Premeditated Mortar Read online

  “That’s usually a good thing,” she said, and scowled. “I’ll have to figure out what to do about her.”

  I patted her shoulder. “Let me know if you need backup.”

  “Thanks.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs and circled around the side of the staircase until we found the door in the middle of the heavily paneled wall.

  “I’ve never seen this,” she said. “Where does it lead?”

  “I’ll show you.” I pulled the door open and we stepped inside a dark passage. “We have to go under the stairway through here.”

  Jane was right behind me and I could hear surprise in her voice. “Wow, I didn’t realize there was a passageway through here.”

  “I just found it this morning.” We got to a door on the other side of the passage and I pushed it open.

  Jane grabbed my arm. “There’s a whole other hallway.”

  “Right. Wade and I had seen it on the blueprints when we went over them with the architect. So this morning, Wade brought Niall back here and apparently he’s already started working on one of the brick walls. I want to take a look at what he’s done.”

  She sniffed the air. “Musty.”

  “Yeah. They must have closed off this section years before the rest of the Gables was shut down. It still has the old carpeting while the rest of the floors are hardwood or tile.”

  “I want to turn on some lights.” Jane searched the walls for a switch and found one. The hallway filled with light. “That window at the end of the hall needs to be bigger.”

  She was right. A sliver of late-afternoon sunlight streamed in, but it wasn’t enough for us to see any of the details of the hall.

  “We’ll enlarge it if you want.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  I noticed that leaning against the wall beneath the small window was a thick stack of discarded glass from other windows around the site. I wondered if any of them could be recycled and made a mental note to ask Wade to look into it.

  Jane glanced around. “So Niall was working back here today?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And I really wish he was still here. I could use his expertise with this little puzzle.”

  “He had to leave early today,” Jane explained. “Our shipment of flagstone for the spa and patio was ready to pick up. But look, you and I can check it out ourselves and if we have questions, we can ask him about it tomorrow.”

  “True. After all, we’re both professionals.”

  She gave a firm nod. “Yes, we are.”

  I stopped halfway down the hall, found one of the light trees nearby, and flipped the switch. The space was instantly filled with even more light. “That’s better.”

  Niall must’ve used the light tree while he was working here earlier. There was also a ladder leaning against the wall next to a pile of neatly stacked bricks.

  “What’s with all these bricks?” Jane asked. “Is he bricking up this wall?”

  “No, he’s taking them down.”

  “Did they come loose?”

  “No. Niall has been removing them row by row. See?” I pointed to the top of the wall where eight or ten rows of bricks had been carefully removed from a ten-foot-wide section.

  “But why?”

  “That’s why I wanted you to see this hallway.”

  “This is the mystery you were talking about?”

  “Yes. So do me a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Check out the wall.” I pointed to the section in front of us at eye level. “Let me know if you notice anything odd about it.”

  Jane took her time examining the wall, brick by brick. She got up close and touched them, then skimmed her hands over the edges where one section didn’t quite match up with the rest of the wall. Then she walked to the other side of the hallway and ran her palm across the plaster. It was cracked and peeling, but it had once been pale and smooth.

  She said, “I really like how this side of the hall is smooth plaster and painted this nice light color, while the other side is all dark exposed brick. I love that contrasting look, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  “I know that has nothing to do with the mystery,” she said, grinning. “I just wanted to say how much I like this effect.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Okay, back to the odd wall you were talking about.” Jane splayed her hand across the different sections of brick. “This part here is definitely much newer. The bricks here are redder, not so aged. They’re smoother, not so pitted. They were definitely added more recently than the rest of it.”

  “Exactly,” I said brightly. “Thank you.”

  She folded her arms. “That was too easy.”

  “I know. But here’s a tougher one. Why exactly was this part of the wall replaced?”

  “There’s probably a simple answer.”

  My eyebrows went up. “I’m dying to hear it.”

  “Well, there could have been an earthquake,” Jane said. “A section of the wall collapsed and they had to fill in that part of it with new brick.”

  That made perfect sense. Here on the northern coast of California we experienced earthquakes on a regular basis.

  “That’s possible,” I admitted. “But here’s the problem. The old blueprints show a doorway that opens to another hallway leading away from this one. It’s right around this section.”

  “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “Are you serious? A hidden doorway?”

  I should’ve been as excited as Jane, but instead the idea freaked me out. And frankly I was a little surprised that Jane wasn’t just as freaked. I rubbed my arms to get rid of the goose bumps that had suddenly erupted all over me. A mystery in a plain old house was one thing, but a mystery in a former insane asylum? I had to confess, it gave me the willies.

  “Oh, I know!” Jane continued, with tongue in cheek. “Maybe they bricked it off to hide a body.”

  I shivered. “‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’”

  “Cool, right?”

  “No. Creepy.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said.

