Being The Steel Drummer Part 24

"Maybe. But we really have no evidence it was a woman." Another look at Samson's chalk-white face changed my tone. "Samson looks very shocky. People can die of shock. We don't have time to get him down the steps and out the tunnel. We have to get some EMTs to him fast."

I took out my cell and tried to get a signal. No bars. I climbed the steep steps that ascended from the bas.e.m.e.nt to the ground floor of the Majestic to see if I could get a signal near the windows. At the top was an archway blocked by a wall of newer brick. The opening had been sealed long ago but long after the original building had been built. No secret pa.s.sage through it though. Victoria had probably walled this door frame up herself. Kind of a dramatic way to ensure privacy.

Holding the railing tightly, I leaned over and held the phone near the ground-level windows. One bar. Not enough to make a call. Probably enough to send a text but how could I explain this all in a text message?

I surveyed the studio from this aerial view and spied the tools I needed. I climbed back down, grabbed a big cold chisel, an extra heavy ball-peen hammer, and an eight-pound sledge. You don't have to be MacGyver if all the tools for the job are right there. There were even some old-fashioned goggle-like safety gla.s.ses to protect my eyes. Farrel's insistence on safety gear had successfully rubbed off on me. I also hoped that none of these things had anything to do with the murder because if so I was destroying evidence, but I really didn't want Samson to die from shock and dehydration; he needed an ambulance.

I carried everything back up the steep steps, wiped off the gla.s.ses and put them on. I took a moment to balance myself. Then I pounded the chisel into the mortar and wished for only one course of bricks. I loosened a four-brick square pretty quickly. I called down to Kathryn and Samson to stand back in case any bricks fell into the studio.

Of course the other side might be a big tank of water or a room full of pea coal. The flow of either would knock me right down the stairs. Ah well, Carpe Diem. I moved down a step, drew back the sledge, and slammed the middle of the loosened bricks.

The sledge crashed through the bricks so easily that it almost flew out of my hands through the wall. I threaded it back to my side and smashed at it again less forcefully, making a larger opening. The wall was only one course thick and seemed to be more for show than security. After all, n.o.body really questions a brick wall.

A few more whacks and I had a hole I could squeeze through.

Kathryn called up to me, "Where does it come out?"

I took out my flashlight, leaned into the hole, and looked around. "Looks like a prop room."

I crawled through the opening then poked my head back. "I'll be right back."

"How do you know it's Suzanne Carbondale?" asked Sgt. Ed O'Brien.

"Hair color, clothes, wedding ring, that bracelet, and honestly, Ed, her face, even though... How long does the Coroner think?

"Maggie, it always amazes me that you can stand this stuff. Makes me want to toss my cookies."

"I worked highway patrol."

"Oh yeah, right."

Truth was, though, seeing someone like this whom I'd known and cared about was not settling well in my stomach, much less my soul.

O'Brien answered, "Being in the airtight vat is making it tougher, but the Coroner's saying about six weeks. Might have been more. Couldn't have been much less."

"It couldn't have been much more, Ed. People saw her six weeks ago."

"Must have been a pretty girl. Yeah, Henshaw said he saw her." O'Brien paused to look around. He said idly, "Sure have been a lot of witnesses barfing lately."

"He just drank a lot of water."

"I see that," O'Brien said, scanning the floor.

"I thought Marc Freligh was taking over this case," I said.

"What do you mean this case? Marc's on the Skeleton Park case."

I explained about Frankie, the antique market sales, and the crypt.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I'm betting the bra.s.s aren't going to believe this connection. But I'll call Marc in. It's his case now. Kind of interesting though; maybe we could work together on it."

"When you do call Mark, you and he might consider keeping the fact that Henshaw's still alive a secret for now. Tell Henshaw and his wife to lie low for a few days. I'm betting whoever clocked him believes he's dead and that can be an advantage sometimes."

"Yeah, OK, I see your point. For a few days anyway," said O'Brien.

"How did she die? Could the M.E. tell?"

"Major bruise on the back of her head. Probably knocked out here, dragged into the vat and then stabbed. Killer could have thought she was already dead when he put her in, but then she moved or something and... Well, you can see where the blood is," said O'Brien.

"You know, someone's been making it seem as though she was still alive. My friend Jesse got an email from her last week. And someone's updating her Facebook page, saying she's in Mexico researching a new book."

"Really? Talk about a virtual world. I'll have the tech guys trace back the updates to the person making them."

"Hard to do. They'll just show that she was making them."

