Murder In the Past Tense (A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery Book 2) (16 page)

There was a long pause, while Giorgio waited, almost holding his breath.

“He’s taking me to a big house now,” she said. “It’s very old. Very pretty.” She paused again. “The young women are there…I can’t see their faces, but there is a man, too. He’s holding a long knife and – oh God!” she exclaimed. Her breathing became ragged and her entire body tensed. “I don’t understand,” she cried. “What…what is this?” Her eyes popped open and she sat forward in the chair, breathing hard. “Oh my God,” she said again. “He…he cut off…he…oh shit! And then I saw the girl as she died,” she choked out.

She got up and almost ran to the table to pour a glass of water. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. She took a long drink and then just stood there, staring at the draped window and taking deep breaths.

“Did he show you who killed them?” Giorgio asked, now sitting forward in his seat.

She spun around. “You knew I’d see that, didn’t you?”

“No,” he said, standing up. “I didn’t. At least not for sure. But I thought that’s what you do –see dead people. Why is this so different?”

“Because these are young girls,” she snapped. “Torn up with flesh wounds and…missing parts.”

He paused a moment and then said, “I know. I saw them last night. And yes, I hoped you would see them. It’s really why I came. I need to know more about them. I need to know who they are.”

“Where?” she asked, wiping her eyes. “Where did you see them?”

“At a house the boy led me to. Probably the big old house you saw. I think he wants me to do something, but I don’t know how to help them. No one even knows they’re buried there.”

“You’re a cop,” she said, as if that should fix things.

“Yes, but no one’s going to believe me if I say I know they’re there because I saw their ghosts. Please, I need your help.”

Flame paused as if weighing an internal decision. She returned to the table, but stayed standing. She stared at the water glass in her hands as if contemplating something. Then she nodded once, took a deep breath, and sat down.

“What do you need to know?”

“Anything,” he said, resuming his seat. “Anything that might help to either identify the girls or the man who killed them. Did you see him?”

“Not his face,” she said, her hands beginning to shake again. “I don’t want to see his face.”

“I understand,” Giorgio said.

“Okay,” she said with a deep breath. “One more time.”

She sat down and watched him for a moment, as if still uncertain she would do this. Then her eyes closed, and the room went silent again. Giorgio waited.

After a moment, she inhaled sharply, and the fingers on her left hand closed into a fist.

“The boy,” she finally whispered. “The boy keeps pointing from the girls to the house, as if there is something important about the house.” Her breathing began to accelerate. “I’m not sure what he means. Wait. He’s showing me something else. Another girl. Different from the rest. She’s dressed in a fancy dress. Long dark hair. She’s not like the others.”

“She’s at the house?” Giorgio asked.

“Yes. There’s also a young man…no!” she cried, shaking her head. “No. Not again.”

Her eyes opened again and this time there were tears in them. “He showed me one of the naked girls again. Her breast…” she gulped and then stopped speaking. “God, how do you do what you do?” she asked, using her hand to wipe her eyes. “How do you investigate crimes like that?”

“I don’t usually. He only showed the girls to me last night. That’s why I’m here. I wanted confirmation. I guess I got it.”

They shared a long moment of silence without looking at each other. Finally, she spoke in almost a whisper, her voice shaking.

“Look, I’ve been able to communicate with the dead since I was a little girl,” she said quietly. “It started when I began seeing my grandfather after he died in a car accident. My mother freaked out and took me to a shrink. So, I learned to suppress this so-called gift. But then I found out that my aunt had some of the same abilities. Maybe that’s what frightened my mother – she didn’t want me to be like her sister. But my aunt helped me develop the talent, and, well, here I am. But I don’t see things like this.” She looked up at Giorgio. “How did you come to meet the boy?”

“On a case a couple of months ago,” Giorgio said. “A woman was murdered at a monastery in Sierra Madre where he’d been a student a long time ago. He’d killed himself because he and other boys had been abused by the attending priests.”

She seemed to consider this. “The monastery murders,” she said. “I read about all of that. You were the lead detective.”

