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

by Lynn Bohart

  Giorgio bent over and studied the floor. “Look at this,” he said to Rocky.

  He pointed to faint grooves in the concrete that curved away from the center bookcase.

  “If I’m not mistaken, these grooves will match up to those casters under the bookcase.”

  Rocky nodded. “No mystery there,” he said.

  Giorgio called to one of the officers who had come down with them.

  “We need an electric screwdriver,” he said.

  The officer disappeared up the stairs, while he and Rocky began removing the boxes and canisters from the shelves. When everything had been removed, they yanked on the bookcase. It didn’t budge.

  A moment later, the officer returned with the screwdriver. Rocky took it, gauged the size of screw head they would need, plugged in the driver and went to work in the upper right corner of the bookcase.

  “It’s bolted right into the concrete wall,” Rocky said, straining to get the first bolt out.

  Because the screws had been painted over several times, it took some time to get them loose. What finally dropped out were 3 inch concrete screws. They found two more at the bottom corners. When those two came out, the entire unit seemed to relax.

  “Someone didn’t want this thing moved,” Rocky said. He put down the screwdriver and glanced at his brother. “Ready?”

  Giorgio took a deep breath. “Not really. I’m not sure what we’re going to find.”

  While the handlers, three officers and Fong looked on, the brothers each took a side of the massive unit. On the count of three, they pulled.

  The unit hesitated, as if held back by fifty years of secrets. Then it released and inched forward.

  It took some grunting and groaning, but the bookcase finally cleared its neighboring units, and Rocky was able to swing the whole unit out from the wall to the left. When he did, the rollers skated across the concrete floor almost exactly where the indentations were.

  Behind it was a mass of cobwebs, dirt, and bugs. And behind all of that was an old, rotting wooden door that hung off its hinges.

  “Shit!” Rocky said as he stared at the door. “Now even I have a bad feeling.”

  Giorgio turned and asked Fong for a towel. A moment later, he was wiping away the bugs and cobwebs.

  “Don’t forget to glove-up,” Fong said, handing over a couple of pairs of latex gloves.

  “You really think there will be fingerprints left after all these years?” Giorgio said.

  “Don’t know,” the man said. “But it’s better to be careful.”

  Giorgio put on the gloves and then grabbed the flashlight.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said to Rocky.

  The door hung inwards off one metal hinge. They pushed it all the way open, nearly pulling it free from the bent metal casing. As Giorgio stepped onto the landing of the old, rickety staircase, he was met with a flood of musty, damp air from below. He flicked on the flashlight, revealing a set of old wooden steps and a railing that led down.

  Rocky peered around the corner and down the steps with a shudder. “I wonder how many rats are down there. I don’t much like rats. After you, Sherlock,” Rocky nodded to Giorgio.

  Giorgio paused, feeling a heavy weight in the middle of his chest. This was the yin and yang of police work. There was the exhilaration of finding something that could blow a case wide open, and the chilling anticipation of what that find might actually mean.

  He paused and took a deep breath. Then he began his descent.

  The staircase shifted under his weight and the ancient steps creaked and groaned, sounding like the sound effects from every horror movie he’d ever seen. He waved the towel in front of him to remove cobwebs and dust motes, as he dropped into a well of inky blackness.

  The flashlight beam bounced around, revealing snapshots of a small empty room with brick walls and a hard-packed dirt floor. The cellar was only about ten feet square. A sagging ceiling was held up by solid wooden columns in each corner and one in the center of the room.

  Giorgio stepped off the last step and glanced around. An old dangling light bulb socket hung from the center of the ceiling, its bulb long gone. The floor was uneven and there was no furniture, no shelving, nothing that spoke to the sordid past Giorgio firmly believed it had. But as the flashlight splayed across the dirt floor, it revealed darkened splotches.

  “It’s okay,” he called up to Rocky. “C’mon down.”

  He moved into the room, as he heard Rocky come down behind him. Giorgio crouched down to examine an area by the far wall.

