Sibley's Secret

by Frank Perry

higher level of consciousness overtook him. “Dr. Evanoff, it’s Detective Olander. Can we talk?”

  Evan nodded his head, starting to recognize the man standing beside his bed. “Ah, yeah, just give me a minute to get oriented.”

  “No problem, Evan. Take your time.”

  A moment later, Evan was fully awake. Jim said, “Sorry if I woke you. The nurse said she thought you were awake and just resting your eyes.”

  “Yeah, I do that most of the time. I can’t imagine staying in bed all the time. This (he motioned at his IV bags) keeps me sedated.”

  Jim smiled, “They tell me you were lucky.”

  “Yeah, real lucky. I saw my girlfriend die.”

  “Can I ask you some more questions?”

  “Yes, fire away.”

  “Yesterday you mentioned a Russian that you though was responsible for the shooting.” It was kinder than calling it a killing.

  “Yes, Gregori Jelavich. He’s a notorious Russian crime boss.”

  “Do you know why he would want to kill you and Ms. Chuikov?”

  “I don’t think he wanted to kill her. She worked for him; he needed her. He wanted me dead. I was foolish and didn’t think he’d follow me to the States. I got Karina killed.”

  “Why try to kill you?”

  “Because, I got too close to Karina: I knew what she was looking for. He warned her to stay away from me. He threatened her mother and warned her to stay away from me. She tried. We both knew he would kill me if I got close to her again.”

  “So, you didn’t go to the granary together?”

  “No, I tracked her down. I did a pretty good job of it, but it got her killed.” Evan turned away momentarily, unable to talk for several seconds. “I was getting closer to her for several days after she came to the States; then I found her yesterday.” He turned away again, then returned with tears on his cheeks, “I didn’t think he would follow her here. I got her killed.”

  Jim put down his notepad, “From what you tell me, you almost got yourself killed.”

  “It would have been better.”

  “Why were you both at the granary?”

  “It’s a long story, but we were both looking for something stolen during World War One, something an Army officer brought back from a mission in Russia. There are some people in Russia that want it back.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “One of them is Gregori Jelavich, he hired Karina to find it. Another man, an American White Russian hired me.”

  “What’s he name?”

  “I don’t want to say, I have a privacy agreement with him unless he approves it.”

  Jim’s face muscles tightened, “I’d really like to know, so, will you ask him?”

  “Yes, I’ll ask if I can get my cellphone back.”

  “Okay, tell me about what you were looking for?”

  “I can’t do that. It will only get more people killed.”

  Jim looked dubious, “What do you mean killed?”

  “I mean people have already died looking for it; hell, I almost died and Karina IS dead.”

  “Come on, give me something to report on. I have to collect the facts in the case and this is a big question if you don’t tell me something.”

  Evan was too tired to resist much and, frankly, didn’t much care about his employer’s trust now that Karina was dead. “All I can say is it was property of a Mr. Brucston Hicks who was killed in 1922.”

  Jim closed his note pad. “You get some sleep, Evan. That’s all for now. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Evan watched the Detective walk out past the nurse’s station, not knowing if he’d said anything useful. He lay back again, closing is eyes, seeing Karina’s death stare.

  In his Chicago high rise penthouse apartment, Rack Angelis was applying antiseptic to scratches on his face and hands when his smartphone beeped, indicating a new SMS message: Odd Job, you fucked up. Yesterday’s subject is expected a full recovery at hospital in Jackson Michigan. It is important to finish the job as instructed before he talks to the police. You must hurry. Your payment is depending on it. Get it done!

  He chartered a plane from Executive Airport. He could drive to Jackson in five hours, but that was too much time. He needed to salvage the contract. He would be on the ground at Jackson County Airport in less than an hour.

  Planning

  Kiki called Sibley, wanting to meet with her to discuss the farm. There were several issues to be resolved, including all the farm equipment, which was too old to be worth much, house furnishings and general cleanup of the property. The largest issue, however, was the crates stored in the back of the equipment shed. When Carter and Sarah opened one randomly in the 1920s, the German weapons and uniforms had been worth enough to live on for half a year. That may have been far below the actual value since Carter was negotiating as an eleven year-old boy with no business experience. But almost a century later, there was no way to predict today’s value. It could be more or less. The contents could have deteriorated over time as well.

