Threads of Deceit (Vineyard Quilt Mysteries Book 1) (5 page)

“Did he say what it was?”

Daniel shook his head. “It looked like very ordinary cargo to him, but the cargo’s owner paid him a ridiculous amount of money to keep the items off the ship’s manifest. The captain believed the cargo was more than it appeared.”

“So you have no way of knowing what the cargo was.”

“No.” Daniel paused, eyeing her appraisingly, then continued. “But the captain wrote that he had carved information about the cargo into the wood beam he was carrying to his wife’s sister in Kansas.”

“A beam.”

“It came from the sisters’ childhood home in Virginia. The captain took it when the old house was destroyed in a fire. The beam apparently was untouched by the fire. He had the beam cut in two. Half he made into a fireplace mantel in his own home, and half he was carrying to Kansas for the sister.”

“How sentimental of him.”

Daniel ignored that remark. “In the letter, he tells his wife not to scold him for the carving. He tells her the sister can sand it out, but she might like to keep it, given her love of quilting.”

“What does a wooden beam have to do with quilting?”

“I have no idea,” Daniel said with a grin. “But I’m looking forward to finding out. At any rate, he wanted some record of the items onboard and who owned them.”

“And you imagine something in our cellar will shed some light on this mystery beam?” Julie asked, her tone reflecting how little she considered that a likelihood.

“Actually, I think the beam is in the cellar.” Before Julie could offer another remark, Daniel held up a hand and kept talking. “That beam was unearthed in 1886 on a piece of land that is now the Winkler farm. That’s what originally put me on the trail of the ship here. The carving on the beam was described in the newspaper from the period as looking like some crude attempt at an artistic design. I believe it’s actually some kind of code. I hope to know more when I see it.”

“We’re quite a few miles from the Winkler farm.”

Daniel nodded. “According to the newspaper, the beam was gifted to Ebenezer Stark, the brother of the man who owned the land. Stark was in the process of building a mansion, and the brother thought using the beam would be some kind of good luck charm.”

“A beam retrieved from a ship that sank?” Julie pursed her lips. “That doesn’t sound all that lucky.”

“It wasn’t. Stark had it built into his new mansion, and it didn’t prove to be much of a good luck charm, as his wife died soon after at a young age. Stark then squandered his fortune on travel, drink, and gambling. Stark Mansion later passed through several hands before ending up where it is today.” He gestured around him. “
This
is Stark Mansion.”

“If this beam was a good luck charm, why would he put it in the cellar?” Julie asked.

“I’m not certain where he put it, but I poked around all the rooms I could today and didn’t find anything. None of the public rooms feature rough-hewn wood anywhere. And none of the guest rooms I peeked into did either.” He turned to tap on the cellar door. “What better place for something so plain and unfinished than the cellar?”

Julie narrowed her eyes as she thought about it. She didn’t remember seeing any beams like he described anywhere in
the inn, but she’d spent very little time in the cellar. “I’ll go down with you and search, but you cannot do anything that will damage the inn, no matter what we find.”

The boyish grin that split Daniel’s face was irritatingly disarming. “No problem. Let’s go.”

Julie held up one finger. “One more thing. I get to be part of the treasure hunt.”

He frowned. “If I find anything that could be classified as treasure, it goes to a museum. My interest is the hunt.”

Julie felt a little jolt of the same thrill she used to get whenever she took on a new recovery job. “Same as mine. I like the finding, not the keeping.”

His intense gaze seemed to size her up. “Then you have a deal. I’ll welcome the help.”

“Let me get the keys.” Julie walked down the hall to the kitchen. The huge key ring hung on one wall. Millie had always carried the keys around with her, but the jingling weight made Julie feel like the jailer in an old Western movie. She grabbed the ring and soon had the padlock open.

The cellar light switch was mounted in the hallway so no one had to grope in the darkness for it. Julie flipped the switch, then hung the open lock on the dangling latch. “Let’s go find your treasure beam.”

The low-wattage lights were widely spaced in the cellar and covered with dust. This made everything dim as they walked down the shaky steps. Hanging cobwebs made it clear that the efficient Inga didn’t venture into the cellar very often—if ever. Julie winced at the soft, slippery feeling of thick dust under her bare feet.

The floor of the cellar was packed earth. Dampness made the floor chilly, and Julie hopped in place to try and keep the soles of her feet warm.

“Charming place,” Daniel commented.

“We don’t keep anything down here but the furnace and electrical panel,” Julie said, trying to ignore the musty air she tasted with each word she spoke. She led the way around the perimeter of the room. It didn’t take long. As she’d said, the only large thing in the cellar was the furnace.

A few wooden crates, most covered with patches of mold, lay on the floor near the furnace. Julie wrinkled her nose as she spotted them. “I need to get rid of those.” She gave the crates a nudge with her toe and the one on the bottom burst apart, spilling out old newspapers. She jumped back, treading on the toes of Daniel’s boots as she did. “Well, Millie seems to have her very own antique fire hazard.”

Daniel didn’t spare them so much as a glance. Instead, he backed away from her and studied the floor joists over their heads, then returned to the stairs and studied their underside where rough wooden shelves had been fitted into the space.

Julie used the time to examine the walls. Two of the cellar walls were brick with narrow windows high on the wall. The windows were so thick with grime, she couldn’t imagine getting any of them open. On one of the brick walls, an old coal chute sloped steeply upward.

The other two walls were sheer rock, as if the cellar had been blasted instead of dug. She put a hand on the rock surface. It felt cold and slightly damp, the same as the floor. She didn’t really know anything about cellar construction but wondered if something could be done about the dampness. It occurred to her that if the grouchy twin sisters she’d dealt with that morning ever saw the cellar, they’d probably sue poor Millie for exposure to all kinds of bad things. The cool, damp room even made Julie a bit uneasy about the kinds of things that might be thriving in the packed dirt, the walls, or
the half-rotten wooden crates. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she wasn’t feeling just a little short of breath.

