Death by Nostalgia

by Andrew Stanek

  Death by Nostalgia

  by Andrew Stanek

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  --Andrew Stanek

  More Felix Green Mysteries

  •Death By Nostalgia

  • Murder on Wheels

  •Death in Detail

  •Shell Game

  •Vanquished

  •Heartbreak

  •The Murder Next Door

  •Vanishing Act

  •Domino Effect

  •Payment in Full

  •Falling Problem

  •Murderer’s Dilemma

  •Killer’s Quartet

  •Great Circle

  •This Murder I Made

  Chapter 1

  “It’s an emotional day at the Twentieth Street Apartment Complex as families from all across Great Redmond City have congregated here to say one final farewell to their old homes and neighborhood.” The news anchor turned with a flourish to a small crowd of people behind her, gathered around the extremity of a chain-linked fence that circled a rather old and dilapidated-looking series of tenements. Though the structures were painted bright colors, red, blue, and green, it could not have been plainer that the paint was little more than an attempt to mask the advanced state of decay of the buildings. Sections of the structures appeared to be actively crumbling, with great hunks of concrete missing, and their lower levels were blanketed with graffiti. Around these lower floors, men in hard-hats were making final inspections of earlier handiwork.

  After a dramatic shot of the crowd, the news anchor continued. “The workmen you see here are planting explosive charges, and we have all been told to move to a safe distance, behind this fence, to wait. As the work crews prepare to demolish the old projects buildings, residents and community members share their memories of the once landmark Redmond structure with us.”

  She turned to an elderly-looking man who had been waiting patiently beside the camera, who launched into his own explanation.

  “Sure, they was never the prettiest buildings in the town,” he croaked. “But I for one am going to miss them. I grew up in them, you know? They don’t build buildings like that any more. Built solid. No drywall or wood. Every inch concrete, ‘specially the floors. Felt you could survive anything sitting down there in the tunnels. And we never had a fire that I could remember. It was windy up in the upper floors. Made your voice carry you were facin’ the right direction. I used to be able to shout to my buddies-”

  While the anchor waited politely for the old man to finish his story, others - plainly - were not so patient. Members of the crowd who had been listening to the news broadcast with interest began to peel away from the group, including a tall woman with sleek, black hair. She shifted over towards a smaller knot of people and greeted them with a friendly wave and nod of the head.

  “Good to see you, Adriana,” said a tall, dark-haired young man.

  “I can’t believe we’re all back here after so many years,” replied Adriana Kettering. “It’s good to be back.” Something in her tone, however, made her sound less than thankful to actually be standing in this group of people. “Great to see all the old faces again. And Jack? How have you been?”

  “Fine, fine,” muttered Jack Kettering a bit noncommittally. “Well, you know how it is. Been a bit tough ever since the dealership went under.” Jack was a shorter man with dark brown hair. He seemed to squirm under the combined gazes of the group and thrust his hands moodily into the pockets of his jacket.

  “Ah, but you’ll be alright, eh, Jack?” said the tall, dark-haired young man from before. “I’ll bet if you ever get into any real trouble you can just ask for a little help from your sister, eh?” The young man clapped Jack Kettering hard on the arm; Jack shot him a look of utter loathing.

  “Davey, can’t you stop teasing Jack for once in your life?” complained a middle-aged blonde woman to his left. “Still behaving like you’re children. Honestly.”

  Davey Kempt shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe if you stopped treating us like children, Mrs. Hamilton, we’d stop behaving like it.”

  Reva Hamilton sighed heavily. “Oh... well... maybe it’s because we’ve all come back here, to twentieth street. You know you’ll always be children in my mind. I’ll never forget you playing in the street. Growing up here. This used to be such a nice neighborhood,” she added, glancing at the graffiti-strewn walls of the apartments.

  “Nonsense,” piped in a big man with a large, bushy mustache. “It was always subsidized, low-income housing and I’ll be glad to see it gone. No sense in getting all teary-eyed nostalgic about the place.”

  “William...” Mrs. Hamilton started, but she was cut off by a snort of disbelief and anger from behind her.

  “If it was such a terrible place, then why did you live here?” demanded a short young woman with mouse-colored hair.

  William Hamilton’s nostrils flared in agitation and he looked as if he were about to shout, but Reva tapped him on the arm and shook her head, and he fell silent.

  “Come on now, Vicky, let’s not fight,” said Adriana. Her voice still sounded a bit nervous. “We came here to be together, to have a reunion-”

  “As if I’m going to take a scolding from goddamn Victoria Melbrush,” snapped the mustached man before his wife again quieted him. Adriana ignored him. She looked as if she were about to speak, but then, something seemed to catch her eye.

  “My god, is that Peter Ulverson?” she asked suddenly. “Pete! Peter! Over here!” She did not seem to notice that Victoria had started giggling quite uncontrollably. William Hamilton, on the other hand, frowned in the direction that Adriana was shouting, sending his mustache wobbling in disapproval.

