The Smoky Corridor Read online

  ALSO BY CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

  The Crossroads

  winner of the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award

  The Hanging Hill

  For

  R. Schuyler Hooke,

  editor extraordinaire

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  The night before he officially started at his new school, Zack Jennings already had a feeling the place was haunted.

  He was standing in the main hall of Horace P. Pettimore Middle School, staring at an oil painting that was staring back at him.

  He stepped to his right.

  The portrait’s eyes followed him.

  Zack moved left.

  The hooded eyes followed him.

  Zack hopped from foot to foot, from side to side, and the man in the portrait, some sort of Civil War soldier, kept a scornful eye on his every move.

  Zack’s dad came up behind him. Put a hand on Zack’s shoulder. Zack stopped bouncing.

  “Nervous?”

  “Huh?”

  “You looked jumpy. I was over there talking to Principal Smith, saw you wiggling. I figured you were either anxious about tomorrow or you were busting out some new dance moves.”

  Zack forced a smile.

  Tomorrow. The start of a new school year. His first in North Chester, Connecticut—the small town where his father had grown up.

  “I was just, you know, looking at the painting,” Zack explained, gesturing at the ornately framed portrait of the Yankee soldier, whose blue uniform had a column of shiny brass buttons running up the front all the way to his bearded chin—not to mention gold ropes on both shoulders. The scowling face had, of course, stopped swinging its eyeballs back and forth the instant Zack’s dad looked up at it.

  “Ah! That’s Captain Horace P. Pettimore. This main hall used to be the grand foyer of his mansion.”

  “Aha.”

  “He was a steamboat captain who moved here after the Civil War. Became a very wealthy, very generous gentleman farmer.”

  Zack knew only one farmer. A boy named Davy Wilcox. Davy wore overalls, not a Civil War uniform.

  “First,” Zack’s dad, the history buff, went on, “Mr. Pettimore donated the property out back, several acres along the river, for the cemetery. Then, when he died, he bequeathed his mansion and all his lands surrounding it to the town, only asking that it be used for a school and that he be buried in the cemetery so he could keep an eye on the place.”

  Zack figured that was why they called it Horace P. Pettimore Middle School.

  And why the place was haunted.

  Hey, you can’t build a school this close to a creepy old cemetery and not expect ghosts.

  Plus, according to what Zack’s dad had told him on the car ride over, the school had been the site of a “terrible tragedy” back in 1910.

  “It happened in a windowless corridor in an old part of the school, the narrow hallway leading to the wood shop. A horrible fire killed Joseph and Seth Donnelly, the two boys who started it by playing with matches, and the brave teacher who tried to rescue them.”

  A graveyard, a terrible tragedy, two brothers and a heroic teacher killed in a corridor they couldn’t escape?

  Oh, yeah.

  This school was definitely, one hundred percent haunted.

  Zack knew a thing or two about haunted places, because he had a special gift: He could see all sorts of dearly departed souls (even the ones who popped into paintings) whom other people, especially adults like his dad, could not. He always figured it was the kind of gift that should’ve come with a gift receipt so he could take it back for something better, like athletic ability or superpowers.

  “You ready to head on back?” Zack’s dad asked. “I need to make a little speech, present the check.”

  “Sure.”

  “This way. The auditorium’s in one of the modern wings, built in the seventies. The nineteen seventies.”

  They followed the flock of parents, teachers, and students eager for the start of Pettimore’s annual Back to School Night. They’d hike about a half mile back to the auditorium, where there’d be a few speeches and a couple of award
s, and then everybody would have a chance to visit classrooms, meet teachers, and buy souvenir Pettimore Yankees sweatshirts and stuff. There’d probably be cupcakes, too.

  As they moved with the jostling crowd, Zack once again sensed he was being watched.

  He glanced over his shoulder, back at the gloomy portrait of Horace P. Pettimore.

  Yep. The old guy was staring at him again.

  Zack walked faster.

  2

  The two men trudged through boot-sucking mud in the dark.

  Eddie was following Mr. Timothy Johnson, who, according to Eddie’s boss, was the best dowser in the world. That was why Johnson was holding out a divining rod—a forked branch from a witch hazel tree.

