Murder In the Past Tense (A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery Book 2) (14 page)

“Did she ever have Jimmy’s baby?” Giorgio asked.

Lincoln stuck out his lower jaw. “Naw. She got rid of it. But if you’re looking for someone who might have killed that girl, I’d be looking at Jimmy’s brother, Marvin.”

“Why?” Giorgio asked.

“He was home on leave from the Army back then. He’d watch her through the window… thought she was hot. That made Jimmy mad, and I guess they argued about it. Cheryl told me that Marvin said something like, ‘If you’re not going to take her for a ride, then I just might.’”

“Where would we find Marvin?” Rocky asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“I’ll need your sister’s contact information,” Giorgio said to him.

The man shrugged, indicating he couldn’t write while his hands were tied. Giorgio released him; they got the information they needed and left.

As he and Rocky climbed into the car a few minutes later, Giorgio called McCready to find Marvin Finn, and then dialed the local police department. He told them they might like to pay a visit to Mr. Lincoln within the next few minutes if they wanted to retrieve some stolen property.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Giorgio walked through his front door that night, he felt as if he could sleep for a week. Too many early morning wake-up calls by the ghost of Christian Maynard, along with the frustrating trip to Seattle.

“You’re home early,” Angie said, as he walked into the kitchen.

The aroma of cheese had saliva flooding his mouth again. He came to stand next to his wife at the counter. She was cutting up vegetables for a salad.

“We’ve kind of hit a wall on this cold case. I’m waiting to hear if they’ve learned anything more on those two recent deaths.”

He reached around her and nabbed a sliced carrot and popped it into his mouth. She slapped the back of his hand.

“Stop that. Dinner will be ready in about a half hour.”

“Smells like macaroni and cheese. Please let it be macaroni and cheese.”

She smiled indulgently. “You’re so transparent. I know darn well you only married me for my cooking.”

He threw his arms around her waist and hugged her. “That and your mother’s apple pie recipe,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Is there any chance we’re having
that
for dessert?”

Laughter bubbled up in her throat. “No.”

He leaned in and nibbled her neck.

“Joe, stop that,” she said, trying to push him away.

“We could go upstairs, you know,” he whispered. “You said we have half an hour. I’m tired, but not
that
tired.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she chided. “Now go say hello to the kids and let me finish.”

He gave her a pat on the rear. “Okay, but if there’s no apple pie, I expect your own special dessert later on.”

He gave her a double lift to his eyebrows as he exited into the hallway. She smiled and shook her head.

Tony and Marie were in the den, each huddled over their electronic tablets. Grosvenor was sprawled in front of the cold fireplace.

“What are you kids doing?” he said.

“Playing games,” Marie murmured without looking up.

Tony didn’t even respond.

“Hey! Tony!” Giorgio bellowed. “Did you go deaf?”

Tony looked up, his dark eyes devoid of expression. “What?” he said.

“Do you guys ever talk to each other anymore?”

Marie rolled her eyes. “Geez, Dad. What’s the big deal?”

Grosvenor struggled to his feet and lumbered over, pushing his head in between Giorgio’s legs.

“The big deal is no one ever talks to each other around here anymore. When I asked you the other day to find out what Tony wanted from McDonald’s, you sent him some sort of message through your tablet. He was only in his bedroom!”

“Gee, Dad, you used to complain that all we did was watch TV,” Tony said, already refocused on the electronic screen again.

Giorgio paused. Tony had a point. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d force them to turn off the TV. Now he wanted them to put down their tablets. But he was beginning to worry that an entire generation was forgetting how to actually speak to each other.

“Tell you what, why don’t we do some Christmas shopping later? We could all go down to the mall.”

That had their attention.

“Really?” Tony exclaimed. “Can I look for night vision goggles?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Giorgio said. “We’re going to eat in about thirty minutes.”

And they went back to their games.

Giorgio sauntered back to the kitchen, Grosvenor following at his heels.

“I’m beginning to think we should never have let your parents get them those tablets,” he said to Angie. “It’s all they do.”

“Tony asked for a cell phone yesterday,” she said, pouring salad dressing over the salad.

“No way!” Giorgio said, opening the refrigerator. “It’s bad enough that Marie has one.”

“She’s only a year older than him, Joe.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need one. He’s in the third grade. Who’s he going to call?”

He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

“First of all,” she said, turning to place the filled salad bowl on the table, “Kids don’t call anyone anymore. They only text.” She smiled. “I think we’ll just have to get used to it.”

“I don’t like it,” he said, pulling out one of the chairs and sitting down as he popped the top to the beer can. “It’s not normal. What happened to kids going outside to play after school? That tree house I built for Tony last year has hardly been used.”

“I know, Joe,” she said patiently.

“I told them we’d go to the mall later. I want to find those night vision goggles, anyway. Can you keep him busy while I try to find them?”

She smiled indulgently. “I thought you told him you weren’t going to get those.”

“Well, if I told him I was, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Are we getting that hair dryer for Marie?”

“Sure,” Angie said. “Maybe a curling iron, too.”

