Defying Death in Hagerstown

by John Paul Carinci

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch!” the captain murmured. “How could you know this?”

  All I did was refer back to Lolita’s diary, for fear that everyone would think for sure that I was a loon. “Lolita has a diary she kept for the entire year of 1923. In it, she tells of many dreams she had about some chipped bricks and the cross of the large monument right there.” I pointed to the large stone monument that was now behind us all.

  “That one?” the captain pointed.

  “Yes, that’s the one!” I said excitedly. “See, you can tell that it was—”

  “Sergeant, what do you think? We have a search warrant and reasonable suspicion here.” The captain looked at Pawler.

  “Absolutely, Captain,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of tools in the trunk there.” He pointed toward the patrol car.

  Graham shook his head in disbelief and said, “I don’t really know what is going on here, Lou, but I do know there are ghosts in the place. And you’ve been talking to the ghosts, and it’s just freaking me out, man!” His eyes grew bigger.

  “Calm down, or you’ll soil your bloomers there, buddy,” I told him. Everyone laughed.

  Sergeant Pawler and one other officer chiseled around the stone to loosen it. As they worked, someone showed up with bottles of water and hot coffee. I think I was indeed slightly dehydrated, and that had been causing some of the lightheadedness.

  Still, I was sure that I had seen Dr. Walter Klug standing next to the side of the church. He was slightly transparent in form, and he was standing right in front of the chipped brick and square stone. The only other thing he could have done to be more helpful was to hit me in the head with a rock. He had led me right to the correct spot.

  All the signs Lolita and I had been given screamed out: the church, the red bricks, the stone, and the cross atop a monument. How stupid I felt for not figuring it out sooner. It all made perfect sense now.

  Pawler kept chipping away directly under the first line of bricks. We could clearly tell that the stone had been removed at some time, and then re-cemented back in place. The rest of the bricks and stones looked untouched.

  My cell phone was vibrating uncontrollably. I had set it to vibrate as we made our way to the church. I couldn’t have any distractions. I needed to focus one hundred percent on the church and grounds.

  Felicia had called three times. And the maniac boss, Glavin had called twice. He really was a pisser. I had never been fired from a job over the phone before. This clown always told me I was fired, but he never followed up on it. I think he was on a power trip. He always screamed loudly, but he always allowed me “one last chance” to keep my job. He reminded me of a loud fog horn that hurts the ears.

  All the calls had gone to voice mail. I knew I would have to answer a lot of questions, but I had nothing concrete to tell anyone yet. Funny thing, though—concrete had been the missing link for so many years.

  Graham was clearly excited, like we were digging up a lost treasure chest of gold coins worth millions. Of course, what we might find could be very valuable, or damning, to the reputation of one or more individuals. Or just possibly, we would hit a dead end and come up empty.

  If we came up empty, I knew I would be finished in many respects. I would surely be the laughingstock of Hagerstown. I would be hated by more people than I could ever count. Imagine someone shutting down a church and ordering a search warrant to rummage through the oldest church in the state. Imagine drawing attention to the most respected pastor in town. And now, tearing into the side of a landmark church, all on the whim of a snot-nosed reporter on the balls of his ass, someone so close to being fired that the smell of McDonald’s hamburgers was already in the air. Because that’s the only place I’d be able to work after blowing this gig.

  I was very nervous.

  The chiseling slowly continued for what seemed like hours but in reality was only minutes. Each tap of the screwdriver sounded like an explosion in my ears against the silence of anticipation that filled the air.

  In between hammering, the sergeant and the captain shot me glances that said, “You’d better be right, knucklehead, or you can start running!”

  Even Graham’s expression was not too encouraging. My stomach was rumbling up a storm as the acid burned. Every tap of the hammer seemed like another nail in my coffin. I scanned my eyes around the grounds and down each row of grave markers to see if the good doctor was around to give me moral support. But, no, I was on my own, flying by the seat of my pants. The seconds ticked away.

