Nancy spotted a walk-in closet on the adjoining wall. “Do you have a flashlight?” she asked Joan.
Joan found a flashlight and a hammer in her toolbox. As Nancy shone the flashlight around the inside of the closet, Joan went to work patching the loose floorboard.
Bess poked her head inside the dark closet. She wrinkled her nose at the stale smell as she pushed aside clothes that had obviously not been worn in many years. A cloud of dust rose in the air.
Bess shrieked. “What was that?”
Nancy jumped. “What?”
“Something just ran up my arm!”
“It was probably just a spider,” Nancy said.
“S-spider?” Bess stammered. She hastily backed out of the closet, brushing frantically at her clothing.
“Did you find anything?” Marisa asked.
Nancy tugged on a square wall panel. “Yes. I think this is some sort of hidden entrance, but I can’t get it open.”
Nancy knew that a lot of old houses had secret rooms and hidden passageways. She had an idea. “Joan?” she called. “Do you think you could tug on that floorboard out there?”
Joan pulled the floorboard upward. After a few inches, it made a sound like a gunshot, and the panel in the closet creaked open.
“It’s okay, Misty,” Marisa murmured.
Nancy tugged the panel away from the wall and brushed away several cobwebs. She shone the flashlight through the large opening and gasped at what she saw.
Stacked neatly from floor to ceiling in the tiny room were piles and piles of money.
4
Inn Debt
With a shaking hand, Nancy pulled out a packet of money. She sneezed as the dust tickled her nose. One by one, she examined the twenty-dollar bills in her hand. Every one of them was twenty-five years old.
Nancy clutched the money to her chest and backed out of the closet. “Look what I found.”
“What is it?” Marisa asked. Still frightened by the noisy floorboard, Misty shook at her side.
“Oh—I’m sorry,” Nancy said, realizing that Marisa could not see what she held in her hand. She explained about the money. “And there must be thousands of dollars still in the closet.”
“What are we going to do?” Bess asked.
“We’re going to call the police. I’ll bet anything that this money’s counterfeit.” Nancy held one of the bills underneath a lamp. “Aside from the fact that it happens to be twenty-five years old,” Nancy said, “it doesn’t have the red and blue fibers embedded in the paper that genuine currency should have.”
Detective Lee arrived at the inn within half an hour. He examined several of the bills under a magnifying glass. “This is an excellent forgery. But all of these bills have the same serial number,” he said. “No two bills in the same series should have matching serial numbers. No doubt about it, this money is counterfeit. And,” he added, “these bills have the same serial number as the two we found on Eric Pavlik. Judging from all this dust, they were probably printed around the same time.”
“Eric’s counterfeit money was printed twenty-five years ago?” Nancy asked.
“Yes. Forensics confirmed it this morning.”
“Too bad it’s counterfeit money. I guess a secret stash of thousands of real dollars was too much to hope for.” Penny sighed. “That money really would have helped us with repairs to the inn. It has a lot of structural problems,” she explained to Detective Lee.
“It has a lot of problems, period,” the detective said. He gestured toward the closet. “Based on what I see here, I would bet that Candlelight Inn was the center of operations for the old counterfeiting ring.”
Nancy thought that Detective Lee was probably right. “But who was the counterfeiter?” she asked. “And how did Eric wind up with the money?”
“No offense, Ms. Henares,” Detective Lee said, “but your grandmother would be the obvious suspect—except that she passed away shortly before the counterfeit bills reappeared in River Heights.”
“She had no ties to Westmoor University,” Penny said.
“Except for Marisa,” Detective Lee said. “Besides your grandmother, who had access to the inn?” he asked Marisa.
“I—I don’t know. I moved to River Heights last year from Milwaukee to go to law school.” Marisa took a deep breath. “My mother and my grandmother were estranged before I was born. My parents died two years ago, and that’s when I met my grandmother for the first time. She was a very private person, Detective. Even though I saw her many times before she died, I didn’t know much about her personal life. She did have a housekeeper, but I never met her. I’m afraid I don’t remember her name.”
“I understand it came as a great shock to many people that Mrs. Whitby was a multimillionaire,” Detective Lee said.
“Yes,” Marisa said. “She paid for my law school education, but even I had no idea how wealthy she was. Apparently, she earned the money by investing in stocks over many years.”
Detective Lee scribbled in his pocket notepad. “Okay. Thanks for your help, Ms. Henares, Ms. Drew. I’ll be in touch.”
Penny showed Detective Lee to the door.
“You haven’t found any useful information in your grandmother’s personal papers?” Nancy asked Marisa.
“No,” Marisa said. “Of course, I’ve only gone through about a quarter of them so far. Even with Penny’s help, it’s quite a job.”
“Would you like me to help?” Nancy offered.
