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Dying for the Past © 2014 by Tj O’Connor
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First e-book edition © 2014
E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-4206-9
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dedication
For Jean and Lindsay
Always sisters, always daughters, always my girls
I love you both.
acknowledgments
Many thanks go to those who helped me start writing over the years. Irene and Oscar, my grandparents, who gave endless support and encouragement; Ms. Sergio, my English teacher from Germantown High School, who told me I could write; and countless friends and colleagues who always nudged me forward when real life got in the way. Mostly, there are the steadfast few who have both helped out in many more ways than they know: my readers and editors—Jean, Nic, Natalia, and Gina; Toby, Maggie, and Mosby, who are constant companions in this lonely world inside my den; and, of course, Wally, who has been motivated by my first book to sharpen his whip to help make my stories better.
It goes without saying that none of this would be happening without Kimberley Cameron, my patient and always supportive agent, and my new friends at Midnight Ink for giving Tuck and his pals a place to tell their stories.
Yet, no acknowledgment would be finished without thanking my family for their encouragement and support in twisting arms, passing along posts, and rallying coworkers and friends to the pages of my world. Tuck and Angel thank you. Bear grumbles and waves. And Hercule wags, moans, and tosses you his ball.
Thank you to all.
one
Dying is not for the faint of heart.
Unfortunately, dying is also not reserved for the very old, the very ill, or the very deserving either. Sometimes, dying is unfair and ill timed. It is stressful and confusing. Almost always, it’s irritating. Just when things are great—you’re a hotshot homicide detective married to a brilliant, beautiful professor—then, wham, someone shoots you in the heart. I’m not being figurative here, I mean right in the heart. One minute you’re alive and on this earth, and the next minute you’re dead, and, well, still on this earth.
And to be clear, being among the living and being one of them are two separate things.
I’m Tuck. Formally, Detective Oliver Tucker. And I know about death and dying. Not only am I a damn fine homicide cop, but I’m also dead. Yes, dead. I’m just not gone. Or, to be more politically correct, I’m “living-challenged.”
Sometimes, being dead is not so bad. Like poofing in and out of places on a whim without bothering with doors and stairs. And you never have to pee or get the flu again—big pluses. Then there are times, though, when dead is depressing and sad. It’s the things you miss—the taste of good wine, the adrenaline rush of chasing a suspect, or the feeling when you’re in the middle of the dance floor with the most beautiful woman in the room. Those moments hurt.
A woman with shoulder-length auburn hair and sparkling green eyes stood in the middle of the mansion’s ballroom. Her long, silky gown was icing poured hot over sultry curves. All eyes fixed on her when she embraced a tall, distinguished-looking older man before a dance. He wore a tux—okay, yeah, he was striking, with gray hair and a strong, muscular build, brilliant, rich, blah, blah, blah. Big deal. The two could have been on a wedding cake but instead were the center of attention at Angel’s big band-themed charity gala, leading a turn around the floor to Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade.
When they took their first step, I turned away.
She was my Angel. My wife. And while André Cartier was a father figure, uncle, and one of her closest companions—not a lover or suitor—an icy, sharp knife stabbed me.
Even the dead get jealous—and more often.
Angel was the queen of the evening. Around her, most of them watching, were two hundred of the area’s most notable residents; read that “wealthy and powerful.” Everyone was here to drink expensive champagne, eat, dance, and drop big checks into Angel’s charity.
Drink. Dance. Eat. Write checks. Tough life, huh?
The dance floor was alive with starlight and magic cast by the glitter ball overhead as I watched her. I considered sauntering over and whispering some cute tidbit in her ear—just to make her laugh and her eyes roll—but a big, two-hundred-and-sixty pound dinner jacket slumped against the bar and ordered a double-bourbon. Detective Bear Braddock was over six feet tall and filled his jacket like too many potatoes in a sack—except this sack was hard and strong and packed a Glock 40-caliber and a gold detective shield.
Bear took a long sip of his drink and watched the crowd. He peered over at two deputies costumed as 1930s coppers standing nearby. One was a short, wiry, bald white guy in his early thirties, and the other was a tall, lean, strong black man just a little older. These would be Detectives Mike Spence and Calvin Clemens—my nemeses on the sheriff’s department in my breathing days. Tonight, they were babysitting the guests and the swell of donations filling the crystal donation bowl.
With money come problems.
Bear gave Spence an exaggerated nod and took a long pull on his bourbon. Spence refused to acknowledge him and turned away. “Jerk.”
They are pals—really.
I leaned close to Bear and whispered, “Tie’s crooked, pal.”
He spilled his drink trying to straighten it. “Dammit.”
“Slob.”
