Secrets at Dillehay Crossing - Prologue

Frank was escorted into a cramped, poorly light, musty back room at San Francisco’s Ferry Station post office. He sat alone, a naked incandescent bulb shining down on him; he fidgeted in his chair, his forehead glistening with anxious sweat, and there were damp rings under his armpits. After several hours, the door suddenly flew open; and harsh artificial light from the hallway flooded the tiny room. Frank squinted, attempting to defend himself from the blinding light and struggling to make out who or what had assaulted his senses. Two formless masses lingered in the brightly-lit threshold for a second, then entered the room locking the door behind them.

As the shapes drew closer toward him, Frank’s heartbeat raced, fear and pain gripping his chest; he knew he wasn’t going to enjoy what was coming. He attempted to stand up, to meet the black shapes head-on, but the closer of the two forms shoved him violently back into his chair.

Frank’s eyes adjusted; and the dark blob materialized into a tall, bulky man, his thick-rimmed glasses clinging to his head. His angry, grey eyes bored holes into Frank’s skull; and he felt the veins in his head beginning to throb. Stomping around the desk toward Frank, the intruder spoke, his voice hard as steel.

“Where were you when the money was stolen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking…”

The motion was so quick that Frank didn’t even have time to comprehend what was about to happen. One moment, the bulky man had been standing completely still; and in the next, Frank’s cheek was stinging, red from the vicious slap—a slap similar to the ones his father inflicted upon him when he was a boy.

The man spoke again. “Where’s the money?”

“What the hell!” he snapped. “I swear I don’t know.”

The second shape calmly slid forward, materializing into a rail-thin man whose face was mostly obscured by a red scraggly beard. He nonchalantly strode to the opposite side of the desk, his left arm clutching a file folder to his chest. He sat down across from Frank. After what seemed like ages, he spoke, his voice matching the hardness of his gaze.

“Look, Frank. You look like a nice guy, but we can’t do our job unless you tell us where the money is.”

“Clearly you guys don’t listen well,” Frank spouted, spittle building up in the corners of his mouth. “I already told you: I have NO idea what you’re talking about.”

The man stared at Frank over the table, leaning on his elbows with his hands linked. “My partner already asked you once,” he said his voice adopting a noticeable edge. “You don’t want to make him repeat himself.”

Frank stole a glance at the man who towered over him. His face, laced with contempt, reminded Frank of his father, his contemptuous looks, and his denigrating remarks. “You repulse me,” he heard his father say. The blood rose in a wave of heat through Frank’s body as he remembered his father—an enraged, brutish drunkard who picked a fight with anyone over anything. When no one else was around, he picked a fight with him, striking him repeatedly; and his face bore the scars of a wounded man, a man who now carried his father’s rage.

“Who the hell are you and what do you want from me?” Frank demanded, his voice almost savage.

The man sat down directly across from Frank and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter then slowly lit a cigarette. “Hauptman’s my name. Chief Postal Inspector Hauptman,” he replied, exhaling billowy smoke from his nostrils directly in Frank’s face. “All you have to do is confess. Tell us about the money you took.”

“Look,” Frank blurted out, “I confess. I took the money.”

“What money?”

“I lifted money from the letters I handled. When no one was looking I steamed them open, removed the money, and resealed them with glue. I’m responsible. They aren’t. You can let the others go.”

“That chump change? We don’t care about that. We want to know you were when the money disappeared from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.”

“How should I know? I don’t work for the Federal Reserve.”

“We believe in July some 20 years ago somebody from this post office intercepted an armored vehicle after it left the San Francisco Federal Reserve; held the driver at gun point somewhere between the Ferry Station Post Office and the Bank of America; then fled the scene with over $40,000.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Records indicate that you weren’t at work on the day in question. In fact, you were gone for almost two weeks after the robbery took place. Your timely absence casts suspicion on you. So, exactly where were you during the time in question?”

“You expect me to remember something that happened 20 years ago? Check your records. You’ll find I usually take vacation in July. More than likely I did the same thing that year. Twenty years ago? Let me think…hmmm….yes I sorta remember. That summer I recall going to Ocean Beach,” Frank said without breaking eye contact. “Sutro Baths to be exact,” his jaw visibly tightened. “Then I went home, packed a suitcase, and boarded a train bound for Dallas, Texas. I spent my vacation camping and fishing along the shores of White Rock Lake.”

“You don’t look like a camping and fishing kind of guy.”

“Appearances can be deceptive, now can’t they?” Frank said, his eyes shifting nervously.

“Let me tell you what I think, Frank. You’re a deceiver, alright, a master deceiver and con man who, for over 20 years, convinced his fellow employees he was just like them. But you’re not. You’re a robber and a killer. Of that I have unequivocable proof. You see, the FBI has a fingerprint analyst whose sole job is scouring through hundreds of fingerprints maintained at the Bureau and comparing them to fingerprints lifted from crime scenes and connecting them with known felons. Imagine our surprise when he found your fingerprints, the ones you gave us when you went to work for the federal post office, matched ones from John Hirsch, a prisoner who escaped from federal prison some 20 years ago. So, you see, Frank. The jig is up. We know you’re really John Hirsch, and we’re taking you into custody.” Hauptman pulled the handcuffs from his police duty belt and jerked John’s arms behind his back, snapping the handcuffs into place around John’s wrists.

