McCann's Manor (19 page)

"Well, I came straight home yesterday without stopping to get gas or anything and then this morning I ran back into town to get some gas—and while I was there, I picked up some doughnuts at that little bakery on the highway, you know the one?"

Liz shook her head, looked at the ceiling, “Yes, I know the one. Are they any good?"

Kim nodded. “They're great. I got you a couple. Want them?"

"You're twisting my arm. How can I say no to doughnuts?” she asked with a laugh.

Kim reached over to the other side of the bar and produced a small white box, announced, “Chocolate iced—your favorite."

"Mm—” Liz sighed, “give me those! My appetite was just asleep, but it's awake now!"

Kim handed her the box and a napkin. “So, what plans do you have today?"

"What, after yesterday? I thought I would take it easy today. What's on your agenda?"

"Well, last night when I thought I heard voices, I found one of those secret passages and thought we might explore it today, if you feel up to it, that is."

"You found a passage last night and didn't tell me about it until today?” Liz demanded, indignant.

"Guilty as charged,” she admitted, “But if I had told you about it last night, you'd have insisted we look at it last night; I figured we had both had enough for one day."

"Good point. Sure, I feel up to it. Where is it? It isn't the one to the front room, is it?"

"No, it is in the closet in the entry hall."

"In the closet? Which one?"

"You know, on the end of the parlor there are those two closets and one of them is a shorter room than the other one? Well the short one has a staircase in the end of it behind a sliding panel."

"A staircase? To where?” Liz asked.

Kim shrugged. “I didn't go up it; I just found it."

Liz shook her head. “You know, you're weird. How could you just find it and not go to see about it?"

"Why, thanks! I thought you would be mad if I explored it without you."

"Well, yeah."

"Well, so?"

"Oh,” Liz said. “You were being considerate again, weren't you?"

Kim stared at her, asked, “And
I'm
weird?"

Liz swallowed the last bite of her second doughnut, chuckled. “So when do we go exploring?"

"Well, it looked pretty dusty. I thought we would be better off to dress in old grungies."

"Oh, right. Well, you want to go for it now?"

Kim swigged the rest of her coffee, “Sure, kid. Let's
go for it
now."

"Well, if you're so anxious, want to race for the stairs?"

"Wow, Grandma, are you feeling frisky this morning? You know I'll beat you."

Liz laughed. “Frisky? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I guess I'm feeling pretty good at that."

"Then let's go get changed and explore."

"You're on!"

Ten minutes later found them standing inside the closet. Kim slid the panel out of the way; shone the flashlight up the stairs in the end of the room.

Liz peered up the hole that had been a secret so long. “Would you look at that? It is dark up there—wonder where this thing goes?"

"Must be a secret crawlspace up there between the first and second floors."

"Hmm—I suppose that's possible. How small of a crawlspace?"

"Only one way to find out, Liz. Don't get claustrophobic on me now. Let's go,” Kim said.

Liz started up the steps behind Kim, “I'm not the one who's claustrophobic."

They edged up the narrow metal spiral staircase and found themselves inside a small room at the top of the stairs, staring at one another.

Kim shrugged, “You think this is it?"

"No, it can't be. There must be another panel that moves out to a larger room,” Liz said.

Kim started tapping on the walls.

"What are you doing?” Liz asked.

"Listening. This is how I found the panel downstairs, by tapping on the walls. There, you see—this place here
sounds
different. I would bet this one is the sliding panel. Here, hold this flashlight and I'll see if it lifts like the other one."

Liz took the flashlight, sighed.

"Why the heavy sigh?"

"Oh, nothing; just—well, how can you be so psychic when you're so logical?"

Kim lifted the panel, took the flashlight out of Liz's hand and shined it out into the room. “I was
born
psychic; I had to train myself to be logical. Holy cow! Would you look at this? This floor must be six feet high and as wide as all the other floors."

Liz walked out of the stairwell, strained to see. “A complete hidden floor? Why?"

"You seem to know much more about McCann than
I
do. You tell me,” Kim said.

