Dying for the Past (24 page)

fifty-two

“1930s mobsters. Soviet spies.
Three dead guys. The Russian mob and some secret book?” Bear spat out his frustrations and
downed half his bourbon. He sat in a leather recliner near the fron
t living room window. He'd started with a tall bourbon and ice—a
very tall bourbon and one tiny ice cube—it was almost gone. “Not
to mention someone stalking you, Angela. And the stalker's missing. What's next?”

“Well, you forgot about Bonnie Grecco.” Angel said from the couch
across from him. “And—”

“And she's disappeared, too,” I said and watched her look away. “Angel?”

“Nothing. I'm worried about her.”

The three of us had been hashing out the entire case since Bear and I returned from the Vincent House an hour ago. He was still stinging from Chevy's second escape. Luckily for Chevy, he forgot to take Bear's cell phone when he hog-tied him to the radiator. Bear was able to call Spence to get released—Spence rescuing him would torment him for months.

“Where does this leave us?” Angel asked, sipping a glass of red wine while she scratched Hercule's belly. He was on his back with twenty-toes up beside her on the couch. “Do you have anything on the two bodies from the tunnels?”

“All bad news,” Bear said. “One was Viktor-something, a Russian mob enforcer who was supposed to be in Federal prison. Petya, the caterer, was also mobbed up with the Russians. He ran low-level scams and errands. Feds think he's laundering mob money through the catering company and get this, he's skimming payroll at the same time. Very enterprising guy.”

I sat beside Hercule. “Someone pays Viktor-the-Russian-hit-man to shoot Stephanos Grecco. The someone then kills Viktor—I know, because I was there. Petya got involved somehow and somebody kills him—to silence him is my guess. So we have three dead, all connected by one killer—the ‘someone.' The question is, who is this someone?”

“Whoever sent Chevy to the Vincent House,” Bear said. “Chevy's mysterious client. The one wanting all the video of Angel.”

Angel asked. “What do I have to do with any of this?”

I remember what Sassy told me. “Angel, what can you tell me about Francesca Calaprese-Masseria?”

“Frannie?” Angel was thoughtful. “She's ninety-plus and in a retirement home. All her relatives are gone—at least the ones I knew about. She has some distant cousins and such, but they've not been in touch with her for decades.”

Bear asked, “What are you thinking, Tuck?”

“The book, maybe.” I told them what Sassy said about Frannie leaving and taking all ‘the good stuff.' Then I added, “Maybe Frannie took the book with her, too. If so, it could be why Chevy's mysterious client had him stalking you, Angel. You met with Frannie about the foundation buying the Vincent House and all the house's antiques and such. Maybe the killer thinks you know where the book is.”

“I didn't even know about the book then.”

“Maybe they don't know that.” I had a hunch. “What did Frannie do with all the things she took with her from the Vincent House?”

Angel sipped her wine. “I'm not sure. I had to track down three storage places to retrieve some of the original furniture. After all the years, some of it wasn't any good anymore but there was enough to put back in the house. Frannie had several personal items with her in her retirement suite—including her antique bedroom furniture.”

“Sassy thought she took a lot of books from the Vincent House library,” I said.

Bear jiggled his ice cubes and contemplated the empty glass. “She must have taken the book, too. Right? You said your friend, Vincent, told you she was supposed to protect it.”

“Yes, he did. What about it, Angel?”

“Frannie had some books.” Angel said as Hercule bounced up and went to the window to peer out. “What is it boy?”

I followed him and looked up and down the street into the dimm
ing light but saw nothing suspicious. “Easy boy. Give a bark if you see something.”

Angel went on. “Frannie had a large bookshelf in her retirement
suite. And there were boxes of books in storage. Would she put something so valuable in storage?”

“You said she's over ninety,” Bear said. “Maybe she wasn't thinking. Or maybe someone did it for her without knowing.”

