Time Windows (16 page)

Timmy went to look, all concern about chimneys forgotten. Just then the tall flames leapt out of the corner and crackled along the dry wood of the floor. The boys jumped back as the flames traveled across one wall and caught a box of old clothes. "Watch out!" screamed Jeff, as sparks flew out around them.

The smoke grew dense as the clothes smoldered and burned. "Water!" screeched Timmy, choking.

Jeff ran to the windows and pulled back the black curtains. He tugged at the locks. "Help! Help! Let us out!"

Just as the smoke became so dense that Miranda didn't see how the boys could have lived to return to Boston, the attic door crashed open, the latch torn from the wood. Iris and Andrew Kramer rushed in, gasping and shouting through the smoke.

"Timmy! Jeff? Where are you? Quick!" Crying and coughing, the boys ran toward the sound of their parents' voices. Jeff fell before he reached the attic door and was snatched up by Iris.

"Oh, my baby, my baby," she moaned, running down the stairs with his limp form in her arms.

Miranda collapsed back onto her cushions and turned the fan on high. She coughed wrackingly and stumbled over to the windows. So that was what happened! Because Iris locked her children up in the dark attic, they'd almost died. Had she ever forgiven herself? Miranda fervently hoped not.

Helen went to her office the next day still complaining of a headache but determined not to delay the opening of her new practice. Philip and Miranda sat together in the sunny kitchen, Philip with his nose in the paper, Miranda eating breakfast. Miranda shook some more cereal out of the box and splashed a generous amount of milk over it. "What are you doing today, Dad?"

He looked at her over the newspaper. "Oh, this and that. Anything I feel like. You know—the happy life of the unemployed."

"Yeah, you sure sound happy about it." Miranda's tone was ironic.

He groaned and laid the paper on the table. "I don't know, Mandy. I love puttering around, but maybe I was wrong to give up teaching."

"Don't tell me you're ready to go back!"

"No, not really. I haven't been happy teaching for the past few years. But it feels very strange to be home while Mither goes to work."

"She makes enough money. You could stay home and take care of the house."

"I guess I'm more old-fashioned than I thought," he replied. "I certainly don't mind if she makes more money than I do—any doctor makes more than a teacher. But I just don't see myself staying home, either."

Miranda liked having her father confide in her this way, though she wondered whether he would be this open with her if her mother weren't being so remote and unfriendly. He probably didn't have anyone he could talk to anymore.

"Why not give yourself the summer to think about what you want to do?" she said. "Wasn't that your plan, anyway?"

"You're right." He pushed back his chair and smiled at her. "Sensible Mandy, that's just what I'll do. There are at least a dozen odd jobs needing to be done outside and around the house. Just look at those overgrown hedges!" He swung his arm toward the windows.

The day outside glistened. Water droplets from yesterday's downpour gleamed like tinsel on the long blades of grass and hedges in the side yard. Miranda spooned the last morsels of cereal out of her bowl and carried the dishes to the sink. A tap on the windowpane above the sink startled her, and she glanced up. Dan waved cheerfully, then appeared at the open screen door.

"You're early," said Miranda. "Come on in."

"I had to sneak away while Buddy was still eating breakfast," he explained, then greeted Philip and sat down at the table.

"I like Buddy!"

"You've only seen his company manners."

Philip stood up. "Well, I'm off to attack the wayward shrubberies."

"Oh, wait—Mr. Browne?" Dan shifted his chair and looked up at him. "I almost forgot! Dad said to ask if you'd be interested in going with him to Lexington today, if you're not busy. Somebody has donated a collection of Revolutionary War era clothing and books to the museum, and my dad has to sort through everything. Since you used to teach American history, he thought maybe you could help him decide what's valuable and what's not."

Philip's face lit up. "That sounds a lot more interesting than cutting the hedges down to size. I'll go give him a call." He hurried out of the room.

Miranda held out a stoneware bowl full of fruit. "Good timing. Dad was just saying how bored he was getting with being a house husband!"

Dan selected a peach. "Well, after breakfast Mom and Buddy are going to town to do errands and go out to lunch, and I figured with your dad and mine in Lexington and your mom at work, we'd have some privacy for trying the experiment. Not to mention finding that secret room."

