Lineage Most Lethal

by S. C. Perkins

  “This was never for tic-tac-toe, was it?” I hissed to my grandfather, just as Curtis came walking our way.

  “Sometimes it was,” Grandpa said with a grin. Luckily, Curtis was now looking up at the ceiling for issues and didn’t notice when Grandpa moved some papers over his pigpen cipher key, feigning interest in his glass of water.

  For the next few minutes, I pretended to check my emails and made idle chitchat with Grandpa while Curtis looked over the floors.

  “I’ll recaulk the windows after the first of the year, but that’s all it needs,” Curtis said amiably, then thanked me again for allowing him to come on such short notice, touched his hat to Grandpa, adding, “Nice to meet you, sir,” and was gone. I forgot he’d even been there within seconds of locking the door.

  “Any chance you feel Curtis isn’t who he says he is?” Grandpa asked, one white eyebrow arched.

  I was so startled I stopped for a second in my tracks, then relaxed. “Curtis came with the building and has been its caretaker for at least twenty years now. I’ve met his wife, and she’s had trouble with her feet for ages. Plus, he’s not exactly in tip-top shape. I think the chances are minimal at most.”

  Grandpa shrugged. “One of the most sinister people I ever met looked like the skinniest, most harmless man you’ve seen in your life. Absolutely timid when you talked with him. Spoke with this quavering voice and was always apologizing.”

  “What did he do that was so sinister?”

  “Gouged out the eyes of his victims with a grapefruit spoon. After he tortured them, of course. We called him ‘The Ophthalmologist.’”

  I made about ten faces, shuddering with each one. “Thank goodness I’ve already had my eye checkup and Dr. Quayle said I didn’t have to come back for two years. It’s going to take me that long to even try to forget you told me that.”

  My grandfather chuckled. “Want to know what Hugo’s message was?”

  I stopped mid-shudder. “You already cracked it? But you barely looked at it.”

  Grandpa smiled modestly. “I just had to be reminded of the key, that’s all.” He used the chalk to tap the crosshatch. “On the internet or in a book, you’ll see these written out in two crosshatches, one for the letters without dots, a second for those with the dots; same for the letters in the X, but I learned to do them all in as little space as possible. Out in the field, we often had only scraps of paper to write on, so combining them was essential.”

  “I was going to ask about that,” I said, turning my phone to show him. “I pulled it up while you were working, but all the symbols were separated.”

  “Back before you could find the pigpen cipher all over the internet,” Grandpa said, “it was harder to crack, because very few knew how to even create the key. Even after the war, we used them all the time—though only for simple stuff that was unlikely to come into enemy hands.” He tapped the crosshatch again, careful not to mess up any of the chalk marks. “That’s why I had this on my desk.”

  “And the X, though you never mentioned it,” I said, trying hard to keep the accusing note from my voice, and failing. Grandpa reached out and took my hand. His blue eyes held so many emotions, and I noticed for the first time that in the right lighting, they’d actually faded some.

  “You know, my darlin’, from the time you were about ten years old and helped me complete a crossword puzzle with words most ten-year-olds had never heard of, I had this feeling that you would be the one person I would eventually tell—outside of your Gran, of course. I’m so used to keeping it from the ones I love for their safety, though.” He hitched one shoulder, the gesture not dismissive, but rather one of acceptance. “Well, it’s been ingrained in me since I was eighteen years old.”

  He took a deep breath before saying, “I’d begun to think there would never be a good time and I’d have to leave you a letter to explain, and I didn’t even know where to start such a letter. I’ve tried to leave you clues here and there over the years, and this was one of them,” he added, gesturing to the crosshatch. “I knew it would make sense to you eventually.”

  He smiled, and there was such heartbreaking love in his face. “I know you’re angry with me, but I hope you’ll understand why I kept it from you. And I hope you’ll realize how much it means to me to be able to show you a little of how I worked, instead of having to imagine it from nothing more than a letter.”

