The Key to Aunt Agatha's Cellar

By L. M. Beyer

Where is Agatha Shafer Thornfelder? Did she go for a walk and forget her way home? Or is she somewhere down in the cellar with the spiders, the steamer trunks, and a closet full of old clothes? No one he talks to knows where she is, and Detective Cameron Murphy can't remember a case more puzzling than this one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Temfield Books
• Release date: Jul 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516399727

Book preview

Detective Cameron Murphy stepped out on the porch and looked at the woman standing at the far edge of the tiny yard. She was young. He decided that she was probably still in college. Something about the careless attention to hair and clothes told him that much. Her name was Laura Shafer and she had called the police because her Aunt Agatha had disappeared.

He walked down the steps and over to where she waited. Come inside, miss, and look around.

I don’t need to, she shook her head.

She’s not in there, miss. And there’s no evidence of any crime, no broken locks, no mess. Nothing at all. But I want you to look around and tell me if anything looks unusual to you. You’re familiar with the place, right? You visited your aunt?

Yes, for dinner sometimes. I don’t think I could tell you anything. I mean, I looked around a little before I called you. I was afraid she might be... the young woman stopped and took a deep breath, ...in the basement.

Nothing there, and you have no reason to be afraid. The house looks normal to me. Very neat. Looks like she might have gone on a trip for a couple of days.

Laura Shafer was shaking her head before he finished the sentence. She’d have mentioned that in her emails. Ever since my mother died last year we’ve been writing. By emails, I mean. She tells me everything. All kinds of details. The neighbor’s cat. The beetles on her rose bush. She’d have told me about a trip. I know she would. And the basement. The door wasn’t locked. Her last email said the door was locked, but it wasn’t.

We checked it out. There’s nothing down there except the furnace, some trunks, and a few shelves piled with cardboard boxes. Old stuff. We’ll talk to the neighbors, miss, and ask around, but I haven’t seen anything suspicious yet. That’s why you should come inside.

She hesitated, chewing on her lip, but finally nodded, OK.

He led the way back up the two wooden steps to the narrow porch and opened the screen door for her. When he followed her into the dim little parlor the musty smell of the old house made him sneeze.

The young woman took a few steps into the room and looked slowly around at the clutter of furniture, family pictures, and assorted knickknacks that any family will accumulate over time. She was more than nervous. She started to reach for one of the small pictures, but her hand was shaking and she didn’t touch it, just closed her fingers on empty air and lowered her hand.

After a few minutes, she said, It’s all the same. I don’t see anything.

Ahead of them, through a wide arch between the rooms, he could see the dining table and chairs. Dark wood. The table had a small circle of embroidered material centered under a blue and white soup tureen. A pot of red geraniums drooped on the window sill. The white curtains around them had been tied back with gold ribbons. It was easy to imagine a grandmotherly woman coming out of the kitchen to meet them, a smile on her face, removing her apron, and wrapped all around by the scent of cinnamon cookies.

This time, however, it was not Laura Shafer’s elderly aunt who came out of the kitchen into the dining room. It