Dear Irene

11

“DON’T TOUCH IT,” Frank said.

Not a problem. I found myself scrambling off the bed and as far away from it as I could, into Frank’s arms. I’m not afraid of insects. I do have difficulty with calling cards left by killers.

“What happened?” he asked.

I told him about being carried into bed. “I thought it was you. He was here. He got inside the house. He touched me-”

Frank held on to me, trying to calm me down. I don’t know if I was more angry or afraid. When my composure returned, Frank called the department and asked for a forensics team. I stayed close to him as he walked into the living room. He went over to the patio door, and without touching it, pointed out that the sliding-glass door was off its tracks.

“I felt a draft,” I said.

“He jimmied it up. We didn’t set the bolt,” he said with exasperation. The door was equipped with a bolt lock that would have made it much more difficult for Thanatos to enter the house that way. But we only fastened that lock when we were leaving the house, since it would be awkward to unlatch in case of fire. We had talked once or twice about replacing the weak handle lock – the one Thanatos had overcome so easily – with one that would be both strong and easy to open from the inside, but never got around to it.

I could tell that Frank was silently berating himself, and knew it would be useless to protest that it was a case of mutual procrastination. We searched the house together, but as far as we could tell, nothing was missing or disturbed. Unless you count me in the latter category.

Pete came over, and other officers not long after. They tried to ask questions that might elicit some description of Thanatos from me. All I was able to say was that he had been strong enough to lift me; I thought he probably had a build that was similar to Frank’s, but I couldn’t be sure.

It was frustrating for all concerned. No fingerprints other than Frank’s and mine were on the glass door. They didn’t find any prints on the jar of ants, but they took it with them. I knew Thanatos’ hands weren’t gloved when he carried me to the bed, but it came back to me that neither his clothes nor his hands were cold.

How long had he watched me sleep?

BY THE TIME everybody left, we were both worn down. We crawled into bed and held on to each other. I thought I would fall asleep quickly, but I didn’t. I could tell that Frank was still awake as well.

“You’re worrying,” I said at last.

“And I’m pissed.”

“At me?”

“No, no – why would I be angry with you?”

“Because I missed a chance to see who he is. You could have had a description of him if I had just opened my eyes. And your home has been broken into because of me.”

He pulled away to look down at me. “Our home. Right at the moment, I don’t really give a shit about the house. I’m angry because I left you here alone at night, and he could have harmed you.”

“Stop it, Frank. You know how I hate it when you try to take over for God.”

He had nothing to say to that.

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

“Hmmph.”

I decided it was time for a change in tactics. I moved up against him in a positively nasty way, running my fingernails over his chest. He groaned and gave me a kiss. One thing led to several others, and eventually we worked off all possible tension. Just before we fell asleep, I scraped his earlobe lightly with my teeth and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Adam.”

“Merry Christmas, Eve,” he whispered back. I could hear the smile in it.

MORNING CAME WAY too early for anyone’s liking, but we managed to crawl out of bed. We made arrangements to meet at home before the Christmas party, and trundled off to work.

I was talking to Lydia about my visit from Thanatos when the phone rang.

“Good morning, Cassandra. Did you sleep well?”

“No thanks to you,” I said, trying to hide my nervousness. This time I was able to get Lydia’s attention, and she picked up the extension. We both took notes.

“Did you enjoy my Christmas gift?”

“I’ve already put the little devils to work sorting seeds.”

He laughed. Synthesized and changed into an electronic replica of laughter, it was a chilling sound. I fought an urge to hang up on him. I wanted to know where Rosie Thayer was, so I waited. As it turned out, he wasn’t going to disappoint me.

“Since I so enjoyed watching you sleep, I’ve decided to give you another present. If you want to find the other Myrmidons, think of the story of Aeacus, and where he saw his future army.”

The line went dead.

“The other what?” I asked Lydia, reaching for a mythology book.

“Mur-mi-dons?”

I thumbed back to the index. “Here it is, Myrmidons – men created from ants by Zeus. Oh, now I remember – they became part of Achilles’ army in the Trojan War.”

“So we’re back to ants.”

I nodded as I skimmed through the section on the Myrmidons.

“He said something about the story of a cuss?” Lydia asked.

