“Yeah, because you called the cops!” Tony said.
“It was my duty as a law-abiding citizen,” he said.
“To accuse him of murder?” Tony said.
“I made no such accusation,” Hagmann said. “I simply alerted the authorities to what I had seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.”
“Which was?”
“That I found Angelo stone-cold dead in his bed mere minutes after your father’s so-called visit to him last month.”
Tony couldn’t even pretend to hide his shock.
“And that, as a result, you—a DiMarco—were suddenly named inheritor of Angelo’s house, despite his solemn vow never to allow such a thing to happen.”
“Why would Zio Angelo vow that?” Tony managed to stammer.
“Because the whole DiMarco clan had been shunning Angelo ever since his mother, Isabella, left Number Thirteen to him, and not her second husband, Antonio DiMarco.”
Yikes! That pretty much explained, Tony had to admit, why Nonno Guido and Zio Angelo never saw eye to eye. He didn’t say so to Old Man Hagmann, though. Instead he said, “But Dad made a point of visiting Zio Angelo whenever he was in Boston.”
“Are you sure about that?” Hagmann said. “Or did he just say he did? Frankly, I’d never met the man until the morning of Angelo’s death. Meanwhile, Angelo was pretty insistent that no DiMarco should get even a single chipped teacup of his property after he was gone. In fact, he recently asked me to type out a correction to his will changing the inheritor of Number Thirteen from your father—whom he had reluctantly chosen as the best of a bad lot when the will was first drawn up—to me. I strongly objected, of course. I already had a house and didn’t need another one. But Angelo was adamant that he sign the deed of Number Thirteen over to me. I was the only one who ever visited him, who bothered to look after him now that he was ill, who actually cared whether he lived or died.”
“If he felt that way about it, why did he suddenly fly to Ann Arbor to spend Thanksgiving with us?” Tony said.
Hagmann frowned. “To inform your father in person of his intention to cut all of you DiMarcos out of his will, once and for all. Angelo was convinced, on his return, that it was the stress of your father’s violent reaction that brought on his stroke.”
Tony had no recollection of any conflict between Michael and Zio Angelo at Thanksgiving. They seemed to get along just fine. And when was his dad ever violent? “If they were fighting, why would Dad bother to drop in on Zio Angelo three weeks ago?” Tony said, grasping at straws.
“Break in, more like,” Hagmann said. “I began looking after Angelo full-time once he became bedridden. So you can imagine my alarm when I heard footsteps overhead in the parlor while I was making his breakfast down in the kitchen. I knew it couldn’t be poor Angelo. And I raced upstairs to discover your father—a total stranger—looming over Angelo’s bed in a frankly menacing way while Angelo scribbled Trying to kill me on the notepad he used for communicating his needs.”
Tony was speechless. That didn’t sound like his dad at all. Then again, what had he joked with the twins over pizza? That it was always the mild-mannered ones who went postal?
“I was just about to call 911 when your father introduced himself as Angelo’s nephew from Michigan,” Hagmann continued. “He explained away the note by reminding me that Angelo’s heart medicine made him a little paranoid—which I knew to be true. He asked me if I would kindly make him a cup of tea. What could I do? Against my better judgment, I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. When I was on my way back up with the tray, though, your father came barreling out of the parlor. He stuffed an envelope addressed to Birnbaum & Birnbaum into his coat pocket and, claiming he was late for an appointment across town, dashed out the door.”
Tony’s heart sank. This more or less corroborated what Michael had said: that he had dropped in on Zio Angelo just before heading over to Harvard to deliver his speech on Paul Revere at the history conference.
“To my horror, I found Angelo dead when I returned to his side,” Hagmann concluded. “Which is when I called 911. And then I remembered—having recently typed out that change to Angelo’s will—that Birnbaum was Angelo’s lawyer. Immediately suspicious, I checked Angelo’s rolltop desk, only to discover both the will and the deed to Number Thirteen were missing.”
Uh-oh. Tony tried not to panic. Old Man Hagmann’s allegations did sound pretty convincing. “But none of this makes any sense,” he said, even though it sort of did. “Why would Dad risk the rest of his life in prison for such a falling-down heap of old bricks?”
