Dying for the Past (27 page)

fifty-six

“A remote control toy
helicopter?” Angel turned off the county road and headed deeper into the Virginia countryside. “And what about Chevy?”

“He disappeared. Dobron charged in and screwed everything up. The helicopter went one way, Chevy the other.”

Angel and I had been driving to Frannie Masseria's retirement home since eight this morning. Part of the way, she'd had a blistering argument with W. Simon Hahn—“W” for pain-in-the-ass or whatever “w” word fit. He'd called at eight-thirty to grill her about André and Poor Nic again. Even threatening to send Bear to see him didn't stop him this time. Angel hung up on him in mid-threat.

“Angel,” I asked, “I've been wondering about Simon. What is the ‘W' for anyway?”

“Wilhelm,” she said. “His family escaped from Germany in the earlier years of the war. When he got older, he dropped the name to just a ‘W.'”

“Wilhelm?” Interesting. Wilhelm Simon Hahn. A very German name. Very German as in Nazi spy rings, SS troopers, and the Russian Front. I suggested as much to Angel.

“Tuck, you're getting carried away with this spy story. Not everyone is a Russian or Nazi spy.”

“How do you know? Maybe they're good spies.” When she rolled her eyes, I changed the subject and filled her in on the remainder of my exciting night chasing radio-controlled helicopters around Old Town. It would have been funnier if Bear had captured Chevy and retrieved the flash drive of evidence from the Vincent House.

As it stands, no one was laughing.

“And the flash drive?”

“Gone.” I sat beside her in the front seat. Hercule was dozing in the back. On long trips, he only woke up when we stopped for coffee and yet another breakfast sandwich-to-go for him. “The helicopter flew over Old Town and landed in an old pickup truck heading out of town. Bear's men chased it for two miles before they got him. It turns out the guy had no idea what was going on. He was some drunk leaving the bars. They found the helicopter but the flash drive was gone.”

Angel consulted her GPS “Another mile.” Then she nailed it. “Whoever was at the controls was probably on the roof above the
square. He flew the helicopter over the roof, grabbed the flash drive,
and sent the helicopter to the first vehicle he saw. He knew Bear would be chasing the helicopter. He slipped away.”

would have been out of a job. “My tutoring has paid off.”

“We're here,” she said, turning into a long drive past a sign that read, “Saint Vincent's Retirement Estates”

“St. Vincent? You gotta be kidding me.”

She nodded. “Frannie built it with Vincent Calaprese's money when she was a younger woman. When she got older, she left the Vincent House and moved in here. No one ever knew why she didn't just stay there.”

I did. “Maybe she didn't like daddy or his mistress hanging around all these years.”

Ahead of us a grand estate rose up from the Charlottesville countryside. It reminded me of a Tuscan villa. Of course, I'd ever been to Tuscany, but if I had, this is how it would look. The estate was huge—a two-story stone façade with a clay-tiled roof. There was a portico entrance with tall, stalwart stone columns. On either side of the portico were twin loggias framing the entire villa—perhaps two hundred feet or more across. The entrance drive circled—you guessed it—a story-high marble fountain. The sexy, naked maiden showered water from her bucket over equally naked and sexy cherubs bathing at her feet. They frolicked in the foundation waiting for manly men to arrive and seduce them.

Well, that's what I saw.

Angel pulled around the circle to a visitor's parking space and parked. She climbed out of the Explorer, bade Hercule wait behind, and headed for the front portico.

“All right, Angel,” I said, falling in behind her. “You do all the talking and I'll do all the snooping.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have the same plan.”

Inside, we went to a large reception desk more resembling a luxury hotel reception than an old gangster's retirement home. The young man behind the marble counter was dressed in a light colored, double-breasted linen suit from Bogart's closet in Casablanca.

“Yes, ma'am? May I help you?” His nametag read “Robert.”

“Good morning.” Angel flashed her best smile. “I'm here to see Francesca—”

“Masseria,” Robert said turning to his computer screen below the counter top. “My, my, she is a popular girl this weekend. You're her third guest since Friday night.”

“Who else has been here?” Angel asked. “I didn't think Frannie got a lot of visitors.”

“She doesn't.” Robert looked up from the monitor. “This weekend though, she's quite the belle of the ball.”

I said, “Who else?” and Angel asked him again.

“I'm sorry, miss, miss—”

“Professor Angela Tucker. I've been to see her before, Robert. Don't you recall?”

Robert forged a fake smile and returned to his computer. “Oh, yes, Professor. I do recall after all. You're from the University something-or-other. Wonderful you could visit Frannie again. She was very pleased after your visit last month.”

