High Court (Cid Garrett P.I. Book 2)

by Alexie Aaron

  “He’s a man of God. Isn’t that enough?” Miguel asked. “I go now to find my mother.”

  “Be careful, she can suck up your power like this,” Faye said, snapping her fingers.

  “She is my mother.”

  “She will grieve when she sees you like that.”

  “Like what?” Miguel asked, standing in his spectral puddle of blood. His dead eyes questioned Faye. The wound in his forehead continued to bleed down his face, adding to the vibrant red of his blood-soaked clothing.

  “What did you look like in your last family picture?”

  “Oh… Like this,” Miguel said.

  Faye looked upon the boy with spit-controlled black curls and a Disneyland T-shirt on over hand-me-down shorts. He had mismatched crew socks and tennis shoes that had seen better days. He looked so cute, Faye wanted to pinch his spectral cheeks. “Yes, perfect. This is how a mother would remember her son.”

  “I thought you’re supposed to look like you did when you died,” Miguel said, confused.

  “I never let that get in my way,” Faye said. “Neither should you.”

  Miguel smiled for the first time in Faye’s experience. She saw the missing tooth and lopsided grin and felt something she never thought a ghost could feel. Faye felt maternal.

  “Go on. See if you can keep your mama under control.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said and disappeared.

  Faye sighed and eased out of the trailer. Time to check on Jesse and the Espina women.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Okay, that does it. The floor over us is supported,” Wayne said. “Time to take down the wall.”

  Cameron Jones cleared his voice. “Try not to disturb too much. Maybe the doorway before the whole wall. There may be viable forensic evidence still in there.”

  “From our scoping, we have determined the old door is here,” Wayne said, pointing out the spray-painted area. He selected a large chisel and hammer and began chipping through the old mortar.

  Sheriff Grady handed Calvin Franks, Macy, and Maurice Eggleston masks. The four donned the protection just in time for the air to fill up with cement dust. Grady noticed that Cid wasn’t there. Grady knew the man had sustained some broken ribs, but he knew he had checked out of the hospital. “Where is he?” Grady muttered.

  Cid stood beside Jesse, watching the Espinas work. He marveled at the way they all were orchestrated. There was no second-guessing. Each worker knew their job. Jesse walked over. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the great unveiling, Geraldo?”

  “Yes, but I got a text from a priest whom I have worked with many times. I wanted to let you know he’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “He’ll have to bunk with you. Or I could move into Kiki’s house, and he could have my trailer.”

  “He mentioned he would be a guest of the St. Paul Parish while he is here.”

  “Damn, I almost had the excuse to live off-site.”

  “How are the Espinas treating you?”

  “Not a pinch, a whistle, or a hoot. I think I’ve lost my appeal to them.”

  “I think they’re being professional. Let’s see what happens after work hours. We are sharing the trailer area of the site with them.”

  “That’s why I wanted to live off-site.”

  “If they get belligerent, take it up with Dita. She’s got a reputation to maintain,” Cid advised. “Take a break and come with me. Aren’t you even a little curious what’s in the cellar of Cabin 4?”

  Jesse picked up his radio and called security. “If the roofers need me, I’ll be at Cabin 4, Jorge.” He stopped to tuck in his shirt and pull a comb through his hair. “What could have been so important to kill a family and continue to try to cover up the reason behind it? I’m not buying the counterfeit scenario. Drugs? Yes, if someone’s reputation would be ruined. But getting back to counterfeiting… Money wasn’t printed that way, even in 1964.”

  “I see someone’s learned to Google,” Cid teased.

  “Go to hell, Clark,” Jesse shot back.

  Grady looked up to see Cid and Jesse walking down the stairs. Cid accepted the mask that was handed to him. Jesse declined, choosing to just pull the neck of his shirt up over his nose instead. Macy introduced her father to Jesse.

  Cid walked over to Calvin and Grady. “I’m sorry to be late.”

  “I’m sure it was important,” Calvin said.

  Cid dropped his voice. “Sir, I would like to speak with you later about getting permission to have an associate of mine on the site starting tomorrow.”

