“Well, we know there’s a frozen pipe up there,” I said.
He grunted, which I knew was his way of telling me that he didn’t think I was funny.
I got that a lot.
My husband of six months was in the crawlspace of our 150-year-old home for a couple of reasons:
The aforementioned frozen pipe, which is more or less a regular thing when you have to deal with Minnesota winters.
And because we owned a 150 year old home.
When I got divorced, I also divorced myself of the 5,000 square foot modern monstrosity that had been forced upon me by first husband. I’d made mistakes in both husband and house choosing. So when we finally cut the cord, I decided I wanted a house with character. It took me two years to find the right house and during that time, I’d also found the right husband. Jake, the one boy I’d truly loved in high school had found his way back into my life and we’d picked up right where we’d left off twenty years earlier. And right before our wedding and merging our families, I’d found my house with character.
A century and a half old. (Have I mentioned that already?) Right next to the railroad tracks. One bathroom. A dilapidated garage. Doors that didn’t close properly. A hole in the roof. Bats in the attic. A much-rumored ghost.
Jake stood outside with the realtor the first time he saw it and said, “This might have…too much character, Daisy.”
But it didn’t. I’d fallen in love with the original wood floors and the narrow staircase and the small rooms and the stories that were lurking in the walls. I wanted it and when he saw how much I wanted it, he relented with a smile and a shake of his head.
And now he was trying to get a hairdryer close enough to a frozen pipe to thaw it out. I couldn’t see his face, but I was fairly certain there was no smile.
“I can’t reach it,” he said.
“Which is why I should be up there,” I reminded him.
He muttered something and slid himself backwards, his feet coming out first. He lowered himself down to the ground, easing his way over the concrete ledge that made up the floor of the crawl space. I tightened the elastic wrapped in my hair, tugging the ponytail to make sure it was tight.
“You look like one of those people,” I said to him.
He surveyed his dirt and dust covered body. “A coal miner?”
“No, one of those people in Pompeii. The ancient massive volcano?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I know,” I said, taking the hair dryer from him. “But I still love you. Now boost me up.”
He lifted me up and I slithered into the dirty, concrete space. Spider webs clogged the wooden beams above my head and the dust lifted up into my eyes and mouth. I coughed and wiped at my eyes.
“Having fun yet?” Jake asked.
Pretty sure he was smiling now.
I ignored him and crawled forward on my elbows, trying to get to the back wall where the offending pipe from the kitchen was located. He angled the flashlight for me and I saw the pipe up above me and next to the brick wall. I reached out to touch it and was glad my fingers weren’t wet. Because it was so icy cold, I was certain my flesh would have stuck permanently to the frozen metal. And there wasn’t enough room for Jake to come up and help me. I looked down, squinting in the darkened space, trying to locate the hairdryer. I saw it, the pearly gray barrel blending in seamlessly with the layer of dust and dirt.
But I saw something else, too.
“Did you see this?” I asked, my eyes zeroing in on the floor.
“See what?” he said. “My eyes were full of dirt.”
“This door. Did you see it?”
“Nooo. I was looking for the pipe.”
“There’s a door,” I told him. “Like, a wooden door. That opens up.”
“Excellent. Can you get the hair dryer up there now so the pipe doesn’t burst?”
But I was enamored with the door. It was about three feet by three feet, made of several two by fours. I used my hand to clear the dust from it. A splinter sliced into my palm and I winced but even that couldn’t deter me.
“There’s a hole,” I said. “To pull it up and open it.”
“Daisy,” he said sternly. “The pipe.”
“Just a second,” I said. I stuck my fingers into the hole and tried to lift it out, but it was too heavy. “Do you have a screwdriver?”
“No.”
“Liar. There’s one right there on the table.”
He sighed and a moment later, slid the screwdriver into the space. I reached back with my hand, grabbed it and brought it over to the door.
“If that pipe bursts…”
“Oh, please,” I said. “It’ll be fine. It’s been frozen for hours; a few more minutes isn’t going to hurt. Did you know there was a door here? Where would it go?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “To someplace beneath the crawl space?”
I’d never even thought about the crawl space actually being above something. It was just sort of…there, this elevated concrete space in our basement that, after studying for about half a second, I’d decided would be good for storing things. To me, it was like a bonus shelf, four feet off the basement floor. I’d already thought of putting valuables up there, off the floor that I’d been warned by our home inspector might be susceptible to flooding.
But the area underneath, the concrete tomb that the crawl space created? My mind was already spinning. I was thinking of secret tunnels and buried treasure and mementos left by previous residents. I didn’t want to see what was down there; I needed to see.
I wedged the screwdriver into the hole, set my elbow against the concrete and lifted the door up out of the ground. It lifted easily and I used my other hand to get it out of the square and slid it to the side.
“I got it!” I yelled. “It’s off!”
“Do not fall in, Daisy,” Jake said.
“Throw me the flashlight,” I said.
“You have one minute,” Jake said, rolling the flashlight toward me. “And then I want that hair dryer on the pipe before this basement fills with water and drains our bank account. Well, what’s left of our bank account.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, grabbing the light.
I propped myself up on my elbows and angled the light down into the now-open door. The drop down was about twelve feet and the walls were made entirely of metal. I felt a twinge of disappointment. It looked like an old coal chute. I did not see a tunnel. I did not see treasure.
“Daisy?” Jake asked. “What do you see?”
I angled the light again, searching every crevice of the space. The light flickered over something and my hand stilled before it began to tremble. I tried to steady the beam of light, to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I swallowed hard and wiped at the cobwebs clinging to my face.
“I see…a pair of shoes,” I said.
“Shoes?” Jake asked.
“Yeah.” I swallowed again. “And someone’s in them.”
THE MURDER PIT by Jeff Shelby is now available at all ebook retailers!
Table of Contents
Copyright
Books by Jeff Shelby
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY ONE
TWENTY TWO
TWENTY THREE
TWENTY FOUR
TWENTY FIVE
TWENTY SIX
TWENTY SEVEN
TWENTY EIGHT
TWENTY NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY ONE
THIRTY TWO
THIRTY THREE
THIRTY FOUR
THIRTY FIVE
THIRTY SIX
THIRTY SEVEN
THIRTY EIGHT
THIRTY NINE
FORTY
FORTY ONE
FORTY TWO
FORTY THREE
AUTHOR'S NOTE