MASS MURDER

by Lynn Bohart

  Giorgio concentrated on the blonde next to Olsen, trying to figure out why he looked familiar. He had a narrow jaw line, a straight nose, and looked to be about five-foot ten. His face was in profile, making it difficult to identify more than that. The second man stood close to the camera and off to one side, facing Olsen. Only his right forearm and hand were visible. In his hand was a cigarette. Across the back of his hand was the tattoo of an eagle. Something about the photo tugged at Giorgio’s memories, but the harder he tried to release the connection, the more stubborn it became.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock when Giorgio finished going through the box. He kept the picture with the Basset Hound on top, thinking he’d talk to McCready about it the next day. He went upstairs to check on Angie, but she slept peacefully. Her mere presence filled the room with the same mellow warmth he felt when he swallowed a good brandy. It was good to have her home.

  Downstairs, he was just finishing some roast beef and potatoes when the phone rang.

  “Hello, Detective, this is Elvira Applebaum. I’m not disturbing you, I hope. I know it’s late.”

  She sounded very tired herself, and Giorgio rubbed his face, feeling the fatigue of the last few days catch up with him.

  “No, it’s fine. What can I do for you?”

  “Mother remembered something. I just got home and thought I should call you right away.”

  All the fatigue washed away in an instant and he was alert and listening. “Yes, what is it?”

  “There was a time capsule. You know those things they bury and then dig up years later. I guess the monks buried one back in the fifties. Dad was asked to put copies of the building plans inside, and so he included both sets of the original plans. Mom said he wasn’t supposed to put in both sets, but he did. He told mom that someday, somebody would find out the truth. I hope it helps.” Her voice caught and he heard a deep sigh on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m sure it will, Ms. Applebaum. Did she say where the capsule might be buried?”

  “Only that it was near the statue of a large angel. That’s all mother knew. She wanted to help.” Her voice faltered this time and Giorgio caught her.

  “Ms. Applebaum…how is your mother?”

  “She died this afternoon, Detective.” There was a pause. “She was a good woman, Detective. I’m going to miss her terribly.”

  “She’s been a big help, Ms. Applebaum. I’m sorry for your loss, but thank you for calling.”

  A glance up the stairs reminded him there was nothing he could do for Angie. Yet, finishing his task in the den seemed too passive. He needed to take action, so he picked up the phone and talked briefly with Father Damian before calling his brother. The last call was to Mrs. Greenspan.

  He and Rocky approached the cemetery carrying a shovel and two high-beamed flashlights. A soft breeze crept through the trees and the lonesome hoot of an owl punctuated the fact they were about to dig up a graveyard. The clouds covering the moon made a sojourn into a cemetery at night all the more spooky.

  Father Damian had given them permission. The headstones were arranged into quadrants around a tall, stone cross rising like a maypole from the middle of the graveyard. The life-size statue of the angel sat directly behind the cross, positioned on a six-foot square block of granite. It was the one Giorgio had seen the day he’d found Dorman. The angel didn’t have a name, but held a book or tablet in her hand. At the base of the statue an inscription read, “For He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. ~ Psalm 91:11 .”

  “Okay,” Giorgio began, “Ms. Applebaum didn’t know where this time capsule was buried − just that it was somewhere near the statue.”

  “Then I’d better go back and get the pick. This ground is as hard as rock.” Rocky sent a spray of dust up with the heel of his boot to emphasize his point.

  “You might want to keep your voice down a bit,” Giorgio warned. “It’s almost midnight. The monks are asleep.”

  Rocky silently handed the shovel to Giorgio before disappearing down the path. Giorgio felt adrift in a sea of darkness and directed the flashlight around him in order to identify his surroundings. The beam revealed grave markers one row at a time while the leaves continued to murmur in the background like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise. At one point, the flashlight flickered and went out. He shook it hard, slapping the batteries back and forth inside the metal casing. A cold breeze swirled around his neck, making him wish Rocky would hurry up. He shook the flashlight again, and the beam burst into action making an erratic arc across a line of gravestones. When it caught something in its path, Giorgio froze, sucking in a blast of cold air.