  An hour later, Sibley and Kiki opened the big steel doors, pausing briefly to let their eyes adjust. Sibley commented, “Do you think we’d be breaking any laws now if we sold the stuff?”

  Kiki stared at the huge stacks of boxes, “I don’t know, but I’d like to see how big this problem really is.”

  The front row of boxes was fruit crates used during harvesting season when migrant workers came through and dozens would work for two weeks, stripping the trees. The crates were about four feet square by three feet tall. They were stacked five high. There were eight stacks along the front row. Kiki asked, “Do you know how to run the tractor?”

  Sibley laughed, “Heavens, no, but it might be like starting that old bus I drove with the diesel engine.” She climbed up onto the front wheel and opened the gas cap. “Plenty of fuel, at least.”

  She climbed back down and went to the rear step, pulling up, using the steering wheel to the driver’s seat. She was still a tall agile woman, despite her thin frame and able to fit the controls designed for men. “Let me see.” She looked around the simple controls, most of which managed the hydraulic actuators for the lift bucket. She turned the switch to “run” and waited several seconds for the old diesel glow plugs to warm up, saying, “Well, here goes nothing.”

  She stepped on a round steel pedal on the floor that connected the battery to the starter motor, and the engine began to growl, starting to turn over. It took several seconds for the engine to cough, sending a black cloud to the rooftop. Kiki quickly ran to the doors and opened them fully.

  Sibley sat there without touching anything, “Got to let the engine warm up for a minute or so.”

  Kiki just nodded, not bothering to yell above the noise.

  Sibley had no idea how the controls worked, so Kiki signaled for her to come down. She had learned to drive the tractor from her father, even though she hated it.

  Over the next several minutes, the women, mother and daughter, managed to get the bucket changed for the fork lying on the ground near the tractor, then Kiki backed up, aligning the front of the tractor with the middle of the crates. She yelled at Sibley, “You better get by the door in case I knock these over.”

  When her mother was safely out of the way, Kiki lifted the fork high above and moved toward the center stack of crates. It took several tries to get the forks under it and lift. She backed away slowly and lowered the box close to the ground. She rotated the tractor while backing up and moved the crate out through the doors, placing it on the ground out of the way. She repeated the process four more times until the center stack of boxes was removed. She parked the tractor outside, killing the engine. “Let’s see what we got.”

  The woman looked at the stack of green wooden boxes revealed behind the missing crates. Sibley commented, “These must be the Army crates Carter and Sarah knew about.” The old boxes were made of plywood and edged in two-inch thick o
ak. They were painted green and had some weathered writing stenciled on the sides, which appeared to be just letters and numbers.

  Kiki was already moving to the side of the building, getting a ladder, “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  She placed the ladder against the crates and climbed to the top, barely a foot under the metal ceiling. “My, God, there’s five rows.”

  The crates were approximately four feet cubed, stacked four high. Sibley called up, “how many stacks in each row?”

  Kiki counted from right to left, “Looks like nine or ten.”

  She came down and the women walked back to the house. Kiki commented, “I guess that means there’s about forty-five or fifty crates in each row.”

  Sibley shook her head, “I had no idea it was this big. Mr. Hicks must have had brass balls to sneak that much stuff home.”

  Kiki laughed at the comment, “Can you imagine how much the Army brought back if he was able to hide this much? I can’t even imagine it.”

  They sat in the living room, drinking ginger ale that her father had used to mix with bourbon. The enormity of their problem was apparent to both.

  Sibley spoke first, “Kiki, there must be two hundred or two-fifty boxes out there.”

  Kiki was still overwhelmed, “Yeah.”

  “So, now what do we do?”

  Kiki answered quickly, “We call the police.”

  Sibley nodded in agreement.

  Jim was already driving toward the farm from the hospital when she called. “Hey, beautiful, I’m on my way to see you.”