  Then, finally, something good happened. A sharp young officer who was watching from a distance came over with a crowbar, the kind that has a tool on one end for prying off hubcaps and a tool on the other for loosening lug nuts. He suggested that Pawler dig on the sides of the square stone, just enough to fit the crowbar in to pry it out. It appeared that the stone was a foot square.

  The sergeant was working up a real sweat, so I wanted to bust his chops, being that he had no sense of humor about him. I said, “Watch out, Sergeant, let a real man get in there!” I rolled my sleeves up and moved up to the stone foundation. If looks could kill, I would have died right there. Everyone laughed, and that was what we all needed at that moment. Pawler just got more pissed and slammed the hammer that much harder.

  After another five minutes, the captain yelled, “Yeah, now we’re talking!”

  The stone moved about an inch. Then, with a few more slams, it moved a little more.

  “I should have just backed the squad car into this damn wall!” Pawler yelled after slipping with the hammer and slamming his hand hard. I backed a few more feet away from him, as the captain encouraged him on. “No, you’ve got it now, Sarge!”

  I could just see Pawler trying to knock the wall down with his patrol car. His temper was on the wild side, for sure.

  “There damn well better be a body in this wall, Mr. Reporter,” Pawler yelled out, as his finger bled out a little more.

  I backed away even further until I heard Graham yell, “It’s coming out now, Lou!”

  We all crept in closer and gathered around Pawler as he wiggled the crowbar from side to side and loosened the stone inching it from its resting place inside the foundation wall.

  Two officers helped Pawler lift the stone out of its setting by wiggling it from side to side. Slowly, the stone pulled away. The captain had his face up close to the hole, and the rest of us were within a foot of it ourselves.

  Slowly, the captain stuck his right gloved hand into the square hole. We all held our breath as he exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be dipped!”

  His hand came out with a bag of some sort, a dark and old-looking type of burlap sack.

  “Holy shit!” Graham said.

  I suddenly got very lightheaded as I realized that this could be it. This could be exactly what Lolita and I had had visions of. Could this be evidence from ninety years ago? Why here? Who would ever think of murder evidence being hidden in a house of God? Brilliant? I guess it was, because for ninety years, no one had been the wiser. All these thoughts rushed through my mind in a split second as I looked on.

  “Captain, what’s in the bag?” Pawler asked impatiently. He always was a rambunctious individual. We waited and watched the captain.

  “No. We will analyze the contents in the precinct lab. We do not want to contaminate any of the evidence. But I will tell you, it feels like a weapon of some kind.”

  We knew that we could not open the bag or even handle the bag without gloves. The bag and its contents could contain fingerprints and DNA.

  We closed up the square hole as best we could so no one would be able to realize what evidence we were able to secure from the site. The captain instructed each of us not to discuss our search, or the find, with anyone. He would inform us when we could speak about the church and our findings.

  We all headed back to the precinct to patiently await the careful opening and analysis of the bag and all of its contents.

  I had to call Felicia and tel
l her that everything was all right, but that I could not discuss anything else until I was informed by Captain Krolm.

  Felicia only cared that I was unharmed, and that there was no more violence after Wally’s fiasco and the involvement of Loretta from the station house. I assured her that everything was fine.

  Harold Glavin was altogether different. He sounded like he was disappointed that I was still alive and well. I think he secretly wanted me shot up or dead, because he’d have a front-page story for his newspaper. Reporters, I had learned, were a dime a dozen with Glavin. He would merely assign a young, up-and-coming reporter to continue the news story.

  But what he didn’t know, and I couldn’t tell him then, was that I had the most exciting news story going all the way back to those girls’ murders in 1923. I had an award-winning blockbuster story, and he’d probably pee his pants if he knew how good the story was.

  All I could tell him was, “I promise you, Harold, that when I can tell what I already know, and will know shortly, you will be blown away!”

