Murder In the Past Tense (A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery Book 2) (28 page)

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.

The railing had at one time extended the width of the patio. But over time, much of it had been broken or removed. Now Giorgio was holding onto one of the last pieces still anchored to the building, but his weight had pulled the railing further away from the building and was beginning to bend the whole piece down.

Martinelli growled in frustration and began rocking the remaining section back and forth, trying to pull it loose at the base.

Giorgio vainly reached out with his left hand, attempting to grab Martinelli and pull him over the edge instead, but the man kept just out of his reach.

Finally, Martinelli gave up and fell to his knees, panting.

“Too bad, Detective,” he laughed, sucking in deep breaths. “You’re in a bit of a predicament, aren’t you? A couple more minutes, and that pretty little daughter of yours will grow up without her daddy.”

“You bastard!”

Giorgio tried to kick at Martinelli, his rage igniting a frantic attempt to kill the man. It only served to loosen the railing even more, making his situation that much more precarious.

Martinelli finally stood up and took a deep breath. He looked down at Giorgio, laughing at his futile efforts. He reached behind his back and pulled out his gun.

“Sorry, Detective. I can’t wait. I have to get going. I have a car waiting.”

“You won’t get away,” Giorgio said, stalling for time. “Perry is already dead.”

Martinelli flinched. “All the more reason to kill
you
,” he said, his dark eyes glaring.

“Your father is dead, too,” Giorgio said quickly. “He shot himself
after
he told us where to find you.”

A flash of surprise registered on Martinelli’s face. Then he smiled.

“No he didn’t. Ron told you. Ron was always the weak one. The goody-two shoes. The star athlete. The one who got all the breaks. He told you.” He paused. “He was never really a part of this family. His own father would have disowned him if he could have. Instead, he willed the cabinet to my father, and now it’s mine. Passed down from generations,” he said smugly. “Not money, but memories. Far more important, don’t you think?”

Giorgio cringed at the word ‘memories,’ remembering what Edmond Martinelli had said about an old man needing to have his memories.

Martinelli raised the gun and pointed it directly at Giorgio.

“And now I’ll have the memory of killing
you
.”

A smile played across his lips as his index finger flexed.

And then a tiny
poof
made him freeze.

A small hole opened up in the middle of Martinelli’s forehead, and his dark eyes glazed over, as a small trickle of blood flowed down between his eyes.

Ever so slowly, his body tipped forward. Giorgio ducked, as Martinelli fell over him and off the building.

The body hit the ground below with a thud.

Giorgio swallowed.

Martinelli had to be dead. But so was he if he couldn’t get back onto the patio.

And suddenly, there was a strong hand reaching out for him.

“Here, little brother,” Rocky said, holstering his weapon. “Take my hand.”

Giorgio looked up at him. “I’m not your little brother,” he grunted.

“Not a good time to argue,” Rocky grinned. “C’mon. Let’s get you back on solid ground.”

Rocky reached out and pulled Giorgio to safety.

As Giorgio stood up and dusted himself off, he turned. The brothers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing to the ground below.

Detective Abrams was kicking at Martinelli, his rifle pointed at the man’s head. Behind him, glowing in the darkness was the shimmering image of Christian Maynard.

“What the hell’s that?” Rocky whispered breathlessly.

Giorgio glanced at his brother and then to the ghost in the trees. “Just another friend.”

The boy lifted a hand as if in a solemn wave and then his image faded.

Abrams glanced up at the same moment and gave the brothers the thumbs up signal. Fritz Martinelli was dead.

“Damn,” Rocky said. “He wasn’t kidding.”

“Who?” Giorgio said, shifting his gaze from Christian Maynard to his brother.

“Abrams. You know, when he said he was pretty good with a rifle. There’s very little light out here and a pretty brisk breeze, and yet he hit the nail on the head…literally.”

“Yeah,” Giorgio smiled, glancing down to the ex-Army Ranger. “Apparently, he was only being modest. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

Rocky gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me? I was just about to shoot the bastard,” he said, gesturing below. “And I just saved your sorry ass, don’t forget that.”

They turned away from the scene below and moved toward the doors that would lead them back into the building.

“Yeah, and you’ll never let me forget it,” Giorgio quipped, throwing a hand up onto his brother’s shoulder. “By-the-way, thanks.”

CHAPTER FORTY

The next ten days dawned sunny and clear, as if the world had been washed clean of a dark disease. During that time, Giorgio kept track of the various elements of the case.

