CHAPTER THIRTY

It was close to four o’clock when we assembled at the storage facility. Grandma, Lula, Potts, my mom, Morelli, Ranger, and Ramone, Ranger’s safecracking specialist. Gabriela was there as well, keeping to herself.

Ranger unlocked the door to the storage unit, rolled the door up, and we all peeked inside. The unit was the size of a single-car garage. It was concrete block on the inside just like it was concrete block on the outside. It was lit by two fluorescent ceiling fixtures. The unit contained a brown leather, slightly used La-Z-Boy recliner, and a large safe. The garage door was the only exit.

Ramone stepped forward with a backpack. “I know this style safe, ” he said. “This should not be a problem. ”

“Did you tell him about Hiroshima? ” I asked Ranger.

“Yes, ” Ranger said. “He knows about Hiroshima. ”

I gave the two keys and the two wedding bands to Ramone, he walked to the safe, and set his backpack on the floor. Everyone moved away from the unit.

“How long will this take? ” I asked Ranger.

“Not long, ” he said. “One way or the other. ”

“Do you think we’re far enough away? ” Lula asked. “Hiroshima is big. ”

Potts moved behind Lula, as if that would protect him from nuclear disaster. Morelli wasn’t saying anything. He was looking on with his cop face in place. Gabriela was silent. Grandma was leaning forward in anticipation, her eyes focused like lasers on the safe.

I was a half step behind Grandma. We’d been through a lot to reach this point, and now that the nightmare of worrying about everyone’s safety was over, I was getting excited about the treasure. My excitement had less to do with how I was going to spend it, as what exactly was this treasure? Bars of gold? A priceless relic? What had we been chasing?

The minutes ticked on. It seemed like a lifetime, but it was only four minutes on my watch when Ramone finally stepped away from the safe. The door was open, and there was a collective sigh of relief that we hadn’t all been blown to bits.

We rushed into the storage unit and stared at the inside of the safe. It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room and no one moved. Everyone was frozen in stunned silence.

“It’s empty, ” Grandma finally said. “There’s nothing in it but some comic books. It looks to me like Jimmy used to come here to sit in his La-Z-Boy and read comics. How could this be? Where’s the treasure? ”

“Superman and Uncle Scrooge, ” Potts said. “Excellent choice of comics but not worth much in their present condition. ”

“This here’s a bummer, ” Lula said. “I almost got blown up for nothing. ”

“There was no charge attached to it, ” Ramone said. “There was no chance of Hiroshima. ”

Lula was hands on hips. “Well, what about those tunnels with the rats and the fire and the crazy-ass old assassin? What about that? ”

“All in a day’s work, ” I said.

Morelli was standing next to me. He looked over at me. Quizzical.

I shrugged. Truth is, it could have turned out a lot worse. My mother and my grandmother could have been horribly hurt or killed. I could have been horribly hurt or killed. Those possibilities had been laid to rest.

“The La-Z-Boys were sure there was a treasure in here. There were clues. There were keys, ” Grandma said. “They were willing to kidnap and kill for it. What happened to it? ”

“In this video game I play there’s a princess. And a dragon took her treasure. It was in a chest in the tower room and the dragon flew away with it, ” Potts said.

“I like it, ” Lula said. “Some hot-shot dragon flew away with the princess’s treasure. ”

“I guess it could happen, ” Grandma said. “Did the princess get her treasure back? ”

“I’m working on it, ” Potts said.

“I can’t think about this anymore, ” my mom said. “I’m exhausted. Look at the time. I need to get dinner going. ”

“I need some selfies for Facebook and Instagram, ” Grandma said, standing in front of the safe. “I bet I could be a sensation. And if nobody minds, I’m going to take the comic books. ”

“I’m gonna snap some selfies, too, ” Lula said. “I might be able to add in a dragon to mine. ”

Gabriela hadn’t moved forward with everyone else. She’d stood in place. Her expression throughout was thoughtful. Ranger was back on his heels with the same thoughtful expression.

I knew what they were thinking because I was thinking the same thing. This wasn’t done. There was more.

