The Detective Club

We moved into the living room as Ginny admired the rough stone fireplace, and then to the library, where she inhaled, paused, and tilted her head to one side. She frowned. Finding a chair, she sat and closed her eyes. Charlie, somewhat worried, watched and waited.

In a few moments she rose. "Something’s very wrong in here," she said, puzzled.

"You don’t like the room?" Charlie asked.

"No. I like the room. It just feels wrong. I get the strangest depressed feeling in here. Something of a cold chill I think. It’s very odd."

"Oh come now," I interrupted. "Charlie was only kidding about ghosts. It’s just that the kids in town were afraid of old Thompson. So they made up stories. Thompson enjoyed scaring them. Old men are like that sometimes, when they get bored and don’t have anything better to do. You mustn’t pay any attention to rumors."

"No. Tom. That’s not it. There’s something not right here. I can feel it. Actually, it’s more like an aura of despair and tragedy -- I really can’t explain it. I can only feel it."

Charlie inhaled deeply and shrugged. "You mean you don’t want the place?"

"No. I don’t mean that! Not at all! I love the house. There are so many marvelous things we can do with it. It’s just that I can feel something sad and sorrowful in this room, some atmosphere that shouldn’t be here." She paused and sniffed deeply. "It’s a feeling of disintegration, something like that."

"Ghosts?" I teased.

"I don’t know. Just something dark, something brooding, a kind of bleakness of something unresolved, something out of balance. I’m not being silly Tom. I’ve always been able to feel that sort of thing. Charlie, we should do something about it!"

"What? I’m no good at exorcisms or ghost hunting. Maybe a paint job will do it. Perhaps it’s just the dampness. The house has been vacant a good while you know. We may just have to turn on the furnace and dry the place out a little." Charlie responded.

"No. It’s not that simple." She occupied herself in thought a while, rising and pacing about the room in a small circle. "I know what I’ll do. I’ll call Aunt Millicent. Maybe she can suggest something. I do love the house. I want to stay. But I want this strange feeling to go away. I want to like this room. I want us to be happy here."

"Oh come now, Ginny. She’s just a fortuneteller. What can she do?"

"No, she isn’t! She’s a lot more than that. She’s a real spiritualist. Mother always said she was the one with the true gift. She can do the most amazing things. She can help, Charlie, really she can. She’s tough, you know."

"If you say so. But I don’t believe in spirits."

"Well, I do! Particularly in this room! You need more imagination Charlie Smith."

"Wait just a minute," I interrupted, startled." "You said Millicent?"

Ginny nodded. "Yes. Aunt Millicent."

"And you, Charlie. You said fortune teller?"

"Indeed I did."

"Your fortune-telling Aunt wouldn’t by any chance happen to be Millicent Zacharias?"

"She certainly is," Ginny said.

"I’ll be damned," I responded. "I know her. She worked with my brother-in-law, a homicide lieutenant, and my boss, Simon Fraser, on the Denning murder case. Just like Ginny says, she’s something of a wonder. Downright awesome, come to think of it."

"I knew she was involved in the Denning affair in some way or another, but she never said anything to me about it," Ginny said, frowning, "And I didn’t know you were included."

"I tell you one thing, Charlie," I insisted. "Millicent Zacharias is one helluva lot more than just a fortune teller."

"Pliers please," Millicent Zacharias ordered, when her barehanded attempts to turn one of the keys in the lower padlock of the iron doors in the basement failed for the fourth time.

I browsed the workbench and found the tool in question.

"Ah!" Mrs. Zacharias said in triumph, as the first padlock key turned and a sharp jerk released the hasp. "That’s done then. Let’s try the other one."

The second lock was built of sterner stuff and surrendered after about five minutes of patient turning, backing off, and testing. Mrs. Zacharias had a sense of the mechanical, and I could see she didn’t wish to break the key inside the reluctant lock. Patience paid off eventually. The key turned and a sharp rap of the pliers snapped the lock open. Mrs. Z. straightened and nodded in satisfaction. "Are you two ready?"

"Yes," Ginny admitted breathlessly.

"Me too," I said.

Millicent Zacharias was a woman of both determination and strength. But neither crossbar surrendered to her relentless pressure until I joined in and threw my full weight into the contest. Then, with vocal shrieks, the crossbars moved as commanded against the basement wall. It also required the efforts of both of us to pull the door open.

Once, years ago, a set of wooden stairs had led up through the open door to the outside world. The riser of the bottom stair was clearly visible. The four-by-eight exit space had been filled with black clay. The weight of the soil had eventually overwhelmed the steps which had collapsed downward, leaving a two-foot space between the cement ceiling and the clay itself.

Looking up, I could see the original outside doors had apparently been torn off and replaced with the concrete platform on which the ancient BBQ rested.

But Mrs. Zacharias did not concern herself with those matters. Her sharp eyes had seen something projecting from the left-hand corner just above the first rotting riser.

"Thomas! Get a garden trowel," she commanded.

I went searching again and found one on Charlie’s workbench.

Mrs. Zacharias took the proffered tool, went to her knees, and began digging very carefully, a few cubic inches of clay at a time. Eventually she rose, rubbed her nose with the back of her muddy hand and pointed.

Ginny and I both gasped in disbelief.

The bones of a human hand projected into the small square Mrs. Zacharias had dug out of the clay.

"Is that a hand?" Ginny asked.

"Yes," Millicent. Zacharias nodded firmly. "It certainly is."

"I thought bones were white. Those are almost black."