The Monrovia police converged on the Pottinger Sanitarium and found blood evidence from multiple victims in the morgue and the bodies of seven young women buried just outside the fenced perimeter. Meanwhile, five of the young women buried at the Pinney House were identified through the jewelry and trinkets found in the small tin box, including Patty Carr, the young nurse. Their families were notified and the remains released.

Mia Santana spent two days in the hospital recovering from her ordeal, and then took a leave of absence from her TV station.

Giorgio had Claire Martinelli arrested at her home for aiding and abetting her murderous husband. Even though they would never be able to prove the charge, Giorgio treated the Ice Queen to all the humiliation she deserved, including a 48-hour hold in a cold cell, with a full interrogation. Under the threat of incarceration for providing false information during the Lisa Farmer case, she gave them one more critical piece of information they didn’t have – the existence of a wooden cabinet handmade by her husband the year they moved to Pasadena. She claimed ignorance as to what was in it, but told them that when Royce died, he willed the cabinet to his brother, who moved it immediately to his own home.

They found the cabinet tucked inside a secret wall in the back of Edmond’s garage. It was a four-foot tall oak cabinet enclosed by a single, beautifully carved domed door, inlaid with mother of pearl in the shape of a rose.

The
rose, Giorgio thought when he saw it. The rose seen by both psychics.

When they opened it, they were met with the immediate stench of decay and formaldehyde. And just like some of the more bizarre cabinets of curiosities in the late 1800s, which sought to preserve
medical oddities, tumors, and strange anatomical and pathological specimens, this cabinet preserved the trophies extracted from a string of young murder victims.

The cabinet had three drawers. The first held thirty-nine individual rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and buttons, they presumed from different victims. A second drawer was devoted entirely to photographs, which documented in horrid detail some of the monstrous deeds done to these women.
And the third drawer held journals written by Royce Martinelli as he gave a play-by-play account in several cases of unspeakable experiments conducted as part of the women’s captivity.

But it was the three shelves above the drawers that would haunt Giorgio for some time to come.

Floating in mason jars of formaldehyde were human body parts: ears, women’s genitalia, nipples, fingernails and even a set of milky blue eyeballs. Royce Martinelli described the piercing blue eyes in one journal as belonging to a young girl named Phoebe, who he’d picked up on a downtown street in San Pedro. He was captivated by her eyes, and so, after raping and torturing her to death, he saved them to remember her whenever he wanted.

Although Giorgio had almost gone into the seminary at one point in his life to please his mother, it was moments like this that tested his faith. It left him to wonder if there even was a god. Because if there was, why hadn’t he, or she, interceded? Why had these girls been forced to endure such unspeakable horrors? And why had Royce and Edmond Martinelli been allowed to live full lives, while these girls had never even had the chance to grow up?

In Giorgio’s mind, the only good news out of the case was that Edmond Martinelli survived as a quadriplegic, unable to talk, eat or care for himself. He would be forever forced to rely on someone else to feed him and clean him while incarcerated in prison.

Perhaps there
was
a god.

÷

A week after their ordeal at the sanitarium Giorgio left his house dressed in a dark suit and tie. He picked up Rocky, and they drove to the Evergreen Cemetery, where an open grave stood waiting for a cedar coffin filled with the remains of Lisa Farmer.

Mrs. Farmer stood next to the gravesite, her oxygen tank by her side. She was dressed in a violet-colored polyester pant suit and white blouse. She looked so small and frail against the surrounding pine trees, that Giorgio thought a brisk breeze might blow her away.

As Giorgio and Rocky began to tramp across the lawn to join her, a clunky old truck pulled up to the curb. Cal Birmingham, the original detective on the Lisa Farmer case, pulled his lanky frame out of the driver’s side, and a woman who looked to be his same age got out of the passenger seat. They clasped hands and approached the grave.

“This is my wife, Sara,” he said, when he met up with Giorgio.

“Nice to meet you,” Giorgio said. “It’s nice of you both to come. My brother, Rocky, is also with the department” Giorgio said, gesturing to his brother.

Birmingham’s eyes had deep circles under them, and his wizened face had a haunted expression.

“I can’t believe we never saw any of this,” he said, shaking his head and glancing toward the grave. “All those girls. Poor Lisa was just one of them.”

Giorgio followed his gaze, and said, “I knew a priest once who told me that we all have a purpose in life, even if that purpose isn’t discovered until after we die.” He looked back at the old detective. “Maybe this was Lisa’s purpose – to get the ball rolling so that we’d finally stop these bastards.”

