Dying for the Past

by T. J. O'Connor

  He shook his head. “My God. You know, after she confided in me about Stephanos—telling me she was married—she told me about the letters. She said Stephanos was handling it and she wanted me to stay out of it. She was afraid if the police got involved, we’d be found out, too.”

  I asked, “Was she going to leave Stephanos for you, André?”

  Angel asked him.

  “We hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He shrugged. “There was something else going on with them—something bad. At first, I thought she married him for his money and it bothered me. But after I got to know her, I found out the truth—and money wasn’t important anymore.”

  “How do you know? You’ve got money, and she moved onto you pretty quick, too,” Angel said in a dry voice. “I like Bonnie. I do. But if she played you for a month, maybe she was trying to lure you in with more lies.”

  “No,” he turned and looked out the window. “I don’t believe she did or would. What happened between us was not our fault. We met at a fundraiser and hit it off. She was very interested in charity work and history—just as I am. I told her about you and your work at the University. One thing led to another and she asked for my help in finding historical pieces for herself. It was very accidental.”

  Angel looked at him and I could see the sympathy softening her face. “All right, André, all right. What about—”

  “Ask him what historical pieces she was interested in, Angel.” I had a hunch. “Ask him if it was a book.”

  She did and his answer sent jagged fingernails screeching down the blackboard.

  “Yes, she wanted books—but most collectors do. I located several other items—some paintings and portraits—even some old county photographs. But it was the books she wanted most. Why, is someone else interested in the gangster’s old books?”

  Oh yeah, you could say so, yes.

  forty

  André Cartier begged Angel to allow him to help investigate the Vincent estate, but Angel knew it was a bad idea. She sent him home. He was in enough trouble and his presence with us as we broke a half-dozen laws sneaking onto the estate would make things worse if we were caught. Bad for us. Worse for him.

  “Something is off about him, Angel,” I said as we watched him walk off into the night. “I’ve never seen him so, so—”

  “Nervous?”

  “Yeah, nervous.”

  “Well, it’s nearing midnight outside the crime scene where he’s accused of murder. His married mistress is in FBI custody, and he’s a murder suspect. Maybe that’s why.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure that was all of it—although it was a lot. “I’m just not sure.”

  Angel let Hercule out the rear door and onto the sidewalk. He stopped and gave the darkness a thorough inspection, sniffed the air in long, slow nose-fulls, and sat down. He moaned his report—the area was secure and ready for trespassing.

  The Vincent estate was surrounded by a six-foot high stone wall. We were around the corner from where Bear and Spence should be sitting so we looked for a way inside close by. There was a wrought iron gate a dozen yards down the street and Hercule and I followed Angel there.

  “Someone has been here already,” she said, lifting the heavy iron hasp on the gate. “The chain and padlock have been removed.”

  “Now is it time to call Bear again?”

  “No.” Angel opened the gate eighteen inches or so and waved Hercule in, then slipped through after him. She closed the gate behind her. “And if you tell me to call Bear one more time, I’m sending you home.”

  “Don’t yell at me later when this goes bad.” I patted Hercule on the head and pointed into the darkness ahead of us. “Check it out, boy. But be quiet about it—doggie jail is not as plush as my den.”

  Moan. He raised his nose, sniffed the air again, and trotted off down the driveway toward the carriage house almost straight ahead of us.

  “Okay, Dr. Tucker.” I turned my spirit-radar on full force. “This is your expedition. Where to?”

  “I want to find out if there are any tunnels connecting the houses. If I were going to make tunnels to escape the police, I’d want them coming from all the houses just in case. Nicholas’ photo album showed crews digging outside all the houses. The carriage house is the perfect point to converge them, too. And the house on the northeast corner sits closest to the compound wall—maybe there’s a way out of the compound there.”

  Good logic. “You know, doing this sort of makes us the Tucker gang. And you’re our gang boss. How about a gang nickname?”