  “Find anything, sir?” Eddie asked as they made their way through the forests surrounding Pettimore Middle School.

  “Silence,” said Mr. Johnson. “I must remain focused.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  Now the only sound came from the chorus of crickets and cicadas chirping in the nearby meadow.

  Eddie did not want to throw the little man in the bowler hat off course. Johnson was a pro when it came to finding things with his Y-shaped stick. Hidden things, like freshwater, gold mines, oil geysers, and most importantly, buried treasure.

  The clues the boss had already pieced together had brought them this far, to the woods surrounding what had once been the Horace P. Pettimore estate near the town of North Chester, Connecticut. Now Eddie was counting on Mr. Johnson to tell him exactly where to head next.

  Where to dig.

  “The tip!” Johnson whispered excitedly. “Look! It’s bending down.”

  “You found it?”

  “That which we seek is close at hand!”

  Some unseen force yanked Mr. Johnson forward. He sailed through the brambles and branches, hanging on with all his might to the stiff twig twitching in his grip. Eddie followed.

  They stumbled out of the forest into a clearing. No, it wasn’t just a clearing. As they walked through the darkness across the dewy meadow, Eddie realized they had entered a cemetery.

  “This way!” said Johnson, leading him through the rows of tombstones. They marched down a gently sloping lawn to the muddy edge of a river.

  “This is the Pattakonck!” Eddie exclaimed. “Why, old Horace Pettimore could have sailed his steamboat straight up here from the docks down in North Chester. This is where he buried his gold! He buried it with all the dead bodies!”

  “No,” said Mr. Johnson, his stick now hanging limply in his hands. “The effluvia emanating from the water’s surface must have overwhelmed the witch hazel.”

  “Say what, sir?”

  “The moisture from the river temporarily threw my rod off course!”

  “Oh.”

  The answer sorely disappointed Eddie.

  “You’re joshing me, right?” he said as politely as circumstances allowed.

  “No. We need to start over. Perhaps we ventured too far from the school. We’ll try again.…”

  Eddie shook his head. “Nope. You, sir, are done.”

  “What?”

  “Your services are no longer required.”

  “What? Don’t be preposterous!”

  “Excuse me.” Eddie reached into his coat pocket. Pulled out his cell phone.

  “What … what are you doing?” the dowser demanded.

  “Calling my boss.”

  The stick quivered in Mr. Johnson’s trembling hands. “Wait. As I said …”

  “Sorry for disturbing you,” Eddie said when the boss answered. “This Johnson fellow? He is absolutely worthless.”

  “What? How dare you!”

  That was when Eddie pulled out his pistol.

  “No! Don’t!” Mr. Johnson pleaded. “Tell your employer that we will try again … tomorrow night.… I know I can find the hiding place.… I’m positive!”

  Eddie cocked back the brass trigger.

  Mr. Johnson quit babbling.

  “So, what would you like me to do, boss?” Eddie asked.

  Eddie smiled. He liked what he heard:

  Do it now.

  Make it look like an accident.

  3

  “And now,” said Principal Scot Smith, “it gives me great pleasure to introduce George Jennings, a graduate of this school and now a partner with the New York City law firm that’s been the trustee of the Pettimore estate for over a century. George?”

  Zack applauded wildly like everybody else as his father made his way to the podium.

  “Thank you, Principal Smith. As most of you know, Captain Horace P. Pettimore chose to retire here at the close of the Civil War because he craved the peace and tranquility of our unspoiled surroundings. He never married, never had children. So he used his vast fortune to build the Riverside War Memorial Cemetery, where veterans and paupers could be buried free of charge, and later, at his death, he left us the land and first buildings for this school.”

  More applause.

  Zack wished his stepmom, Judy, could hear everybody clapping for his dad, but she was busy over in Chatham at the Hanging Hill Playhouse, where the musical she’d written, Curiosity Cat, was ending its run and attracting a lot of what they called “buzz” from producers who wanted to move the show to Broadway.

  “Of course,” Zack’s dad continued, “if you grew up in North Chester, like I did, you also heard stories about Captain Pettimore’s other fortune, his buried treasure—all the gold he supposedly stole from the Confederate Treasury.” He put a hand to the side of his mouth as if he had a big secret to share. “If anyone happens to dig up a mountain of gold while you’re on a nature hike out in the woods, please give me a call. That gold belongs to the Pettimore Charitable Trust!”

