Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Ruth Ann paused and eyed her friend. Her silence prompted Hessie to continue and Hessie’s voice shook as she finally let out the whole story. “Big Ed said Junior owed him money and Junior said he didn’t owe shit. Dared Big Ed to do something about it. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about Big Ed, who would shoot you in the kneecap or pop one in your ass just for fun. But when Big Ed really wanted to get your attention, he would target your family. Mother. Sister. Wife. Daughter. Only the women, cause that’s who you was supposed to protect, right? Jimmy Pritchard was sent to kidnap and hold for ransom Junior’s sister. Big Ed said he’d pay Jimmy two thousand dollars to snatch the bitch and hold her until he got his ten large. Should have been easy. Kidnap the girl, hold her out in the woods, wait until morning, and bring her back. That’s what Big Ed said.”

  Hessie stared at her feet. “Next thing I remember, I was in the trunk of a car. I couldn’t breathe too good. My hands and my feet were tied behind me and my mouth was taped shut. Ruth Ann, I was scared. I knew I was gonna die.” Her chest heaved and even now Hessie had trouble catching her breath.

  “But you didn’t die, baby. You here. You done saved yourself.”

  Hessie clawed at her ear again.

  “He took me way out in the woods. Up near that place where all the colored folks go in the summertime.”

  “Val Verde.”

  “Yeah, that’s the place. I think he was supposed to leave me there or something. But then Jimmy got other ideas. He…He did that thing I said before, and almost killed me.”

  Hessie fell silent again. She lit another cigarette, holding the smoke deep in her lungs before exhaling. “You know what he did after, Ruth Ann? You want to know what he did?”

  Ruth Ann stood silent. Waiting.

  “He dug a grave. A grave for me! I tried to escape but he caught me and threw me to the ground. He crashed his boot down so hard that he broke my hip. I didn’t cry though. I didn’t make a single sound. He thought I was dead.” Hessie stared at the lit end of her cigarette. “Jimmy didn’t dig deep enough. There wasn’t enough dirt to cover me. When he left, I held my breath for as long as I could in case he came back.” Tears trickled down her face. “He hurt me so bad, Ruth Ann. I was so scared.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took another deep drag of her cigarette.

  “If it’s him, then why…?” Ruth Ann stopped herself. “Is that why you been spendin’ all this time out here wit him? Smokin’. Talkin’ wit him?”

  “I think it is Jimmy’s time to die.” Hessie exhaled and met Ruth Ann’s eyes. “Because a day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear the sounds of him diggin’ that grave for me.”

  Ruth Ann studied her. Understood. “How you gonna do it?”

  No hesitation. No shock. Hessie felt relief. Ruth Ann knew Hessie was gonna to commit cold-blooded murder and she was all right with it.

  “I’ll need the truck.” Hessie said.

  “You want me to ride wit you?”

  The crackle of cigarette paper and tobacco hung in the air. Hessie clawed at her left ear.

  “When?” Ruth Ann said softly.

  Hessie flicked the cigarette butt, and it landed it in a small water puddle near the garbage cans. She pulled out another and lit up. “Ask if you can borrow your dad’s truck for a few days and leave it at your house. Put the key under the front seat.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. You know I will help you do this.”

  “No. You don’t know anything. Got it?”

  “You lookin’ for a better line of work?” Hessie asked Jimmy.

  He had been meeting her out in the alley several times during the past week, always looking for a handout smoke. Fucker now worked at the restaurant as a busboy but he was too cheap to buy his own smokes.

  “Well, are you?” She forced a smile. “’Cause I got a friend who needs someone to ride with him. Pays good, too. I think he said about a thousand.”

  “A thousand?” Jimmy asked. “Well shit, why don’t you do it?”

  “He don’t want no woman, he wants a man.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “I already got my piece, just for asking around. Look, if you don’t want to do it, I can find someone else.”

  “Where and when?”

  “Meet me here. Two a.m.”

  “Two in the morning? Why that time?”