  “No.” She followed Hercule into the darkness.

  I followed. “How about Angel the Knife?”

  “Shut up, Tuck. Please.”

  “Boss Tucker? No, wait, how about—”

  “Stop. I mean it.”

  “Angelface—you know, like Scarface.”

  Woof.

  “Angelface it is, Herc. And you can be Twenty-Toes Hercule.”

  Woof. At least he had a sense of humor. I patted his head. “All’s clear, Angel Face. Did you bring your heater?”

  We weaved through the estate’s trees and overgrown gardens to the two-story Victorian sitting in the northeast corner of the estate. At the rear door of the house, Angel opened her backpack and took out a flashlight and her Walther .380.

  “It’s locked,” she said, checking the door. “Can you go in and look around? Maybe find us a way in?”

  I did my best Bogie imitation. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” and slipped through the door. I didn’t have to look back to know she was rolling her eyes. It must be the dry night air.

  The house was empty, with no signs of anyone having been there for some time. Old furniture was still covered with dust covers—what little furniture there was—and the doors and windows were locked and appeared untampered with. There were no signs of any killer or bad guys. A cursory check failed to reveal a tunnel entrance or secret anything, too.

  I returned to Angel. “Nothing, Angel Face. No signs of anyone. And there’s no power. We’ll have to break through a window or pick a lock.”

  “Okay, let’s go around back.”

  “You’re not seriously going to break in, are you?”

  She winked. “Isn’t this why we’re here?”

  “I don’t recall breaking and entering on our to-do list. I thought we were just checking the grounds.”

  Hercule lowered himself and let out a low, throaty growl.

  “Herc? What is it?”

  Behind us, across the gardens on the other side of the carriage house, the faint groan of the iron gate came through the night.

  “Angel, someone’s coming. Scram and hide.”

  She ran across the yard to some tall, brushy evergreens and dropped down on the ground. Hercule lay beside her, ears up, tail straight back—ready for action. Me, I waited on the stoop and watched. Surveillance for me was far less stressful and much cleaner.

  But all the running and hiding wasn’t necessary after all.

  Without lights to betray it, a vehicle rolled through the gate and pulled up beside the carriage house. It was a dark-colored panel van. The driver’s door opened and a figure slid out and went into the carriage house through the side door.

  “Angel, someone just went into the carriage house. I’m going after them.”

  “I’m coming, too.”

  “No, let me see who it is first. Twenty-Toes, keep her here, boy.”

  Hercule moaned and wagged his tail. He liked his gangster name.

  I ran for the side carriage house door and passed through inside. The barn-like structure was a large, four-car-sized garage. It was a cavern with a poured concrete floor and wood plank walls, heavy, hand-honed timber framing and a rough-cut beamed ceiling. There were no cars—or carriages for that matter—with only a few remnants of working life left behind—two or three pieces of old furniture, some storage boxes, and a few old garden tools hanging on the walls.

  I looked around but found no one.

&nb
sp; The side door creaked open and Angel and Hercule came inside. Hercule took a look around, sat down, and yawned.

  “Tuck?”

  “I don’t know where he went. I think your tunnel theory is looking pretty good. Herc?”

  Hercule was already nose down and searching. It took him just seconds. He began his search at the side door and followed the figure’s scent across the carriage house to the far side wall. There, obscured in the darkness, was an old horse stall about five feet square—it was, of course, void of equine and empty.

  Hercule faced the stall and moaned. Then he looked up at me, wagged, and sat down.

  “Angel, he went in the stall but he’s gone.”

  She shined her light around the stall but found nothing. Then she ran the light down the carriage house wall in both directions. “There’s no other door and no place to hide. Herc, look again, boy.”

  “No, wait.” I followed her light beam to the rear corner of the carriage house wall. There was a window hung tight into the corner. “See the corner window? It’s not right. Who builds a window so close into a corner? The other windows are three feet out of the corners. There’s a false wall or something there.”