  Slowly he brought the light back until it came to rest on the large granite ball mounted atop the grave with the weird inscription. Giorgio paused, feeling his chest tighten. Framed by the depthless shadows on either side, a shimmering image of the young boy appeared next to the grave. He was dressed in the same dark knickers and starched white shirt, and although it was a fogless night, a mist hovered about his narrow shoulders. The boy stared at Giorgio, his arms dangling by his sides, something clutched in his left hand. Giorgio felt rooted to the spot, cement flowing in his veins. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Seconds passed. Finally, the boy extended his hand. In it was a long, serrated knife.

  The cement slipped through Giorgio’s veins like cool gel, and he felt his bowels shift uncomfortably. He stared at the boy wondering what he was supposed to do. The police manual didn’t cover anything like this. Where the hell was Rocky?

  “What do you want?” he whispered.

  Giorgio’s hand trembled. He had been in many dangerous situations before, even facing down a maniac strapped to a bomb. Yet, he’d never felt cold fear like this.

  “Please, what do you want?”

  The boy pointed the knife directly at the grave by his side. Giorgio strained to remember who was buried there. The sound of crunching gravel made him glance over his shoulder. Rocky was returning. When Giorgio turned back, the boy’s image dissipated into a misty trail and swirled past his right shoulder. Giorgio flinched back from the blast of cold air only to find the boy right in front of him, floating a few inches above the square of bricks at the angel’s feet. With a quick snap of his wrist, the boy flung the knife to the ground where it stuck in between two bricks.

  “Hey, Jo Jo, what are you looking at?”

  Giorgio’s head snapped around.

  “You’re supposed to be looking for the time capsule, not staring at the statue,” Rocky snarled. “Point that light at the…whoa!”

  Rocky stopped ten feet from the statue. He carried a pick over his shoulder, and his own flashlight now crisscrossed with Giorgio’s. The knife was caught in between the two beams, wavering slightly in the night air. There was no sign of the boy.

  “Where did that come from?”

  Giorgio’s tongue had swollen to fit the inside of his mouth. It was clear Rocky hadn’t seen the apparition, and yet it didn’t seem reasonable to say a ghost had thrown the knife. Fortunately, Rocky didn’t leave much room for idle chatter.

  “That’s one of those bread knives, isn’t it?” Rocky stepped forward and retrieved the knife. “You’d think the monks wouldn’t leave these things lying around. Wonder why it’s out here? Oh, well,” he dismissed the thought and tossed the knife aside. “Let’s get busy. Where should we dig?”

  Giorgio watched the knife disappear into thin air. A glance at his brother told him Rocky had missed the special effects and was already wandering around looking for the time capsule.

  “Don’t bother looking,” Giorgio said, swallowing hard. “I think we’ll find what we’re looking for right there.” He pointed to where the knife had been.

  Giorgio squatted down and began brushing dirt off several bricks, looking over his shoulder once or twice to see if the boy was nearby. Rocky grabbed the shovel, slipping the tip of it under the corner of the first brick until it gave way. He did the same to five or
six more. Giorgio used the pick to lift bricks, throwing them carelessly aside. While they worked, the bank of clouds above them separated into long strands, finally revealing a full moon.

  “What if we don’t find it?” Rocky asked, out of breath.

  “Then we come back tomorrow with a backhoe.”

  They continued to work silently until all the bricks lay in a large pile. Then Rocky put his boot against the back end of the shovel and starting digging, relying on Giorgio to loosen stubborn chunks of soil with the pick. After only a few minutes, they were rewarded with the sound of metal hitting metal.

  “Hot damn!” Rocky exclaimed.

  Rocky used the shovel to pull away the dirt around a metal tube the size of a child’s coffin. The size and shape stopped him, and he looked at Giorgio with trepidation.

