A determination of “death by natural causes” by the coroner meant Leo had one less murder investigation to conduct.
“Is that your official finding, natural causes?” Leo asked.
The coroner nodded. “Yes, but what should we do?”
Do? Leo thought. He had six homicides on his plate at present, half were typical gang-related crimes that would probably never be solved. But the other half, involving the murder and brutal dismemberment of three young women, would require a significant amount of Leo’s time.
As such, Cecelia Jaing’s death—while clearly mysterious—was not Leo’s big issue. As Jaing herself would have said, Leo had bigger fish to fry.
“Close the case,” Leo said.
Chapter Fourteen
Orlando, Florida
March 4, 2010
Ten days had passed since the séance in St. Augustine and nothing had changed. Koda was still medicating himself with vodka, partying till dawn, then either calling in sick or strolling in late. Fortunately, his father had been traveling and was not aware he had slipped back into his previous patterns.
He also had not seen the girl—thanks to Mika Flagler—who had traded the mirror for a depression-era painting with a private collector she knew in New York. Koda was so angry he kicked Mika out and told her not to come back unless she’d found the mirror.
Koda and Dane had also not discovered any additional details about the girl. No last name. No idea where she lived or how she died.
Nothing.
To make matters worse, Koda had called the number Vooubasi had given him after the séance to see if the medium had remembered anything else about the girl, only to discover Vooubasi’s phone had been disconnected.
Dane was already nervous about Vooubasi.
This didn’t help.
So Dane decided to hang out in Orlando because, if things went south, someone had to be there for support. Besides, Dane felt more at home with Koda than he did back in Lily Dale.
No one had spent more time with Koda Mulvaney over the previous five years than Dane; three years sharing a house just off-campus at the University of Syracuse, followed by almost two years hop-scotching around the world in Koda’s private jet.
Dane had never seen Koda so distraught, so fragile.
What bothered Dane was that no matter how many times he tried to get Koda to tell him about the nightmares that seemed to happen several times a week, Koda would simply brush him off.
Of course, Dane did the exact same thing.
Over the years Koda had asked Dane about his family and where he was from, and Dane always managed to change the conversation. Eventually Koda got the message and stopped asking.
What a pair we are, Dane thought: Best friends who would do literally anything for each other—anything but share our secrets out of fear that the other wouldn’t understand.
Dane searched through the stack of discs on the coffee table and decided to try a game he’d never played before called Space Funeral.
As with virtually every video game he’d ever played, Dane found Space Funeral to be remarkably weird and extremely addictive.
The game involved a man in pajamas who slept in a coffin, a headless horse with five legs, and an assortment of pimps and ghosts.
And lots of blood.
“Blood, so much blood,” Dane had once heard his father say. The Buffalo Police Department secretly used the services of psychic mediums, and Dane would often spy on such sessions.
“Blood?” the cop had repeated.
“Yes, blood, so much blood…” his father said, “…as thick and sticky as molasses.”
What was it Vooubasi had said during the séance? “Drowning, drowning… can’t breathe, can’t breathe… drowning, sticky, drowning, sticky, sticky, sticky, sticky…”
Molasses was sticky.
And there was something else Vooubasi kept repeating.
A number.
“Nineteen, nineteen, nineteen, nineteen…”
Dane went down the hall to the office at the far end of the penthouse and turned on the computer. He and Koda had already done a number of searches trying to find Samantha—the name Vooubasi had mentioned during the séance—but this time he also typed in the words…
Samantha, drowning, sticky, molasses, nineteen, dead…
Dane held his breath and pressed enter.
Koda sat at the computer an hour later, reading the article again.
Boston Post, January 17, 1919
It has been two days since a large molasses storage tank burst in the North End neighborhood of Boston, sending a wave of molasses through city streets, killing 21 and injuring 150.
Only now are we beginning to get answers regarding the corruption and wanton neglect on the part of Purity Distilling Company management.
The tank—which was 50 ft. tall and 90 ft. in diameter, containing as much as 2,300,000 gallons of the sticky liquid—ruptured and collapsed, unleashing a wave of molasses 25 feet high and moving at an estimated 35 miles per hour.
It hit with such force that buildings were knocked from their foundations, picking people up and sweeping them away in a sea of brown death and sweet-smelling air.
Many of which were so glazed over in molasses they were difficult to recognize, even by family members.
Fatigue cracks in the seams of the poorly constructed tank—which had been filled to capacity—are believed to be the cause.
Several people who worked at the facility said the tank leaked all the time, so much so that management had it painted brown to hide the sticky leaking fluid. If this is not proof of intent to mislead, what is?
A wave of sticky lawsuits higher than the sea of syrup that took so many lives are sure to follow. But when—if ever—will the sickening-sweet smell of molasses and the evil smell of men saving nickels, but taking lives, vanish from our memories?
“Holy shit,” Koda said for the third time. “This has got to be it, right?”
