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Lili’s garage door was opening as Gil pulled into the driveway of her townhouse. He got out of the car and she ran over to give him a big hug and kiss. “Welcome to Northampton!” she said.
“It’s a strange feeling, but I’m thrilled to know how much I’ve missed you over the past week,” he said. Lili beamed.
Gil was still limping a bit from his gout as they unpacked the car and brought everything into the house. As Lili was putting her clothes away, Gil wheeled his suitcase into her bedroom and said, “This whole situation is very disorienting.”
Lili shut the blinds, pulled him close and said, “Let’s get you oriented, Mister.”
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GIL WAS IN LILI’S GARAGE playing with his radio-controlled inspection vehicle. It was about a foot and a half long, and had a basic tank-like chassis where attachments could be added. It also had a control panel with video and GPS outputs. So far, Gil had only added a camera. Lili came in and said, “I talked to my boss, Cherise. She asked me to come in for a formal debrief about the shooting tomorrow morning, then I have to set up a mandatory psych appointment.”
“Sounds like what you expected would happen.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of looking forward to it.”
“Which part?”
“Both, I guess. It worries me that I seem to have no emotional reaction to taking a human life, but I don’t feel anything but relieved that I got there in time. I hope it doesn’t mean I’m a sociopath.”
“I don’t think so, but if you are, please don’t have that cured. I love you just the way you are.”
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GIL WAS SHOWING DETECTIVE Karen Tindall his radio-controlled inspection vehicle in the parking lot of the Greenfield Police Department, while a couple of officers looked on. Karen was wearing her police uniform, without the hat, as she normally did. Chief Manny Reyes came outside and shook Gil’s hand. “Thanks for coming, Gil. I figured this would be right up your alley.”
“Thanks for thinking of me. What retired guy wouldn’t want to come here and play with toys? Hopefully, no bad guys will pop out of these holes.”
“Yeah, speaking of that, did Detective Tindall get you to sign that waiver?” Karen rolled her eyes.
Gil laughed. “I signed the waiver, Chief. It’s a good thing I get an armed guard.”
Karen drove Gil and his gadget to their first location. “First, we’re going to the Arch Street Salon. That hole was discovered in January by the property owner during a routine inspection. The building has a hair salon with some apartments upstairs and a cellar with a stone foundation. Apparently, the tenants received notices that some foundation improvement work would be going on during the week between Christmas and New Years. The salon was closed and most of the tenants were gone that week. Obviously, the notices were fraudulent.”
“That sounds ballsy.” said Gil
Karen went into the salon to let the workers know we’d be in the cellar. Gil brought his gear in through the back door. The cellar had poor lighting and a damp, moldy smell. The cement floor was probably poured many decades ago, but after the original foundation was constructed. In some places, the cement had been splashed over the lower foundation stones. An old furnace with a large, rusty-black oil tank stood to one side.
A hole, about two feet square, had been knocked out by removing some foundation stones. The removed stones were stacked in a corner. “They left the place very tidy,” said Gil. How nice of them, he thought. Gil stuck his head in the hole and looked around with a flashlight. There’s a larger area, big enough to move around in, with three tunnels leading out.
“We decided not to go into that space. I didn’t seem safe. The structural supports aren’t standard, and there’s no ventilation. We tried to use an inspection scope, but it kept getting buried in the soft dirt.”
“Is there anything nearby that the tunnelers would be interested in? Any bank vaults or jewelry stores?”
“There’s a Sherwin-Williams across the street, and a few houses. We’re right next to the railroad bridge arch. That’s about it.”
“Well, let’s see what we can see.” Gil set up a spool of parachute cord and secured it to the robot, in case it got stuck. He placed the machine into the hole and opened his control panel. The panel was professional-grade, protected by a yellow water-tight case with a large laptop screen. Definitely not a toy. Gil said, “What shall we name this thing?”
“How about Danica?”
“The race-car driver? Excellent!” Gil steered Danica into one of the tunnels. Karen watched over his shoulder. “The tunnel is very consistently shaped. It’s reinforced with some kind of intricate structure. I think some machine must have done the digging. I wonder where they put the dirt.”
“There was a fresh dirt spot outside,” said Karen. “Maybe they had a dirt pile and took it away in a truck.”
“This whole excavation looks fairly sophisticated.” He steered the robot about thirty yards and the tunnel ended. “Dead end.” He backed Danica back to the entry space, and went down the next tunnel. This tunnel ended at a curved wall. “This structure looks like the kind of clay sewer piping used in the old days.” Gil sent Danica down the third tunnel. “Whoa,” he said. The tunnel led to a cement wall which seemed to have a modern cement storm drain structure. The tunnel then veered to one side and followed the structure along Arch Street.
As Danica moved forward, Gil noticed several small excavations spaced along the tunnel’s dirt floor. The tunnel floor was soil that was eroding in areas where there were puddles of water. “Danica is waterproof, so we don’t have to worry about the water.” Gil steered Danica through the tunnel which circumvented large, vertical cylinders every so often. “I assume these cylinders are storm-drain catch basins,” he said. After about 250 feet, the tunnel angled up about 30 degrees and ended. “Maybe a man-hole.”