  “Sorry, but I’m the one finding dead bodies all the time, remember? And I don’t like the thought of an Edgar Allan Poe story coming to life on this particular construction site.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is a little ghoulish.” She grinned. “But hey, talk about a PR coup.”

  “PR? Really?” I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. “You’re seriously starting to scare me.”

  “They always say, any PR is good PR.” She was still smiling as she gazed up at the ceiling. “I wonder why they built this whole place out of brick and stone. Especially given the fact that we’re in earthquake country. Most of the Victorians around here are built out of wood. All this stone had to have been a lot more expensive than lumber.”

  “I actually know the answer to that,” I said with a smile.

  “You do? Does it have to do with your Dr. Jones?”

  “Yes.” I smiled sheepishly. I had obviously overshared my research stories with anyone I could get to pay attention. “Anyway, the story is that back in the early Victorian era a lot of mentally ill people were sent to almshouses, which were the poorhouses built by churches and charitable groups. Naturally they used the cheapest materials for construction, so it’s not surprising that many of them burned to the ground.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes. And while some of the destruction was suspicious, they mostly burned down because the buildings were old and built out of cheap wood.”

  “So Dr. Jones had a different plan,” Jane said, biting back a smile.

  “Yes, grasshopper.” I beamed at her. “His philosophy was to build with brick and stone so the patients would feel safer. He was all about providing safety and comfort for his patients because he tho
ught that was the best way to cure them.”

  “That’s good to know,” Jane said. “I personally feel safer already. And I’m so happy that you’ve turned into the official Gables historian.”

  “Hey, I want to do this rehab the right way. That research really helps.”

  “I know it does. And I appreciate it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, mollified.

  “We’d better get going. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I’m meeting Niall at the pub tonight. Do you and Mac want to join us?”

  “Um, sure. I’ll have to call him. But wait.” I hefted the ladder that was lying against the wall and pulled it over in front of the spot where Niall had been working. “This will only take a minute, but I want to check out what’s on the other side of this wall. It might be the passageway I saw on the blueprints.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for tomorrow when Niall will be here? He can help you figure out what’s back there.”

  “This’ll be quick, I promise.”

  “Okay, then. Let me help.”

  We set up the ladder and adjusted it so that it leaned against the middle of the new wall.

  “Do you want to go first?” I asked.

  “No, you go ahead. This is your adventure.”

  I laughed, but quickly stepped onto the ladder and climbed to the top where Niall had removed several rows of bricks. I refused to think about the fact that I was now sixteen feet off the ground and poking my head inside a pitch-black space. What was I thinking?

  “Can’t see a thing,” I muttered.

  “Use your flashlight app.”

  “Good idea.” I pulled my cell phone out and stared at the screen. “I can’t believe it, my battery is dead. Can I use your phone?”

  “Sure.”

  I scrambled halfway down and she handed it up to me. “Thanks.” I climbed back to the top and leaned in close to the wall. Sticking my head inside the opening, I tapped the flashlight icon. I had to stretch up to get a better look. “Oh wow. Okay, this is cool.”

  “What is it?” Jane sounded impatient and I didn’t blame her. “Can you see the door?”

  “Yes. There’s a few steps going down before you get to it.” I squinted into the chamber. “At least, I think so. It’s hard to see clearly.”

  “I want to see,” Jane said.

  “Okay, one more look and I’ll be right down.” I gripped one side of the ladder and leaned over, closer to the wall, clutching the row of bricks with my other hand.

  “Shannon, that looks dangerous.”

  “I’m fine. This is so great.” But the row of bricks I was holding on to began to give a little. They were no longer supported by the other bricks and suddenly felt loose. Was the mortar starting to disintegrate? “Oh, shoot. This wall is . . . not so solid.”

  I tried to back away, but my movement pressed the ladder more heavily against the wall.

  I reached blindly for the nearest rung to steady myself, but I couldn’t get hold of one.

  How could a solid brick wall move like this? It almost felt like an earthquake.

  “Shannon, come down right now.”

  The wall began to cave inward and I felt myself moving forward with it. “Jane?”

  “Shannon!” Jane screamed.

  I screamed, too, and struggled to hold on to the ladder as the wall collapsed beneath me. At the last second I felt my feet slip off the rung and barely managed to grasp the ladder rail with one hand as all the newly loosened bricks tumbled down into the empty space.

  Chapter Seven

  “Oh my God!” Jane cried. “Hold on!”

  “I’m trying to.” I could hardly hear myself over the clatter of falling bricks, not to mention the pounding of my heart.

  “You’re scaring me to death.”

  I was scaring myself to death. I tried to breathe, but I was afraid to move even that much. I was clinging by one hand to the side rail, dangling like a circus monkey at the top end of a really tall extension ladder.

  The top of the fly rail had caught on the edge of the still-solid old wall, but it was so close to the hole that I knew it could slide off at any minute and go down. And take me with it.