Morelli’s phone buzzed, and he checked the screen. “I have to go, ” he said to me. “I don’t want to lose sight of Shine. And I have paperwork to do. I’ll call you later. ”

I turned to Lula when Morelli walked away. “Can you take everyone home? I want to stay and talk to Ranger and Gabriela. ”

“No problem, ” Lula said. “I might even let Potts hum. He told me he stole a car so you could sneak up on the bad guys. He’s coming along. ”

I waved them off, and I walked back to the safe. Ranger and Gabriela joined me.

“What was supposed to be in here? ” I asked Gabriela.

“Diamonds, ” she said. “D color and flawless. I represent the legal owner of the diamonds, and I’ve been empowered to claim them and have them tested and ultimately returned to my employer. ”

“I assume you have documentation for this, ” I said to Gabriela.

“I do, ” she said. “Morelli has seen it, and it’s been filed with the court and the appropriate agencies. ”

“Why were you following me? ” I asked her. “Why didn’t you just go after the diamonds? ”

“You and I have something in common, ” Gabriela said. “Tenacity. Beyond that our talents are miles apart. You have no skills whatsoever, but you have dumb luck and uncanny instinct. I have skills, but I don’t always have luck. And as they say, it’s better to be lucky than good. At least some of the time. I realized in this instance, I was better advised to follow you around and let you find the diamonds than for me to do my own investigation. All I had to do was keep you alive. That in itself is a full-time job. ”

I shifted my attention to Ranger. “Did you know? ”

“No, ” he said. “I was concentrating on keeping you in cars. ”

“None of the La-Z-Boys took the diamonds, ” I said. “I’m sure Jimmy has them stashed somewhere, either for himself or as part of the clue system. Shine had the last clue. Number nine. That was the number on the storage locker. The wedding bands had the safe combination, but maybe that wasn’t Jimmy’s clue. ”

“You know the location of the clue, ” Gabriela said.

I nodded. “I have a suspicion. Look under the La-Z-Boy seat cushion. ”

Ranger lifted the cushion and found a folded piece of paper and a key ring with some age-worn keys on it.

Ranger pocketed the keys on the key ring and opened the paper. “RIP, Anthony. ”

I called Connie. “Did Jimmy Rosolli have a relative named Anthony? ”

“His grandfather, ” Connie said. “Anthony Rosolli. ”

“Do you know where he’s buried? ”

“Hold on, ” Connie said. “I’ll ask my mom. ”

Connie came back on the line a minute later. “She thinks it’s Saint John’s. It’s outside of Egg Harbor. Anthony was a big deal. He immigrated from Sicily, and he was made. I guess he was like Godfather or something. Mom said she was a little girl when she visited the cemetery, but she remembers that Anthony Rosolli had a house there. ”

“A house in the cemetery? ”

“She said it was probably a little chapel or maybe a monument, but she remembers it as a house. I already heard there was no treasure. Sorry about that. ”

“It’s okay, ” I said. “Life goes on. ”

I hung up and looked at Ranger and Gabriela. “Saint John’s Cemetery. ”

“Let’s check it out, ” Ranger said. “Ramone has already gone back to Trenton, but I have the keys and the wedding bands. ”

Gabriela had the cemetery pulled up on her smartphone. “It’s about twenty minutes from here. Follow me. ”

Saint John’s Cemetery was on the northwest side of Egg Harbor. It was a small, ancient-looking graveyard attached to a small, ancient-looking Catholic church. We parked on a dirt road that ran parallel to the church lot, crossed over some scrub vegetation, and passed through the elaborate wrought-iron gate that led to the graves. We read the names on the weathered tombstones as we walked. Gianchinni, Mancuso, Salerno, Capaletti. Obelisks, crosses, statues of the Virgin marked the graves of the wealthy. Others had simple granite markers. A badly maintained small stone and granite chapel had been erected on a patch of flat ground in the middle of the cemetery. There was a peaked roof on the one story, windowless building and two Corinthian-style columns on either side of the door. The entire building was decorated with reliefs of angels, cherubs, Madonnas, and horse-drawn chariots. The name carved into granite above the door was Rosolli.

“I think we found the house of Rosolli, ” I said.

