Deadmen Tell No Tales

Cari and Liz stumbled upon a dead body in a cabinet in the City Hall building of Gamble's Mill

Chapter 2: Friday

 

     Elizabeth took the phone number with her to school the next day and called from a pay phone.  She didn’t want the guy to have her number if he really was the mafia and she didn’t want to alert her parents to her snooping. 

     “Yes,” a male voice answered.

     “Is this Luther King?” she asked nervously.

     “Who wants to know?” he replied gruffly.

     “Ah, I just wanted to know if you lost your wallet by any chance.”

     “Nope.”

     “Oh,” she said sadly and then was silent for a long pause.  “Because there was like a thousand dollars cash in it.”

      He snorted and then said, “Then why don’t you keep it?”

      “Well, there were people around when my friend and I found it.  I didn’t want to look bad, so I promised I’d try to find the owner.”

      “And there was no driver’s license in it?”

      “Nope, just a paper with the name L. King on it.”

      “Sorry kid,” he said, “It ain’t mine.  Good luck finding the owner.”  And with that he hung up the phone. 

       Liz hung up baffled by the conversation.  Why wouldn’t he claim the wallet when she said there was a ton of money in it?  She decided that he didn’t believe her, he was a good citizen or he simply didn’t want to be disturbed.  She doubted he was a good citizen and even the most skeptical person would be tempted to claim the wallet anyway.  The only reason she saw to refuse the fake money was the desire to stay under the radar. She marked her thoughts down in a notebook as the bell rang.  She dashed to her locker and then to her next class.

        When she got home from school, she dropped her back pack off and took off to her friend Cari’s place.  She wanted to get her opinion on the call.  Although Jesse might have been the more experienced one, Cari was more creative.   Besides, she wanted to prove to Jesse that she could do it herself and asking for help felt like she was admitting that she was in over her head. 

        “So what do you think?” she asked Cari as they drank their Mountain Dews in her living room.  Cartoons were on, but they weren’t paying attention. 

         “I think we should go downtown and snoop around The Mutual, Shelby Printing and Napoli’s Pizza.  Maybe once we get a feel for those places we can figure out what your next step is.”

         “I got nothing better,” Liz sighed.  “Let’s swing by and let my parents know we are heading downtown and then we can go.”

         They went back to Liz’s house and then set out on foot down their street to Whitney Avenue.  They cut through an ally or two and ended up on Main Street.  They crossed at the light and continued down Main Street and across the bridge.  They stopped at Napoli’s Pizza and went inside.   The pizza place had been there just a little over ten years, but the building had been there since the town was founded practically.  It was rather amazing the place was still standing given the fact it had been flood several times by the river right next to it.  In any case, the place was practically empty when they went inside.

       Cari approached the counter at the back and asked, “Can I use the restroom?”

       The owner, who was leaning lazily against the counter, said, “Not unless you are a paying customer.”

       Cari looked at Liz and Liz looked back at Cari.  Neither one of them had any money to spend.  They might have had two dollars between them, which was not enough for a pizza or even a six inch sub.  Cari made a face and then stormed out.  Liz shrugged and followed after her.

       “That was pointless,” Cari exclaimed as the crossed to the other side of Main Street.

       “How can they even stay open?” Liz wanted to know.  “They are like never busy.”

       “My friend Sarah says they are a front for an illegal gambling operation.”

       “Well, that would make sense of the King family is still involved,” Liz said. 

       They passed by the Shelby Mutual Building on the corner and continued down the side street to Mohican Printing.  They arrived at the doors at 5pm and no one was there.  There were no cars in the tiny lot and the tiny single story building was all locked up.  There weren’t even any windows to peer into.  Liz looked on the sign of the door and sighed, “Guess we will have to come back tomorrow or maybe Saturday.”

        “Guess so,” Cari said.  They crossed the street over the other side and passed by the old Hometown Bank.  “I wonder how long that bank’s been there?”

        “As long as anything else.”

        “Isn’t that the Bank Sal tried to rob?” Cari asked.

        “Now that you mention it, I think so,” Liz said.

        Cari stopped by the side door and they venture in.  The two girls strolled through the lobby and out the front door.  They both took note of the bank vaults just beyond the counter and the safety deposit boxes hidden within.  They left the bank and headed back across the way to the old Mutual Insurance building.  Currently the three story building housed the City Counsel and Mayor offices on the second floor.  The Mutual Insurance Company had moved on to a building down the road in the 1950s.  Then again in the 1970s they moved to the edge of town.  The current Insurance building looked like a mansion and was sorely out of place in the modest Midwestern town.