"Wow. Just think we're looking at something that hasn't been seen in almost two hundred years."

"Not exactly, Liz."

"What do you mean?"

Kim shined the flashlight onto the ceiling, “Well, look; this has to be electrical wiring and air conditioning duct work. Whoever converted the house to electricity for the Tatums had to have known about this floor because they used it to wire the rest of the house; there may be water pipes here, too. Yeah, see? Over there—and there. Looks like they even wired this floor for electricity—there are light fixtures and plugs—and ducts that come out in here. Leonard and Betty may have known about this floor, even if they didn't use it."

"Not necessarily, Kim,” Liz contradicted. “They probably didn't
live
here while the renovations were taking place. Maybe they hired someone to do the job and the contractor found this floor by accident—or had access to the original plans—and thought it would be the easiest way to do the job."

Kim looked at Liz, “Now look who's being logical. Why would he have wired this floor unless he was hired to do it, too?"

Liz looked around, shrugged, “Maybe because there isn't an extension cord in the world that is long enough to run all the way up here and he needed the plugs and the light to finish up the work. You don't want to mess with things like electricity in a place as dark as this. Look how well all this work is camouflaged; it almost looks as if it was part of the original work. Everything matches the paneling and the mortar. He had to have light and lots of it to do this kind of work."

"Yeah, maybe—lots of care
was
taken with all of this. Still, it must have taken quite a while to do it; I can't imagine anyone initiating all this work without getting paid for it."

Liz smiled, “It isn't like Tatum couldn't afford to pay for it—unless the guy itemized every little piece of wire and plug and Leonard read it all, he wouldn't have noticed the extra money for the wiring of this floor."

"So you think the Tatums never knew about it?"

"I'm thinking if Leonard
had
known about it, he would have put his darkrooms and theater on this floor instead of the third floor where he had to have the walls built in to make it dark. There are no windows up here to spoil his film."

"True, but if he was six feet tall—or close to that, he may have felt too closed in to spend much time here."

"Then why
have
it wired and the duct work put in here?"

"Okay, I concede—at least about part of it. Maybe the contractor thought it was more practical to go ahead and do this level at the same time than to be called in later to do it when and if the Tatums discovered it and wanted to put in a rec room or something."

Liz laughed. “Yeah. That must be it! I think it was a simple case of convenience—it was more useful to have the electricity and the ventilation in here while he was doing his work—and maybe he wanted to do a complete job while he was at it."

"Shall we continue to explore this level, or did we already see everything we needed to see here?” Kim asked.

"We should look at everything while we're here—it'll save us time later."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Maybe,” Liz said as she flipped the light switch and the room lit up.

"Ooh! Do you think that's wise? Those light bulbs are old,” Kim warned.

"I just wanted to see if there were light bulbs up here. We can turn it back off if you want to."

Kim walked around the room, “This isn't half bad, except for the ceiling being so low."

"I'm thinking it would be great for meditation up here—no telephone or outside light to distract us,” Liz said.

"You feel all that comfortable in here, do you?"

"Well I'm shorter than you, but it
is
a higher ceiling than we had in the travel trailer and you didn't seem to mind that—the rooms are a
lot
larger."

Kim nodded, agreed, “You're right, but there were at least windows in the trailer. It would be all right, once you got used to it. So, what do you think McCann used these rooms for?"

"I'm not the definitive expert on Benjamin McCann, you know."

Kim cocked her head, thought for a minute and said, “I don't know—you may know more about him than anyone else in this century."

"That might be true, but I don't think I know much about him at all,” Liz confessed.

"Close your eyes and take a deep breath—
feel
his presence. That's good. Now, what do you
see
him doing here?"

Liz fell into the light trance of hypnosis at Kim's suggestion. She
could
feel McCann's presence, could almost see him as he paced across the floor. He could just stand upright on this level, so that placed the ceiling height at about six feet, five or six inches. “He came here to be alone,” she said at last. “He would tell his servants he was going for a walk in the woods, but he always came up here, sometimes staying for two or three days without food or water. He had mementos of Constance here. More than that—he had Constance's remains up here."

