Murder In the Past Tense (A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery Book 2) (22 page)

He regarded Giorgio with a look of anger now firmly planted on his face.

“As I recall, it was late when Royce dropped me off,” he said in a monotone. “I wasn’t feeling well, and so I went straight to bed. He called me the next day to let me know about Lisa.”

“Thank you. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

Giorgio and Rocky stepped past the man and they heard a loud click, as he firmly closed the door behind them. They returned to the car, and Giorgio sat still for a moment staring at the big house.

“What’s bugging you?” Rocky asked.

“He’s an arrogant son-of-a-bitch,” Giorgio said, turning to Rocky. “Did you see the hot young thing that left through a side entrance just after we got here?”

Rocky’s eyes lit up. “No.”

“So even though he knew we were on our way, he didn’t let our visit interrupt his scheduled
massage
.”

“Still, not a convictable offense,” Rocky countered.

“No, but I’d like to know how he knew all the bodies we found yesterday were young women. That won’t be announced until the press conference this afternoon.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

By five o’clock that afternoon, the press conference was over and Giorgio, Rocky and McCready were huddled in the War Room, a large conference room off the main hallway. It was pretty bleak as conference rooms go. There were two long tables that sat end to end, surrounded by metal folding chairs. A few battered file cabinets were tucked into the corner, and one wall was covered by a large chalk board and two maps, one of the city and one of the entire San Gabriel Valley. Two swivel white boards were pushed up against the front wall.

They spent twenty minutes taping up photos of the crime scenes onto one white board, including the well and every hole a body had come out of at the Pinney House. They posted photos of the cast of characters on the other white board – including pictures of Lisa and Ron, Jimmy Finn, Alex Springer, Carson Montgomery and the entire Martinelli clan. Then Giorgio began drawing lines between related photos, writing in dates and notes on relationships as he went. When he was done, both white boards were filled.

“So, do we think these two cases are related?” McCready asked as he sat back into one of the chairs. “Lisa Farmer and the women found at the Pinney House?”

It was quiet for a moment as Giorgio took a seat, and then he said, “My gut tells me they are. Same time period. Same family. Same house, even. And I think once we solve Lisa Farmer’s murder, we solve the others.”

“So what do we know?” Rocky said, sitting at the end of one of the tables with a toothpick in his mouth.

McCready pulled out his notes. “Ron Martinelli says he dropped Lisa off at her home around midnight the night of the prom. And Lisa’s mother said that Lisa always came in through the back door and that she found the gate open the next morning. So Lisa probably at least made it into the backyard that night.”

“Where someone was waiting for her. Jimmy Finn said he saw a car in the alley behind her house,” Giorgio said, tapping the table. “And even though both Ron and his mother said that Lisa had never been to their home, we found an earring her mother had given her
that afternoon
. It was in a box hidden in a wall at the Martinelli home.”

Rocky sat forward. “So, maybe Lisa was at the Martinelli home earlier that evening and lost the earring. Or…maybe the earring was taken from her
after
she was killed…as a trophy.”

He looked around the table.

“In the second case, she may not have been at the Pinney house at all,” Giorgio said.

Rocky nodded and stuck the toothpick back into his mouth, while Giorgio began to tap the table with one hand again.

“But if the killer took the earring as some kind of trophy, then maybe we could ID some of the other bodies with what else is in that box,” McCready said, perking up at the idea.

“Exactly,” Giorgio said, turning to him. “So let’s contact any of the people we interviewed who reported young women missing during that time period and ask them about signature pieces of jewelry, hair clips, or clothing. But don’t tell them what we have in the box.” He sat back again.

Rocky looked up at the white board and sighed. “The two sets of crimes could be related, but Lisa Farmer was different than the girls at the Pinney House. She wasn’t buried on the property, for one thing. There were no signs of torture. And it looks as if she was buried fully dressed.”

“I agree,” Giorgio said. “So we need to find out for sure whether or not Lisa was at the Martinelli home that night.” He turned to his brother. “Sounds like another trip to see Ron Martinelli. We have a lot to ask him about the bodies buried in his backyard, anyway.”