“And?”

“And? No, I'm sorry, I am not allowed to disclose a resident's personal information; including their visitors and family details.”

Angel smiled. “Of course. Then, may we see her? It's villa G-10. Right? Around back beyond the gardens in the corner?”

I said, “Villa? She has a villa?”

“Yes … we?” Robert looked at the front entrance. “Is there another guest with you? I'll have to sign them in.”

“No, no. I left my Labrador in the car. May I bring him in?”

Robert patted the air. “No pets, I'm sorry. If Frannie is up for a walk or a visit outside, I might let you sneak him in for a visit. But only if she requests. I'll have one of the staff escort you. It will be just a few moments.”

“I'll meet you there, Angel,” I said. “I'll see if Frannie is in the mood for a stroll. Hercule needs to take a walk after his last egg sandwich.”

She nodded and went to a nearby lounge area to wait on her escort.

I headed for Frannie's villa.

_____

Frannie was not in the mood for a stroll through the gardens. In fact, Frannie was not in the mood for any more visitors this weekend either.

Frannie was dead.

I found her in the small, white stone villa—more a bungalow if you ask me—on the far side of the rear gardens. She was lying face-up on her living room couch as though she were napping. But the throw pillow beside her head was still damp from saliva and sweat. And in the center of its flowered print was an almost unnoticeable drop of blood.

“Sorry, Frannie, you didn't deserve this.”

I leaned down to examine her body, looking for a tiny tear in her frenulum caused by her struggle beneath the pillow. It was there, along with a thin smear of blood on her gums. As I looked around, a door closed in the back of the house and I went to investigate. When I reached the bedroom doorway, I would have had a heart attack if I weren't already dead.

Kneeling down at Frannie's bedroom nightstand, rifling through her drawers, was André Cartier.

“André, what are you doing here?” I went inside. “Tell me you didn't kill the old lady. Please. Tell me—”

André jumped up and closed the nightstand drawer. He went around the bed with frustration drawing his face tighter. He muttered something as his eyes narrowed and darted around the room.

“Damn you, André, what have you done?”

He jerked open the other nightstand drawer and pulled out its contents—a few magazines, pens, pencils, a small flashlight, and an old, worn Bible. He tossed each of the items on the bed and took the drawer all the way out of the stand, flipped it around, and examined underneath.

Nothing.

He began stuffing the drawer's contents back inside when he picked up the Bible. The cover was loose and the book slipped out of it onto the floor. When he bent down to retrieve it, he froze.

So did I.

He held the Bible cover in his hand. The book at his feet had its own cover—a worn, tattered, black leather one. It bore no markings or titles. He picked it up and fanned it. It was three inches thick and its pages were matted and frayed. He opened it somewhere in the middle and his eyes exploded; he smiled.

“Did you find it, André?” I said, moving around to peek over his shoulder. “Vincent's book?”

His eyes ran over the hand-scribed pages; a line here, a line there. With each page, his face lightened until it was about to burst into giddy laughter.

Vincent Calaprese's mob journal.

“Dear God, you weren't lying.” He placed the book on the bed and returned the journal into the Bible book cover and tucked it into his waistband under his shirt. Then, he straightened the room, erasing the telltale signs of his presence—disheveled bed linens, dresser drawers still cracked open, items on the bed.

“André, nothing is worth killing over. This is gonna break Angel's heart. And she's here.”

Something called me from Frannie's dressing table across the room. There were dozens of framed photographs lined up in front of the mirror—a collage of memories spanning her life. One photograph captured my attention.

It was a five-by-seven, black-and-white print of a beautiful, young
Francesca Calaprese—I recognized her from the portrait hanging in the Vincent House. She was sitting on a porch swing with a dashing young man in an Army uniform. I guessed it was during the war—World War II—and the two appeared to be in their twenties. She was lying against his shoulder with an adoring smile. His arm was around her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head.

They were in love.

There was something about the photograph. It gripped me and pulled me closer. Something strange and familiar—personal to me—caressed my thoughts and beckoned me to remember a memory I never had.

I reached out and touched the frame.

The room exploded in a shower of light and darkness.

fifty-seven

“Can I write you?”
Frannie asked the young soldier sitting on
the swing beside her. “You better write me—often as you can. You will, won't you?”

He shrugged and squeezed her shoulders. “We can try writing, Frannie. But, as I tried to explain, I can't tell you what I'm doing or where I'm going. It's just the way this new outfit is. You understand, right?”

