A Horribly Haunted Halloween

by Heather Graham

  He nodded. “I saw it four mornings ago. I know because I was on the way to my doctor’s appointment. I left the house at eight. I even wondered if the city had done the decorating. I mean it’s an old abandoned haunted house, right? Why not set it up?” He suddenly sagged against the door. “A dead man?” he repeated. “Oh, God, and I’ve had the kids over here—the grandkids.”

  “Do you live alone?” Angela asked him.

  He nodded. “My wife died two years ago. I intend to leave the place to my daughter, but she refuses to think that . . . she knows the property will be hers. But she and her husband have a nice little townhouse in Alexandria. She doesn’t want to think about . . . coming home. Or what it will mean.”

  “Of course. I understand,” Angela said smiling. “Did you notice anyone the night before? Did you hear anything, see anything?”

  “I’m so sorry. Nothing. I woke up and left and saw it and thought . . . wow. Good job. I had no idea . . . oh, God. I wouldn’t let the kids onto the property. It’s still not our property. But I just thought someone had done one hell of a job making the old place fun. I wish I could help.”

  “You have helped. It was first there the morning of the 27th, right?” she said.

  He nodded gravely. “Good thing I had an appointment that morning, I guess.”

  “Yes,” Angela said softly. She handed him her card. “If you think of anything—”

  “Of course. On the other side of the old place—the Miller house—you might have better luck. Ned Miller and his wife Greta are younger. Both in their late thirties. She’s a doctor and he’s a real estate whiz. Made their money young and bought the place when old man Kelly and his wife sold out and moved to Florida.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Should I be worried? The grandkids are coming this afternoon.”

  “Sir, we don’t know much of anything yet, but you might want to keep the kids in the house today. I believe a forensic crew will be out there quite a while,” Angela said. She smiled and left him, noting again the hearse being driven by the skeleton. Quite a display. Available at the chain of hardware stores and probably others. It was costly—several hundreds of dollars—but if she remembered the sign right, it was easy to assemble.

  She was crossing by the old Fillmore place—with the hearse and police cars now in front of it and the forensic crew picking their way through creatures and ghoulish objects—when Jackson joined her.

  “Did you learn anything?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “It went up the night of the 26th. Mr. Greenburg is sure he saw it first on the morning of the 27th.”

  “And today is the 30th. Tomorrow is Halloween,” Jackson said.

  “And displays will come down,” Angela murmured. She pulled her phone out. “I’m going to let Barry know right away when the display was first seen.”

  “Good. We need to make sure all information is shared as quickly as possible.” He was thoughtful as they walked. “I let Corby take a walk down this street because every house has decorations out, elaborate decorations. It’s an affluent area. And yes, they’ll all come down in a few days’ time. But what if . . . what if our guy is just planning for Halloween?”

  “You mean something . . . like a display with all victims? He’s only getting started and his grand finale is going to be Halloween?”

  Jackson nodded grimly.

  “Do you think the victim was random? Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time? If we can get an identification on the victim, it would help.”

  “They’re running his prints. Angela, we may have a serious problem. People are staying in this year, but it doesn’t mean America isn’t recognizing Halloween. There are more and more displays—bigger and more elaborate.”

  They had reached the Miller house. Jackson knocked on the door. An attractive woman in a T-shirt and jeans answered the door, looking at them suspiciously.

  “Are you cops?” she asked anxiously.

  “FBI,” Jackson said. And they both produced their credentials.

  “I’m Greta Miller. Dr. Greta Miller. Oh, God, what is going on? I saw the police cars and the medical examiner . . . and I have kids! What happened?”

  Jackson explained and asked if she or her husband—or their kids—had seen anything the night the display had gone up.

  “I start work at seven—I have the kids up and going by a quarter of six,” she said. “We go to bed at ten o’clock around here.” She frowned worriedly. “At night, there was nothing. In the morning, it was all set up.”

