13 Hangmen (25 page)

“So much for tweaking history to prevent Benny from killing me,” Angelo sighed.

Oops. Tony had totally forgotten about that part.

“Wait, maybe there's a way to save Angelo
and
keep the treasure,” he said. “What if, after we find it, we get Finn to show Cedric Hagmann it's already
gone
? Then Chester and Cyril—and even Benedict—will lose all interest in the place. No treasure to find, no reason to kill for it, right? I can just sell it to the highest bidder in 2009.”

“Not bad,” Angelo said, grinning.

“Except we don't even know what we're looking for,” Solly pointed out.

“We're not going to get that out of any Hagmann,” Tony said. “But at least we know the place to start
looking
for it is here in the attic.” He told them about the inspectors' measurements—that No. 13's outside dimensions didn't sync up to the attic's inside floor plan by something like nine feet square. Plus they knew One-Eyed Jack had used the heart hook from the door knocker to get inside some sort of secret hiding place where he could eavesdrop on the Tailboard Thieves. Had either Angelo or Solly ever stumbled across an old hook latch or trapdoor or anything?

“I'm way ahead of you,” Angelo said. “I asked Mama if she
knew about any secret rooms in the attic when she called me down to lunch.”

“What did she say?”

“Typical Mama,” Angelo admitted. “If there were any extra space, she said, she would have rented it out by now. But I didn't give up. I asked her if Solly's parents had ever mentioned anything strange about the attic when they sold it. Funny you should ask, Mama said. It was thanks to the attic that she and Papa were able to get this house instead of Cyril the Squirrel. Apparently, Cyril offered Solly's parents over double what my own folks could afford to pay for Number Thirteen. But the Weinbergs agreed to sell it to my folks anyway—on two important conditions, which they wrote directly onto the deed: The first was that Mama and Papa could never sell the house to a Hagmann; they could only give it to their first-born son on his twenty-first birthday. The second was that the son would have to sleep up in the attic until he was fully grown. Mama said she and Papa agreed to both conditions immediately. They hated Cyril Hagmann, and who knew if they would ever even
have
a son?”

“Which proves Antonio DiMarco
must
eventually marry your mama for love,” Tony pointed out. “Since Number Thirteen could only ever go to you, legally. And your mama would surely have told him that, way before he proposed.”

“You're right.” Angelo grinned. “But listen, that's not the only weird thing about the sale. When the deed to Number Thirteen was finally handed over, Mama and Papa realized the house didn't even belong to Mr. and Mrs. Weinberg; it belonged to their son, Solomon.”

Tony turned to Solly, surprised. “It's true,” Solly said. “Number Thirteen's mine, as of this very morning.”

“Start talking!” Tony said.

“Just after you vanished, there was a knock at my front door. Mameh and I got there at the same time. Somebody had slipped an old roll-up piece of parchment through the mail slot. Mameh's eyes went big as saucers when she started reading it. It's the deed to this house, she said; Finn McGinley has decided to give it away. My heart sank. Not to Chester Hagmann, I said. No, Mameh said; to
you
. She read me the last line: Finn had officially transferred ownership of Thirteen Hangmen Court to me, Solomon Weinberg, on my thirteenth birthday. But it was on condition that I not sell the place till I turned twenty-one—and
never
to a Hagmann—and that I sleep up here in the attic.”

“It must have been Finn himself!” Angelo said.

“Do you think?” Solly said.

“Let's see that deed!” Tony said. “Benedict Hagmann accused my dad of stealing it out of Zio Angelo's desk. But now I'm
wondering if
he's
the one who made it disappear, since it clearly bars every other Hagmann from owning the place.”

“Mameh's still got it,” Solly said. “She was worried there must be some mistake. People don't just give away houses. She took the elevated train over to Finn's house in Dorchester, to ask him in person. I didn't have the heart to tell her that neither she nor anyone else would ever get that chance again.”

“It's sort of spooky, isn't it?” Angelo said. “As grown-ups, we obviously make sure this place goes to each other.”

“I wonder if Jack gives it to Finn,” Tony said.

“He does,” Finn said, materializing at the door. “Look!” He took a seat on the bed. He appeared to unroll something in his hands.