I stood at the end of a grand veranda watching the two on the porch swing. Neither knew my presence—and I was unsure if I were really there or sharing the old photograph's karma.

“No, I don't. This war is horrible. It's bad enough you can't tell me anything, but I can't write to you?”

“You can try. It'll be hit or miss if we'd get anything. But I'll write you whenever I can. The outfit has a way of getting the letters out.”

Frannie sat up and pulled away, pushing his arm from around her shoulders. “I just don't understand. Soldiers are soldiers. They can't keep our letters away at a time like this—”

“It's not the same with us,” he said. He stood up and moved to the porch railing. “You have to understand. I'm not even supposed to tell you this much. But I figure a girl like you would find out anyway.”

She kicked him playfully behind the leg. “You mean a gangster's daughter.”

“Yeah, a gangster's daughter.” He laughed. “So, if you don't want me telling anyone about your dad, you can't tell anyone about me. Deal?”

What? No, this couldn't be. I was at home here—as though I'd been here many times and knew every room, every hallway. I walked
up onto the porch and peeked in the window. I knew inside was a large foyer with a grand staircase rising up to the upper floors. The great hallway led to the rear of the house and the servant's kitchen. Just off the foyer was the ballroom. The lounge was on the left and then the sitting room and other visiting rooms.

The Vincent House.

When I turned and looked at the soldier, there was something unmistakable about him—something … familiar. He was my height and perhaps twenty pounds lighter—thin, but hard and sturdy. His hair was short—a fresh-trimmed haircut. He was clean-shaven and his eyes were dark blue—friendly, inquisitive eyes—and they were soft when they looked at Frannie. His uniform had Captain's bars on the shoulders and a patch on the left arm of a gold spearhead on a black field.

I recognized the patch.

This soldier wasn't like the millions of young GIs heading off to fight the Axis. He was something special—something new. He was one of General Donovan's men. He was OSS—the Office of Strategic Services—the forerunner of the present-day CIA.

Could he be? I didn't dare think it.

Frannie stood up and fell into the soldier's arms. “How long do you have before you leave?”

“Tomorrow, Frannie. I have to go tomorrow morning.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “And home? When—”

“Not 'till it's over I guess. Maybe back to DC now and then, but I'm not sure I'll be able to see you, let alone tell you I'm around.” He kissed her and crushed her to him. “I'm sorry, Frannie. I can't even tell Doc.”

Doc? My Doc?
Our
Doc?

She leaned back and swiped at the tears in her eyes. “How is he, Ollie? I haven't seen him since—”

“No—not since you came for the book. I know.”

“How is he?”

My grandfather slipped out of her embrace and leaned back against the porch railing. “Okay, I guess. He didn't like me joining up but I had to. He demanded I go back to school to be a lawyer or doctor. I'm so tired of him trying to make me be, well,
him
.”

“I know, I do. We're both trying to escape our fathers, aren't we?” She looked down and half-smiled. “What about us? Have you told him about me—about us?”

Ollie Tucker threw his head back and laughed. “Are you kidding me, Frannie? He would have kittens. I wouldn't have to worry about Adolph, honey. He'd kill me himself.”

“Why, Ollie? He can't blame me.” Frannie's eyes rained and she didn't try to stop them. “Can he?”

“No.” Ollie tried to smile. “It's the other way around. He blames himself for your dad's murder. He says he should have been able to save him. And the book terrifies him.”

“It shouldn't. The book is the only thing keeping my family safe.
Maybe Doc, too. And it's not his fault, Ollie. Those people—they murdered him. They wanted the book.”

Ollie looked away. “I don't understand any of it, Frannie. Vincent's gone and the book is still so dangerous. It's been five years. What could be so important this long?”

Frannie gazed over the front yard. “Because it proves who killed
him. And it proves why. There are things in the book that could
destroy some very powerful families in Washington, Ollie. And they
know it.”

Ollie wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead again. “Then keep it safe, honey. And when I get back, I'll use it to get every last one of them Commies. And I'll start with Vasily Kishkin.”

The name sent a harpoon of fire into me and I felt myself leaving the veranda. The light danced around me as Frannie and my grandfather embraced. With all my strength, I tried to stay just a moment longer. I willed it but it wasn't to be—the light danced and faded, pulling me away.

“Vasily Kishkin? Granddad, who is he?” I tried to reach out for them but I was already being swept away. “Frannie, tell me more. I don't understand.”

Frannie kissed Ollie on the cheek. She took his hand and guided it down between them, resting it on her belly where she moved his hand in gentle, loving circles. “You have to come home safe, Ollie. For all of us.”