  She lighted the stall again.

  “There, Angel,” I said, pointing to the side stall wall where the wood planks were irregular and misaligned. “The wall boards don’t line up.”

  Three of the wall planks didn’t sit flush with the others and their edges were misaligned against other planks. Angel shined her light on the plank as I walked over to it.

  “Okay, Angel Face, if I’m not back in—”

  “Just go, Tuck. And stop with the nicknames.”

  See, no fun at all. I slipped through the wall and was gone.

  Hercule was right. The stall wall concealed an entrance to a narrow passage the length of the building. At the far corner of the passage, I could see a faint light and went to investigate. The light emanated from a stone stairwell that led down below the floor into a subterranean corridor. I descended the stairs—at least twelve feet down—and found the entrance to a tunnel heading toward the center of the estate grounds.

  The tunnel floor and walls were stone and brick. There were single-bulb lights affixed to the tunnel roof every thirty feet or so but they were dark. The air was damp and stale and smelled of musky dirt and old stone. I followed the tunnel to an intersection—a wheel hub of sorts—somewhere in the center of the estate grounds. There were three other tunnel-spokes heading away from the hub. While there were no markings, I assumed the largest tunnel led to the Vincent House, and the other two led to the other two houses on the east side of the property.

  These were Vincent’s escape tunnels.

  As I started back to the carriage house, Angel and Hercule emerged in the darkness. Angel followed her flashlight down the dark corridor heading for me. Hercule was on her heels.

  “Angel, what are you doing? How did you get in here?”

  “I found a loose board, pulled it, and a door opened.” She shined her light around at the tunnel hub. “If you can do it, I can.”

  Now she was getting cocky. “And what if someone is headed toward you?”

  She lifted her gun. “Then I’d make an arrest.”

  “An arrest? You’re not a cop.”

  “A citizen’s arrest.”

  “Of course you would.” I showed her the other three tunnels off the hub and theorized where they led. She agreed. “Did you call Bear before you followed me? He should know where we are.”

  “Ah, yes.” She passed me and headed down the tunnel we assumed went to the Vincent House. “He didn’t answer.”

  “Oh, really, Angel?”

  Several yards ahead, there was another intersection and a new tunnel turned left, heading away from both the Vincent House and the carriage house. I had no idea where the tunnel might lead.

  “Which way, Tuck?”

  I tried to look thoughtful and decisive. I failed. “I have no idea. But let’s just continue straight.”

  Grrrrrr. Hercule stopped and his tail snapped into a saber.

  “What is it?”

  “Shush,” Angel said.

  Shush? “You’re the only ones who can hear me.”

  “Hearing you is the problem—so shush. I want to hear.”

  Hercule lowered himself and crept in front of Angel, blocking her from continuing forward.

  Something tickled my spine. “Angel, get back to the hub and take a side tunnel. Move.”

  We made it to the tunnel hub just as a dim light fluttered in the darkness from where we came. The light stopped moving.

  Crack! A shot whistled down the tunnel.

  “Angel, get down the side tunnel. Hurry.”

  Hercule jumped on her, pushing her back into the darkness of a side tunnel. He continued pressing her until she’d retreated fifty feet or more.

  “You stay put. And I mean it, Angel. I’m going to see who it is.”

  “No. I’ve got a gun.”

  “No one can shoot me, but, they can you two. Keep her here, Hercule.”

  Moan.

  As I started back to the hub, a light bounced and jiggled ahead of me beyond the hub intersection. Then, another shot rang out from down one of the other tunnels and the light ahead of me snapped dark.

  Another shot.

  I ran on and, when I reached the hub, I turned right and headed for the carriage house. A fourth shot startled me—the bullet passed through my chest and skipped off the stone walls behind me. A hot poker of fire singeing through me.

  I’ve been shot … again. This time, it hadn’t taken my life—just a sharp, fiery spear sending bolts of energy surging through me; brilliant bolts of power and heat. I ran forward and reached the stone steps, bounded up and out into the carriage house.

