The people turned around and disappeared down the stairs. The guide trailing behind said to me, “That happens all the time. Someone turns the button to lock it, then forgets to turn it back when they leave. There's supposed to be a key in the PR office. Could you take care of opening the door before the next group gets here?”
“Sure. We Sisters of Charity are up for any kind of job, no matter how menial it may seem.”
I knew where the keys hung, on the wall just inside the doorway to Janet's office. When I entered the room, the first thing I saw was the mess on Janet's desk. The jumbled contents of Lizzie's briefcase lay where she had dumped it out after resigning. It gave me an idea, and I dug through piles until I found the keys for the basement storeroom. I took them with me when I went to unlock the bathroom door.
With the door open and the bathroom ready for the next emergency, I returned to the top of the staircase and listened for a moment. There were no voices coming from the floor below me, and I knew I had plenty of time left because the maiden in the window took at least ten minutes to tell her story.
I tried the first key in the door of Mack's office and nothing happened. But when I inserted the second key into the lock, the door swung open easily, as I thought it might. I closed the door behind me and pressed the light switch next to the door. An overhead light came on, illuminating the small room.
Janet had told me that after the guns were loaded she'd kept the storeroom keys in her possession all night. But there had been one short interval where they hadn't been with her. That was when she'd had to run down the hall to the rest room. If a key switch had been made, it had to have been done then. And Mack Mac-millan was the only person around who could have done it. Macmillan must have taken one of the storeroom keys while Janet was in the rest room and substituted one of his office keys so she wouldn't know it was gone.
But why? Why would Representative Macmillan have wanted access to the loaded guns? Was the answer here in his office? I knew it was quite possible that Luscious, short of time and help, might well have overlooked something when he searched the office. I stepped inside and closed the door.
The room had a few pieces of nice furniture in it, a carved mahogany desk, a comfortable chair behind it, a brown leather couch against one wall, and a bookcase, on which were a few sets of leather-bound books that looked as if they'd been chosen more for their looks than their contents. On the wall hung a large gold-framed photograph of Mack Macmillan in the uniform of a Union Army general. One hand rested on a table, the other on the hilt of his sword. He looked very official. Very real. Other than that, there was nothing very personal in the office. It was obviously not a place where Mack Macmillan spent much time.
I opened the door to listen for approaching visitors, but there was still no sign or sound indicating that anyone was coming. I turned off the light and left the door ajar in order to hear the next group coming, then followed my flashlight beam to the desk. Not knowing what I was looking for, I pulled open the top drawer. A ring with two keys on it practically jumped into my hand. It was identical to Janet's key ring, which I held in my hand. I tried both in Mack's door, but only one fit. Before I left the building, I decided, I would try to unlock the storeroom door with the other. When I went back to shut the desk drawer, I noticed a plastic Baggie jammed in the back left corner.
Using two pencils as chopsticks, so as not to leave fingerprints, I pulled the Baggie out of the drawer and dropped it on the desktop. Through the clear plastic, I could see what looked like twists of paper and foam rubber earplugs. Wonder Wads, Woody had called them, the foam gizmos reenactors used to hold the black powder in their gun barrels. I dropped the bag into one of the many pockets of Sister Camilla's voluminous skirt and left the office, carefully closing the door behind me. I was dying to take the Baggie to Luscious at the police department and would have left right then, except I knew he wouldn't be at the office and there was really no point in upsetting the college's Harvest Time Legend Tour. The bag of gun powder and Wonder Wads could wait until tomorrow.
I was about to take my seat when I heard a faint rustle behind me. Probably another breeze, but what I thought was rats! I pulled my chair closer to the stairs. I would be much too close to the audience there to be really scary, but on the other hand rats!
“Tori.” A voice as soft as an angel's was calling my name.
Spinning around, I demanded, “Who's there?” There was no answer. Had I imagined it?
Then again, it came. “Tori.”
Was it the ghost of the maiden on the lower floor? Of course it was she, I realized. She'd ridden up with me on the elevator and knew my name. She must have tried to call me earlier when I was in Macmillan's office, and become worried when I didn't answer. I leaned over the low banister and called out softly, “I'm here. What do you want?”
The girl's voice floated up the stairwell. “I didn't call you.”
As I started to straighten up, a sound behind me caused me to look over my shoulder, and I caught a glimpse of a nun, standing in the shadows. “Hi,” I said. “Please tell me you're here to take my place. This attic is freaking me out.”
Instead of answering my greeting, she moved forward as though propelled by a demon. Before I could turn all the way around, I saw the quivering of white angel wings as something hit me hard in the middle of my back. My stomach hit the railing, and I grabbed hold of it with both hands to keep myself from tumbling over. The cracking noise the banister made as it broke away from the floor was the loudest and most terrifying thing I'd ever heard.
Still clutching the part of the railing that had separated from the rest of the staircase, I fell forward. Directly in front of me were two crossed iron bracing rods that spanned the stairwell, and added support to the circular staircase. I landed on top of them with a painful thud that threatened to dislodge my internal organs, felt myself start to slip, let go of the broken railing, and grabbed hold of one of the two braces. I lay there, face down, spread-eagled on the iron bars, looking down at the floor four storys below me. Afraid to move, I called out, “Help me.” But only a squeak came out of my mouth.
“Holy jeez!” The maiden from the third floor leaned out over the railing and looked up at me. “Don't let go!”
“I'll try not to.” The nun's habit I wore weighed about fifty pounds. How long before its weight dragged me down?
The staircase shook as she ran down the stairs, and I tightened my grip on the iron rod and shut my eyes.
After what seemed like a couple of hours, I heard and felt her running back up the stairs followed by a thundering herd of would-be rescuers.
“Try to look at us,” a woman said, “and not down.”
I lifted my head an inch, opened my eyes, and saw a row of Halloween masks staring down at me. “Help,” I whimpered.
“The fire department's coming,” a man said.
“What are they going to do?”
“Get her down with a ladder? How the hell do I know?”
“I'm slipping,” I cried. “I can't hold on much longer.”
“Someone get a net.” I recognized Helga's authoritative voice.
“Like where?”
There was no answer.
A man dropped down on the floor so his face was almost level with mine. All I could see through the balusters was a red clown nose and one eye.
“Tori, listen carefully. You are going to have to work your way back to the other side of the stairwell where the railing is broken. When you get there, I'll be able to pull you to safety.”
“I don't know how…”