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

by Lynn Bohart

  Rocky flicked on the big flashlight. The metal door to the loading dock was up, revealing a large, dark interior. Everything smelled of age-old dust, with just a hint of motor oil.

  Across the room, a metal staircase extended up to a door with a glass window. Directly ahead of them was an old industrial lift.

  They approached the lift. The two doors to the lift stood open. Rocky flashed the light down and saw the lift sitting below ground. The ancient electrical box sat on the right wall, and Rocky reached out and was about to push the button, when Giorgio stopped him.

  “Wait. He might hear it. Let’s take the stairs to the main hallway, just as we were told.”

  They turned and hurried up the short flight of stairs and quietly opened the door, slipping into a darkened hallway. Giorgio pulled the infrared binoculars back down over his eyes.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. “Remember, there are two of them.”

  The stairwell in the east wing of the old Pottinger Sanitarium was dark and cold, and the air was filled with dust. The stairs switched back and forth, extending up and then down to the basement. Directly in front of them was a door. Giorgio peeked through a small window. A long hallway ran along the first floor of the east wing. Another door to their right led to a hallway that appeared to run the entire width of the building, along the back. So, they had three choices. Take a hallway or go down the stairs to the basement.

  “Eeeney, meeney, miney, mo,” Rocky whispered. “Which way do we go?”

  Before Giorgio could respond, the door directly in front of them popped open. They both snapped around with their guns out. No one was there.

  “I guess we go that way,” Giorgio said, as a chill inched its way down his back.

  He stepped into the hallway. The infrared glasses allowed him to see everything bathed in a red light.

  The two brothers moved quietly forward, their senses on alert. They passed darkened doors to their left and some old broken furniture stacked against the wall on their right.

  Halfway down the corridor, the right wall opened up to a nursing station. An old metal sign on the wall said, “Ward B.” Behind the nursing station was a set of swinging doors. The room beyond was as dark as a coffin.

  They kept going.

  They turned a corner and entered a hallway that cut off to the right. They passed an old broken gurney and some boxes lined up along the right wall. The hallway extended into the heart of the building, deep enough to swallow the flashlight beam.

  “This must be the main hallway,” Giorgio whispered.

  They passed another nurses’ station and stopped to listen for any revealing sounds. But all they heard were the occasional knocks and pings of a huge empty building.

  It took them a couple more minutes to make it to the main entrance and lobby, where moonlight streamed through the front windows, illuminating a few old benches and a central staircase in the rear. To the left of the staircase were the main elevators. Across the room was an old, oak reception counter. To the right of the counter was another set of double swinging doors.

  “What now?” Rocky whispered.

  “I think we’re supposed to cross through,” Giorgio replied.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Rocky said. “You take the left. I’ll take the right.”

  They hurried through the open space of the lobby. Rocky covered the front half of the large room, while Giorgio took the back half.

  When they got to the door, Giorgio flattened himself against one side of the wall, while Rocky did the same on the other. Giorgio nodded and Rocky used his left hand to swing open one door. He slipped through, with Giorgio coming through behind him.

  They found themselves in the west wing. Halfway down the hall, they passed a door marked ‘Stairs.’ Rocky started to turn for the stairs, but Giorgio stopped him and waved his hand forward. Giorgio moved to the end of the hallway and glanced to the right. This hallway mirrored the one in the east wing and extended to the rear of the building, where the windows allowed moonlight to bathe the area in light. He signaled to Rocky and they turned the corner and crept forward.

  They stopped when they got to the hall that ran along the back of the building.

  “Now what?” Rocky whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Giorgio replied, looking around.

  Metal doors stood at each end of the long hallway. The door to the right was positioned near the center of the building, probably near the main staircase, and each door was marked for a stairwell.

  “Flame said the morgue was in the basement,” Giorgio said.

  “Then either staircase will probably take us there,” Rocky whispered.

  “But she also said to go to the far end. That would be to our left,” Giorgio said, turning in that direction.

  He flinched back. A weird glow had appeared through the window in the door to their left. Giorgio felt a full blown chill run the length of his body. He nodded toward the door.

  “Who needs a bloodhound?” he said.

  “I guess we won’t be putting this in the duty report,” Rocky murmured, staring at the light.

  “C’mon,” Giorgio said, moving into the hallway and towards the far left door.

  They traversed the distance quickly. When they passed through the door, the glow evaporated.

  They descended the stairs as quietly as possible, their weapons held out before them. At the bottom was one more metal door.

  Giorgio slowly reached out and grasped the door handle, turning it carefully. The door was locked.

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  He was about to turn around, when a faint light appeared through the window, and the door handle began to silently rotate.

  Giorgio backed up, bumping into Rocky. His heartbeat thumped wildly.

  “Grab it,” Rocky hissed.

  Giorgio reached out, just as the door quietly clicked open. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door wide. They slipped through as the light on the other side faded.

  Rocky caught the door behind him, not allowing it to close all the way or to make any noise. Giorgio nodded.

  The rear basement hallway extended away from them. An electrical light emanated from a door halfway down the hall. A small sign on the wall said, ‘morgue’ and an arrow pointed forward.

