13 Hangmen (24 page)

Angey told Tony to take a right. He knew a shortcut back to Hangmen Court. Tony shrugged and followed. He had been this way too. But he just couldn't remember when. The last couple of days had been sort of a blur. A couple of rights and lefts later, though, they were no longer in the usual maze of
caffès
and bakeries and butcher shops. Suddenly they found themselves on a grassy stretch at the harbor front called Christopher Columbus Park. Angey admitted he had taken a wrong turn somewhere; it was usually Mikey who led the way. But it was a nice park. A kid their age was in the middle, tossing a tennis ball to his German
shepherd. The dog missed by a mile—there was something funky and mechanical about his back hip—and the ball rolled up to Tony's feet. Without thinking much about it, Tony picked up the ball and tossed it back to the kid. “Hey, do you know how to get to Hanover Street?” he asked. The kid told them it was easy; they just needed to follow the Freedom Trail back up North Street to Prince Street and take a left. Tony thanked him; then he and Angey followed the redbrick line in the sidewalk. A block or two later, Tony recognized where they were. North Square. A few doors down was the Paul Revere House.

“Who taught you how to throw?” Angey asked suddenly.

Tony shrugged.
I've been getting a few pointers from a future ex-outfielder for the Red Sox.
“I downloaded this video on YouTube,” he said.

Angey poked his stomach. “Plus you've lost weight.”

“Hello?” Tony said. “I've been on a crash diet since school got out? I've lost ten pounds. Well, OK, maybe eight.”
Plus Zio Angelo and I now do calisthenics together while we're waiting around for a bunch of other long-dead thirteen-year-olds to turn up.

“I'm not stupid,” Angey said. “It's like you're suddenly leading this secret double life.”

“No I'm not,” Tony said.

Sarah Pickles stepped out onto the sidewalk dressed in her Colonial-maid outfit. She set a sandwich board at the front gate
of the Revere House.
NEXT TOUR STARTS HERE
. “Hi, Tony,” she said.

“Oh, hi.”

“What did you mean by ‘Case closed'?” she said. “Are you saying that sketchy Hagmann dude
didn't
murder your great-uncle after all?”

Angey stared at Tony, speechless.

“I'm not so sure now,” Tony admitted. “He's on the warpath again. He just got a couple of Health & Safety inspectors to boot us out of the house.”

“Ouch,” Sarah said.

“I'm Angey,” Angey said. “Tony's big brother?”

“Oh, hi,” Sarah said. “Sarah.”

“Her mom owns that curiosity shop,” Tony said.

“So what are you going to do?” Sarah said.

“Nothing,” Tony said. “We've got to be all packed up by six o'clock.”

“You can't let him get away with this!” Sarah said. “That would totally suck.”

“Tell me about it,” Tony said. “They're moving us to a motel on Revere Beach.”

“Ouch,” Sarah said again. “Listen, I'm off work at three. Text me with anything you need me or Mildred to look up, OK?” A tour trolley pulled up, and a bunch of people climbed
out. “I gotta go,” she said. “Just don't give up, OK?” Tony nodded. Sarah told the tourists to shut off their cell phones, please, as a courtesy to the past. One of the first things they would notice on entering the courtyard was a gigantic bell to their right. Most people knew Paul Revere was a silversmith, but few were aware he also made bells and cannons and unpickable locks.

Tony continued down North Street.

“Freeze!” Angey said. Tony stopped walking.
Uh-oh
. “There is no way you are
not
going to explain what that was all about,” Angey said.

“Why should I?” Tony said. “I'm suddenly supposed to trust you because you've been nice to me for, like, five minutes? This is probably the longest conversation we've ever had in our lives!”

“I'm not Mikey, you know,” Angey said. “I'm a completely different human being on this planet.”

It had never actually occurred to Tony that Angey might feel invisible too.