  More laughs mingled with a few shouts of “No way, man!”

  “Okay, is Tony LaGuarino here tonight?” Zack’s dad scanned the auditorium.

  “Over here,” a gruff voice boomed.

  “Come on up, Tony. I’ve got something for you.”

  Zack’s dad pulled out an oversized bank check while a big man in a firefighter uniform lumbered up to the stage.

  “Folks, as you know, every year, the Pettimore Trust donates a sizeable sum of money to the North Chester Volunteer Fire Department to help them teach fire safety in our schools. I remember, when I went to Pettimore Middle, we had a saying …”

  “Don’t be a Donnelly!” a parent shouted.

  “Don’t play with matches!” shouted another.

  Zack’s dad laughed. “Well, Tony, to help you guys do the great work you do, here’s ten thousand dollars for your education fund!”

  The audience gave that a loud ovation.

  Except for the two women seated directly behind Zack.

  “Isn’t the Jennings boy the one who almost burned down his house?”

  “Almost burned down the whole neighborhood, I heard.”

  The first woman snorted. “Guess Mr. Jennings could use a little fire safety instruction in his own home.”

  The second woman snicked her tongue. “I hear his son is worse than the two Donnelly boys combined. A real pyromaniac.”

  “They’re not going to let him go to school here, are they?”

  “I certainly hope not.”

  Zack decided he needed to go to the bathroom.

  Actually, he just needed to exit the auditorium.

  Fast. Now. Immediately.

  Head down, he worked his way out of his row.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled. “Need to find the bathroom. Sorry. ’Scuse me. Bathroom.”

  He made his way up the aisle toward the swinging doors to the auditorium lobby. When he pushed through, he saw a pretty blond woman closing her purse.

  “Hello, there,” she whispered with the softest hint of a drawl. “May I help you?”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am. I need to find the bathroom?”

  She pointed toward the doors that led from the lobby to a corridor. “Go out the doors and take a right. Go pas
t the gymnasium, take a left, another right, and the bathrooms are right there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “To tell the truth, I had a hard time finding them myself. This school is like a twisty ol’ maze—especially since it’s my first year here and all.”

  “Are you a teacher?” Zack asked.

  The pretty lady smiled. “I sure am.”

  Zack smiled back.

  Hey, if this nice lady is one of my teachers, he thought, maybe school won’t be so bad here after all!

  4

  Pettimore Middle School’s chief custodian, Wade Muggins, was putting in a little OT.

  Overtime.

  So while everybody else was all the way over on the other side of the so-called soccer green, having fun at Back to School Night in the auditorium, he was down in the cellar of the cafeteria, working late.

  Earbuds stuffed in deep, he bopped into his office: the janitor’s closet, in the basement of the cafeteria. Actually, “janitor’s lounge” was more like it, because Wade had (without telling anyone) expanded the cramped room by busting through a wall to connect it to the root cellar of the old Pettimore mansion. He figured it might make a good rehearsal space for his rock band if he ever, you know, was in one. Nobody else knew about the root cellar. Heck, Wade only knew about it because one day, while nailing a Metallica poster to the back wall, he had accidentally swung his hammer too hard and bashed a humongous hole through the plasterboard wall.

  To make certain no one ever found his secret underground Wade Cave, he had rigged up a swinging supply rack—fitted with a false back that matched the wall—to act as his private doorway. With a spring-loaded latch, all Wade had to do was lean against the third shelf, and the steel rack (fake wall and all) swung open.

  He was only working late the night before school officially started to show some of what the crabby assistant principal (and royal pain in the patootie), Mr. Carl D. Crumpler, called “initiative.” Wade found out from the school librarian that “initiative” meant taking charge before somebody else did. It meant stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run.

  “We are under siege by an infestation of mice!” Mr. Crumpler had screamed at Wade that afternoon when a chunk of cheddar cheese had mysteriously disappeared from the faculty lounge.

  It was Mr. Crumpler’s cheese.

  The bald-headed stooge had taped his name on it.

  “Show some initiative, Mr. Muggins! Get rid of these rodents!”

  For sure. He’d show old chrome dome.