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homeless—they both live on the streets of San Francisco.”
    “Many of the homeless are living in another world, don’t you think?” Suzette interjected.
    “My aunt and uncle, who mostly raised me, volunteer with the homeless and I help sometimes. Some of the men and women should be in treatment programs or institutions. Instead, they’re self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and living in squalor. The system, or in some cases, their families, have let them down.”
    Laura thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. But she asked me something that I can’t stop thinking about.”
    Arthur quickly looked up from his meal. “What?”
    “She asked if we’d found the… awful secret.”
    “What did she mean by that?” he asked.
    “She didn’t elaborate. That’s all she said. She seemed a little frightened, actually. She didn’t stay long.” Laura took a sip from her water glass, then spoke to Arthur again. “She seemed fixated with one area of the house.” She hesitated before explaining. “Since she once lived here, I agreed to give her a tour.” She grinned sheepishly. “I thought I might learn more about the history of the place from her. Anyway,” she continued, “when we came to the basement door—the one that leads to your quarters, Arthur, she suddenly stopped and said she’d seen enough. Like I said, she seemed nervous and frightened. She couldn’t get back to the living room fast enough and then she left in a hurry to meet her friend outside.”
    “Crazy,” Rupert said. “Awful secret, huh? Did she mean poor Artie being kept here secretly by his mother for all of those years?”
    “I don’t think so,” Laura said, shaking her head slowly. She then addressed Arthur and Suzette. “So what’s in those papers you found today? I wonder if that’s the secret she’s talking about.”
    Arthur responded. “They were personal documents—driver licenses, social security cards, insurance papers. One looked like part of a will.”
    “All for the same person?” Rupert asked.
    “No,” Suzette said. “That’s what’s really strange. We saw papers down there belonging to at least four different people, right?” She asked, glancing at the others.
    “Yes,” Michael said. “Maybe more.”
    “How many documents are there?” Laura asked.
    After glancing at Arthur, Michael said, “It’s hard to tell. Our view to the bottom of that pit was somewhat obstructed.”
    Gail put down her fork. “Sounds like an identity-theft ring to me.” She tilted her head. “Were people doing that before computers?”
    “What were the dates on the things you found?” Laura asked.
    Suzette said, “The driver license the cat brought up expired in 1975. And one of the other papers had a date of July 1964.”
    “I could see through my telescope other similar dates. The latest date I saw was 1988,” Arthur explained.
    “All dated around the time the Randalls were here,” Laura muttered.
    “Yeah, and it seems that someone had a purpose for storing them there—that pit was very well hidden,” Michael said.
    “Only… ” Arthur started.
    “Only what?” Michael asked.
    “Well, it seems to me that the papers were discarded rather than being stored.” He faced Michael. “Don’t you think?”
    Michael shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so—like maybe they were tossed down into that hole before it was sealed off.”
    “But if the object was to dispose of them, why didn’t they destroy them?” Arthur asked. “They could have burned them in that old incinerator.”
    “Could someone have kept the documents for blackmail purposes?” Savannah asked, glancing around at the others. When no one responded, she said, “Okay, so what do we know? That it was probably the Randalls who tossed those papers in there.”
    “Or,” Suzette interrupted, holding one finger in the air, “someone who worked for them.”
    Everyone stared at Suzette for a moment, digesting what she had said.
    “But why?”