“It’s got all the pieces. It also explains what all the nineteen- stuff was about,” Dane said, pointing to the date of the article. “I assumed it was her age.”
Koda scrolled down to the bottom of the article and re-read the list of the victims again.
The list detailed each of the twenty-one people who’d perished in the tragedy, the majority of whom were men who worked as longshoremen or laborers at the docks.
Only three of the twenty-one were female:
Bridget Clougherty, a sixty-five-year-old homemaker…
A ten-year-old girl named Maria Di Stasio…
And the final victim, a seventeen-year-old who’d gone to the area to bring her father—a member of the Teamsters Union—the lunch pail he’d forgotten that morning.
Her name was Samantha Browne.
“It’s got to be her. Right?” Koda asked again.
Dane shrugged.
“That’s the name Vooubasi kept repeating,” Dane said. “If Mika can get the mirror back, maybe we can find out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Desoto, Missouri
October 3, 1935
The only thing people knew about Randall Iglewski was that he was a transfer from the ultra-exclusive Kemper Military School in Boonville to Our Lady of the Open Arms Orphanage for Boys & Girls. The distance between the two institutions was approximately eight miles, but in terms of money and social status, they were worlds apart.
That’s the way it is, Declan Mulvaney thought when the school’s superintendent, Col. A. M. Hitch, personally dropped the boy off after his parents were killed in a freak auto accident. One day Randall was on top of the world, and the next he was crying himself to sleep four bunks down in the boys’ dorm at Open Arms.
Around the orphanage Randall Iglewski was simply referred to as Stick Boy, and not because he was as thin as a stick—although he was—but because of the wooden stick he carried with him at all times. It was a stick Sister Mary Margaret had handed him when he’d first arrived at Open Arms.
“Why—why—me?” Iglewski stammered, knowing he would never be liked by anyone at the orphanage if he did what he was being asked, or more accurately, told to do.
“Because you are my chosen one,” Sister Mar Mar said.
The nun had instructed Stick Boy to deliver a beating to Declan Mulvaney in retaliation for Declan’s unacceptable and repeated displays of insubordination. The problem was Stick Boy didn’t have the stomach for it. Not only did he look up to Declan but he also was no physical match—with or without the stick.
After classes let out for the day, Sister Mary Margaret stood in her second-floor office and watched through the window as Stick Boy approached Declan from behind. Mar Mar clasped her hands together in anticipation, as if saying a prayer for a successful beating.
But then Stick Boy did something the old nun had not considered him capable of doing. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and looked up at her—and, in a spectacular act of defiance—threw the stick to the ground.
Then, as if to add insult to injury, Declan wrapped his arm around Stick Boy’s shoulders, and the two of them walked off together.
No, no, no, this breach of trust cannot stand, Sister Mary Margaret thought. The young residents of Open Arms must never question her authority. And now there were two young men who required extra-special reminders about the importance of doing as they were told.
Initially Ulrich had assumed they’d run out of fuel, which was bad enough since it was the middle of the night and they were in the middle of Missouri, with no gas station in sight. But it was worse than that—the stolen Chrysler had broken down—and Onyx was extremely ill.
After stealing the money from The Night Owl, Ulrich went home and told Onyx to grab her things. Twenty minutes later, they were on Route 40 heading east out of Las Vegas toward Chicago.
Ulrich figured Chicago—being the mob capital of the United States—would be the last place The Owl would look for him. It was also a city he knew his way around.
After the first couple of nights on the road, Onyx started to feel ill again. On the third night, they parked behind a barn south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to sleep.
Well, Ulrich slept.
Onyx was too ill to sleep, sitting up to vomit every hour, though there was nothing left in her stomach to come up.
That night they stopped at a diner, but Onyx stayed in the car while Ulrich went in and ate. Rested and fed, Ulrich was ready for the next leg of the trip through the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, Missouri, and then north out of St. Louis to Chicago.
Ulrich could hear Onyx moaning in the backseat, covered in a blanket, shivering out of control. At one point, he stopped to check on her, but it was so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face, so he lit a match. “Onyx, are you awake?” There was no response.
He lifted the corner of the blanket and was shocked to see Onyx was a ghostly shade of gray. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she felt cold to the touch. “Onyx?” Ulrich said loudly, and heard her moan. She was alive but barely.
Then, as if things couldn’t get worse, the Chrysler began to sputter and shake and then simply shut down. Ulrich managed to steer off to the side of the road.
He got out of the car and lit a Lucky Strike, a habit he’d picked up from his time with Claudia. He glanced in the backseat to see that Onyx was completely still, totally unaware of the predicament they were in. Other than stealing them, Ulrich knew nothing about cars, so trying to fix it himself was out of the question.
He took a deep drag and blew smoke into the darkness, his eyes searching for any sign of life.
Then Ulrich saw the headlights moving in his direction. He tossed the cigarette to the ground and placed himself in the middle of the darkened road, waving his arms wildly, hoping whoever it was would see him and not run him over.