"Come on upstairs," she told him. "Speaking of the experiment, I have a lot to tell you."

They carried their peaches up the stairs. "Did you do it?" he asked.

"Not exactly. But I've found out some interesting stuff." Miranda switched on the fan behind the dollhouse and arranged the cushions on the floor.

Dan settled back, adjusting a pillow behind his head. He bit into his peach. "Ah, this is the life," he grinned. "Let the entertainment begin!"

Miranda recounted what she had seen in the Kramers' attic the evening before. Dan listened carefully without interrupting. She was describing the fire and smoke when she stopped abruptly in midword and stared at him openmouthed.

"What is it?"

"Oh, Dan! I just remembered something!" She jumped up from the floor. "What a complete idiot I am!"

"What is it?" he repeated excitedly.

She turned to him, glowing. "I know where the secret hiding place is!"

"You do?
How?
"

Miranda crossed the attic to the blackened walls on the far side. "Timmy and Jeff built the fire here because they were afraid of the dark—it was practically pitch black in here that night with the black curtains, and the switch for the lights is out on the landing. Jeff called for Timmy to come look at something—a crack in the floor..."

"A trapdoor? Is that what you're thinking?"

"Yes!"

"Why didn't you look last night?" He began walking along the wall, examining the floor.

"Just when he said that, the flames flared up and caught some clothes on fire—and the smoke got so bad I couldn't think about anything else."

Dan sniffed. "It doesn't smell like smoke now."

"Of course not. The fire happened about fifty years ago!"

He shook his head. "Oh, yeah."

Miranda scanned the blackened floorboards. "The fire wasn't really bad—it was the smoke that was dangerous. I mean, the Kramers didn't have to move out because of the fire. It's not as if the whole house burned down."

"Well," mused Dan, "if it happened the way you say it did, then probably Iris Kramer felt too guilty to stay here."

"I hope so," said Miranda staunchly. "She deserved to feel guilty. She seemed so nice when they first moved in, but then she started to change..."

Dan was inspecting the blackened floorboards. "No trapdoor here."

Miranda dropped to her hands and knees. "No—it was over here. Let's see. They built the fire in the corner—and then Jeff walked over here..." She crawled along the wall. "...To here. Where this camping stuff is." Miranda bent down to push the sleeping bags and boxes of equipment out of the way, and Dan helped. Together they slid it a few feet across the floor.

"Got bricks in these backpacks, or what?" asked Dan.

"Could be. Mither saves everything." She pushed aside an enormous new cobweb stretched between a box and the wall and wiped her dusty hands on her shorts. "Spiders are fast workers," she said. She pointed: "There!"

Dan examined the long crack. "I think You've found it, Mandy! This is it!" He traced his finger around the edge. "It's hardly noticeable. And there's no ring or handle or anything to pull the door up with, just this little depression in the wood for a finger-hold."

"We need a lever," said Miranda, hugging herself. "I think Dad's still here. I'll go see if he has something in the toolbox."

She returned minutes later with Philip behind her. He looked intrigued and brandished a crowbar. "Your dad and I are leaving in a half hour," he said to Dan. "But let's see what you two have found here." He knelt on the floor and peered at the crack. "Well, what do you know!"

Miranda and Dan stepped back to give Philip more room. He levered the crowbar into the widest part of the crack and wiggled the tool back and forth gently, careful not to splinter the charred floorboards. "Okay," he said finally. Miranda and Dan knelt next to him, placing their fingers in the widened crack.

"When I say,
now
" said Philip, "pull up as hard as you can."

They braced themselves firmly on their knees and waited. Philip positioned the iron bar. "Okay, one, two, three...
now!
" He jerked down the crowbar and at the same time Miranda and Dan lifted with all their combined strength, but the floorboards did not move.

They sat back, perplexed. Then Dan bent over the crack once again. "Wait a sec! Let me try something!"

He pressed down firmly on the floorboards. They heard a
click.
He grinned and sat back. "Okay, now try it!"

Miranda stuck her fingers in the crack and pulled. The heavy square of floorboard inched open.

"You did it!" cried Miranda.

"A hidden locking mechanism," explained Dan, glowing with satisfaction. "There's a sliding panel in our museum wing that opens just like that when you press on it!"