“Aeacus,” I said absently, still reading. “He was a mortal, a son of Zeus. He ruled the island of Aegina. Hera caused the island’s streams and rivers to be poisoned. Almost all of the island’s inhabitants died. Aeacus prayed near an oak, which was sacred to Zeus. He saw a long line of ants carrying grain up the tree, and begged Zeus to give him as many subjects as there were ants. That night, he dreamed of ants becoming men, and when he awoke, his son Telamon was calling him outside, to see the throng of men approaching their home. Aeacus recognized their faces from his dream.”

“So does Thanatos think you’re going to dream the answer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s talking about the oak tree. I can’t decipher it yet, but we’ve got to let John know about the call.”

We hurried into his office. After hearing our story, John put in a call to Frank, who wasn’t at his desk. “What’s the name of that city department that maintains the trees?” he asked me, while waiting for Frank to answer a page.

“The Tree Department,” I answered.

“Wise ass,” he grumbled.

I shrugged. Would he have felt better if I made up a more obscure name?

“Do you think they know where all the oaks in town are?” he asked impatiently.

“Probably know where to find the ones the city has planted. Private property would be another story.”

“At least it’s an oak we’re looking for, not something scrawny.”

Frank came on the line and John put him on the speakerphone. We filled him in; there was a brief pause, then he said, “I know what we’ll want to do, John. But if you’re asking to involve the paper, I’m going to have to bring my lieutenant in on this.”

“We are involved,” John answered. “We called you, remember?”

“Hold on, then,” Frank replied, seeming unruffled by John’s curt tone.

John picked up the receiver, so that the speakerphone was off. Lieutenant Carlson came on the line, and apparently a lot of angry haggling and talk about press rights and police prerogatives ensued. We could only hear John’s side of it, but he was unbending. He argued that the call had come into the paper, not into the police, and that his reporters had the right to be on the streets, which were public places, looking at all the public acorn-bearing trees they could find. Eventually Carlson saw that it was useless to protest. The whole conversation probably took about three minutes, but it seemed like forever to me. I wanted to get going.

John stuck his head out his door and started shouting reporters’ names. He filled them in, then had two or three of them calling tree surgeons, another pair going down to the Tree Department. “Ask about the biggest oak trees. Something tells me this guy picked out something on a grand scale. After all, it has to be fit for the gods.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“You stay here – who knows what he’s up to. Maybe he’s just trying to draw you out of the building.” At my mutinous look, he added, “Besides, if he calls back, you’d better be here.”

“If he stays true to form, he won’t call again today. Let me go out on it. I’m the only one reading about the mythology. Maybe I’ll see something the others would miss.”

“Forget it,” he said, and shooed us out of his office.

I drew some quick sympathetic looks from the others as they hurried off. Cassandra.

I went back to my desk and reread the story of Aeacus, more carefully this time. A plague of serpents caused the island of Aegina’s water to be poisoned. Additionally, the locals had suffered drought, famine, and a pestilent wind from the south. Aeacus awoke from his ants-to-men dream to discover it was raining, the serpents were gone, and a new populace of hard-working subjects was at his command. Talk about sweet dreams.

I thought of Thanatos’ letters, and of what he had said on the phone. Aeacus had seen his future army on an oak. But perhaps, as with many of his other references, Thanatos didn’t literally mean that I could find Rosie Thayer near an oak tree. What about the other places in Las Piernas which might be connected to oaks, or to the word “oak”?

I logged on to my computer terminal and asked for a program that serves as a guide to the city; it lists streets, public buildings, developments, parks, schools, and other points of interest in Las Piernas. Given any address, it will also display an area map. I searched under the word “oak.” A few seconds later, a list appeared on the screen. A restaurant called The Oak Room. A development called Oakridge Estates. Oak View Apartments. The Oakmont Hotel. Oakwood Elementary School. Oak Knoll Shopping Center. About twenty streets: Oak Park, Old Oak, Oak Point, Oak Meadow, Twin Oaks, Oak Grove, Sleeping Oak.

Sleeping Oak Road. That one caught my attention. Aeacus had seen the army of ants twice: on an oak, and while he was asleep.

I brought the map display up on the screen. Sleeping Oak was a long, residential street that wound its way through the hills. I debated with myself for a while, tried thinking of other ways to look at Thanatos’ messages. But the street name was the only possibility that really nagged at me.

I saw that John’s door was closed, and gathered up my coat, purse, and keys. I pulled out a copy of the photo of Rosie Thayer and tucked it into a pocket. I had almost made it to the newsroom door when a hand caught my shoulder. I turned to see Lydia.

“Where are you going?” she asked in a low voice.

“Just out to my car for a minute.”

“Then where?”