"What?” Kim quizzed.

Liz opened her eyes, blinked at Kim in shock.

"What did you see?” Kim asked.

Liz looked at the fireplace at the end of the huge room. “I don't know how it happened, or what happened, but what I got was that
Spencer
married Constance—or told people they were married. I don't know how that could have happened, because she was going to have Ben's baby—somehow, though, she wound up with Spencer. That isn't good—she was already married to Ben."

"Are you sure about this?” Kim asked.

"No, I'm not, but that is what I saw—and when the baby was born—
Ben's baby
—Constance died. Spencer kept the child, raised him as his own, but Ben knew the youngster was his and he was going to tell the boy someday, once he could prove Spencer to be the villain he knew he was,” Liz confided.

"What about Constance?"

"Spencer buried her in his family plot, but Ben—when the dark of the moon came, Ben went and dug her up and brought her here. He brought the casket in using that huge dumbwaiter in the kitchen. He put her—in the—in the fireplace, there!” Liz walked to the center of the stone wall at the end of the room, pushed a stone at the base of the mantle. A section of the stone wall slid away, revealing an open casket behind the wall.

Kim stepped closer, clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the gasp as she saw the small cadaver of a woman lying inside the coffin. “God, Liz! How many more bodies do you think we are going to find in this house?"

Liz looked down at the woman's body, felt an overwhelming urge to cry, for Ben in his sorrow and pain. What would it take to free his tormented spirit? “Kim! Spencer isn't wandering this house looking for gold—he is looking for Constance."

"I guess we're going to have to call Sheriff Humphrey out to get Constance and have her put back where she belongs."

"Where do you think she belongs? Isn't this the home Ben built, out of love, for her? Whatever Spencer did to coerce Constance into marrying him, he didn't do it for love. He did it to hurt Ben and to keep Ben bound to him. He didn't figure on Constance dying when the baby was born, though, and the only way he could control Ben then was by retaining control of his child."

"What are you saying?"

"She and Ben should be buried out here together, overlooking the river. It is what Ben would have wanted. It will put Ben—and Constance—at peace, at least. We will have to contend with Spencer some other way,” she said.

"How many more bodies, Liz?” Kim repeated.

Liz shook her head, “This is the last—just Ben and Constance. Of course, theirs aren't the only spirits roaming around, but they're the only bodies out here."

"Are you sure?"

"Reasonably,” Liz said.

"Should I go call?"

Liz nodded. “Might as well get it over with early—that way, maybe they will leave before dark."

"What are you going to do?” Kim asked.

"I'll wait here. Maybe I can figure out what Ben knew about Spencer."

Kim stood fixed by the mantle, staring at Liz, asked, “Are you sure that's a good idea? Should you be here alone?"

Liz looked at Kim, smiled at her, “I will be fine. I need a few minutes alone before the hubbub starts. I have to deal with this sorrow somehow."

Kim was reluctant to leave her friend alone, even for a minute, but she made her legs move and walked to the stairs, disappeared down the staircase. Once downstairs, she called John and explained what had happened to him, then she phoned the sheriff's office. Then she waited.

John arrived in a few minutes; Kim took him and showed him the stairs. “Go to her. I'll wait for the
fuzz
."

John touched her on the shoulder, asked, “Are you sure you want to wait? I know Humphrey pretty well; maybe I should be the one to wait for him."

Kim shook her head. “Somehow, I think she needs a broad set of shoulders about now. You go; I'll be all right. I should put the animals upstairs anyway."

"All right, whatever you think. I'll go to Liz. Oh, by the way, my friend in New York says he can have the paperwork from the institution here for us by the end of the week."

"That's great. Thanks, John. Now, go to her.” She took his arm and led him to the newly discovered stairway and watched him climb up the old metal staircase.

Upstairs, he crossed the distance between the staircase and Liz in a few long strides, wrapped her sobbing figure in his strong arms. “There, there. Let it all out, sweetheart. Here, take this hankie."