  “Did you see strangers surveying the place recently? Anyone in the neighborhood who shouldn’t have been around?” Angela asked.

  Greta Miller suddenly made a little squeaking sound. Angela saw she wasn’t alone; a little boy of six or seven was behind his mother.

  “Jeffrey! Go back to the television room,” Greta said. “Mommy will be right there.”

  Angela smiled at the little boy. He looked at her with huge brown eyes.

  “I saw the bogeyman!” he said.

  “Jeffrey, please—” his mother began.

  Angela hunkered down on one knee to look at the boy. “It’s okay, Dr. Miller,” she said. “Jeffrey, hi, I’m Angela. What bogeyman did you see?”

  “He’s a child,” Greta murmured.

  Angela just smiled. Jeffrey looked nervously at his mother.

  “I’m not supposed to be up at night,” he said. “But it’s really hard to make yourself sleep.”

  “Of course,” Angela agreed.

  “I saw him out the window. My bedroom is by the old haunted house. I almost screamed but I was afraid he would see me. I ducked low and watched him. He walked in with all the stuff. I was afraid he’d come here. But I didn’t want to scream because . . .” He paused to look at his mother again. “I’m not supposed to be up in the night.”

  Angela glanced at Greta Miller.

  The woman understood. She set her hand gently on her son’s head. “Jeffrey, it’s okay. You couldn’t sleep. I understand. Please tell this lady what you saw.”

  “What did he look like?” Angela asked gently.

  Jeffrey frowned, confused they didn’t understand already.

  “The bogeyman,” he said.

  “What did the bogeyman wear?” she asked.

  “Bogeyman clothes,” Jeffrey said. “A big black cape with a hood. He was still for a minute, and I thought . . . I thought he turned into one of his creatures. But then he moved. He walked back to his car, and I saw him drive away. I grabbed my teddy bear and went back to bed.”

  Jackson hunkered down by Angela. “Jeffrey, did you see the Bogeyman’s car?”

  He nodded gravely.

  “What was it like?” Angela asked.

  “Black . . . like . . .”

  He pointed outside, to a black SUV.

  “I thought he might have a hearse thing, like at Mr. Greenberg’s house. Maybe he’d have a wagon with skeleton horses and . . . but he had a car like that one. And he took all the stuff out of the back and then . . . then the bogeyman drove away in a car.”

  “Thank you so much, Jeffrey,” Angela told him gravely.

  “I didn’t know,” Greta whispered. “Jeffrey, if you do wake up, you can come to your dad and me!” she said, picking her son up and cradling him to her. She looked at Jackson and Angela. “We are fierce about bedtime—mornings come early, and we have school and work and . . .”

  Her voice trailed.

  “We understand. And Jeffrey has been helpful,” Jackson said. “Thank you.”

  “Very helpful,” Angela assured the little boy, smiling.

  They thanked Greta again and left their cards.

  “So, the killer dresses up like the grim reaper or whatever in a hooded cape,” Jackson murmured.

  “And another reason you’re thinking he’s just getting started?” Angela asked.

  “Possibly.” He paused, shaking his head. “A black SUV. We have a black SUV. There are . . . there are hundreds if not
thousands in our area,” he said wearily.

  Their phones buzzed simultaneously causing them to look at one another and check their messages.

  Barry sent an email. They had an identification on their corpse.

  “Gerard Greenway,” Jackson murmured.

  Angela looked at him and said, “Supervisor of Special Effects, Foxy Films.”

  “And so, he became a special effect,” Jackson murmured.

  “We have something to go on,” Angela said. “We need that poem,” she added, quickly switching her phone screen to email.

  True to his word, Barry had sent them the poem that had arrived at the newspaper. She read aloud.

  “ ‘Twas right before Halloween

  And all through the land

  Creatures were appearing,

  Gruesome and grand,

  Witches and goblins and scarecrows, oh, my!

  Skeletons, mummies, werewolves, no lie!

