Peter DiChellis

Hidden

Peter DiChellis

(Summer 2020)

Elliott found the mysterious necklace in his grandmother’s house, hidden inside a dented roasting pan pushed to the back of a kitchen cabinet. The necklace was snuggled into the folds of the local newspaper, dated one week before his grandmother's death.

Elliott wasn't surprised to find a necklace in the kitchen cabinet, or even to find it wrapped in newspaper. He’d once discovered his grandmother’s purse chilling in the refrigerator, and a quart of spoiled milk atop her bedroom bureau.

What surprised Elliott was he couldn’t imagine his grandmother had owned such extravagant jewelry. It looked so lavish and expensive. The necklace wasn’t included in his grandmother’s will, but then, handling such affairs had strained her in the months before her recent passing.

Should he keep the necklace? Give it to his mother? No, he’d get an appraisal, he decided, and deliver the necklace and the appraisal to the estate attorney. Fair’s fair. Elliott, always the favored grandchild, had inherited the cozy home his grandmother had lived in for decades. Elliott relished the memories the house sparked in him: childhood play in the postage-stamp-size backyard while his mother worked afternoons, sleepovers in the miniature second bedroom while she worked nights, joyful feasts and carefree fun on holidays. He treasured this house, and felt certain someone in his family would also treasure the necklace. To Elliott, who’d never really known his father and had always adored his grandmother, family was everything.

An hour later, Elliott parked in front of a swank jewelry store in the fashionable uptown section of the city. Thirty-two minutes later, everything he cherished began spiraling downward.

***

“Just another moment, please,” the jewelry shop manager said.

The manager had pronounced the necklace “magnificent” a half hour ago, then dashed into the shop’s back room again. Elliott wondered how much longer this was going to take. The store’s top jeweler had already examined the necklace, studied her computer screen, and made at least two phone calls.

A tiny bell jingled as the front door of the shop swung open. Elliott surveyed the new arrivals. An enormous man, wide and thick. A tall woman who moved like a fit athlete. Both wore baggy jeans and loose windbreakers. Both wore hard stares. And both were staring right at him.

After they cleared the doorway, the couple separated, the woman moving to the left, the man to the right. The woman flipped open her windbreaker and Elliott saw a gun holstered on her hip. She motioned to the man and he rushed straight at Elliott. He showed Elliott a gun on his hip, too. Then he showed him his badge.

“Detectives Jackson Kirkwood and Yazmina Linch,” he said. “Robbery-Homicide. We need to ask you some questions. And that means you need to come with us. Now.”

***

Kirkwood and Linch told Elliott that he wasn’t under arrest; only a “person of interest” who might provide crucial information about an old case. They drove him to police headquarters, where Kirkwood read Elliott a Miranda warning and hauled him into an interrogation room that blazed with florescent lights and stank of fresh sweat. Elliott remained there for three hours, anxious and wilting in a stiff metal chair at a pockmarked steel table, listening to Kirkwood, who sat across from him.

“Elliott, you’ve got a real problem. That necklace was stolen in an armed robbery nearly thirty years ago. One of the robbers killed a security guard, a moonlighting cop with two young kids at home.” Kirkwood cut Elliott with an icy glare. “And now we get a call from the jewelry store where you’re trying to sell that same necklace.”

“I keep telling you, I found that necklace in my grandmother’s house.” Elliott replied. “I’ve never seen it before today. Do you think we should stop and maybe I should call an attorney?”

“You have rights, Elliott. But let’s chat a little more while you decide what to do.” Kirkwood removed a photograph from a thick folder and placed it on the table. A prison mug shot. A man’s face. Front view, profile view, a string of numbers along the bottom. Slick black hair, dark shiny eyes, and a face carved from solid malice. The man looked like a rough brawler, still in his prime physical years. But, it was an old photo.

The face gave Elliott a start.

“You recognize him,” Kirkwood said. It wasn’t a question.

“My grandfather,” said Elliott, heart pounding. “My grandmother showed me other pictures of him. He was merchant marine sailor who died when his ship was lost at sea, a long time ago.”

“Your grandfather was released from prison a week ago after serving twenty-six years for first-degree armed robbery. I need to find him but he dropped off the grid. The necklace, Elliott. Your grandfather was one of the men who stole it.”