No use trying to fool her. “Listen, Lydia, I can’t sit here all day. I’ve got an idea I want to follow up on.”

“If Thanatos doesn’t kill you, John will.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. Come over to the desk for a minute.” When she saw that I would protest, she said, “Come with me or I’ll walk right into John’s office before you can make it out of the building.”

At the City Desk, she unlocked a cabinet and handed me a cellular phone.

“You know the lecture on how much a call on one of these costs the paper,” she said, “so I won’t make you listen to it again. But take this with you and use it if you need help. That way, when I’m at your funeral, I’ll feel like I did what I could to save an old friend.”

“Aren’t you the chipper one. Okay, I’ll take it.”

“Will you tell me where you’re going?”

“Sleeping Oak Road. Thanks for the phone – and the concern.”

LAS PIERNAS SITS on a curve of the California coastline; most of its beaches face the south. As some custom-home builders have noticed over the past five years, the views from the south side of hillside streets like Sleeping Oak Road were some of the best in the inland part of the city. You could see almost all of Las Piernas below, and the ocean beyond it. The view from the north side of the street was not so picturesque, but some homeowners had overcome this handicap by trying to build taller houses than their neighbors across the street.

Many of the homes were old by Las Piernas standards, modest dwellings built in the 1920s. About every fourth or fifth house had been razed and replaced with a larger, more modern structure. I didn’t see an oak tree anywhere.

I started on the south side, and walked from house to house, knocking on doors, asking the few people who were home if they had seen the woman in the photo, or noticed any unusual activities on the street. I asked if any of their neighbors had moved in fairly recently. If they hadn’t closed the door in my face by then, I got around to asking about their neighbors’ habits. I came across people who had grudges against others on their block, and got the lowdown on who never cut their lawn, whose kids were holy terrors, whose dog barked endlessly, and which couple got drunk and played loud music in the middle of the night.

I listened to it all, knowing that neighborly snoopiness is nothing to ignore. In among all that apparently useless information, someone may have a little gem of observation that will prove to be invaluable. But I didn’t come across anyone who had seen Rosie Thayer, or who knew of a neighbor who got home late on the night she disappeared, or who had heard or seen anything that might help me find her.

As I hiked closer to the crest of the hill, I noticed that there were more empty lots near the top, staked signs promising more new construction where the view was best. As I passed each lot, I stopped to look for trampled grass or newly turned earth. Although I was looking for Rosie Thayer and believed she was probably dead, I was quite pleased not to discover anything that looked like a shallow grave.

I had almost run out of houses on that side of the street and still had the north side to check out on the way down. I was discouraged, feeling certain that my street-name hunch was a total waste of time. By now, the police had probably found Rosie Thayer, perhaps under an oak tree in a city park, or on an embankment near a big tree. I considered using the cellular phone to check in with Lydia, but remembered the cost of calls and decided to wait.

The thought of walking back down to my car made me wish I could whistle and get it to come up the hill for me. I had no sooner formed the image than I heard a sharp whistle from somewhere behind me, and turned to see a huge woman whose gray hair was wrapped in pink spongy curlers. She was calling to a white toy poodle as it bounced its way across a pair of empty lots.

“Brutus!” the woman screeched. “Brutus, you get your fluffy white butt right back here!”

Brutus paused, looked at her, then noticed me. That brought on a canine change of program. He made a yapping charge toward me, full of purpose. The purpose looked to be a bite out of my own fluffy white butt. His plans were foiled when the woman moved with amazing speed to scoop him up. She smiled and said, “I hope he didn’t scare you. He’s not as mean as he looks.”

The dog kept yapping, and I realized that he was the one which had been described to me as the neighborhood nominee for most annoying pooch.

“No,” I said, “I’m fine.” I introduced myself, and showed the photo to her.

She stared at it for what seemed like half an hour, dog barking the whole time, then handed it back and shook her head. “Sorry, I thought I remembered her, then it just came to me that this photo is in this morning’s paper.”

“I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the neighborhood.”

“Sure. My name’s Molly Kittridge, by the by. Be glad to talk with you,” she said, “but let’s go inside so I can get Brutus settled down. He’s busier than a bagful of bumblebees.”

I followed her into her house, one of the smaller homes on the block. She nodded toward a chair at the kitchen table; I took it gratefully, happy to be off my feet for a while. What I could see of the house was neat and clean. The kitchen was warm and filled with the aroma of baking bread. She put Brutus behind one of those indoor gates people use to keep small children out of a room. He stopped yapping, but when I looked toward him, he gave me a growl for good measure.

