Chapter 35 - The Floorboards in the Cellar
By two in the morning, the kitchen had been swept clean of broken glass, and the smell of fuel had been neutralized with baking soda and heavy disinfectant. Caleb sat at the kitchen table, a fresh white bandage taped securely from his wrist to his elbow, clutching a mug of black coffee with both hands as if it were the only anchor keeping him tethered to the earth.
Marcus walked in from the patio, drying his face with a paper towel. Detective Kowalski stood beside him, holding an evidence clipboard.
"They found the car," Kowalski said, leaning against the counter. "A beat-up Honda Civic registered to Jason’s girlfriend, parked half a mile up the logging trail. The engine was still warm. In the glove box, we found three prepaid burner phones and a handwritten map of this property."
"Whose handwriting?" Caleb asked, though the answer was already etched across his hollow, exhausted face.
"Tori's," Marcus said bluntly. "Complete with the location of the spare key by the hose bib, the schedule of when your mother usually turns off the perimeter lights, and an inventory of the items Arthur allegedly kept in the lower cellar."
Marcus set a folded sheet of yellow legal paper on the table.
I leaned over and looked at the scrawl. Tori’s handwriting was unmistakable—sharp, aggressive, tilted heavily to the right. Underneath the notes regarding the alarm bypass, she had circled one phrase three times: *The Lockbox under the third oak beam.*
"What is she talking about, Myrna?" Kowalski asked gently. "Did Arthur have contraband here? Cash? Bonds?"
"Arthur was an honest magistrate for thirty-five years," I said, looking Kowalski dead in the eye. "He didn't take bribes, he didn't bury dirty money, and he didn't hide fortunes beneath the floor. But he did keep records."
I turned toward the basement door tucked beneath the pantry stairs.
"Get a pry bar from the mudroom, Caleb," I instructed. "It's time to dig up whatever ghost Tori thought was going to save her."
We descended the narrow wooden steps into the fruit cellar. The air was cool and smelled of damp limestone and preserved apples. Behind the old preserve racks, where Arthur had built the original shelving out of heavy white oak, three floorboards sat slightly raised compared to the rest of the packed earth floor.
Caleb knelt down, the pry bar clutched in his uninjured hand. With Marcus’s help, he wedged the steel tool beneath the edge of the wood and bore down.
The rusted nails groaned in protest before popping loose with a sharp, dry snap.
Beneath the boards lay not stacks of hundred-dollar bills, nor gold ingots, nor diamonds.
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There was only a weathered olive-drab military ammunition canister, secured by a heavy brass padlock.
***