“So it was Royce Martinelli all along that killed Lisa?” Birmingham said.

“Yes,” Giorgio said as they began moving slowly toward the gravesite. “His brother Edmond helped cover it up. All because one of their many torture victims got away.”

“And did the wife know about Lisa?” he asked.

“She says she didn’t know, but we arrested her because she knew about other women that Royce had killed and she impeded the investigation. We got her on aiding and abetting. Of course, it won’t stick. There’s no evidence. But it did
my
heart good to handcuff her and take her away in front of all her neighbors. After all, protecting her reputation was all she ever cared about.”

Cal Birmingham chuckled. “I think I’d hate to get on your bad side, but I like your style.”

They joined the few people assembled in front of the coffin. It was a short service, but a heartfelt one. Lisa’s senior class picture had been blown up and mounted on foam core and placed on a tripod in front of the group of chairs. The director from the facility where Jimmy Finn lived had brought the man who had served time for Lisa’s murder. He sat rocking back and forth in his chair, never taking his eyes off the coffin.

Monty Montgomery was also there, holding a handkerchief to his nose. And Amber Riley had driven down from Big Bear to pay her respects to the young woman who had died the same night that she had escaped.

But there was no sign of Ron Martinelli. Giorgio kept glancing over his shoulder, hoping that he’d make an appearance. But he never did.

“He’s not coming,” Rocky said at one point. “Would you, under the circumstances?”

Giorgio sighed with disappointment, turning back to the service. “Probably not.”

When the service ended, Giorgio approached Amber Riley. She held a tissue in her hand and dabbed at her eyes.

“It’s nice that you came,” he said to her. “Would you like to meet Mrs. Farmer?”

She glanced over at Lisa’s mother and shook her head. “No. I don’t think I can. I was responsible for the death of her daughter.”

Rocky put a hand on her shoulder.

“Those guys were going to kill you. You had no other option and no way of knowing how your escape would impact someone else,” he said.

She nodded. “I know. But I’ll always feel like a kindred spirit to her. She took my place, you know? She died
instead
of me.”

“At least now it’s over,” Giorgio said. “It’s really over.”

She seemed to relax. “Yes. After you called the other night to tell me, it was the first night in forty-seven years that I truly slept soundly. Thank you,” she said to Giorgio. Then she turned to Rocky. “Thank you both.”

After Amber left, they approached Mrs. Farmer, who was thanking Detective Birmingham for coming. As Giorgio appeared, Cal Birmingham nodded to him, and then he and his wife left. Mrs. Farmer turned watery eyes to Giorgio.

“She wasn’t hurt, like those other girls, was she? The ones I read about in the paper?” she asked plaintively.

“No,” he shook his head. “The medical examiner thinks she was struck on the head. He thinks she died instantly.”

The little woman dropped her head. “I’m glad,” she said, as a sob escaped her throat. “I don’t think I could have lived with that. She’d already been through so much. But why did that man kill her?”

Giorgio rocked back on his heels before answering. “We believe she heard something that night in Royce Martinelli’s study. Something about a botched attempt to kill a young girl up at Big Bear Lake.”

As he said this, his eyes followed Amber Riley across the lawn to her car. Giorgio reached

into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief and held it out to Lisa’s mother.

“We didn’t need this after all,” he said. “And I’ll get her jewelry back to you as soon as I can.”

She stared at the crumpled handkerchief with the cherry red sucker stuck inside. Tears began to flow. She reached out with a shaky hand and clasped onto it, as if it was a life preserver thrown to a drowning victim.

“Thank you,” she choked out. She looked up at Giorgio. “At least now she’ll be buried and I can come visit her grave. We have lots to talk about, you know,” she said, with the briefest of smiles.

They left Mrs. Farmer at the gravesite and started back towards the car. Giorgio was just about to slide in behind the wheel, when Rocky stopped him.

“Look over there,” his brother said.

Giorgio followed his gaze to a small hill about fifty yards away. Tucked into the shadow of the trees was Ron Martinelli, dressed in a black suit and black turtleneck, staring blankly toward the gravesite. He was alone. No Miss Brinson. No Claire or Royce Martinelli to hold him up. Just the adult version of the eighteen-year-old kid who had lost the girl of his dreams.

“I wouldn’t want to be him,” Rocky said cynically.

“No,” Giorgio said, getting into the car. “I wouldn’t want to be any of these people. There were no winners here.”