  Then Grandpa was holding out my box of tissues and letting me have a good cry, his eyes bright with tears as well. Finally, I waved my hand at the copy of the microdot’s contents I’d made at the archives. Grandpa had circled Hugo’s pigpen cipher, and had written the corresponding letter under each symbol. “Well? What does it say?”

  He turned it so I could see.

  “BUCHANS BEST, and then the Roman numeral for eighteen—XVIII.”

  NINETEEN

  I blinked my watery eyes at him, thinking it was rather anticlimactic. “Buchans Best? That sounds like the name of a scotch.”

  Grandpa grinned. “I’m betting he meant John Buchan, the author, and his best work. Are you familiar with Buchan’s novels?”

  Once again, my grandfather gave me time to let my mind have a go at figuring it out, and I nearly got there.

  “Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue!” I cried, clenching my fists in frustration. Finally, I heaved a sigh. “Okay, just tell me.”

  “It’s The Thirty-Nine Steps,” Grandpa said, even as I groaned, “The Thirty-Nine Steps! I totally should have known that. It’s a classic.”

  A beep from my phone told me I had a text. I looked to find one from Pippa. I read it, then typed out a quick reply.

  “Another one from that pistol Serena?” my grandfather said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “No,” I said, though I felt my cheeks heat up again at the memory. “It was from Pippa. She asked if I saw Chef Rocky before I left.” I shrugged. “I told her I hadn’t seen him. He mostly stays in the kitchens, so I’ve actually only ever met him once, when I first toured the hotel with Pippa after she hired me.”

  “This Chef Rocky,” Grandpa began. “Is he the dark-haired, handsome gent with tattoos on both arms? Hair like he’s been out in a windstorm?” He put his hands up to his head, fingers splayed, in a hilarious impression of the chef’s artfully tousled hair.

  I laughed. “That’s definitely Chef Rocky,” I said. “He was the one Roselyn Sutton was looking for when she came up to us earlier today in the hotel ballroom.”

  “That’s strange,” Grandpa said. “I saw Roselyn talking to him just before I came and found you. Or, rather, she was having a discussion with him, of the heated type.”

  “They were?” I said. “When was this?”

  “It was when I arrived at the hotel and was being directed to the ballroom by that nice young bellboy. The chef and Roselyn were in the little niche that leads to the bathrooms.” Grandpa cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I was hearing the call of nature, as I do all too often these days, which led me to ask the bellboy where I could find the loo, as the chaps in England would say. He pointed it out to me, saw the two of them, and got out of there tout de suite. I’m afraid I couldn’t help but overhear, not that I knew who either of them were at the time.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “What were they arguing about?”

  Grandpa shrugged. “Sounded like a lover’s tiff to me. Roselyn was saying something about meeting him later today at his place, and the chef was saying that he would rather come to her. He tried to romance her a bit—you know, pulling her close and kissing her—but she was adamant. Said she didn’t want anyone to see. He eventually threw in the towel and said, ‘Your choice, Rose. It’s always been your choice.’ When he stormed off, he looked straight at me, flung up his hands, said, ‘I tried,’ and kept going.”

  “Wow,” I said, wondering if Pippa knew about her mother and the executive chef. “And did Roselyn see you?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I could tell. I only saw the back of her the whole ti
me. I noticed the blond hair and the color of her dress—only because it was so close to skin tone, and with my old eyes, I thought she wasn’t dressed at all—but that was it. Then I went into the men’s and didn’t see her again until she came up to us later, looking like she would like to throw me bodily from the room.”

  “Weird,” I said. “I wonder if Chef Rocky is MIA because he’s had enough of Roselyn’s dramatic behavior and has been off looking for a new job or something.”

  Grandpa canted his head. “That’s a fairly good assumption for the set of facts I’ve given you.”

  I grinned. I was beginning to feel like Grandpa was giving me a field version of the CIA entrance exam and hoping I would belatedly follow in his footsteps.

  “Do you know his last name?”

  “Whose last name?” I said, my mind still musing on whether I would have made a good spy.

  “Chef Rocky’s.”

  I hitched a shoulder. “Haven’t the foggiest. Why?”

