Brownstone Burial: Paulette Palinsky Travel Mysteries, #2

By Patricia Gulley

1947 murders come to haunt Paulette Palinsky when she leaves her small town for the big city of New York in 1963 to escape her reputation of cavorting with spirits. She is starting a new career as an airline reservations agent when she finds herself falling in love with those wonderful old New York houses: Brownstones. Thrilled when she finds a small studio in one, she forgets how old they are and the secrets they may hold.

The first ghost to make contact used to be a NY detective and knows exactly what she needs to do to get the case reopened. Reluctantly, Paulette agrees, and learns that three murders happened that day in 1947, and that her landlord is the son of one of the ghosts and the nephew of the other two. He isn't happy with her poking her nose into his family affairs. Pauly finds herself sandwiched between the living and the dead, finding clues that soon involve the airline she works for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Gulley
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502226686

Patricia Gulley

Pat is a retired airline res and fares agent. Also Travel Agent. She has experienced many of the situration, not ALL, mentioned in her books. She lives in a floating home on the Columbia River.

Book preview

Prologue

Rachel and Herman Helenko/1947

Central Park gleamed in a vivid display of emerald, copper and gold tones under the clear fall sky. The sun warmed her cheeks and children with their mothers or nannies eagerly returned her happy smile. Or did everything just feel brighter and happier to her now? The idea to walk home across the Park instead of taking the subway was a good one—a way to expend some of the energy that embraced her after hearing the blessed news from the doctor. And yet, like so many other days over the last few months since Herman had arrived with his terrifying stories and distrustful, anxious ways, a hazy fear lurking near the surface of her consciousness welled up and she again felt watched, even followed.

She shook herself. Time, the poor man needed time to get over his terrible ordeal in the camps, stop his over-cautious watchfulness and return to being the man she fell in love with before the war. Surely, her wonderful news would cheer him up and bring some of the old Herman back to her.

She ran the remaining distance out of the park and across Central Park West to 76th Street trying to dismiss the fear and cling to the good news. Halfway down the block she turned up the stone steps of their beautiful home. Well, theirs and five, soon to be six, other tenants whose rent would pay the remainder of the mortgage. When she reached the front door, Rachel couldn’t stop herself from looking back the way she had come to see if anyone looked suspicious. So many people on the street, many looking quite odd from those she had grown up with, how would she know for sure who was suspicious and who was not? She and Herman had to get out from under this cloud of fear he had brought with him from Europe. This new country, nothing like the old, had everything to make a better life for them. She forced a smile, and shook herself while inserting her key in the brand new lock on the very old, but sturdy door.

They lived in the first floor apartment of this old New York brownstone. She rented out the basement unit—which technically should be, but was not, the first floor because it was at street level—and the upper two floors. One day they would occupy the top two floors and have enough bedrooms for their children and maybe one for Tuti Sophie, if they ever found her in the ravaged Ukraine.

Rachel, mama and papa had come just before the war started during those terrible times in Italy, and were lucky to have her sister Joanie and her husband here to sponsor them. But the new world had not brought joy to her parents. Papa had been overwhelmed by the size of the city and not watching traffic, carelessly walked in front of a taxi and died. His death and the knowledge that her home village had been totally destroyed during the war, and no news of her sister Sophie, had really caused mama’s death.

She stamped her foot to stop the tears she felt heat her eyes, and forced her thoughts to her remodeling plans. She wanted to decorate traditionally, but also to add all those modern appliances Americans believed they could not live without. The money Herman had given her before she left Milan had allowed her to buy the brownstone, and the rents would pay off the mortgage, but it still required a good salary to purchase everything Rachel dreamed about.

Herman still hadn’t found a job, but she was sure that with his knowledge of Italian, German, Ukrainian, and Polish, he would soon find work. He was so restless, with dark moods she did not recognize and he never seemed to want to go out and look. She didn’t even want to think of how angry he was and how he reacted when he found out she had spent their money on the brownstone. Time would settle him, she reassured herself. The war had done terrible things to him, and friends and family were now talking about this new thing called survivor guilt. She didn’t expect him to forget, but she did pray that he would heal. She would have to keep her job as long as possible. The store she worked for didn’t even know she was married—they expected married women to give their jobs up to men returning from the war—so they didn’t have to know anything about her blessed event.

She opened the door to their apartment with her key and called his name. No answer gave her the hope that he was out job hunting. The silence brought back that shadowy feeling of gloom she experienced back in the park. It seemed to absorb the noise from outside and cut her off from the world. Her whole body shuddered.