  I began to tremble with equal parts relief and terror. Relief that I hadn’t yet fallen. Terror that I would drop any second now. It wasn’t a long fall, maybe twelve or thirteen feet. But if I dropped down from here, I would plummet onto a pile of hard, unforgiving bricks. At the very least, I would break some bones.

  “Hold on, please,” Jane whimpered.

  “That’s the plan,” I whispered.

  “Should I run and get someone?”

  “No time. Besides, I might need your help here.”

  “Okay. If you can get down a few more rungs, I can grab your feet and plant them on the rung. Will that help?”

  “Yeah, that’ll help.” Except that I was hanging off one side with only one hand and I couldn’t maneuver it over to grip a rung. “First I have to get both hands on the rail. And then I’ve got to slide down a few inches at a time.”

  “Can you swing yourself around and grab the other rail?”

  “I can try.”

  “Should I hold the ladder steady for you?”

  “Yes, do that.” I took stock of my position. “Let me work on this.” I knew as I was fighting for my life that it was taking far less time to experience it than it would when I finally told the story. If I survived to tell it. Actually, I felt like I was on fast-forward and pause all at the same time.

  “Shannon, you’re bleeding.”

  I already knew that, could see blood trickling down my arm. “It’s just my knuckles. They scraped against the brick.” And they were hurting like crazy, but Jane didn’t need to know that. And I didn’t have the presence of mind to both hold on and hold a conversation.

  “Oh God,” she said, then, “Okay, you can do this.”

  “Yes, I can. Give me a second or two.” I hoped I would only need a second or two.

  I had worked in construction most of my life, so my arms were pretty strong. I had somehow forgotten that fact while hanging so perilously above the abyss, so it took me a few serious deep breaths to take stock, then start solving my problem. Slowly and very deliberately, I raised my other arm up toward the rail, being careful to distribute my weight in a way that wouldn’t cause the ladder to jerk and fall. When I finally got hold of the rail with both hands, I blew out a heavy breath.

  “Okay, that’s a start at least.” If only I had worn my gloves, I thought. I could’ve gone sliding down the rail without too much effort. But even that movement might’ve caused the ladder to collapse, I realized, so I would take each small victory as it came.

  Inch by cautious inch, I placed one hand under the other and descended the ladder. My fingers were aching from gripping the rail so tightly.

  “You’re almost close enough for me to grab you,” Jane announced. “Just another couple yards or so.”

  That sounded really far away.

  “Jane, step back so I don’t hit you with my boots.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Good, because I have no idea what I stepped in today.”

  She stifled a laugh. “Shut up, will you?”

  “Just trying to keep it light.” Besides, I realized that talking was actually helping.

  “I’m not ready to laugh yet.”

  “But I’ve got more jokes.”

  “Stop it, you goofball.”

  I was out of breath from the exertion and the fear, but kept going. A couple of inches at a time, I told myself, in spite of the ache in my arms and fingers.

  “Shannon?” a deep voice yelled from the front hall. I jolted from the unexpected sound of another person in the building, then cursed under my breath when the ladder shook.

  “In here, Mac!
” Jane shouted.

  “Coming,” he called.

  “Mac,” I whispered. “Thank God,” I added in complete and utter relief. I had to steady myself and keep breathing.

  “Hurry!” Jane’s shout echoed what I was feeling.

  “Damn,” I said in a loud whisper. “I look like a complete fool.” Oh well, it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been sprawled on a pile of bricks.

  Paying no attention to my momentary attack of vanity, thank goodness, Jane raised her voice and shouted, “We’re back here, Mac. Go past the stairway and look for the door in the wood panel.”

  It took a few long seconds before he answered, “Found it.”

  We could hear the sound of his boots thudding against the wood floor of the passageway, and then it was quiet as he stepped onto the ancient carpeting.

  “There you are,” he said, then gaped. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Help her, Mac,” Jane said.

  “Wait,” I cried. “Don’t get too close to the ladder. It feels like it could fall away at any second.”

  Mac moved right up next to the ladder without touching it. He raised his arms and I realized he was close enough to catch me if I fell.

  “Easy, babe.”

  I continued moving one hand and then the other, slowly down the ladder rail. With each inch, I prayed the ladder wouldn’t slip off its precarious perch.

  “You’ve got this,” Mac murmured.

  Jane added, “Shannon, you’re so close.”

  I wanted to stop and rest my head against my hands, but I couldn’t lose whatever momentum I’d built up. I just kept moving.

  “Keep going, sweetheart,” Mac said, his voice a little shaky. “I can almost reach you.”

  I smiled at his words. Even facing certain death, he could turn me real sappy.

  “Come on, baby,” Mac said. “Just a few more inches.”

  “Am I there yet?”

  “Yeah, you’re there,” he said, and grabbed me around the upper thighs, pulling me away from the ladder and letting me slide to my feet before wrapping his arms around me.

  “Jeez, Irish.” He buried his face in my hair. “You scared the hell out of me.”