Gumshoe Ghost Mystery: Dying for the Past Part 22

But all the running and hiding wasn't necessary after all.

Without lights to betray it, a vehicle rolled through the gate and pulled up beside the carriage house. It was a dark-colored panel van. The driver's door opened and a figure slid out and went into the carriage house through the side door.

"Angel, someone just went into the carriage house. I'm going after them."

"I'm coming, too."

"No, let me see who it is first. Twenty-Toes, keep her here, boy."

Hercule moaned and wagged his tail. He liked his gangster name.

I ran for the side carriage house door and pa.s.sed through inside. The barn-like structure was a large, four-car-sized garage. It was a cavern with a poured concrete floor and wood plank walls, heavy, hand-honed timber framing and a rough-cut beamed ceiling. There were no cars-or carriages for that matter-with only a few remnants of working life left behind-two or three pieces of old furniture, some storage boxes, and a few old garden tools hanging on the walls.

I looked around but found no one.

The side door creaked open and Angel and Hercule came inside. Hercule took a look around, sat down, and yawned.

"Tuck?"

"I don't know where he went. I think your tunnel theory is looking pretty good. Herc?"

Hercule was already nose down and searching. It took him just seconds. He began his search at the side door and followed the figure's scent across the carriage house to the far side wall. There, obscured in the darkness, was an old horse stall about five feet square-it was, of course, void of equine and empty.

Hercule faced the stall and moaned. Then he looked up at me, wagged, and sat down.

"Angel, he went in the stall but he's gone."

She shined her light around the stall but found nothing. Then she ran the light down the carriage house wall in both directions. "There's no other door and no place to hide. Herc, look again, boy."

"No, wait." I followed her light beam to the rear corner of the carriage house wall. There was a window hung tight into the corner. "See the corner window? It's not right. Who builds a window so close into a corner? The other windows are three feet out of the corners. There's a false wall or something there."

She lighted the stall again.

"There, Angel," I said, pointing to the side stall wall where the wood planks were irregular and misaligned. "The wall boards don't line up."

Three of the wall planks didn't sit flush with the others and their edges were misaligned against other planks. Angel shined her light on the plank as I walked over to it.

"Okay, Angel Face, if I'm not back in-"

"Just go, Tuck. And stop with the nicknames."

See, no fun at all. I slipped through the wall and was gone.

Hercule was right. The stall wall concealed an entrance to a narrow pa.s.sage the length of the building. At the far corner of the pa.s.sage, I could see a faint light and went to investigate. The light emanated from a stone stairwell that led down below the floor into a subterranean corridor. I descended the stairs-at least twelve feet down-and found the entrance to a tunnel heading toward the center of the estate grounds.

The tunnel floor and walls were stone and brick. There were single-bulb lights affixed to the tunnel roof every thirty feet or so but they were dark. The air was damp and stale and smelled of musky dirt and old stone. I followed the tunnel to an intersection-a wheel hub of sorts-somewhere in the center of the estate grounds. There were three other tunnel-spokes heading away from the hub. While there were no markings, I a.s.sumed the largest tunnel led to the Vincent House, and the other two led to the other two houses on the east side of the property.

These were Vincent's escape tunnels.

As I started back to the carriage house, Angel and Hercule emerged in the darkness. Angel followed her flashlight down the dark corridor heading for me. Hercule was on her heels.

"Angel, what are you doing? How did you get in here?"

"I found a loose board, pulled it, and a door opened." She shined her light around at the tunnel hub. "If you can do it, I can."

Now she was getting c.o.c.ky. "And what if someone is headed toward you?"

She lifted her gun. "Then I'd make an arrest."

"An arrest? You're not a cop."

"A citizen's arrest."

"Of course you would." I showed her the other three tunnels off the hub and theorized where they led. She agreed. "Did you call Bear before you followed me? He should know where we are."

"Ah, yes." She pa.s.sed me and headed down the tunnel we a.s.sumed went to the Vincent House. "He didn't answer."

"Oh, really, Angel?"

Several yards ahead, there was another intersection and a new tunnel turned left, heading away from both the Vincent House and the carriage house. I had no idea where the tunnel might lead.

"Which way, Tuck?"

I tried to look thoughtful and decisive. I failed. "I have no idea. But let's just continue straight."

Grrrrrr. Hercule stopped and his tail snapped into a saber.

"What is it?"

"Shush," Angel said.

Shush? "You're the only ones who can hear me."

"Hearing you is the problem-so shush. I want to hear."

Hercule lowered himself and crept in front of Angel, blocking her from continuing forward.

Something tickled my spine. "Angel, get back to the hub and take a side tunnel. Move."