Minutes later, Ulrich was holding Onyx in his arms, still wrapped in the blanket, in the back of a farmer’s truck headed for the only place the old man could think to take them.
The Open Arms orphanage.
“The greatest temptation in life is to pursue everything that catches your eye. What matters is: Are you willing to pursue only that which captures your heart.”
The 31 Immutable Matters
of Life & Death
From the Journal of Onyx Webb
I sometimes marvel at how it took death to remind me that-at every turn in my life-I had choices. And how many of the choices I made turned out badly.
It is clear now, looking back, that many of my choices were driven by one of three motives: selfishness, guilt and fear. In no area of my life is this more obvious than my rush to marry Ulrich. And my unwillingness to leave him.
Even when I knew the truth, I stayed.
At the time, I blamed my marriage vows for my inaction. Yes, my vows were important, but the truth is I chose to stay for one reason, and one reason only; the fear of being alone was stronger than my desire to be free. How else can one explain having stayed?
I know now-all too late-that embracing the truth is the answer to all things. And the truth about the person I was is that I acted out of weakness when strength was needed, and out of fear when courage was required.
Fortunately, there was always tomorrow…
until one day there wasn’t.
Chapter Sixteen
Episode 5: Vooubasi
Orlando, Florida
April 13, 2010
Dane Luckner was in the middle of his favorite dream—more of a memory, actually, something that came to him every now and then, usually in the middle of the night.
In the dream, it is the day after Christmas 1997. Dane is ten years old and his dog, Duffy—a gift from his parents—is under the sheets with him, his wiry fur pressed against Dane’s back.
The smell of bacon fills the air.
Dane is hungry, but Duffy is so comfortable against him he doesn’t want to move.
Then, the rumbling of a passing train rocks the room.
A train? In Lily Dale?
Dane opened his eyes to see Robyn, the bartender from DJ’s Chophouse, standing in the doorway. She was wearing his shirt and, as best as he could tell, nothing else.
The smell of bacon was no dream.
Neither was the girl standing in the doorway.
“I hope you like your bacon crispy,” Robyn said.
“Crispy is great.”
“Good, because I burned most of it,” Robyn said, then turned and headed back toward the kitchen.
Dane had gone to DJ’s Chophouse to have a drink at the bar the night before, and…
Oh, yeah, that’s right.
Dane pulled on his pants and followed the smell of the bacon and found Robyn pouring pancake batter into a hot skillet.
“There’s maple syrup in the cabinet,” Robyn said.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Dane said as he hunted for the syrup. “I could have run out and picked up a couple Egg McMuffins.”
“Blasphemy,” Robyn said. “Do I look like an Egg McMuffin kind of girl to you?”
“My mistake,” Dane said.
“There are clean plates in the dishwasher.”
Dane pulled two plates from the dishwasher and put them on the table. “Have you got plans for today?”
“I’ve got to be to work at six,” Robyn said. “Why, what do you have in mind?”
“Well, believe it or not, I’ve never been to Disney World, and I was thinking…”
Robyn spun around. “You’ve never been to Disney? You’re kidding me.”
Dane shrugged his shoulders, “Nope, I kid you not.”
“I assumed you and Koda had gone just about everywhere together,” Robyn said as she dropped several pancakes on each plate.
“I was born and raised in upstate New York, went to college there, too. Besides that, I haven’t been
much of anywhere—as far as the United States goes, at least. Now, you want to know about the best hotels in London and the most popular nightclubs in Berlin, I’m your guy. Otherwise…”
“It’s going to be busy,” Robyn said. “Long lines.”
“Do I get to hold your hand?” Dane said.
“After last night, you can hold anything you want.”
“Then let’s eat and get out of here,” Dane said, stuffing a forkful of pancakes in his mouth. “Oh, and I’m gonna need my shirt back.”
Robyn stood up and unbuttoned Dane’s dress shirt, slid it off her shoulders, and handed it to him.
Dane woke from a post-Disney nap and looked at the clock. It was 9:30 p.m. Robyn would be tending bar at DJ’s until at least one in the morning. He had almost four hours to kill.
Robyn had done well for herself, well enough to buy a decent-sized Craftsman-style bungalow in a nice neighborhood about three miles outside of downtown Orlando. He liked her, and he liked staying at her place more than being at Koda’s penthouse. And he knew why.
He was falling for her.
What Robyn saw in him, however, was beyond him.
He didn’t even have a job.
Dane felt the rumbling of the train a full thirty seconds before it passed the house. As much as he liked Robyn, he could do without the train.
Dane went to the kitchen. He found a half-eaten quart of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer and took a seat on the couch. He turned on the TV and flipped through the channels—Rizzoli & Isles, Pawn Stars, Jersey Shore, Deadliest Catch, The Walking Dead—he’d never heard of any of them. Two years of sleeping all day and clubbing all night could do that to you—make you disconnected from what was happening in the real world.
Onyx Webb: Book Two Page 5