  My grandfather’s expression was once again one of looking into his mental film reel of the past.

  “He just reminded me of someone I knew in the war,” he said. “It was in the way he did this—” Grandpa flung up his hands, mimicking Chef Rocky’s frustration. “And also in his face, especially in this area.” He made air circles to the area around his eyes and nose. “I’d bet my bottom dollar our chef is from Italian stock.”

  “I only met Chef Rocky once for about thirty seconds, but I wouldn’t bet against you. He’s got that hot-blooded Italian leading man thing down perfectly.”

  Grandpa rubbed his chin again. “I’ll be the first to admit, I knew a lot of guys who were expressive like that and they came from lots of backgrounds. Still, his looks struck me as familiar.”

  I moved around Grandpa to my computer. “I’ll look him up, then. I know he’s on the Hotel Sutton website, so maybe it’ll give us his last name.”

  I tapped around for a few seconds and found the page touting Eighteen Ninety-Five, the Hotel Sutton’s restaurant. It was named for the year the mansion was built and featured New American cuisine mixed with classic Mediterranean specialties. Sure enough, there was a photo of Chef Rocky leaning casually against one of the prep counters, wearing jeans and a black shirt pushed up to mid-forearm so as to expose some of his tattoos. A bottle of red wine was at his hip, and he held a glass of it in his right hand, as if about to share a toast just with you. Underneath the photo, there was a short description detailing Chef Rocky’s background. After a quick read, my jaw dropped.

  “Grandpa,” I said slowly, pointing to the text. “His name is Rocky Zeppetelli. That’s why I thought it sounded familiar. I read it on the Hotel Sutton’s website after Pippa first hired me.”

  I hovered my finger over the words, telling him, “It says here that Rocky is a native of New York City. He learned pasta making at his grandmother Fernandina’s knee and the art of choosing the perfect wine to pair with any meal from his late great-grandfather, World War Two veteran and celebrated New York sommelier—”

  “Angelo Zeppetelli,” Grandpa read. “Well, I’ll be dashed.”

  “So he was one of your spy buddies? Was he the one you knew?”

  “He was,” Grandpa said. “He was the guy I recruited for the mission. Angelo was one hell of a radio man, and truly a good man, too. Died, oh, a few years back.”

  “I wonder if Chef Rocky is actually Rocco Zeppetelli,” I said, looking at Hugo’s list of names, “or if Rocco is his father’s or grandfather’s name and Chef Rocky was named in honor of them.” I drummed my fingers on the oak desk. “I think I’ll try to trace his genealogy to find out. In fact, I’d like to trace all the people on this list.”

  “I’d like to see you work,” Grandpa said. “Show me your process.”

  I pulled up Serena’s rolling chair for myself and began explaining that there were several ways I could attack the issue, but I generally started with the simplest way first.

  “Vital statistics, which are your birth and death records, are a great resource,” I told him, “but each state is different as to what years they started collecting the data and what’s the most recent year you can access data without being a direct relation. A lot of states, like Texas, keep the records private for seventy-five years, except when officially and properly requested by a family member.”

  Grandpa looked chagrined. “So my birth records are public now, being that I’m older than seventy-five?”

  “Yep,” I said dryly. “Fun, huh?”

  He snorted.

  I pulled up a website I used frequently. “Then there’s the birth index, which, again, varies by state as to what years are available and published, but it’s exactly what it sounds like, an index of births.” I pointed to the example on the screen. “And, like any index, it offers only the basic information—the legal name of the person, their birth date, their parents’ legal names, and the county or parish in which they were born. However, because it’s just the basics, some states will publish more recent years, sometimes into the late 1990s. The birth index for England and Wales will even let you search from mid-1837 through the late 2000s. And, of course, the date range expands with each year that goes by.”

  “Time marches on, I suppose,” Grandpa said with a wry smile. “So, can we use this birth index to find Chef Rocky?”

  “We can’t,” I said. “We know he’s a native of New York City and you can only find indexed birth records online up to 1965. Chef Rocky is in his thirties, I’d bet, so we have to take a different tack.” I grinned. “We’re going to hunt for Angelo instead.”

