Dear Irene

He seemed determined to burrow through what once had been the entrance to a basement. The weathered doors had been nailed shut long ago; rusting metal bands bolted across their width further secured them.

“Brutus, get back from there!” Molly said, picking him up and suffering another sneezing fit. He squirmed in her arms for a moment, then resorted to whining.

“Is there another entrance to the basement?”

“Oh sure,” Molly said, talking rapidly, nervously. “The Nelsons boarded this one up long ago. Most of us did that – to make the houses more secure, I guess.” She stopped to blow her nose. “We all built staircases and an entrance from inside the house. Some people had a door going off the kitchen, like mine. Others had trap doors in the floors. The Nelsons had one of those. Put in a laundry chute, too. I thought that was overdoing it.” She sneezed. “Kids throw clothes down the chute, they land all over the place. I always made my kids carry their clothes down the stairs. It was good for them.”

I wasn’t listening very carefully. I was watching the crevice near the edge of one of the doors. Ants were streaming in and out of the basement. An army of them. And there was a faint but distinct odor in the air, one that made my hopes plummet.

“Maybe you should take Brutus home now, Molly.”

She looked at me in surprise, then looked down at the doors. “Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lordy-Lord-Lord-Lord. She’s in there! Call her name, maybe she can answer you.”

I tried it once, but my voice caught. “Molly, go home, please. I’ll come over in a while. There’s… there’s a smell.

“I don’t smell anything.”

I looked over at her, but didn’t say anything.

“Even with all that sneezing, I’d smell a dead body! Besides, if there is a smell, you don’t know that it’s a comin’ from her! Could be a cat, or a possum or something else dead.”

She was right, of course. I couldn’t see into the basement.

She was waiting for me, silent and afraid, but her eyes pleaded with me to do something. Brutus yapped once, then stared at me in much the same way.

I looked at the trail blazed by our unknown predecessor and sighed in resignation. “Try not to step on the flattened grass,” I said, knowing she would follow me. I made my way alongside the trampled path, which led around the corner of the house to a set of concrete steps. At the top of the steps was the back door. It wasn’t wide open, but it hadn’t been closed hard enough to latch.

Sometimes the last thing on earth you want to do is the very next thing you need to do. My curiosity demanded I go into the house, see for myself what was in there. My fear, or perhaps my common sense, said to let someone else take care of it.

“She might still be alive,” Molly said.

Curiosity had an optimist on its side. It always does.

I climbed the steps and used the toe of my shoe to budge the door. It creaked open, and I stood staring into an empty kitchen, yellow linoleum peeling and stained where a stove and refrigerator had once hidden its faults. The counters were bare, the sink empty. I waited. Silence.

Brutus’s sharp yap behind me came close to scaring me right out of my skin. Just as I had decided to listen to the pessimist within me, the dog wriggled free and scurried through the open door, into the house, and out of sight.

“Brutus!” Molly wailed.

“Stay here,” I told her, blocking her attempt to follow the dog. “If I’m not back out in five minutes, or if you have any inkling that something’s happened to me, get the hell out of here. Go home and call the police. Don’t come in looking for me or the dog.”

She didn’t say anything, just peered inside the house. It was silent again.

“Promise,” I said firmly.

“I promise,” she said.

The kitchen had two interior doorways. One led out into the dining area of the living room I had seen from the front window. A quick glance showed this area to be empty of man and beast. The doorway at the other side of the kitchen was darkened.

With every step I took across that kitchen floor, I was sure I wasn’t alone in that house, that I had walked into a trap. REPORTER KILLED IN POODLE RESCUE ATTEMPT. What a headline that would make. Undoubtedly, the subhead would read, “Poodle Found Unharmed.” I kept listening, hearing the soles of my shoes moving across the linoleum, the rustle of my clothing seemingly amplified to shout my presence. I noticed a trail of ants moving along one corner of the kitchen floor – toward the darkened doorway. I swallowed and tiptoed to it.

The smell was stronger here.

I peered cautiously around the corner. A long hallway, as near as I could tell. I held still, hearing a noise to my left. I waited. Nothing.

I glanced behind me, saw Molly watching from the door to the backyard, and tried once again to screw up my courage.

There was only enough light coming from the kitchen windows to allow me to determine that the hallway ran in two directions. I hung back in the kitchen, poised for flight as I groped for a light switch on the hallway wall. I found one. Outside of making a loud snapping noise, it did nothing. The electricity was off.

I reached into my purse for my keychain flashlight. Felt the comforting weight of the cellular phone. If I couldn’t call for help, maybe I could use it to bean an attacker. I switched on the little flashlight, held it to the left, where I had heard the noise, and even its small circle of light revealed enough to make me feel weak in the knees.

An opening gaped in the floor. If I had stepped into the hallway without the light, I might have fallen through the trap door and down the basement stairs.

“Bruuu… tus,” I crooned.

I could swear I heard the little bugger panting, but in the distance. Down in the basement.

I pointed the beam in the other direction, passed it from one closed doorway after another. Three altogether. Thought of opening those doors first, just to try to get more light in the hallway. Didn’t know if I had the nerve to find out what was behind them.

I crept up to one and shoved it open, then ran back into the kitchen, purse raised.

“Irene?” I heard Molly call.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I took a breath and looked into the hall. A little more light. No bogeymen. Not yet, anyway. Two more rounds of hit-and-run with the doors brought the same result. The house had two bedrooms, one bath. I had the shakes.

Brutus barked. He was down in the basement.

“That’s him!” Molly called. “Do you see him?”

“Not yet,” I said. I was not pleased with the dog.

I thought of giving in and calling Frank right then and there. Let him explore the damned basement.

But what if I called Frank away from a homicide investigation only to find there was nothing more down there than a toy poodle and something like, oh, maybe a smelly old dead gopher? The woman who cried wolf. Over a poodle.

I walked over to the edge of the trap door opening. My flashlight beam showed nothing more than wooden stairs. I stepped down on one, then another, and another, until my head was just above the opening in the hallway floor. I made myself duck a little, and held the flashlight out in front of me. Cobwebs. I could hear Brutus. I lowered the beam a few degrees and saw a concrete wall. I caught a movement and gave a little yelp. But it was Brutus, sniffing along the wall, apparently unconcerned by my presence. For a few seconds, I felt a slight easing of the tension that had my stomach in knots. Brutus wouldn’t act so nonchalant if there were anyone else in the basement. Would he?

I moved the light a little to the left, and I could make out a card table, with what looked to be a bowl of fruit and a pitcher of water. Tantalus.

My mouth went dry.

I knew what would be behind me. I forced myself to take two more steps down the stairs, clinging to the handrail.