Ed sighed. "Age old question, Maggie..."

"Who profits?"

"Uh huh."

"The husband to some extent, though there isn't much to inherit. They rented their house from the college. They weren't rich. I guess he'll get their book royalties, but how much could that be? Still... the best motives are money and love and I think Suzanne was about to leave him. So he may have been engulfed by a jealous rage, though he really wasn't the type." I thought for a minute. "Problem though, Ed..."

"What?"

"Carbondale was in England presenting a seminar on US Civil War history during the holidays. And people saw Suzanne after he left. Heck, I even saw her after Gabe left on the 20th. If the Coroner is committed to six weeks or more..."

O'Brien sighed again. "So the husband didn't do it? That's a novelty."

Fenchester's finest smashed a larger hole through the brick wall in the Majestic's prop room and cleared the bricks away. Using that access was easier than the underground tunnel.

EMTs took Samson Henshaw to the hospital. He was back on the verge of dehydration, having lost the water he'd drunk to chunder, as Nora Hasan would probably say.

When he was stable, Samson used my phone to tell his faithful wife Lois he'd be at Fenchester General in a few minutes. She wailed with joy and relief when she heard his voice, then told him to thank me for finding him. O'Brien suggested to them both that they avoid talking to the press and stay under wraps for awhile.

I guessed my finding Samson a few hours from death counted rather heavily on the pro side when it came to Lois's evaluation of my work. With Suzanne out of the picture forever, Lois would probably be stuck with Samson again, which seemed to be what she wanted. I thought about that carefully as Samson tried to get Lois off the phone.

Kathryn was shaken by the sight of the dead body but braced up to say she'd stay through the crime scene investigation.

"No, Kathryn, don't stay here. They probably won't let you anyway. It'll be grim and tedious, and besides... I think you should go and tell Jessie and Farrel about Suzanne."

"And Gabe?"

"The police will send someone to tell him."

"Do they think he did it?" she said quietly.

"They always think the spouse did it. But he has an alibi."

Kathryn left for Farrel and Jessie's. I promised to meet her there.

By the time Sgt. Marc Freligh arrived, Ed O'Brien and I were surveying the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt storage area. When the CSI team had finished with it, they confirmed that Henshaw had been in there for two days. I really didn't want to know how they'd figured that out.

"Hi Marc," I said to Freligh. His crisp uniform and carefully combed dark brown hair were in direct contrast to O'Brien's rumpled raincoat and nearly bald head, yet they were both skilled at their jobs.

"Henshaw says he thought he was blind until he saw light coming through those sidewalk prisms," I said, pointing to the ceiling.

"Huh, I never even noticed... What are they, like gla.s.s stuck in the sidewalk or something?"

"Yeah, exactly. They're solid shafts of gla.s.s about the length and shape of cardboard wrapping paper tubes, standing on their ends in the cement. They used them at the end of the 19th century to cast a little bit of light into underground s.p.a.ces. City engineers are careful not to cover them over when they replace the sidewalks. They're all over the city, but I always thought they just let light into bas.e.m.e.nts. They must light all the tunnels."

O'Brien pointed his flashlight at the rubble blocking the tunnel.

"Can't get through there anymore."

"It must have been a sinkhole," said Sgt. Freligh.

"Remember that one back in the '90s? Big water main, size of a semi, broke in the center of town. Washed away tons of dirt underground. Street fell in. Swallowed half a building at Hamilton and 7th and ruined the foundations of six others. So much water gushed out of the main, the reservoir went down three feet," said O'Brien.

"Too much limestone. It wears away and then the pipes break. Now, any time the street cracks the city digs it up, pours fill in, and cements it over. This one caved in the alley behind the Majestic's parking lot. It closed the theater for a week. The chief of police's wife was in a community production of Fiddler on the Roof and no one could park for the play." Freligh grinned.

"They just filled one down on 5th Street near the art museum the week before Christmas," said O'Brien.

"I remember. It detoured traffic for days," I said idly, but I was too busy thinking about death, love, and friends to pay much attention to small talk. I blinked my eyes to will away emotions.

Kathryn had said just before she left, "This is the downside of the private eye business, isn't it?"

"Want to quit?" I'd asked.

"No, no, I'm your sidekick. I'll stumble through," she had said sincerely.

"Gonna show us how you found all this?" O'Brien asked me.

I took O'Brien and Freligh back up to the studio, down the other stairs and all the way underground to the stone ramp. I pushed on the oak lever, and the hole in the tunnel's ceiling opened up.