  “How much is it going to cost me?”

  “You may want to brush up on your Hail Mary.”

  It took Calvin a moment to realize Cid’s meaning. “Oh… Sure, why not. Let’s talk about it later.”

  Wayne and his crew were busy stacking bricks and working on unsealing the door under the watchful eye of Cam and his two technicians.

  Grady approached the Egglestons. “Once they’ve opened the door, I’d like to go in with Cam first,” Grady told them. He patted his body cam and assured, “We will be filming everything. Macy, I promise, this time, there won’t be any kind of a cover-up.”

  “If it were anyone but you, I would doubt your words,” Macy said.

  “Also, Calvin’s forensic expert is recording his initial examination of the site. Deputy Leidecker will broadcast it on his radio live for your benefit.”

  Cam nodded, and the two prepared to enter the room.

  An invisible, small, cold hand grasped Macy’s. She shivered. Her father sensed her unease and put a comforting arm around her.

  Wayne took a powerful reciprocating saw to the hinges of the door. Two of his team caught the door before it fell inward. They carried it to the side where one of the techs examined it for possible fingerprints.

  Sheriff Grady slipped on the protective shoe covers and followed Cam into the room. The techs hung back, waiting, as per Cam’s previous orders.

  Cam moved slowly, setting light discs on the floor before he drew out a pack of yellow numbered markers. These he set next to items he wanted his techs to make note of, examine, and retrieve.

  Cam touched his radio-recorder before speaking, “Initially, I see a room twelve feet by fourteen feet. There are shelves on the interior unfinished wall. The exterior walls are the same fieldstone as the rest of the cellar. It appears there is a metal safe embedded in the north wall. There is a machine in the middle of the room. I suspect it’s a printing press. Lying on the floor on the north side of the press are two large bundles, possibly bodies, wrapped in several, large potato sacks secured with bailing wire around what would be the neck, waist, and ankles. Scattered on the floor are a dozen or so bullet shells. At initial observation, I believe them to be .38s,” Cam finished and requested, “Could Maury Eggleston come in here please.”

  Maury slipped on the provided foot covering. He ducked under the low header and walked into the room.

  “Sir, can you identify the machine?” Cam asked.

  “It’s an old tri-color printing press. It uses plates that are inked and pressed onto paper that comes from a roll through the back of the machine. There would be a cutting attachment here. It appears to be missing. One of the plates is still attached here,” Maury pointed out. He accepted a flashlight and examined the plate. “I believe this is the type of plate the Gazette used in the 1960’s. In 1964, we used this type of press for special printings. With this kind of setup, the paper made a few extra dollars on menus, flyers, coupons, and political ballots.”

  Grady turned around. “Ballots?”

  “Yes, we print the election ballots for Stepner County. But I believe, in 1964, we printed for the whole state. It was normal to have paper ballots at that time. The Gazette printed a set number of ballots for the electoral commission, and the commission handled the distribution. After the printing, we destroyed the plate, as required by the commission.”

  Cam asked, “Maury, can you assist me in removing the plate? I don’t
want to damage the plate or the machine.”

  “Sure, you just have to… wait. There’s some kind of metal scarring. It may be why the plate hasn’t been removed. It has locked it into place.”

  “Can you tell if this is an original plate?” Grady asked.

  “Hand me your flashlight.” Maury guided it along the edge of the plate. “This isn’t a Gazette plate. Ours have an identifying symbol. It’s a G with a strike through it,” Maury described. “It would be along this edge.” He pointed the side out to Grady, being careful not to touch the printing plate with his fingers.

  “Cam,” one of the technicians called from across the room. He was sifting through some heaps of papers that were piled on one of the shelves. “I think this is a stack of ballots. The top inch is rotted, but I can make out most of the print in the middle of the stack.”

  “Who was running for Senate?” Grady asked.

  “Evert Wilson and Conrad Muller.”

  Maury’s and Grady’s eyes locked.