  “Good, I’ve got something to show you.”

  “I’m excited now!”

  She smiled, “It’s not that kind of a show.”

  “Okay, I’ll come anyway.”

  He was there in less than fifteen minutes and found both women standing by the equipment shed. He thought Sibley looked much younger out in the daylight. She looked remarkably like Kiki. “Hello, Ms. Albrecht, you look especially nice today.”

  She smiled, “Call me Sibley, Jim. There’s nothing like a pair of jeans, an old shirt and a new daughter to refresh an old gal.”

  He grinned, looking at both women, “You both look great this morning, seriously.

  Kiki smiled, then signaled to follow, “Come see what we found.”

  They walked into the metal building with Kiki leading. Jim whistled a single note when he saw it, “What have you got here?”

  Sibley asked, “What’s it look like to you?”

  He went up closer. The old olive drab paint was badly checked and most of the stenciling wasn’t readable. “These look like military boxes from a long time ago.” He rubbed the side of the bottom box and most of the paint flaked off. Then he looked up at the roof and to both sides of the stack inside the shed. “How many of these do you have?”

  Kiki answered, ‘We think between two hundred and two-fifty.”

  “Oh, my God! What’s in them?”

  Sibley answered, “They’re old Army shipping containers. They were shipped back after the First War. These were emptied in France of their original war materials and refilled with battlefield scavenging. They were brought back for sale by a crooked Army officer. The box that Carter opened in 1922 was filled mostly with German weapons and uniforms.”

  “Why are all these boxes here?” His detective experience was kicking in.

  Sibley didn’t want to discuss it in detail; it might get her into a conversation she wanted to avoid. Kiki answered, “It’s a long story which we’d like to keep secret a little longer. Let’s just say it was brought home by an Army officer who controlled a lot of material and manpower at his disposal. It ended up here after he died suddenly in 1922.”

  He looked serious, “You mean Hicks? I know the story. I believe your grandfather had something to do with Mr. Hicks’ demise.” He was addressing Sibley.

  She looked right back, “Don’t believe what you hear or read.”

  He looked at both women, “Look, ladies, if this is what I think it is, it was stolen from Hicks. It looks a lot like a motive for killing Hicks.”

  Kiki spoke up, “That’s the point, Jim. It looks that way and it’s why the family kept it hidden all these years. It was really not Hicks’ property; he used surplus shipping crates and brought back souvenirs, a lot of souvenirs. He used his Army brigade as laborers. Hicks didn’t deserve this any more than anyone else.”

  “Any of this Army property?”

  Sibley shrugged, “We don’t know what’s in the boxes, Jim. Some of the newspapers back then had stories that Hicks had stolen Army supplies to sell before the war, heck, my grandfather wrote the articles. At least the empty boxes once belonged to the Army.”

  He shrugged, “I don’t think the empty boxes matter. They were throwaways. I also don’t think there’s a problem with the contents unless you find something actually stolen from the Army.”

  Kiki spoke, “We can’t know that unless we open them. That could take months.”

  He was sympathetic and also in love with Kiki. “Look, it’s probably not a hundred percent right, but as long as you’ve had this stuff, I don’t think anyone has a claim to it anymore. Maybe you should sell it.” Then it hit him. The light went on in his mind like a flare in a coal mine; there was a man in the hospital that was shot looking for a shipment like these boxes. They could be dealing with some extremely dangerous people. It needed to disappear with no connection to this family. It had to get out of here fast, with no trace back to them. If the researchers were able to get this close, the killer couldn’t be far behind.

  “That could take years!” Kiki wanted it gone before any legal problems came up.

  “Look, Kiki, I don’t know what else to tell you. You could probably advertise it as ‘found’ and then get a judge to grant title if no one claims it. After almost a hundred years, who’s gonna want it?”

  She responded, “Jim, this could be worth a lot of money.”

  He smiled at her, “I’m sure it is, so you and your mother are gonna have to figure out who gets it, but the important thing is to get rid of it.” He realized, too late, that he was raising a question mark in her mind about why he was suddenly pushing the idea of selling it; of getting rid of it.