  Giorgio signaled to Rocky to move quietly.

  They inched forward until they reached an intersecting hallway to their right. Giorgio glanced around the corner and pointed to a stack of gurneys and chairs that blocked the space. Rocky nodded.

  This was the blocked staircase Flame had mentioned, the same one they’d passed above. Add to that the locked door they’d just come through, and Giorgio understood the current game plan. The men they were chasing didn’t want anyone coming at them from this end of the building. They’d blocked the hallway and locked that door. That could only mean one thing – they had planned an ambush.

  Giorgio glanced past the morgue.

  The door to the central staircase was propped open down here, and he could just barely see the last step of the staircase leading up to the next floor.

  As Giorgio watched, a brief flare lit up the stairwell. Someone had just lit a cigarette.

  He alerted Rocky, who nodded that he’d seen it, too.

  A faint sound of movement came from that direction, confirming his belief. Someone was waiting for them.

  Giorgio signaled for Rocky to pass in front of him and move towards the other stairwell. Rocky tiptoed forward, ducking under the windows of the morgue door. He stopped on the other side, ready to engage whoever was waiting for them in the stairwell.

  Giorgio approached the morgue doors. There were double swinging doors with small windows in each. He lifted up onto his tiptoes to peek through.

  A battered, old wooden desk, with an L-shaped counter behind it sat just inside the doors. A floating retaining wall stood behind the desk. The room opened up on either side of the wall, revealing old metal gurneys in various states of disrepair.

 
; To the left of the center wall was the end of a gurney with someone on it. Bare feet twitched as a moan echoed through the room.

  Giorgio flinched, his nerves on fire. He pulled up his goggles. He wouldn’t need them in there since there was a light.

  As he contemplated his next move, a man’s elbow came into view, and suddenly he was looking at the back of Fritz Martinelli, who was just about to lift something above a bare leg.

  Giorgio tapped Rocky and pointed towards the man in the stairwell. Rocky nodded and began to inch that way.

  A moment later, Mia Santana’s pained scream cut through the silence, forcing Giorgio to push through the swinging doors.

  He broke to his left, making a wide circle to come around so that he could see the gurney.

  Fritz Martinelli was gone.

  Two shots rang out from the stairwell. Rocky had encountered Perry.

  Giorgio crouched down. He was near the end of the gurney. A drain in the floor was awash with blood, and Giorgio’s insides churned.

  A few more shots in the hallway. And then it was quiet.

  Giorgio moved further into the room, glancing around, looking for Martinelli.

  A metal sink and counter stood on the other side of the room. Metal shelving hung on the wall above.

  In the far left corner was a huge door that led to the cooler, the room where they would have laid the dead bodies.

  Giorgio’s eyes roamed the walls. There were no windows in the morgue, just the way Martinelli would want it. No prying eyes.

  The cooler door was open and the light was on. Giorgio guessed that Martinelli hoped he would move in that direction. But something told him it was a ruse.

  Instead, he moved further into the room along the left wall of counters.

  A noise made him jerk to his right just as a bullet whizzed over his head, slamming into the wall.

  He leapt forward and behind the end of the counter.

  The only light was directly above Mia Santana. The rest of the room was cast in shadow.

  There was no movement. And Giorgio couldn’t see anything that resembled a human form other than the woman on the gurney.

  He took a chance and scuttled into the center of the room, and then towards the back wall, where there was a long counter that ran horizontally. As he was about to turn the corner and hide behind the counter, his foot rolled over an old test tube on the floor. He was thrown off balance and toppled awkwardly into the counter just as a loud crack shattered the silence.

  A second bullet ricocheted off the countertop, just missing his shoulder.

  He hit the floor, rolling behind the cabinetry.

  Giorgio glanced up and took a deep breath. To his left was the cooler door. To his right, an alcove disappeared into a black well of darkness, like a hallway, making him think there might be a second door back there.

  But the bullet had come from the nurses’ station by the front door. Martinelli had probably slipped around the far side of the floating wall and behind the L-shaped counter when Giorgio burst into the room. If there wasn’t a second door, he was trapped in here.

  Giorgio heard a faint shuffling of feet, and then a bullet took out the fluorescent light bulb above Mia’s gurney, raining shards of glass onto the floor and onto her.

  The room dropped into complete darkness.

  Giorgio pulled down his goggles again and the room came alive.

  “C’mon, Martinelli,” Giorgio shouted. “You’re not going to get away.”

  He crouched around the edge of the counter. A human form appeared from around the corner of the floating wall, on the other side of Mia’s gurney. Giorgio watched him in the goggles’ crimson light. Martinelli lifted his right hand and discharged another bullet. It hit the metal shelving and glass beakers on the wall behind Giorgio. Shards of glass sprayed out, forcing him to duck.

  Then suddenly, there was a loud crack and gun flare from Giorgio’s right.

  Giorgio spun in that direction.

  Rocky had come in low from the darkened alcove and had taken a shot at Martinelli.

  Giorgio heard the sound of running feet and a hand hitting the swinging door. Martinelli had fled into the hallway.

  Giorgio got up. A moment later, Rocky was by his side with the flashlight on.

