To her left was a chamber about ten feet from front to back, and as wide as the house. She moved away from the foot of the stairs, into this new space.
At one end stood an oil-fired furnace and a large electric water heater. At the other end were tall metal storage cabinets with vent slits in the doors, a workbench, and a tool chest on wheels.
Directly ahead, in a concrete-block wall, a strange door waited.
Click-whoosh.
Chyna swung to the right and almost squeezed off a shot before she realized that the sound had come from the furnace: the electric pilot light clicking on, fuel taking flame.
Over the sound of the furnace, she was still able to hear the vibrating pipe. Tatta-tatta-tatta. It was fainter here than on the stairs, but still audible.
She could barely make out the music from the second-floor bathroom, an inconstant thread of melody, primarily the passages in brass or wailing clarinet.
Evidently for soundproofing, the door in the back wall was padded like a theater door, in leather-grain maroon vinyl divided into quilt-like squares by eight upholstery nails with large round heads covered in matching vinyl. The frame was upholstered in the same material.
No lock, not even a spring latch, prevented her from proceeding.
Putting her hand on the vinyl, Chyna discovered that the padding was even more plush than it appeared to be. As much as two inches of foam covered the underlying wood.
She gripped the long stainless-steel, U-shaped handle. When she pulled, the vinyl-encased door softly scraped and squeaked across the upholstery on the jamb. The fit was snug: When the door swung all the way free of the jamb and the seal was broken, there was a faint sound similar to that made when one opened a jar of vacuum-packed peanuts.
The door was upholstered on the inside as well. The overall thickness was in excess of five inches.
Beyond this new threshold lay a six-foot-square chamber with a low ceiling, which reminded her of an elevator, except that every surface other than the floor was upholstered. The floor was covered with a rubber mat of the kind used in many restaurant kitchens for the comfort of cooks who worked on their feet for hours at a time. In the dim light from the recessed overhead bulb, she saw that the fabric here wasn’t vinyl but gray cotton with a nubbly texture.
The strangeness of the place sharpened her fear, yet at the same time she was so sure she understood the purpose of the padded vestibule that her stomach rolled with faint nausea.
Directly opposite the door that Chyna held open was one more door. It was also padded and set in an upholstered frame.
Finally, here were locks. The gray upholstery plumped around two heavy-duty brass lock cylinders. She couldn’t proceed without keys.
Then she noticed a small padded panel overlying the door itself at eye level, perhaps six by ten inches with a knob attached. It was like the sliding panel over the view port in the solid door of a maximum security prison cell.
Tatta-tatta-tatta…
The killer seemed to be taking an unusually long shower. On the other hand, Chyna hadn’t been in the house more than three minutes; it just seemed longer. If he was having a leisurely scrub, he might not be half done.
Tatta-tatta…
She would have preferred to hold open the outer door while she stepped into the vestibule and slid aside the panel on the inner view port, but the distance was too great. She had to let the door fall shut behind her.
The moment that the upholstered door met the upholstered jamb with a whisper-squeak of softly abraded vinyl, Chyna could no longer hear the vibrating water pipe. The quiet was so profound that even her ragged breathing was barely audible. Under the padding, the walls must have been covered with layers of sound-attenuating insulation.
Or perhaps the killer had shut off the shower just as the door had fallen shut. And was now toweling dry. Or pulling on a robe without bothering to towel off. On his way downstairs.
Fearful, unable to breathe, she opened the door again.