Again, she stomped her foot to rid herself of the feeling. The war is over! She told herself, sternly. You and Herman are safe. ‘Go with your parents, Rachel, I’ll be along as soon as I liquidate the business. We’re very lucky Joanie has married an American and can sponsor us.’ He had said these words with so much assurance in his light hearted and jovial way. Would that Herman ever return to her?

She shook herself for good measure and ran her hand lovingly over her belly before removing her good, wool coat and scarf and hung them in her modern, newly built-in closet. The construction work to cut the huge parlor in half and make the front into an efficiency apartment was progressing, but not quickly enough for Rachel. She wanted it finished so she could rent it out, but there was always some problem according to the workers. Tearing out huge areas of brick from old fireplaces scared Rachel into believing the house might fall down. It wouldn’t they told her, but to save her money, they would leave in the chimney walls and plaster around it to make it look like part of the wall between the apartments. Unfortunately, that wall was too thin, so they came up with the idea of putting in this wonderful closet near the front door. It cut into part of her space and caused more delays, but she loved the built-in closet. So much more modern than coat trees or a wall rack with hooks, even old fashioned wardrobes. And she’d never have to worry about noisy neighbors or them complaining if the baby cried.

On that happy note, she headed to the kitchen to start dinner. She wanted something special tonight for when she told Herman the good news.

Stepping into the kitchen and flicking on the light stopped her dead in her tracks. Shocked senseless by what she saw, she grabbed for the doorframe to support herself and to keep from falling. Sprawled face down on the kitchen floor laid the body of a man. Herman! Half his head was an open wound of matted hair and bone lying in a pool of blood. A large, red spot with a black hole in the middle of it also stained the back of his coat over his heart.

Terror enveloped her and froze a scream in her throat while paralyzing her limbs until a small voice within her shouted to move, to run, to do something, but be sure to get away. Light headed and gripping the doorjamb to steady her shaky legs, she turned her head, and came face to face with a leather-gloved hand lifting a huge black gun up to right between her eyes. A finger moved backwards on the trigger and a soft clicking sound followed by a short rush of air made her think that nothing had happened. Her hands gripped her belly as a wave of relief washed over her, all the way down to the floor and into oblivion.

~*~

Time had concerned him as he did not know what time she would return home. He needed to search the man’s pockets. Now he could search more carefully and at his leisure before thinking of the best way to arrange the bodies. It was important that they look like they had died during a robbery. It was important that nothing hinted at revenge or consequences.

Rachael’s body could stay where it landed. Shock could still be seen on what was left of her face. He only needed to adjust the placement of the man’s body and his cloths a bit. With everything removed from the pockets and one or two things added, he could leave.

The knock at the door startled him. Quickly, he moved to stand beside it, not planning to open it, hoping the person knocking would go away. A second knock accompanied the jiggling of the knob and the door opening. Annoyance that Rachel had forgotten to lock it was followed by recognition of the man entering and his need to act quickly. No time to ponder what he was doing here. All of his training came back to him and he raised his gun, pushed the door shut and fired; the silencer working for him as well this time as it had the previous two times.

Now he had a dilemma. For the other two bodies to look right, he had to get rid of this one completely. All the workman’s tools lying near the closet and a plaster bucket standing near an unfinished part of the wall by the chimney gave him his answer.

Chapter 1

Paulette Palinsky/1963

Paulette Palinsky stepped off the bus and looked up. Skyscrapers loomed to the sky in every direction. Compared to the buildings surrounding it and the Empire State Building twenty-odd streets away, the building she was about to enter wasn’t quite as tall, maybe fifty stories, but it was in New York City and housed her new employer. Excitement and apprehension fought for their share of her emotional state of mind.

The airline’s reservations office took up the whole 29th Floor. Ten men and women (actually, since she was at least five or six years older than all of them, she thought of them as guys and girls) got off with her. Only Elaine Barault seemed not to fit the ‘girl’ description: tall, curvaceous, luxurious auburn hair and a more knowing eye for men that the other girls, made Pauly wonder at Elaine’s age, though she had never asked.

The air crackled with excitement as they stood there and waved goodbye to the two guys who stayed on the bus as it continued on to LaGuardia Airport as they had managed to secure jobs in an airline cargo department.

Dressed in their Sunday best now acting as business suits, the girls in high heels and hosiery (two girls, Gloria Standish and Marcy Omansky, even wore hats), and guys in shined wingtips and ties continued to gush the enthusiasms they’d started the minute they boarded the bus in Caldwell, New Jersey this morning. No one moved towards the entrance of the building.