For some reason, he decided to go for it. He explained to Angey how he had strong reason to suspect Old Man Hagmann next door of foul play in the death of Zio Angelo. Sarah and her mother, Mildred, had been helping him figure out what Hagmann's motive might be. Turns out he came from a long line of murdering hangmen who would stop at nothing—including
bumping off Zio Angelo—to lay their hands on No. 13. But Tony still didn't know
why
. It was definitely for something hidden inside the house. Old Man Hagmann had wanted whatever it was bad enough to frame Michael for Zio Angelo's death to invalidate his last will—why Michael had actually spent yesterday afternoon under police investigation and
not
shopping for Tony's new bed. When that hadn't worked, Hagmann had tried buying the place off Tony. And when even
that
hadn't worked, he had gotten it condemned so he could pick through the rubble after they were evicted.

“Shut up!” Angey said.

“You think I could make all that up?” Tony said.

They continued walking up North Street.

“Well, that girl Sarah is right,” Angey said. “You gotta pin the murder on him.”

“It's too late,” Tony said. “He totally has the upper hand. If Hagmann objects to any major construction—and he will—the city is going to tear down Number Thirteen.”

“Not if he's in jail,” Angey said. “Then we just need to figure out a way of getting the place listed as a historical monument.”

Tony walked a few more yards in silence. Angey had a point.

“There's still a big problem here,” Tony said. “No murder, no crime. The cops already closed the case. As far as they're concerned, Zio Angelo died of natural causes.”

“You've got nothing on Hagmann?” Angey said. “Nothing at all?”

Tony stopped. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He fished out Maria Gomez's card. He handed it to Angey. “Hagmann claimed he was the only person looking after Zio Angelo. It was supposedly the big reason
he
deserved to inherit Number Thirteen, not me. Yet Zio Angelo clearly had a visiting nurse. Something doesn't quite add up.”

Angey pulled out his cell phone. He dialed the number. Straight to voice mail. “Look, her agency's office is farther down Hanover Street,” he said. “How about I just walk over there and ask her what the deal was? Meantime, go talk to Dad. He's gotta be able to dig up
something
historic about the house. He's a freaking historian.”

They reached Hanover Street.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Tony said.

“I don't feel like being homeless right now?” Angey said.

Tony grinned.

“I can't believe you already know people, even before Mikey and me,” Angey said. “Especially cute girls.”

Come to think of it, neither could Tony. How weird was that?

Tony found Michael in his study, filling crates with books.

“Careful,” Tony said, handing his dad a roll of tape out of the
six-pack he and Angey had just bought at the hardware store. “That bookcase looks like it's about to topple over.”

“Not that it matters much.” Michael sighed. “I can't believe I just got all these onto the shelves.”

Tony had never seen his dad so down in the dumps. “Mom says lunch is make-your-own-sandwich out of the fridge,” Tony said. “We gotta use stuff up.”

“I'm not very hungry,” Michael said.

“Me either,” Tony said.

Michael held up a dog-eared manuscript. His unfinished dissertation. “Didn't get very far on this, did I?” he said. “Not that
that
matters, either. There's a big fat hole in my research, anyway. I was hoping to plug it this summer—a real live history mystery about Revere.” Michael told Tony to take a load off for a sec, and he would explain. Reluctantly, Tony perched on the desk chair. The last thing in the world he cared about right now was Paul Revere. But he could plainly see his dad needed to vent.

Michael launched into a bit of history:

In 1779, four years after his Midnight Ride, Paul Revere was made Artillery Train Captain for something called the Penobscot Expedition. The goal of the campaign was to stop British forces from establishing a stronghold in Maine. But it was a total failure, mostly due to the incompetence of its commander, Dudley Saltonstall. Unfortunately, Saltonstall tried to foist all
the blame on Revere by claiming he'd tipped off Loyalist spies about the campaign before leaving Boston, which ruined the surprise. Revere was dishonorably discharged.

Revere then did an incredibly risky thing: he requested his own court-martial. He could easily have been found guilty—it was, after all, his word against his commander's—but he was instead cleared of any wrongdoing before the case ever went to trial. It was Saltonstall himself who got dishonorably discharged in the end, and Revere's reputation as a hero was saved.