“The deed!” both Angelo and Solly said at once.

“How come I can't see it?” Tony said. “Wait, I know why. Here in 2009, the deed has gone missing. It may no longer exist.”

Angelo gave Tony the basic gist of what the parchment said. The property had been signed over to a half dozen owners through the centuries: Rodney McKeag, Thomas Willard, Nathaniel Tucker, Polly Pickles Tucker. The last two lines at the bottom were the most interesting: Tobias Tucker, upon his death, had deeded the house to Jack Douglass, on condition Jack sleep in the attic, not sell it until he was twenty-one, and never
sell to a Hagmann. Jack Douglass had in turn deeded the house to Dolly McGinley for a dollar, as long as she gave the house to her son, Finn McGinley, on his thirteenth birthday, with the same conditions.

“Where did you get this?” Angelo asked.

“After everybody suddenly vanished, I decided I might as well head downstairs to celebrate Christmas Eve with my family,” Finn said. “Mam had set this deed on the tree for me. She'd been keeping it a secret till she could finally give it to me. I wanted to run straight to the pub, even though it was late, to make sure Jack was OK, thank him for his amazing kindness, and invite him over for Christmas breakfast. Paddy told me there wasn't any point. He had actually stopped by the pub himself on his way home from buying presents—to repay Jack the money the Tailboard Thieves had stolen out of his register. Paddy had found Jack unconscious in the corner booth, completely ashen-faced. He'd rushed Jack to the Negro hospital over on Beacon Hill—none of the neighborhood infirmaries would see a black man—where the doctor soon discovered one of Jack's broken ribs had punctured a lung. In the meantime, Jack had slipped into a coma.” Finn turned to Solly. “Do you know if he ever gets better?”

Solly shook his head. He laid a hand on Finn's shoulder. There was a somber moment of silence.

“I can't help you lads change history,” Finn said. “It's clear from this here deed that Jack didn't want me to sell Number Thirteen to a Hagmann—for whatever reason he had of his own—and I'm not going to. I owe him that. I'm truly sorry for your troubles, lads, but that's final.”

Tony assured him that was OK. None of them had ever felt comfortable with that plan. They had already moved on to Plan B—finding the treasure themselves—while Finn was celebrating Christmas, and he quickly explained why. With any luck, the treasure would now go to the highest bidder in 2009 without a Hagmann setting foot in No. 13.

“Count me in, then,” Finn said, relieved. “Where do we start looking?”

“What if we conjure thirteen-year-old Jack?” Angelo said. “He obviously knows how to get into some sort of secret place where he hid as a runaway slave. If there's a treasure in there, he'd know about it.”

Angey burst into the room. “Mission accomplished,” he said.

“Angey!” Tony said, to alert the others. “What's up?”

“I just had a little chat with Maria Gomez, RN,” he said, flopping onto the bed. “She didn't quit at all. Benedict Hagmann
fired
her.” He filled in the details: Hagmann had told her that Zio Angelo was too embarrassed to let her go himself but that his savings had run out and he could no longer afford a
private nurse. From now on, Hagmann would take over making Zio Angelo's meals, doing his laundry, helping him up and down the stairs, administering his medicine.

“What's happening?” Angelo said.

“Hang on a sec,” Tony said. “
Hagmann
was in charge of Zio Angelo's daily meds? According to the coroner's report, there wasn't a trace of heart medicine in Zio Angelo's bloodstream. That's supposedly why his ticker suddenly seized up.”

“Doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together,” Angey said. “Do we call the cops or what?”

Tony shook his head. “We don't have any proof. Hagmann could just say he
did
give Zio Angelo his pills, but Zio Angelo forgot to take them. The only way to nail Benedict Hagmann for murder is to get him to
confess
to withholding Zio's medicine.”

“I knew it!” Angelo cried. “He
did
kill me, that rat!”

“Well, that ain't gonna happen,” Angey said, sighing. “So how did it go with Dad? He wasn't in his office on my way up here. Was he able to dig up any sort of history angle on this place?”

Tony shook his head. “Right now he can't even figure out a way to plug the hole in his dissertation.”

“So what do we do?” Angey said.

