by Alexie Aaron
“I wish that made me feel better, but it doesn’t. I need to make my rounds, rain or no rain.”
“I think you can leave it for tonight. I called Evert, and he’s coming in. He’s more worried about you right now. Why don’t you go to the reception building and wait for him there,” Ryan suggested. “Braverman!”
“Sir?” Tom asked, running over from where he had been directing the coroner’s wagon in.
“Take Andy over to the office and wait with him until his boss arrives. Then come back and join us,” he instructed.
“Yes, sir.” Tom put a gentle hand on Andy’s arm. “Andy, want to show me how to get there without falling over someone?”
Andy nodded and pointed out a shortcut to the building.
Ryan watched them leave before turning back to see when the forensic techs would be ready to release the body to the coroner.
“We’ve clipped off the blade arms,” one tech said into his voice recorder, “to aid in transporting the victim. His hands have been bagged, although no defensive marks have shown up. Victim appears to be a male of twenty-four years in healthy condition…”
Ryan turned away and pondered the strength the person or thing had to have to lift the man up, let alone impale him on the blades. He shuddered. He didn’t want to do it, but he picked up his phone and dialed Santos.
A sleepy voice answered.
“It’s started. What we’ve been fearing has started. One victim. I don’t give a rat’s ass. You knew we weren’t finished but… Yes. I’ll be waiting. Mia? I’m not going to wake her. We’ll leave it until morning. She’s going to be upset.” Ryan ended the call. He couldn’t help the guilt that washed over him. Santos and he had decided between them that they would leave the hollow be. After the hag had been taken care of, there wouldn’t be anything left to orchestrate anymore shenanigans of this magnitude. Evidently, they were wrong, and someone had died as a result of their error.
Chapter Eleven
“Thank you, Mia, I’m heading into Chicago as soon as I can. Thanks, you too.” Tonia put down the phone and started clearing the table.
“Spill it,” Lorna ordered.
Tonia looked at her and marveled at how rested the woman looked, considering she only had two hours sleep. “Mia thinks our soul-jumper has taken up residence in Thaddeus Maynard the Third. He’s a Chicago resident. According to the PEEPs researcher Audrey, he’s rich and lives in the new luxury high rise off of Michigan Avenue. He’s been living the life of the poor little rich boy until now. And he’s quite an alcoholic. He crashed his car two nights ago…”
“Ripe for the picking,” Lorna said, shaking her head. “Bet you it wasn’t an accident.”
“I’m already on that page. I think we should pay this feller a call, dontcha think?”
“As long as you drop that accent, then I’m with you, otherwise I’m flying solo on this,” Lorna warned her partner. “I don’t want to call any more attention to us with the locals. What we’ve got to do isn’t going to go over well with the city cops,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “Come on, we’ve got horses to corral before we leave.”
~
Mia pocketed her phone, stepped off the porch and walked over to where Ted was stacking wood. “Where’s Murphy?” she asked. “Isn’t this his job?”
“No, it’s mine. I split it, I stack it. At least that’s the law according to Murphy.”
“Careful, I wouldn’t be quoting Murphy’s laws. That will jinx…”
Ted jumped as a quarter piece of log fell off the stack. He looked around and spied Murphy before he could vanish. “Caught you! You had me going. You two plan this?”
She shook her head and tried not to laugh. “Nope. I think both of us were played today.” She shook a finger at Murphy who was trying to maintain an innocent stance but failed when he started laughing. “Go ahead and laugh it up. But I fear for you now that you’ve riled Ted, and Ted’s revenge is going to come,” she warned her friend.
Murphy pushed his hand away from him.
“He doesn’t look worried,” Ted observed.
“That’s his first mistake,” Mia said. “I felt the same about washing your face with snow last winter. I reveled in the act until you filled my bath with ice cubes two weeks later. Well played, Batman, well played.”
“It’s going to be tough getting the upper hand with a ghost though. This will take some thought.”
“Take your time, he’s not going anywhere,” Mia said, watching Murphy while he played with Maggie.
“Did you call Tonto?” Ted asked.
“Tonia, her name is Tonia, not Tonto, and yes, I called her. She’s going to head into Chicago to see what can be done.”
“Well, I hope that’s that. Father Alessandro was pretty quiet last night at the steakhouse,” Ted commented.
“He’s got a lot of thinking to do. On one hand, he was glad to be advised on what was going on here. On the other, it puts him into a bad position in regards to his and Santos’s friendship.”