“That’s for those detectives to deduce,” Hagmann sniffed. “All I know is this: that the DiMarcos have been trying to get their hands on Number Thirteen ever since Antonio tricked poor Isabella into marrying him. Why do you think he insisted on adopting Angelo as a teenager? I’ll tell you! So there would be no question of the house going to him after her death. But Angelo’s dear old mother confounded them all by leaving Number Thirteen to Angelo anyway.”
“You have no real proof to support any of that,” Tony said.
“Perhaps not,” Hagmann said. “But I wouldn’t get too comfortable over there if I were you. It’s only a matter of time before the authorities declare your father’s trumped-up version of Angelo’s will to be shamelessly falsified.”
“Or realize he’s totally innocent,” Tony said. Not knowing what to say next, he turned and strode out of Hangmen Court. As soon as he rounded the corner of Charter Street, though, he stopped at the entrance to an Irish bar to collect his wits. What were the odds those two detectives would ever buy that Michael was innocent? There was no denying how strange it was that Zio Angelo had changed his will the day he’d died, leaving No. 13 to Tony. Even stranger that Zio Angelo had tried to warn Old Man Hagmann, just beforehand, that Michael was trying to kill him. Stranger still that all this had taken place the day after Michael was notified that the DiMarcos were being booted out of university housing in Ann Arbor.
Basta! Michael couldn’t possibly have killed Zio Angelo. It just wasn’t in his nature. There must be some other explanation. Wait, what had Hagmann just said? That the DiMarco family had been trying to get their hands on No. 13 for generations. Could that possibly be true? Unfortunately, there was now no way for Tony to ask Michael, at least not at the moment. Nor could he call Nonno Guido without spilling the beans about the allegations against his dad. If only he could figure out a way to conjure the ghost of Angelo back and ask him about Antonio DiMarco. But how?
Colonial Maid Goth Chick was still reading that astrophysics book at the slate counter when he jangled through the front door. Except now she wasn’t wearing that long purple dress or her gathered cotton cap. She was sporting a cutoff jean miniskirt and Bob Marley tank top. Her punked-out black hair was tied back in a ratty ponytail with a purple ribbon.
“Video shop is next to the hardware,” she mumbled, turning the page.
“Can I ask you a question?” Tony said.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, looking up and squinting.
“Tony,” he said, wandering over. “I just moved into the neighborhood.”
She stared at him.
“So what’s your name?” he said.
“Sarah,” she said. “Are you, like, stalking me?”
“I’ve got one of these in my room,” Tony said, tapping the countertop where the spiral was carved. “Only mine’s a shelf.”
“It’s called a pawcorance,” Sarah said. “They’re wicked old. Ancient Native Americans carved them centuries before the Algonquian Nation formed its tribes or the Pilgrims even thought of boarding the Mayflower.”
“What were they for?” Tony asked. “Originally, I mean.”
“Anthropologists theorize they marked spots where ancient natives encountered ancestral spirits,” Sarah said. “The Algonquians continued to consider them sacred, especially the more elaborate ones in the form of altars. Pawcorance is actually the Algonquian word for ‘mockingbird.�
� Tradition held that the mockingbird was itself possessed by spirits, since it only ever appeared at dusk or dawn—often at pawcorances—and could sing in the voice of any animal. Dude, are you OK? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Tony nodded, though he wasn’t so sure.
“Unfortunately, the Pilgrims turned most of the pawcorances around New England into horse mounts, boot scrapers, door lintels, fireplace mantels—you name it,” she said. “They weren’t very respectful. Are you sure you’re OK?”
Tony hesitated. Was he really going to go there? Sarah was, after all, a total stranger. Emphasis on strange.
Dad’s in jail. OK, at the jail, for questioning. But still.
“I think my pawcorance might have conjured my dead great-uncle Angelo from 1939,” he blurted. “When he was a kid. But then he disappeared again before I could figure out what was going on. I sort of need to conjure him back.”
