Mummified Meringues (2 page)

Jack let the light linger at the top of the ‘sack’ and Lexy’s heart jerked in her chest when she recognized that it was a face.
 

She grabbed Jack’s arm, her green eyes wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I’m afraid so.” Jack’s face turned grim. “We’ve got a mummy in our basement.”

***

Lexy took a step backwards, bumping into a box and almost falling over it as horror spread through her. Her mind flashed on all of the candlelight dinners, romantic evenings, and relaxing nights watching TV upstairs in Jack’s house … and the whole time, a dead body had lain down here in this secret room.

“How long has it been here?” she asked.

Jack shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess at least since before I bought the place, because I sure as heck didn’t seal it up in there.”

Jack paced to the corner and moved a stack of boxes aside to inspect the joint where the walls met. “It looks like someone built that false wall to make the secret room. That wall is wood frame construction, not cinderblock like the rest of the foundation. Then they refinished it just like the other walls on purpose, so no one would even know the room was there. It’s so narrow that I don’t think you’d know unless you measured the room. If it wasn’t for Sprinkles, we might never have noticed it.”

“So someone did this on purpose?”

Jack looked at her and nodded. “There’s no way this was an accident.”

Lexy shivered, then bent down to peek into the room again. She’d seen quite a few dead bodies in her time, but never one that was mummified. It looked so strange, with the leathery skin stretched tight and the clothing, although dirty and a bit worse for the wear, still on it. “I can’t believe someone put a person in here, sealed them up and left them to die.”

“Maybe they were already dead.”

“Well, that’s a slightly more pleasant thought.” Lexy shuddered, realizing there had been a killer loose in the neighborhood and right in the house behind Nans. Of course, given Nans’ odd hobby of investigating murders, Lexy realized that the older woman would have probably been more intrigued than repulsed.
 

She made a mental note to call her grandmother right away. This must have happened when Nans was living in the house behind Jack, and Lexy was sure her grandmother wouldn’t be able to resist investigating the death that had happened practically right under her nose. “How long does it take for a body to mummify and why didn’t it deteriorate into a skeleton?”

“That’s a good question. I guess it must have been pretty dry in there. I don’t know how long the process takes, but I think mummies can be preserved for centuries like this.” Jack bent down with his face near the hole and sniffed. “What’s that strange smell?”

“Mummy smell?”
 

“No, something else. It smells flowery.”

Lexy bent down closer to the hole and inhaled deeply. Her nose picked up on that familiar scent again and then she realized what it was. “Hmmm, that’s weird. Let me see that flashlight.”

Jack handed the flashlight over and Lexy aimed it at the small lumps beside the body that she’d
thought
were potatoes.
 

“Ahhh, so that explains it,” she said.

Jack frowned at her. “Explains what?”

“See those small lumps?” Lexy trained the flashlight on one of the lumps. “I thought they were potatoes but now I can see they are sachets.”

Jack let out an exasperated sigh. “And exactly what is a sachet?”

“It’s a little pouch that you can put dried flowers and scents in. Ladies used to use them in their lingerie drawer to add a nice smell. It’s pretty old fashioned. I don’t think anyone does it anymore. These are lavender-scented.”

Jack’s left brow ticked up. “And why do you think lavender sachets would be in here with a mummified body?”

“I’m guessing they put them in to hide the smell.”

“Hide the smell?” Jack snorted. “It’s pretty hard to hide the stench of a dead body. I don’t think a few silky pouches of flowers is gonna do it, but I guess someone who wasn’t so familiar with dead bodies might think so.”

“So, you think this is the work of an amateur?”

Jack shrugged. “Hard to tell until we find out who the victim is. That’s a job for the police. I guess I better put in the call.”

 
Jack dug in his pocket with one hand and turned Lexy toward the exit with the other. “In the meantime, I guess we won’t be continuing our work in the basement—this is a crime scene now.”

They headed toward the exit with Sprinkles following obediently behind them. As they started up the stairs, Lexy looked back over her shoulder at the hole. “I wonder what horrible thing that person did to deserve the fate of being sealed up inside the basement wall.”

“Good question.” Jack speed dialed the police department. “But an even better question is …
who
sealed them up in there and why?

Chapter Two

Lexy’s mind whirled with questions as they waited on the front steps for the police. “You don’t think those nice old people that lived here before you killed that person, do you?”

“The McDonalds?” Jack scrunched his face up. “I doubt it. They were just a nice, elderly couple and they certainly didn’t act as if they were offloading a house with a mummy in the basement. I think it’s more likely it was the builder.”

“So you think the builder had a body to hide and made a secret room for it in the basement? That seems like the timing would have had to be perfect. Wouldn’t someone have noticed that the foundation was off?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe, but the space is so narrow that I doubt anyone would have noticed because the walls looked exactly the same from the inside.”

“But why would a builder have a dead body?” Lexy wondered, then attempted to answer her own question. “Maybe the builder was mixed up with organized crime … or maybe he took a payoff to hide bodies in his basements. Maybe all the homes in the neighborhood have a secret room with a mummy in them.”

Jack laughed. “I doubt it’s anything like that.”

Lexy pressed her lips together. “Why
did
the McDonalds leave all their stuff, anyway? I mean it seems to me that would be a perfect way to discourage anyone from going near that back wall.”

“During the final walkthrough for the house, I went in the basement and it was as full as it is now.” Jack said. “The McDonalds seemed very embarrassed that they hadn’t been able to get the stuff out in time. They were overwhelmed and moving to a senior assisted living place with no room for any of it. Charlie had a bad hip and couldn’t even go in the basement. They had no kids and no one to help them haul it out. I took pity on them and said they could leave it and I’d deal with it.”

