Imola (5 page)

Getting the gate card and the keys to the U-Store garage was easy. After all, Agnes had requested that Jason take care of her things. But now he had to go in, and sliding open the door to unit E-24 brought back eerie memories of the thundering GTO clipping his foot and sending him spinning to the asphalt, the rear tire narrowly missing his head as it squealed out of the U-Store lot. Was it really Lilin driving that day, or was it Agnes? He had agonized about that ever since it had happened, rationalized that it must have been Lilin. Agnes wouldn’t have tried to run him over, would she? But the way Agnes tried to protect Lilin in the interrogation room after she was caught kept haunting him. She would have done anything for Lilin, even run him down with the GTO.

But he had dodged the four-wheeled behemoth. And his quick phone call to Detective Bransome had led to Lilin’s capture. Agnes’s capture. At the time, he just wanted—needed—to get away from the storage unit. Once Agnes, or Lilin, was on the run, all he thought about was her capture. Now he wanted to see what was in the garage. But the thought of sliding open the metal door brought it all back, gave him a whole-body shiver.

Jason shoved upward on the door and jumped to the side. Just in case.

The condition of the garage seemed too similar to what it had been the last time he had done his quick walk-through, as if the GTO had just peeled out of there. If Bransome’s people did an inventory, either they did so without moving anything, or they were extremely diligent in returning all parcels to their original positions. Jason’s memory wasn’t photographic, but he did have a good sense of three-dimensional space.

With the center of the garage open to accommodate the now-missing car, Jason could breeze through the contents in a systematic way. He started by moving the furniture, alllate nineteenth-or early twentieth-century vintage, into the center of the space. He not only opened drawers, but pulled them all the way out to see if anything was hidden behind or below. The combined smell of mildew and mothballs nearly overwhelmed him, and he had to make regular trips to the doorway for a lung-full of clean air.

Next, all artwork was moved onto the furniture. A quick feel of the back of each piece produced no surprises.

Last were the boxes. At least thirty of them, contents unknown. He started on the left side of the garage, nearest the door, pulling the boxes to the center of the room for examination. He replaced them, along with furniture, when he was done with them.

The entire left wall yielded twelve boxes, none of which contained a hint of Eddie Hahn. Jason saw old clothes, bedding, trinkets, and other personal effects. He slowed his search in the last two boxes when he discovered old wooden toys from an early era. The craftsmanship took his breath away. In the last box were two trains, a milk truck, a logging truck complete with logs, and a pristine set of lettered and numbered stacking blocks set in a wooden-wheeled pull wagon. No blocks were missing. He lifted the wagon from the box and gasped. Below it, a set of carved wooden figurines included at least two families: parents, children, and infants. And a dog. He picked up the dog. The piece was so finely etched that the texture of the animal’s fur looked real. He carefullyreplaced all of the items and closed the box.

The back wall of the garage held most of the remaining boxes, so he passed them up and moved to the wall to his right and the four boxes there. The second contained memories of Agnes’s life. High school yearbooks. A diploma from the University of California, Davis—BS in animal science—still in the original, opened, mailing envelope. He straightened up, holding the certificate at arm’s length.

Agnes had been in Davis for at least two years if she had previously gone to a community college, and at least four otherwise. Why hadn’t Lilin surfaced then? April’s theory made some sense. As long as Gert was in control, her strong personality held Lilin in check. And even when Agnes was away at college, Gert maintained that tight control. Davis isn’t far from Mendocino, only 160 miles, so it was close enough for Gert to drive over should Agnes need her, or for Agnes to come home. He envisioned Agnes making regular weekend trips to Mendocino, dirty laundry in hand, but really to maintain her emotional security blanket with Gert and Ella.

It was only after Ella went into the care home and Gert died that Lilin made her appearance, and the murders started. To him, that spoke volumes.

Digging through the rest of the box uncovered little else about Agnes, so Jason resealed the top and shoved it back along the wall. He turned to the back wall of thestorage unit.

Among the standard-sized boxes was a large one, more than three times the size of the others. It was wedged in the corner, two double stacks of boxes on top. He pulled the smaller boxes down and went for the monster. It was heavy: a challenge to slide on the cement floor. He decided to go through it in place.

The reason for the heft appeared as soon as the aged sealing tape was sliced. Books. It was filled with books. He pulled a few from the top layer and scanned the titles.
Moby Dick. David Copperfield. The Grapes of Wrath. Leaves of Grass
.

A taste for the classics. Agnes’s or Gert’s? Or Ella’s? Not Lilin’s.

He pushed one of the box flaps closed, but something stopped him. Maybe he wanted to see some Kerouac, some Kesey. Some Tom Wolfe. He dug in. No such luck.

Everything was in hardcover. All books in pristine condition, but with stressed spines. Obviously read. By whom? He thought back. No books in the house. Strange. These were the kind of books one put on display. Especially if they were all read. They were worthy of second, third, multiple reads. Very strange.

The next reach required that he turn his head away and press his armpit into the side of the box. He moved a couple of books into a graspable stack, and his fingers hit something solid, metallic. And large. He swept hisfingers toward the four sides of the box, pushing books around with his hand. The object nearly filled the box’s side dimensions. He rapped on it with his fingernails. Definitely metallic. And thick walled. Very thick.

With most of the books removed, the box was light enough to pull into the center of the garage, but he didn’t stop there. He pulled it nearly to the door so the harsh daylight would be an aid to identification. The box inside the box was painted battleship gray, with abrasions and scratches everywhere. He tried to lift it, but he couldn’t get a grip. And it was too heavy. He’d have to cut the cardboard away; he needed his tools.

