“Everyone up, please,” he said.
“What?” Lacey murmured, still surprised apparently that she believed she felt the cold.
“Huh?” Alice said.
“I don’t know—” Gary began.
“Please. Up,” Griffin said firmly.
They all rose and stepped back. Griffin had adrenaline going for him; he gripped the edges of the round table and pulled it to the side. It sat on the handsome reproduction period rug he had noted earlier.
“Now, hey! This is my restaurant!” Gary said indignantly.
Griffin ignored him, ripping up the rug.
Several of those in the room gasped softly.
And then, for a moment, they all stood as if frozen, and stared.
It was evident that the floorboards beneath had been crudely ripped out.
And even more crudely replaced.
Griffin hunkered down.
“What in God’s name...” Gary said. “Who did this? Who would have done this? This is my restaurant. Why...? I’m so confused!”
Griffin wasn’t particularly worried about Gary’s feelings at the moment. He looked around the room for something to use as a crowbar.
It wasn’t much, but Vickie had seen the long metal taper that had been used to light the candles, still lying on one of the serving mantels by the wall. She passed it to him, coming down on her knees, ready to get her fingers beneath the wood as soon as she was able to do so.
“You’ve got to be careful! You’re going to totally wreck the place on me!” Gary said. But his protest was weak.
As if he was afraid of what they would find.
But then, they were all afraid of what they were going to find.
The floorboards had been carelessly nailed. As poor a tool as the lighter might have been, it fit between the boards. Griffin wrenched, and one of the boards began to give.
Vickie got her hands beneath it; Jon Skye fell by her side and helped her pull.
Griffin twisted on another as the first gave to Vickie and Jon.
They reached for the other.
And then there was another gasp.
And everyone froze again.
Finally Lacey said, “Oh, my God!”
Griffin sat back on his haunches and looked around the room. They all appeared horrified.
“I believe,” Griffin said quietly, “that Brent Whaley isn’t missing anymore, and that he has attended your séance after all, Liza.”
6
“Franklin Verne might have snuck in somehow and indulged in the wine cellar,” Carl Morris said drily, “but it’s most unlikely that Brent Whaley snuck in and buried himself beneath the floorboards.”
He looked around at the group gathered just outside the private room.
His gaze, at the end, rested on Vickie. He looked tired, she noted. Tired—and yet resigned, as if he’d known that the strange case of Franklin Verne’s murder had been going to get much worse before it got better—if, indeed, it got better at all.
He had been quick to arrive—it almost seemed he’d been expecting a call from them, as if he’d anticipated the drop of the other shoe. He’d arrived within minutes. Followed closely by the medical examiner and a slew of crime-scene technicians.
They were outside the room where the séance had taken place because Griffin had seen to it that they all stepped out immediately after the discovery of Brent Whaley’s body in the floor. At that point, no one had any clue as to how long the body had been there and just how much had gone on in the room since the body had gone in beneath the boards.
Griffin had been trying to preserve whatever they could of the crime scene. And while none of them knew just how long the man had been deceased—or how he had arrived at his end, Griffin had whispered to Vickie that it couldn’t have been too long.
If so, the smell of decay would have alerted everyone to the presence of the dead.
And not in the spirit.
Gary was stunned and disheartened, slumped at a table outside the room. The restaurant had already been closed down again. Police were lining the streets around it.
“Rather an Oscar Wilde moment, wouldn’t you say?” Alistair Malcolm asked. “I mean, finding one corpse might be considered tragic bad luck, but finding two... What did Wilde call losing two parents? Sheer carelessness.”
“You’re not in the least amusing!” Lacey chided him. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly. “That’s Brent! Our friend Brent. And he’s dead. Stuffed in the floor!”
Alistair Malcolm appeared to be angered by her words. Vickie saw his hands ball into fists at his sides and his words were fraught with emotion. “They were my friends, Lacey. My real friends, both of them. Not acquaintances from some autographing or another. I cared about them both.”
“Oh! As if I didn’t!” Lacey said.
“Far more my friend,” Liza said. “Yes, of course, he was a member of the Blackbird Society. But he was an author. He did well. He was a very good friend. And he’s dead...here.”
“Boarded up in a floor rather than a wall, but still—à la Poe!” Alice noted.
“Quit with the Poe!” Gary said, his voice torn between hurt and anger. “I wish to hell that I’d never heard a single poem by that wretched man. I mean, what is this? What’s going on? Why is this happening here?”
He sounded truly broken, Vickie thought. But his daughter was still quick to send a stinging remark his way.
“Dad! Get over it—yes, you’ll close today. Maybe even tomorrow. A man is dead. Someone is doing something terrible here. In the end, rather sadly and ironically, you will win out. This place will be more popular than a theme destination!”
“Actually, it kind of is a theme destination,” Jon Skye pointed out. “We do have Poe here, there and everywhere.”
Alice shook her head, turning. It looked as if she might walk away.
But she was not going to be allowed to do so.
