Getting cleaned up after the fire took well over an hour for everybody, and when the last of them had finished washing up and changing into a clean pair of clothes, everybody was ready to get some sleep. But that plan didn't work for very long. Hannibal could just feel himself nodding off to sleep when he felt something bright shining in his face.
"B.A. will you turn the lights off and go to bed?" he asked.
The Sergeant's burly voice came from the other side of the bed and said confusedly, "I didn't turn them on."
That got the Colonel's attention. Hannibal opened his eyes and turned over to face B.A. and said, "I suppose they went on by themselves then?"
"If you didn't turn them on, yes," B.A. answered firmly.
Hannibal turned towards the bedside lamp and checked the switch, it seemed to be working fine. He turned the knob on the switch and the lights went out again, and he didn't give it another thought, until two seconds later when they came right back on.
"Oh boy," he muttered to himself, suddenly getting the idea that this was going to be an even longer night.
Across the hall, Face and Murdock were also trying to sleep, and also getting nowhere fast. Face was desperately trying to get some sleep before anything else happened, but he felt Murdock bump into him and grab him by the wrist.
"Murdock," Face grumbled, not willing his eyes to open, "Get back over to your own side of the bed."
"Mmm," he heard the pilot mumble in his sleep.
"Murdock," Face moved and bumped the man next to him with his hip, "Get off of me."
"Mmm," Murdock continued to mumble groggily.
"Let go of me," Face told him, "Your hand's cold."
"Mm-hmm," Murdock was just about dead to the world.
Instead though, Face felt the other man's hand tighten, more and more until it started to become unbearable and Face was certain that the pilot was subconsciously trying to break his wrist, possibly from a dream or flashback, or something.
"Murdock," he gritted his teeth, "Let go of me."
Murdock grumbled something half audible about he wasn't doing anything and Face felt the mattress shift as the other man flipped over, but he still maintained a death grip on the Lieutenant's hand.
"Murdock!" Face yelled as he opened his eyes, "LET GO OF MY HAND!"
Murdock opened his eyes and felt momentarily stunned when he pulled both of his own hands out from under him, and looked at them mysteriously.
"Uh, Face?"
"What?"
"Both my hands are right here," Murdock held them up for the conman to see.
"Wha?" Face shot up in bed and looked down at his wrist which had finger indentations dug into it, "Then who the hell was holding my hand?"
In the next instant, the occupants of both guest rooms were driven out of their beds by a deafening racket coming from downstairs; people screaming, brawling, gunfire, the works. They all came rushing out of their rooms and went down to investigate and carefully checked it out, but found no people. Everybody let out a minor sigh of relief when they saw it was just the radio in the living room that had been turned on and cranked up to full volume.
"The little buggers have a sense of humor, they're playing with us," Hannibal said as he pulled the radio's cord out of the wall.
"Might be poltergeists then," Murdock said.
"Their behavior doesn't match poltergeists," Hannibal responded.
"Besides," Face said, "Poltergeists are supposed to be drawn to children and there's no children here…." His eyes widened and he asked himself, "What am I saying?" He looked to the others one by one and asked at the top of his lungs, "HOW did I know that?"
"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled, "I don't believe you fools, all this jibber jabber about ghosts, poltergeists, you're all nuts."
B.A. moved to sit down in one of the chairs in the living room and instead wound up falling flat on the floor, he looked behind him and saw that the chair was now a foot behind where it had been when he sat down.
Then, a cold chill ran through the room like a window had been opened, they looked around and saw all windows were shut, but also felt their blood run equally cold when they saw the figure of a woman, bright and almost glowing, in a bright white dress, pass through the dining room, her face concealed from their view. Then, she came to the wall, and just disappeared.
"You still think so, B.A.?" Face asked when he was able to talk again.
For once, the big burly Sergeant was at a loss for words as he stood up.
"Okay," Hannibal said, taking control of the situation, "If we're going to find out what's going on around here, we're going to need some answers."
"From who, the ghosts?" Face asked.
"It's not a bad idea," Hannibal said, "We're going to try a séance."
"Oh boy," Murdock clapped excitedly.
"You can't be serious, Hannibal," Face shook his head slowly from one side to the other.
"Sure I can," Hannibal said, "I grew up in the heyday of spiritualism, occultism, séances, the whole ball of wax, I could do it in my sleep."
"I thought that was all just a lot of bunk that you could contact the dead," Face said.
"A lot of it was," Hannibal explained, "But nobody was ever able to debunk every case where contact was said to be made. We've got nothing to lose by trying, so why not?"
"I'm with you, Colonel," Murdock said as he stepped over towards Hannibal, "Want me to get my Ouija board out of the van?"