Lexy’s heart flooded with warmth at Jack’s compassionate gesture. “Aww, that was sweet.”

She pecked Jack on the cheek and smiled, noticing his neck turn an embarrassing shade of pink. It wasn’t often that the tough detective let people see his softer side, but Lexy knew it was there.

Her happy feeling didn’t last long, though, because seconds later, a caravan of Brook Ridge Falls Police cars pulled up. Detective Watson Davies catapulted out of the lead car and stormed in their direction. She stood staring down at them, her hands on the hips of her tight, black jeans. Lexy noticed she was wearing a black t-shirt with BFPD stamped in large white letters. The shirt was tucked into her jeans, which sported a gleaming gold badge clipped at her hip.

Lexy’s stomach took a dive. She’d hoped that Jack’s best friend and partner, John Darling, would be investigating. It figures they’d get Davies. Lexy had worked with Davies a few times in the past. Well, ‘worked
with’
wasn’t exactly right, more like worked
against
. Though to be fair, Davies had always shown she was interested in making sure justice was served. She and Lexy had had a somewhat adversarial relationship even though Davies had redeemed herself with a few random acts of kindness, and the diminutive detective did seem to have a tight bond with Nans.

Davies tilted her head at Lexy. “I got a call about a mummy … this is a joke, right?”

Lexy shook her head.

“I should have known such a call would have something to do with you, Mrs. Baker-Perillo.”

“It really doesn’t have anything to do with Lexy.” Jack put his arm around Lexy’s shoulders and pulled her next to him. “She just happened to be here helping me. The body is in my basement.”

Davies raised a perfectly plucked brow at Jack and he shrugged.
 

“Come on in and I’ll show you.” Jack stood up, pulling Lexy with him.

Davies motioned to the crime scene techs, who had been taking various pieces of equipment out of the cars behind her, and they all trudged into the house.
 

Davies looked up at Jack. “Seriously, Perillo, if this is a joke …”

Jack raised his palm. “No joke, I swear.”

They filed through the living room into the kitchen. Jack pointed to the basement door and gestured for Davies and her entourage to go down first.
 

“Jeez, Perillo, what are you, some kind of hoarder?” Davies stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking out over the fully packed basement.

“No. Actually, all of this is from the people who lived here before me. We were trying to sort it out so we can sell the house.”

Davies’ eyes fell on the plate of meringue cookies and she glanced over at Lexy. “Are these yours?”

Lexy nodded. “Help yourself.”

Davies picked up a small cookie and shoved it in her mouth, screwing up her face as she chewed.
 

“Needs sugar,” Davies mumbled around the mouthful of cookie, then swallowed, brushed off her fingers and looked around the basement. “Now, where, exactly, is this mummy?”

“Over here.” Jack led them to the back wall and pointed at the hole.

Davies held out her hand, palm up, without saying a word and one of the crime unit techs slapped a flashlight into it. She squatted down, level with the hole, and aimed the light inside.

“It’s on the right,” Jack said.

Davies adjusted her aim. “Holy cow, I guess there really is a mummy in here. Never seen one of these before.”
 

She pulled her head out and looked at Jack. “So, how do you figure it got in here?”

Jack shrugged. “I have no idea, but if you look at the wall, you can see someone took great care to make this false wall look like it was the end of the basement. It matches the intersecting walls perfectly.”

Davies picked her way over to the corner, inspecting the walls with her flashlight. They were covered in a cement coating but Lexy knew from the outside of the house that the basement was actually made from cinderblocks. Inside, the coating gave it a more finished look–that of cement or stucco.

Davies ran her hand along the wall. “Right. I see it’s cinderblock but plastered over. Do you think that was on purpose to make this little room?”

“I have no idea,” Jack said.

“How long have you lived here?”

Jack scrunched his face and looked at the ceiling. “I think it’s going on five years now.”

“Bodies can mummify in less than a year under the right conditions,” Davies mused.

A crime scene tech interrupted their conversation. “You don’t expect us to climb in there, do you?” he asked, pointing to the small hole.

Jack shook his head. “No, I guess we’ll have to widen the opening. But be careful not to disturb the area in back. Get some plastic bags and I’ll help you widen it. We’ll put the cement we remove in the bags so we can do forensic testing on the pieces later, and then let’s—”

“Hold on there!” Davies held her hands up, palms out, and scowled at Jack.

“What?” Jack’s brows creased as he looked from Davies to the hole to the crime scene techs.

“
I’m
the one in charge here, so
I’ll
give the orders,” Davies said.

Jack’s brows shot up. “Well, you’re only in charge because it’s my day off. Tomorrow, I’ll take over and—”

“Sorry, Jack. I don’t think you’ll be taking over. In fact, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the crime scene area.”

“What? Why?”

“You can’t investigate a crime in your own basement. Conflict of interest. And besides, right now, you’re the number one suspect.”

Chapter Three

Jack and Lexy retreated to her house where they peered out the kitchen window and through the backyards, anxiously trying to see what was going on at Jack’s. They couldn’t see what was happening inside, but they did manage to see the police bringing bags of what they assumed were pieces of concrete and other evidence out through the bulkhead door that faced Lexy’s house.

Suddenly, as they watched, Sprinkles catapulted out of the basement with an angry Davies running up the bulkhead steps behind her.

Sprinkles bounded through the gap in the fence. Davies stopped just short of it when she spied Lexy and Jack looking out the window.

“Keep your dog out of here!” Davies yelled, her harsh words coming through the screen loud and clear.

“Sorry!” Lexy grimaced as she opened the screen door to the kitchen to let Sprinkles in.