  Something had seeped into the dirt, leaving a jagged demarcation between it and the surrounding soil. He reached out and touched it and then rubbed his index finger and thumb together. It wasn’t oily. Whatever it was had dried completely. And he knew by instinct that it couldn’t be anything but blood.

  “What’d you find?” Rocky said from behind him.

  Giorgio straightened up.

  “Not sure. We need some lights down here. Then we’ll need Molly and maybe Bones.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As late afternoon became evening, the team brought in electric generators and scoop lights to allow them to work outside after dark. They also strung long extension cords into the basement to set up pole lights. Finally, they brought the dogs down. Molly signaled four spots on the packed dirt floor. For training purposes, Atwater allowed Bones the same opportunity and he hit every spot.

  “The earth is much damper down here,” Atwater said to Giorgio. “I think that’s why there’s still the scent of human decomp.”

  Giorgio nodded and called in the forensics team.

  By the time Giorgio emerged from the house to get some fresh air, they had found four more skeletons, along with the partial skeletal remains of two others. It had been dark outside for some time and the scene in the backyard reminded him of a night-time movie set, minus the actors. The lovely pond had been removed and was now just a pile of concrete rubble. A big hole had been dug right in the center, where the third body had been found. The area under the basement window had also been dug up and the second body removed.

  A tired and haggard-looking Mulhaney cornered Giorgio, a haunted look etched into his normally friendly features.

  “You know, Joe, I’ve worked for this department for more than seven years,” he said grimly, “In all that time, I think we only worked four murder cases. Now, between the monastery murders and this, we’ve encountered more dead bodies than in my whole career here.”

  “I know,” Giorgio replied, feeling his own spirits weighted down by the enormity of it all. “But now we need to focus on finding out who these remains belong to and then work to bring whoever did this to justice.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that?” Mulhaney said, glancing back at the chaos behind them. “These bodies are so old. The perp must be long gone. Maybe dead.”

  Giorgio looked up at Mulhaney, who was a good three inches taller than him.

  “Maybe. But we owe it to the families to try.”

  Mulhaney nodded and went back to work, videotaping the remains as they came out of the ground.

  Every inch of the backyard and side yards had now been scanned twice, and the dogs had signaled one more location along the side of the house. Cops and forensics techs were busy digging up that location and the basement. Both dogs had been allowed to go home. News vans had lined Lima Street for hours, and pools of onlookers strained to catch a glimpse of something they could record on their cell phones.

  But by ten-thirty that night, the curious spectators had dispersed and the team was packed up and ready to leave. They would resume their work the next day, when they would scan the front yard for good measure. Giorgio felt confident they wouldn’t find anything there, since the yard was too visible to prying eyes. But it had to be done. He stationed officers overnight at the front corners of the property and in the back yard.

  Once the chaos had died down and the big house was dark, with only a few security lig
hts illuminating the back yard, Giorgio and Rocky stood side-by-side as the rest of the police personnel dragged themselves down the long driveway to their cars.

  “Wanna get something to eat before you go home?” Rocky asked.

  Giorgio turned bleary eyes in his direction. “Yeah. That pizza we ate tasted like cardboard. Mama’s should still be open if we hurry.”

  They took separate cars and met at Mama’s Café a few minutes later. The place was almost empty and would be closing in less than twenty minutes. But Eve, the waitress on duty, allowed them in.

  “You guys must be exhausted,” she said, following them to a table. “Everyone’s been watching it on the news.” She handed them menus and then took out her order tablet. “It’s too late to do anything like fried chicken, but there’s meatloaf left and it was pretty good. It’s on the house,” she said proudly.

  Eve stood poised and ready to write. Giorgio just slid the menu back to her without even looking at it.

  “The meatloaf sounds great.”

  “Me, too,” Rocky said.

  “Okay,” she said. “And two Cokes?”

