Chapter 35
T he young man bounded up the basement stairs two at a time and hurried across the first floor to where Jeff was studying a set of engineering plans unrolled on top of a glass display case.
“Hey, Jeff,” he said, slightly out of breath.
Jeff kept his finger in place on the plans and looked up.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the young man continued, “but you’ll want to see this.”
Jeff flipped his reading glasses to the top of his head and followed without a word.
They descended into the dank, musty basement.
Workers had pumped out the standing water the day before.
The young man had spent the morning removing the old whitewashed wooden planks from three sides of the foundation, revealing uneven, rough, irregularly shaped fieldstone walls—typical of 19th-century construction.
But the fourth wall told a different story.
He’d pried away two planks, and, instead of revealing stone, the standing work lights now shone into a dark, cavernous void.
The stale air that seeped from the space carried the sharp tang of rust, the acrid hint of old coal smoke, and the earthy smell of soil.
Jeff stepped off the last stair and gasped. “It’s a false wall, isn’t it?” he said. “There’s a room behind it.”
The young man nodded and handed him a flashlight.
They pressed their foreheads to the narrow rectangular opening and beamed the light inside. It illuminated a rusted metal cylinder, pocked and green with age. Wires and copper tubes curled from the top like skeletal fingers.
“That’s an old still,” Jeff said, a low note of wonder in his voice.
“That’s what I thought,” the young man said. “There’s a pile of broken bottles next to it.”
Jeff swept the light around. “Those bottles look like the ones we found in the crates. There’s a rolltop desk and an old banker’s chair. That must’ve been where they kept the ledgers. This was a full-scale bootlegging setup.”
He set the flashlight down. “Do you have an extra pair of gloves? Let’s widen the opening.”
The young man pulled a pair from his back pocket, and the two set to work. Nails shrieked as they pried boards loose. Dust and dry rot filled the air, clinging to their skin and clothing like soot.
“I’ll move one of the standing lights in here,” the young man said, stepping through the widened gap.
Jeff followed. The air inside was cooler, heavier. He crouched and scraped the dirt floor with his fingernail. “Strange. This side doesn’t feel as wet.”
The young man circled his flashlight. “The watermark’s lower—only about eighteen inches.”
Jeff walked toward the still, his boots crunching on loose gravel. “It feels like a slight incline. Perhaps that explains why this area stayed dry.”
“Do you think the false wall helped?”
“Possibly,” Jeff replied. “Somebody built this to last.”
The young man stumbled over a rusted metal lunchbox. It landed with a hollow clang. “Holy cow,” he breathed. “I feel like I’ve walked into the past.”
Jeff turned to him. “Would you get Sam? And bring us more flashlights.”
The young man nodded and disappeared up the stairs.
Jeff crossed to the rolltop desk and shifted the wobbly chair.
The tambour door was stuck. He didn’t force it, suspecting it to be a valuable antique.
He opened the lap drawer instead. Inside was a fountain pen, a half-full bottle of ink, a tarnished ring of skeleton keys, and a cellophane-wrapped package of dusty peppermint candies.
The scent of old ink mingled with the faint sweetness of aging sugar.
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Sam and the young man ducked through the opening.
“We knew they had to be making the stuff somewhere,” Sam said, sweeping his flashlight. “I should’ve realized the size of the basement didn’t match the footprint of the first floor.”
“There’d be no reason to suspect it,” Jeff said. “Buildings often have smaller basements.”
Sam trained his light on the lunchbox. “It feels like they walked out yesterday.”
“Whoever ran this was tidy,” Jeff murmured.
The young man had ventured to a far corner. “This doesn’t match the rest of the room,” he said, kneeling beside a bucket, a pickaxe, and a trowel. A square of deteriorating carpet, the color of dried blood, sat nearby. He peeled the carpet back.
The room went silent except for their breathing. Beneath the carpet, the dirt was uneven and loose. A rounded, dark brown object jutted from the soil.
He brushed it gently. The surface was smooth. “Looks like a tree root,” he offered uncertainly. “But it’s huge. And there aren’t any trees on this side of the street.”
Jeff crouched beside him, running his hand across the exposed object. The surface was cold, unyielding.
Sam did the same. Then both men stood, locking eyes.
“You’d better call Anita,” Jeff said.
Sam nodded.
“Want me to keep digging?” the young man asked, eyes wide.
“No,” Jeff and Sam said in unison.
“We leave everything where it is,” Jeff added firmly. “Don’t touch another thing.”
“What about removing the rest of the boards?”
“Make a wider opening for access,” Jeff said. “But after that? Nothing. Construction stops. That stack of planks is the last thing leaving this basement—until we know exactly what we’ve found.”
Anita answered Sam’s call.
“You’re on speaker in my car,” she said. “I’m taking Gordon to the airport.”
“Hey, Gordon,” Sam said. “Sorry you’re leaving town. There’s something at the museum I’d like you both to see.”
“Hi, Sam,” Gordon replied. “That sounds mysterious. What’s up?”
Anita and Gordon glanced at each other. She shrugged.
“You sound like you’ve got news,” Anita said. “Are the repairs from the broken pipe going to cost more than we thought?”
“No,” Sam said. “They won’t exceed the estimate.” He paused. “I’m calling about something we found—literally, a few minutes ago. You know we got the water out of the basement yesterday and planned to remove the damaged wooden planks from the walls today.”
“Yes,” Anita said. “What’s happened?”
Sam hesitated long enough to make it clear he was enjoying the suspense. “It turns out the basement we’ve seen is not the entire basement.”
“What do you mean?” Anita asked, straightening in her seat.
“The wall where the crates were stacked was a false wall. There’s a separate room behind it.”
“No kidding!” Gordon said. “Have you been back there?”
“We sure have. And I think there’s something Anita needs to see—as soon as she returns from the airport.”
“I won’t get back until almost seven,” Anita said. “Don’t you want to go home? We’ll pick this up in the morning.”
“You need to see it tonight,” Sam said, his voice firm. “We’ll wait for you.”
“Are you going to give me a hint?” she asked, half laughing.
“Not a chance,” Sam said. “You’ve got to see this. Drive safely. We’ll wait—no matter how long it takes.” He ended the call.
“Oh my gosh,” Anita said, her voice tight with anticipation. “He sounded excited—not upset—so I don’t think it’s bad news.”
“They must’ve found the still,” Gordon said. “Or other pieces of the bootlegging operation. In any case, I want to be there for the great reveal.” He reached for his phone. “Turn around at the next exit. I’m headed back to Westbury with you.”
“But you have meetings in New York tomorrow.”
“Nothing I can’t reschedule,” he said, already tapping on his phone. “I’m canceling my flight right now.”
She stole a glance at him, then turned her eyes back to the road, a smile springing to her lips.
“No way I’m letting you do this alone,” Gordon said. “To quote a certain Broadway play—I want to be in the room where it happens.”