by Jen J. Danna
Seeing a slip of paper under one of the kegs, she tried to catch it with her fingertips. It took several tries before she drew out a two-dollar bill. Pulling out her flashlight, Leigh aimed it at the bill to study the details. “Get a load of this.”
She passed Rowe the bill over the bar. He aimed his own flashlight at it, examining it carefully. “Two-dollar bill, series nineteen-twenty-nine.” He looked up at Leigh. “That was the first year those bills were printed at their current size. Before that, they were quite a bit bigger.” He flipped the bill over. “Look at that. Monticello on the back, not the Declaration of Independence. Probably not worth much on the open market, but worth an awful lot to a collector.”
“Finders keepers as far as I’m concerned,” she said, and then purposely turned her back on Rowe to examine a poster from the Salt Lake Brewing Company, extolling its Old German lager as “The American Beauty Beer” and promising a restful night’s sleep, a stimulated appetite, and a “nourishing and strengthening tonic for mother and baby.” That last left Leigh staring open-mouthed long enough that when she turned around, Rowe was standing alongside the blackjack table and the two-dollar bill was nowhere in sight.
Coming out from behind the bar, Leigh stood in the middle of the room. As she turned in a slow circle, she felt thrown back in time, a black and white movie playing in her mind as she scanned the room. A tall, broad man in a dark shirt with a white towel thrown over his shoulder stood behind the bar, backlit by rows of gleaming bottles of golden whiskey and ruby wine. Men in London drape suits holding lowball glasses sat at tables across from sparkling women sipping goblets of wine while brandishing long, slender cigarette holders. In the corner a four-piece brass band was blasting out the latest jazz tune. Women with short hair and shorter skirts crowded the dance floor, doing the Charleston and the Black Bottom. The smoky air was full of laughter and song.
“Abbott, I think you should see this.”
Leigh shook her head and the music died away to a mere echo from the past. Her eyes focused once again on the dim, abandoned room. But there was no sign of Rowe and his voice was muffled, although she wasn’t sure if it was from the music in her head or from his location. “Where are you?”
Rowe poked his head out from a swinging door behind the bar. “Over here. There’s a storage room in the back.”
She followed him into a flurry of tipped boxes and spilled bottles. She stopped in the doorway. “Wow. If we had questions before about whether this place was raided …”
“It was raided all right, no question. But I wanted to show you this.” He pointed at the wall at the far end of the room.
Leigh picked her way through the crates to stand as close as possible. “What about it?”
“Did you notice that while the walls out there are plaster, the walls in here are just plain brick?”
“Sure. Why gussy up the storeroom when just plain brick will do?”
“Fair enough. But why is this wall different?”
Leigh stood back to look more closely at the room as a whole. The front and side walls of the room were composed of rough bricks in varying shades. But the back wall was uniform in color and texture, and the mortar was shades lighter in tone. “Good question.” She ran her fingers over the bricks on a side wall and then over the back wall. “These bricks feel different. Smoother.”
“I want to try something.” Rowe slipped out of the room, returning moments later with a wooden baseball bat.
Leigh stared at him, dumbstruck. “Where on earth did that come from?”
“Behind the bar. I bet the barkeep kept it around just in case things got out of hand. In the rush to leave, it got left behind.”
“Or after everyone was taken out,” Leigh said. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“I want to test that wall.” Rowe put the bat down, tip to the floor, and casually leaned on the flat end of the grip. “Why would that wall be different?”
“It wouldn’t be if it went up at the same time.”
“Exactly my point.” He picked up the bat, cradling it in both hands and frowned. “An antique Louisville Slugger. Now this is a crying shame.” He tossed the bat in the air, deftly catching it in both hands, choked up, and swung it at the side wall. The bat hit with a loud clunk and a few flakes of brick fell from the surface to tumble out of sight behind a crate.
He moved to the back wall, tightened his grip, and swung again. The bat connected with the brick with a decidedly higher pitch. Rowe’s raised eyebrows gave Leigh an I told you so look and moved on to the third wall, then the fourth.
They had their answer.
“Only the back wall sounds different,” Leigh said. “Do you think it’s because of the type of brick?”
“Possibly, but my money is on there being a space behind that wall. You want to find your hidden body? Try behind there.”
“Your mind works in interesting ways, Rowe. Do you always see death everywhere you look?”
“Death is my thing. It’s hard not to see it everywhere I go. But you came searching for it specifically this time, so I was watching for it. The difference in the bricks is pretty minor but nothing else seems out of place in here. Keep in mind I might be wrong and you might be trying to bring down a wall for nothing, in which case you’ll piss off the historians in a big way. But can you afford to take that chance after coming this far?”
“You know I can’t.” Leigh pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “No signal down here. I’m going to head up. If Riley’s at the unit, I’m going to have him pick up some tools and bring them here.”
“Meanwhile I’ll finish off with the body. Enough time has now passed to get my second liver temp. Then we’ll package him up and send him on his way to the morgue.”
Leigh led the way through the speakeasy and back toward the stairs. “Are you going to stay or are you heading back with the body?”