Bear wiped his hand on his tux pants and flashed a frown around the room. Yeah, sometimes the big oaf heard me and sometimes he didn’t. He knew I was here—back, I mean—but wouldn’t admit it. He’s stubborn and tough, and, like Hercule, my big black Lab, loyal and trustworthy. He’s also afraid of what he can’t see. That includes me.
The band lowered their instruments as the bandleader switched on an old phonograph. Cab Calloway scatted away as guests tried to find the sassy rhythm to Minnie the Moocher. Most failed miserably.
I caught Angel’s eye and she looked straight at me. Bear fumbled with his drink and she caught me laughing. She shook he
r finger at me and headed for him.
Passing me, she whispered, “You’re underdressed.”
She was right. This was a black-tie affair and I was in blue jeans and sneakers, blue oxford without a tie, and my favorite old blue blazer. But, for a forty-year-old, hundred-ninety-pound dead guy, I still looked good. It’s not that I don’t have a tux back home, it just fits someone more, well, alive.
As you can imagine, the dead need not worry about evening wear. I could be in dirty underwear and holey socks—every mother’s worry when you leave the house—and no one would care. So I had that going for me.
Angel never reached Bear before the room went fuzzy. The music slowed like the phonograph was dropping Quaaludes. Cab Calloway droned in pitchy, lethargic groans. The crystal dance ball erupted with lightning strikes around the room. The air shimmered and the room shook, and for a time, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
Then, as easy as it began, it was over. Minnie the Moocher played on again. No one seemed to notice, but I knew things weren’t right. Something more than champagne was being uncorked.
Across the room, standing alongside the dance floor, was an uninvited guest. He was a stout, striking man in a black pinstripe double-breasted suit. He wore shiny, buffed wingtips and a gray felt fedora. The only thing missing was a big cigar hanging out of his mouth and a violin case. Then, he swept his hand across his jacket and revealed a heavy semi-automatic in a shoulder holster. Did someone invite Al Capone?
He looked at me and winked. Winked?
The mobster started across the dance floor, angling toward the table where Angel sat with several guests I didn’t recognize.
A few more bars of Minnie played.
A plump, middle-aged man sitting across from Angel was having an animated conversation with a young—very young—platinum blond to his right. They could have been father and daughter, but his chopping hands and her accusing finger suggested more. The man wore round, wire-rimmed glasses and a carnation. Even with the big white tie against his all-black tux he was frumpy and out of place compared to the dinner jackets and suave tuxedos around the room. While she stabbed the air at him, he looked away
at the dance floor and fumed.
The girl spun around in her chair and whispered something to the handsome young man sitting at her other side. A second later, she was floating across the floor, her partner leading in a too-cozy clutch. Neither looked at Mr. Carnation when he grabbed his champagne glass, jumped to his feet, and swooped Angel up for the light fantastic.
That’s my girl—the belle of the ball and an eyeful of oh-my-God.
An assault of fire spread through me.
Did I mention spirits get jealous?
The song playing—something Benny Goodman, I think—carried Angel and Mr. Carnation to the center of the floor.
They made it halfway before things got weird.
Mr. Carnation slowed to a stop and spun Angel around, trying to catch the eye of his wayward blond laughing on the young man’s arm. The blond pulled away from her partner and approached Mr. Carnation. He glided toward her with Angel still attached—the three met in the center of the dance floor as the room fixed on them in an awkward voir dire.
Mr. Carnation hailed a passing waiter for a refill of champagne. After downing the glass in a single gulp he lifted Angel’s hand for a melodramatic kiss.
His glass shattered and spasms jerked his body all the way to the floor. His right arm thrust out and pointed at the crowd; his left still held the broken glass stem. His body twitched a few more times and stilled.
The blond stood staring down at him. Her hands flew to her face as she gasped for breath—a slow, wailing cry erupted.
For a long moment, the couples dancing slowed but didn’t stop. The young man knelt down at the body and waved for the lights. The crystal dance ball’s glitter hid the details, but I didn’t need to see.
I’d seen death before—and murder too often. Not just my own, but dozens.
This one was unmistakable. It wasn’t the way Mr. Carnation collapsed in a jerky, melodramatic spiral to the hardwood. It also wasn’t the way his dull, lifeless face caught the dance ball light. It was much simpler.
It was the blood pooling around his body and the bullet hole through his torso.
Someone murdered Mr. Carnation—shot him in front of two hundred witnesses. A killer jitterbugged in and gunned him down to Benny Goodman.
The guests erupted.
Bear rushed in and pulled Angel away. Spence and Clemens tried to push the crowd back. The lights snapped off—just for a second—flickered off-on-off—and flashed on. Voices hushed as eyes fell on the dead man.