Molly came back into the kitchen, suddenly touching her hair. “Lordy, I must look a sight,” she said, reaching up and pulling the curlers out.

“Don’t worry about it. You weren’t expecting company.”

“Well, that’s a fact,” she said, and proved it by talking nearly nonstop for over an hour. In that time, she told me the name of every neighbor within a dozen or so houses of her own, their children’s names and approximate ages, where they worked, and at least one of their habits, interests or problems. She told me which ones had left to visit relatives for Christmas, what state the relatives lived in, and even gave a weather forecast, saying, “White Christmas” or “No White Christmas there” depending on the family destination. She paused only twice, to take the bread out of the oven and when the phone rang. It took both of us a minute to realize the ringing was coming from the cellular phone. I answered around a mouthful of warm bread.

Lydia was calling, certain I was in mortal danger. I swallowed the bread, reassured her, learned that no one had found Rosie Thayer yet, and went back to Molly Kittridge.

“How is it you know all your neighbors so well?” I asked.

She smiled. “Well, two reasons. First off, I’ve lived here since God was a baby. My grandaddy on my mother’s side built this house as a sort of a retirement place, I guess you’d say. Southern California was a paradise then. My folks ruined his retirement by packing up the family and following him out here from Oklahoma during the dustbowl days. Lots of Midwesterners settled in Las Piernas. That’s why you can find more basements here than most places in Southern California. They’re great for tornados, but lousy for earthquakes.”

“So your family moved here before any of the others?”

“The only ones that had been here longer was the Nelsons, up at the end of the street. They died and their kids sold it to that young couple that got transferred to North Dakota.”

“This is the vacant house, the one three doors up the street?” I asked, remembering her discussion of the couple who had lived there for less than a year, were “asking way too much for that old place in this market,” but were too stubborn to lower the price before they were forced to move. After several months without any offers, the couple let their listing expire and were looking for a new real estate agent. I had heard enough about them to write and ask them how they were doing. (No kids; he, a distributor for a shoe company and she, an engineer; both crazy about bass fishing.)

She chuckled. “Not three doors, exactly. There’s no doors, windows, or anything else on half of these places up here on the crest. The old Nelson place is at 1647. There’s two vacant lots between us now.”

“You said there are two reasons you know your neighbors. What’s the second?”

“Brutus.”

He started yapping in response.

“Hush!” she commanded. He gave one more bark and settled down again. “He’s a wild little fellow. Wilder than a fox raised by wolves. I have to chase him all over the neighborhood. Now all of a sudden he’s crazy about the old Nelson place. I think he knows I don’t like hauling my old buns up to the top of the hill. And all the grass in these lots gets my hay fever a-going. But most times Brutus will come back when I whistle.”

“He does seem to be well known around here.”

She cackled at that. “I’ll just bet everyone you talked to griped about him. He’s a barker, I admit it. He’s very protective of me. He’s usually good about being quiet at night, but for the past week or so he’s been a little bothersome.”

“The past week?” I asked, suddenly feeling a chill in that warm kitchen.

“Oh, about that long, I guess. Something just got into him. Middle of the night, two, three in the morning, he starts barking. ’Bout to drive me crazy.”

The hair on the back of my neck was rising. “Do you remember which night he first started barking?”

She thought for a moment. “Wednesday, maybe?”

Wednesday night. The night Rosie Thayer had disappeared.

“No idea what he’s barking at?”

“The top of the hill, for all I can tell. I get up, I turn the lights on, ask him what’s the matter, let him out in the backyard, show him there’s not a living soul to be found. He stops barking, follows me back into the house, hops back up on the bed, and looks at me like I’m crazy to be up at that time of night. And he’s probably right.”

She was disappointed when I said I’d have to be going. I gave her one of my cards and thanked her for her help. I started to leave, and felt myself losing my nerve.

“Molly, I have an unusual favor to ask.”

She looked up from studying my card. “Sure, honey, what is it?”

“I need to look around the Nelson place. Would you watch me from your window for a few minutes? I mean, just in case anyone else happens to be there…”

Her eyes widened. “Holy smokes, I just got it! You think she might be in there. You’re the one he’s been writing to…”

“Yes. The house is probably empty, he’s probably miles away, but just in case-”

“I’ll get Brutus on the leash and come with you.”

She refused to hear my objections.