We made it to the tunnel hub just as a dim light fluttered in the darkness from where we came. The light stopped moving.

Crack! A shot whistled down the tunnel.

"Angel, get down the side tunnel. Hurry."

Hercule jumped on her, pushing her back into the darkness of a side tunnel. He continued pressing her until she'd retreated fifty feet or more.

"You stay put. And I mean it, Angel. I'm going to see who it is."

"No. I've got a gun."

"No one can shoot me, but, they can you two. Keep her here, Hercule."

Moan.

As I started back to the hub, a light bounced and jiggled ahead of me beyond the hub intersection. Then, another shot rang out from down one of the other tunnels and the light ahead of me snapped dark.

Another shot.

I ran on and, when I reached the hub, I turned right and headed for the carriage house. A fourth shot startled me-the bullet pa.s.sed through my chest and skipped off the stone walls behind me. A hot poker of fire singeing through me.

I've been shot ... again. This time, it hadn't taken my life-just a sharp, fiery spear sending bolts of energy surging through me; brilliant bolts of power and heat. I ran forward and reached the stone steps, bounded up and out into the carriage house.

No one.

I ran to the door and peered out. The panel van was still there.

Something stabbed my thoughts. "Oh no, they double-backed through a side tunnel ... Angel-"

I tried my ghost-express to return to Angel and Hercule but it didn't work. My bearings weren't connected well enough and I never left the carriage house. So, I bolted for the hidden stairs and down to the tunnel. Before I reached the bottom step, another gunshot cracked ahead of me.

An icy stab to my brain.

"Angel!"

forty-one.

"Don't move," Angel yelled. "I've got a gun and I'll shoot."

Crack! I reached her just as the next shot whistled past her and struck the tunnel wall. "Stay back, Angel. Get down."

Hercule barked but stayed around the corner of the tunnel out of the line of fire as Angel knelt on one knee. She peered around the corner trying to see down the main tunnel. "Someone came running up the tunnel. I heard him but I couldn't see anything." She leaned back against the tunnel wall and gestured with her Walther. "I was standing here and turned around. They fired but I couldn't get a shot off. I think they moved back beyond the hub."

"Could you see who it was?"

"No. It all happened so fast and I cannot see anything in the dark without my flashlight. I didn't dare turn it on."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Just running feet. I think they have gone back down the tunnel to the Vincent House."

"Whoever it was must have double-backed on me. There was no one at the carriage house. Let me check ahead."

I left them on the side tunnel and moved toward the Vincent House, careful to listen as I did.

Nothing.

"Come on, Angel, it's clear."

She kept her flashlight low and obscured the light with her other hand.

When she reached me, I said, "Keep Hercule close. I'll go up ahead around the corner and clear the way. Wait for me to call for you before you move up. And for crying out loud, stay low in case someone shoots again."

"Be careful."

"Why?"

I could see her smile even in the darkness. "Old habit, I guess. Just hurry."

The tunnel was empty for another two-hundred feet. There were no noises. No lights. Nothing. Since bullets and bad guys don't faze me, I jogged along until I found another sharp bend. There, I made the turn and reached an antechamber at the end of the tunnel-the dead-end of the tunnel. Facing me was a stone wall and in the center of it was a narrow, heavy wood plank door secured by rusty, iron hinges.

Moving closer to examine the door, I found what the shooter was trying so hard to escape. Dead bodies.

Two bodies lay beneath an old canvas. The first I recognized from my vision. It was the tuxedoed a.s.sa.s.sin I'd met the night of Stephanos Grecco's murder. Now though, his tuxedo was tattered and dirty and his c.u.mmerbund lay torn beside him and his jacket balled at his feet. His white corsage was dead and crumbled on his tux lapel. I recalled smelling the sweet scent of the flower the second before I pulled the trigger and killed him-well,uh, killed him in my vision.

The other body was easier to identify. It was the catering manager with the heavy, Ukrainian accent-Petya Sergeyevich Chernyshov.

Vincent Calaprese warned me about Ruskie Commies back in his day. I wonder if Ukrainians fell under his definition of Ruskies now?

They did mine.

forty-two.

"Petya," Angel said, shining her cell phone light around the antechamber. "The caterer. Poor man. Who is the other one?"

"I think he's Stephanos Grecco's killer."

She shined her light over the body. "Then who killed him?"

"Me."

"What?" She looked at me with crazy eyes. "Oh, yeah-in your vision. But it wasn't you. Is this where he was killed?"

"I'm not sure, maybe. Or another part of the tunnels and they moved his body. The question is, who was I when I killed him?"

"My guess is whoever shot at me just now." Angel walked around the antechamber examining everything her light fell upon. "He must have been trying to move the bodies. We interrupted his plans."