in a slow half-circle to get my bearings, then nodded hesitantly to my left. “That’s the way we go back, isn’t it?” Where was George Farkas when you needed him?

Jackie seized my arm, her voice a high vibrato, her eyes riveted on something behind me. “Emily? You’d better turn around.”

Alarmed, I spun around to face another dungeon door, but this one was vastly different from the others along the passageway. There was no barred window, no cobwebs, no scarred wood, no rusty hinges. Forget
The Pit and the Pendulum.
This puppy was classic Home Depot, with an added charge for the arch. “This is our door,” I said in excitement. “It has to be.” I tried the knob.

Locked.

The backplate for the knob was designed with an old-fashioned keyhole. “How are you with keyholes?” I asked Jackie, flicking the match to the ground before it burned my fingers.

“Not my speciality.”

I lit another. “I’ll buy a new flashlight tomorrow. And maybe we can find a hardware store that sells skeleton keys.”

“This stuff is weirding me out, Emily. Can we leave now?”

I lowered my eyes to the ground to see where I was stepping, and it was then I saw the footprints—footprints tracked onto the dirt floor in an intricate pattern of slashes and dots. Footprints that were still dark with wetness. They trailed off in a direction that led deeper into the dungeon, but they originated from behind me. From the door with the new hinges and the old-fashioned keyhole.
“Uff da,”
I said. “Look at this.”

Jackie followed my gaze. “Is it the ghost? Do you think those belong to the guy they found floating in the moat?”

I scratched my nose, catching a whiff of something that teased my senses with familiarity. “It’s not a ghost,” I said with sudden awareness. Despite the potent fetor of must, mildew, and damp earth that hung in the air, no smell could mask the overpowering reek of Michael Malooley’s cologne.

I stared at Nana’s hair, trying not to look as horrified as I felt. “New hairdo,” I said, nonplussed. Her cap of tidy white fingerwaves was sticking straight out in mutilated tufts all over her head, like cottonballs that had been attacked by dull lawn shears and finished off by a pack of wild dogs. I’d been on the receiving end of a few bad haircuts, but this haircut wasn’t bad. It was criminal.

“It’s the latest in Hollywood ultrachic,” said Nana, primping like a schoolgirl. “I think it makes me look twenty years younger. Don’t you love it?”

“Love it,” I repeated numbly. I was in no hurry to witness my mother’s reaction when my grandmother returned home looking like a French poodle.

“It’s called a choppy cut,” Nana continued. “That nice Tom Thum person has some a his stylin’ equipment along and gave a few of us makeovers last night after the power went out and they shut down the entertainment.”

I guess that explained the ragged clumps and bald spots. He’d cut her hair in the dark. I gave her head a quick once-over to make sure her ears were still attached. “Funny he could see anything with the lights out,” I commented.

“On the contrary,” said Tilly, “we weren’t lacking for light. We gathered all the candles from our collective rooms and used those for illumination. It was very New Age. Tonsorial artistry by candlelight.”

He’d actually been able to
see
what he was doing? I wondered if you could sue a hair designer for malpractice. And to think Jackie suggested I consult him about my problem hair. Huh! I’d rather have problem hair than no hair at all.

“Tom and his bride had a little spat last night,” Nana said under her breath, “so he didn’t have nothin’ better to do. You should a seen him work, Emily. He’d stretch out a hunk a hair and whack it off with his razor so quick, it made you wonder if he knew what he was doin’, but I shouldn’t a fretted. That young man has vision. If his wife is still mad at him tonight, he says he’ll have time to add color.”

Eh!
That settled it. I didn’t care how good Jackie was at picking locks. She was going to spend this evening with her husband. I hadn’t reached the age of twenty-nine without learning a few lessons in life, the most basic of which was: It’s a lot more desirable to live with a malevolent ghost than a bad dye job.

“I don’t want to be a bother, dear, but did you happen to notice if I left my bathrobe in your room?” Nana asked. “I thought I packed it in my grip with the rest a my stuff, but I can’t seem to find it.”

“I don’t remember seeing it, but I’ll double-check for you.” Nana’s age must be catching up to her. It wasn’t like her to misplace anything.