“Friends are allowed disagreements,” Ted said, putting the last piece of wood on the pile. “Look at you and Burt. You guys spat more than my sisters.”
“We do not!” Mia claimed.
“Hate to argue with you but… Whoa, who called the cops?” Ted asked, pointing down the drive. Two Sheriff’s Department cruisers were moving towards them.
“Maybe they found out about you and Cid’s little adventure in the Home Depot.”
“I sure hope not. Curly got away from us,” he said, referring to his robotic, remote-controlled, wall-walking ghost hunter. “He landed in a line of exterior doors, and by the time we freed him, he had started a domino effect. One door toppled to the next, but fortunately for your hero, Superman got to the end one before it crashed to the floor. The manager was so grateful he gave Cid a gift card worth fifty bucks. When did you find out about it?”
“Right now. All I know is you too were thick as thieves when you came home. Now, I’ll just go and report you…” Mia teased, walking over to greet a very tired looking John Ryan and Tom Braverman.
“Mia, we’ve got trouble, and we need your help,” John Ryan said.
“If you’re asking my help, then the trouble must be spirit related,” Mia said. “Come on into the PEEPs office, and let’s talk. Do you mind if Ted, Cid and Murphy sit in?”
“That would be perfect. Tom, bring the file,” he ordered his deputy.
Mia walked over to Ted and asked him to find Cid, while she looked for Murphy, and meet them in the PEEPs office.
“I’ll start a pot of coffee. They look like they’ve had no sleep,” Ted observed.
“I fear you’re right. Now where did…” Mia started say and turned around, suddenly face to face with Murphy. “Efing hell, Murph, you scared the bejesus out of me!” Mia put her hand on her chest. “I just lost ten years.” Mia heard Ted snicker as he was walking away. “You knew he was behind me, didn’t you?” she accused him.
Ted broke into a trot, and she shook her head. “I must be insane to live in the company of men, alive, dead, visiting, it doesn’t matter, you’re all so… male!”
“Did you say something to me?” Ryan called over from where she’d left him.
“No, sir, just talking to myself.” She sniffed and started walking to the barn.
“I’m going to warn you, these aren’t too pretty,” Ryan said, handing Ted the flash drive. “But I need you to see what we saw. Here,” he said, handing the small digital tape recorder to Cid. “See if you can beef this up.”
Mia stood, waiting for the pot to be filled. She found some snack cakes and arranged them on a tray.
“Can I help?” Tom asked.
“You can take these to the table. How are you holding up?” she asked.
“Better than I thought I would. I can see our friend quite clearly today. He’s wearing the same expression I’ve been seeing in the mirror lately.”
Mia looked at Murph and Tom before saying, “I believe
that’s called grim. We’ve had some trouble here too. Nothing dangerous, but things aren’t right in the hollow.”
“I heard from Whit.”
“Really, how is he?” she asked interested.
“He’s had his tail run off in his new position. Evidently, his boss is a woman and a real ballbuster.”
“Gee, that’s the first good thing I’ve heard today. Tell me more,” Mia said.
Tom’s eyebrow lifted. “No, you’re not bitter,” he said ironically.
“I got the better end of the deal, Braverman. I’m not bitter at all, but I am curious. Why don’t we save Whit for later, the sheriff looks impatient to start,” she observed.
Mia finished pouring the mugs of hot coffee, and Tom helped her put milk and sugar out on the table. They arranged their chairs so they could see the large computer monitor.
“Last night in the Big Bear Lake Cemetery, Randy Smith was killed. He had gone there with Steve Kingston to pull a stunt to scare their friend Andy Freeman, the night watchman. They came dressed in zombie masks and waited for Andy to make his rounds over at the pauper graves.”
Ted watched his wife. She stiffened at the mention of the graveyard and was positively stone by the time Ryan finished his narrative.
“I take it this led to misadventure,” Cid said.
“Let’s run the tape we made of Andy’s explanation. We still haven’t been able to get a coherent word out of Steve. If you please,” he requested.
Cid, who had routed the tape through the PEEPs computer program and enhanced the sound quality, started the playback.
Mia listened to Andy’s explanation, confession, regrets and fears. She also heard something else. She raised her hand, and Cid stopped the recording.
“Where was this made?” she asked, picking up a set of earphones.