I had expected Brutus to be nipping at my heels, but the leash seemed to change his personality. As we neared the house at the crest of the hill, he pulled like a huskie in his traces. Molly sneezed once, twice, three times. “What’d I tell you?” she said, reaching for a handkerchief.

From a distance, 1647 Sleeping Oak appeared to be a modest, white wood-frame house. Grass grew up around the ankles of a “For Sale” sign in the big front yard. The lawn was due for a mowing and the windows were dirty, but otherwise it looked as if it had been a place someone cared about not so long ago.

Molly kept sneezing, her eyes red and watery now. When I suggested that she just wait for me back at her house, she gave me a congested version of “not on your life.” I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door, not expecting an answer. Brutus suddenly started going berserk, making me wonder if someone was waiting inside. He would alternately bark and wheeze as he strained against his rhinestone collar. I walked over to one of the larger windows at the front of the house and looked in. I saw a sun-faded beige carpet in a bare room. Dark marks and nail holes outlined the places where pictures had been taken down. The stigmata of an abandoned home.

“I don’t think anyone’s here,” I said over the dog’s barking, hoping to God I was right. “But would you mind letting Brutus off his leash? Maybe he can show us what’s got him so worked up.”

“I guess I can catch him again,” she said, unsnapping the leash as he twisted in impatience. He bolted around the corner of the house, stopping at a wooden gate. He looked back at us, yapped, then suddenly disappeared. We could hear him in the backyard.

“Brutus!” Molly cried, but he just yapped louder.

As we came closer, we could see that Brutus had wriggled through a hole in the ground beneath the gate; apparently a project he’d worked on during his previous visits. The gate had a latch with pull string on it. I tugged on the string and cautiously stood aside as the gate swung open. I peered into the backyard. No one there but Brutus.

Still, there were signs of another presence having preceded me – something much larger than Brutus. The grass was taller in the backyard, almost to my knees. Molly and I cautiously followed the pathway of flattened grass toward the sound of Brutus’s toe-nails, scratching furiously.

He seemed determined to burrow through what once had been the entrance to a basement. The weathered doors had been nailed shut long ago; rusting metal bands bolted across their width further secured them.

“Brutus, get back from there!” Molly said, picking him up and suffering another sneezing fit. He squirmed in her arms for a moment, then resorted to whining.

“Is there another entrance to the basement?”

“Oh sure,” Molly said, talking rapidly, nervously. “The Nelsons boarded this one up long ago. Most of us did that – to make the houses more secure, I guess.” She stopped to blow her nose. “We all built staircases and an entrance from inside the house. Some people had a door going off the kitchen, like mine. Others had trap doors in the floors. The Nelsons had one of those. Put in a laundry chute, too. I thought that was overdoing it.” She sneezed. “Kids throw clothes down the chute, they land all over the place. I always made my kids carry their clothes down the stairs. It was good for them.”

I wasn’t listening very carefully. I was watching the crevice near the edge of one of the doors. Ants were streaming in and out of the basement. An army of them. And there was a faint but distinct odor in the air, one that made my hopes plummet.

“Maybe you should take Brutus home now, Molly.”

She looked at me in surprise, then looked down at the doors. “Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lordy-Lord-Lord-Lord. She’s in there! Call her name, maybe she can answer you.”

I tried it once, but my voice caught. “Molly, go home, please. I’ll come over in a while. There’s… there’s a smell.

“I don’t smell anything.”

I looked over at her, but didn’t say anything.

“Even with all that sneezing, I’d smell a dead body! Besides, if there is a smell, you don’t know that it’s a comin’ from her! Could be a cat, or a possum or something else dead.”

She was right, of course. I couldn’t see into the basement.

She was waiting for me, silent and afraid, but her eyes pleaded with me to do something. Brutus yapped once, then stared at me in much the same way.

I looked at the trail blazed by our unknown predecessor and sighed in resignation. “Try not to step on the flattened grass,” I said, knowing she would follow me. I made my way alongside the trampled path, which led around the corner of the house to a set of concrete steps. At the top of the steps was the back door. It wasn’t wide open, but it hadn’t been closed hard enough to latch.

Sometimes the last thing on earth you want to do is the very next thing you need to do. My curiosity demanded I go into the house, see for myself what was in there. My fear, or perhaps my common sense, said to let someone else take care of it.

“She might still be alive,” Molly said.

Curiosity had an optimist on its side. It always does.

I climbed the steps and used the toe of my shoe to budge the door. It creaked open, and I stood staring into an empty kitchen, yellow linoleum peeling and stained where a stove and refrigerator had once hidden its faults. The counters were bare, the sink empty. I waited. Silence.