“Twenty-six years? My grandfather was—”

“The detectives recovered most of the loot back then,” Kirkwood continued. “They made the robbery charges stick, but couldn’t uncover the evidence they needed for the prosecutor open a murder trial. I will. And I think your grandfather’s the cold-blooded cop killer I’m looking for.”

Elliott trembled. Kirkwood pulled out another photo. The same face. Older, yet still hard as flint. Thin gray hair now, but the same dark shiny eyes.

“Here’s what he looks like now.” The detective leaned forward with a savage smile. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Never. I promise.” Elliott choked out the words. “I’ve only seen old pictures. Everyone said he died before I was born.”

***

Kirkwood nodded and checked his phone. Two texts from Linch, who’d called prison officials and verified Elliott had never contacted his incarcerated grandfather. Nor, to the best of the officials’ knowledge, had the prisoner contacted Elliott. Linch also checked real estate filings confirming the young man’s claim that he alone, not his late grandmother’s ex-con husband, had inherited his grandmother’s house. Kirkwood considered the texts with everything else he’d learned. For three hours, the detective had studied Elliott’s responses and mannerisms for classic signs of lying. He’d seen none. Elliott had no criminal record. And, of course, the robbery occurred before the young man was born. So while Elliott remained the investigation’s best lead, Kirkwood doubted Elliott knew the history of the necklace, or ever met the brutal killer who stole it.

The detective softened. “Elliott, your grandfather is alive and dangerous. We think he’s coming home for the necklace; all that’s left of his share of the robbery. He gave up twenty-six years of his life for it.”

“The police have the necklace now, not me,” said Elliott.

“Your grandfather doesn’t know that. Watch your back.”

***

Elliott phoned his mother as soon as he left the police station.

“As far as I’m concerned, your grandfather is dead,” she told him. “Do you understand what happened afterward? How hard your grandmother struggled just to hold onto her house? How the memories and the evil and the shame drove me and your father apart?”

“But he and Grandmother must have loved each other, because—” Elliott heard his mother sobbing into the phone. “Mom?”

“He’ll always be dead to me!” she screamed. “And I’ll never stop hating him.”

***

The next morning Elliott stepped onto his porch and locked the front door behind him. He’d woken stressed and fatigued after a restless first night staying in the house his grandmother left to him. He hardly felt ready for his new, longer commute to work.

A man emerged from a hiding place inside the garage. Elliott froze. His grandfather. The old man approached the porch, but stopped a few feet short. He glowered at Elliott and finally spoke.

“Somethin’ I need to take away from here. Somethin’ she held all these years.”

“Do you know about . . . my grandmother?” Elliott stammered.

“Course I know. I got sent to prison, not to stupid.”

“She lost things in the house and—”

“She was lost from love and lost from waitin'. Let's get in the house, boy.”

“It’s not here anymore. The necklace.”

Elliott’s grandfather pulled a nickel-plated pistol from his shabby jacket. He held the gun down, pressed against the side of his leg.

“In the house, boy.” He moved toward the porch.

“I’m your grandson.”

“When we ever met? You’re nothin’ to me. Your bitch mother neither.”

As the old man began lifting the pistol another voice yelled., “Police officer! Drop your weapon!”

Elliott watched his grandfather turn and raise his gun. Detective Linch was crouched twenty feet away, beside a parked car.

Three shots were fired, up close, stunning, deafening. Red splotches bloomed across the back of the grandfather’s jacket. The old man’s legs buckled. He fell.

***

Kirkwood and Linch had staked out the house that morning, anticipating the ex-con’s next move. Kirkwood now kicked away the fallen man’s gun, stepped on his motionless right arm to pin it down, then felt his neck for a pulse. Nothing.

Kirkwood knew he’d catch serious hell from the media and certain politicians for gunning down the old man from behind, without warning. But he felt sure the suspected cop killer was about to shoot at Linch. So catching serious hell wouldn’t bother him. Not a bit. He looked over to see Elliott sitting crumpled against the front door, head down, eyes shut, body shaking.

***

The next weekend, Elliott concluded a phone call.

“It’s not the highest offer we could get,” his real estate agent said. “But they’re pre-qualified buyers, so the deal will go through.”

“Take it. How soon?”

“As soon as I pull together the paperwork. I’ll call you back.”

Elliott had nowhere to go, but slipped out the back door anyway. He couldn’t stay in this house a minute longer.