"Good thinking!" Philip helped Miranda raise the trapdoor on its old hinges, and they propped it open with a suitcase.

A dark hole greeted them, and a rush of foul air made them wrinkle their noses. Miranda leaned eagerly over the edge. "Look, it's like a little tunnel!"

In the morning light streaming through the attic windows they could make out a narrow passageway only a few feet long, leading into a tiny room under the eaves. "Wow," breathed Dan. "And I thought the secret room in our house was tiny! This is just a
hole
"

"You wouldn't want to hide there for very long," agreed Philip. "You can tell it's airtight just by the way the door fits."

"I'm going down," said Miranda.

"Wait a minute, Mandy," Philip cautioned. "We don't know yet how safe the floorboards are. I don't want you crashing through."

"Come on, Dad," begged Miranda. "I'm lighter than either of you. And I found it first!"

"Okay, okay! Just hold on while I get a flashlight. It'll be too dark to see anything at all without a light."

When he had gone, Miranda and Dan turned to each other expectantly. "Isn't it great?" Miranda grinned.

"You are brilliant, Sherlock."

"Thank you, my dear Watson."

Philip clattered back up the stairs with a large flashlight. "I'm afraid the batteries are low."

"Oh, it doesn't matter!" cried Miranda, nearly snatching the flashlight from him. "I'm going down now!"

She stepped cautiously into the hole. "It seems strong enough," she said. "I'll have to crawl through the passageway to the little room. No way can anyone stand up in here."

"Careful, Mandy," warned Philip. "Test the boards first with your hands before putting your full weight on them."

Miranda dropped to her knees and moved slowly along, feeling her way. What air there was in the tiny hole was fetid with a strange odor she could not identify. "Ugh," she complained. "It really is foul in here."

"It's been shut up for a long time," said her father. "It's probably not a good idea to breathe it in."

"Well, what should I do? Hold my breath?"

"Just take it slow."

Miranda slid out of sight.

"Hey," called Dan after a moment. "What's it like?"

"Dark!" she called back. "Wait a sec—these batteries really
are
low." Her voice sounded muffled. "And it stinks, and—oh!" she broke off. "There's something in here! A pile of old clothes—"

She shone the dim light onto the heap in one corner of the tiny chamber and caught her breath in a ragged gasp.

Illuminated in the circle of light lay a small, huddled figure wrapped almost entirely in a tattered gray blanket. One tiny hand was flung outside the blanket—and long blonde curls fanned out across the floor. Miranda dragged her eyes away, and a low moan of horror filtered back to her father and Dan. She recognized that hair; she had seen those long blonde curls before. A wave of nausea surged around her as she fought her way back along the narrow passageway, striking her head on the low ceiling. She emerged into the waiting arms of her father and Dan, who lifted her out onto the attic floor.

"What is it, Mandy? For God's sake, Mandy!" cried Philip. He gathered her against him, as Dan wordlessly lowered himself into the hole.

Miranda sat quiet, then after a moment struggled to get up. Tears streaked her face and she was shockingly pale. She shook her head. She couldn't speak.

Dan returned, scrambling through the hole, two bright red spots of color livid on his cheeks. Philip clutched his shoulders, half lifting him out.

"What's wrong, Dan? What is it?"

Dan collapsed on the floor next to Miranda and closed his eyes to blot out the nightmare. "It's a dead girl," he said faintly.

When the police arrived they surged upstairs, measured the hidden chamber, and removed the body. Downstairs, two calm officers interviewed Miranda, Dan, and Philip, and then they talked with Ed Hooton, who had raced across to the Brownes' house at the first appearance of police cars. The trip to Lexington was off.

The chief of the Garnet police force sat in the living room and asked Miranda and Dan to relate how they had discovered the secret room. Another officer sat at the chiefs side taking everything down in a scratchy shorthand. They were excited. Nothing much of interest happened in Garnet—a bicycle theft or two was all the police department usually had to investigate. And here was—well, not murder, perhaps, but a mystery. It was exciting news on a sleepy Garnet summer day. A third police officer telephoned the newspapers in Garnet and the surrounding towns. Even the Boston reporters would want to be in on this; it would put Garnet on the map.