"No thanks, we won't be using it," Hannibal said.
"I guess there are some things even Hannibal Smith won't touch with a ten foot pole," Face murmured.
"We'll move the dining room table in here because there's more room," Hannibal told them, "Come on and let's get moving."
Face shook his head in despair and commented, "This whole thing just keeps getting weirder and weirder."
"Are you sure this is gonna work, Hannibal?" B.A. asked as they moved the table into the living room and then brought in the chairs.
"Well I've never done it myself before," Hannibal admitted, "And it's definitely been a while since this was an in-thing, so I might be a bit rusty on it, but if there's a way to make it work, I think I can do it."
"We're all gonna be turned into toadstools," Murdock confided in Face, then he turned to Hannibal and said loud enough for all to hear, "I have the fullest confidence in you, Colonel."
"Alright, everybody sit down," Hannibal said.
"Do we have to hold hands?" Face asked.
"I ain't holding hands with this crazy fool," B.A. pointed to Murdock.
"Oh come on, Big Guy, it'll be fun," Murdock said.
"No it won't," B.A. insisted.
"Just touch to maintain a connection between everyone," Hannibal instructed them.
"I still ain't touching his hand," B.A. said, and moved Murdock's chair over to the other side of the table and he sat down between Face and Hannibal and put his hands on the table for them to reach.
Murdock pouted with his bottom lip fully extended but sat down on the other side of the table and joined hands with Face and Hannibal.
"So now what do we do?" Face asked.
"Somebody has to lead it so it's going to be me," Hannibal said, "We're going to have to settle for any contact we can make, so if the spirits decide to speak through me I'm gonna…"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, if they what?" Face asked, breaking hand contact with Hannibal.
"In some séances the spirits speak through the medium or the leader, and that person can either be wide awake and aware of what's going on or put in a trance, it's usually helpful to have an assistant write down anything the host says."
"I'll do that," Murdock raised his hand and reached into his pocket for a small notebook and pen.
"I just had to join the Army," Face groaned and whined, "I just had to wind up in you guys' unit."
"Shut up, Face," B.A. warned him, and reestablished contact by gripping Face's hand in his own, putting an extra squeeze in to drive his point home more.
"Okay, B.A., I got ya," Face said in a strained voice.
"Alright everybody, knock it off," Hannibal advised them, "Without full concentration this is never going to work."
"We'll be good," Murdock promised.
Hannibal glanced around the table at them one by one as if double checking to see if any of them cracked. Then, he put his hands flat on the table and everybody placed their hands together to establish contact, and Hannibal began. He closed his eyes and moved his head back as if looking to the heavens and he said, "We seek to make contact with the spirits who continue to roam this house. If they be present now, let them make themselves be known."
A moment passed and everybody waited anxiously, and nothing happened. And then suddenly, the table moved as if somebody had hit it from underneath, and had a loud accompanying knock to go with it.
"I guess that answers that," Face quietly murmured, "Good old table rapping."
He felt something hit him square on the foot like somebody pounding him with their fist.
"Ahhh!"
"Oh spirits," Hannibal called out, "Be it within our power, we seek to end your imprisonment on these grounds. We seek to know the identity of the spirits trapped in this house, to help us understand, if you choose to answer, rap once for 'no', and twice for 'yes'. Do you understand us?"
Another pause…everybody's eyes were racing around in their heads to see if anything happened, and then out of nowhere, a knock from under the table, and then a second.
"Yes," Hannibal said, "Okay then…are you the spirit of Allison Bregovy?"
One knock.
"Does her spirit reside here?"
One knock, then another.
"Are you the spirit of Martin Harrow?" Face thought to ask.
One knock.
"Do the spirits of the older couple murdered here in the 1890s still reside here?" Hannibal asked.
One knock.
The A-Team looked to one another.
"Their murder was never solved," Face said, confused.
"That we know of," Hannibal pointed out, and trying to address the spirits again he asked, "Was the person who murdered the older couple ever brought to justice?"
Two knocks.
"Smart ghosts," Murdock noted.
Hannibal shushed him and tried to continue. "Have there been other murders in this house the public never knew about?"
One knock, then another. Murdock's eyes widened and Face felt his spine turning to ice.
"How many other people were killed in this house?" Hannibal asked.
One knock.
"One other person not accounted for," Hannibal said.
Murdock broke contact long enough to scratch his head as they all pondered this realization.
"Are you tied in any way to Allison Bregovy?" Hannibal asked.
One knock.
"Are you connected somehow to Martin Harrow?"
One knock, two, and everybody's eyes looked to one another once again.
Hannibal decided to test the waters with something trickier and said to the spirits, "Can you tell us how you're connected?"
