Racking his brain as he quickly pulled his clothes on, Josh suddenly had an idea. Pulling his suitcase out from under his bed, he took it with him when he left his room. If anyone stopped him, he’d just say he was taking it downstairs to store it.
Clutching his empty suitcase, he left his room. The hall was as silent as if morning was still hours away, so he scurried down the corridor to the stairs, taking them two at a time as he went down to the ground floor.
It, too, was deserted.
He darted through the dining room to the butler’s pantry, then paused to listen at the kitchen door. He could hear voices murmuring as the cook began preparing breakfast, and he could smell the scent of coffee drifting through the crack around the swinging door.
Silently, he pulled the basement door open, flicked on the fight, then stepped onto the landing at the top of the steep flight of stairs.
He pulled the door closed behind him and breathed a sigh of relief. So far, no one had discovered him.
Carrying the suitcase, he descended the stairs. Somehow, being here for the second time, and knowing it was morning outside, the basement didn’t seem quite so scary. He set the suitcase down, then began making his way toward the place where he’d found the concrete shaft, turning on lights as he went. A moment later he came to it and found another light switch. The whole area around him lit up with the stark brilliance of four naked bulbs.
He circled around the concrete shaft, examining it carefully. The first three sides were nothing more than unbroken concrete faces. The cement was old, and there were places where it had been patched, but other than that there was nothing special about it.
On the fourth face he found something he hadn’t noticed the last time he’d been down here. Coming out of the floor was a plastic pipe, nearly three inches in diameter. The pipe ran straight up the wall of the shaft, broken halfway up by a box whose faceplate was screwed on at each corner. From the box the conduit continued up, disappearing into the basement’s ceiling, except for a single branch that made a right angle leading across the roof of the basement itself.
Josh cocked his head, staring at the pipe. When the house had been built, he knew, plastic hadn’t even been invented yet And anyway, the conduit didn’t look very old. When he studied the floor where the pipe disappeared into the concrete, the cement around the pipe looked new, too.
Could the pipe contain the cables that raised and lowered the elevator? It didn’t seem possible.
He headed back toward the stairs, searching the small storerooms until he found a toolbox. Inside there was a screwdriver, and a minute later Josh was back at the shaft, unscrewing the faceplate of the box that broke the pipe. As he loosened the fourth screw, the plate swung downward, revealing what was inside.
Cables.
But not the kind of heavy cables that would be used to pull an elevator up and down a shaft.
Computer cables.
Josh recognized them at once, their gray plastic coverings as familiar to him as the laces of his tennis shoes. There were at least a dozen of them, packed in so tight that Josh couldn’t even count them all. And all of them went not only up into the building above, but down into someplace beneath the floor.
But he still didn’t know where the machinery that operated the elevator was. As he screwed the faceplate back onto the access box, Josh pictured the house in his mind. The roof of the cupola that was the fourth floor was flat, so it didn’t seem like the machinery that ran the elevator could be up there.
But what if the cables that hauled the car up and down were on pulleys, and came back down through the walls? There was lots of room for machines down here.
He turned away from the shaft, his eyes following the single branch of the cable conduit. Perhaps fifteen feet away the pipe disappeared through a wall made of concrete blocks.
Blocks that looked much newer than the concrete of the basement floor, and which were pierced by a door.
His heart beating faster, Josh started toward the door.
Hildie Kramer pulled up in front of the Aldriches’ house. A police cruiser sat in the driveway, and a uniformed officer opened the door even before she rang the bell.
“Mrs. Kramer? I’m Sergeant Dover. The boy’s in the kitchen.” He nodded toward the living room and the kitchen behind it. “Through there.”
Hildie strode across the living room, pausing at the door to the kitchen. Jeff, still in his pajamas and bathrobe, sat at the kitchen table. When he looked up at her, the first thing she noticed was that his eyes were dry.
His face was pale, but his eyes were dry.
“I didn’t know who to call,” he said. “None of my family lives around here.”
Hildie went to the boy, lowering her heavy frame down to her knees so she could put her arms around him as he sat in the chair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Jeff turned to face her. “Can I go back to school now?” he asked.
Hildie’s breath caught in her throat. She looked at Jeff once more. Slowly, she began to understand.
No tears.
His voice was steady.
He didn’t care.
His parents were both dead, and he didn’t care.
Hildie’s mind raced. Had the officer noticed? Or had he simply assumed that Jeff was in shock and the truth of what had happened hadn’t yet penetrated?
“I–I don’t know,” she said. “Let me talk to Sergeant …” Her voice trailed off as the policeman’s name escaped her mind.
“Dover,” Jeff told her. “His name’s Sergeant Dover.”
Taking a deep breath, Hildie pulled herself back to her feet and went into the living room, where the officer was talking to someone on the telephone. He signaled her to wait, cut his conversation short and hung up. “Is he all right?” he asked.
Hildie shook her head. “Of course he isn’t. I’m not sure he even knows quite what’s happened yet But he wants to know if I can take him to the Academy.” As Dover’s brows knit into a puzzled frown, Hildie hurried on, wanting to press her advantage before the policeman had time to think it out clearly. “I suspect it isn’t so much going to the Academy he wants, as it is to leave the house right now. Given what’s happened, it must be hard for him to be here.”
“I think we should notify his family,” Dover began.
Hildie nodded immediately. “I can take care of all that. We have all his records at the Academy, and both Chet and Jeanette work—worked — at the university. Of course, I’ll do whatever’s necessary, but …” She deliberately left the words hanging, wanting the final decision to come from Dover.
There would be no suggestion that she had simply come to the house, scooped Jeff up, and left with him.
Dover made up his mind. It had been bad enough having to come here and tell a twelve-year-old kid his folks were dead, without having to call the people’s parents as well. When it came to kids, Dover had never known what to do anyway. For the half hour he’d been here, he’d hardly been able to say anything to the boy at all. At least this woman knew kids, and knew Jeff. “If you could, that would probably make it easier on the families,” he agreed. “If he has a grandmother, or something, it would sure help. I mean, if he doesn’t, we can call the social service people and find someplace for him to stay.”
“I don’t think that should become necessary,” Hildie told him. “I think either Chet or Jeanette has family in the city, and I’ll be in touch with them this morning. I doubt whether the social service people will have to get involved.”
“We’ll have to see what the family has to say,” Dover replied noncommittally, “and I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for some ID. Not that I don’t believe you are who you say you are, but—”
“Of course,” Hildie agreed, burrowing into the large bag that she’d dropped on a chair as she’d passed through the living room a few minutes earlier. Dover glanced perfunctorily at both her driver’s license and her university identification, then handed them back to her.