“John Hirsch, you’re under arrest for embezzling funds entrusted to you as a U.S. postal employee. Further, I’ve been granted authority to remand you into custody for robbing then murdering Yeggs McCoy and his girlfriend, Daisy McGuiness. You’ll be sent to local prison while awaiting trial on the embezzlement charges.”

Hauptman escorted John out of the building, but John showed no remorse or guilt for what he’d done. “I killed that lying son-of-a-bitch,” John shouted at the reporters and cameramen who’d gathered in front of the post office hoping to capture the story for the evening news. “He conned me out of my money and deserved to die. I’ll give you something else to write about,” his mouth twisted sardonically. “I guarantee I’ll make headlines in the newspaper for you. I confess. I also took the government’s money—the $40,000, and I’m damn proud of it. I deserved it—every last penny of it! Those G-Men, they’ll never find it. Never. That’s a promise!” John laughed maniacally.

At that same moment some 2,000 miles away, a woman stepped out onto her front porch cradling her one-year old granddaughter in her arms. The tall grass prairie stretched before her in a place many would loath to call home. The Kansas prairie, vast and monochromatic with its dangerous cyclones and absence of color and beauty, had turned the once-pretty and young Dolce into a sullen old woman before her time.

“I don’t think you’re mother’s coming back, Lilly Bug.” The child wiggled in her grandmother’s arms.

So they’re calling me Lilly this time. The words formed distinctly in the baby’s head. She’d been Lilly many times, she remembered. She’d been Lillianne, a Viking truth teller and soothsayer who predicted the future through spiritual and sometimes supernatural means. She’d been Lilybeth, a loyal lady-in-waiting and keeper of the queen’s secrets. She’d been Julianna, a child born in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution. Lilly squirmed, vaguely recalling the danger she felt when her father, a Cossack who resisted the Marxist Bolshevik regime, hastily fled the country and smuggled her to safety in England although the memory of it carried little emotional charge for Lilly now.

Lilly had also been an Ukrainian shamaness named Znakharka—a strong, sturdy yet delicate woman who came from the stars and became a great leader and renowned healer of her clan.

The birthmark on her upper left leg wasn’t a birthmark. Rather, it was the scar of a wound she sustained during her previous lifetime as White Moon, a Hasinais Caddo Princess

“Ga,” the baby mumbled pointing to the storm brewing on the horizon. It seemed strange that she could think but not speak.

“Ga,” the baby said again.

“What’s the matter, sweetie? Are you hungry?” the grandmother asked, rocking Lilly a little.

Lilly looked up into Nana Dulce’s large brown eyes, amazed at how much she loved her. But another part of her didn’t recognize Dulce, didn’t feel anything but the usual calm that attends a soul on its journey. She was well aware that she shouldn’t be seeing herself as a soul. She was a child on a farm in western Kansas where her soul contract had placed her temporarily. Nana Dulce would love her; but when her husband passes and grief overcomes her, Dulce would relinquish Lilly into the loving arms of Grammy, Lilly’s other grandmother, who would take Lilly to her home in Dallas where she’d raise Lilly as her own daughter.

The child wiggled in her arms. “Ga, she said with a smile, wanting to reassure Nana Dulce that she’d been called to be with her in this time and in this place. She was here to be a healer, explorer of secrets, and seeker of truth.

Lilly’s vision faded; the future dimmed. Dulce carried Lilly inside, sitting her in her high chair, and walked into the living room where the grandfather was standing in front of the television shaking his head in a slow back-and-forth sweep of denial.

“Honey,” she said. “What is it?”

The grandfather didn’t turn around. “You see that guy?” he asked, pointing to the handcuffed man on the screen. “He murdered two people in cold blood and was sent to prison. After a year, he escaped and has been hiding in plain sight for 20 years working for the San Francisco Post Office. Until today, that is. The FBI nabbed him. Can you imagine? One helluva thing!”

“Come to the kitchen, dear, and eat before dinner gets cold.”

The grandfather turned off the television and entered the kitchen, pulling up a chair as his wife set his plate down. He started to bless the food when the lights flickered on then off. A crack of thunder shook the dishes in the china cabinet. The wind suddenly shifted, and the air pressure dropped making Dulce’s ears pop. She rushed outside. The sky was a greenish-black color, and dust and debris whipped up into the air semi-blinding her as she looked at the twister—a gigantic column of violently twisting air barreling across the Kansas prairie headed straight for their farm. Dulce hurried inside; snatched Lilly out of the high chair; rushed outside; and clamored down the stairs. The baby heard scrambling noises as the grandfather slammed the storm cellar door shut behind them.

“Don’t worry,” Nana Dulce said, stroking the baby’s arms with soothing fingers. “It’s not going to be dark long.”

Dark? Lilly didn’t understand what she meant. Couldn’t she see? It was so obvious. All around the room forming a shining circle were beings of light. They shimmered with a faint blue-white radiance. Although transparent, their bodies weren’t ghostly but reassuringly present. Lilly knew them all, for they’d been with her in previous incarnations. She gazed at each one in turn, and their luminous eyes lovingly gleamed back. They were her spirit guardians who frequently manifested themselves through her instincts and intuition, guiding and protecting her in all her lifetimes, including this one.

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