“That’s right,” he said, shifting in his chair. “Christian made himself known to me early in the investigation. But I…I…”

“You denied it…thought you were seeing things,” she said as if she’d heard it a million times before.

He nodded. “But then he actually led me to a couple of important clues.”

“And then?” she asked.

“I hadn’t seen him since we closed that case. Then, a few days ago we found the skeleton of a young girl in an old well at the monastery. We think it’s the remains of a girl that disappeared the night of her prom back in 1967.”

A momentary flash of recognition passed across her face. “A girl in a fancy dress,” she whispered.

“Yes. With long dark hair,” he said. “Her name was Lisa Farmer. All of a sudden, a couple of nights ago, Christian showed up again.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the metal coin with “Big Bear Lake” stamped on it. “He…delivered this to me,” he said, handing it over to the young woman. “I don’t know how he does that. But he did it before – with an old button. I know it must mean something. But I don’t know what. And I don’t know how or even
if
these young girls somehow fit into the Lisa Farmer case.”

She took the metal coin and studied it for a moment, rubbing her fingers across its surface. Her eyes seemed to sink back into her head as her eyelids closed halfway. She grew very quiet. A tear formed and ran down her cheek. The tick tock of a clock in the corner marked the passage of time. She dropped her head and then raised it again suddenly, her eyes open.

“I’m not quite sure what I’m seeing,” she said, dropping her chin and wiping the tear away. “First I saw the color amber. I don’t know what that means. But this is all related somehow. I think that’s what the boy is trying to tell you. That’s why he brought you to the big house. But it didn’t all happen there. He keeps showing me young girls being…tortured. It happens over and over again.” She handed the coin back. “You’re right, though. Something happened in Big Bear. Something you’re supposed to know. And somehow these women are connected to you. The house is connected to you. Big Bear is connected to you. It’s all connected to you now.”

“To me?”

“Yes. Whether you like it or not, it seems you’ve stepped into a gruesome quagmire of some sort. And he’s trying to help you sort it out.”

“Was there anything about a cabinet?” he asked.

Her eyebrows clenched together. “No. Not a cabinet. Just what I told you.”

“I just wish I knew what it all meant.”

“He’s trying to help you,” she said with a shrug. “You just have to get quiet and follow his lead.”

He glanced over at her. She seemed so young and innocent, despite all the tattoos and piercings. Her dark eyes shone in the dim light with a disquieting sense of wisdom for someone so young.

“What about you?” he said. “Would you be willing to help?”

He asked it cautiously, knowing the answer was uncertain at best. She took a deep breath and brought her hands together on the table in front of her.

“I don’t know.”

“Look,” Giorgio began, feeling desperate. “I would need a search warrant in order to find the bodies at this house. But no one’s going to give me one. I have no reason to ask for the warrant. But I’m pretty sure I could get permission to visit the property since it’s connected to the Lisa Farmer case; her boyfriend lived there. You could go with me and just... see what you see.”

He stopped and watched her, hoping he hadn’t overstepped his bounds. She drew one of the rings that pierced her lower lip into her mouth, thinking. Finally, she exhaled.

“I’d like to help. But, let’s face it. I mostly help people who want a last chance to communicate with someone they loved. Or want some kind of confirmation that their loved ones are okay on the other side. Mrs. Fanning, the woman you saw leaving? She wanted to communicate with her husband of thirty-five years who died recently when he was hit by a drunk driver. I deal with simple stuff, Detective. I make people feel better. I don’t
do
horrendous murders,” she said, her voice beginning to shake. She took another cleansing breath and then exhaled. After a long pause, she said, “My mother was murdered, Detective. Almost six years ago. She was beaten and then shot by a burglar. That’s why I’m living here with my aunt. I don’t have any other family.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I…I just can’t. It brings up too many memories.” She drew her hands into her lap and dropped her chin. “I can’t help you.”

His body sagged with disappointment.

“I understand,” he said. “You’ve already been very helpful. Is there anything else you can tell me, though? Anything that Christian might know?”

