The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (27 page)

I had located a broom during my search. I
found it again and stuck the handle up the hole. It hit something
metallic. I thrust upwards with the broom and was greeted with a
clang. I did this several more times. Judging from a rasping sound,
whatever I was hitting was moving. After a particularly hard
thrust, this object gave way and I looked directly up into the
evening sky.

I had knocked the top off the cylinder. I
could see the outside world; I just couldn’t get to it. If only the
hole were larger. If only…

More light now came down the shaft, but this
was rapidly waning, because it was getting dark outside. I quickly
looked around the shelter. I could dimly see the equipment along
the wall. I went to where the food was stored and found the paper
bag with the utensils in it. I carried it under the ventilation
hole and looked inside. Using a combination of sight and feel, I
located a can opener in the bag. At least I could eat.

I decided to use the remaining daylight to
see what food was available. It was dinnertime, and I was hungry. I
opened several boxes of canned food and carried cans over to the
hole to identify the contents. I located a can of corned beef hash
and a can of beets and decided that I had my dinner.

I also found several metal cups. I opened the
top of a large water bottle by feel and tried to pour water into
the cup by tipping the bottle. Most of the water spilled onto the
floor, but I did manage to fill the cup. It was cold to drink. What
I really needed was some hot cocoa. I opened the cans, mostly by
feel, and used a cheap metal fork to eat the hash and beets right
out of them. The cold hash especially tasted yucky, but at least it
would give me nourishment.

By the time I finished eating, the small
amount of light from the shaft was gone and I was back in total
darkness. The mental lift this light had given me dissipated and my
mood was as black as my surroundings. I had to keep busy.

I made my way to the door and felt for the
hinges. There were three and they were sturdy, but I was sure that
with a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, and a hammer I could take the
door off them. Perhaps even in the dark.

Where was the toolbox? I decided to go
through all the supplies again. I did this in detail, opening all
the boxes and feeling all the contents. I moved boxes around to
make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I was still looking for a
flashlight, also, but I had no better luck finding that than I did
finding tools.

After going through everything thoroughly, my
spirits were at a low. I was getting cold. I sat on the cot and
wrapped myself in blankets. I tried to think of a plan, but I
couldn’t seem to focus enough to come up with anything. I wondered
what had happened to Ed. Was he really intent on killing two
families in hopes of getting some money from gas wells? He must
have flipped his lid.

And did this tie in to Ralph, who was already
dead? And the necklace? My mind kept going over the map that Ralph
had created for finding the necklace. Except that the necklace
wasn’t in its hiding place, and judging from the old spider webs in
the hole under the floor of the hayloft, it hadn’t been there
recently, if ever.

If the necklace was nonexistent, why had
Ralph created the map? I suspected that the answer was very simple.
Ralph had been a prankster. He had created the map to have fun with
Ed. Unfortunately, this prank had cost him his life.

I moved the cot against the wall, so that I
would have support for my back. I didn’t want to lie on it and go
to sleep. I needed to stay alert, even though I couldn’t think of
anything to do at the moment. What if Ed decided to come back for
me during the night? If I heard somebody at the door, I had to be
prepared to leap into action.

CHAPTER 28

I spent a restless night, filled with weird
mental images and quasi-dreams. I must have dozed some, because I
saw a little light at the bottom of the ventilation shaft sooner
than I expected. I felt cold and stiff. I had to get up and move
around.

Eating cold canned food appealed to me about
as much as jumping into the Arctic Ocean, but I knew I should eat
something. I would need all the strength I could muster. I took a
can from a box I had identified last night as containing baked
beans. I ate them and drank some water. I peed in the far corner of
the shelter, because the chemical toilet was still in its original
container and I couldn’t figure out how to assemble it in the dark.
I had done this last night, also. I managed to splash some urine
off the wall and onto myself.