  “Go ahead,” Giorgio encouraged. “If it’s not the time capsule, at most, it’s probably a dog or something.” He said this with only mild conviction as Rocky lifted the container out.

  Once it was above ground, they both leaned in to get a better look. It appeared to be made from corrugated aluminum or light steel. A metal band encircled it. Giorgio took out his Swiss blade to break the seal. The lid popped up, and Giorgio flashed the light into the interior, revealing a roll of papers set atop several smaller items.

  “Let’s take it inside,” Giorgio said, feeling the need to leave the graveyard behind.

  They carried the container through the large kitchen and stepped through a back door into the dining room. Giorgio flipped on a light, and Rocky laid the capsule on the first long wooden table. Giorgio grabbed a thick roll of aged, stained paper, while Rocky sifted through the rest of the contents. Giorgio had the original architectural drawings of the monastery.

  He rolled them out onto the table. The first was dated March 1925. Edward Applebaum’s name was scrawled in the lower right hand corner. Giorgio grabbed his flashlight and used his finger to locate the main entrance and what was now Father Damian’s office. Following the corridor around to the right, he came to Anya Peters’ office. Then he traced his finger along the area in between the two offices where the tunnel existed, but it wasn’t indicated in any way.

  He set aside this first set of drawings and pulled forward the second set, which was dated October 1938. Applebaum was again listed as the architect, but again, Giorgio couldn’t find a tunnel.

  “I don’t get it,” he said to Rocky. “The secret tunnel doesn’t exist according to these plans. Yet, I’d swear this set includes the renovations for the boy’s school.”

  Rocky stopped reading an article he held and looked over at his brother. “Did you look at the second sheet?”

  Giorgio looked at him stupidly and then lifted the top sheet to reveal identical plans underneath. The year was the same, but it was dated two months later. In the area between Father Damian’s and Peters’ offices were two dotted lines. The dotted lines extended north to a set of steps, then turned east and wound along the north side of the building, ending under the east staircase. Giorgio grinned.

  “Bingo!”

  Rocky looked to where Giorgio pointed at the tunnel and nodded. “Okay, but we already know about that one.”

  “Yes, but look here.” Giorgio pointed to the bottom of the sheet where a duplicate outline of the exterior of the building had been drawn and labeled “second floor”. A large water stain smudged the northern side of the monks’ quarters, but Giorgio located the two staircases leading to the second floor.

  “All along here are the monks’ rooms.” His finger trailed along a solid line with doorways clearly indicated and stopped at a small square at the end of the hallway. “I’ll bet anything this is the upstairs supply closet.” His finger traced a dotted line ran across the interior wall of the closet. No such line appeared across any other doorway. “Look at this dotted line. This wall was built to separate the boys’ bedrooms from the monks’ quarters when the school was in operation.”

  “Okay, but what’s the significance?”

  Giorgio looked at Rocky. “I think this is what insulted Applebaum’s sense of morality. It appears the monks didn’t want to be cut off from the boys’ quarters after all.”

  Rocky’s eyebrows lifted as he understood the implication. “So, you were right. There is a secret door?”

  “Now all we have to do is find it.”

  “Take a look at this.” Rocky held up an old newspaper clipping in which the headline read, Monk Murdered! “It was tucked inside this little pouch. There are several more.”

  Rocky held up a leather pouch and laid out the other articles, all having to do with the murder. He found one dated December 27, 1943. “This was five years after the monastery was turned into a boy’s school.” He picked up a second article and began to read. “St. Michael’s Catholic Boys School will be temporarily closed due to a series of incidents involving suicide and murder. On the day before Christmas, while most of the boys were away for the holidays, Father Anton Wingate was found stabbed to death in his bed. A day later, Christian Maynard, a fifth-year student, was found hanging from his window. Maynard confessed to the murder in a note found in his room. While priests refused comment, fellow students reported gross misconduct by several priests.” Rocky stopped. “I wonder if this murder has anything to do with ours.” When Giorgio didn’t respond, Rocky looked up but Giorgio was staring off into space. “What’s the matter?”