  “Bullshit! That’s all you ever talk all day is bullshit! I should have fired your sorry ass last week. Don’t bullshit me, son—”

  There was no winning with Glavin, so I just cut him off. I could imagine the cursing tirade that went on in his office as he screamed into the dead phone. “Hello! Hello! You there, you little sonofabitch!”

  I turned the cell phone off, though I felt like stomping on it as if it were Glavin’s beet-red head.

  Tensions were at an all-time high at the police precinct. Wally’s lawyers were demanding his immediate release, blaming everything on Billy Blaine. There were lawyers representing the present pastor, Sy’s brother, Cornelius Trylan. The pastor was incensed that the captain had been granted a search warrant, shutting the church and the cemetery down to the public, including him. They threatened a large lawsuit. And the mayor was all over Captain Krolm’s ass for the flack he was receiving from the citizens of Hagerstown over the arrests of Wally, Loretta, and Billy. And it seemed like everyone but Felicia and Graham despised me. I needed to wrap things up and disappear from Hagerstown, fast.

  We all were seated in the conference room—Graham, Pawler, Officer Robert Cianci, and the captain—eating take-out hamburgers and coffee while we waited for forensics to come back with something concrete on the latest bag of evidence.

  We waited for what seemed like an eternity for any word. It seemed like the entire town had stopped cold, and I felt like I was responsible for the closing of the diner, the church, and the cemetery, as well as for the poisoning of Mary, the food aide at the nursing home. If Billy had succeeded in poisoning Miss Lolita as originally planned, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself or ever face Felicia again.

  My appetite was nonexistent as the pit of my stomach burned from overactive stress acid. I downed some coffee for whatever energy I could derive from it, but that only produced more acid, and then more pain. I wondered how much more I could endure.

  The captain kept getting called out of the room during the two-hour wait, and each time he returned, he looked more and more pissed off. Sergeant Pawler gave me looks like he wanted to pistol-whip me, but I just smiled at him like I was gay and had a crush on him. That always made him look away and hate me even more. I always knew how to bring out the pissy part of a person. Maybe he’s a distant relative of my boss, I joked with myself. I was burned out mentally. I no longer cared.

  Graham was making small talk, but none of it was even registering in my overloaded brain, which was about to shut down any minute, if my excruciating headaches were any indication.

  The last time Captain Krolm left the room, Sergeant Pawler went with him. I was glad to get rid of Pawler, even for a few minutes, although my mind kept reminding me that Pawler had saved my life in the street when Sy tried to run me down and shoot me up. Heroes don’t always have the most pleasant ways about them, but they do know how to get the job done, I mused.

  Graham used the phone in the corner of the room to speak with his wife and children, and I chatted with Officer Robert Cianci. He was the nicest person I had met at the station house. He was very respectful and didn’t act like a man eaten up with power, as some officers do. I was sure he would have a long and successful career with the force.

  When the captain finally came back into the conference room, followed by the sergeant, he had a few pieces of paper and a folder.

  “Well, gentlemen,” he began, “we have some real findings here.” His face was ashen, and he looked as though he had lost his best friend.

  “It troubles me terribly, these findings.” He shook his head. “And I just had to disclose them to the mayor. It is a sad day in Hagerstown history, for sure. But be that as it may, we must stand for what is right and just, no matter whom it brings down or affects.”

  Pawler just stood at attention, looking at the captain and not making eye contact with anyone else.

  I knew the news was going to be huge, something that would make headlines around the country.

  “Here’s what was inside the old burlap bag that was inside the foundation of the church.” He looked at his typewritten papers. “There was a large butcher knife that had remnants of blood on it. We are doing DNA testing, which will take at least a week, but we believe the DNA of the blood samples will match at least one of the Hagerstown girls murdered in 1923. Furthermore,” he said in a lower tone, “we have lifted fingerprints off items inside the garbage bag that match one Sy Trylan, the owner of Millie’s Diner.”

  Graham’s look was one of total confusion, although it was all falling in place in my mind. My worst suspicions were now playing out in real life. I gave Graham a smile and a little nod, as if to say, “Wait for more to come out.”

