Quinn backed out of the way and Antonio shone the flashlight over my shoulder so I could see what I was doing. I slid the crowbar through the ring and leaned on it using my weight as leverage. It didn’t budge.

“I’m afraid I’m going to break the ring off,” I said. “The wood is sort of rotted.”

Quinn tried next and finally Antonio yanked on it so hard the ring broke off, but the door opened with a groaning creak. The momentum knocked Antonio off his feet and he crashed into Quinn and me.

Quinn grabbed the metal barrel rack and hung on, catching me before I went down, but Antonio sat down hard on the concrete floor, letting out a sound like the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“My pride and my butt hurt,” he said. “I hope I didn’t break the flashlight. Or my tailbone. What’s in there?”

A cold, damp gust of stale air that smelled as if it had been undisturbed for a long time assaulted us. Quinn sneezed and picked up the flashlight off the floor. The beam was weaker, but the light still worked. He shone it inside, on something dark and substantial.

“Boxes,” he said.

“The Madeira,” I said, in an exultant voice. “I knew it.”

“Someone’s going to have to crawl in there and get those boxes,” Antonio said. “They’re too far to reach.”

“Do you want to do that?” I asked.

“Because you’re worried about dead mice maybe?”

He knew I hated mice. Alive or dead. “Maybe.”

“Quinn?” Antonio said.

“It’s all yours.”

Antonio grunted. “Yeah, thanks. Okay, hand me the flashlight so I can see what I’m doing.”

Quinn passed it to him and he crawled in on his hands and knees. The flashlight beam bobbed around. “This place isn’t very big,” he said.

“What about the boxes?” I asked.

A moment later he said in a muffled voice, “I don’t think it’s bottles of Madeira.”

“It has to be,” I said.

“Nope.” Less muffled.

“What is it, then?” Quinn asked.

Silence and some scrabbling noises as he seemed to be opening one of the boxes. “Hang on.”

A moment later he appeared, crouching in the doorway, a smear of dust across one cheek.

“Christmas decorations.”

THE LITTLE CRAWL SPACE held four boxes of my mother’s Christmas decorations, the ones she’d used to decorate the barrel room. That was it. Nothing else. Frankie, who joined us from the tasting room as soon as she found out, was overjoyed.

“I’m sorry it’s not your Madeira,” she said, “but these are beautiful. Your mother was really talented, Lucie. I think we should put them up now and enjoy them. It would be the perfect tribute to her.”