Crowned and Moldering

By four o’clock most of the crew had left and it was just Carla and me finishing up in the kitchen. I felt a sense of accomplishment when all three layers of linoleum were ripped up and thrown outside. But now the subflooring was exposed, and I was surprised the entire floor hadn’t buckled or that one of us hadn’t fallen through to the basement. The one-by-four slats that made up the subfloor weren’t level, and some of the slats were missing altogether. Of the ones that remained, many were warped.

The old pipes ru

“We have our work cut out for us in here,” Carla said.

I gazed around at the exposed walls and floor. “I’ll say.”

“Are you ready to leave?” she asked, checking her wristwatch. “I’ve got to pick up Keely at ballet practice.”

I smiled. Her five-year-old daughter, Keely, was on her way to becoming a prima ballerina. “You go ahead. I’m going to take a quick look around the house and make a priority list of things to do tomorrow.”

“Okay.” She picked up the small red toolbox she always brought with her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Carla.”

After she left, I wandered from room to room, making a list of projects that needed work. I was struck again by the number of doors in the place, and how most of them were in disrepair and needed restoring or replacement. Some had been cut short at the bottom edge. I’d seen this in other Victorian homes and it was because the owners—or in this case, the navy—had installed new carpeting that was too thick to allow the doors to close. So instead of replacing the carpet or replacing the door, they would simply saw off four or five inches. Naturally, that would create a whole other set of problems to deal with.

I had a feeling these doors would be a project for years to come. I wondered if Mac would be happy to see me showing up every other month or so to work on a door in some room. I smiled at the thought.

I was kneeling down to check the flue in the secret servants’-quarters fireplace when I heard a creaking sound coming from the front of the house. It was dark out, almost six o’clock, and I wondered who was coming by this late. Mac, maybe?

“Hello,” I shouted. “Mac?”

No one responded.

I heard another creak and that one sounded like it was over my head. Was someone on the second floor? Now I had to wonder if Aldous had returned to the house.

I stood up and listened for another creak. I couldn’t say if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but nobody would ever be able to walk around this house without the owner knowing there was someone else inside. Every floorboard and door creaked or groaned when it was moved or walked upon. I would be able to fix some of them, but right now I just wanted to know who else was in here with me.

“Hello?”

Again there was no answer. And that was when I felt a shiver of doubt. Lily had died in this house. And so had an i

And with that disturbing thought hovering in my head, I pulled out my phone and texted Eric.

“At Mac’s place. Someone is prowling around. Help!”

I rolled my eyes at the cryptic message, knowing Eric would blow a gasket. But I hit Send anyway. Then, just for good measure, I texted the same basic message to Mac.

Footsteps sounded on the subfloor of the kitchen and I knew my visitor was getting too close. I burrowed into the space between the brick fireplace and the wall. It was barely a foot wide but I squeezed in there, trying to hide from whoever was stalking around. It couldn’t be a friend. He or she would’ve shouted out a greeting right away.

The footsteps grew softer, and I pictured the intruder walking toward the service porch at the far end of the kitchen. Maybe he or she would leave the house through the kitchen door and I would be able to come out of hiding. I felt ridiculous.

A door creaked open, but I could tell it wasn’t the door leading outside. No, it was the sound of the basement door opening. But who would be crazy enough to go down to a cold, dark basement all alone?

Sure enough, I could hear the light pounding of footsteps on the wooden stairs leading down to where Lily’s bones had been found. I wondered, Is this person returning to the scene of the crime?

But the basement hadn’t been the scene of the crime. I assumed that the real crime had occurred in the third-floor attic, where Lily apparently had been killed and shoved into the dumbwaiter shaft.

So who in the world was down in Mac’s basement?

By now I was a trembling mass of nerves. I had to do something. If the prowler stayed downstairs for a few minutes, I could run to the front door and reach my truck before he or she made it back upstairs.

I pushed myself out of my hiding place and tiptoed toward the front hall. But the wooden floor of the servants’ room was so old, it creaked even louder than the subflooring in the kitchen. I had no choice but to keep going, especially when I suddenly heard the sound of feet pounding up the basement stairs.

“Oh, God!” I careened around the corner into the wide front hall, forgetting about the ladder folded up against the wall. A dozen sample cans of paint were stacked nearby, along with rollers and folded tarps. My hip bumped into the ladder and threw me off balance. All I could do as I fell was try to protect my head from banging into anything else.

“Well, well, aren’t you graceful?”

I hated to be trite, but the sound of that voice had the exact same effect as fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. Every nerve ending in my body clenched as I glared up at him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing the ladder aside and dragging myself up off the floor.

Dismal Dain sniffed as though he’d caught a whiff of something unpleasant. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I misplaced something the last time I was here.”

I hated to show weakness, but I was forced to rest my hand on the wall to steady myself from the fall. “The last time you were here,” I said slowly. “You mean, the time you came out here to kill Lily?”

He bared his teeth. “You think you’re clever, but you’re nothing. You’re as useless and stupid as she was.”

I was so sick of him. “You like thinking you’re smarter than everyone else, don’t you, Mr. Dain? But clearly you’re not. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, desperately trying to find something you should’ve taken with you fifteen years ago.”

“Nobody will miss you,” he said softly, and that was when I saw the tire iron he was holding.

With any luck, Eric or Mac would be here in the next ten minutes, but that wouldn’t be soon enough. I had to think fast, or I’d be another victim. I had to keep Dismal Dain talking. I suddenly remembered something Denise had said to him the other day, about Lily keeping a diary. I knew she meant the notebook, but did Dain know that?

“You came out here to find Lily’s diary, didn’t you? I don’t think you’ll find it.”

“I’ll find it,” he insisted, swinging the tire iron as he spoke. There was no doubt he intended to kill me.

“W-were you in love with her?” I asked.

He snorted. “In love? With a whore? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Okay, maybe you weren’t in love, but you wanted her, right? She was beautiful.” I was grasping at straws, but he had to have felt something for Lily. Otherwise why would he have followed her all the way out here those many years ago? “Did you try to get close to her during your counseling sessions? Did she turn you down? Were you jealous of Mr. Jones?”

He tried to ignore my accusations, but his nostrils were flaring and I could tell that my words were getting to him. “I told you she was a whore. She wasn’t just having sex with Brad Jones, you know. She was also sleeping with that other student, too.”