  “Just water for me,” Giorgio replied. “I need to sleep tonight.”

  “Same for me,” Rocky concurred.

  Eve left to get their dinners, and the brothers sat motionless for a few moments. Giorgio felt like someone had poked a hole in him and drained him of any life-giving fluids. To say he was exhausted was putting it mildly.

  “So how did you know?” Rocky suddenly said. “I mean, really?”

  Giorgio glanced over at his brother. Rocky’s eyes were dull and lifeless with fatigue.

  “I’ve never thought this was just about Lisa Farmer,” he replied.

  “Why?” his brother asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of the people involved. Maybe because of the way she was disposed of. It just didn’t seem like a random murder. Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide her body. There had to be a reason.”

  “But we don’t even know yet whether all of these other murders have anything to do with Lisa Farmer’s death,” Rocky said.

  Rocky normally couldn’t stop moving. If his knee wasn’t bouncing up and down, his fingers were reaching for something to touch, grab or move. Right now, his left hand reached out for the salt shaker, but this time more out of habit. When his fingers wrapped themselves around the shaker, they stopped. He didn’t seem to have enough energy to even give it a twirl.

  “The earring proves that Lisa was at the Pinney House that night,” Giorgio said. “What if she found something, heard something, or saw something that got her killed? Finding all those bodies at the house can’t be a coincidence,” he said quietly.

  “Maybe,” Rocky said. “But I know you. And I watched you today. You were never really surprised by any of the finds. In fact, the only time you seemed surprised was when you found the earring. You didn’t expect that, did you?”

  Giorgio watched him cautiously. “No.”

  “But you did expect everything else. Including finding the root cellar.”

  “Grosvenor signaled the root cellar,” Giorgio replied quickly.

  “You know, when we were at the monastery, investigating Mallery Olsen’s murder, you seemed to know things there, too. I know you get hunches, but…” Rocky paused, thoughtfully regarding his brother for a moment.

  “I do,” Giorgio cut in. “I can’t explain it.”

  He wasn’t ready to reveal the boy to his brother. He didn’t know if he ever would.

  Fortunately, Eve returned with their meals, forcing them to forego the conversation for the moment.

  “Sometimes I hate my job,” Giorgio said after a few bites. “Even though we’re cops, I can never seem to accept how someone can appear so normal on the outside and yet be such a sick bastard on the inside. Most likely whoever killed those women, tortured them, murdered them, and then went on about their business like nothing had ever happened.”

  “Do you think it was one of the Martinellis?”

  “I’d bet one of them did Lisa Farmer. But we won’t know for a while if the other bodies were buried before or after the Martinellis lived there.”

  “Do you like Ron Martinelli for Lisa Farmer’s death?”

  Giorgio shrugged and reached for his water. “I don’t know. Right now, I’m too tired to think.”

  “So how did you know about these women?” Rocky asked, unwilling to give up on his question.

  Giorgio stopped mid-bite. He’d hoped they’d moved off the topic of ghosts. He put his fork down again.

  “I had a weird dream,” he said, grabbing a napkin. “No big deal. It happens sometimes.”

  He had had a dream about the women, running from a faceless man in a stocking cap.

  “So, you’re a psychic now?” Rocky said with a snort.

  Giorgio had to tread lightly.

  “No. I just get dreams sometimes.”

  Rocky shifted in his seat. “You’d better not tell anyone else. Cops don’t accept that sort of thing very easily.”

  Giorgio leveled a serious look at him. “I don’t plan on talking about it. And neither should you.”

  Rocky held his hands up in defeat. “Don’t worry. I have no plans to mention it to anyone. They’ll think you’re crazy.”

  “Thanks,” Giorgio said with irritation. “I didn’t think you were so closed-minded.”

  Rocky glanced at him under hooded lashes. “I’m just realistic,” he said. “Ghosts don’t exist. And there’s no such thing as psychics. It’s all fakery.”