She glanced up at him and after a pause, closed her eyes once more. As he watched her, her eyebrows furrowed and she bit her lip again. After thirty seconds, she opened her eyes.

“It’s difficult,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I get snatches of pictures, sometimes moving pictures. Sometimes just flashes of color or a blurred image. Here and then gone. He kept showing me a baby, an adult and an old person. So maybe someone who grew up and then grew old. I don’t know who that is, though. And he kept showing me a rose.”

Giorgio started. “A rose?”

“Yes. I don’t know what it means, though.”

Giorgio contemplated this, a buzzing in his ears. Abrams’ psychic had said something about a rose, too.

“Okay, thanks,” he said. “Thanks very much. I can show myself out.”

He stood up and started to leave, but she stopped him.

“By the way, Detective. This might not mean anything. But I also kept seeing a dog. I think the dog is important somehow.”

Giorgio’s heart rate picked up again. “What kind of a dog?”

She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell.” She closed her eyes a moment. “Long ears, long snout,” she said.

Giorgio nodded. “Thanks. By the way, do you know why the boy appeared to me in the first place and not someone else?”

She took a deep breath. “Because you’re a police officer.”

Giorgio just stared at her.

“His father was a police officer,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The moment he walked back into the office that morning, his phone rang again. This time is was Lieutenant Pearson.

“One of the neighbors ID’d a Jeep Wrangler parked around the corner from Alex Springer’s home the night he was killed,” she said. “No one had ever seen it before, and it doesn’t belong to anyone in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, no one got a license plate number.

At the mention of a Jeep, Giorgio’s antenna went up. Jeep Wranglers weren’t that common, and yet he’d seen one outside his own home the night he went to meet with Monty Montgomery. And as Lieutenant Pearson continued to talk, the image of the retreating taillights at the Christmas tree lot had his adrenalin flowing.

“The housekeeper also reported that nothing of value was stolen from the home,” Lieutenant Pearson was saying. “Hopefully, we’ll get DNA off the cigarette butts, but that will take some time. Anything on your end?”

He shared information about his trip to Seattle and the speculation that the two murders were connected.

“Okay, thanks,” she said. “Let’s keep in touch.”

Giorgio hung up and sat staring off into space.

“Who was that?” Rocky asked from the doorway.

“The Lieutenant handling Alex Springer’s murder,” he replied.

“Anything new?” his brother asked.

Giorgio looked up at his brother as if he’d just noticed him.

“Let’s go get some lunch. My treat.”

Rocky lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

They walked down the street to Mama’s Café. Mama’s was a central gathering place for anyone who worked downtown, and all the officers were well known there.

While they waited for their chili dogs and fries, Giorgio spied Mia Santana at a corner table, hunched over and furiously punching out a story on her small laptop. He scooted further into the booth so that she wouldn’t see him.

“So, what’s up with Alex Springer?”

“Not much. But they ID’d a Jeep Wrangler that was parked around the corner from his house that night, and no one in the neighborhood knows whose it was.”

“Hmmm,” Rocky murmured. “Well, Marvin Finn, Jimmy’s brother, is a bust,” Rocky said. “He never actually met Lisa. He was only home for a short time on leave from the Army and was back on base the day before Lisa went missing.”

“Okay. Let’s see if we can confirm it,” Giorgio said.

“We also found Cheryl Lincoln,” Rocky said. “She’d moved twice since that address her brother gave you. But she wasn’t home. Truck driver hubby was, though. Said she was at work.”

Rocky was playing with an advertisement for apple pie on the table. He turned it over and over in his hands as he talked.

“You guys didn’t tell him why you were calling, did you?”

“No. McCready called the local PD down there and asked one of their detectives to go out and interview her. They said they’d get back to us tomorrow. So, are you convinced now that Jimmy Finn didn’t do it?” Rocky asked, dropping the advertisement and sliding the salt shaker over in front of him instead.