“By the way, I got the full list of the monastery’s building committee from back in 1967,” McCready said, pulling out a folder. “And both Royce Martinelli
and
Alex Springer were on it.”

Giorgio arched his eyebrows. “That’s interesting. I wonder if that gives us a clue as to why Springer was killed.”

“Didn’t you say that Claire Martinelli said her husband hated Springer because of the school board race or something? But then Martinelli suddenly hired Springer to run a part of the company.” Rocky asked.

“Yeah, she did,” Giorgio replied.

Rocky used the toothpick in his hand to gesture as he talked. “Well, you don’t hire someone you hate unless you have to,” he said with a lift to his eyebrows. “Springer must have had something on Royce Martinelli. Something important enough that Martinelli paid him off with an executive level position.”

“And then Springer gets killed when Lisa Farmer’s body is discovered, because at his age there’s nothing to pay him off with anymore,” Giorgio speculated.

“Okay, so it looks like Carson Montgomery was killed up in Seattle because he was the one who planted the evidence in Jimmy Finn’s locker,” Rocky said. “And that means that Jimmy Finn didn’t kill Lisa Farmer.”

“Right. And, I’ll bet that Edmond Martinelli is the one who made the call to Montgomery. His leverage was Vietnam,” Giorgio said.

“So if Edmond Martinelli forced Montgomery to plant evidence,” McCready said, staring at the board, “he must have been covering up for someone in his family.” He turned to Giorgio. “After all, how else would they have had her shoe and underwear to plant in the locker?”

Giorgio pointed his index finger at the young cop. “Bingo. Ron said he had sex with her that night after the prom. Maybe they got into an argument and he killed her. Then his father and/or uncle helped him get rid of the body. But we can’t rule out that either Royce or Edmond killed her for some reason and then took those items after she was dead.”

“But why would either one of them kill her?” McCready said.

“Who knows? Maybe something as simple as they found out Ron planned to marry her,” Giorgio said with a shrug. “I learned a long time ago that the reasons for murder don’t always make sense to those of us investigating. So if Edmond planted the evidence, we have to figure out who he was protecting. Ron Martinelli. Ron’s father, Royce. Or himself.”

“Or the mother,” Rocky spoke up. “Didn’t you say she was a real piece of work? Maybe she’s capable of killing someone.”

“I have no doubt that Claire Martinelli could kill someone under the right circumstances,” Giorgio said, getting up and going over to look at the picture they had of the Ice Queen. “Especially if her family’s reputation was at stake. But she would have needed help.”

“So we’re thinking that Carson Montgomery planted the evidence, but Alex Springer didn’t have anything to do with Lisa’s death. He just knew something about it?” Rocky speculated.

“I’d bet on it,” Giorgio replied, turning to his brother.

“And his son, Joshua Springer, is dead?” Rocky said.

“Yeah, from an overdose or something, ten years ago,” Giorgio said. “What are you thinking?” Giorgio asked as he sat down again.

“I don’t know. This whole thing seems so incestuous,” Rocky said, using the toothpick to gesture to everyone on the board.

He got up and took hold of one of the white boards and flipped it around. Then, grabbing a marking pen, he began to write.

“If you start from the center, you start with Lisa and Ron. Right? They’re the nucleus.” He wrote their names in the middle of the board and put a circle around them. “Now, let’s look at how others are related to each of them.”

He wrote Jimmy Finn’s name off to the right and then drew a straight line from Lisa’s name to Jimmy name.

“Jimmy Finn is
only
connected to Lisa,” he said. “He’s not related to Ron other than he knew him at school. Now, let’s keep going on this side. Connected to Jimmy are his girlfriend, Cheryl, and Cheryl’s brother, LeRoy, along with Jimmy’s brother, Marvin,” he said, writing their names. “That’s it. And so far nothing points to any of them as the killer.”

Rocky turned to look at the others and both Giorgio and McCready nodded. Rocky turned back to the board.