Pauly sighed and realized she would have to stay in mother hen mode a little while longer. It had started from day one of their one month classes at the Caldwell School of Airline and Travel Training, and she had vowed that as soon as they hit the pavement in New York that job was forfeit. After another minute with no one moving, she began herding them towards the revolving door. She led them to the elevators, pressed the up button, waved them into the car before entering, pressed the 29 button and on arrival found their way to the personnel department.

She even had to go so far as to talk to the person behind the desk for all of them. The harried young woman didn’t seem surprised to hear they were all from the airline school. You one of the teachers? she asked.

Pauly hesitated before answering trying to decide if that was a compliment or not. Later, she would find out that it was a judgment on her abilities and would be to her benefit. But right now, she just laughed and said, No, just one of the new employees.

With the exception of Pauly, who knew because she’d paid attention to the instructions given before departing Caldwell, they were all shocked to learn that they still had to fill out applications and go to a training class for two weeks. Failure to pass would mean no job. This caused a few more gasps. Classes started Monday morning promptly at 9 AM. It was Thursday, and tomorrow morning they had an orientation meeting promptly at 10 AM. A little joke made by one of the guys about how prompt everything needed to be caused the personnel woman to frown deeply, and say, Don’t even think about being late, because Atlantic Basin’s policy on lateness is severe: first one, make up the time, second one, you’re fired.

While the shock of that statement sunk in, she handed out applications to be completed, and said they were free to go when finished. She then went back to her sorting and filing of what Pauly saw were dozens of applications, several had a ‘rejected’ stamped on them in big red letters.

The school had provided the bus that took them into New York and booked and paid for one night at a hotel a block away, but unless they wanted to pay for the rooms beyond that, they needed to find apartments. Pauly brought this up and a discussion ensued while they waited for each other to finish the applications.

The group decided to let Pauly ask the woman in personnel about finding apartments. With a look of distaste, the woman pointed to a bulletin board, and said, There’s an apartment complex out in Queens where lots of airline employees live. That board always has notices of agents needing or wanting roommates out there. To Pauly’s raised eyebrows, the woman waved her hand, and added, Party place. Noisy!

A study of the board found the address of the complex and a rousing suggestion that they all head out there to take a look. Pauly tried to beg off, but they managed to convince her that they needed her to help them find the place.

Take the subway, said the personnel woman without looking up from her work.

And though everyone thought that was a great idea, it was up to Pauly to find the entrance for the one the personnel person said they should take, then get them all to buy tokens for a round trip, and then get on the right train out to Queens.

Again, it surprised Pauly that the rental agent wasn’t shocked to find eleven people on her doorstep in need of apartments. And she really had to smile when yet another sharp kick in the derriere to propel them swiftly into the realities of living grown-up lives occurred when the rental agent told them how much money they needed to get into an apartment. With what she would come to recognize as a true Queens accent, the agent ticked the points off on her fingers that had the longest and reddest nails Pauly had ever seen. One month rent in advance, fifty-dollars non-refundable security, ten-dollar key fee, and you gotta sign a two year lease.

A collective gasp from Pauly’s ten charges was followed by looks of dejection and fear, which brought a huge frown to the face of the rental agent.

Again, Pauly did the talking. Well, no one has officially been hired by the airline yet. We have a two week course to take first.

The rental agent nodded sagely, obviously having experienced this before as well. Well, we got a lotta airline people in the building looking for roommates. Take a gander over there. And she pointed to a board on the wall where such notices were posted. She explained that by moving in with someone else, only the key fee was due and they’d have to work out the security and monthly money with the other apartment dwellers.

There wasn’t that much excitement on the way back to the hotel. Pauly could have rented one apartment by herself, but she decided she didn’t like the building or Queens. She wanted to live in Manhattan. Tomorrow, Friday, after the orientation at Atlantic Basin Airlines, she would start in earnest to look for an apartment. The personnel clerk had said they would probably be finished by noon. She would pick up a newspaper this evening, and be ready to apartment hunt after lunch.

Looking at her potential Atlantic Basin co-workers, she feared that she might have some roommates in her hotel room for the weekend. She had booked two extra nights, and the room had twin beds. The amount of money needed before that first pay check, which they had all spent wildly in their daydreams on the bus, was vanishing before it even fed or housed them. A sobering experience and one most appeared to have not prepared for. Talk of calling parents for loans was heard from a few, and Pauly knew from their school days that they’d get it, however not all of them had someone to call. She volunteered no help. She would wait and see what happened.

At the hotel, she played ‘mom’ once again and arranged wake up calls so they would not be late the next morning when the talk of partying that night got into full swing. Then she escaped, and walked several blocks, checking she wasn’t followed, before settling on an Italian restaurant that was located in the cellar of an old brownstone not too far from the Broadway theaters. She had passed several brownstones along the way and found the old buildings very charming. After her meal, she checked out the prices of a few shows she thought she might like to see, and bought one for Saturday evening. She also bought another newspaper to take back to her room and hoped the ads for apartments mentioned if they were in brownstones.