Sarah squinted at him again. “Better follow me,” she said. She ducked through the purple velvet curtain behind her.
Tony checked his pants pocket for his new cell phone—just in case she skinned rats back there—but did as he was told. He was a little disappointed to find himself in an ordinary storage room crammed with more junk. Sarah busied herself filling a dented copper kettle at a small, rust-stained sink. She set the kettle on a gas camp stove and fired up the burner with a wand-like fireplace match. She reached for a teapot on a shelf above the stove cluttered with canisters and tins. “Cup of mint tea?” she said.
“Um, sure,” Tony said. He’d never actually had one in his life. “So do you think my pawcorance still works?”
“How should I know?” Sarah said. She plucked two faded teacups off hooks beneath the shelf and dusted them with the black-and-skulls hanky she pulled from her pocket.
“You never conjured anyone with yours?” Tony said.
“It’s not mine,” she said.
“With Mildred’s?” Tony said.
“Of course not!” she said.
He felt himself turn beet red. “I should probably just go,” he said.
“Dude, chill!” Sarah said. “I’m not doubting your word. I’m just saying there’s no reason why Mildred’s pawcorance would work. I told you, they mark sites. We’re at least fifty miles from Worcester, where this one was found.”
The kettle whistled. Sarah shut off the gas and reached for one of the canisters. She placed four scoops of dried leaves in the teapot, then filled it with boiling water.
“But mine must have been moved too,” Tony said. “It’s now a shelf in the attic of the house I just moved into.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Sarah said. “You can’t rule out the possibility it was actually found at the site where your house was built, got turned into a shelf, and is therefore still more or less in its original location. A hypothesis which is supported by your claim it still works. Or am I missing something?”
Tony shook his head.
“Sugar?”
Tony nodded, figuring anything would taste better sweeter. She placed a cracked bowl on a tray alongside the steaming teapot and two cleanish cups. Tony followed her back to the main shop. She set the tray on the spiral of the countertop and poured out two cups of yellowish-looking liquid. She dropped a cube of sugar into one and handed it to Tony, telling him to park himself on a stool that looked worryingly like a stuffed rhinoceros leg. He took a hesitant sip. To his surprise, the tea was refreshing, sort of tingly and nice. Meanwhile Sarah slumped with her own cup onto the sort of lounging sofa Cleopatra might have liked. “What was your question, again?” she said.
“How to conjure Angelo back,” Tony said.
Sarah frowned. She blew on her tea. “How old are you?”
“I just turned thirteen,” Tony told her. “Yesterday.” He wondered how old she was: fifteen? sixteen? It was a little hard to tell.
“Interesting,” she said, not bothering to wish him a happy birthday. “And what were you doing just prior to this Angel dude’s appearance?”
“Sleeping,” Tony admitted.
“You didn’t do anything to the pawcorance?”
Tony told her about running his finger around the spiral the night before, getting a static shock, hearing a boy’s voice, placing Ted Williams’s cap over the spiral before going to bed, and waking to find Angelo asleep beside him.
“In the present?” Sarah said.
“Angelo thought he was still in his own room in 1939,” Tony said.
“Interesting,” Sarah said again. She set her cup down on the counter and headed for the wall of books. She ran her finger along a row of tomes until she found the one she was looking for. She showed Tony its gold-stamped cover: Of My Amazing Exploites in the New Worlde. “Myles Standish,” she said, settling back onto her sofa and leafing through the book’s yellowed pages. “Militia captain for the Plymouth Colony. He was the first Englishman to explore the Shawmut Peninsula—now the city of Boston—which was already inhabited by a band of the Massachuset tribe. The band’s sachem, Chickatawbut, welcomed Standish with a feast of lobsters and boiled cod. Chickatawbut promised to share this peninsula with Standish on one and only one condition. Do you know what that was?”
Tony shook his head. Of course he didn’t! But he was used to these sorts of leading questions; Michael always asked them before launching into a bit of history.
“On condition that Standish’s Pilgrims never settle near their sacred Spiraling Stone,” Sarah said. “Do you know why?”
Tony shook his head again.