  Hessie could almost see those little hairs standing up on the back of Jimmy’s neck. He needed the money. She could see he wanted that money.

  “Man,” she pretended to warn him, “you gonna be in a colored neighborhood, doing something that may not quite be legal. Do you want to do it?”

  She saw the greed in his crystal blue eyes.

  “I’ll be back at two,” Jimmy told her.

  Two a.m. There he was, right on time.

  Hessie was behind the wheel of the truck, motor running. Jimmy opened the passenger side door and got in.

  “Where we going?” he asked.

  “Not too far.”

  “Gotta smoke?”

  In answer, Hessie pulled out her cigarettes and handed him the pack. He pulled out two and stuck one behind his ear. He then tossed the pack on the seat.

  Hessie turned toward the newly constructed interstate. Jimmy didn’t seem to notice that they were headed out of town. He just kept puffing away, and rattled on about some stupid jazz band or singer or something. She didn’t pay attention to him. She had to concentrate.

  They’d been driving for about an hour when she turned west onto a two-lane highway. The Angeles National Forest was all around them. Another thirty minutes passed, and Hessie turned onto a dirt road. Tools in the bed of the pickup clanged and slid from one side to the other.

  “Hey,” Jimmy asked in concern, “where we going? You sure you know where we’re going? You could whack somebody, and no one would hear!” He laughed.

  Hessie said nothing. Focused, she drove over the bumps and divots in the road. Finally, she came to a stop.

  “Come on,” she told Jimmy as she got out and walked around to the back of the truck. Reaching under the tarp, Hessie pulled out the Winchester pump she had strapped to the inside of the truck bed. Jimmy walked ahead, blinded by the thought of money. Hessie knew he could almost taste it.

  He stopped when he heard her ratchet the gun. He didn’t move. Didn’t turn around.

  “Wha…what’s going on here, girl? What are we doing out here?”

  “Here is where it was, Jimmy. Don’t tell me you forgot. Isn’t this where you dumped that colored girl twelve years ago?”

  “I don’t know what…what’s going on here.” The smell of urine hit the air as Jimmy peed himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You are the only colored girl I know. I didn’t know nobody like that twelve years ago. Shit, I wasn’t even in Los Angeles in November of ’36!”

  “Sure know a lot for not being able to remember. I didn’t say nothing about November, Jimmy. How did you know a colored girl was found out here in November 1936? Huh? How did you know that?”

  He turned slowly to face her. She was coming toward him, shotgun raised.

  “Say, now, there’s no need for all this. You don’t have to kill me. I’m different now. And look, you’re all right. Come on, come on. You don’t have to do this.”

  Hessie saw the sweat running down the side of his face. She watched as Jimmy started breathing heavy. His eyes darted around to see an escape, but there was none. She’d picked the right place for killin’.

  “You set this up?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Jimmy, I did. Me, that little colored girl from twelve years ago. The girl you raped and threw in a hole to die.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have tried to run.”

  He started to say more, but a shot rang out. Jimmy Pritchard was dead before he hit the ground.

  The ride back was quiet. It was early morning when she got back to Ruth Ann’s house
.

  Hessie handed her the key after she parked the truck. The front of Hessie’s T-shirt was stained with dirt and sweat. A smudge of mud marked her cheek.

  “You awright?” Ruth Ann looked her up and down.

  Hessie cocked her head, listening. She nodded and walked down the steps into the misty morning. The only sound she heard was the birds beginning to awaken. No more shoveling. The grave was filled.