Everybody waited to see what would happen or what they might hear. Nothing happened. Then, a slight breeze blew through the room again, everybody looked around to see what was going on, but they didn't see anything other than some of the lighter knickknacks in the room moving slightly in accordance to the draft blowing.
Hannibal fell back against his chair, his head thrown back, a loud groan ripping through his throat like he was in excruciating pain. He fell back again and his chair fell back and he wound up in the floor, still moaning and screaming. The others got up from the table and rushed to his side to find out what was the matter, but they couldn't see anything. After a moment, whatever happened seemed to cease, and Hannibal started to calm down, and then fainted dead away.
"Hannibal, are you alright?" Face asked when the Colonel came to a few seconds later.
Hannibal was trying to turn over on his stomach to push up on his hands and get up, his words were slightly slurred but he managed to get out, "Basement…it's in the basement."
"What is?" Murdock asked.
Hannibal got to his feet and took off running for the cellar door, with the others following behind him, very perplexed and feeling totally clueless about the whole thing.
The cellar was a small room shoddily put together many years ago with a limestone floor that was falling apart, walls brick and stone held together by mortar that was starting to give way and large holes were starting to form in some spots. Hannibal got on his knees and started feeling along the length of the broken stone floor and nobody had any idea what for. Face leaned back against a wall where the only part sure to stay standing was a large wooden board that had been put up to try outlining where a doorway would go that clearly hadn't been finished. Face felt something poking him and he turned and saw it was something sticking out of the chipped away stones in the wall. He grabbed whatever it was and with a little effort since most of it was still tightly in the wall, pulled it out, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Everybody turned to the Lieutenant and asked him what was the matter, and he held up what he'd pulled out of the wall and screamed again, a part of a jawbone with teeth sticking out of it.
B.A. took it from Face and looked it over and told him, "Sucker, this' a dog's jawbone, probably been in the rocks for 50 years when they built the place."
"Ewwwww!" Face wiped his hands on his jeans as if he'd picked up something from the old bone, "That's disgusting!"
Hannibal wasn't particularly amused or even interested, he returned to feeling along the floor, for what, nobody knew. But Hannibal apparently knew what he was looking for, he scraped his nails against the edge of a piece of the stone floor, and with a little work, pulled one side of it up revealing it was a flat rock made to look like the rest of the floor. Pulling it up he revealed the ground beneath it wasn't as sturdy as the rest of the floor, and Hannibal started digging through the dirt with his hands, looking a bit like a man possessed by a dog.
"Hannibal, what are you looking for?" Face asked.
He didn't answer, just continued clawing into the dirt, trying to unearth something. Finally, he did hit something, and smashed his fingers, whatever it was made a metal clanking sound. He reached down into the hole and pulled out an old antique lockbox, looking something like a treasure chest.
"Face, pick this, get it open!" Hannibal tossed it to the Lieutenant, "Let's see what's in it."
"Lookout," Murdock warned Face, "There might be a bomb in it."
"Murdock, this box has to have been down here for at least 30 years," Face pointed out.
"Well," Murdock thought, "Maybe it's detonated when the lid's sprung."
Face sighed, rolled his eyes and attempted to work his magic on the old box, it took a little doing but he finally got the lock to give way. Inside the lock box were several bundles of old money, and an old letter folded and severely creased with age. Face took the letter out, carefully unfolded it and started to read: "To whom it concerns, my confession. I never wanted any of this to happen, but it has and nothing will change that, and I shall answer for the sins I committed and the ones I did nothing to stop."
"This ain't half a million dollars," Murdock said as he thumbed through some of the cash, "But I'll just bet it's some of the dough from the bank robbery Harrow was eyeballed for."
"And killed for?" Face asked.
"What's it say, Face?" Hannibal asked.
Face continued to read, "Twenty-five years ago my older brother, Darryl W. Byrne, murdered Allison Bregovy. The motive was greed, there were rumors she was left much money by a distant relative, but Darryl never found it. Empty-handed he went into hiding, and we sat back and watched while Martin Strauss was eyed as the key suspect in her murder. When the cops stopped suspecting him, he took off to conduct an investigation of his own…and when he got too close, Darryl killed him and brought him back here and buried him where he'd never be found." Face looked up from the letter, "The ghost said he wasn't connected to Allison Bregovy."
"The ghost also said he was killed in this house, Martin would've been murdered somewhere else and then dumped here," Hannibal reminded his men.
"Two more ghosts?" Murdock asked in disbelief.
"I don't know how many more of them we can take, Hannibal," B.A. said.
