The hallway was hot and airless. Now I remembered Lizzie saying to me, “Whatever you do, don't let them stick you in the attic.” I wished I'd listened. Spooky, she'd called it. It sure was. I found the chair where I was supposed to sit in a shadowy alcove near the back of the main hallway, facing the stairs. I switched off the overhead light, followed my flashlight beam back to the chair, lit my candle, and pulled out my information packet to read through it once more. A cool breeze ruffled the pages of my job description and caused the candle flame to flicker, reminding me to put the chimney on. Lizzie Borden once told me nobody in their right mind stayed in this building after dark. I really wished I hadn't agreed to sit in this creepy attic alone.
After a short while I heard footsteps on the stairs below, and the voice of the girl from the elevator telling her story of unrequited love. She demonstrated real dramatic talent and even had me looking over my shoulder for etheric figures. The footsteps grew louder as the group climbed the staircase, and I blew out the candle in my lantern as my directions said I should, then waited quietly until they were all in the hallway. There were about fifteen people in the first group of visitors, and I could see them quite well because they were all carrying small illuminated lanterns, but I knew they couldn't see me lurking in the alcove. Several were small enough to be children, but I couldn't really tell since everyone wore costumes and masks. The guide hushed them, saying she thought she heard something, and that was my cue to turn on my flashlight beneath my chin to illuminate the white wings of my cornette. There were several screams, and I figured I must look pretty darn scary.
Using my best woo-woo voice, I said, “I am Sister Camilla O'Neil of the Sisters of Charity. I nursed soldiers at Gettysburg, then came across the mountain to assist after the Battle of Lickin Creek.” Was there really a Battle of Lickin Creek? I couldn't recall ever hearing about it. “I cared for the rich, the poor, the officers and the privates, the white man and the Negro. One poor soul said my cornette made him think of angels’ wings.” I paused here and shook my head to make the elaborate white headdress jiggle. “I emptied bedpans, fed those who could not feed themselves, changed dressings, and combed the lice from their heads and beards. And then one day, while cutting the dressing away from an infected wound, I accidentally sliced my finger. By nightfall, red streaks had rushed up my arm and taken over my brain. I was carried here, to this very attic, where I lay upon a bare cot and with feverish eyes looked out through a dormer at the heaven I was soon to visit. Within my-”
“Mama, I have to go to the potty.”
I stopped short. Where was I? Oh yes, the cot. “Within my brain was one thought only, to-”
“Now! Mama. I can't wait.”
The guide turned on her flashlight. “I'll take her.”
The mood I'd strived to create was all but gone, and I decided to expurgate my death scene. “And there I died, grateful for having suffered in the service of my Redeem-”
“Sorry to interrupt you, Miss Miracle,” the guide said. “But we're going to have to leave.” To the assembled people, she said, “The bathroom door's locked. We'll have to go downstairs at once.”
The little girl clutching her hand was sobbing miserably and hopping from one foot to the other. She ran to a masked woman in a gypsy costume I assumed was her mother and buried her face in the woman's skirts.
The people turned around and disappeared down the stairs. The guide trailing behind said to me, “That happens all the time. Someone turns the button to lock it, then forgets to turn it back when they leave. There's supposed to be a key in the PR office. Could you take care of opening the door before the next group gets here?”
“Sure. We Sisters of Charity are up for any kind of job, no matter how menial it may seem.”
I knew where the keys hung, on the wall just inside the doorway to Janet's office. When I entered the room, the first thing I saw was the mess on Janet's desk. The jumbled contents of Lizzie's briefcase lay where she had dumped it out after resigning. It gave me an idea, and I dug through piles until I found the keys for the basement storeroom. I took them with me when I went to unlock the bathroom door.
With the door open and the bathroom ready for the next emergency, I returned to the top of the staircase and listened for a moment. There were no voices coming from the floor below me, and I knew I had plenty of time left because the maiden in the window took at least ten minutes to tell her story.
I tried the first key in the door of Mack's office and nothing happened. But when I inserted the second key into the lock, the door swung open easily, as I thought it might. I closed the door behind me and pressed the light switch next to the door. An overhead light came on, illuminating the small room.
Janet had told me that after the guns were loaded she'd kept the storeroom keys in her possession all night. But there had been one short interval where they hadn't been with her. That was when she'd had to run down the hall to the rest room. If a key switch had been made, it had to have been done then. And Mack Mac-millan was the only person around who could have done it. Macmillan must have taken one of the storeroom keys while Janet was in the rest room and substituted one of his office keys so she wouldn't know it was gone.
But why? Why would Representative Macmillan have wanted access to the loaded guns? Was the answer here in his office? I knew it was quite possible that Luscious, short of time and help, might well have overlooked something when he searched the office. I stepped inside and closed the door.
The room had a few pieces of nice furniture in it, a carved mahogany desk, a comfortable chair behind it, a brown leather couch against one wall, and a bookcase, on which were a few sets of leather-bound books that looked as if they'd been chosen more for their looks than their contents. On the wall hung a large gold-framed photograph of Mack Macmillan in the uniform of a Union Army general. One hand rested on a table, the other on the hilt of his sword. He looked very official. Very real. Other than that, there was nothing very personal in the office. It was obviously not a place where Mack Macmillan spent much time.
I opened the door to listen for approaching visitors, but there was still no sign or sound indicating that anyone was coming. I turned off the light and left the door ajar in order to hear the next group coming, then followed my flashlight beam to the desk. Not knowing what I was looking for, I pulled open the top drawer. A ring with two keys on it practically jumped into my hand. It was identical to Janet's key ring, which I held in my hand. I tried both in Mack's door, but only one fit. Before I left the building, I decided, I would try to unlock the storeroom door with the other. When I went back to shut the desk drawer, I noticed a plastic Baggie jammed in the back left corner.
Using two pencils as chopsticks, so as not to leave fingerprints, I pulled the Baggie out of the drawer and dropped it on the desktop. Through the clear plastic, I could see what looked like twists of paper and foam rubber earplugs. Wonder Wads, Woody had called them, the foam gizmos reenactors used to hold the black powder in their gun barrels. I dropped the bag into one of the many pockets of Sister Camilla's voluminous skirt and left the office, carefully closing the door behind me. I was dying to take the Baggie to Luscious at the police department and would have left right then, except I knew he wouldn't be at the office and there was really no point in upsetting the college's Harvest Time Legend Tour. The bag of gun powder and Wonder Wads could wait until tomorrow.