There was enough light from the shaft so that
I could dimly make out the items in the shelter that were near it.
The boxes of supplies looked different than they felt. The sense of
sight and the sense of feel give somewhat conflicting images to the
brain. For example, the cardboard box with the batteries in it,
which was clearly labeled “BATTERIES” in black crayon, looked too
deep to be holding only batteries. That hadn’t occurred to me when
I could only touch it.

I went over to the box and placed my hand
inside. There were batteries in packages of two. I knew that
already. Underneath the layer of batteries was cardboard.
Previously, I had interpreted the cardboard as being the bottom of
the box. But it wasn’t deep enough. I shoved both hands through the
batteries and found that the cardboard wasn’t part of the box at
all. It had been laid above something else.

I dug my fingers into the edges of the
cardboard until I could get a grip on it. Then I pulled it out of
the box, spilling batteries all over the floor in the process. I
thrust a hand back in and felt something metal. Like a toolbox. My
heart thumping, I found the handle attached to the lid and pulled
it out. It was heavy, like a toolbox.

I set it down directly under the ventilation
shaft and opened the clasps. Upon lifting the lid, I could see a
number of tools, neatly organized. I didn’t have time to sort
through them. I upended the box and dumped the tools onto the
floor. I quickly found a hammer and a pair of pliers. There were
several screwdrivers. I selected the sturdiest one with the largest
blade.

I carried these tools over to the door. The
light from the shaft didn’t reach this far. I had to work by feel
again. I found the middle hinge of the door. It was a convenient
height to start with. I had to extract the rod that went through
the hinge holes on the door and the frame.

I used the pliers to attempt to pull the rod
up out of the holes. After losing the grip of the pliers on the rod
several times, I managed to pull it up a fraction of an inch. At
least it was fairly new and not stuck in place. I placed the
screwdriver blade under the head of the rod and tapped the handle
of the screwdriver with the hammer, trying not to tap my fingers.
In this I was not totally successful, but little by little, I
knocked the rod upward, until it fell onto the floor with a
clang.

I uttered a silent cheer and went to work on
the lowest hinge. After five minutes of effort, I extracted this
rod. Now for the highest hinge. This one was about even with the
top of my head. I had to reach up with the pliers and pull this rod
up, and I had trouble getting enough leverage. I struggled for a
while, unsuccessfully. I needed something to stand on.

I brought the toolbox over to the door,
closed it, and stood on it. This gave me leverage, and it was a
more convenient height than the chair I had stood on before. I got
a good grip on the rod with the pliers and gave a big yank upward.
To my surprise, the rod came completely out of the hinge. My hand
hit the ceiling, and I lost my balance as a result of the effort.
The toolbox skidded out from under me, and I fell onto the concrete
floor. Hard.

I grunted at the shock of hitting something
so unyielding and lay there, stunned. In a few seconds, I began to
hurt. Everywhere. I closed my eyes as the pain washed over me,
hoping that it was temporary. After a minute, the pain localized in
my right hip, which had taken the brunt of the fall. My hands also
stung, especially the one that had hit the ceiling. I had slapped
the floor with both hands, trying to protect my head, which,
thankfully, had been spared. All I needed was another head injury.
I got slowly to a sitting position and tried to assess the
damage.

I could move my hands and fingers. No broken
bones were present, and I knew the stinging sensation in my hands
would subside. I had hurt the back of my right hand, but the injury
was more painful than debilitating. My hip still ached, but I got
carefully to my feet and discovered that I could walk—with a limp.
I felt the area of my hip and suspected that I would get away with
just a large bruise. I had been lucky. I needed to be more
careful.

When I could stand the pain, I inspected the
door by feel. The rods were gone, and the door should open.
However, it hadn’t moved. I had to pull it. But I had nothing on
this edge of the door to grip. Hitting the door with the hammer to
see if it would bounce open produced no result. It was set firmly
in place.

I returned to the floor under the ventilation
shaft where the tools were scattered, looking for a crowbar that I
already knew wasn’t there. The hammer had to serve as a crowbar.
Back at the door, I tried to force the claws of the hammer between
the door and the jamb. There wasn’t room. I tried to dig the claws
of the hammer into the door, but the hard wood only threatened to
break the hammer.