Gil steered Danica back to the cellar. As Gil was reeling up his parachute cord, he said, “This whole area was intricately engineered. The support structure seems like it was expanded into the tunnel, like a Slinky toy. I’d say it might be beyond state of the art. I think we’re looking for a startup company or maybe some grad students. But, I have no idea what they’re up to. I think we should contact the civil engineering department at UMass and see what they say.”
“Can we find that person-hole?”
“Gil laughed. Right, maybe access hatch? Anyway, I saved the GPS coordinates so we can find it.” When they left the building, Gil looked at the GPS app on his phone. “It’s near the dead-end on Oak Street.” They drove around the residential neighborhood and parked at the end of Oak Street. They walked into a wooded area and found a capped access pipe poking up from the ground at an angle. The cover was made from a lightweight composite material, and was padlocked. “The cover and support structure were 3-D printed. You can tell by the little ridges,” said Gil.
Karen went back to her car and got a bolt cutter. She put on a pair of latex gloves and cut the lock, placing it in an evidence bag. She shined her flashlight down the access hatch and said, “It looks like the tunnel just ends here. I’d better lock it. It should be safe, since we know no one’s down there right now.” She removed a pair of handcuffs from her belt and locked one end through the cover. “I’ll get this dusted for prints. You know, if this tunnel is following the storm sewers, we could get a map from the Department of Public Works.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
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RACE JOHNSON WAS GREENFIELD’S Engineering Superintendent. He had his assistant, Rona Polo, print out a map with the layout of the storm drain system that included the Arch Street area. Gil marked the area he inspected, then he showed Race and Rona the video. Race said, “Wow, that’s pretty advanced. It’s definitely not kids.”
“Do you guys have any idea what’s going on here?” asked Karen.
“You said there are other tunnels?” Rona asked.
“There are two others we know about. One here, and one over here,” Karen said, pointing at the map.
Rona shrugged. Race said, “I don’t see any logic for the tunnel locations on this map. I have no idea what could be going on, but I’ll ask around.”
“Well, we’re going to inspect the other tunnels. Would you like to watch?”
“Rona, why don’t you go over and watch once they’re set up,” said Race.
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THE NEXT TUNNEL BEGAN in a house on Lincoln Street. Cheryl Needham was the homeowner. “I found this when I came home from Florida last week.”
“Where do you go in Florida?” Gil asked.
“I have a house in Naples. It’s too big for me, since my husband passed. So I’ll probably sell it and get a condo.”
“I was in Sarasota this winter,” said Gil.
Rona, Karen, and Cheryl watched over Gil’s shoulder as he guided Danica along the tunnel toward the south. The tunnel followed a cement storm-drain pipe, similar to what they found on Arch Street. At one point, the floor became very muddy and the tunnel branched off to the left. Gil steered Danica to inspect the branch tunnel, which was free-standing, since the sewer pipe had no corresponding branch. The floor of the tunnel was wet and puddled in places. It continued for about fifty yards and dead-ended.
Gil steered Danica back to the main tunnel. After fifty yards or so, there was another wet branch tunnel. It dead-ended after about forty yards. The main tunnel ended at that branch, but there was no access pipe. “The fact that there are wet branches is interesting, but I have no clue what it means,” said Gil.
“Cheryl, would you mind leaving this hole the way it is while we continue to investigate?” asked Karen.
“Okay, but it’s kind of creepy. I think I’ll just move this bin over to block the opening for now.”
“Rona, could you send me the maps of the sewer system?” asked Karen.
“Sure, if Gil would send me the info on Danica. We sure could use one of those.”
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THE LAST TUNNEL THEY inspected was on Pond Street, in the cellar of a Victorian-style mansion converted to apartments. This tunnel was just like the one on Arch Street, with no surprises. There was an access cover on a vertical section of the tunnel, between two houses on the other side of the street.
Back at the Police Station, Karen pinned a big map of the entire city’s sewer system on the wall in one of the interview rooms. Gil highlighted the tunnels they’d inspected. Karen and Gil stared at the map. “There have to be more tunnels,” he said.
“It seems like someone is looking for something. Whatever it is, it must be worth the expense of doing all of this,” Karen said.
“What’s the simplest explanation?”
“Somebody robbed a bank and buried the loot,” she replied.
“That’s pretty good. I was drawing a complete blank. We should make a list of whatever possible explanations we can think of. Maybe they are environmentalists searching for the source of some pollution.”
“Or, somebody was murdered, and their body was buried during installation of the sewers.”
“A startup company is testing a new underground inspection system,” said Gil.
Karen said, “Let’s just think about it for a while and add to the list over the next few days. It would help if we could figure out where to look for more tunnels.”
“Can we put some kind of surveillance camera near the entrances to find out who’s doing this?” asked Gil.
“I’ll ask. Judges don’t like to issue surveillance warrants unless somebody’s likely to get hurt. But there has been someone breaking into houses and damaging people’s cellars.”