Carl Morris said, “No, no, no. No one is going anywhere. You’ll take a seat here in the dining room somewhere until my men have had a chance to take a statement from each and every one of you!”
There was grumbling, of course. And denial.
Liza, first. “This is outrageous, Detective,” she told Morris. “We had nothing to do with poor Brent being found in the floor. Well, other than that my séance did something that made Agent Pryce suddenly decide to go crazy and rip up the place.”
“He wasn’t alone,” Lacey said, pointing at Vickie. “She was in on it.”
“What? Sorry—in on what? You’re suggesting Agent Pryce and Miss Preston had something to do with...stuffing a man in the floor?” Morris asked incredulously.
“They’ve been questioning us!” Liza said. She stared at Vickie rather than Griffin. Maybe she thought that she could intimidate Vickie with great ease.
Vickie stared right back at her, shaking her head.
“Wow,” Alistair Malcolm murmured, looking at everyone, amused. “Wow.”
“Hey!” Alice said. “They were here—the first time any of us ever saw either of them, they were here for dinner. Then we found Franklin’s body, and then we found Brent’s body.” She pointed across the room at Vickie. “There were no bodies here until the two of them came around!”
“Alice, hey,” Jon Skye said. “It’s a dangerous thing to start suggesting that a federal government employee might have been involved in such a thing.”
“Conspiracy!” Lacey said.
“So right!” Alice said. “Where were you when you left the restaurant on Friday night? How do we know that the two of you didn’t come back here with Franklin Verne and Brent Whaley and kill them in this horrific manner?” she demanded.
Vickie started to answer—something angry and defensive and in
credulous, she was pretty certain.
But Griffin answered—calm, and not in the least defensive or angry.
“When we left, we went through the front door,” he said calmly. “I have a service record that’s hard to match, Miss Frampton. Nor are we any part of this community. I’d take care throwing accusations at a federal agent.”
“You take care. We left by the front door, too!” Lacey said.
“Okay,” Griffin said politely. “Let’s see, we returned straight to our hotel—where security camera records will prove we entered the establishment before midnight and did not go back out until the morning. Key cards at the hotel are also programmed to show every time a door opens and closes. We were back in our room well before midnight.”
Lacey just stared at him. “Oh,” she said coldly, turning aside.
“I wonder if you’ll have as much proof of your whereabouts,” Griffin said.
“I believe that everyone is upset,” Vickie said, stepping in. “And we should be upset. A man is dead. A second man is dead, a friend to many here. Let’s try to remain...” Remain what? She wondered herself. Remain decent, calm and nice? What was the right word—when one of them might be a killer? “Controlled,” she finished. “We’ll find the truth. Honestly, we will.”
“Killers get away all the time,” Liza noted.
“Not this time,” Vickie said.
“Sit, please. Get yourselves coffee or drinks if you want. No one leaves here until we get a statement from them about this morning.”
“This is so dumb!” Liza protested. “We were having a séance. Those two started freaking out. Agent Pryce went crazy ripping up the floor, helped by Miss Preston here. And then...then we saw Brent. That’s it. In a nutshell. And how the hell did they know to look under the floor unless they were somehow responsible for him being there?” she demanded.
Everyone looked at Vickie and Griffin.
“How did you know?” Carl Morris asked.
Griffin was silent just a beat too long—and Vickie realized that she didn’t have a believable answer at all.
Liza gasped with pleasure and clapped her hands. “It was me! It was my séance. I brought Brent Whaley’s spirit into the room, and Brent told them that he was under the wood. That’s right, isn’t it?” she asked gleefully.
“I had a hunch about this room,” Griffin said, looking at Carl.
“A hunch?” Morris asked.
“There was a strange wrinkle in the rug,” Griffin said. “It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right. I figured we had to move the table and see the floor.”
“I see,” Carl said. He didn’t see at all, but he wasn’t going to argue with Griffin in front of the others.
“Liar!” Liza accused Griffin. “You felt his presence—more than we did. Admit it! You heard him, you saw him!”
“Liza,” Alistair Malcolm said. “Please! Everyone will think that we’re all...”
“All what?” Liza demanded.
“Kooks!” he exclaimed.
“Ass,” she told him lowly. Then she turned and stared at Griffin and then at Vickie with total disgust. And she walked away, her back to them as she took a chair across the room, folding her arms over her chest.
“Bitch,” Alistair muttered beneath his breath.
No one argued.
“May I go to the store, clean up a bit?” Lacey asked quietly.
“As long as you don’t leave the premises,” Morris told her. “I’ll be sending officers in to speak with each of you, take statements from you.”
“What? We were just there when they found him,” Liza protested. “His death obviously had nothing to do with us.”
“We’re here, and he was found here,” Jon explained gently. “They have to question us, or, at the least, take our statements.”
“Okay, so here’s my statement!” Liza announced. “Some vicious freak killed poor Brent by stuffing him in the floor. I am a medium. I brought his spirit forth, and Agent—whoops, sorry—Special Agent Pryce found him in the floor.”
