Whiskey Beach (28 page)

He couldn’t remember the Easter before, with Lindsay’s murder so fresh, with the hours he’d spent in interrogation, the living fear that the police would, again, knock on the door. And this time take him away in handcuffs. All that blurred now—the pale, strained faces of his family, the gradual and steady retreat of those he’d considered friends, the loss of his job, the accusations flung out at him if he ventured into public.

He’d gotten through it. Whatever hounded him now, he’d get through that.

He’d never give this up again, this feeling of home and of hope.

To Whiskey Beach, he thought, lifting his glass and catching Abra’s eye, Abra’s smile. He drank to it, and everything in it.

When he stood on Monday morning after helping load cars, the feeling of hope remained with him. He gave his grandmother a last good-bye hug.

“I’ll remember,” she whispered in his ear. “Stay safe until I do.”

“I will.”

“And tell Abra she won’t be teaching her morning yoga class without me much longer.”

“I’ll do that, too.”

“Come on, Mom, let’s get you in the car.” Rob gave his son a one-armed man hug, a slap on the back. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Summer’s coming,” Eli said, helping his grandmother. “Make time, okay?”

“We will.” His father walked around to the driver’s seat. “It was good to have all the Landons in Bluff House again. Stay ready for us. We’ll be back.”

Eli waved them off, watched them until the road curved away. Beside him Barbie let out a quiet whine.

“You heard him. They’ll be back.” Turning, Eli studied Bluff House. “We have work to do before that. We’re going to find out what that asshole was looking for. We’re going to give Bluff House a clean sweep. Right?”

Barbie wagged her tail.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s get started.”

He started at the top. The third floor, the servants’ domain back in the day, now served as storage for odd pieces of furniture, trunks that held vintage clothes or memorabilia previous Landons had been too sentimental to discard, and too practical to display.

After the search, the cops hadn’t bothered to replace the dust sheets, so they lay in white piles like snowdrifts over the floor.

“If I were an obsessed treasure hunter, what would I be looking for up here?”

Not the treasure itself, Eli decided. “The Purloined Letter” aside, hiding in plain sight had its limits. No one could believe any of the previous occupants would have tucked a chest full of jewels away within the saggy divan or behind the spotty mirror.

He wandered around, poking into boxes and trunks, tossing dust covers back over chairs. The light streamed in so motes danced in beams, and the silence of the house accented the toss and suck of the surf.

He couldn’t imagine living with the army of servants who’d once slept in the warren of rooms, or gathered in the larger space for meals or gossip. There’d never be true solitude, true silence, and forget genuine privacy.

A trade-off, he supposed. To maintain a house like this, and live and entertain as his ancestors did, required the army. His grandparents had preferred a less elaborate lifestyle.

In any case, the days of Gatsby were done, at least in Bluff House.

Still, it seemed a shame and a waste to have an entire floor occupied by shrouded furniture, boxes of books, trunks filled with dresses layered with tissue and sachets of lavender.

“It’d make a great artist’s studio, wouldn’t it?” he asked Barbie. “If I could paint. Gran can, but this is too much of a haul, and she likes using her sitting room for that, or painting on the terrace.”

Taking a break, doing the shoulder rolls Abra had recommended, he prowled around the former servants’ parlor.

“Still, the light’s great. Little kitchen area over there. Update the sink, put in a microwave, update this bathroom,” he added after taking a look at the old pull-chain toilet. “Or better, have these old fixtures rehabbed. Make use of some of the furniture that’s just sitting here.”

Frowning, he walked to the windows overlooking the beach. Generous windows, great view, a likely architectural decision rather than one done for the staff’s benefit.

He moved off, into the gable, thinking of his first wandering through the day he’d arrived.

Yeah, he could work up here, he thought again. It wouldn’t take much to fix it up a little. He didn’t need much. Move a desk up, some files, shelves—and yeah, update this bathroom, too.

“What writer doesn’t want a garret? Yeah, maybe. Maybe I’ll do that once Gran’s back home. I’ll think about that.”

Which wasn’t addressing the purpose, Eli admitted, and did a second walk-through. He imagined housemaids climbing out of iron beds at dawn, bare toes curling against the cold floor. A butler putting on his starched white shirt, the head housekeeper checking off her list of duties for the day.

A whole world had existed here. One the family had probably known little about. But what hadn’t existed, as far as he could see, was anything worth the breaking and entering, or breaking the bones of an old woman.

He circled back into the wide hall, studied the old armoire against the—to him—unfortunate floral wallpaper. On close examination he saw no signs it had been moved in the past decade or more.

Curious, he attempted to do so now, putting his back into it. And didn’t budge it more than an inch. He tried reaching into the narrow space behind it, then maneuvering his arm from underneath.

Not only would no mischievous little boy be able to shove it clear, but neither could a grown man. Not alone, Eli thought.

On impulse, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts Abra had keyed in. He hit Mike O’Malley’s number.

“Hi, Mike, it’s Eli Landon. . . . Yeah, good, thanks.” He leaned back on the armoire, thought it as solid and intimidating as a redwood.

“Look, have you got a few minutes anytime today? . . . Really? If you’ve got the day off, I don’t want to interrupt any plans. . . . In that case, I could use a hand with something. A little muscle?” He laughed at Mike’s question about which muscle. “All of them . . . Appreciate it.”

He hung up, looked at Barbie. “It’s probably stupid, huh? But who can resist a secret panel?”