“It’s not down here.” Daniel’s voice boomed from the shadows beneath the stairs, causing Julie to jump.

To cover her unease, she spoke more roughly than she normally would have. “Well, I like a wild goose chase as much as the next person, but we should probably call it a night. I’m cold, and I need to get some sleep. I’m sure I’ll have a whole new collection of guests’ crises to deal with in the morning.”

“I was
sure
the beam was in the inn,” Daniel muttered, shaking his head. “Maybe it’s in one of the guest rooms I haven’t seen.”

“It’s not. I’ve seen them all,” Julie said. “Several times. Nothing like that is up there. The fireplace mantels are all delicate and small. And there are no beams in the ceilings.”

Daniel looked around, his eyes narrowed. “Maybe it’s built into the construction of the inn. It could be a doorway header or some other structural element.”

“I’m fairly certain you are not going to get permission from Millie to tear up the inn looking for a wooden beam that
might
be hidden behind the walls somewhere.”

“I haven’t seen the kitchen yet.”

“You’re welcome to look, but the kitchen is the one totally modern room in this building. There are no exposed beams. And, no, you can’t pull any walls down in there either.”

“If you don’t mind my looking, I would appreciate it,” he said. “Are there any outbuildings? Any other old structures on the property?”

She shook her head. Suddenly, a strange scraping noise came from the top of the stairs. They both froze, exchanging worried glances. Then the lights in the cellar
went off, plunging them into inky darkness.

“This really is an interesting place,” Daniel quipped. “Full of surprises.”

Julie shushed him, quickly reaching out, feeling for the stair rail. When she found it, she used it to guide her to the bottom step and carefully climbed the stairs with one hand out in front of her. Finally her knuckles rapped the cellar door; she’d reached the top. She listened at the door, but heard no further sounds. Who else could be skulking around the cellar in the middle of the night, and why would anyone turn off the light?

She turned the cellar doorknob and pushed. The knob turned easily, but the door didn’t open. Julie pushed harder, rattling the door. She groaned as she realized what had happened. Someone had slipped the hasp back in place and padlocked them inside the cellar. “Hey! I’m down here! Open the door!”

She pressed her ear to the door again but heard nothing.

“So we’re locked in?” Daniel’s deep voice came out of the darkness on the stairs behind her. She’d been making so much noise, she hadn’t heard him climbing the steps. “I don’t suppose you know of another way out of the cellar?”

Julie shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see it in the total darkness. “We’re stuck, and I don’t have a clue as to how to get out of here.”

“D
o you at least have some idea as to who locked us in here?” To Julie’s surprise, Daniel’s voice sounded almost amused.

“I expect it was Shirley,” she said. “She runs the tea shop, and I know she was working late. Plus, she’s helpful. And she doesn’t hear very well. I made her promise to lock up before she left. Obviously she decided to be really thorough about it.”

“Sounds like the perfect combination to get us trapped in the cellar.”

Julie realized she could now see a dark blob of Daniel on the stairs. Apparently her eyes were adjusting to the dim light that crept in from the streetlamp outside the grimy cellar windows.

The shadowy figure that was Daniel leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs near Julie and sighed. “Fortunately, aside from searching for the beam, my schedule was clear this evening,” he said. “You?”

“I’d planned on getting some sleep,” Julie said, more than a little unnerved at being trapped in the dark with Daniel. Alone.

“So what do you propose we do?” Again, she was certain his voice held a tinge of laughter.

Julie slipped her cellphone out of her hip pocket and checked to see if she could get a signal in the cellar. She could. She started to call Hannah, but then she pictured her friend’s smirk at Julie managing to get trapped in the cellar with the handsome historian. “I can call my cook to come and rescue us,” she said. “But I’d like to be sure we can’t get ourselves out first.”

She saw the blob Daniel nod. “Pride, right?”

“I hate to wake her in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah. I’d be embarrassed too.”

She knew Daniel couldn’t possibly see her in the dark cellar, so she stuck out her tongue at him. The childish action made her feel surprisingly better. “Let’s just try to solve our own problem first.”

“Sure.”

Julie used a flashlight app on her phone to light the way down the cellar stairs. She crossed to the far brick wall and shone the light up at the small window.

“You’re a lot smaller than me, lady, but you’re not going to fit through that,” Daniel said.

She turned to glare at him, swinging the light in his direction. “Don’t call me ‘lady.’”

“Sorry,” he said. “But I don’t know your name. You’ve yet to offer it.”

“Oh. It’s Julie Ellis.” She swung the light back around toward the window, but she was certain Daniel was right. Even petite Hannah couldn’t have gotten through the small window. The most Julie would be able to do was get really stuck.

“Looks like you’d best wake your cook.”

“I’m not
done
yet.” She swung the light toward the coal chute. In movies, people were always wiggling through coal chutes, so she assumed it must be bigger than the other window. The chute was brick and slanted away steeply. Julie held up the light, but she couldn’t get a good look at the window beyond. “I could definitely fit up the chute.”

“You’ll get dirty,” Daniel said mildly.

“I’m washable. Can you give me a boost?”

Daniel laced his fingers together, and Julie stepped
her bare foot into them. “Your foot’s ice-cold.”

“That’s because I left my shoes upstairs when I went to investigate why a guest was skulking around the mansion in the middle of the night,” she snapped.

Julie took a hopping step up and shoved herself into the coal chute. The sides were steeply slanted, but since Julie filled most of the chute, she could wedge herself in and get enough leverage to creep upward. The rough brick and mortar scraped wherever bare skin touched it.