Brutus’s sharp yap behind me came close to scaring me right out of my skin. Just as I had decided to listen to the pessimist within me, the dog wriggled free and scurried through the open door, into the house, and out of sight.

“Brutus!” Molly wailed.

“Stay here,” I told her, blocking her attempt to follow the dog. “If I’m not back out in five minutes, or if you have any inkling that something’s happened to me, get the hell out of here. Go home and call the police. Don’t come in looking for me or the dog.”

She didn’t say anything, just peered inside the house. It was silent again.

“Promise,” I said firmly.

“I promise,” she said.

The kitchen had two interior doorways. One led out into the dining area of the living room I had seen from the front window. A quick glance showed this area to be empty of man and beast. The doorway at the other side of the kitchen was darkened.

With every step I took across that kitchen floor, I was sure I wasn’t alone in that house, that I had walked into a trap. REPORTER KILLED IN POODLE RESCUE ATTEMPT. What a headline that would make. Undoubtedly, the subhead would read, “Poodle Found Unharmed.” I kept listening, hearing the soles of my shoes moving across the linoleum, the rustle of my clothing seemingly amplified to shout my presence. I noticed a trail of ants moving along one corner of the kitchen floor – toward the darkened doorway. I swallowed and tiptoed to it.

The smell was stronger here.

I peered cautiously around the corner. A long hallway, as near as I could tell. I held still, hearing a noise to my left. I waited. Nothing.

I glanced behind me, saw Molly watching from the door to the backyard, and tried once again to screw up my courage.

There was only enough light coming from the kitchen windows to allow me to determine that the hallway ran in two directions. I hung back in the kitchen, poised for flight as I groped for a light switch on the hallway wall. I found one. Outside of making a loud snapping noise, it did nothing. The electricity was off.

I reached into my purse for my keychain flashlight. Felt the comforting weight of the cellular phone. If I couldn’t call for help, maybe I could use it to bean an attacker. I switched on the little flashlight, held it to the left, where I had heard the noise, and even its small circle of light revealed enough to make me feel weak in the knees.

An opening gaped in the floor. If I had stepped into the hallway without the light, I might have fallen through the trap door and down the basement stairs.

“Bruuu… tus,” I crooned.

I could swear I heard the little bugger panting, but in the distance. Down in the basement.

I pointed the beam in the other direction, passed it from one closed doorway after another. Three altogether. Thought of opening those doors first, just to try to get more light in the hallway. Didn’t know if I had the nerve to find out what was behind them.

I crept up to one and shoved it open, then ran back into the kitchen, purse raised.

“Irene?” I heard Molly call.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I took a breath and looked into the hall. A little more light. No bogeymen. Not yet, anyway. Two more rounds of hit-and-run with the doors brought the same result. The house had two bedrooms, one bath. I had the shakes.

Brutus barked. He was down in the basement.

“That’s him!” Molly called. “Do you see him?”

“Not yet,” I said. I was not pleased with the dog.

I thought of giving in and calling Frank right then and there. Let him explore the damned basement.

But what if I called Frank away from a homicide investigation only to find there was nothing more down there than a toy poodle and something like, oh, maybe a smelly old dead gopher? The woman who cried wolf. Over a poodle.

I walked over to the edge of the trap door opening. My flashlight beam showed nothing more than wooden stairs. I stepped down on one, then another, and another, until my head was just above the opening in the hallway floor. I made myself duck a little, and held the flashlight out in front of me. Cobwebs. I could hear Brutus. I lowered the beam a few degrees and saw a concrete wall. I caught a movement and gave a little yelp. But it was Brutus, sniffing along the wall, apparently unconcerned by my presence. For a few seconds, I felt a slight easing of the tension that had my stomach in knots. Brutus wouldn’t act so nonchalant if there were anyone else in the basement. Would he?

I moved the light a little to the left, and I could make out a card table, with what looked to be a bowl of fruit and a pitcher of water. Tantalus.

My mouth went dry.

I knew what would be behind me. I forced myself to take two more steps down the stairs, clinging to the handrail.

I heard a noise above me and cringed. “Molly?” I called.

I waited. Nothing.

Brutus came closer to me, his nails clicking along the cement floor.

Slowly, I turned around.

I saw the wide piece of tape first. It covered her mouth. She was bound to a large pipe against the back wall. Even in the faint light, I knew she was dead.

The trap door slammed shut above me.