“So let’s start on Ron’s side.” He drew several lines from Ron’s name off to the left. “Ron is connected by blood to his father, Royce, and his mother, Claire. He’s also connected to his uncle, Edmond, and his cousin, Fritz,” he said, writing up all of their names. “He’s directly connected to Alex Springer because of the rivalry with Alex’s son, Joshua, when they were in high school. And once Royce gave Springer that job, Alex Springer is connected to both Royce and Edmond through the company,” he said connecting their names with dotted lines. “Carson Montgomery is connected to Edmond because of Vietnam, and even eventually connected to Royce because Royce got him the job at the high school,” he said, writing up their names, connecting them with more dotted lines.

“And since both Springer and Montgomery are now dead, we believe they’re connected because of something they knew,” Giorgio said.

“Right. They didn’t commit the crime, but knew something about the crime – which means they had to be connected to the killer somehow. But if you look at this,” he said, gesturing to all the names on Ron’s side of the board, “except for Springer and Montgomery, Ron is connected to everyone on this side in a big way. And all of these guys,” he said, drawing a circle around all the names on Ron’s side, are connected to each other by blood, school or business.”

“Just one big incestuous cesspool,” Giorgio murmured.

Rocky turned to him. “Exactly.”

“It’s enough to give you a headache,” McCready said.

Giorgio got up again to join his brother at the board.

“So even though Lisa was the victim, it doesn’t come back to her. It all comes back to Ron.” He turned to his brother, his eyes alight. “Time to go see Ron again.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It had been one week since they’d found Lisa Farmer’s skeletal remains, and only five days since they’d first interviewed Ron Martinelli. When they were given entrance to Ron Martinelli’s home now, his change in appearance in that short time was alarming.

They found him sitting in a big leather wing back chair, staring into the fireplace, a glass of bourbon in his right hand. Although it was after six o’clock in the evening, he hadn’t shaved and looked like he’d barely dressed. He was wearing loose fitting jeans, an old baggy t-shirt and slippers. He didn’t stand up when they came in. Nor did he greet them.

“So how many bodies did you find, Detective? I stopped watching after five.”

“Ten in all,” he said.

Martinelli shook his head. “How do you do your job?” he said in a flat voice, still staring straight ahead. “How do you sleep at night?”

Giorgio moved further into the room and to Martinelli’s right, flashing a cautious look at Rocky. Rocky stood behind Martinelli.

“I find the bad guys,” Giorgio said.

“And you think I might be one of them.”

“You lied to me.” Giorgio reached into his pocket and pulled out the evidence bag holding Lisa’s silver earring. “We found this at the Pinney House.”

Martinelli finally looked up, dark circles smudging the area underneath his eyes. He stared at the small piece of jewelry for a moment, and a glimmer of recognition momentarily lit up his face. He turned back to the fire.

“Yes. I lied,” he said with a cleansing exhale. “I’ve been lying for over forty years.”

Ron took a sip of his drink, while Giorgio sat down slowly, never taking his eyes off of him. Rocky remained standing behind Martinelli’s chair.

“Tell me about it,” Giorgio said.

Ron swirled the remaining alcohol around in his glass. “I did take Lisa to the house that night,” he said in defeat. “I knew my father would be gone, and my mother took sleeping pills because she often got bad headaches. It was prom night. I thought just once, it would be nice to…” He paused and took a deep breath. “To make love to the girl I hoped to marry inside, where it was warm and comfortable,” he said. “We went into my father’s study. He had a big leather sofa in there. But when I heard my father drive in, we panicked. I told Lisa to hide behind the curtains, while I went out to talk to him.”

“And what happened?” Giorgio asked

He looked up again, his eyes dull and lifeless. “I met my dad in the entryway. As usual, he was completely preoccupied and just ordered me to bed. I went upstairs, but stayed at the head of the stairs, wanting to make sure he didn’t go into the study. But the phone in his study rang, and he went in to answer it. As he closed the door, I heard him say my uncle’s name. I was sure he’d find Lisa, so I stuck around to take the heat. But he was only in there a few minutes, and then he came out again. He locked the study door and stopped to use the phone in the front hallway for some reason and then went out the front door.”

“Why do you say for some reason?” Giorgio asked.