The history mystery was this: Why did the Continental Army suddenly decide to take Revere's word over Saltonstall's? What changed their minds about him tipping off the British? Michael still had no idea. And so far he hadn't been able to find a single clue in any of the books he was now packing.

Tony tried to keep his eyes from crossing.
Who cares?
They were about to be moved into a motel. They needed to get Health & Safety off their backs! He suggested to his dad that the answer might pop into his head if he turned his attention to something else—like, say, figuring out how to get 13 Hangmen Court listed with the Historical Preservation Society. Did Michael know, for example, that Hangmen Court was
the
court where real live hangmen strung people up? Wouldn't that be important enough to put No. 13 on the Freedom Trail?

Michael ruffled Tony's hair. It might be enough to get a
plaque bolted to the oak in the middle of the court, Michael said, but that was about it. All these town houses dated from the 1700s—not the 1600s—which was well after the last witch trial had ended. And though No. 13 did date from pre-Revolutionary times, Hangmen Court had played no real role in America's fight for freedom. It wasn't even on Revere's Midnight Ride route.

Ted Williams's cap.

“What if we finally got Ted Williams's cap appraised?” Tony said. “I'm pretty sure it's the real deal. We could probably sell it to some collector for a ton of money.”

“Your mother and I thought of that too,” Michael admitted. “For about two seconds. But we could never live with ourselves for making you part with such an incredible gift from your uncle. It's incredibly cool of you to make the offer, Tony. You're a star. But it's one hundred percent out of the question.”

Another dead end. Disappointed, Tony made for the door, then paused. “Did Zio Angelo ever tell you he had a visiting nurse?”

“Birnbaum mentioned something about that at the wake,” Michael said. “Zio Angelo hired her after he fell ill, I think. But then she quit. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Tony said. “I just found a nurse's card, when all those canceled checks and bank statements spilled out of the metal cabinet in the basement. You don't happen to know who
Anders Fogelberg is, do you? I found a photo with his name on it at the same time.”

“Haven't got a clue,” Michael said. “Like I said, Zio Angelo was pretty tight-lipped about his life.”

Funny, that wasn't Tony's impression of young Angelo
at all
.

“Too bad you didn't find an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.” Michael sighed. “Even if we manage to save this place from the wrecking ball, we still don't have a half million to fix it up.”

Hagmann's treasure!

“I better be getting back upstairs,” Tony said.

Tony pulled the ball cap, mezuzah case, and claddagh ring out of the packing box. He set these, one by one, on the spiral of the pawcorance. Angelo and Solly materialized. And just in the nick of time! They were about to crash straight into each other. Both had been pacing back and forth in their own separate time periods.

“What the heck happened?” Angelo said.

“Sorry,” Tony said. “I was a little freaked out. Wait, where's Finn?”

“Who knows?” Solly said. “One minute you're sweeping off the spiral, the next I'm sitting here talking to myself like a schmuck.”

“What did you mean by
game over
?” Angelo said.

“It isn't over,” Tony said. “But we're definitely down by a few runs at the seventh-inning stretch.” He filled them in on the surprise visit by the Health & Safety inspectors, thanks to concerned citizen Benedict Hagmann.

“Don't worry,” Angelo said. “It took a little doing, but Solly finally convinced Finn that the only way
not
to disappear forever when he's grown up is to never make any pacts about the Hagmanns with childhood friends, stay away from the track as an adult, and sell this house to Chester just as soon as he owns it.”

“But that'll take ages,” Tony said. “And by six o'clock tonight I'll be homeless. Sorry, we need to go straight to Plan B.”

“Plan B?” Solly said. “What does that mean?”

“Find that treasure ourselves!” Tony said. “The very fact that one is hidden in these walls should be enough to get Number Thirteen listed on the History Mystery Tour and stave off the wrecking ball. If I promise to sell the treasure to Benedict Hagmann, he won't have any reason to object to us renovating the place. At the very least, I can use the money I make off the deal to hire Eddie Wong to repair the back wall and deck and bookcase in Dad's study—and whatever else—to keep this place from falling down around our ears while I'm figuring out how to raise the half million I actually need to get it up to code.”