Giorgio rolled his eyes. “Oh God, you’re encouraging her.”

Angie laughed lightly. Then she gave Giorgio a lifted eyebrow. “You know, you could help set the table rather than just sitting there like the lord of the manor.”

He grimaced. “Sorry.” He got up and reached into a cupboard to grab four plates. As he put them on the table, Angie spoke.

“By the way, Joe, I talked with Elvira again today.”

He stopped on his way to get the silverware. “Is the state inspection on again?”

“No,” she replied, pulling the casserole dish out of the oven. “I think that’s a lost cause. But she had an offer for me.”

Angie put the dish on a trivet in the middle of the table and went to get a serving spoon.

“She wants me to work for her,” she said, grabbing a large spoon out of an old ceramic pitcher on the counter. She turned to Giorgio. “I’d work at one of the bigger day care centers teaching letters and numbers to the smaller children. Simple stuff.  What do you think?”

He was placing forks and knives around the table. “What about Tony and Marie? Who would be here when they got home from school?”

“Don’t worry, Joe. I’d only be working in the mornings. I’d be home when the kids got home. You’re worse than my mother,” she said, going back to the stove to get a sauce pan with green beans.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, finishing his job. “No one could be worse than your mother. If she had her way, you’d be married to Marty Friedberg just because he’s a dentist and is home every night by five o’clock.”

“Marty Friedberg is a nice man,” she said, draining the beans.

“He’s the biggest bore I ever met,” Giorgio said, taking his place at the table again. “When we were at your cousin’s wedding two years ago, he actually cornered me and asked me if I’d thought about getting my teeth whitened.”

She chuckled as she dumped the beans into a dish. “You could stand to have your teeth whitened. You drink too much Coke.”

“Humph,” he groaned. “Teeth whitening is for models and pretty boys. If I flashed a big pearly white smile at some of the guys I come into contact with, they’d die laughing.”

“Better than shooting you,” she said. “Now, call the kids.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Giorgio relaxed into his pillow feeling a soft glow from the rich dessert served up in bed that night by Angie. She snored softly next to him, her auburn hair sprayed across the pillow. He’d known Angie since before high school. Deep down, he’d always known she was the one, even though there had been a few other girlfriends along the way. But once she had corralled him, he’d never turned back.

They say you shouldn’t look for a relationship to complete you, but there was no doubt that Giorgio was nothing without Angie. She didn’t just complete him – she made him a better person.

Clink!

His head jerked toward the window.

Clink!

He glanced at Angie, but she hadn’t budged.

He got out of bed and moved quietly to the curtains. Big white clouds dotted the sky, outlined by an iridescent moon. A breeze moved the branches of the elm tree, and hovering by the garage was the image of Christian Maynard.

Giorgio shivered.

How many more times would this happen? And what the hell was Christian’s message this time?

He glanced at the clock next to the bed. It was only a little after midnight. Damn! He hadn’t even been to sleep yet.

Angie didn’t wake this time when he got dressed. He slipped into the hallway and into Marie’s room, where Grosvenor was sleeping. A few minutes later, man and dog were once again going for a late night walk.

It was colder tonight, and the air was damp. He pulled up the collar to his coat, took a deep breath to quiet his nerves and began to follow the boy again.

This time, the boy took him straight to the Pinney House, which loomed large in Giorgio’s mind now. There was obviously something about this place, something the boy wanted him to know. And the queasiness in his midsection told Giorgio it wasn’t going to be good.

Giorgio stopped again at the walkway that led to the porch. He didn’t want to go any further. Not because he might get caught, although that was a risk. But because his intuition was screaming at him that this wouldn’t turn out well.

The big building sat silently, like a brooding teenager in the dark. The boy had disappeared, but heavy clouds slipped across the sky in quiet procession, throwing deep, animated shadows across the yard.

When Giorgio caught a movement to the right of the porch, he saw that Christian had reappeared at the north side of the building. He was a pale shimmering form against the backdrop of bushes that separated the properties.

Giorgio glanced up at the big house again. All windows were dark, and a quick glance up and down the street told him he was alone. With a deep sigh, he hurried up the steps and cut across the lawn to where the boy’s image glistened in an unearthly light.

Giorgio had to step over a deep trench that ran from the back yard to the street. Then he ducked around the corner of the house. The boy had moved to a pair of French doors, but as soon as Giorgio got there, his image disappeared again.

Frustrated, Giorgio studied the side entrance to the house. Then he turned and eyed the trench that ran along the planters.

The trench was new. It was a couple of feet wide and looked to be about the same depth. It ran down the side yard, connecting to the house with a shorter trench that cut off at a forty-five degree angle right where the French doors opened. It did the same thing further back. Probably sewer lines, he thought to himself.

Flash!

Giorgio’s head jerked around and his heartbeat skipped. What the heck was that?

Something white had flashed at the back of the house.

He backed up a step.

Was it Christian?

He stared down the side yard, as a breeze slipped past him to flutter the leaves of the bushes nearby. When he didn’t see or hear anything, his instincts took over and he reached for his gun.

But of course he'd left the house without it.