  “What happened to Perry?” Giorgio asked.

  “He won’t be a problem,” Rocky replied.

  “Okay, take care of the girl,” Giorgio said, gesturing towards the gurney. “Get her out of here. I’ll take care of Fritz.”

  Giorgio ran for the double doors.

  He came into the hallway and scanned both directions. A sound to his left made him turn that

  way. Martinelli had gone up the stairwell they’d just come down.

  He sprinted in that direction, just catching the door before it close and ran up the first set of stairs.

  When he hit the first landing, he hung back to the side and threw the door open. A bullet seared past him from above.

  He flinched as the sound of running feet echoed up the stairwell.

  Giorgio followed around the foot of the staircase and began to climb again, his weapon pointed up. He saw Martinelli’s heels as they turned onto the next flight of stairs. A moment later, a jiggling sound reverberated in the small space.

  Giorgio listened. Martinelli was yanking on a locked door on the second floor. Giorgio climbed cautiously to the next landing. But Martinelli was headed up again.

  Giorgio tried the door, and it turned effortlessly. A glow of light through the window told him all he needed to know.

  A door closed above him, making him spin around. He ran up the final flight of stairs.

  When he got to the third floor, he was breathing hard. He stopped at the door and pulled it open slowly.

  A shot rang out, hitting the door casing.

  Giorgio ducked down and rolled forward into the hallway.

  He came up onto his feet in a crouched position and saw Martinelli duck into a room about a hundred feet in front of him. Giorgio stayed close to the interior wall, but hurried forward.

  Martinelli had ducked into the cafeteria, and the door was still swinging when Giorgio got there. He looked through the window and saw a figure dart across the room towards a door at the far end.

  Giorgio pushed through the door and immediately broke to his left as Martinelli went out the rear door.

  Giorgio scrambled through the room, past broken tables and chairs and the long serving counters. When he got to the rear door, he edged through. Martinelli was just disappearing over a guardrail and up a metal ladder attached to the exterior wall.

  Giorgio came out onto a small patio and pulled up the goggles. He got to the guardrail and paused. He’d be a sitting duck on that ladder; all Martinelli would have to do is lean over from the roof above and shoot him. Giorgio waited until a roof tile tumbled over the edge and fell to the ground.

  Martinelli wasn’t waiting for him. He was trying to climb over the roof.

  Giorgio tucked his gun into his holster and followed Martinelli up the metal ladder. The ladder crested the roof and kept going, following the angle of the roof to the chimney, where there was a small service platform.

  But Martinelli wasn’t there. He had struck out across the peaked roofline, sliding and kicking tiles off as he went.

  Giorgio climbed to the chimney platform, just as Martinelli slid down the roof to a second ladder near the front of the building. He grabbed the handrails, pulled his gun and fired back at Giorgio.

  Giorgio ducked and the bullet hit the bricks directly over his head, sending out a spray of plaster dust.

  Martinelli dropped over the edge and was gone.

  Giorgio took off after Martinelli, scrambling across the pitched roof, nearly losing his footing twice. Each time, he stopped, hyperventilating at the thought of sliding off to drop three stories to the ground.

  He made it to the spot where Martinelli had slid down to the second ladder and wondered again if he would be waiting
for him.

  But his gaze landed on what Martinelli was aiming for: an escape route.

  A large oak tree stood right next to the barbed wire fence. One large branch extended over the fence and came right up to the building. If Martinelli could reach it, he could use the branch to climb over the fence and drop down on the other side. From there he could take off in any direction into the surrounding hills.

  And suddenly Giorgio knew why the spirits had locked the second floor door – to keep Martinelli off the second floor and without access to the tree. It also explained what Christian Maynard had meant about the tree. Too bad Martinelli knew the building so well. He’d made it to the tree, anyway.

  Giorgio didn’t hesitate.

  He lay on his belly and began to slide down the roof just as Martinelli had done. His foot caught once, dislodging a roof tile.

  He kept going.

  Giorgio made it to the ladder and began to descend. When he got to the bottom of the ladder, he reached for his weapon and glanced to his left.

  There was a wide, open-air patio here. It extended fifteen feet away from the building and ran half the length of the west wing of the hospital. The patio was cluttered with old, broken chaise lounges and chairs, a couple of bent metal tables, and several enormous broken planter boxes that seeped rivers of dirt onto the tarred roofing. At the other end of the patio, the branch from the big oak tree had pushed its way right through the metal railing and into the patio space.

  But Martinelli was nowhere to be seen.

  Perhaps Giorgio had been wrong. Maybe Martinelli had gone inside again instead of heading for the tree.

  Giorgio swung around and jumped off the ladder at a spot where the metal railing had been broken and been twisted away from the building.

  There was a shuffling of feet, and then a figure emerged from the dark and slammed into him, knocking the gun out of his hands and throwing him back towards the edge of the patio.

  Giorgio reached out and grabbed the railing just before he flew off the edge. He balanced precariously, his torso hanging over empty space, with only his legs planted on firm ground.

  Martinelli came at him again, kicking his legs off the platform. All of a sudden Giorgio was hanging by one hand in midair.