  Sibley spoke, “That’s easy. I don’t want it. It should be split between Kiki and Jason, they’re the rightful two.”

  Jim looked at her, “Well, ma’am, I actually think it’s yours.”

  She smiled, “That’s probably what the court would say, but I would want it to go to my children.” Kiki put her arm around her.

  Jim had another thought, “I think there might be someone else who thinks he’s got an interest.”

  Sibley looked surprised, “What do you mean?”

  “I think those researchers, those two that were shot, might have been looking for this.”

  Kiki was shocked, “What! How could that be? After more than ninety years, how could anyone else be interested?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got to get back to the hospital and find out.”

  Confronted

  Rack didn’t believe in disguises. They never worked as depicted in the movies. He also didn’t like assignments in hospitals with so many cameras and people around. Once again, that Russian pig was causing him to go in unprepared. Hospitals are predictable. He’d killed people in hospitals before, but only after careful observation. It was easy to make murder look accidental in hospitals; the trick was to remain invisible when people were always around. Killing someone in a hospital could appear as errant medications, infections, tainted oxygen or other causes that hospitals don’t report, to protect their reputations. Such deaths occur in hospitals routinely without ever being properly investigated. Understanding routines had always been vital to his success in the past. Rounds are made at specific intervals, visiting hours are posted, and seriously injured patients usually sleep between visits and after hours. Antibiotics a
nd painkillers assure that, even without sleeping aids. Doctors and nurses want the patients to sleep.

  He could figure the schedules out if he had time. He could usually get in and out without anyone noticing, but it took some reconnoitering first. There was no time in this case. He was going in unprepared, taking a chance that no one would notice, and that the patient would be alone, asleep. He was taking a big risk.

  Instead of masquerading as a doctor, he stopped in the gift store for flowers. His only disguise was some Band-Aids over his cut face, a Red Sox hat purchased at a local sporting goods shop, a fake New England accent and a pair of clear horn rims. He’d always been successful avoiding identification. He was average height, average weight, medium hair, average looking – indistinguishable in a crowd. It always worked before. He wouldn’t touch anything without using the cotton handkerchief in his pocket.

  The receptionist in the lobby said Dr. Evanoff was on the third floor. He thanked her and took the stairway instead of the elevator. It’s funny that stairs aren’t monitored by cameras the way elevators are. People tend to vandalize stairwells more than public elevators. It’s all about safeguarding the cameras. The next obstacle would be a police guard on the patient, but he didn’t expect it in this hick town. When he came out from the stairwell, there were no cops in the hall.

  The nurse’s station was in the center of the floor with all rooms radiating from it. Several nurses were working on different things when he asked for the Evanoff room. No one looked at him beyond the flowers in his hand and the ball cap; obviously a friend from the professor’s home town.

  He walked casually toward room 310, listening for any sounds that would indicate visitors. Everything was quiet. He glanced around inconspicuously once before opening the door to Evan’s room. Inside, he closed it quietly. The patient was, predictably, sleeping.

  Jim Olander had parked on the bottom level of the subterranean garage and was taking the elevator to the third floor. The hydraulic lift was exceptionally slow, probably to move patients on beds without disturbing them. It was a long ride from the P3 level.

  Once on the third floor, he knew which room he was going to, but he stopped at the nurse’s station to check in anyway. The cute young girl on duty recognized him. He was in the hospital regularly for abuse and overdose cases. This was the first gunshot survivor that anyone could remember. She smiled and said, “It’s a busy afternoon for the professor.”

  “What do you mean?” He was curious, but assumed Evan’s parents might have come in.

  “Oh, some friend just brought him flowers.”

  Jim was alert. Someone had tried to kill Evan and he didn’t have any friends in the area that were mentioned in their first interview. He walked briskly toward room 310. He didn’t pause before entering. That’s when he saw him, the killer.

  The syringe was still inserted in the drip chamber of Evan’s IV. The man in the ball cap looked up, startled, reacting swiftly. He let the syringe dangle, pushing the side table at the Detective. Jim jumped aside and the man in the cap was on