“I’m not missing this for the world. Ted can make the transfer and put the body in the fridge. You’re stuck with me.”
“Happily.” She took a cautious step back onto the stairs. “Let’s do this.”
Friday, 2:20 p.m.
The Adytum Building
Lynn, Massachusetts
“Whoa!” Brad Riley’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he stepped into the dimly lit bar. “This is amazing!” Riley was the squad rookie, and the one trooper in the unit Leigh was on truly good terms with. He’d heard the stories about Leigh from the other guys, but had decided on his own that she wasn’t a bad cop. He’d even volunteered to help with her casework in the past. He was young and green, but they’d all been that at some point, and Leigh genuinely liked him.
Leigh grinned at his enthusiasm. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
“The body is down here?” Riley swung the sledgehammer off his shoulder, carefully lowering it to the ground.
“Maybe. We’re about to find out for sure. Through here.” She led the way into the back, waiting patiently as Riley dragged his heels a bit, looking at everything as he came through.
“Do you want to do the honors?” she asked Rowe.
He stepped back, one hand raised, the other still weighed down with the crowbar he carried. “No, ma’am. This is the most fun I’ve had on a case in years, but this is your show. You do the honors.”
Leigh accepted the sledgehammer from Riley, swinging it up to rest on her shoulder. “I’m thinking dead center to have the least amount of support from the surrounding structure. Agreed?”
“Yes. Not that you’ll have much luck aiming with that, but try for the mortar joins. The mortar will give way before the brick.”
Leigh got a good grip on the sledgehammer and then swung it with all her strength at the wall. It hit with a resounding crash, the reverberations shooting up both arms and straight into her shoulders. She let the sledgehammer fall heavily to the floor, narrowly missing her toes, before examining the wall. The bricks were all still in place, but mortar crumbled to the floor. Heaving the sl
edgehammer up to her shoulder again, she prepared for the second strike.
It took three blows to knock the first brick free and two more to make a hole big enough to see through. Leigh set the sledgehammer down against the wall, panting. “That … should do it.” Stepping up to the shoulder-height hole, she pulled a loose brick free and tossed it onto the plank floor at her feet. She angled the light into the hole, crouched down to peer in, and froze.
The hidden space was approximately two feet deep and ran the length of the eight foot wall. She had to crane her neck to follow the narrow beam of light down to the floor. But after all the time spent with Matt and his students, there was no mistaking the pale flash of bones lying inside.
A tomb was hidden on the other side of this wall. But had the victim been alive or dead when he was bricked in so long ago?
Wordlessly, she stepped back and handed the flashlight to Rowe. He gave her a quick, searching glance, but then moved in to see for himself. He peered through the gap, squinting in the dim light and then spending a long moment taking in the remains. Finally, he pulled back and handed the flashlight to Riley before stepping out of the way.
Leigh met his solemn gaze. “Better call Lowell back ASAP,” he said. “Looks like we’re going to need him again.”
CHAPTER THREE: BATHTUB GIN
* * *
Bathtub Gin: a mix of alcohol, glycerin, and juniper juice contained in bottles or jugs, usually filled in a bathtub because they were too tall to be topped off in a sink.
Friday, 8:05 p.m.
Abbott Residence
Salem, Massachusetts
Leigh rolled her shoulders as she trudged up her front path, feeling a slight twinge as her muscles protested. The sledgehammer hadn’t felt heavy at the time, but there was stiffness in her shoulders now that wasn’t there when she’d started the drive home. Maybe she’d go loosen up in the whirlpool tub with her favorite juniper bath salts … after she called Matt.
She glanced at her watch. It was just after five o’clock in San Francisco, so she might catch him between the afternoon sessions and dinner if she called now. Her step lightened in anticipation of his reaction to her news. No burned flesh, no mutilation. Just nice clean bones and a historical mystery. He was going to love this case. She was going to love working with him and the team again.
He’d been busy for the last few days, and she looked forward to catching up. She could picture him at the conference: a tall, muscular ex-Marine in a room of pale, skinny scientists. She chuckled to herself at her own use of the stereotype, but in her experience, most scientists weren’t athletes. Matt hadn’t been either when she’d first sat in one of his classes three years earlier. But that was before he and his father took up rowing. Now, their hard work showed clearly on both of them.
Leigh let herself in, automatically stepping over the mail strewn around the inside hallway from her mail slot. Bending, she started to collect the envelopes. Bill. Bill. Junk mail. Real estate flyer.
She flipped over the large white envelope lying facedown on the floor and froze as her blood went cold, bills and junk mail tumbling from suddenly nerveless fingers.
Not again.
This envelope was larger than those that had arrived previously. Like past packages, her name was neatly printed on the face in black marker with the same Boston postmark and no return address. But unlike past deliveries, this one had come to her house instead of her desk at the Essex Detective Unit.
As a police officer, Leigh kept her home address unlisted. But there were those with the computer skills or inside connections to find her anyway.
Clearly, whoever was sending the disturbing packages knew where she lived.