Tony appreciated the fact his brother was just trying to help. If it were any other time, he'd think it was great that they were finally making a real connection. But right now the clock was
totally ticking, and Tony needed to get rid of him. “Maybe you could sneak onto Dad's computer, if it's still up and running,” Tony said. “See if you can surf up anything historical about Hangmen Court from, say, Revolutionary times. Skip the witch trials. That's a dead end.”

Angey slid off the bed. “Too bad this room
isn't
haunted,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” Tony asked, startled.

“We could just ask the ghost of Zio Angelo why Hagmann would bump him off to get his hands on this dump,” Angey said. “Knowing Hagmann's motive might at least lead us to some other proof besides a confession.”

Mikey strode into the room. “I've been looking all over for you,” he said to Angey. “Why aren't you answering your cell phone?”

“Out of juice,” Angey said.

“What are you doing up
here
?” Mikey asked.

“Just getting more packing tape,” Angey said. He hoisted himself off the bed. He grabbed a roll off the top of the dresser. He brushed past Mikey out of the room.

“I'm not talking to you!” Mikey said to Tony.

“Then get out,” Tony said.

Mikey glared at him. But he didn't have a comeback, and he just left.

“Is he gone?” Angelo asked.

Tony nodded.

“So where were we?”

“Conjuring Jack,” Angelo prompted.

“It's worth a try.” Tony shrugged. “All we need is the right nine-ish object.”

“It's got to be that heart hook thingy from the knocker,” Finn said. “Jack had to turn it nine times with the clapper—remember?—before it would pop out.”

Tony yawned. He volunteered to go down to the front stoop to fetch it. He needed some fresh air. Having just pulled his first all-nighter, he seemed to be going from moments of hyper-awareness to feeling like he was sleepwalking in a nightmare.

Tony sized up the knocker. What had Jack done to get the heart hook out? First he splayed the wrought-iron hands away from the heart. Next he pried the crown out of its slot on top of the heart with the screwdriver he'd pilfered from a toolbox on the workbench in the basement. He shoved the crown into the slot below the heart. He tried turning the clapper to the right. He couldn't get it to budge. The heart seemed to be rusted in place. Was he going to have to pry the entire knocker off the door and set it whole on the spiral?

“What are you doing?”

The hair on the back of Tony's neck went straight up. Old Man Hagmann. He was now standing at the bottom of the stoop, watching him. Tony flipped the Health & Safety notice back over the knocker. “None of your beeswax,” he said. Beeswax might work, come to think of it. He wondered if there was any in the cleaning supplies.

Hagmann just stood there.

“What?” Tony said.

“I'd like a word with you,” he said.

“Yeah, well, if you're here to rub it in, sorry, but we're all a little busy packing,” Tony said. He tapped the word
EVICTION
with the screwdriver.

“Actually, I've got a proposition for you,” Hagmann said. “A way out of your current housing difficulties.”

It was all Tony could do not to fling the screwdriver, ninja-style, at Hagmann's heart. Instead he gripped the handle and counted to three. This might be his only chance to trick Hagmann into revealing what the treasure was, or where it was hidden. “Make it fast,” he said. “We've got to start loading the car.”

Tony was not expecting what came next.

“It's about that key,” Hagmann said. “The one I lost at this house while I was looking after Angelo. The one that usually hangs around my neck with this triskele.” He pulled the triple spiral out of his collar.

“The what?” Tony said.

“It's the Greek term for any object with three legs,” Hagmann said.

“What's it for?” Tony said.

“Who knows?” Hagmann said. “It's probably Druidic. An ancestor of mine brought it over from England. He helped John Winthrop settle Boston.”

By hanging all the Indians who were already here.

“No. I mean, what's the
key
for?” Tony said. “What does it open? A door? A chest?”

“I doubt anyone remembers,” Hagmann said. “It's just a keepsake, really. But we Hagmanns are a sentimental lot. And I'd like it back.”

Yeah, right.
“Cut to the chase,” Tony said.

“All right, I will,” Hagmann said. “This house is coming down, one way or the other. You won't get a red cent if the city dismantles it as a safety hazard. And the final decision about that rests with me. They're waiting for my call. On the other hand, I am still prepared to make you a modest offer for the place—enough to get your family comfortably settled elsewhere—if you find that key and return it to me.”