Before keying the trunk of the Volvo, he stretched his arms at the cloudless sky. He’d been going through the Hahn life-stash for nearly three hours, and the sun was finally warming the asphalt-paved driveway of the U-Store lot to short-sleeve temperatures. As he opened the trunk, its hinges complained. “Got to oil those,” he said into the light breeze.

His tool kit had a small pocketknife. Not one of the fancy Swiss Army things, but a cheapie, with plastic panels of fake pearl-like finish. Of the two blades, the smaller one could possibly cut flesh, with the right angle and significant pressure. He selected the large blade—its blunted edge was missing the last quarter inch of tip. Cardboard worthy, but little else. He started in on the outer box.

It took three minutes. Much of the cardboard tore rather than cut, but the four sides of the box eventually splayed out, flat on the floor, still attached to the box bottom. The metal box wasn’t tall, only ten inches or so, but it was formidable. A safe-like structure, original function unknown. It was closed with a hasp and medium-sized, rusted padlock.

Jason grabbed his lock picks. Padlocks were easy prey. But this one was old and probably as corroded inside as out.

He was right. The tumblers wouldn’t budge.

A hammer. He needed a hammer. Better yet, a sledge. There was nothing like that in his trunk, but there was a tire iron. He had left the trunk open so he wouldn’t have to listen to its bitchy hinges.

The lock didn’t budge. Not with prying. Not with bludgeoning. Sweat bubbled on his brow despite the cool air in the garage. Probably nothing good in there, anyway. All wasted effort. But damn it. It was too late to rationalize. It was now man against man’s creation. Man had to win.

He scanned the garage. Nothing there to help. He put the lock picks back into the unrolled canvas tool kit, and a bulge in the far right pocket caught his attention. He couldn’t remember when he’d stashed the M-80 firecracker there, or why. Supposedly a tenth of a stick of dynamite, he pulled it out and admired it, remembering his teens. M-80s could blow a coffee can fifteen feet in theair if it was loosely placed over the firecracker. Farther if it was packed against it tight, if you could find the parts. Parents had cautioned about losing entire hands, not just fingers, to M-80s.

He tested the side of the metal case. It was plenty solid.

The barrel of the M-80 was close to a fit through the loop of the lock. It’d have to be forced in. Images of a spark setting off the firecracker, severing both hands and splattering fingers on the walls and floor stopped him for a moment. Fortunately, only moderate pressure was required to thread the M-80 into the lock, all the way to the side-mounted, waterproof fuse.

Jason cleared the area around the box and stepped into the alley. It was deserted. He listened. No noises from the surrounding buildings. If anyone was around, this would get their attention.

He stepped back in the garage and fumbled with the screw-cap container of waterproof matches. They were old. A strike on the bottom of the container and the first match sparked, but didn’t light. Another strike and the match head broke off without a flicker. The second match did the same on the third strike.

The third match lit on the first strike, but a sudden breeze nearly extinguished it. Jason sheltered the feeble flame with his left hand and slowly moved it toward the M-80 fuse. The fuse sputtered to life.

He waited to make sure it conducted the flame, thensprinted around the corner of the garage door. Nothing happened. He peeked around the corner. The fuse still fizzed. He leaned back.

The explosion rattled the doors on the opposite side of the alley and rang in Jason’s ears. Then all went silent. Totally silent. No bird trills, no rustle of wind. No noises of day. A car alarm somewhere in the complex broke through the silence with a series of honks, squeals, and sirens, quiet at first, then louder, accompanied by the ear ringing again. The garage oozed a light film of smoke through the doorway.

He rounded the corner. The lock was intact, but the blast had separated the hasp from the box. A huge dent where the hasp formerly connected was colored with a starburst scorch mark that blended from a black center to grayish-green rays tipped in white. A slight gape separated the lid from the bottom of the box. He tiptoed to the box as if he expected a second explosion.

The box lid let out a high-pitched squeal as the rusted hinges begrudged the movement. The top swiveled all the way back to the floor. The box contained file folders and enveloped papers. This would take a while.

Old tax returns and other financial documents took up the first third of the contents. Other legal documents quickly yielded to what appeared to be more personal items: letters and other papers. At the back of the stack were three manila file folders, two of them stretchedthick, the third slim. The first had “Gertrude” on the file tab. “Ella” was on the second. The third didn’t have a marking. He ignored the two with labels and grabbed the thin one.

Jason felt dizzy, and his hands shook. He shifted from a kneel into a cross-legged seated position. The first sheet was a military document. Army Form 22. “Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Army.” Just below that, the heading: Type of Discharge: Honorable. He scanned for the name line. Edward Albert Hahn. It was dated 15 August 1945. A stack of twenty or more pages of other military documents followed. The only other items in the file were three enveloped letters, all of standard letter size. He opened the first and unfolded the letter. The shaking of his hands increased, and the letter fell to the floor. A large cloud crossed the sun, squeezing the light out of the garage.

Jason steered the Volvo into April’s complex and jerked it to a stop in the last available visitor’s space. His feet hit alternate stairs up to her front door, and his knock was enthusiastic enough to trigger a curtain draw in the adjacent condo.

The peephole blinked just before the deadbolt clunked its invitation. April swung open the door with awide smile. She stepped back to let him in.

“You’re back. Two visits in two days. I think I know what we did last night, but I was pretty drunk. I’ll have to try it when I’m sober if it brings you back this soon. You’ll have to help me, though. I slept until noon, and I don’t remember much.”

Jason sniffed at the entryway to the kitchen. “Fish. But I smell strawberry, too. And what’s that other smell? I can’t place it.”

“It’s cilantro. Cilantro and strawberry. It’s a fish garnish I had at a restaurant last week. It sounds gross, but it was incredible. I’m trying to duplicate it. If you’re hungry, I have enough.”