She carried the envelope into the living room, being careful not to shift her grip from its original hold in case there might be fingerprints to recover. She set it down carefully on the table and stepped back, as if staring at a coiled rattlesnake preparing to strike rather than mere paper and ink. Sometimes words and images could injure more deeply than fangs and venom.
The deliveries had started about a month earlier. The first had sent her reeling—a crime scene photo of her father, killed while on the job, his broken body lying in the snow, surrounded by blood and brain tissue. The warning written on the back: Your father wasn’t the hero you think he was. He was a dirty cop. Soon the world will know it. And you’ll be the one to pay for his crimes.
The second envelope arrived a week later. It contained a grainy photo of her father and a man she couldn’t identify meeting in the shadows near a seedy North Salem bar. A log of her father’s cell phone was also included, highlighting several calls made to the same number. Since then, she’d determined the phone log was fake, but the highlighted number was real, assigned at the time to a burner phone, long since discarded. Another dead end.
The first time Leigh had opened an envelope, she was alone, with no one to help her bear the brunt of the brutal blow. But later that evening, she had found herself at Matt’s front door. Only then, as he’d eased some of the weight from her shoulders, was she able to break free of her cocoon of shock and pain to start thinking like the investigator she was. When the second package arrived, they’d opened it together, his large body beside her, cementing her own strength and determination.
Now she was on her own again, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to face this new nightmare alone.
It had been weeks since the last delivery, and in some small part of her mind, she’d closed off the worry and the pain of her father’s loss. But that door was wide open now, the pain rising to engulf her once again.
Struggling for calm, she picked up the framed photograph on the end table. It was her academy graduation photo, and she and her father were both in their Massachusetts State Police dress uniforms. Memories of that day flooded back in a rush—entering the auditorium behind the pipes and drums, being inspected and then addressed by the governor of Massachusetts, followed by swearing faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the thrill of her badge being pinned on for the very first time. Layered over it all was her father’s pride that his only child was following in his footsteps. The Abbotts had been cops for nearly one hundred years, and the tradition continued with Leigh.
Everything was so shiny and new back then. Before mistakes were made. Before lives were lost and reputations were soiled forever.
The fingers of her right hand slipped inside the neckline of her shirt, unerringly finding the small circle of hardened scar tissue above her left breast. Her head bent low as heat and shame seeped through her, stopping her breath and making her heart skip unevenly. Trooper Len Morrison’s words echoed hollowly in her head: I don’t know how you live with yourself. You killed a cop, a fellow officer. You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself.
Her stomach clenched and her palms went clammy, but she dug deep, pushing away the guilt and the sorrow. You did nothing wrong. The people that count know it and that’s all that matters.
Leigh wondered if she told herself that enough times, she might someday believe it.
Her gaze flicked back to the envelope, anger rising like a hot tide, swamping shame and giving her a rope to clutch before she slipped any further into the pit. Goddamn whoever was sending these packages. And goddamn her own weakness that allowed him to have this kind of power over her. The only way to fight that weakness was to meet it head-on.
Someone was trying to sully her father’s good name. She didn’t know why, but really, the “why” didn’t matter. What mattered was that she couldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow it. Sergeant Nathaniel Abbott was an honored member of the force, a man who had died in the line of duty, a man who was still talked about with reverence and respect to this day.
She’d do whatever it took it keep it that way.
Leigh sat down on the couch and pulled off her messenger bag. Digging inside, she drew out a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on before reaching for the newest envelope. She ripped open the e
nd and tipped the contents out onto the coffee table. There were three file folders, each crammed with paper and encircled with an elastic band. Her clenched stomach relaxed a fraction. Nothing directly related to her father … yet.
She picked up the first file, sliding off the elastic band and flipping it open. Inside was a Salem Police Department case file of a drug bust in Salem four years ago. She recognized the area in North Salem, knew it was a high-crime neighborhood brimming with low-income tenements and high unemployment. The file outlined the case against Doug Palmer, arrested on charges of possessing both heroin and cocaine with the intent to distribute. But unlike the files crossing her desk every day, this file was sanitized—witness evidence was included, but names and identifying information, like addresses and phone numbers, were blacked out. Leigh flipped through the rest of the file: case photos, lab and fingerprint reports, court documents. It was all there, but the only relevant names in the file were the officers involved and the perp.
Leigh moved on to the second file. It chronicled another drug bust, this time of a pair of students from Salem State University for possession and distribution of marijuana. Again, the file was complete, but sanitized, and nothing stood out.
She picked up the thickest of the three files. This file had combined documentation from both the Salem P.D.’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Essex Detective Unit.
It was a case gone wrong in every way possible. Not only drugs, but also illegal firearms. Attempting to escape, the perps had opened fire on the Salem P.D. In the end, one suspect was injured and another lay dead. Tragically, so was an eight-year-old boy in the adjoining apartment from a bullet that pierced the paper-thin wall and lodged in the back of his head while he sat eating dinner. Surprise shivered through Leigh as she recognized a name. Both deaths were investigated by Trooper First Class Robert Mercer of the Essex Detective Unit.