Katherine Page - The Body In The Basement

“You'l like it there." She continued to hold a one-sided conversation with her child, a situation she'd eventual y gotten used to with Ben. In his early days, she'd felt as if she was talking to a cat or some other domesticated pet. "It has icy cold water, lots of bugs, no place to eat, no place to shop, nothing much to do." And they were building a house in this Shangri-la.

Pix knocked loudly at the Athertons' front door and, receiving no reply, knocked again. Perhaps they were on the deck in the front of the house. She walked around, didn't see anyone, and went back to the door. She knocked yet again, then did what she normal y did in Sanpere: walked in. She could hear Valerie's voice coming from upstairs.

“It's me, Pix," she cal ed from the bottom of the spiral.

Taking the silence for an invitation, she went on up. She was curious to see more of the house. At the top of the stairs, she saw an open door and through it Valerie's back.

She entered the room. "Sorry I'm a bit late ..." Her apology was cut short first by her initial impression of the decor—it was fit for a little princess, or an aging romance writer—

then by the gun.

“What's going on! Samantha, are you al right?”

“Shut up and sit down in the other chair.”

Pix was so stunned that for a moment she couldn't move. It was simply too much to take in al at once. Valerie?

“Move!”

She moved.

Samantha had been similarly turned to stone. She had hardly moved a muscle since Valerie had entered the room; even Pix's arrival did not cause more than a flutter of an eyelash. Every thought she had directed her to keep stil and stay alive. Her mother reached for her hand and she grabbed it, but did not shift her gaze or open her mouth.

Valerie, however, was talking to herself nonstop. Tap ping her foot in annoyance yet maintaining a steady aim, she sat down on the daybed, incongruously surrounded by lace.

“Everything was perfect! Mitch was out of the way.

We'd heard Seth tel his crew that they would be pouring the foundation after they finished the work at the camp.

Perfect!" She was fuming. "Mitch, the old lush. Couldn't keep his mouth shut and he thought he should get more money. For what? I ask you." Pix correctly assumed this was a purely rhetorical question, especial y since Valerie did not even pause before continuing her tirade. "So he could make things look old. Big deal. There are plenty of people to take his place—or who could have taken his place." If looks could indeed kil , Pix would have been effectively demolished and the gun superfluous. "But you had to start playing Nancy Drew. Stil , that didn't get anywhere, and I was home free. I had even gotten rid of Duncan, so life around here could be a little more peaceful.

I thought we were al going to have a lot of fun together. You haven't been a good friend at al !" She was pouting now.

The woman must be absolutely mad, Pix thought. She was talking as if Pix had done her out of an invitation to the Magnolia Bal or some such thing at the same time as she was confessing to murder! What else could the references to Mitch being "out of the way" and "pouring the foundation"

mean?

The initial shock had passed and Pix was never one to sit meekly by.

“Valerie, put that gun down before someone gets hurt. I have no idea what you're talking about and you're upsetting Samantha—and me " Pix grasped for an out. "Did you think she was an intruder?" It was pretty feeble and she quickly fol owed it with some soothing words in as warm a voice as she could manage, "And what's this nonsense about our not being friends? You know that's not true.”

If Samantha was surprised at her mother's sudden gift for bold-faced lying, she didn't show it.

“Now, Pix"—Valerie shook the gun like a chiding finger

—"friends help friends, and you haven't helped me one little bit. I was al ready to settle down in my beautiful house for the rest of my life, but that's al spoiled. And you're to blame.

Now, I have to think what to do.”

Pix offered a suggestion. "Why don't we just forget that any of this happened and we'l go home."

“I said I was thinking! Shush!”

Samantha squeezed her mother's hand and Pix obeyed. She felt a sudden bleak stab of despair.

The spiral staircase did not muffle footsteps. Pix listened with a lifting of her heart as the sounds continued, mounting quickly to the second floor. Jim threw open the door.

“I don't have much time. I have to be back for my nature group after dinner.”

So much for any hope of rescue. The Athertons were definitely a team.

“Her mother just barged in. Came to pick her up. As I said on the phone, I saw her go into the closet on the monitor in your den. Somehow she had a key to the armoire." Valerie looked away from Jim, to Samantha.

"And where did you get that key, young lady? How many other times have you been snooping around our things!”

Samantha opened her mouth, but words did not come out. She thought she might be sick.

“Answer me!"

“In the woods. I found it in the woods out by the Fairchilds' new house," she whispered.

“Mitch must have had it in his pocket and it dropped out when we were carrying him," Jim said meditatively. He might have been mul ing over the answer to a crossword-puzzle clue.

Meanwhile, Pix was trying to piece it al together.

Samantha must have stumbled across something incriminating in the closet, something no one was meant to see. Pix had heard that along with their gold faucets and bidets, the Athertons had a state-of-the-art surveil ance system. Yet it was the innocent caught by the guilty in this case.

“Jim, Samantha merely came over to get her check.

I'm sure she didn't mean to pry into anything, but you know how teenagers are." She was sure her daughter would forgive her. "There doesn't seem to be any harm done, so why don't we simply stop this. I'd like to go home."

“And I wish I could let you go, but we can't." Jim sounded genuinely sorry. "You may not understand al that is happening now—I know you wouldn't lie to us; you're too good a friend—however you'l figure it out later and have to tel Earl. Then where wil Valerie and I be? No, I'm afraid it's too late.”

There it was again. The friendship thing. Wel , friends didn't aim guns at friends in Pix's book. She couldn't think of anything to say and decided to keep quiet and concentrate on how she and her daughter were going to get away from these two lunatics. She was trying to replace al her fear with anger and it was working.

“It doesn't matter if we make a mess in here, because we're going to have to leave the house in any case."

Valerie was speaking matter-of-factly. "So, why don't we kil them both now and get rid of the bodies after dark?”

“What!" Pix couldn't help herself.

Jim seemed a bit taken aback also.

“Honey, I'm not so sure. I mean, I've known Pix for simply ages, my whole life, in fact."

“So what? You knew Mitch—and Buddy, for that matter.”

Buddy? Bernard Cowley! They had kil ed him, too!

“But not closely. I only met Buddy once or twice, remember, and of course he real y did drown, albeit with a bit of help from you. Pix is another matter. Our parents used to play bridge together."

“Oh, wel then, that changes everything." Valerie spoke with heavy sarcasm. "Why don't we let them go, then?”

Jim put his arm around his wife's shoulder in a gesture of affection. "Now, don't go getting al huffy, sweetcakes. I know we can't let them go, but I don't like the idea of having their deaths on my hands. We'l figure something out, don't you worry”

Pix had the feeling she was watching a strange combination of Ozzie and Harriet and Bonnie and Clyde.

“Look," he continued, "we'l tie them up and you can keep on eye on them. We can't go anywhere until after dark, anyway. And now I real y do have to get back. The kids wil be waiting. We're going to look at slides of seabirds.”