Chapter 5: A Question at the Workshop
The agent, Thomas Bell, sounded tired when Elena mentioned Lorraine.
“She objected to the sale,” he said.
“She objected to the listing, the open house, and the inspection appointments.”
“Did she ever explain why?”
“She said the workshop was dangerous.”
“Did anyone verify that?”
“Your inspector did.”
Elena glanced through the back window toward the detached building.
“Did Lorraine know the previous owner?”
Thomas paused.
“They had a falling-out years ago.”
“Over what?”
“I don’t know the details, and I won’t invent them.”
Elena appreciated the answer more than a confident guess.
Thomas gave her the name of the caretaker who had maintained the property.
His name was Arthur Bellamy, and he worked at a garden supply shop twenty minutes away.
Elena drove there after breakfast.
Arthur was an elderly man with stained work gloves and a quiet manner.
He remembered the house immediately.
“Mrs. Hartwell used that workshop for costumes,” he said.
“She repaired clothes for school productions.”
Elena mentioned the red door.
Arthur’s hands stopped moving over a tray of seedlings.
“I never painted it white.”
“The agent said the caretaker did.”
“Then somebody told him wrong.”
Arthur removed his gloves.
“I stopped going there after Mrs. Pike accused me of stealing supplies.”
“Did she have proof?”
“She had a loud voice.”
Elena asked when he last saw the red door.
“Last winter,” Arthur said.
“There was a blue chalk mark beside the handle.”
He hesitated before continuing.
“Three lines through a circle.”
Elena felt the blood drain from her face.
She rolled up her left sleeve.
Arthur stared at the tattoo, then sat heavily on a stool.
“Where did you see that mark?” he whispered.
“I drew it,” Elena said.
“Years ago.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Somebody was drawing it on that workshop long before you bought the place.”
Chapter 6: The Missing Door
Arthur refused to speculate about who had made the chalk mark.
He did, however, offer to show Elena where it had been.
They returned to the property together that afternoon.
The workshop stood behind the house beneath the maple trees.
Its white door looked ordinary from the path.
Arthur approached it slowly and pointed to the lower hinge.
“That hinge was on the other side,” he said.
Elena inspected the frame.
The screw holes had been filled, and the door had been rehung to swing outward.
“Why would someone change the swing?” she asked.
Arthur looked toward the house across the street.
“Mrs. Hartwell used to say a door should open toward whoever needed it.”
Elena tested the latch.
The door opened freely, but the threshold scraped against a raised strip of wood.
She knelt and found a narrow gap beneath the sill.
Fresh sawdust clung to the edge.
“Someone worked on this recently,” she said.
Arthur pointed at the repaired frame.
“And whoever did it wasn’t trying to make it look pretty.”
Elena stepped inside.
The workshop smelled of dry timber and old fabric.
Worktables lined one wall, and shelves stood empty beneath a high window.
She noticed a row of shallow marks on the floor.
The marks curved toward a section of wall where a large cabinet had once stood.
Arthur said Mrs. Hartwell had kept a rolling costume rack there.
Elena followed the marks with her eyes.
They ended at a square patch of newer flooring.
She reached for a loose board, but Arthur caught her wrist.
“Don’t pull that up yet,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because somebody has been coming here when the house was empty.”
Elena heard a sharp sound outside.
A car door had closed beyond the maple trees.
Arthur stepped between Elena and the workshop entrance.
“We should leave the floor alone until we know who else has a key.”