“Because he’d just left the phone in his study. Anyway, I could hear him talking on the phone by the front door, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

“What happened after that?”

“He left and I ran back downstairs. I knew where he hid an extra key to the study, so I used it and went in, but Lisa was gone and the French doors were open. I ran out into the side yard. I thought maybe I could catch her, but my dad was just pulling up the street, so I ducked back inside.” He let out a deep sigh. “I never saw her again.”

Giorgio glanced down at the baggie holding the earring. “So how did she lose this?”

Martinelli looked up. “I have no idea. As far as I know, she didn’t take any of her jewelry off. I swear. But she was really spooked that night. She was afraid of what my father would do if he found her there. She had initially wanted to run out the French doors, but I’d talked her into hiding instead. I thought my dad would go right up to bed. So, I think she panicked and just ran. Maybe the earring got caught on the curtains or a bush as she went past.”

“Did your father ever tell you where he went that night?” Giorgio asked.

His head snapped up. “You think my father killed her?”

Giorgio shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t want you dating Lisa. Maybe he knew you planned to marry her.”

“He wouldn’t kill someone for that,” he said incredulously.

“But he might kill them for some other reason?” Rocky asked quietly, stepping forward.

Ron looked over at Rocky as if he’d just noticed him.

“I’m sorry,” Giorgio said. “This is Detective Rocky Salvatori, my brother.”

Ron Martinelli swallowed nervously. “No…I…no, my father wouldn’t kill
any
one,” he said, shaking his head.

But his voice lacked the confidence that comes with the truth.

“Ron,” Giorgio began. “Did you know about the root cellar?”

Martinelli’s face muscles tensed, as if he’d swallowed a spider. And then he looked away.

“Ron! We found a root cellar behind the big bookcases in the basement. Six bodies were buried down there. Four more in the yard – we believe all during the time you and your family lived there.”

A tear began to make its way down Martinelli’s cheek.

“I know,” he whispered with all the finality the truth brings with it.

“You know?” Giorgio snapped.

“Yes. Somewhere in my heart,” he said softly. “I knew…not everything. Not even very much. But I knew,” he said. “I’ve known for a long time that something was very wrong in my family.”

That made Giorgio think of the photos. “But they’re
not
your birth family, are they?” he said.

Martinelli looked over sharply at Giorgio. “How did you know?”

“I’ve seen a multitude of family photos over the past few days. There’s a distinct family resemblance between everyone…except you.”

He nodded. “My mother only told me I was adopted when my father died. I’d always suspected, but I didn’t know for sure. I was relieved, of course,” he said, with the hint of a smile.

“Because you weren’t one of them?” Giorgio speculated.

“No. I didn’t have to claim any of their bad traits. I was my own man.”

“So, tell us what you know,” Giorgio said as his heart rate increased.

Ron stared into his glass for a moment, and then said, “My father was a monster.”

He glanced over at Giorgio and then turned back to stare into the fireplace. The hand holding the bourbon had begun to shake.

“When I was five, maybe six years old,” he began slowly. “I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. My father used to build furniture in the basement. I was told never,
ever
to go down there. Too many sharp tools, he told me. But one afternoon, my father had gone out. My mother was upstairs, and my nanny was asleep. I was bored. My father always locked the basement door, but I knew where he kept the key. I was a smart kid,” he said with a brief smile. “So I got the key and went down to the basement. There wasn’t much to see. He had two wooden work tables set up, with electric saws and stuff. It looked like he was working on a rocking chair. The pieces were lying about and part of the chair sat on one of the tables. But then I noticed drops of red paint on the floor, and one of the slats from the chair had red paint on the end of it.”

He took some deep breaths and had another sip of his drink. His hand was visibly shaking now.

“It wasn’t red paint, was it?” Giorgio made the statement for him.

He shook his head slowly as he swallowed. “No. But the drops led across the floor, all the way up to the big bookcase, which was pulled away from the wall. I could hear moaning or something coming from behind it. So I peeked around the corner and realized there were stairs. I really wasn’t a very brave kid, but my curiosity got the better of me. The light was on down below, so I crept down the stairs, afraid that my dad might be down there. But he wasn’t.”