Giorgio sat back in the booth and sighed. “Pretty much,” he said. “Think about it. The girl went missing the night of her prom. So the department began an investigation, but didn’t do much real investigating. Then a tip comes in out of the blue telling them to search the lockers at the school. And surprise! They find the girl’s underwear and shoe in Jimmy Finn’s locker – who just happened to be black, defenseless, and infatuated with the victim. How much more perfect could it get?”

“He could’ve done it,” Rocky said, spinning the salt shaker on the table.

“Yes, but now we have two more murders,” Giorgio said. “Springer and Montgomery were probably killed because of what they knew. We don’t know yet what Springer might have known, but most likely Montgomery was killed because he was asked to plant the evidence against Jimmy Finn. If he did, then the odds are pretty high that Finn didn’t kill Lisa Farmer. Besides,” Giorgio said, “if Finn
was
the killer, why are these other guys showing up dead
now
? He’s already served his time.”

“Maybe they were in on it,” Rocky speculated.

“You haven’t met Finn. He isn’t sophisticated enough to have been working with anyone else. Besides, in what world would he be connected to either Springer
or
Montgomery? Especially back in 1967?”

Rocky raised an eyebrow. “The plot thickens, as they say.”

“Yes,” Giorgio sighed again. “But things keep coming back to the Martinelli family somehow. I want to know more about them. I just don’t buy it that Lisa Farmer was never at that house. She and Ron were talking about getting married. What if she was there that night?”

“Technically, we don’t know
where
she was just before she got killed,” Rocky said, finally pushing the salt shaker away. “Although we think she made it home.”

“But it would change the dynamics if she’d been to the house,” Giorgio said. “Otherwise, as far as we know no one saw her after the prom except Ron. If he dropped her off at home, like he said, the killer
had
to be waiting for her when she got there.”

“Unless she went out again,” Rocky suggested.

“Maybe. But why? Something doesn’t add up. I want to go check out the Martinelli house,” Giorgio said.

He took a sip of water, hoping Rocky wouldn’t question his idea.

“What do you hope to find?”

Inwardly, Giorgio swore, as the moment arrived when he would have to lie to his own brother.

“I’ve just never been inside it, have you?” he said after swallowing.

Rocky shook his head.

“And yet it’s a landmark in this community. I just have a feeling about that old building,” he said as he exhaled. “The Martinellis lived there when Lisa disappeared. His mother said the girl never came to the house because they didn’t approve of her. Yet, they didn’t care if their son took her to the prom? I’m telling you, something’s wrong here.”

“You and your ‘feelings,’” Rocky quipped. “If we could only bottle them.”

Just then, a little bell rang and McCready strolled through the front door. He gave a brief wave and crossed over to the table.

“You hungry?” Giorgio asked him.

“No. I grabbed a sandwich already,” he said, sliding into the booth next to Rocky.

The waitress arrived with two chili dogs, and McCready waited while Giorgio and Rocky each got a first bite.

“That’ll give you heartburn,” McCready said with a smile as he eyed the slop in front of Rocky.

Rocky swallowed, allowing some sauce to run down his chin. “Yeah, but after more than three weeks of cardboard chicken in rehab, I don’t care,” he said, going for a second bite.

“So what have you got?” Giorgio asked the young cop, shoving a napkin across the table to his brother.

Rocky grimaced and wiped his chin. McCready was about to answer, when someone appeared at the end of their table.

It was Mia Santana.

“Have you interviewed Ron Martinelli yet, Detective?” she asked in a loud voice.

Giorgio had reached for a few French fries, but had to stop.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Ms. Santana,” he said, glancing up at her.

She was dressed in a wool coat and checkered scarf and carried a black messenger bag over her shoulder. She ignored the sarcasm.

“I want to know if you've interviewed Lisa Farmer’s boyfriend,” she said.

Giorgio wiped his hands on a napkin.

“First of all, Ms. Santana, I’m not in the habit of discussing ongoing investigations with the press,” he said with an edge to his voice.

“So this
is
an active case again?” she said triumphantly.

Giorgio grimaced. “Look, why are you so worried about Ron Martinelli?”