“Or it's sitting on her bookshelf.” I felt a road trip coming. “We need to go see Frannie, Angel. Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

Bear stood up. “Count me out. I have a date with Chevy and his client tonight—if they show. Chevy is supposed to make a pickup and drop off with this guy later this evening. I want to be there and grab both of them. If things go well, I'll be dealing with them tomorrow.”

Hercule trotted over to the living room door, turned, and woofed at me. Then he disappeared into the foyer heading for my den.

“I'll be right back.” I knew what Hercule wanted and followed
him.

When I walked into my den Hercule was curled up in my—his—favorite leather chair. He had his favorite ball between his paws and was getting a good head scratching from Doc.

“Where have you been, Doc? I've been looking for you since yesterday.”

He continued patting Hercule and didn't look up at me. Hercule
moaned and was all about Doc's house calls.

Doc said, “I've been busy thinking.”

“You couldn't think here? You couldn't talk to me?”

“No. It's you I've been thinking about.”

“Is there something wrong?”

He looked up and bored holes through me. “Of course there's something wrong, Oliver. And we both know what it is.”

We do? Oh yeah, we do. “Did you kill Vincent Calaprese?”

“Yes.”

Yes? Huh? No, wait … Yes? “Ah, Doc, I need a little more than just ‘yes.' I'm a detective after all.”

“You're dead after all.” He forced a laugh. “Come now, Oliver. Surely you've figured it out.”

Surely I haven't. “Enlighten me. And give me the condensed version, okay? Angel and I are going to see Frannie—”

“To find the book. Yes, good idea. Then you'll bring it to me.”

“Yeah, okay. But only if you tell me about you and Vincent—and about you and Sassy.”

Doc stood and wandered to my bookcase, taking his time there and avoiding the issue. By the time he turned around, he could have memorized
War and Peace
.

“It was thirty-seven and I was a surgeon in Washington—a healer—and your grandfather was getting ready for college. I wanted things for him. Things even as a surgeon, there wasn't enough money for in those days. The country was coming out of the Depression and money was tight for everyone.”

“You never told me about my grandfather, Doc. How come?”

His voice was strange—raspy, half-whisper, half-distant, and melancholy. “He was young and adventurous and I wanted him to travel and see the world. I wanted him in a good school. Those things cost money. And, no one wanted to admit it, but war was coming, too.”

“No, I get it. Times were hard.”

“Yes indeed things were. But it's a terrible excuse for what I did.”

Boy, could Doc spin a mystery. I had no idea what he was talking about.

He looked over at me and sat on the arm of the chair beside Hercule. “One day, late in the evening, some men came to my practice in DC. They wanted me to visit an elderly patient too sick to travel. They offered me an enormous amount of money—over two-hundred dollars. It was a lot back then—so I went. They brought me here to Winchester.”

Ah, a light in the darkness. “And the patient was Vincent?”

“Yes. He had pneumonia and was very ill. But, his pneumonia was not why he wouldn't come to my office—”

“He was hiding out?”

Doc nodded. “Yes, though I didn't understand it at the time. It was later—days later. So, I treated him and healed him. I stayed with them for over a week until he was back on his feet. At the end of the second week, when I returned home, some government agents were waiting.”

“G-men, Doc? The FBI was waiting for you?”

“They were, yes. They wanted to know everything that happened to me. I had no idea who Vincent Calaprese was—he was using a false name while I was in Winchester. And there, I saw no one but him and his men. I had no way of knowing what I'd fallen into.”

Boy, Doc was a celebrity. “What did you tell them—the feds, I mean?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I knew nothing so there was nothing to tell. It didn't matter. I refused to speak with them be
cause of doctor-patient confidentiality. They threatened me—to have me audited and arrested—even to take my license and close me down. It was unbelievable what they put me through.”

I watched him as he drifted away. He was lost somewhere
between reminiscence and anger. “And? Did you give in? How'd you—”

“No, I did not. Not to them, anyway.” He took a deep breath. “Months went by and Vincent's men came for me again. I went with
them but Vincent was fine. He wanted me to be his doctor—for him and his men—in secret. When he learned the FBI had tried to coerce me and failed, he decided to trust me.”

