Nail Biter by Sarah Graves Page A

then show up again like it was never gone in the first place, 'cept the gas tank's empty.”
    “So not a bad boogeyman, exactly?” Unless he'd taken Wanda. “Because from what you're saying, shooting people and kidnapping girls doesn't sound like Rickert's M.O.,” I added.
    Bella nodded agreement. “Mac's more the type to go out and shoot a turkey, dress it all out, and leave it on somebody's back doorstep. Like them partridges.”
    I raised my eyebrows.
    “Somebody who can't afford to buy a bird for Thanksgiving,” she explained. “That's the rumor, when it happens people say it was Mac.”
    “A Robin Hood boogeyman, then.” Only in Eastport, folks.
    “Jenny Dibble said one other strange thing,” Bella continued. “She said Gene'd been real cheerful lately. Which I imagine was unusual. As if something was going right for him, she said.”
    Which was pretty unusual, too, I supposed. Picking up the garlic press, Bella broke half a dozen cloves from the garlic head, removed the peelings, then put them through the press into a bowl that already held another stick of butter.
    So maybe our arteries would harden but at least we wouldn't have to worry about vampires. “I'd like to talk to this Rickert,” I told her.
    She tipped her head doubtfully as she mashed the garlic into the butter with a fork. But before she could answer, my dad stomped up the cellar stairs, a string of profanities issuing from his mouth.
    Stopping when he saw us. “Oh. Sorry about that,” he said. He crossed to the sink and drew himself a glass of water, guzzling it down without pause, then let out a sigh.
    “But I've just discovered there's a
box
hidden in that wall,” he added. “Or at any rate I think there is. And I don't mind telling you two it's driving me plumb nuts.”
    He ran more water. “A big box. At least two feet long and a foot wide from what I can tell.” He held his hands out to indicate the item's dimensions.
    They were big, work-gnarled hands, knuckles grimy and joints knobby with early arthritis. “A
wooden
box. But—”
    In every old-house task there is always a “but.” You can depend on it.
    “. . . I can't get the box out without taking apart a lot more wall,” he went on. “And I don't know what they used for mortar, but here we are almost two hundred years later and it's still harder than the stone.”
    He drained his glass again. “So what I need is to find out the true size of the thing,” he said, his frustration easing somewhat as he aired it out by talking to us. “Just start outwards and work in till I get to its edges, so I don't have to take down more old mortar and stone than I need to.”
    “And you'll find out the true size,” I asked, “by . . . ?”
    “Drilling,” he replied firmly. “Drill some test holes with a mortar bit, I don't hit wood, then I haven't hit the box.”
    Frowning, he went on. “I already nicked it once, wood chips came out on the pick edge. Mahogany, it appears, which is why I think it's a box and not just a structural part of the house.”
    Indeed, I thought; let's not damage any of those. The place already had an alarming tendency to fall down at one end faster than I could prop it up at the other.
    “I want to preserve the thing whole, if I can,” he said.
    I wanted it, too. A mysterious box dating from when the house was built . . .
    “But it's not going to be easy.” He wiped his forehead with his bandanna. “There's an old pipe of some kind in the wall. I'd rather not hurt that. And like I said, some old-time builder put that box in there to stay.”
    He eyed the counter where Bella stood spreading thick slices of a French loaf with the garlic butter. “Course,” he added, “some other old-timer might just manage to get the jump on the situation, he's well fueled enough.”
    Bella sniffed. “Go on with you, shedding grit an' grime all over my clean kitchen. Supper ain't for hours, yet.”
    But then her face softened, which on Bella was really