She put one hand on her hip and sighed. “Because I discovered this morning that his father was on the building committee at the monastery when Lisa Farmer went missing. The same building committee that approved the plans for the new west wing and patio up there. The
same
concrete patio that covered over the old well.”

Both Rocky and McCready glanced at Giorgio, who was taking a moment to process the information.

“Thank you, Ms. Santana. We’ll look into it.”

He lifted the French fries again and prepared to stuff them into his mouth. She turned and marched out the door.

“Well, that’s a piece of information we didn’t have,” Rocky said, watching her disappear.

“Yes, dammit,” Giorgio said, holding the fries between his fingers. “How did we miss that?”

He leveled a measured look in McCready’s direction.

McCready shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Sorry.”

“Why does that make a difference?” Rocky asked, negotiating another sloppy mouthful.

“Because that means that Ron Martinelli
might
have known about the well,” Giorgio said. “The contractors would have had to have permission to cover it up, so the entire building committee would have known about it. And maybe Royce Martinelli talked about it at home.”

“Who else was on the committee?” Rocky asked.

“Good question,” Giorgio said. He looked at McCready again. “Make sure you find that list. We need to know who else might have known about that well back then.”

The young cop nodded and Giorgio finally popped the fries into his mouth.

÷

McCready returned to the station, while Giorgio called the Pinney House to get permission for a visit. Since it was considered an historical building and served as a bed and breakfast, he was sure tourists often stopped by to take a look. But he felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of returning so soon after the horrifying encounter the night before. Maybe having Rocky there would help to mitigate the stress he was feeling.

On his way to the car, his cell phone rang. It was Angie.

“Can you take Grosvenor to the groomer’s at three o’clock?” she asked. “Elvira just called and asked me to come in to talk to the Consortium owners about working there.”

A shiver ran down his spine as Giorgio remembered what Flame had said about the dog.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” he said, unlocking the car.

“Well, he’s beginning to smell, and before you suggest it… the answer is no, the kids cannot give him a bath in the middle of winter.”

“Not a problem, I’ll go get him,” he said, thinking that a bath for Grosvenor was the last thing he was worried about.

“Oh, and by the way,” his wife said, “someone delivered an envelope for you. I left it on the desk in the den.”

“Uh…okay,” he said, wondering what it could be.

“What?” Rocky said after Giorgio hung up and they got into the car.

“We have to pick up Grosvenor.”

÷

It was early afternoon when they pulled into the driveway at the Pinney House. The elegant building stood proudly in the afternoon light, a magnificent example of Victorian architecture.

Giorgio left Grosvenor in the car with the window open. They met a tidy woman in her forties at the door. Her short gray hair was cut close to her head, and she wore a gray jumper over a long-sleeved white blouse.

She introduced herself as Veronica Johnson, current owner of the house. She couldn’t have been over five foot two, but exuded enough energy to fuel a person twice her size. When Giorgio made an admiring comment about the house, she responded.

“My husband and I bought and renovated the property several years back, with the intention of opening a bed and breakfast. It’s been a real labor of love,” she said with pride. “It has a long history, you know,” she continued. “It’s even haunted.”

Giorgio froze.

“Haunted?” he said.

“Yes,” she prattled on. “A little nine-year-old girl from the turn of the century appears from time to time at the back staircase. But I’ve been reading in the paper about that girl
you
found. So her boyfriend lived here back then, did he?”

Giorgio relaxed when he realized she wasn’t referring to the young women in the yard. Mrs. Johnson crossed her arms across her chest to ward off the chill in the air, but her gray eyes were alight with enthusiasm at owning the home where Ron Martinelli had lived. Apparently she liked the idea of having the house in the spotlight.

“Yes, he did,” Giorgio replied. “The Martinellis. Have you heard of them?”

“Actually, I have,” she said. “We found a small box of things hidden in the wall of the basement when we remodeled down there. There were a couple of bills, I think, that had the Martinelli name on them. Plus, of course, I did some research on the house when we bought it so that I could tell guests about its history. Well, why don’t you come in?”