Gathering up the leash in his left hand, he pulled Grosvenor and crept along the side of the house. As he approached the back yard, all he could hear was a frog croaking and the soft rustle of leaves. He cornered the house and found a square brick pond in the middle of a square yard, moonlight reflecting off the water’s surface. A short brick wall surrounded the pond, and framing that were trimmed hedges.

Without the holiday lights, the back yard was steeped in deep shadows. Fortunately, as the clouds moved past, the moon revealed parts of the yard to him.

Compared to the size of the house, the yard was small. Tall hedges enclosed the north and west sides of the yard, and hedges extended behind the garage to the far side of the property. This created a barrier that gave the area complete privacy. The trench turned the corner and was connected again to the back of the house near the kitchen.

So, what the heck had caused the streak of white he'd seen?

It could have been his imagination, but then again, it could have been a cat. He was about to retrace his steps, when he realized the frog had stopped making racket. The yard was deathly quiet.

He glanced nervously around.

Grosvenor jerked at the leash and began to dig in the trench under the basement window.

Giorgio yanked him back.

“Grosvenor!” he snapped in a hoarse whisper. “Come here.”

But Grosvenor was already flinging dirt up into the air.

Giorgio forcibly dragged him away from the trench and moved back toward the pond. He stood for a moment, wondering what to do next.

Once again, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Something glistened in the water at his feet, and his heart seemed to short-circuit.

Giorgio glanced down. An image began to materialize, like a photo developing in a photographer’s tray.

It was a young woman – naked from the waist up – standing behind him.

He spun around. And that’s when he nearly lost it.

The woman wasn’t standing as much as hovering behind him. The outline of her body shimmered in the moonlight, as if lit by some inner source.

Giorgio took an involuntary step backward, bumping into the wall of the pond. He caught himself just before he fell. His heart pounded and a prickly heat spread across his skin.

God, now he was seeing two ghosts!

Grosvenor took the opportunity to lie down. Apparently dogs didn’t see ghosts. But Giorgio couldn’t help gawking at this new apparition.

A large cloud had finally covered the moon, blotting out any natural light. The darkness accentuated Giorgio’s isolation, making him feel incredibly vulnerable.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. But as he kept staring, his cop's eye for detail kicked in.

The girl had short, dark hair and she wore old-fashioned glasses. Her upper torso was bare, exposing a set of full breasts – well breast. There was only a gaping hole where her left breast would have been and blood streaming down her torso. She was slender and wore a nurse’s cap, but nothing else.

And then more unsettling details began to emerge.

She had what looked like knife wounds across her chest and arms. One eyebrow was completely gone. Her mouth sagged at one corner, and one side of her neck was smeared with something dark that ran across her shoulder.

He zeroed in on this and felt the sour taste of bile seep into his mouth.

Her ear was missing.

And when he glanced down to her feet again, he realized that both big toes were gone, leaving ragged skin behind.

He felt the sudden urge to run, but the appearance of a second apparition stopped him.

This time, he let out an involuntary gasp and dropped down onto the wall surrounding the pond, using one hand to steady himself.

What the hell was happening?

As the second girl’s image sharpened, he realized that she was completely naked and probably not more than fifteen. She hovered near the back door of the house, near the basement window where Grosvenor had been digging.

Her head had been shaved, and dark stains extended down her abdomen in sweeping curves, as if her skin had been peeled away in large splotches. And it looked like she was missing the fingers on her right hand.

Giorgio began to feel sick to his stomach, and it seemed as if his hearing had shut down. The only sound he was aware of was the blood pounding through his eardrums.

A breeze scattered some leaves across the lawn at his feet, but he just stared at the two girls. When he became aware of something next to him, he turned to his left.

A hand was reaching for him out of the darkness.

Giorgio bolted sideways and tripped over Grosvenor’s leash, landing sprawled on the lawn.

A third girl hovered over the pond.

Bile actually poured into his mouth now, and he had to control his gag reflex.

He sat up and leaned forward, dropping his head between his knees, forcing himself to take deep breaths. After two or three, he glanced up.

The third girl was also naked and had shoulder-length hair and small breasts – but her nipples had been removed, leaving bloody gouges behind. She had other wounds, too – multiple cuts all over her body.

With growing alarm, he watched as she gestured to the ground beneath her feet, her face an expressionless mask.

Giorgio was puzzled, but glanced back at the girl by the tree. She was also pointing to the ground below her.

They were buried here,
he thought to himself.

He looked up at the girl by the back door, and his insides shifted. She wasn’t pointing at the ground. She was pointing through the basement window.

“Shit!” he whispered. That could only mean one thing.

There were more buried in the basement.

And then all three were gone. All of them. The moment he had that thought. The cloud passed from in front of the moon, and he and Grosvenor were alone.

He sat for a moment, allowing his breathing and heart rate to return to normal. Moments later, the frog began to croak again.

Giorgio got unsteadily to his feet.

These girls had been tortured, murdered and then buried here. His question had finally been answered. He knew why Christian Maynard had brought him to the Pinney House.

But now what the hell was he supposed to do about it?