I said my good-byes to Nana and Tilly, and proceeded into the dining room, standing on the periphery for a moment to scope out the diners. Jackie had headed back to her room about an hour ago, but I saw neither her nor Tom at any of the tables. I hoped their absence meant they were taking the time to iron out their differences. Michael Malooley was seated by himself at a table in the far corner, reading a paper. Shocking he was up so early after his covert operation last night. He had to be tired. I sure was. I was surprised he wasn’t sitting with Ethel Minch, or maybe that would have been too obvious. They probably needed to keep their distance from each other to disguise the fact that they were in cahoots. I was sure the two of them were a team. Ethel Minch was the brains of the outfit, and Michael Malooley was her henchman. But how had they connected up with each other? What kind of sickos got a thrill out of scaring people to death? And what exactly did they think was in store for them, other than a lengthy jail sentence? I had a lot of questions that needed answering.

Putting a bead on an unoccupied seat, I wove my way through the maze of tables in the dining room, greeting members of the Iowa contingent as I passed. “Top o’ the morning,” I said, noting the plates everyone had heaped with fried eggs, scrambled eggs, omelettes, bacon, sausage, and potatoes. I didn’t know about the rest of the country, but from the size of some of the girths around here, Iowans were definitely winning the war on bulimia.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked the Minches and Kuppelmans when I reached their table.

“Glad to have you, doll,” said Ernie Minch.

I seated myself next to Ethel and surveyed the bowls of cold cereal sitting in front of everyone. Ethel, Ernie, and Gladys were taking their cereal with water. Ira was eating his dry, which looked only a little less appealing than eating a cardboard box. “How did everyone sleep last night?” I asked cheerfully.

Ira and Gladys exchanged glances. I think they were trying to smile at each other, but their expressions never quite made it. “Like logs,” said Ira. “We always sleep like logs. It’s the result of having proper nutritional equilibrium in our diets.”

“I heard some weird sounds next door,” said Ernie. “I think it was the honeymooners. Remember when we used to boink like that every night, Ethel?”

“That was the pre-Viagra era,” Ethel commiserated. “Sex is a lot more expensive these days. If you’re on a fixed income, who can afford it?”

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Alice Tjarks standing behind my chair. “I’m sorry to bother you, Emily, but is it true? Have two people died in the last two days?”

Uh-oh. So much for trying to keep our little secret under wraps and not causing a panic. “Um…What did you hear?”

“Bernice complained to the desk clerk this morning that her room hadn’t been properly cleaned yesterday, and the clerk said she could probably expect the same today, what with two of the cleaning staff having dropped dead in the last two days.”

Leave it to Bernice. She could stir up trouble even when she wasn’t trying. “I guess it’s probably true then.”

“Do you know what killed them?” Alice pressed.

“I can tell you what killed them,” announced Ira Kuppelman. He flung his hand toward the buffet table. “Breakfast! Look at the toxins these people cram into their bodies. Dead animals. Unhealthy fats. Massive doses of carbohydrates. Who can exist on a diet like that and live? And if you eat what they’re serving, you’ll be next!”

Alice, who ate a full country breakfast at the Windsor City Perkins every day of her life, sucked in a sharp breath. “Is that right, Emily? Did they die from eating too many Irish breakfasts?”

I hedged, not knowing what would cause the greater panic—bacon with too much fat or a ghost with deformed feet. I decided to play middle of the road. “Well, I have it on good authority that even the Samoans have switched to Special K.”

Alice gave me a puzzled look. “I see. Thanks. I’ll pass the word along.”

“Who died?” asked Ethel when Alice left.

I stared at her through narrowed eyes. What a con artist. As if she didn’t know. “A maid and a custodian have both been found dead since we arrived. Curious, huh?”

“Why is that curious?” she asked, digging into her cereal. “People die all the time back home.”

“Not under circumstances like this, they don’t,” I said in a ghoulish voice.

Gladys’s spoon slipped from her hand and clattered against her bowl with a sound that gave us all a start. “What kind of circumstances are you talking about?” she asked in a rush of breath.

“Hey, there’s Ashley,” Ernie interrupted. “She’s on crutches. With a cast on her foot. Must’ve broken something.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see a few men hurry over to Ashley, their body language smacking of genuine concern. She was all smiles as she tossed her blond hair over her shoulder, looking helplessly pathetic as she allowed herself to be escorted to a nearby table, cooing and fluttering like an injured bird. I rolled my eyes. I was developing a keen aversion to the drop-dead-gorgeous people of the world.

I returned my attention to Gladys Kuppelman, picking up the thread of our conversation. “The authorities found a set of extremely suspicious footprints beneath the first body, and they’re pretty sure that if they find the person who made the footprints, they can prove the deaths were murders instead of deaths from natural causes.” Of course, the authorities had made no such claim, but I might as well make Ethel squirm a little. Let her know I was on to her.

“There’s a murderer on the loose in the castle?” gasped Gladys, her eyes showing terror, but her face wearing the same placid expression she always wore.