“Because that was where the tribe’s thirteen-year-old braves held their vision quests,” she said, throwing up her hands as though the answer were obvious. She then began to read a somewhat long and boring passage out of the book. It was written in a way that made the whole thing sound to Tony like Shakespeare. But he finally got the general upshot: When a boy was close to manhood—when he had lived thirteen winters and was seeking to be called a brave—he would begin his vision quest by placing an object on the carved spiral of the stone altar. This talisman needed to represent the animal totem he’d already been assigned by the tribe’s sachem: a hawk feather, say, or a bear claw or porcupine quill. He then waited for a guide from the spirit world—usually an ancestor of that same totem—to appear to him in animal form. Sometimes this occurred the first night, sometimes it didn’t; the conditions needed to be exactly right. Which is why the boy had the whole following year to keep trying.
“Did Angelo remind you of an animal?” Sarah asked, glancing up from the book.
Tony nodded. Angelo’s thick glasses had made him look like a cross-eyed owl.
“You said you placed a cap on the spiral,” Sarah said. “Did the cap mean anything to Angelo?”
“He had just gotten it from a famous ballplayer,” Tony said.
“How did you come by it?” Sarah said.
“He sent it to me himself when he was an old man,” Tony said. “For my thirteenth birthday, just before he died. Come to think of it, the kid version of Zio Angelo told me he also set that cap on the spiral before going to bed.”
“Interesting,” Sarah said.
“You think I had a vision quest?” Tony said.
“Not really,” Sarah said, sipping her tea.
“Oh,” Tony said. “Well, what do you think?”
“That ancient cultures developed rituals like the vision quest to explain naturally occurring phenomena at certain sites whenever certain atmospheric conditions came into play,” she said. She strode back to the wall of books. This time she pulled out a relatively modern-looking volume. She opened it to a dogeared page. On the left-hand side was a bunch of crudely drawn spirals.
“Petroglyphs found at prehistoric sites throughout North America,” she said. “Anthropologists have narrowed their meaning to three possibilities: the universe itself, a portal to the spirit world, or the coiled nature of time. The Massachuset language, a dialect of Algonquian, had no word for time before the arrival of Europeans
. Nor did they have any concept of past or future. For them, everything happened—birth, manhood, marriage, death—in one long, never-ending now.”
“You’ve totally lost me,” Tony said.
“Ever heard of Hermann Minkowski?” Sarah said.
Tony shook his head yet again.
Sarah took him over to a round wire birdcage that was hanging from the ceiling. “In 1909, Minkowski proposed a radical new notion of time called the block universe theory. He imagined time to be spatial, existing all at once as plot points in a three-dimensional sphere—a gigantic, cosmic version of this cage—not a progression of events plotted along a two-dimensional line.” Here she pulled the ribbon out of her hair and tied one end of it to a random wire of the cage. “Minkowski theorized it might be possible for one era to communicate with another—his explanation for ghosts and spirits—if certain atmospheric conditions forced two different points of the sphere to connect.” She opened the cage and pulled the ribbon through its center. She tied it at another random spot on the opposite side. “In such a time anomaly, both moments might, in theory, take place simultaneously in a given location.” She ran her finger along the entire length of the purple ribbon, then twanged it for good measure.
“So you think my pawcorance is a time anomaly?” Tony said.
“It’s just one hypothesis,” Sarah said. “Let’s say static on the spiral is a signal the conditions are right for a thirteen-year-old to make contact with someone from another era. Let’s also say that who—Angelo, for example—is determined by the object you place on the spiral. In this case it’s the ball cap, because it is meaningful to you both, and exists in 1939 as well as 2009. Let’s say the voice you then hear confirms you’ve chosen the right object. All you would need to do is wait for Angelo to place his cap on his spiral for an anomaly to open in the space-time continuum, and bam!, you’re both inhabiting the same spot, simultaneously. Follow?”
Tony nodded uncertainly.
“But let’s say time does indeed march on outside the anomaly. And the second either of you leaves the room—bam!—you find yourself back in your own era.”
13 Hangmen Page 6