Ranger tried the door. Locked. He looked at the three keys on the key ring he found in the La-Z-Boy chair and selected one. He turned the key in the lock and the door opened. He switched the light on and nothing happened. No electricity. We stepped inside and Ranger and Gabriela powered up their Maglites.

The walls were covered with religious paintings. Some were in the form of murals, others were on velvet. An occasional cobweb clung to the velvet. Two rows of ornately carved pews that could have seated no more than four people were on either side of a center aisle. A small altar holding a cross and a bunch of burned-out votives was at the front of the room. There was a tiny cast-iron staircase behind the altar.

I saw Ranger scan the room, looking for security cameras.

“See anything? ” I asked him.

“No, ” he said. “I think this chapel no longer plays an important role in the spiritual life of the Rosolli family. ”

We followed Gabriela to the staircase and descended single file to the underground room.

“A crypt, ” Gabriela said.

There were twelve niches in the room. Six on each side. The walls, ceiling, and floor were concrete. Hammered copper doors sealed each of the niches. Names of the interred were on the doors. Sarah Rosolli, Salvatore Rosolli, Manfred Rosolli, Joseph Rosolli, Anthony Rosolli.

Gabriela stood in front of Anthony Rosolli. “Hello, Anthony, ” she said.

Ranger looked at Gabriela’s camo backpack. “Do you have anything useful in there? ” he asked her.

Gabriela removed a screwdriver and handed it to Ranger.

Ranger pried the copper door off the wall and exposed the casket. “Usually there’s a second shutter here, ” he said. “The copper shutter I just removed is decorative. There should be a heavier metal shutter that actually seals the tomb. ”

“Pull him out, ” Gabriela said. “There’s a reason he wasn’t sealed in. ”

Ranger slid a mahogany casket out of the niche and Gabriela and I helped lower it to the floor. Ranger slipped the brass latch on the lid and raised the lid.

“It’s not locked, and it’s not sealed, ” he said. “And it’s empty. ”

Gabriela and I looked inside. The satin lining wasn’t in great shape, but the casket had obviously never been used. Or maybe only used for a short time.

“Where’s Anthony? ” I asked.

“Probably bunking with someone, ” Ranger said. “Probably with Mrs. Rosolli. ”

Ranger flicked the beam of his flashlight into the niche. “Looks like the niche opens to a tunnel. ”

I did a mental head slap. “What’s with these guys and their tunnels? It’s like they had a tunnel obsession. ”

“Escape routes, ” Ranger said.

“Places to hide stolen treasures and bootleg whiskey, ” Gabriela said, flashing the Maglite beam around the space, crawling into the niche. “I came across something similar in Nepal when I was hired to find a stolen carving of Birupakshya from the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu. I thought for sure it was in that tunnel. Turned out it was filled with vipers. Let’s hope this goes better. Truly, what are the chances of that happening twice? ”

Considering my recent tunnel experiences, I thought the odds weren’t in my favor. I followed Gabriela into the niche and Ranger followed me. The tunnel was dirt and supported by chunky, crude timbers. It was a couple of feet wide and not quite six feet high. Ranger had to duck slightly when standing. After about fifty feet we came to a Y intersection.

“Go to the right, ” I said.

“Intuition? ” Gabriela asked.

“There’s a symbol burned onto the timber. I’ve seen it in the La-Z-Boys’ tunnels. Potts was the first to notice it. I have pictures. ”

We turned toward the symbol and came to another fork. Again, a symbol told us to go right.

The right-hand tunnel curved, and we came to a heavy metal fire door. Ranger selected a second key on the key ring and opened the door to a small concrete room with a safe embedded in the concrete. A second metal fire door was on the far wall.

“Interesting, ” Gabriela said. “This takes mob paranoia to a new level. ”

Ranger opened the door with the third key on the ring. Beyond the door was a short dirt tunnel that ended with a ladder going to a manhole cover. This was almost identical to the escape hatch opening to Liberty Park.

Ranger climbed the ladder and put his hand to the heavy cover.

“If it’s like the Liberty Park cover it has two steel pins that need to be pulled out, ” Gabriela said.

Ranger felt around, found the pins, pulled them out, and moved the cover to the side.

