Killer Heat

FIFTY

How fast can you move?" Mike asked the ranger.

The cobblestones had been made slippery by the rain. The three of us took the back way along Colonels' Row, slowed by the slick road surface, to get to the ivy-covered brick house that stood separate from the officers' quarters.

Leamer was puffing as he walked, trying to explain what we were going to find. "It was called the Governor's House when the British held the island but not used by our military as a residence. It was actually the place in which court-martials were held. Mike was trying to move the older man along.

"And now?"

"It's in better shape than many of the buildings, furnished-for ceremonial purposes-but nothing much has been done with it since the coast guard left."

"And the dungeon? Is it accessible?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I can't imagine anyone has tried to use it. I've never seen it myself," Leamer said. "You know, there was also a tunnel below that building, according to legend."

"For what?" Mike asked, impatient for Leamer to keep pace with him.

"It was sealed up years ago. But when the British controlled the island, the first governors in residence here built a tunnel below Buttermilk Channel large enough for horses and a carriage so that they could make their escape if war threatened."

I had reached the hedges in front of the imposing mansion. "Buttermilk Channel?"

"The spit of water that separates the island from Brooklyn," Mike said, waving his hand toward the rear of the house.

"So there's a way to get on and off this place without a ferry?" I asked.

"So I'm told," Leamer said. He mounted the staircase between two white Romanesque columns and we waited behind him as he put one of his keys in the lock.

I heard the click of the release and saw Leamer push on the door, but it didn't open. He stepped away, fumbled with another key, and tried again. No click. He was back to the first key. Again, a click, but the door didn't budge.

Mike took the keys from Leamer's hand. He unlocked the door and leaned his shoulder in to shove it, but there was no give.

"Something must be blocking it," Leamer said.

"From the inside," Mike said, finishing the ranger's sentence.

Lightning lit up the sky and thunder growled at us. I hoped I wasn't imagining that it was beginning to move away from overhead.

Mike handed me the knife and one of the canteens, then vaulted over the wrought-iron porch gate and raised his hand in front of one of the double-hung windows, smashing the other canteen through the glass. He broke a second and a third pane, reaching through the hole and up to the latch that secured the window in place.

The old frame was swollen from the heat and humidity, so Mike had to play with it for several minutes to raise it up. He brushed away the chunks of glass and raised himself onto the sash, through the opening. I watched as I put the switchblade in the rear pocket of my jeans. When I looked up again, Mike had vanished inside the Governor's House.

Russell Leamer was backing off the porch. He wasn't sure what was happening, but he didn't want to be a party to it. It sounded like Mike was moving something heavy out of the way. I could hear it scraping across the floor.

When he opened the door to let us in, he had his gun in his hand. Leamer groaned.

"Give her your flashlight," Mike said to the ranger. "Go back to your office and send Mercer up here as fast as you can possibly go. Ask him to call the lieutenant first and tell him we've got a situation on the island, got it? Get somebody airborne."

"What kind of situation?" Leamer whined.

"He'll understand me. And you, Coop, glue yourself to my ass, okay?"

Leamer took off immediately. I stepped over the threshold, around the massive mahogany table that someone had put in place to block the door.

"Hold that light up," Mike said.

He started to walk from the entrance through a formal parlor, the walls of which were decorated with an assortment of antique military weapons. Portraits of bearded officers from another age were hung over the fireplace between the windows, and heavy gold drapes, faded from decades of exposure, still framed most of the windows.

Mike held out his arm to slow me down while he turned the corner into the next room. He motioned for me to join him. I had the same nerve-wracked feeling I had experienced at the shooting range, that someone would dart out from behind a door and fire at Mike before he could defend himself-and me.

But there was only a succession of musty office suites, handsomely furnished and all seemingly undisturbed. At the very rear of the house, overlooking the narrow channel that separated the island from Brooklyn, the interior silence was broken as Mike's foot crunched down onto more shards of glass.

He didn't have to speak. I could see, too, that the pane closest to the handle of the back door had been broken and that someone had knocked it in, as if to gain entry from this side of the mansion. When the break-in had occurred, and whether the burglar was still anywhere around, was impossible to tell.

Mike and I crossed the small room, emerging into a larger office, clearly the centerpiece of the house. An enormous colored map of the island as it looked in colonial times hung over the mantel.

Mike was looking for doors now, for a way to get into the basement of the old building. We found the central staircase that led up to the second floor, but that was of little interest to him. He wanted to go belowground.

He tapped the wooden boards behind the staircase, rapping every ten or twelve inches, until we both heard a hollow noise. There was an elaborate panel in the wainscoting that ran through the entire house, and Mike played with the raised carvings on it until he found what he was looking for. A piece of wood lifted up, revealing a keyhole.

I tried to steady the light on his hand as he sorted the keys. There were three-one for the front door and two others that were marked with the initials for Governor's House.

On his second attempt, the door opened. We both stood perfectly still for almost a minute, waiting to hear if there was any noise below. Nothing.

Mike turned to me and whispered, "Stay up here."

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't, Coop? Stay here."

Thunder clapped outside the house. The storm hadn't moved as far as I thought.

"Glue, Detective Chapman. It's hopeless. I'm with you."

One side of Mike's mouth twitched, but he wouldn't give me a full smile. "Hold the light over my shoulder."

He grabbed the banister with his left hand and tested each plank before he put his weight down on the old wooden steps. One at a time, I descended behind him-first one flight, then around a landing that twisted to the basement.

Halfway to the bottom, I could see that the fetid room was partially flooded. It wasn't surprising, since it was so far below the level of the house, adjacent to the channel.

Mike stopped a step or two above the floor. It was obvious in the flashlight's beam that the surging water had come through a small pair of windows that were set into the floor, probably the only source of light and ventilation in this dreadful room.

"Raise your light," Mike said.

All around the blackened cellar were the remnants of a primitive prison. Dungeon-Russell Leamer's phrase-seemed like a much more appropriate word.

Thick bars formed a barrier between the open area around the foot of the staircase and the four walls of the room. Behind them were tiny cells, each barely large enough to hold a single individual. Neither a cot nor a mattress could have fit in such a confined space. It was clearly meant to be a barbaric form of punishment.

I moved the light up and down along the bars, around the circumference of the room. I did it a second time, sweeping the monochromatic walls horizontally.

"Too good for Troy Rasheed," Mike said, taking a step back up toward me. "I hate being wrong."

I clung to the banister as he went by me. Sitting on the lowest dry step, I took one last look, aiming the flash lower than my first two efforts.

Lightning backlit several of the cells through the two small windows as I guided my own beam over the surface of the water.

"Pam?" I screamed, grabbing at the leg of Mike's trousers to pull him back down.

In a far corner of the room, curled on its side, was the naked body of a young woman who was hogtied with legs and arms behind her- the only way someone could have fitted her in the space of one of the cells. A third of her body seemed to be submerged in the rising water lapping at her lips and nose.

A piece of cloth gagged her mouth. Her eyes were open, staring back at me, and Pam Lear was still alive.