Next morning, she reminded everyone that they had to take their luggage with them otherwise they would have to pay the hotel for an additional night. Eight in the group had found roommates and would be getting enough money from their parents to tide them over until they got paid, so that left two girls with no funds. Fortunately, the other girls invited them to ‘camp’ at their apartments for a while until something came up. Relief washed over Pauly that they knew enough not to sign leases on an apartment yet. Not that she expected any of this group to fail getting hired; but if it happened at least they wouldn’t be stuck in legal agreements.

Chapter 2

Friday

The orientation was an introduction to Atlantic Basin Airlines: their routes, services, logos, and ticket office locations. As promised, it finished at noon, but the participants were loaded down with a pile of books they were expected to be familiar with by Monday morning. Fortunately for Pauly and her friends, they knew all the codes and terminology and only needed to learn the specifics of Atlantic Basin’s working order. Unfortunately, they found that they were in class with several people hired right off the street that had never been to an airline school. That surprised Pauly. Those people really had some studying to do, something Pauly was always willing to do, and it made her wonder if she’d wasted money on the airline school.

In the lobby of the building, everyone prepared to go their separate ways. There was a lot of hugging and wishes of good luck before heading off to the subway.

Elaine Barault—everyone called her Lainie—held Pauly back until the rest had reached the revolving door before begging Pauly to loan her a little money.

Gall, Pauly, I only have three dollars! I’ll starve! And... she bit her lip before continuing, ...I don’t think my mom can send me anything for maybe a month. She eyed Pauly quickly for a reaction before looking away.

Pauly dug in her wallet, touched a ten, thought better of it, and pulled out a twenty. Lainie took the proffered money with wide eyes and a heartfelt promise to pay it back when she got paid. Ah, after I pay all those fees, of course.

So, you found someone who needs a roommate? Pauly asked.

Umm, well, no. I’m bunking with three others, but something is bound to come up next week, and I’ll need to be ready. And eat, of course, probably share food costs. She smiled, sure that all would go well. So don’t worry, I’ll pay you back. She said the last over her shoulder as she hurried as fast as she was able in spike heels while carrying the books and a suitcase after the others, who were already on their way to the subway.

Pauly liked Lainie, but Lainie had borrowed from her before, several times, and had never paid her back. She probably wouldn’t get this loan repaid either. And she happened to know that Lainie’s mother would not be sending anything. Her mother had died a few months before they started school, and Lainie had sold everything that had belonged to her and her mother just to get into the school. Lainie had confided this information to Doris Payne, another student, who also had financial problems and had no problem gossiping to Pauly when she, too, wanted to borrow a fiver. Which reminded Pauly, she probably wouldn’t be getting that money back either.

She wondered why they didn’t borrow from Gloria Stanish; her family was wealthy and she always had plenty of money. She probably nagged them to pay her back, something Pauly should have done to wise them up to the world, but just couldn’t.

Pauly sighed. She was such a soft touch, but they had become like a friendly, caring, little family to her, something she’d never had before, so she didn’t mind—well, not too much. And now that they’d all found homes, her mother-hen duties were at an end. After all, she had money, not as much as Gloria, but an inheritance and the money from the sale of her childhood home.

As she started towards the exit, three men came in through the revolving door. One older, maybe late forties and rather attractive with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and dressed in gray, tweed sports jacket, grey slacks, and a white shirt and dark tie. The second was younger, tall and blond, and dressed in a black, pin-striped suit that looked expensive. He was talking to the older man, and something they were talking about made him smile and tap his older friend on the shoulder. The third man was tall and thin, and though he was dressed for business, had a faded, shabbiness about him. They each carried a briefcase of different size and condition and all had a baggage tag with the Atlantic Basin logo attached.

As the men made their way to the elevators, the revolving door at the entrance spun furiously and several people rushed into the lobby and caught up with the men. The three entered an elevator, talking and not paying any attention to the other group, who followed them in.

Pauly suddenly felt ice cold as a wave of vertigo followed a rush of fear. This was her first encounter with her ‘ability’ since leaving her hometown of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. She hadn’t left trying to run away from it, she didn’t believe she could, but she did want to get away from everyone who knew about it. Nothing at all happened in Caldwell, and she’d begun to hope she’d left her ability back in PA. Of course, in Caldwell the office building the school was in and the motel everyone roomed in were new, and things were bound to be different here in New York where so many things were old.

She closed her eyes to count to ten, and when she opened them the lobby was empty. She