  The captain continued. “We believe that it was Sy Trylan who was hiding the damning evidence that would ultimately have implicated his father, the pastor’s son from 1923, Seymour Trylan, who was a twenty-three-year old back then in 1923 when his father, Harvey Trylan, was the minister.

  “Seymour is our suspect in all three girls’ murders, as well as those of some missing girls after that time. We have a bloody fingerprint from Seymour that, unbelievably, ended up on his personal Bible, which was also in the bag of tricks. It sickens me to report that one of our most respected members of the clergy committed such heinous acts and went on years later to lead a church for many years.

  “In a letter found inside the bag, Sy admitted to hiding away the evidence right after his father’s passing some forty years ago. We believe that the present pastor, Sy’s brother Cornelius, was not part of, and did not contribute to, any of the cover-up of his father, the killer from 1923.

  “We also lifted fingerprints from the ten-inch knife, which we believe was used in all the murders and possibly more. We do believe, and Sy has disclosed in his letter, that years after the murders, his father repented, changed his ways, and went on to become a well-respected pastor of the church. Sy also disclosed that he unexpectedly came across the hidden evidence, linking his father to the crimes, when his father was elderly. Sy agreed to keep the evidence under wraps for all these years to protect his family name and the reputation of his father. This bag was intended to remain hidden forever or at least until after Sy and all of his family had passed on.

  “Sy’s letter from the bag also stated that no one knew his father Seymour committed the murders but him, and that his father spoke very little about any of it. Pastor Seymour died at the age of eighty-four, some sixty years after the murders. No one ever knew that he was a murderer, but inside his Bible is a handwritten admission and confession to God. The pastor was a very sick individual as a young man, and refused to admit his wrongdoing to society.” The captain looked like he was going to be sick. I felt sad, too.

  “I ask that you not discuss this until tomorrow morning after our eight o’clock press conference with the mayor, governor, and FBI, which has always been in charge of the Hagerstown murder investigation.”

  “C
aptain,” I spoke up, “was there anything else in the bag?”

  “There were a few other items, such as women’s undergarments that contained blood, pictures of various girls, and photos of his family. He had pictures of his wife and two of his sons. There were things that we will go into at the press conference. But for now, I will reiterate, do not speak to anyone at all about the investigation, please, I beg of you. That’s all I am willing to disclose right now. I have to get back on the phone with the governor in five minutes.”

  He quickly left, and the officers and Pawler followed him, leaving Graham and me with our mouths hanging wide open.

  Graham looked at me wide-eyed and said, “Buddy, we just witnessed history in the making—the solving of a ninety-year-old mass murder. You’re the man!”

  “Thanks . . .” I murmured, though it hadn’t really sunk in yet. “It is hard to believe that someone could get away with such vicious killings, and maybe even more we are unaware of, for so long. Who would ever suspect the pastor of the largest and oldest church in town? Talk about staying under the radar.”

  “Hey, what’s the deal with you seeing strange things lately? And why do you look so weak all the time?” Graham asked.

  “I’m just exhausted,” I said. “I think I’m tired of worrying who wants to kill me next. And even though it’s over, the stress goes on.”

  “I hear you, but I’ll be right by your side. I got your back.”

  “Graham, I did have a couple of very vivid dreams, or maybe visions, similar to what Miss Lolita described in her diary. They were of the murders and pieces of evidence. And, yes, at the cemetery I did have a brief vision of Miss Lolita’s Uncle Walter, the doctor who helped her see things. I know it is hard to believe, but the vision of her uncle is what actually led me to that stone’s hiding place.”

  “That’s wild, man!” he said. “Do you think you still have the powers to see?”

  “No.” I smiled. “I thought long and hard about what I had seen: the faces of the dead girls, the bits of evidence, the uncle, the cross, and the brick. I am beginning to believe that Miss Lolita is an angel from God.”