“What do you see? ” I asked.

“A field, ” Ranger said. “A road in the distance. The cemetery and church in the opposite direction. ”

He dropped to the floor and walked to the safe. “This looks familiar, ” he said.

“Looks identical, ” Gabriela said. “The only difference is that this safe is set into the concrete wall. ”

I was excited at the thought of opening the safe in the storage locker. I was filled with dread over the opening of this safe.

“I have a bad feeling, ” I said. “I think we should get Ramone. ”

“It’s your treasure, ” Ranger said to Gabriela. “What’s your call? ”

“I’m willing to roll the dice, ” Gabriela said. “Give me Grandma’s keys and the wedding rings. I was watching Ramone. He started with the numbers on Grandma’s ring. ”

“I’m not so sure, ” I said. “He had both rings in his hand, and we were standing at a distance. And he was using some gizmo to help him hear the tumblers. If you start with the wrong number, you’ll blow us up. ”

“I can feel the tumblers on this without a gizmo, ” Gabriela said. “The only thing unusual about this safe is that it has two keys instead of one. The rest is basic. I opened a number of safes just like this in Portugal when I was looking for some stolen Patek Phillipe watches. ”

“Did you find them? ” I asked.

“Yes, but not in those safes. Those safes were filled with drugs, compromising pictures, and one had an entire Iberian ham leg. ”

“Must have been a big safe, ” I said.

“Average, ” Gabriela said. “It was a relatively small pig. ”

Ranger gave her the keys and the rings, and I backed away toward the ladder. “I might need some fresh air, ” I said.

Gabriela inserted the keys. “They fit, ” she said.

Ranger was behind her, focused.

“Grandma’s sequence starts with the number two, ” Gabriela said.

She carefully turned the dial to the number two.

“Oops, ” Gabriela said, when it didn’t tumble. “Shit. ”

Ranger yanked her away from the safe and shoved her through the open doorway. He jumped into the tunnel after her and slammed the fire door shut. I was already halfway up the ladder. Gabriela and Ranger were close behind me.

Bang. The first explosion blew the fire door off just as we bolted out of the manhole. The ground shook, throwing me off balance, knocking me to my knees. Ranger jerked me to my feet, and we ran across the field until the second explosion sent us to the ground. The second explosion shot fire out of the manhole and blew a crater in the roof of the concrete bunker. Chunks of sod and concrete shot into the air and plummeted to the earth. Scraps of blue velvet floated down, and diamonds glinted in the sunlight like it was raining fairy dust. The ground rolled and rumbled, and a third explosion blasted the Rosolli chapel into nothing more than a memory.

“Hiroshima, ” I said.

Gabriela nodded. “My bad. I shouldn’t have taken the risk. ”

The first responders all went to the smoking rubble of the chapel. That left us to pick diamonds out of the scrub grass in the field.

“How many were there? ” I asked Gabriela.

“One hundred and seventy-four, lovingly stored in four blue velvet cases. ”

“Oh boy. ”

After an hour, we had collected eighty-seven and we had attracted the attention of a couple of the men at the chapel site.

“Time to go, ” Ranger said. “Gabriela can continue to search for the diamonds later today or tomorrow. ”

We crossed the field, picking up a few more diamonds on the way. We reached our cars and Gabriela tossed her backpack onto the Mercedes’s passenger-side seat.

“Good luck with the diamonds, ” I said to her. “It’s been interesting. ”

“All in a day’s work, ” she said.

Ranger drove into my apartment building’s lot and parked next to Grandma Mazur’s Buick.

“You didn’t destroy any cars today, ” Ranger said, “but you blew up a chapel, so your day wasn’t a complete bust. ”

“Technically Gabriela blew up the chapel. ”

“She chose poorly, ” Ranger said.

“It’s amazing that she was able to retrieve so many diamonds. I don’t imagine she’ll find all of them. ”

“I can guarantee it, ” Ranger said, taking my hand and placing a diamond in it. “I thought you deserved a finder’s fee. You might not ever be able to cash this in, but you can put it in your underwear drawer with all your other treasures. ”

“I don’t have any other treasures. ”

“Not yet, ” Ranger said.

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