He trooped downstairs, detoured into his office for a minute to imagine moving his work space to the third floor. Not a completely crazy idea, he decided. More . . . eccentric.

The wallpaper would have to go, and there would probably be some issues with heat and AC, plumbing. Eventually he’d have to figure out what, if anything, to do with the rest of the space up there.

But it was good to think about it.

Barbie’s head lifted. She let out a trio of barks seconds before the doorbell rang.

“Some ears you’ve got there,” Eli told her, and headed downstairs in her wake.

“Hey. You were quick.”

“You got me out of doing yard work—temporarily. Hey there.” Mike gave Barbie a rub as she sniffed his pants. “I heard you got a dog. What’s his name?”

“Her.” Eli struggled with a wince. “Barbie.”

“Dude.” Pain and sympathy covered Mike’s face. “Seriously?”

“She came with it.”

“You can use that unless you get her a buddy and call him Ken. I haven’t been in here for a while,” Mike added as he wandered the foyer. “Hell of a place. Maureen said your family came up for Easter. How’s Mrs. Landon doing?”

“Better. A lot better. I’m hoping she’ll be back in Bluff House by the end of summer.”

“It’ll be great having her back. Not that we want to kick you out of Whiskey Beach.”

“I’m staying.”

“No shit?” Mike’s grin stretched as he gave Eli a punch on the shoulder. “Man, glad to hear it. We could use some fresh meat in our monthly poker games. And we’d class it up holding it here when you’re up.”

“What’s the buy in?”

“Fifty. We’re small-time.”

“Let me know next time you’re setting up. The thing’s upstairs,” Eli said, gesturing and turning for the steps. “Third floor.”

“Cool. I’ve never been up there.”

“It hasn’t been used since I was a kid. We would play up there in bad weather, and once or twice we got to bunk up there, tell ghost stories. Just storage now, really.”

“So, we’re hauling something down?”

“No. Just moving a piece. Big-ass armoire. Double armoire,” he added as they topped the stairs. “In here.”

“Nice space, bad wallpaper.”

“Tell me.”

Mike scanned the room, landed on the armoire. “Big mother.” He crossed to it, ran his fingers over the carved front. “A beauty. Mahogany, right?”

“I think.”

“I’ve got a cousin who brokers antiques. He’d piss his pants at a chance on this. Where are we moving it?”

“Just out a few feet.” At Mike’s blank look, Eli shrugged. “So . . . there’s a panel behind it.”

“A panel?”

“A passageway.”

“Fucking A!” As he punched a fist in the air, Mike’s face lit up. “Like a secret passage? Where does it go?”

“All the way down to the basement, from what I’m told. Just told. I had no idea. They were servants’ passages,” Eli explained. “They made my grandmother nervous, so she closed them up, but she just blocked off this one, and the one in the basement.”

“This is very cool.” Mike rubbed his hands together. “Let’s move this sucker.”

Easier said, they discovered. Since they couldn’t lift it, and trying to shove it from either side proved impossible, they realigned, both on one end, then both on the other, walking it out a couple inches at a time.

“Next time we get a crane.” Straightening, Mike rolled his aching shoulders.

“How the hell did they get it up here?”

“Ten men, and one woman telling them it might look better on the other wall. And if you tell Maureen I said that, I’ll swear you’re a dirty liar.”

“You just helped me move a ten-ton armoire. My loyalty is yours. See here? You can just see the edge of the panel. The ugly wallpaper mostly camouflages it, but when you know it’s there . . .”

He felt around the chair rail, sliding his fingers over, under until they hit the release. When he heard the faint click, he looked at Mike.

“You game?”

“Are you kidding? Game is my middle name. Open her up.”

Eli pressed on the panel, felt it give slightly, then open an inch in his direction. “Swings out,” he murmured, and pulled it fully open.

He saw a narrow landing, then the drop of steep steps into the dark. Automatically, he felt the inside wall for a switch, and was surprised to find one.

But when he flipped it, nothing happened.

“Either there’s no electricity in there, or no light. I’ll get a couple of flashlights.”

“And maybe a loaf of bread. For the crumbs,” Mike explained. “And a big stick, in case of rats. Just the flashlights then,” he said to Eli’s stony stare.

“Be right back.”

He grabbed a couple of beers while he was at it. The least he could do.

“Better than a loaf of bread.” Mike took the beer and a flashlight, shone the light upward in the passage. “No lightbulb.”

“I’ll get some next time.” Armed with the flashlight, Eli stepped into the passage. “Pretty narrow, but wider than I figured. I guess they’d need the space for carrying trays and whatever. The steps feel sound, but watch it.”

“Snakes, very dangerous. You go first.”

Snorting out a laugh, Eli started down. “I doubt we’ll find a detested butler’s skeletal remains or the dying words of a feckless housemaid carved into the wall.”

“Maybe a ghost. It’s spooky enough.”

And dusty and dank. The steps creaked underfoot, but at least no rats gleamed out with red eyes.

Eli paused when his light played over another panel. “Let me think.” And orient himself. “This should come out on the second-floor landing. See how it forks here? That one should come out in my grandmother’s bedroom. That’s always been the master, as far as I know. God, we’d have killed to have these open when we were kids. I could’ve snuck around, jumped out and scared the shit out of my sister.”

“Which is exactly why your grandmother sealed up the doors.”

“Yeah.”

“Thinking of opening them again?”

“Yeah. No reason to, but yeah.”

“Cool is its own reason.”