I glanced at Wade. “And since I’ve got you here, we should inspect the basement.” I led the way to the kitchen. I presumed the door to the basement would be located somewhere in here, too.
Inside the swinging door, I stopped to admire the room. It was a sprawling space, big enough to fit two modern kitchens inside it. But it would have to be completely rebuilt. I glanced under the old sink to check the subfloor and backboard beneath and behind the pipes. On my hands and knees, I reached in to knock on the wooden wall. It felt solid, but I would take another look while the plumbing was being redone. This was a prime area for water damage and termite infestation.
Off the kitchen was another good-sized room with polished wooden counters on three sides, under which a cabinetmaker had built large cubbyholes that pulled open.
“It’s a winter pantry,” Emily said, her voice giddy with excitement.
“For storing root vegetables and such?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m going to use it for.”
“Clever,” Wade murmured as he studied the cabinetry for damage and jotted down notes.
We finally found the door to the basement in the butler’s pantry on the other side of the kitchen. Wade confirmed that the stairs leading down were solid. The two of us checked the beams and posts while Emily wandered the cavernous space. There were a few joists where termites had done their worst. Replacing the center horizontal beam was already at the top of my list of priorities, and Wade concurred. Shoring up a couple of load-bearing posts would be critical as well.
Otherwise the house appeared to be structurally sound. Wade did a quickie survey of the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs and we reevaluated my three-to-four-month target to get Emily moved in. We might be able to get more done in that time frame than I had first estimated.
Emily was delighted and that was important to me. Whether the ghost of Mrs. Rawley would be equally delighted was a different question altogether.
*
Jane heard from Chief Jensen the next day. The coroner had given a preliminary time of death, and according to his estimate, Jesse died sometime during the night before I found his body. Jane and I were both relieved to hear it, glad to know that his body hadn’t been lying there on the couch in the den for longer than a few hours. Unfortunately there was still no word on cause of death.
Even though Jesse’s house was still considered a crime scene, and even though the coroner’s final autopsy results had not yet been announced, Jesse’s body would be released to Bittermans’ mortuary tomorrow, Friday, and his funeral was scheduled for the following Monday.
I had a hard time getting to sleep that night, knowing that Jesse’s body would be laid out in some casket at the Bittermans’ funeral home all weekend. But I read for a while and finally dozed off, hoping I wouldn’t toss and turn all night long.
I couldn’t say what woke me up, but all of a sudden I was sitting up in bed and wondering what was happening. Had I heard a loud noise? Had I dreamed of something? I checked the clock and it read one a.m.
I glanced over at the doggie bed against the wall, where Robbie slept peacefully. Tiger was sound asleep at the foot of the bed, so all was right with their world.
I punched my pillow to get comfortable again, hoping I could fall back to sleep immediately. But all of a sudden a light flashed outside. It was startling and I wondered if that was what had woken me before. It must’ve been a car’s headlights turning down the side street half a block away, so I decided to let it go. I gave the pillow one last scrunch and was prepared to lay my head down when the light flashed again.
“That’s closer than the side street,” I muttered. Flipping the covers back, I climbed out of bed and walked to the front window. My movements woke up Robbie, who grabbed his favorite toy, a floppy skunk, and trotted over to join me. As long as he had something in his mouth, I could trust him not to bark.
Was Mac just getting home from somewhere? I rarely saw his lights go on or off, because my bedroom was at the front of the house facing the street and he lived in the back apartment over the garage. But the light could’ve come from his car driving up.
I slipped into my bathrobe and continued looking up and down the street. Except for a streetlamp at the end of the block, the area was dark. I almost went back to bed, but another ray of light suddenly swept the front of Mrs. Higgins’s house. So it had to be coming from my side of the street. Was Mac using a flashlight to find his way around?
The light flashed again and I leaned closer to the glass to get a look at where it was coming from. That was when I realized someone was inside Jesse’s place with a flashlight.