  And what to my wondrous eye should I see

  Blood and guts coming straight at me!

  And blood and guts coming straight at thee!

  So many ghastly ghouls on this night,

  How many to see before the light!”

  “Interesting. He must be planning a terrible end game,” Jackson said, frowning.

  “Because he’s given us a clue to his identity, one so good we just need to get started at Foxy Films,” Angela said.

  Jackson nodded. “I don’t think our problem is going to be finding out who he is. The problem is going to be stopping him before Halloween truly becomes a night of the recently-living dead.”

  Chapter 3

  Jackson sat in an office at the headquarters of Foxy Films, speaking with Owen Asbury, whose title was ‘Supervisor of Creature Effects.’

  Gerard Greenway had been his boss.

  Asbury appeared to be truly devastated by his employer’s death. But the company was in the middle of filming a horror flick with the improbable title of “Mermaids VS. Vampires.” He was younger than his late boss, late thirties, or early forties, with a wild shock of brown hair that fell over his forehead when he wasn’t nervously pushing it to one side.

  Budgets had to come in on a film like this, Asbury had explained. Or else ‘low budget’ would turn into ‘no budget.’

  “I can’t believe it,” he said for what might have been the tenth—or twentieth--time. “We were starting to get worried. Gerard was never the type to skip work—especially with no notice. But we were at a stage where I was doing the supervisory work, and he had said he might take a few days off before Halloween since he’d been working around the clock. Seriously, weekends mean nothing in this business—and he’d be the man to okay the time he wanted to take. He didn’t say he had decided yes, he was going to take time off and I was in charge, but we all assumed at first he had gone off and figured we’d all know. When I couldn’t reach him, I did call the police the other day, asking about filling in a missing persons’ report, but I didn’t want to get trouble started for him if . . . I should have done it!”

  “I don’t think reporting him missing would have changed his death,” Jackson said. “Because of Halloween and the circumstances, an autopsy was begun soon after his body arrived at the morgue. The medical examiner estimates he’s been dead five days. Do you know who would have wanted him dead?”

  Asbury winced. “He was tough. Because he was a perfectionist. But he was good; he’d tell his people, too, when he thought they did well. Our films are low budget. The company was put together by two actors, a casting agent, a scene designer—and Gerard. Gerard always said low-budget didn’t mean sloppy work. It meant the work was really held to higher standards. And there are a lot of people out there who just don’t get into the amount of digital effects being used all the time. Sure, digital is great—you can do things now you couldn’t do before. But filmmakers overdo it, too. Gerard loved effects. Real effects. And . . .”

  His voice trailed.

  “He was made up like a special effect piece for Halloween after he was killed,” Jackson said. He shook his head and leaned in a bit and asked, “Can you think of anyone who could have done this? Someone here, someone in the field who had an argument with him?”

  “Are you looking as me?” Asbury asked in returned, horrified. “You think I could have done this to Gerard?”

  “No. I don’t. Unless, of course, you wanted to murder him for his position?”

  “I still wouldn’t be one of the founders!” Asbury protested. “Yeah, I may get his position, but—God, no!”

  “Someone was unhappy with him,” Jackson said. “What about your other special effects personnel? Or someone else here, impatient with his perfectionism. Maybe someone at a rival company or perhaps someone who didn’t get a job here.”

  Asbury truly looked lost. “It’s not like . . . well, I mean, everyone knows tons of stars! The actors, even the directors in a movie. But most people don’t even know or care who did the make-up, the creatures, or other special effects. Rick Baker—yes. He’s famous. Stan Winston was amazing. But who knows or cares most of the time? You can tell a friend who the actor was in a movie, but did you even read about the set designer or anyone else?”

  “Depends,” Jackson said. “But I see your point. You don’t think anyone killed him over jealousy.”