“I thought Brent was our friend,” Alistair Malcolm said very softly. “I am happy to answer questions that you may have.”
“An officer in uniform will come to each of you,” Carl Morris said. “He will only take a few minutes of your time.”
“Of course,” Alice said. “Because we’ve all been questioned about Franklin Verne already. I guess we’re all going to have about the same answers.”
“Except...” Alistair said.
“Except what?” Gary asked dully.
“We don’t know yet when Brent died, so...we’re not at all sure what date we’ll need for our alibis!”
Two officers in uniform with notepads had come to stand behind Carl Morris.
“People, if you will, please? This can be quick and painless. You can do what you like—the officers will come find you.”
“Then I’ll help Lacey?” Alice asked, looking at Morris.
Morris nodded.
“Me, too,” Jon Skye said. “I need something to do.”
Lacey shrugged and said, “Whatever. Can’t usually get any help—might as well use it now while I’ve got it.”
“You got copies of Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ in there?” Alistair asked.
“It’s a story in an anthology in the shop, of course, yes,” Lacey said impatiently. Then she paused. “So that was it, huh? A tell-tale heart. Agent Pryce heard that heartbeat, huh?”
“Hard to hear the heartbeat of a dead man,” Jon Skye noted.
“Yeah, truly curious, huh?” Lacey said, staring hard at Griffin and then Vickie again.
“I want to refresh myself on the story,” Alistair said. “Maybe help law enforcement,” he said. “Bring me a copy? Put it on my bill? You know I pay.”
“Sure,” Lacey said. She couldn’t just leave it. She had to stare at Griffin and Vickie yet again before she headed for the gift shop, Alice and Jon in her wake.
One of the two officers followed them as well.
Gary hadn’t seemed to have heard much of anything. He’d fallen into a chair and seemed to simply be in shock now. He wasn’t speaking or moving—he was just staring ahead.
The second officer asked him, “Sir, come along with me?”
And Gary nodded and went with him to another table nearby.
The medical examiner appeared at the door to the private room; he nodded to Carl Morris and Griffin, indicating they were to come back in.
The two men did so, Griffin looking at Vickie in a way that she took to mean she should keep her eyes on the entire assembly around them—even though they had gone off in different directions.
Alistair Malcolm pulled out a chair for her. “I guess I’m next!” he said. “I wasn’t here when Franklin was killed. I mean, I didn’t have dinner here or anything like that. There were no meetings. But...”
“But?”
“I have no alibi!” he said.
“Are you innocent?” she asked.
He grinned sadly. “They were both my friends. This is devastating. But so odd. Two friends of mine—good friends—have been killed. And it isn’t sinking in because I could be a murder suspect. I was home alone. I was working. Hey, maybe that’s an alibi!” he said, brightening. “The computer will show that I was working.”
“I think it will, Mr. Malcolm,” Vickie said. “But for them to accuse you of murder, they’d need more than the fact that you just don’t have an alibi.”
He nodded glumly.
The officer finished with Gary, and they returned to the table. Malcolm rose. “My turn,” he said, nodding to the officer. “I can only tell you what I know, but I am happy to do that.”
“Thank you, sir,” the officer said politely.
The officer left
with Alistair Malcolm. Gary took a seat. He looked at Vickie and shook his head and buried his face in his hands.
“Two men, one a friend, one...one famous! Dead. Here. À la Poe. And I thought that I was honoring talent, giving people a bit of a history lesson. I never meant this!”
“Gary, the restaurant didn’t kill anyone,” Vickie said.
No, the restaurant hadn’t killed. But it did belong to Gary Frampton. Was he very good at pretending to be so stunned and heartbroken? He did know the place backward and forward. He owned it. He was naturally a suspect.
As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “I swear! I had nothing to do with any of this!”
“The police and the Bureau will find the truth,” Vickie said simply.
She was next up—apparently, they were all giving statements. She answered the simple questions to the best of her ability. No, she had never met Brent Whaley before. There was nothing in the room—or any indication from anyone in the room—that there was a body buried beneath the floor. Yes, the rug was a bit off. When the rug was moved, it was evident that someone had somehow tampered with the floorboards.
Finally she returned to the table. Alistair Malcolm rose to pull back a chair for her. She was about to thank him and accept the seat when she noted something strange across the room.
A shadow...?
A silhouette...?
A man.
A dead man.
At first she thought she saw just a dazzle of light. And then she was certain that she saw him standing there. He was studying one of the portraits on the wall—a print of a famous Poe painting.
Indeed, it was Poe himself.
7
“The floorboards are the old floorboards. I believe a crowbar was originally used to lift them up, but we haven’t found a crowbar anywhere. We have the nails used to hammer the floorboards back in, and we’ll analyze them, but I believe we’ll discover that they are nails that can be bought at any chain hardware store across the nation. We’re really going to need to go through this entire place.”
Amy Trent, perhaps thirty-five with dark hair prematurely graying just at her temples, was giving the report. She was lithe, spry and, according to Morris, a CSI who was very good at her job.