MASS MURDER (55 page)

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 com
e 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 th
e 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 li
fted 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 193
8
.
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 smudge
d the northern side of the monk
s
’
quarters, but Giorgio located the two staircas
es leading to the second floor.

“
A
ll 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 mo
nk
s
’
quarters whe
n 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, 19
43
.
“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?”

“Ye
ah, 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 nec
k
.
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 t
he 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.
”