  “That’s all we need,” he scoffed, quietly enough that Adriana couldn’t hear him. “Peter Ulverson. Peter fu-”

  His wife shot him a sharp glance and he fell quiet.

  Adriana was forced shout quite loudly to attract Peter Ulverson’s attention. Their little group was quite far from the rest of the assembled onlookers, and between the ambient crowd noise and the sounds of the adjacent street, Adriana had to wave vigorously before she finally got her message across. However, she was successful in her effort. After a minute or so of loud shouting, a tall man in an army uniform emerged and walked over to their group.

  “Adriana,” he said, looking at her with surprise. “And Jack - Davey - Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton - and Vicky - so good to see you all. You - uh - you here to see the old home off too?”

  “With great reluctance,” muttered Mr. Hamilton. Mrs. Hamilton stepped on his foot.

  “Yes,” said Adriana a bit louder than she need have done, in an effort to mask Mr. Hamilton’s mutterings. “It’s good to see you, Peter. How have you been?”

  “Fine, fine. I just came back from a tour in Europe.”

  “Army letting you see the world then?” Davey asked with a shifty grin.

  “I suppose. I’ve just been posted to a few different bases - Germany, UK, Belgium - so I can’t say I’ve seen all that much of the world. It’s better than getting shot at in Afghanistan, I guess.”

  “Hope you get your head blown sky high, you little cretin,” hissed Mr. Hamilton.

  “So should we - uh - call you Peter? Or call you sergeant?” Victoria asked with another bit of a giggle. Davey glared moodily at her.

  Peter, for his part, coughed and ignored both Victoria and Mr. Hamilton. Adriana glanced all around and cleared her throat, then hastily changed the subject.

  “How’s your brother, Peter?”

  “Oscar? He’s fine, fine...”

  “Right. Well, Peter, I gathered everyone here today beca
use I think we ought to give our old home a send-off in high spirits,” she said. “Try to remember the good times. All the friends we made and the fun we had. And you know, I know we’ve had our differences-” her eyes flickered from her brother, Jack, to Davey Kempt. “-but I think it’s time we put all that aside and buried the hatchet. They’re demolishing this building today. Let’s put our history behind us with it, okay?”

  There was a very long pause as no one said anything.

  “Right,” said Adriana slowly. “I mean, come on. We’ve got to talk to each other. Remember when we were little kids, Vicky, and we used to go exploring?”

  “Yes,” she said, albeit somewhat vaguely. “I remember. I quite liked the old tunnels underneath the tower.”

  “Worried me sick, you did,” cut in Mrs. Hamilton. “I used to be terrified that you children had gotten lost down there. I’d come down and look for you only to find that you’d already come up back to the apartments. One or two times I nearly got lost down there too, but you children always seemed to know your way. Fortunately, I knew I always had William to come look for me if I got into real trouble.”

  Mrs. Hamilton wrapped her arm around her husband’s and gave him an affectionate look, which he seemed to return only with great reluctance.

  “I really do wish you’d stop calling us ‘you children,’” murmured Davey Kempt. “We are grown men and women, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “Of course you are, dear,” she replied distractedly; she was looking over her shoulder at the camera crew, who were now interviewing a mustachioed police officer with a lot of important-looking medals hanging from his chest.

  “Didn’t much care for the apartments myself,” commented Peter. “What I really remember was that mad bunker-place we found in the tunnels. You know, that weird old army room with all the helmets and stuff on the walls. We kind of made it into a secret base. I remember at first we didn’t tell Jack where it was. We left him all alone and he used to cry and cry-”

  Jack shot Peter a very nasty look, but Peter seemed not to notice.

  “Maybe we should go take a look around there, just for old times’ sake,” Adriana said suddenly.

  “Right when they’re just about to demolish the place?” Davey said with a snort. “Not a good idea.”

  “Oh, they aren’t destroying the tunnels,” Adriana shot back. “It’s miles away from the apartments.”

  “I’d say the real distance is more like a hundred yards,” Peter piped in. “Or less. Those tunnels wind so much it’s hard to tell - you could end up with the whole building falling on your head if you went down there now. As Davey said - not a good idea.”

  Adriana looked from one to the other, then shrugged and sighed. “Fine. But we have so much history here. I would really like to take one last look around the place.”

  “If we really want to bury the hatchet, I don’t think we should be digging up history,” Peter shot back.

  “I mean - we should focus on the positive things,” Adriana said enthusiastically.

  “There was nothing positive about this place,” muttered Mr. Hamilton.

  Vicky shook her head. “Sure there was,” she said. “Think of all the fun we had! Why I remember there used to be this grumpy old man who lived across the hall from me, and we had the greatest time teasing him behind his back because of what a stupid jackass he was.”

  There was another very pregnant pause. Mr. Hamilton seemed to have turned an unnatural shade of purple.

  “I lived across the hall from you,” he said slowly.

  “I know,” Vicky replied sweetly.

  “YOU LITTLE-”

  Hamilton lunged at her, but Peter quickly interposed himself between the pair of them.

  “Vicky, go-” Peter said urgently. “Just go!”