I had another thought. The metal hinge pieces
on the door stuck out. If I could get a good grip on one… They were
too small for my fingers to grasp, so I took the pliers and gripped
a piece of the middle hinge. I pulled, and the pliers slipped off
the hinge. I felt the hinge and realized that the hinge pieces
attached to the doorjamb were stopping me from pulling the door
open. There were two such pieces on each of the three hinges.

I took the hammer and screwdriver. Using the
screwdriver as a chisel, I placed the blade against each piece of
the hinge that was attached to the jamb and tapped on the
screwdriver with the hammer. It was hard to do in the dark, and I
cursed when I hit my fingers instead of the screwdriver.

But this turned out to be a weak point of the
door. Repeated tapping bent the hinge pieces until they were out of
the way of the door opening. I had to go through the same procedure
six times, but eventually nothing remained to hold the door
closed.

I took the pliers again and tried to pull the
door open. Again the pliers slipped off the metal hinge piece I was
pulling on. I needed to get a tighter grip. Gloves. There had been
work gloves in the toolbox. I found them on the floor, pulled them
onto my hands, and tried again.

The first time I pulled with the gloves on,
the pliers slipped off the hinge again. My grip was definitely
stronger, but my hands still hurt, and my fingers weren’t at full
strength. I limped around, flexing my fingers, willing them to get
stronger. Time was of the essence. It was morning, and whatever Ed
was going to do, he would do today.

I held the pliers as tightly as I could and
tried once more to pull the hinge. I managed to move it a fraction
of an inch before I lost the grip. Another rest. Another try. It
moved another fraction. It occurred to me that I could stick one of
the rods partway back into the holes of the hinge—now that the
hinge pieces attached to the jamb were out of the way—and pull on
the rod. I inserted a rod halfway into the middle hinge and hooked
the claws of the hammer around it.

I pulled on the hammer. With the leverage
this gave me, I slowly pulled the door free of the hinges. The
bottom of the door shifted a little and rested on the ground. I
kept pulling. Why was it still so hard to move? Then I realized
that the outside hasp had to bend in order to move the door,
because it was still locked. I saw a crack of light as the outside
edge of the door moved past the jamb. So close. I placed the claws
of the hammer on the outside surface of the door, and pulled
hard.

The door continued to move, making a rasping
noise on the concrete floor. I pulled harder. Gradually I opened a
space big enough for me to squeeze through. The second I thought I
could make it, I went through the crack, scraping various parts of
my body and tearing my jacket in the process. But I was free. I
felt as if I had just gotten out of prison.

CHAPTER 29

I trotted, limping, up the lawn to the
two-lane road, breathing in the cold morning air that smelled
fresher than the air in the shelter. The sun was out, and it would
warm the earth, but this process would take a while. Judging from
the position of the sun, it had been up for some time. I wasn’t
wearing my watch, and it was later than I thought.

This added urgency to my mission, which was
to warn everybody to watch out for Ed. I needed a telephone. There
was nobody home at Veronica’s house. The nearest neighbor appeared
to be about a quarter mile up the road. I started jogging in that
direction, still limping.

A car was coming, headed in the same
direction. I debated trying to get a ride toward home. No, my first
priority was to spread the alarm, and the house was close at hand.
I let the car go by and turned into the driveway. I limped up to
the door and rang the doorbell. At least I shouldn’t be waking
anybody up.

The door had a window in it. I could see an
older woman approaching, wiping her hands on the apron she was
wearing. I tried to look harmless. She opened the door a crack, and
I said, “Good morning, ma’am. May I use your telephone to make a
collect call? I…I’m kind of lost.”

She closed the door to slip off a chain and
then opened it again. I was thankful because I suddenly realized
that I must look like a bum with my torn jacket. I also noticed for
the first time that the knuckles of my right hand were bloody. I
tried to keep them out of sight.