  No one.

  I ran to the door and peered out. The panel van was still there.

  Something stabbed my thoughts. “Oh no, they double-backed through a side tunnel … Angel—”

  I tried my ghost-express to return to Angel and Hercule but it didn’t work. My bearings weren’t connected well enough and I never left the carriage house. So, I bolted for the hidden stairs and down to the tunnel. Before I reached the bottom step, another gunshot cracked ahead of me.

  An icy stab to my brain.

  “Angel!”

  forty-one

  “Don’t move,” Angel yelled. “I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot.”

  Crack! I reached her just as the next shot whistled past her and struck the tunnel wall. “Stay back, Angel. Get down.”

  Hercule barked but stayed around the corner of the tunnel out of the line of fire as Angel knelt on one knee. She peered around the corner trying to see down the main tunnel. “Someone came running up the tunnel. I heard him but I couldn’t see anything.” She leaned back against the tunnel wall and gestured with her Walther. “I was standing here and turned around. They fired but I couldn’t get a shot off. I think they moved back beyond the hub.”

  “Could you see who it was?”

  “No. It all happened so fast and I cannot see anything in the dark without my flashlight. I didn’t dare turn it on.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Just running feet. I think they have gone back down the tunnel to the Vincent House.”

  “Whoever it was must have double-backed on me. There was no one at the carriage house. Let me check ahead.”

  I left them on the side tunnel and moved toward the Vincent House, careful to listen as I did.

  Nothing.

  “Come on, Angel, it’s clear.”

  She kept her flashlight low and obscured the light with her other hand.

  When she reached me, I said, “Keep Hercule close. I’ll go up ahead around the corner and clear the way. Wait for me to call for you before you move up. And for crying out loud, stay low in case someone shoots again.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Why?”

  I could see her smile ev
en in the darkness. “Old habit, I guess. Just hurry.”

  The tunnel was empty for another two-hundred feet. There were no noises. No lights. Nothing. Since bullets and bad guys don’t faze me, I jogged along until I found another sharp bend. There, I made the turn and reached an antechamber at the end of the tunnel—the dead-end of the tunnel. Facing me was a stone wall and in the center of it was a narrow, heavy wood plank door secured by rusty, iron hinges.

  Moving closer to examine the door, I found what the shooter was trying so hard to escape. Dead bodies.

  Two bodies lay beneath an old canvas. The first I recognized from my vision. It was the tuxedoed assassin I’d met the night of Stephanos Grecco’s murder. Now though, his tuxedo was tattered and dirty and his cummerbund lay torn beside him and his jacket balled at his feet. His white corsage was dead and crumbled on his tux lapel. I recalled smelling the sweet scent of the flower the second before I pulled the trigger and killed him—well,uh, killed him in my vision.

  The other body was easier to identify. It was the catering manager with the heavy, Ukrainian accent—Petya Sergeyevich Chernyshov.

  Vincent Calaprese warned me about Ruskie Commies back in his day. I wonder if Ukrainians fell under his definition of Ruskies now?

  They did mine.

  forty-two

  “Petya,” Angel said, shining her cell phone light around the antechamber. “The caterer. Poor man. Who is the other one?”

  “I think he’s Stephanos Grecco’s killer.”

  She shined her light over the body. “Then who killed him?”

  “Me.”

  “What?” She looked at me with crazy eyes. “Oh, yeah—in your vision. But it wasn’t you. Is this where he was killed?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe. Or another part of the tunnels and they moved his body. The question is, who was I when I killed him?”

  “My guess is whoever shot at me just now.” Angel walked around the antechamber examining everything her light fell upon. “He must have been trying to move the bodies. We interrupted his plans.”

  “Maybe.”

  Angel knelt down and unwrapped part of the canvas covering the two bodies. A dark-colored backpack lay between them.