  Asbury shook his head. “Gerard was liked. He said what he wanted. He complained and explained when he didn’t get what he wanted. But he would pitch down into hard or messy work himself. He was an idea man—and he could make someone else’s vision real. We do mostly horror here. But special effects . . . well, I’ve created one of the cutest talking bunnies you’ve ever seen and other things that are . . . cute. You must be able to come up with anything—and listen. You need to understand what a director wants, what the producers are seeing as a final project. It’s not just paint-by-numbers, you know.”

  “I do know,” Jackson assured him. “I’ll still need a list of employees, and also, info on anyone who might have applied for a job recently.”

  “Oh, God!” Asbury said suddenly. “Oh, God, oh, God!”

  “Mr. Asbury—”

  “I know who might have done it.”

  *

  The challenge was part of the fun. And he couldn’t think of anything better. All those stupid bastards who didn’t see beyond their noses, their own visions. Those who had no appreciation for the visions of others.

  They’d found good old Gerard. Finally!

  Then again, the fact he had gone so long as a corpse without being noticed was a nice testament to his work which was brilliant.

  Gerard had looked a whole lot better as a scarecrow-pumpkin than he had in life. The old boy should have appreciated his end.

  They all should.

  It was gratifying the corpse had taken so long to be discovered. And there was still his odd assortment of others out there.

  But it upped the game. As he had known it would. He was prepared. Plenty of cash. An appointment with the right man to change his identity so well his own mother couldn’t find him in a crowd of one. Of course, there could still be the “end game” scenario.

  But even the “end game” would be all right. Every man needed to be remembered.

  And he already had Ray Channing, the jerk from Most Mo-Jo pictures. Veronica Chastain from E Mil and More was awaiting his artistry. There were two more he had to pick-up, but he would. Even if a picture of his face went out through every available outlet in the media, he was going to be able to do Halloween with what needed to be done. Because he was talented—and because it was Halloween—when they woke up in the morning.

  And they would know . . .

  He only had one hesitation. Asbury. Maybe he’d let the kid live; Asbury had taken his share of abuse. And he’d shown excitement over the portfolio that had been shown to him. If it had been up to Asbury . . .

  It hadn’t been.

  Well, he’d decide later. Right now, he had a jaw-dropping zombie to create
.

  *

  Angela was almost certain she had him.

  She had learned years ago that one of her best talents with the Krewe—one which allowed her to help those working in the field—was her ability to go from site to site on the Internet and bring her to information that was helpful or needed.

  And with this . . .

  While Jackson had gone on to the victim’s office, she had returned home. She wanted to hug Corby and make sure he was all right. She was glad Jackson had not gone into the Fillmore yard and to the body with Corby there, but she was still sorry her son had been the one to realize the man was dead. And Corby did have their gift, talent, or curse. And he had told them gravely several times he was going to grow up and become one of them.

  But he was doing well when she reached the house. He was in the living room, cradling the baby, and he and Mary were watching an episode of “Jessie.” It was a re-run and the show had ended. But they all liked it, especially because it was about a family with one natural daughter and four adopted children with black, Asian, and Hispanic backgrounds.

  Corby and Mary had both looked at her when she’d returned home and she’d been honest. She was going to get on the computer and see what she could find. Corby understood—he was amazing with a computer himself and had been a tremendous help in a case they’d fallen into just before the baby had been born.

  She worked in the kitchen. For some reason, the kitchen was where they all wound up working.

  He came by quietly while she was there. “The baby is sleeping. My show ended. May I ride my bike, just around the block?” he asked.

  “Yes, fine, but don’t be long, okay?”

  “Nope. I’ll get back in before dark. And don’t worry; I wear my mask even when I’m just bike-riding, and I stay six feet away from people. Except for ghosts.”

  “That’s good, Corby. Thank you.”

  He left. She went to work.

  She started easily, cross-referencing movie companies in the area with the various registrations, organizations, and legal assignations for those working in special effects in the area. She could then narrow down to a field of names, search out their latest work and activities, and come up with a list.