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Chapter 11

Mac Searches for Clues

Willson’s Cove, North Carolina

Meanwhile Mac and Mike were having a great time in Grandpa’s workshop. The tools were old, but with a little cleaning off dust and a spot of WD-40 here and there, they should work well.

“Mike, what would you take for all these tools? I can pay you what you think they are worth, within reason.”

“Aw, Mac. I dearly hate to sell ’em. They didn’t just belong to Grandpa, they are Grandpa. They’re him. I used to come in here with him before he died, and he’d work while I played in the sawdust with scraps of stuff he’d throw on the floor. Tell you what, ye wanna come over here and work here in the shop, you kin do it ary time ye want. I don’t have to be here, and I’ll give ye a key.”

“Deal!”

They looked through every little drawer and all the nooks and crannies in the shop, but there was one door that was locked. Mac tried it, but Mike shook his head.

“Never been in there. Grandpa wouldn’t let no one go in there, and I don’t e’en have a key that fits the lock. I’ve looked high and low in here and never found it. But I’m a-feared to go in there.”

“How about getting a locksmith?”

“Don’t know any. Maybe someone at the hardware o’er in Newland might know of someone.”

A locked door was just the challenge Mac needed. He decided he would find a locksmith if he had to bring one from off the mountain. But since they had to go through Newland to go back home, he’d stop by the hardware store and ask; that was if Susan ever got done reading letters.

Meanwhile, being a surgeon, he knew how to probe small places, release body parts from the body, and get all the remaining tissues back in their proper place. What could be so hard about opening an old lock? It was rusty, for one thing, so back to the WD-40. He would bring a can next time. He also had some probes that he could work into the lock and try to jimmy it loose, if he couldn’t find a local locksmith. He grinned at Mike, who had no earthly idea what his companion had in mind.

“Any place a man locks and doesn’t want someone to see, is a place that will tell his tale. I imagine the real Luther Willson is hidden behind that door,” he muttered as Mike left the shop.

Mike had gone to the house to use the phone. When he came back to the shop, he was beaming from ear to ear. “Found ye a locksmith. I called down to Newland to the hardware. He is sending a feller out here this afternoon. Works there in the store. Takes about twenty, thirty minutes to get here. He said if that feller cain’t open it, the only way to get in is break down the door. Thing is, I allus been afeared Grandpa would come back and hant me, if’n I’s to go in there. You ain’t his kin, so maybe he won’t hant you.”

Mac looked askance.

“Ye don’t believe in hants? They’s real!”

“If you say so.”

Mac set about to organize the confusion in the shop. He was aware of the purpose of most of the tools, and those he did not, he would find out. As predicted by Mike, the locksmith arrived in less than thirty minutes. Twenty-six to be exact.

Mac laughed at Mike. He didn’t want to stay inside while the locksmith worked, in case he would open the door and Grandpa’s ghost would appear. He really believed it. “I’m gonna go see what Susan’s up to. See you fellers later.” With that, Mike was gone.

Mac shook hands with the man. “My name is Mac McBride. Mike Willson is my wife’s cousin. This is his place. Seems we got an old lock that hasn’t been opened in the last sixty years. Think you can budge it? We are curious what we might find on the other side.”

The locksmith was an older man who looked like he had seen many years of experience in the art of breaking and entering. He nodded at Mike and then answered, “Can’t do nuthin’ but try. My name is Jerry Johnson. Live down in Newland. Been a long while since I was up here. My daddy brought me up here to buy a fiddle from the old man when he was still livin’. Beautiful place. Let’s see what you got.”

Jerry saw right away that he would have to get rid of the rust before he could do anything to the lock. He had foreseen the event that it would be heavily rusted and had a spray can of WD-40 with an extension nozzle. He sprayed and then used a thin rasp to get the rust out of the keyhole. He worked at it for twenty minutes before it was cleared well enough that he could use his tools to open it. It was an old lock and of relatively simple construction. It popped open on his first try. The handle moved, but the door did not.

Jerry then worked on the hinges, which were also rusted. Once they were free, the next thing would be to open the door. Right? It still didn’t budge.

“This’n air a booger!” Jerry shook his head in frustration.

“Maybe the booger is Grandpa’s ghost. That’s what Mike would tell you. But, Jerry, we might be able to pry it loose with this crowbar.” Mack handed it to Jerry and picked up another smaller one.

The two men worked along the jamb of the door, the sill, and across the top. It was almost a surprise when it finally got loose enough to open. But even that was not easy. It creaked and resisted.

Mac laughed. “If Mike had stayed in here, he would have sworn it was his grandfather holding it so we couldn’t open it.”

Jerry shrugged. “Don’t judge Mike and his belief in spooks. He might be right.”

But it was open, and Mac was anxious to see what was there. He paid Johnson for his labors and looked for a light switch. How did he see anything in here? Get a flashlight from the car.

Mac went to the car to get his flashlight. It was missing. “Oh right. Susan took it.”

Since Mike had gone into the house, he assumed he would easily find him with Susan. The two were sitting on the floor of the attic. It was a cute picture: his proper ladylike wife and the redneck cousin had their heads together reading a letter.

“What do you have there?”

“Ah, my husband! Letters from Uncle Herbie, Mike’s daddy, from Germany in World War II.”

“Aha! Just wanted to let you know, Mike, we got the door open. I need my flashlight so I can see what’s in there. It is dark and dusty, so I have no idea what we’ll find.”

“No we about it. I ain’t goin’ in there!”

Mac decided to play him a bit. “Yeah, I understand. Grandpa did try to hold the door shut for Johnson and me, but we finally convinced him to let us in.”

Mike shivered and gave Mac a dark look. Flashlight in hand, Mac laughed all the way back downstairs and back to the shop.

Back in the now-unlocked room, Mac shone the flashlight all about. “Aha!”

There was a banjo in the process of being crafted. Mac picked up an old cloth lying on the bench, shook the dust from it, and rubbed the dust from the banjo. He could see the beauty in the wood. It was curly maple, darkened with age, but still beautiful. There were plans drawn in faded pencil on several pieces of lined tablet paper. They looked fragile, so he did not pick them up. On the floor beneath the workbench was a crude wooden chest with a wood-hinged lid and a hasp closure. It had a padlock on it.

Mac pulled out the box and looked about for a key. As neat and well-ordered as the room was, in contrast to the outer shop, he knew the key must be well hidden.

Mac brought the box out into the shop, dusted it off well, and looked about for a hiding place for a key, or keys. He shone his flashlight on all the possible nooks and crannies for a hiding place. His pursuit paid off after about fifteen minutes. He was just about to give up when he spied a loose brick in the corner of the back wall. It was behind a crate, and he’d missed it the first time he had flashed the light around the room.

Mac had to get up on a stepladder to reach it, but since he was so sure this was what he wanted to find, he moved the crate, pulled the ladder over, and began to climb. Second step, the ladder broke, and he ended up on his backside. Nothing hurt, so he got up and checked the rest of the steps on the ladder. They were seemingly secure. He tried again, climbed onto the workbench, and began jiggling the loose brick. Like everything else in the old shop, it, too, resisted movement.

“Patience, my boy. You are a surgeon, and you know what it means to be persistent.”

Finally, it started to budge. He continued to wiggle it back and forth, and alternately brushing away debris that fell as he wiggled. He sneezed from the dust, blew his nose, and got back to the task at hand. It took another fifteen minutes after it began to move for him to get it out, but get it out, he did.

“Aha! There you are! Something in there. Need the flashlight.”