  Back to TOC

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  RACHEL HOWZELL HALL is a New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including The Good Sister, co-written with James Patterson, and the critically-acclaimed Detective Elouise Norton series. The New York Times called Lou Norton “a formidable fighter—someone you want on your side.” Lou was also included in The Guardian’s Top 10 Female Detectives in Fiction. Her newest novel, They All Fall Down (Forge), published in April 2019, pays homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then They Were None. A featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed “Crime in the City” series and the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast, Rachel has also served as a mentor in AWP’s Writer to Writer Program and is currently on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

  Like her fictional character Claudia Rose, SHEILA LOWE is a real-life forensic handwriting expert who testifies in court cases. The mother of a tattoo artist and a former rock star, she lives in Ventura with Lexie the Evil Cat, where she writes the award-winning Forensic Handwriting series. Despite sharing living space with a cat, Sheila’s mysteries are medium boiled, psychological suspense, definitely not cozy. She likes putting ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances and makes them squirm. Sheila has also published a series of non-fiction works about handwriting and personality.

  LAURIE STEVENS is the author of the Gabriel McRay psychological thrillers. The book series has won twelve awards, among them Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011, the 2014 IPPY for Best Mystery/Thriller, Library Journal’s Self-E Award, and Random House Editor’s Book of the Month. Laurie is a hybrid author, both self-published and traditionally published. She is an active member of MWA, ITW, and a former board member of Sisters in Crime Los Angeles.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  JULIE G. BEERS currently works as the PR & Creative Content Manager at Children’s Burn Foundation. The non-profit works to prevent burns before they happen through educational programs and information, and helps child burn survivors heal and thrive. In her free time, Julie is a writer and editor with numerous credits. She has written for multiple television series including Walker, Texas Ranger, Renegade, and Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict. This is Julie’s third story to appear in a SinC/LA anthology. Her previous stories were included in the anthologies LAst Exit to Murder and LAdies Night.

  JULIA BRICKLIN is the author of Polly Pry: The Woman Who Wrote the West (2018, TwoDot), and America’s Best Female Sharpshooter: The Rise and Fall of Lillian Frances Smith (2017, University of Oklahoma Press) and the upcoming true crime book Blonde Rattlesnake: Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrorized Los Angeles (2019, Lyons Press). She has written numerous articles for academic journals and magazines. Bricklin grew up in southern California, obtained a journalism degree at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and worked in the TV/film industry before obtaining her master’s degree in history at Cal State Northridge. In addition to serving as associate editor of California History, the publication of the California Historical Society, she is a professor of history. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

  ROGER CANNON grew up in Downey, California, and has advanced degrees in French. Teaching tough, street-smart, Latino kids gave Roger rare access to the guarded subcultures of graffiti writers and gang kids, the basis for his debut novel, Cross-Out. The first sequel, Fresh Pursuit, is due late 2018. His philosophy is simple—pick a worthy target, keep moving forward, enjoy the ride. This has taken him to managing a World Champion baseball team, running with bulls in Pamplona, walking the entire Camino de Santiago, and writing decent books. Roger lives with his family in San Pedro.

  TONY CHIARCHIARO has been writing fiction for the last twenty years, while raising a family and working full time. He is the author of a mystery/suspense novel, The Most Likely Suspect and is working on a sequel, Murder on P Street. Additionally, Tony has completed over a dozen short stories. He holds a Master’s degree in Psychology and a law degree which helps him in understanding his characters as they work their way through the court system. He’s been in an outstanding critique group for as long as he’s been writing.

  LISA CIARFELLA is a recent CSULB MFA graduate who writes dark tainted noir style prose, where bad people do bad things and not so bad people get caught up in the madness. Her writing’s been featured on Writers Who Kill, Near to the Knuckle, Flash Fiction Offensive at Out of the Gutter, PulpMetal Magazine, Asheditcom, NoWastedInk, and other places. She’s thrilled to have “Tick-Tock” featured in the 2019 Sisters in Crime L.A. anthology and is busy cranking out more short stories and a first crime fiction novel, doggedly pursuing the game. For more on Lisa, drop by her blog Ciarfella’s Fiction Corner at writingfictionnow.com, or find her on Facebook.com/lisajohnljc, or on LinkedIn at Linkedin.com/in/lisaciafella/ or on Instagram at lisajohnljc-author.