  I pulled up another bookmarked website and began typing in search fields.

  “I can likely find Angelo’s death record now that he’s passed,” I said. “I’ll also search for his obituary, where you can often find a lot of good information.”

  I soon found Angelo Giuseppe Zeppetelli, who had passed away in New York City almost seven years earlier. Armed with that information, I found his obituary, which was extensive. Scrolling to the bottom, I looked for the paragraph that listed his surviving family members and those who’d already passed before him.

  “Look.” I pointed to the screen. “Angelo had four daughters and one son, Vincent, who passed away in the Vietnam War. He also had five grandsons…” I scrolled some more. “Okay, it only says ‘numerous great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. But wait…” I scrolled back up to near the top and exclaimed, “A-ha! There he is. It says Angelo’s great-grandson, Rocco ‘Rocky’ Zeppetelli, gave part of the eulogy.”

  Though I hadn’t done any fancy genealogy footwork, Grandpa looked mightily impressed.

  “It doesn’t surprise me Angelo had a big family,” he said. “Yes, he was a truly good man.” Sitting back against my office chair, he picked up his glass of water and drank deeply.

  I felt a pang of worry that bringing up all this from Grandpa’s past was taking an emotional toll on him, and I didn’t like it. Like most soldiers, World War II veterans had one level or another of PTSD, though it was understood and discussed much less in their generation. I knew Grandpa likely dealt with PTSD, what with all he’d seen in the war, but the only thing I knew for sure was that he often went to the local VA hospital and spoke to other soldiers. He’d told me more than once that it kept his spirits “even higher than normal to help others who’d seen the same, if not worse,” but he’d never really wanted to discuss it more than that.

  If he were having flashbacks, though, I knew he needed to be alone, for a while at least, just like I did when I was stressed. Grandpa and I were both willing to ask for help when needed, but mostly we got our strength from within ourselves.

  “How about this,” I said, checking the time. “It’s ten after three. I have to get back to the Hotel Sutton fairly soon to interview one of Pippa’s cousins, and you said the shuttle leaves back for Wimberley at three thirty. Whatever Hugo wanted us to know”—I made a sweeping motion over Hugo’s list—“we can’t prove
anything more until we have a copy of The Thirty-Nine Steps to decode the last three names. How about I drive you to the shuttle pickup point and we can reconvene tomorrow? I have the whole morning free until early afternoon, when I have to interview another of Pippa’s cousins.”

  Grandpa said, “That sounds good, my love, but if I’m reading Hugo’s code correctly we need the eighteenth edition of the book specifically. It was published during the First World War and is still in print, so there could be any number of editions. I’ve read it, of course, but my copy is long gone.”

  “All right, then. How should we proceed, sergeant?”

  That brought a grin to his face. “My little bookstore in Wimberley has a couple of vintage copies. Ronda, the owner, displays them right up front, so I see them every time I walk in. If Ronda doesn’t have the right edition, I’m sure she can find it for me.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I mused, “but also likely to take time. However, there’s nothing else we can do, short of—” I paused. I’d been looking at the copy of Hugo’s list, focusing on where Grandpa had decoded the pigpen cipher.

  “Grandpa, look,” I said, pointing to the symbols that spelled out XVIII. “There’s a significant space between the symbols for the ‘X’ and the ‘V.’ What if it doesn’t mean eighteen at all? What if it means ‘times eight’?”

  I looked into his blue eyes. “You said there were eight spies.” I tapped the lines of code. “There are eight groups of code here. What if the person who created all these ciphers used the same key text, but with eight different editions to further confuse anyone who tried to decode it?”

  Grandpa took the page and was scanning it again. “By golly, I think you may be right. You noticed how Hugo’s handwriting got worse with each decoded line. If one key text worked for all lines, there wouldn’t be this much discrepancy amongst the decrypted names.”

  I said, “To me, that says Hugo may have had this list for some time but it’s taken him a while to decode it because he had to find the right editions. Is that how it looks to you?”