A tear had begun to trickle down his cheek as he spoke.

“There was a girl,” he said, choking on his words. He coughed to clear his throat before continuing. “She was on a bed, tied to the bed post. And she was naked,” he said with a sigh. “She heard me and looked over at the staircase where I was peeking through the railing. She looked…she looked weird to me, until I realized that parts of her face and body had…had been stripped of skin.”

He paused as he gulped some air. Giorgio thought he might be sick.

“One of her eyes was swollen shut, and she had cuts and horrible bruises all over her body,” he said, continuing. “The sheet was covered in blood, and there was another piece of the chair down there. And then she spoke to me. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Help me. He’ll kill me.’ But suddenly, my dad was there, behind me.” Ron was taking in big gulps of air now. “He grabbed me by my collar and threw me up the stairs. I landed on the top step and cried out. But he came after me and grabbed me again. He pulled me into the workroom and held me up to his face. He was livid.”

Ron took a deep breath and paused at the memory, his whole body vibrating.

“He got so close I could smell his breath, and he was shaking he was so mad. He told me that if I ever told anyone what I’d seen, the same thing that had happened to that girl would happen to me. He put me down and I ran upstairs and into my room. About a half hour later, he came to see me. I just huddled in the corner of my bed, scared to death that he was going to beat me and peel my skin away. Instead, he closed the door and went over to where I kept my little pet turtle, Pepper. Pepper was the only pet my parents ever allowed me to have. He lived in this little bowl with rocks and a little house.”

Martinelli stared straight ahead as he spoke, as if living in the moment. Tears began to stream down his cheeks.

“My father reached in and grabbed Pepper, and then came over to my bed and held him out so that I could see him. And he said, ‘I want you to understand how serious this is. You are never to tell anyone about what you saw, or this will happen to you.’” Ron paused, and then in a monotone, he said, “And then he dropped Pepper to the floor and crushed him with his foot.”

Martinelli took a deep breath and hunched forward in the chair and groaned as if he was going to throw up.

A moment later, he stammered, “Oh God. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forgive him.”

He disintegrated into tears and Giorgio just waited, feeling a mixture of sadness and rage

build inside him. But he had to let Martinelli play out the memory. It was a full thirty seconds before Martinelli regained his composure. He reached for a napkin to wipe his nose before continuing.

“All these years,” he said through sobs, “I convinced myself that what I just told you wasn’t real, that it was just a little kid’s nightmare. I told myself it never really happened. But I can’t fool myself any longer. My father really
was
a monster.”

“Mr. Martinelli,” Giorgio said through clenched teeth, controlling the anger he felt. “We need to know everything you might know that could help us.”

Ron looked up, his face swollen and red. “But I don’t know any more than that,” he said. “That’s the only time I ever actually saw anything.”

“You probably know more than you think you do. What was your relationship like with your father
after
that?” Rocky said.

Giorgio looked over at his brother. Rocky’s grim expression was a signal that the story had affected him as well.

“We were
never
close,” Ron said. “It was always about appearances with them. I was just the kid that made our family look normal.”

“Did you ever do things with your father – you know, father-and-son kinds of activities?” Rocky asked.

“No. Not really. I joined the Boy Scouts, but the nanny always took me. My parents would show up at the requisite awards ceremonies, and when I was in high school they came to a few football games.”

“Did your father have women on the side?” Rocky asked.

Martinelli looked over at Rocky with a haunted expression.

“He and your mother…” Rocky let the sentence lapse.

“No. There was no intimacy between them that I ever saw,” he said, finishing Rocky’s thought. “They were like automatons with each other.”

“How much do you think your mother knew?” Giorgio asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. They had such a strange relationship. I do know that when I was fifteen, something changed, though. I’m not sure why, but my father stopped going down into the basement. He had all his equipment removed, and he took up fishing.”

“Fishing?” Giorgio said, his heart rate increasing. “Had he been into fishing before?”

“No. Not that I know of. But suddenly he and Edmond would go fishing once a year.”

Giorgio’s ears perked up. “Did Edmond ever go down into the basement with your father?”