  “Could all of this been over counterfeit ballots?” Grady asked Maury.

  “Wilson won by a landslide. It was a surprise because he wasn’t the favorite,” Maury reported.

  Cam knelt and began to carefully open the burlap bags. “Mr. Eggleston, I think you may want to leave now,” he said as he exposed the top of what appeared to be the chest of a desiccated corpse.

  Maury, not wanting to see anymore, complied.

  “Sheriff, I have one male, relatively young. His body seems to be riddled with bullet holes. The poor guy looks like he was used for target practice. If one bullet doesn’t do it, fire four more…”

  “Any ID on him?”

  “Just a set of keys,” Cam said, removing a corroded Mustang key fob from what was left of a denim pocket.

  Grady pulled out his notebook. “Ken Smith drove a red mustang. Put him down as a possible. What’s the other body look like?”

  “All in good time.”

  Maury coughed a few times. Fearing his lungs may be compromised by the rising dust, Macy helped him up the stairs. The fresh air calmed the elder Eggleston immediately.

  Cid followed the pair, making sure the old man was alright.

  “The use of the press to print counterfeit ballads bothers me,” Maury said when he had recovered from a coughing fit. “It wasn’t just a senatorial election; it was also a presidential election.”

  “Let’s say they did pull this off... How was it done?” Cid asked.

  “Black pen and hours of darkening the little boxes,” Maury said. “They would need people on the inside to intercept the real ballots and exchange them for the fake ones. They would also need the physical count to match. That means a mole on the state level, who recorded the count of voters as they were reported from the individual counties. He would then communicate the count to the counterfeiters. The boxes are exchanged, and the votes are tabulated. With the counts of ballots matching the voters, no one would ever suspect they were traded with the counterfeit ones.”

  “But was it worth killing for?” Cid asked.

  “No,” Maury said simply.

  Calvin trudged up the stairs and reported, “The other body is Jason Lake. He had a driver’s license on him. Weren’t these two lads missed?” Calvin asked Maury.

  “You’ll have to ask the sheriff, but I don’t believe a missing persons report was ever filed as far as I know.”

  Macy spoke up, “While I was researching, I read an article in the social register a month after the murders. It said that the boys were thought to be on a round-the-world sailing adventure.”

  “I wonder who supplied the information?” Cid asked.

  “My money is on Mark Lamb, Hank Dodd, or Roland Wilson,” Macy guessed.

  “Could be, but let’s not exclude the possibility of any of the three’s parents. Mark was in rehab. I doubt he had the ability to contact the social register, even anonymously,” Calvin added. “It bothers me that the missing boys’ relatives didn’t ask more questions.”

  “These kids were wild and, I imagine, also fearing the draft. The parents could have thought they were hiding out with friends. Their friends would assume that the parents had sent them to Canada,” Maury said. “Or dead from drug overdoses.”

  Grady walked up and passed the gathering. He seemed to be waiting for something. The county coroner’s vehicle soon appeared. It bumped over the uneven ground of the old lawn, followed by a large van from the animal unit.

  Grady had a quiet conversation with the coroner before motioning for two deputies to follow him down into the cellar. The bodies were removed. The black bags tied down with care to stretchers. Minutes later, the printer was carried up by Wayne and three deputies. They loaded it into the van. Two deputies stood guard while Wayne and the other went back down. They returned with the safe that Wayne and Jesse had toppled, unopened, into Wayne’s big wheelbarrow. By the time they had secured the unopened safe into the van, Wayne had a thick sheen of sweat on his skin. Jesse looked like he was going to be hurting for days. He kept rubbing his shoulder to ease the strain of carrying the weight.

  “I’d give my right arm to know where that printer came from,” Maury said. “And who taught them how to use it. If it was a Gazette employee, it will be quite a scandal.”

  “Dad, it was a half-century ago,” Macy said to quiet her father. Her well-placed hand on his arm was ignored.

  “They played us all for fools! The Lambs, the Wilsons, and that state police inspector, Dodd. I’m ashamed that I was taken in.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to explain,” Macy said to the rest. “These three families have used their public positions to build their individual fortunes,” Macy informed them. “We had no idea it went this far back.”

