The Broken Clock is Right Thrice: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #4

Chapter 28 - Vinum Sabbathi

"Trust everybody, but cut the cards."

~ Finley Peter Dunne, humorist

The dirt floor of the wine cellar feels under foot like concrete rather than soil. Where it isn't packed down from foot traffic, it's stomped on by rows upon rows of wine casks. Most casks report their vintages in the early 1900s, but a few go as far back as the 1860s.

Carter stumbles into a stack of casks. They're too heavy for him to knock over, but he is drunk enough to be knocked over by them.

"Ukraine bullshit. No one knows. Was dead when I got there," he says. His light conversation with Zandra on the way to the wine cellar devolved into whatever enters his mind at a given moment.

Zandra, dragging a shovel behind her, pulls cords hanging from the ceiling as they push deeper into the wine cellar. Light bulbs turn on to guide their way. The cellar could double as a garage for collectible cars. The air is damp, but not in an unpleasant way. Appliances whir on and off somewhere in the background, probably to control the humidity.

Just a matter of getting the right setup. It'll come.

Carter slumps against the side of a wine cask, chuckling to himself. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and grimaces at the smear the motion leaves on his skin.

Zandra leaves him behind, taking note of where the cords from the ceiling are and aren't. She approaches a corner and notices a gap between the cords. It's dark, and it will probably stay that way.

"Over here, child," Zandra says.

"M'kay," comes the response, followed by a drunken slide from the edge of one cask to another. Zandra toys with lighting a cigarette, but she's not sure what fumes the casks toss into the air.

"Oh, shit," Carter says just before Zandra hears the sound of his body hitting something with a resolute thump.

Zandra makes her way back to the thump. She finds Carter moaning at the bottom of a hole in the dirt. The hole is about four feet deep, and its dimensions would hold two adults laying down. It's situated near a spigot sticking out of a wine cask. A pair of shovels rest next to the hole.

Carter did mention how interested Melvin was in the wine cellar during the ghost hunt. Melvin must've heard the same rumors about the money being down here.

Exactly how far were they planning on digging? And why here?

"Your dumb Spirit Boxes," is all Carter can say as he tries to find a limb with enough support left in it to lift his weight out of the hole.

"Lots of spirits down here," Zandra says, looking at the wine. She stuffs the blade of the shovel into the dirt and leans on the handle like a road worker on break. "So you and Melvin, and maybe Hank, went looking for buried treasure instead of ghost hunting."