Ethel flipped her an “Aw, go on” gesture. “What are you worried about, Gladys? Who’d want to murder you? I’ve gotta agree with Ira. It’s probably the saturated fats and trans-fatty acids that got ’em.”

Aha! Just what I thought she’d say. Talk about trying to shunt guilt away from yourself. She was in my trap. All I had to do now was tighten the noose.

“Excuse me, Emily,” said Osmond Chelsvig, coming up behind me. “Alice just mentioned that a couple of people on the tour dropped dead from mad cow disease over the last couple of days. Is that true?”

I craned my neck to look up at Osmond. “They weren’t on the tour. They were on the castle staff. And I’m not sure about the mad cow disease. I don’t know what they died from.”

He nodded and returned to his chair. I was glad I’d decided not to tell Alice about the ghost. She’d already gotten the story wrong, but I guessed that was to be expected, considering how many years she’d spent working in the media.

“I’m worried, Ira,” Gladys complained. “What if someone finds out I’m related to Oliver Cromwell? Everyone in Ireland hates Cromwell. What’s to stop them from hating me as well? And killing me. I could be dead by morning! This is serious. You’re one of the people in charge, Emily. What do you and Ashley intend to do to protect me?”

I stared at her bowl of cereal. Section two of my
Escort’s Manual
had dealt with “Protection,” but if memory served, its main concern was to list new products designed to assist with bladder control. “Uh…”

From my left I heard the digital tones of “New York, New York.” Ernie Minch fished his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “It’s Junior,” he said, checking the readout on the display screen. “What’s up?” he asked into the phone.

I heard chairs scrape the floor behind me and looked over my shoulder to see a quartet of Iowans head for the buffet table. I watched them as they bypassed the warm chafing dishes and clustered around the huge bowls of cold cereal at the end of the table.

“Okay, okay,” Ernie said into the phone, then to Ethel, “Junior says your podiatrist left a message on our machine that they wanna change your next appointment to the day after we get back from vacation. That okay with you? Junior will call them back.”

“I suppose, but have Junior tell that doctor I don’t like all this changing-around business.” Her face grew stern. “These hoity-toity doctors think
their
schedules are sacred, but they think nothing about telling us to change
ours.”

Alice Tjarks blew by me in a rush to join the other Iowans around the cereal section of the buffet table. Hands flew every which way as she tried to muscle her way toward the remaining bowls. I frowned at the commotion but dragged my attention away to focus on Ethel. “You have regular appointments with a podiatrist, do you?” I asked matter-of-factly.

“Honey, these feet have put all five of his kids through college. I’m there once a month, every month. When the pain gets bad, I’m there more.”

“I guess it must hurt having your toes all stuck together like that.”

She looked taken aback. “Why would that hurt?”

Osmond Chelsvig raced past us to join the huddle at the cereal table. I startled as a bowl crashed to the floor. “Don’t your toes get sore not being able to operate individually?”

Ethel laughed. “That’s why I had them sewn together. They were all cockeyed before, crossing over each other, crossing under each other. Now they’re just fine.”

“You did WHAT?”

Bernice and George popped out of their seats and charged toward the swell of bodies fighting over the stash of cereal bowls. I couldn’t help noticing that Bernice looked unusually stylish this morning with a print scarf turbaned around her head.

“I—had—them—sewn—together,” Ethel enunciated slowly for my benefit. “You never heard of that? My podiatrist does it all the time.”

“You weren’t
born
with webbed toes?” I asked, feeling a bit like champagne that had lost its fizz. But what about the ghost? What about Michael Malooley? She’d just ruined my theory. She’d ruined everything! I jumped as another bowl hit the floor.

“Shoot, I had them stitched together forty years ago,” Ethel said.

“So how come you have to see the podiatrist so often if you already got your toes fixed?” asked Gladys.

A white-coated server flew out from the kitchen and dashed toward the sound of breaking glass, dustpan and broom in hand. Five more Iowans followed in his wake to join the fracas.

“I keep telling you,” grated Ethel, “my metatarsus is deformed. How many times do I gotta tell you that? You ever think about listening when people talk to you? They’d have me in orthotics if I’d let them.”

“Junior says hi,” said Ernie as he slipped his cell phone back into his pocket.

Ethel turned on him. “You hung up without letting me talk to him? I wanted to talk to him! Why’s he up at three o’clock in the morning? Don’t you wanna know what he’s doing up at this hour of the morning? Call him back. Is he sick? Are the kids sick? Do you hear me, Ernie?”