  “Well, then, you’d be surprised to learn that Detective Abrams uses a psychic,” Giorgio said.

  “The guy up in Seattle?”

  “Yeah. He works with a psychic up there. He brought her in when Montgomery was killed.”

  Giorgio avoided mentioning the fact that he’d also been to see a psychic, and that it was Flame who had confirmed the fact the girls were buried at the Pinney House.

  Rocky blew out a dismissive breath. “Bunch of malarkey.”

  “Well, Abrams seems pretty convinced she’s the real deal.”

  Rocky’s eyebrows shot up. “Shit, Joe, we’d better be careful. I don’t want to get laughed out of the department before I even get started.”

  “Don’t worry,” Giorgio said, his voice reflecting caution. “This conversation stays between us. I’m just telling you that Abrams asked her to see what she could see.”

  “And?” Rocky said skeptically.

  Giorgio shrugged. “She didn’t see much, other than something about a cabinet and a rose.”

  “Well, that’s helpful,” Rocky said sarcastically.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what it means. It’s probably nothing,” Giorgio said.

  “So what would you do if you thought you saw a ghost?” Rocky asked quietly.

  Giorgio wondered whether Rocky was testing him.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged, taking a bite of his mashed potatoes. “It would be freaky, that’s for sure.”

  He swallowed, hoping that Rocky would change the subject. He didn’t.

  “I thought I saw Grandpa Reno when I was little,” he replied.

  Giorgio shot his brother a look. “Seriously?”

  Rocky tensed. “Yeah, but I didn’t. Mom just said it was my imagination. A kid thing.”

  “But you had an invisible friend when you were little, too,” Giorgio said. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing!” Rocky said defensively. “I had a vivid imagination. I always have. Not like you. You’re the dull one.”

  Giorgio let the comment ride. They continued to eat for a moment.

  “Remember fat ‘ole Craig Melbourne?” Rocky asked all of a sudden. “He told me once that he saw his dead mother.”

  “No shit?” Giorgio said, wide-eyed. “He was a no nonsense kind of guy. He didn’t even have a sense of humor as I remember.”

  “I know,” Rocky said with a chortle. “But he said that his mom would appear to him
in dreams and help him with his tests.”

  Giorgio laughed out loud. “Damn! I could’ve used that kind of help back then.”

  “Me too,” Rocky said. “Who knows, maybe your dreams are…you know…maybe there’s something real about them.”

  Giorgio glanced at his brother. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any big deal, though.”

  “You do get hunches, though,” Rocky said. “And your hunches are usually spot on.”

  It seemed to Giorgio that Rocky was trying to say something. Make some kind of point. But his gut said to let it go.

  “Well, next time I have one of those weird dreams, I’ll call you.”

  Rocky smiled. “Okay. But what if it’s a ghost?”

  “Then I’ll send him to your house. You need all the help you can get.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  By the time Giorgio made it to the office the next day, the police station was overrun by reporters. He pushed his way through the crowd in the parking lot, ignoring the shouts:

  “Detective, will there be any more bodies dug up?”

  “Detective, is this Sierra Madre’s first serial killer?”

  He ducked inside, only to find a similar scene. Phones were ringing off the hook, and the lobby was filled with people crowding the front desk, holding pictures of loved ones that had gone missing and clamoring for attention.

  “Hey, Joe,” McCready said, as he appeared through the doorway. “Glad you’re here.”

  McCready took Giorgio by the arm and guided him through the melee just as an officer called out that CNN was on the phone. Sam Waters, their public information officer, hurried over from his desk to grab the call.

  “Damn, it feels like aliens have finally landed,” Giorgio said, looking around.

  McCready followed his gaze. “Yeah, it’s been this way since early this morning. We have officers set up in the two conference rooms doing interviews. They’re coming from all over the valley.”

  “Okay, but let’s be careful,” Giorgio said. “I don’t want it released yet that all the bodies were female.”

  McCready nodded. “I already sent an email out to everyone.”