Chapter 78

The staircase leading to the basement was located off a small, elegant kitchen.
Digby liked the layout of the Lee home. It was open concept, A-frame. There was no second floor, except for a big loft above the living room.
The staircase steps were covered with green rubber.
She headed down and stepped onto the clean, light beige concrete at the bottom, then turned to face the staircase. The wall beneath the stairs was covered with wood paneling, but Digby could see the outline of a large square-shape trap-door about the size of a bedroom window in the panel.
Cst. Elliot had removed a section of false wall and placed it back in the hole, loosely, so that she could see the outlineof it. She bent down and crawled between two steps, inching her way underneath the staircase. Once underneath, she stood up and lifted out the false section of wall. The hole was shoulder level. The piece of false wall was light and consisted of a thin sheet of wood veneer plus two inches of Styrofoam stuck to the back, which probably helped sound proof the secret room, and also allowed the piece of false wall to fit snugly into the secret opening.
Cst. Elliot’s face was there, looking out at her from the other side of the wall, smiling.
“Pretty neat, eh?”
“It is neat.”
He reached out his arms and helped Digby pull herself through the hole in the wall.
She touched down on more concrete, on the other side. The framing of the house and thick slabs of pink insulation were visible in the unfinished walls of the secret room. It was a surprisingly large, clean space. It looked like a nanny suite, in the process of being built. There was naked wiring hanging from the rafters, and sawdust and pine boards here and there on the floor. Beyond that, the room was empty.
“Not much to look at,” Cst. Elliot said.
“What about the other room?”
“This way.”
He walked a few paces toward the far right corner. There was another alcove visible, as Digby got closer to the far wall. An empty door frame led to the other room, which was no bigger than a walk-in closet. The second secret room was empty, as well, except for a large cardboard box and a grey fire-safe box sitting on the floor.
The wall on the right was lined with cement, hexagonal cubbyholes meant to store bottles of wine, but they were all empty.
“Have you looked in these boxes?”
“No… Actually, yes. I looked in the cardboard box. Not the firebox. The firebox is locked.”
Digby took her digital camera out of her purse and opened the loose flap of the cardboard box first. It was full of papers and some binders and what looked to be a high school yearbook from Horton High School.
“Looks like life insurance and all that. Kinda messy,” Cst. Elliot said.
“Okay.” Digby snapped a picture of the open box. “What about the fire-safe? How do we open it?”
“Well. We got a few big key rings full of keys upstairs. We can try ‘em out. It looks like a small key. But we should call Cpl. Gordon first?”
“I’ll call him. Actually, let’s just open it. We don’t have any idea what’s in there. It’s probably nothing related to the case.”
Cst. Elliot grinned with his wrinkly eyes again, then went upstairs to get the key rings.