Not me, though; I watched the crowd, looking for the killer and any telltale sign of the smoking gun. But what I saw, or didn’t see, unnerved me more.
The gangster in the black pinstripes was gone … vanished—poof. He arrived just in time for a killing and left before the body hit the floor. No sign of his spats and black tie remained. He didn’t leave his fedora or heater behind either. He was as dead and gone as Mr. Carnation.
The question was, however, would he stay that way?
two
The stout, muscular Latino waiter—Jorge, according to his name tag—set his tray of hors d’oeuvres—escargot and oysters—atop the piano in the corner of the room. The sheriff’s men were still kneeling beside the dead man in the middle of the ballroom dance floor where they’d been since he’d fallen there, dead. The crowd was crushing in on the deputies and the room vibrated with angst and shock. Jorge glanced around, poured three oysters from their shells into his mouth, and slipped away into the outer hall. There, he made his way to the kitchen in the rear of the house and up the servant’s stairwell.
So far so good. No one noticed him. He reached the second floor and started down the hall. Someone ran down the second floor hall and he ducked into a bathroom. When the footsteps passed, he emerged and crept to the end of the hall, down to the last room on the left.
The door was locked, but he used an old skeleton key—relocking the door once inside. More footsteps in the hall made him press his hip against the door should anyone try to enter. When he was sure the danger had passed, he moved across the room without turning on the lights and disappeared into the walk-in closet.
A few moments later, two floors above, Jorge emerged behind piles of old furniture and three steamer trunks stacked in the darkness. He slipped a penlight from his waiter’s jacket and used it to maneuver around a labyrinth of boxes and decades of piled-up attic clutter. Three dress mannequins nearly stopped his heart. His reflection in a cobwebbed, dusty mirror made him cry out.
God, what next?
In the far corner of the attic was a narrow doorway leading to the southwest attic wing and on to the mansion’s southern tower. At what seemed to be the attic’s end, he searched with his light and found the correct wall beam—he released the hidden latch.
A narrow section of the attic wall popped open.
Jorge was inside only a moment and returned tucking a short-barreled revolver into his waistband. He checked a small package with his light and slipped it into a pocket. After relocking the panel,
he retraced his steps past the junk, mirrors, and mannequins. His breath eased with his hand resting on the curved butt of the .38 special.
On his climb back down, he stopped at the second floor and listened to the sound of the crowd rumbling through the walls as sheriff’s deputies barked orders and herded guests out of the ballroom.
When the sounds faded, he continued down a dark, too-tight passage until he smelled the rich scent of coffee. From there, he used the rickety stairs to the wine cellar long ago concealed in the basement. He sat against the stone wall and waited.
It was going to be a long night.
three
Somewhere between your last breath and death is a strange, awkward place that defies definition. For me, it was an elevator stuck between floors. The trouble is, I don’t know whether
I was heading up or down when the doors closed behind me. But when the doors reopened, I was still here—ladies’ lingerie, sporting goods … dead guys. Perhaps my life’s work will decide what floor I’ll end up on.
Perhaps not.
For now, though, I’m content to be back home in Winchester—the wonderful historic Virginia town ninety minutes west of DC. The alternatives to being here, both of them, aren’t for me.
My life was stolen a few months ago by a madman: Professor Ernie Stuart. Ernie was Angel’s surrogate father. Angel, of course, is Doctor Angela Hill-Tucker, Professor of History and my widow. Ernie was her mentor and university boss, and a member of our family. But Ernie had a secret. Ernie was insane. He had killed when he was a young man. He had killed when he was old. He had tried to kill Angel.
And then he made a very big mistake.
He killed me. And it cost him his life, too. Murder keeps me in the here-and-now—catching killers and fixing old wrongs. It started with old Ernie and I knew not where it would take me.
And now Mr. Carnation was dead—I watched him die. Coincidence?
No. Coincidences are like politicians—they say they’re one thing but they’re always something else. The “something else” is often very, very bad.
“Stephanos Grecco,” Bear said, standing up from Mr. Carnation’s body sprawled on the dance floor. Bear was talking to no one, unless to me, which he never did. He made some notes on the back of a cocktail napkin—his tuxedo didn’t come with his detective ensemble. “Poor bastard. All this money and for what?”
“Bear?” It was Spence. “You better come outside. We got something weird.”
Saying “weird” around me was an oxymoron. Even if Spence didn’t know I was standing there.
“Weird how?” Bear asked. “Weird like Sasquatch or flying saucers, or—”
“Ghosts?” Spence still gets the jitters when he thinks of me. When Ernie died, everyone, including Spence, saw things they never talked about—me, two dead girls, and more. “Not that weird. Looks like someone broke into the basement after we did our sweep this evening. And I’m thinking they might still be here, too.”
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