“And you agreed?”

“No. But then I met Sassy.”

Of course it was Sassy. “Ah, what about my grandfather and my grandmother—”

Tears welled in Doc's eyes—something I'd never seen before. “His mother was gone, Oliver. I'd lost her five years before to flu. It was just the two of us and a housekeeper who cared for him in my absence. No, Sassy was the first woman who turned my head since my Elaina died. Sassy captivated me—she was young and fun and full of life—someone I'd never experienced. Sassy reminded me I was still a young man. She was intoxicating.”

Yep, intoxicating is the right word. “And she's beautiful, too. I get it, Doc. You fell in love with her and decided to be Vincent's mob-doc.”

“No, no. It wasn't so simple.” He stood and went to the window, gazing out at 1938. “I agreed to help Vincent as long as he did not involve me in his affairs. I refused to tend to any, shall we say, battle-wounds. He agreed. Sassy was his companion—when his family was in New York. He was in Winchester most of the time by '38, and I imagine it was part the coming war and part Sassy.”

My guess was it was more Sassy than Adolf or Tojo.

He went quiet, staring into memories I would have given anything to know. “Doc, I want to hear the good stuff, but how about skipping to the part where you killed Vincent? You know, the
really
good stuff?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” His face had lost its hazy-glow of fond memories
and had hardened into cold stone. “Vincent broke his promise to me. More and more I was required to handle his men's injuries—broken limbs, terrible injuries, even gunshots and unexplained deaths. I was, for all intents and purposes, part of his gang. I turned a blind eye in order to be with her—with Sassy. I sold my soul.”

“You were in love with her. I understand, Doc. Don't be hard on yourself.”

He nodded. “Yes, miserably in love. I'd lost all control. My sense of responsibility … ethics. I'd lost everything.”

“Did she love you?”

He laughed—strange considering his dark mood—but he laughed
just the same. “Sassy doesn't love, Oliver, she torments. I was too smitten to know the difference.”

“Please say you didn't kill him for her?”

“No, Oliver, I did not. I assure you. In fact, we'd had a fight about
Vincent and I broke it off with her. If Vincent had ever learned of our affair, he would have killed us both. I swore never to return to Winchester.”

I raised my eyebrows and waited.

He patted Hercule as he ran after gangsters in his sleep. “No, they came for me one late evening and told me he was dying. I refused to go but they took Ollie—your grandfather—and forced me to see him. Vincent was near death. He'd been poisoned while out to dinner in DC and I had to tend to him on their return to Winchester. They told me if he died, so would Ollie.”

Wow, I'm named after my grandfather. “What happened?”

“I kept him alive on the way back—how, I don't know—but I did. Because of his situation, I learned about the book.”

Finally. “How do you go from Vincent being poisoned to learning about this book of gangster secrets?”

“Sassy.”

Why was I not surprised? “Explain.”

“Vincent was dying and there was little I could do about it. I tried everything but they got to me too late. He refused to go to the hospital—and by the time they reached me, he was too far gone. I'd never seen anything like the poison. It was vile. He was in agony. There was nothing I could do to ease his pain. He had but hours at best by the time we reached Winchester. But in getting him home, he promised no harm would come to Ollie—ever.”

I thought a moment. “You never saw anything like it before? Not a medicine or anything?”

“No.”

I'd read enough Fleming and Le Carré to guess. “It was the Soviet spies. They were known for their poisons.” Then the image of a small restaurant in DC Northwest sparked a thought. “Doc, do you recall a restaurant in DC back then—Quixote's Windmill?”

“Yes, yes, my boy, of course I do.” An odd smile cracked his face. “Quixote's was a Cuban restaurant. Vincent visited it often. He was poisoned there. How did you know?”

I told him about my trip to DC and following spies to Quixote's Windmill. “So, it was the Soviets who assassinated Vincent.”

“Yes, it was.” His memories were draining him.

I gave him a moment to gather himself. “The book, Doc. Tell me about the book.”