  CYNDRA GERNET wrote her first mystery story in 1957 as a sixth grader. To no one’s surprise, it was not picked up for publication. She did not return to fiction writing until fifteen years ago when she signed up for a UCLA extension writing class. She continues to learn the craft of writing with gifted teacher and published author, Jerrilyn Farmer and the wonderful Friday morning writers’ group.

  Dr. B.J. GRAF lives in Los Angeles. Her story, “Shikata Ga Nai” was published in the Sisters in Crime anthology, LAst Exit to Murder (2013). Genesys Rx, her near-future-mystery novel, was shortlisted for the UCLA Kirkwood Writing Competition, and she has been working with Jerrilyn Farmer’s masters’ class. In addition to writing she is an Adjunct Professor who teaches Film Studies and Classical Mythology at Pepperdine University, UCLA, UCLA-Extension, and CSUN. Before teaching full time, she worked as V.P. of Development for Abilene Pictures. Her Ph.D. and M.A., both in Classics, are from Princeton University. Her B.A. is from Dartmouth College.

  MARK HAGUE has made up stories (in writing) since forever, and has written short stories, novels, poetry, articles, newsletters, etc. and has had stories published in several anthologies.

  A.P. JAMISON is a former banker who received her MFA from Columbia University in 2013. She is currently completing her first novel: Securities & Insecurities—a mystery set in an investment banking training program during the crazy cocaine and cash-fueled ’80s where working on Wall Street really could be murder. She lives in California with her family and her neighbor’s dog.

  MICHEAL KELLY spent decades imprisoned in the dismal dungeons of software engineering. She made her escape and has never looked back. She is also a recovering art museum addict. Her fondest travel experience occurred when the staff of a tiny French museum closed the building for a long lunch, locking her inside. Rehabilitation is not proceeding as well as hoped.

  ALISON MCMAHAN is an award-winning filmmaker and author. Her most recent film is Bare Hands and Wooden Limbs (2010), a documentary about a village of landmine survivors in Cambodia, narrated by Sam Waterston. Her historical mystery novel, The Saffron Crocus (Black Opal Books, 2014), won the Rosemary Award for Best YA Historical in 2014 and the Florida Writers Association’s Royal Palm Literary Award in 2015. Her short mystery “The New Score” appeared in the Fish Out of Water Anthology (Wildside Press), and “The Drive By” in the Busted anthology (LevelBest Books), both April 2017, both nominated for Derringer Awards. “Kamikaze Iguanas” appeared in the MWA anthology for middle grade readers entitled Scream and Scream Again, edited by R.L. Stine, (HarperCollins, 2018). She is represented by Gina Panettieri of Talcott Notch Literary. AlisonMcMahan.com

  PETER SEXTO
N is the award-winning author of Shelter from the Storm, and the upcoming detective thriller Mercy Street. He lives in Southern California with his son, Cameron. A life-long fan of the short story form, Sexton can often be found in his favorite coffee house penning a new short story freehand. He would like to dedicate “Darkness Keeps Chasing” to Lisa Lewis.

  GOBIND TANAKA writes fiction, essays, and poetry. He belongs to SAG-AFTRA and Sisters in Crime. Two decades a technical writer, market researcher, and data analyst, in previous years Tanaka healed clients with acupressure and shiatsu. He taught yoga, meditation, Indian sword fighting, and Tai Chi. From a Marine veteran Tanaka learned combat handgun tactics and security consciousness. He believes wisdom and compassion are two sides of the same coin.

  JENNIFER YOUNGER writes noir fiction. As a young girl, Jennifer often traveled to southern Virginia to visit relatives. Their conversations became the inspiration for her stories. As an adult, her curious nature has led her into back-alley Los Angeles joints with its pimps, gangsters and guns where she continues to explore the worlds her characters inhabit. When not thinking of ways her characters can bump off the bad guy or seduce a good one, Jennifer can be found voraciously reading all genres of fiction. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, SoCal and Sisters in Crime, Los Angeles. She continues to seek out the dirty secrets of small Southern towns, similar to the ones in which her stories take place.

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