        “Sal would have had an office here,” Liz said as they mounted the steps of the City Hall.  This was where the insurance company was back then.”

         They skipped the second level where all the offices were and headed up to the third floor, which was mostly empty.   It was getting dark, but they could still see the open doors of the abandoned offices.   The desks and phones and office supplies were pretty much gone.  In one room Cari and Liz discovered a table with chairs around it, as if meetings had been held there, but there were no logos or papers to announce what the meeting might have been about.  The crept quietly into the front room beyond the meeting room and discovered a sole recliner facing the window.  It struck them as odd, but, again, there was nothing to point back to Salvatore King.

         They turned and saw a cupboard behind them.  Curious, they opened up the tall closet and much to their surprise, something fell out.  It was a dead body.  Liz covered her mouth and Cari stifled a scream of surprise. 

         “Should we call 911 or something?” Liz asked.

         “Probably.  Let’s check for ID first though,” Cari suggested.

         Liz and Cari bent over the corpse and searched through his pockets for a wallet or some sort of ID.  Liz pulled out a wallet from his back pocket and opened it up.  The driver’s license said the man was Troy Amandadeep.  

         “I know that name,” Liz said handing the wallet over to Cari.  “He was in my file about Sal King.”

         “Apparently he knew too much,” Cari said.

         Just then footsteps echoed at the top of the stairs.  “Someone’s coming!” Liz whispered in a panic.

         “Run!” Cari said back in a whisper. 

         Cari dropped the wallet and took off through the office and into the office beyond.  Three offices were connected before she ran into a wall.  The only choice left was to exit into the hallway.  Liz took a different route back through the meeting room and through the opposite side of offices.

         As the two people entered the meeting room, Cari snuck into the hall and into the back set of offices.  She was surprised to find boxes of files stacked around the room.   Curiously, Cari opened one of the boxes and took a look at what exactly was filed inside.  There, before her were a bunch of back invoices from Mohican Printing. She pulled one paper and stuffed it inside her coat before sneaking out the back door and down the back set of steps.

         A man in uniform saw Liz slip into the office next door.   He called out to her and told her to stop.  Frightened, Liz stayed put and waited for the man to come closer.  “What are you doing up here?” he asked.

        “Nothing,” Liz replied.

        “This building is private property and you are trespassing.  Did you know that?” he said in a very stern manor.

        “Sorry sir, won’t happen again, “ Liz replied. 

        “Damn right it won’t.  Come on,” he gestured.  Liz followed him out of the office, down the hall, down the steps and out the front door.  “Don’t let me catch you up there again!” he said pointing to her.  He made a face and disappeared back inside.

         Liz turned from the front door and headed down the sidewalk along side the building.  She guessed Cari would have exited out the back, which she did.  Cari waited for her friend at the backdoor nervously.

         “How could you do that?” Liz demanded.

         “Do what?” Cari asked. 

         “Leave me like that.”

         “I thought you were coming with me.  I had no idea you’d go the opposite direction.  Sorry.”

         The two teenage girls began walking through the parking lot to Whitney Avenue.  The sun was setting and it was getting rather chilly out.  

        “I got kicked out by their rent-a-cop.”

        “He could have been a real cop,” Cari said.

        “I suppose so.  He did have a uniform on.”

        “Anyway, I discovered a whole room back there with files. Guess who the files belong to?” Cari said stepping over a cement parking marker. 

        “Sal King?” Liz asked hopefully.

       “Close.  Mohican Printing.  I didn’t get a chance to look them all over, but I did steal this,” she said taking the paper out of her pocket.

        Liz looked over the invoice under the amber light of the street lamps.  “I see the name Robert Hoak.  Nothing about Sal King.”

        “It might be worth a look into.”

        “Along with who Troy was and why he was killed.  I don’t suppose the paper will print anything about his murder,” Liz sighed. 

         “Probably not, but you know that security guard or whoever he was is either going to report it or dispose of it all without the public knowing a damn thing.”

         “Guess we will have to figure it out on our own,” Liz said putting the invoice in her jacket.  

         The two girls were silent the rest of the way back home.  They bid good bye and went into their separate houses for dinner that night.

Reviews

[E. Ryan Miller]

This was really well written. The dialogue flows naturally and the characterization is convincing.