  With a vaguely satisfied look at the infuriated Mr. Hamilton, Vicky turned on heel and marched off.

  “Never learned to keep her big mouth shut,” Jack barked moodily. “Some things don’t change.”

  “Calm down, dear,” Mrs. Hamilton was saying, leading her husband away from the circle to a nearby chair.

  “Well, that’s put a damper on things,” Davey said with a shrug. “So much for your big attempt at reminiscence and reconciliation.” He too turned and left.

  Peter Ulverson gave Adriana a consoling pat on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Adriana. You tried your best. I’d maybe give it another ten years before trying to play the peacemaker.” He turned and went.

  Adriana’s brother, Jack, also had wandered away, and Adriana was left standing alone in the center of what had five minutes ago been a circle of old friends. She looked, bewildered, around at all her friends, drifting away in different directions, before finally walking away on her own.

  Neither Adriana nor anyone else had noticed a stranger standing near them, listening intently to every word that they’d said. He was a young man, tall and thin, with a clever glint in his eyes and flashes of gray amidst his short-cut crop of dark hair. As Adriana walked away, he watched her go with a curious look, then turned back to watch the apartment building with mild interest. His puffy dark jacket billowed in the wind as more construction workers emerged from the site.

  “I’m telling you, Jeb, we got these people too close to the charges. We should back them up another hundred feet.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. They’re already plenty far from the demolition site. Besides, they’ve got podiums and camera crews out there and whatnot. We can’t move them now.”

  “Fine excuse that’s going to be-”

  “There’s no way that explosion is going to hurt anyone in the crowd.”

  “It’s not the explosion I’m worried about. It’s the dust. Think about the wind. It gets windy here and it’s blowing straight towards the crowd...”

  The two arguing workers marched away, but still, the stranger remained standing where he was.

  Minutes ticked by. An announcement was made by loudspeaker.

  “Demolition will take place in one minute. Thirty seconds. Fifteen seconds. Ten... nine... eight... seven... six...” The crowd began to join in the countdown as every face turned towards the old apartment buildings. “FIVE... FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE!”

  A series of loud explosions rocked the buildings as strategically placed charges detonated in the lower levels of the apartments. The blasts kicked up an impressive amount of debris and, as the construction worker had speculated, dust. All around the crowd, people raised their smartphones and began madly snapping photographs of the spectacle. Nearby, the reporter was saying something about the demolition, but the commentary was lost to the noise. More explosions rocked the buildings as the detonations continued in series. Partway through, the stranger frowned.

  The blasts lasted about five seconds, and then the sound of the buildings collapsing lasted another five seconds or so. When the noise died away, the crowd started to cheer wildly, as if they’d witnessed the exhibition of a lifetime. On the stage, the important-looking police officer had returned and started to deliver a speech. The stranger did not look at him. His dark eyes remained fixed on the collapsed building. He continued to frown even as the bulldozers, backhoes, and trucks filed onto the site to remove the rubble. An hour or so ticked by. The crowd thinned and disappeared. Then, finally, the congregation that the stranger had been watching returned.

  Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were loitering near the stranger when Jack Kettering approached them.

  “Where the devil is your sister, boy?” Mr. Hamilton asked moodily. “She’s meant to be giving us a ride home.”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Jack replied, with equal sentiment. “I’ve not seen her for a while.”

  Davey Kempt sauntered by. “Her car’s still here, so don’t you worry Jack, your precious sister hasn’t deserted you.” Jack glared at him.

  After another minute or so, Peter Ulverson spotted the gathering and walked up to them. Vicky Melbrush was with him, hanging on to the sleeve of
his army uniform.

  “Have any of you seen Adriana?” he asked. “She’s not picking up her phone.”

  “She damn well better turn up soon,” Mr. Hamilton barked. “She’s meant to be driving us home.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Davey said unconcernedly. He and the Hamiltons walked off, leaving Jack, Peter, and Vicky. A few more minutes ticked by in idle conversation.

  “She really is late,” Peter said with a frown. “It’s not like her.”

  “Don’t you worry about her,” Vicky cooed to him. “We’ll go off and do something ourselves.”

  “I am worried though,” Peter murmured. “What if she went to the old tunnels just before the demolition? She might have died.”

  “She can take care of herself Peter,” Vicky reassured him. “Let’s go find some place to eat.”

  And they drifted away. Jack was left alone. For half an hour, an hour he stood stock still, tapping his foot. Then, finally, he reached into his pocket and fished out his cell phone.

  “Sis, if you’re getting this message, I’m walking home,” he said. And then he too left, and the stranger was alone. He was still frowning and his expression had darkened.

  Another hour, then two, drifted by. It became late afternoon, then early evening, as the stranger simply stood there and watched the construction workers clear away the remnants of the old building. He had the very peculiar attitude of someone waiting for something unpleasant.

  “Out with the old, in with the new,” the stranger muttered. “History, history. How curious. But was it really about history, I wonder? And how long before they find it?” He pulled his baggy black jacket close around him and continued to fix the construction site with a piercing stare. Minutes continued to tick by with every appearance of normalcy around him.