  “I worry that the evidence collected still doesn’t tell us the individual who pulled the trigger,” Calvin voiced.

  “Individuals,” Cam corrected, joining the group. “And triggers. The bullets we collected from the Bautista murders aren’t the same as the bullets used on the bodies we dug up at the old road, but they are the same as some of the shells I found under the printer,” Cam said.

  “That confuses me, more than it helps me,” Maury moaned. “Must be my age.”

  “No, Dad. It’s early days yet. Mr. Jones will come up with a clearer picture once he’s had the time to process all the collected evidence.”

  “The cellar is all yours, gentlemen. I ask that you don’t demolish the cabin until I give the go ahead,” Cam stressed. “Look around. If you find anything, don’t touch it. Call me, and I’ll send a tech out.”

  Jesse motioned for Cid to join him. Cid followed him down the steps.

  “Faye says Miguel is here.”

  “Here, as in down here?”

  “Yes. He’s using Macy as his tether.”

  “Should I keep Macy here?” Cid asked.

  “Guess so. I don’t know. I’m just the messenger.”

  Cid walked to the door of the opened room and stuck his head in. Aside from the disrupted spiders, there wasn’t much of anything left in the room. It had all been carted away, including the clothespins.

  Wayne was looking at the foundation of the main room, shaking his head. “This place was built to last, and it did for the most part. I’m sure the original owner had no clue that it would have to withstand a few Molotov cocktails.”

  “Live and learn,” Cid said.

  Wayne’s eyes got really large. “Is that camera floating?”

  Cid turned around and asked, “Miguel, is that you?”

  The boy appeared briefly and set the camera down. “It looks like I did take a few pictures before I dropped it,” he said.

  Cid stood still, concentrating on listening, and heard Cam still there talking to Calvin outside. “Cam!” Cid called up the stairs. “I’ve found something!”

  Miguel moved into the storage room.

  Cam came down the stairs. Cid directed him behind the steel steps. “I think that may be an instamatic cam
era, possibly the one Miguel borrowed from his brother Carlos. It was never recovered to my knowledge,” Cid explained.

  “I wasn’t aware there was a camera involved. It wasn’t in the investigation notes. It’s possible the film survived. The handy little plastic canister may have helped. I’ll send it off to a specialist I’ve used before,” he promised.

  Cid waited until Cam left before following Miguel into the small room.

  “I thought, when I got in here, all would be known. I was frightened but resolute,” Miguel admitted. “But now it’s just more confusing.”

  “I think that, until one of the remaining three suspects tells us what happened, we’re not going to really know. Death takes a lot of memory away. You’re not supposed to feel the pain or fear as it comes,” Cid said. “Maybe when the pain leaves, so do the memories.”

  Faye appeared. “I can’t remember my death at all. Nothing. I’m not even sure if my name is Faye,” Faye told Miguel. “But I have faith in these people. They will find out.”

  “I need to find my mother before Macy leaves,” Miguel said and disappeared.

  “Faye, follow him.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m on it,” she said to Cid before disappearing.

  Cid walked out and up the steps.

  “Sir, have you seen enough?” Deputy Leidecker asked.

  “Yes. Thank you for waiting.”

  The deputy went down and collected the light discs they had borrowed. He handed them over to Cid before he shut the steel doors and chained them shut. He then took a roll of crime scene tape and sealed the doors shut.

  Jesse and Wayne were waiting for Cid.

  “So far so good,” Grady said. “Your vengeful ghost has not shown up.”

  “She’s here, but she seems to be honoring our agreement. I admit that puzzles me because Luminosa isn’t a patient spirit,” Cid said.

  “Her son is here,” Macy blurted out.

  “How do you know that?” Grady asked.

  “When I was down in the cellar, I felt a small icy-cold hand hold mine.”

  “Faye thinks that Macy is what’s allowing Miguel to move between the paper and High Court. He couldn’t do that before now.”