Face looked to the letter again and continued to read, "People think this place is haunted, and it is, that Bregovy woman continues to wander the halls of this house, I've seen her since we came back. She has no rest because nobody knows who really killed her, now there'll no doubt be a new ghost added to the house's collection given nobody even knows Strauss has been killed. I have no doubt there'll be another additional ghost added to the grand total: Mark Harrow died here violently, also at the hands of dear ol' Darryl, once again trying to get his hands on money that warn't his to take and not caring who he had to kill to get it. We'd both been partners with Harrow in the bank robbery, I only wanted my own share as was given to me, but Darryl wanted more than what he was owed and made sure he got it, and that Harrow couldn't come to collect. Should Darryl ever die, I suspect his soul will be condemned to this house, to face an eternity suffering at the hands of his victims in retribution."
"Does Darryl's little brother happen to sign his own name?" Hannibal asked.
Face skimmed down towards the bottom of the letter, "Yeah, Clive J. Byrne."
"He wouldn't be directly tied to Allison Bregovy but he would be to Mark Harrow since they were partners in the bank robbery together," Hannibal said, "So Clive could very well have been his brother's latest victim and the ghost we've been speaking to tonight."
From above, it sounded like somebody was pounding on the walls with a cannonball, the noise echoed all around like they were surrounded by whatever it was. It took a minute to realize they were hearing someone or something knocking, first once, then twice, and that made the blood drain out of everybody's faces.
"Then why this?" Face gestured to the letter.
"Little brother obviously had a conscience, more so than big brother," Hannibal said, "He figured somebody eventually would dig up this floor for some reason and…"
They all looked to the floor as they considered what that meant.
"Why?" B.A. asked, "Why would anybody dig up the basement floor?"
"Because something else is buried under it," Hannibal said, "And whoever buried it, waited until nobody was looking to put it here."
"Like what?" Face asked.
"We've got to dig it up and find out," Hannibal told him.
"I don't get it," Face said, "Why didn't any of this happen when Mrs. Hinckley was living here?"
"Is it true that the living envy the dead?" Hannibal asked, seeming to be off in a la-la land of some kind at the moment, not fully there, not fully aware of his surroundings and he continued, "Can the dead envy the living?" He explained, "The house sat empty for a long time after Harrow's murder, possibly by the time Maude and her husband came here, they were glad for any human company, especially given they seem to have been a nice quiet couple that didn't give anyone any trouble. It's not official but the general consensus of life and death is that you're basically the same kind of person in death that you were in life; and clearly none of the people killed in this house were malicious in life. Allison and Strauss were going to get married, deeply in love, Harrow might've been a bank thief but there's nothing that suggests he was a downright miserable human being. And obviously little brother was feeling remorse for everything that happened, when Cain came for Abel again, it's possible he just accepted his fate, unfinished though it was."
"So why're they doing all this to us?" Face didn't get it.
"For one thing," Hannibal said, "Because they know that we took Maude away from them, they don't know us, they don't trust us, they may very well resent us being here. But also, they know that we're more inclined to be able to do something to help them leave this place than an old woman could."
"So what do we do now?" Murdock asked.
"We've got to dig up the floor and find whatever or whoever's buried under it," Hannibal said, "After that we've got to find a way to get in touch with the authorities and let them close the books on all this."
"But there's something that still doesn't make any sense," Face reminded Hannibal, "What you said before, why was anybody trying to scare Mrs. Hinckley out of here?"
"Probably because Big Brother's still alive and fairly well," Hannibal said, "And he's coming back to get the rest of the money. He'd definitely be older by now but that doesn't usually stop anyone who's truly determined."
"He's had 30 years to get it, why would he wait this long?" Face asked.
"Maybe he's paranoid, wants to make sure nobody can identify him by the time he comes back, otherwise he's just being unusually careful for somebody so mean and stupid," Hannibal guessed, "Or it's just possible that he's got somebody new and young to follow in his footsteps, that's not impossible either. Or they decided to carry on in his place without him, that's entirely possible too."
"But anywhere he'd take that money they'd know it's older than normal," B.A. pointed out.
"Which leads us to another possibility, that he's stayed gone long enough to build up enough money he can switch the old bills for new bills and not miss them," Hannibal said, "Any way you look at it, it's immensely possible…so what we've got to do now is figure out how we can get a hold of the authorities to look into this."
"Don't bother," they heard a voice from the foot of the stairs, followed by a gun cocking, "They're already here."
They all turned and saw Colonel Stewart and several MPs at the bottom of the stairs with guns drawn on them.
"We need Dick Tracy and we wind up with Beetle Bailey instead, that's just fate," Hannibal commented as he and the others assumed the position and reached for the sky. "Beggars can't be choosers indeed."