"Holy mother of G.o.d," O'Brien said climbing up into the crypt.

Bright daylight made us cover our eyes.

"Huh, looks like we're going to have six more weeks of winter," said Freligh, blinking at the ground.

"n.o.body would ever believe this! I better call the street department to put one of those big metal plates over the door here, we have to seal this off as soon as possible. We'll seal off the Majestic, too. Can't get down into that bas.e.m.e.nt from the theater anyway. We had to break down a door," said O'Brien punching in numbers on his phone and arranging it.

"Are you guys going to talk to the husband?" I asked.

"We've sent someone. They took him to the station. We'll question him, but with that alibi, unless we find out he took a round trip red-eye, we sure don't have anything to hold him on," said Freligh.

After O'Brien had made sure the steel plate would be covering the crypt opening within an hour, he and Freligh disappeared back into the floor of the crypt.

I stood marveling at the ingenious hidden entrance. No slap-dash affair. Masterful craft, probably done in secret too. Must have cost a fortune to build.

"Jessie feels terrible," whispered Farrel at the door.

We went into the kitchen where Kathryn and Jessie were drinking tea at the table by the window.

It was late afternoon. The sun was going down. In its last rays I could see the backyard koi pond was rimmed with ice. It would have been solid but a tiny heater kept a round section liquid. Dozens of different kinds of birds flitted around the only open water in the city. Jessie watched the birds silently as they queued up to take a bath.

"What's going on with the investigation?" asked Kathryn, taking my chilly hand. She didn't want to upset Jessie, but both she and Farrel were desperate to know.

Jessie exhaled and shifted in her seat but didn't turn from the window.

"They sent someone to take Gabe to the station," I said.

"She was killed?" asked Jessie, turning red-rimmed eyes to me.

"It seems that way. The last time you saw her was Christmas Eve, wasn't it?" I asked, "Did she have a reindeer sweater on?"

Jessie nodded. "Yeah, she had the sweater on. I can't stop going over it in my mind. She came in the morning to drop off some empty cookie tins. She said... she said she had presents for us, but that she would bring them by Christmas morning. She was working on her new book... She'd found something significant and she wanted a second opinion. She said she'd tell me all about it but she was late for an appointment. She was only here a minute."

Jessie paused to think back. "Gabe had already gone to England. With him gone, she had a lot of time to work. Later in the afternoon, I got a text from her saying she was at the airport because she had to go out of town and would I take care of Buster." Jessie stopped speaking abruptly and turned toward the window again. Farrel stood up and put her hands on Jessie's shoulders. Jessie pulled Farrel's arms down to wrap around her.

"We ended up taking care of Buster until a few days after Gabe came back in mid-January," said Farrel. "Gabe didn't seem worried that she'd gone away. She'd done this before, just going away on a trip."

"Suzanne emailed from her phone," said Jessie. "Her message said something like: Thanks for Buster. Research breakthrough. Don't know when I'll be back. Important. So, we ended up just bringing Buster here."

"Much to Griswold and Wagner's chagrin," added Farrel. "The email also said the signal was weak in Mexico."

"When we brought Buster back to Gabe," said Jessie, "he said Suzanne had dumped him. He sure seemed like the wounded husband, but in a week he was redecorating and was moving on with his life. I bet he pushed her in a fight or something." Jessie hesitated, then shook her head.

Farrel peered carefully at Jessie. "You think Gabe could really do that? He's a weasel, but to kill her on purpose?"

"He could have done it." She faltered, then said, "Jealously, pa.s.sion?"

"Really? Gabe's never seemed to care much about anyone other than himself, Jessie. It's not like he's going to inherit a ton of money or anything," said Farrel. After a moment she patted Jessie's shoulders. "OK, I'm going to make a big plate of nachos."

"I'll do it, Farrel," said Jessie moving to stand up.

"No, Jessie, take a break. I'll make the food. Maggie, you can open some wine."

"I'll help," said Kathryn.

I found a bottle of red wine in their rack. Kathryn found some olives, fresh red peppers and green onions in the fridge and began to chop them up. Farrel put full-sized tortillas in the oven and while they baked she grated cheese. When the tortillas were crisp she spread salsa and mounded on chopped peppers, cheese, olives, and onions, then topped it all off with cilantro leaves. She pushed the tray of tortillas into the huge oven. Within ten minutes we were digging in.

Two bottles of wine and a few toasts later the sadness yielded to sweet stories about Suzanne that made the mood a bit lighter.