  Giorgio turned slowly in his direction. “What did you say about a boy hanging from his window?”

  Rocky picked up one of the clippings and skimmed the copy until he found the spot he was looking for. “A day later, Christian Maynard, a student, was found hanging by a rope from his window. Police believe he murdered the monk out of rage, committing suicide afterwards. According to his roommate, a Robert O’Leary, Maynard was a quiet boy who was deeply ashamed.”

  “So, he hung himself.” Giorgio’s face had lost all its elasticity. “Is there a picture?”

  “Yeah, but they’re not too great.”

  Rocky placed the paper on the table and pulled out his flashlight. Two small pictures accompanied the article. One was of a man with a long, pious face and gray hair cut so close he looked nearly bald. He was dressed in a black robe and collar, with a large metal cross hanging around his neck. The caption read, “Father Anton Wingate”. The second picture looked like one of the school pictures taken for parents’ day. The boy in the picture was dressed in a crisp white shirt and black jacket, with a black ribbon tied at the neck. His curly dark hair was cut above his ears, and he offered only a half smile to the camera. Giorgio stared at the picture so long, Rocky finally spoke.

  “What are you thinking? You don’t think this murder is connected to ours?”

  “I’m not sure, but I am beginning to think this monastery is an unholy place.”

  A cold frost had settled into his bones as a decades-old murder collided with his present day investigation. The young boy staring back at him from the newspaper article was Christian Maynard; it was Christian Maynard who had just led them to the time capsule in the graveyard. It was also Father Wingate’s grave that Christian Maynard had pointed to with the knife. Giorgio forced himself to shift his gaze back to the building plans as the only way to quiet the raging thoughts in his head.

  “The monks used the closet to gain access to the boys,” he said. “And young Maynard must have used the same secret door to get to Father Wingate’s room in order to kill him.”

  “Just like our murderer?”

  Giorgio looked at his brother. “Just like our murderer.”

  Rocky went back to reading one of the articles when Giorgio grabbed his arm and stopped him again. “Rocky, what did you say Maynard’s roommate’s name was again?”

  Rocky looked back at the clipping. “Robert O’Leary. Oh, hell…you don’t think…could this be Father O’Leary? After all these years?”

  “O’Leary had to be in his seventies. I don’t know how old these boys were, but they were p
robably pretty young.”

  “So, O’Leary was a student here. That means he probably knew about the secret door.”

  “And I’ll bet he shared that information with someone living here now who used it for the wrong reasons.”

  “And that person killed O’Leary to make sure the secret died with him.”

  Giorgio rolled up the papers and stashed everything back in the box. “I think we have more digging to do, but not in the graveyard. It’s too late to do anything more tonight. But tomorrow we find that secret door.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Giorgio slept little that night. His mind raced over the details coming together to form the narrative of a first-class ghost story, complete with child sexual predators, murder, and suicide. And that wasn’t even the case he was working on.

  The next morning he asked Mrs. Greenspan to stay with Angie while he went to the station. He left Angie dozing peacefully by the fire, with Mrs. Greenspan making homemade chicken soup in the kitchen. He pulled into the back parking lot of the small police station ignoring the swarm of press that clamored for a statement. His deadline for the press conference was looming, and he had no idea what he would say. Swan wasn’t in yet, but McCready was at his computer.

  “Anything new?” Giorgio looked over the young cop’s shoulder.

  “We have a list of people Olsen hung out with in Chicago and are tracking down their current addresses. We also talked to the family again, getting some background information on anyone they were familiar with.”

  “Any familiar names?”

  “Not yet.” McCready nodded towards his flat screen monitor. “I’m doing background checks on everyone at the conference, including whatever financials I can find. So far, a woman named Barbara Yanks was arrested for a DUI six years ago; a guy named Peter Wright served time for petty theft; and Marsh has filed twice for bankruptcy.”