“Onsite. It was raining, so it’s a bit murky,” Tom explained.
“Start it again, please,” she requested and listened. “Stop, rewind at this point,” she directed. She listened again, and when she had heard enough, she said, “There’s someone talking behind Andy. Did you have any female deputies or forensic people there?”
“No,” chorused Tom and Ryan.
“I was afraid of that,” Mia confessed, then explained, “While Andy is relating his experience, the female voice is singing, ‘the dead will rise again, oh Lord, the dead will rise again.’”
Both Ryan and Tom paled. They looked at each other. The room was quiet. The tension of waiting on the lawmen was excruciating.
Ryan broke the silence, “Considering what you’re going to see in those pictures, I think she’s mocking us more than warning us.”
Ted, who’d prescreened the pictures, handed the PowerPoint switch to Ryan and let him control the slideshow.
Mia pushed her emotions to the back of her mind and watched the presentation coldly. She requested several pictures be shown again. She turned to Murphy at one point and asked, “Do you see her?”
He nodded. “Familiar.”
“We see an image in slides six and ten. There is a shrouded woman standing just inside the frame on the right side of the car. She appears to be singing. She’s familiar to both Murphy and I, but I can’t place where I’d seen her picture before?”
“Was he dead when he was placed on the windshield?” Ted asked.
“We don’t have the full report yet, but the forensic guys on the scene think because of the blood spray that he was alive until he bled out.”
“Dear Lord,” Mia said. She closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them, she saw five sets of eyes on her. “Sorry, I’m not a fan of horror, especially when it’s real,” she explained.
“I am sorry to subject you to this Mia but…”
“This is my area of expertise,” she finished.
“Missus Blackwell!” Murphy exclaimed.
Mia nodded. “Yes, Alice May Blackwell’s mother. I saw her in the vision walk. I bet you knew her.”
Murphy nodded, his face clouded over with rage.
“She was one of the bad ones at the hollow, wasn’t she?”
He nodded again.
The men watched Mia converse with Murphy. Tom and Ted could see Murphy, but Cid and Ryan could only see the sensitive.
Mia turned around and explained, “Her name is Honor Blackwell. She became one of Steele’s acolytes. She must not have burned in the fire with the rest of them. Perhaps she was away or stayed safe in the middle house. Anyway, she’s as bad as he was. She was responsible for Chastity Murphy meeting Morris Steele.”
“If she’s from the hollow, why is she haunting the Big Bear Lake graveyard?” Ryan asked.
“Forgive me for reminding you that, that graveyard wasn’t built on consecrated ground. It is ripe with things that I’m not comfortable talking about in mixed company,” Mia claimed.
“Do you think she’s our killer?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know? She’s played a part in it, but I wasn’t there, and I haven’t talked to her,” Mia pointed out. She prayed they didn’t want her to talk to Honor Blackwell. She didn’t want to step foot in that graveyard. She knew she wasn’t that strong.
“Mia, I was looking over your and Whit’s notes,” Cid began, “and William Blackwell owned one of the burnt-out houses.”
“That’s true, but I saw Alice May Blackwell enter the middle house where her mother was supervising…” Mia’s face lit up. She turned to Murphy and asked, “Did William build a house for his eldest daughter and children?”
Murphy nodded.
“Did they perish in the fire?”
Murphy shrugged his shoulders. He patted his chest and said, “Dead.”
Mia’s gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry, Murph. I forgot.” She turned back to the others and explained, “Murphy was killed prior to the fire. He doesn’t know anything about what happened to the people there. Not firsthand anyway.”
“Has anything strange been going on here or at the hollow?” Ryan asked.
“Depends on your meaning of strange,” Ted said. He raised a finger and began counting off. “We had a visit from a team of spirit hunters who claim a soul-jumper has taken asylum in the middle house.” He raised another finger. “One Feather, a residual fellow that haunted the hillside for hundreds of years, was reanimated and taken over by one of the original ghouls, probably the one that killed Sherry Martin. And over in Greenville, a wealthy Chicagoan was soul-jumped by this thing and walked out of the hospital with injuries that should have kept him unconscious for days.” He held up a third finger. “I guess that’s it?” he questioned, looking at Mia, Murphy and Cid.
“That qualifies as strange, but is it connected to the killing in the graveyard?” Ryan asked.
“Why so public?” Cid asked. “I mean, if we go under the assumption that Randy was sacrificed to draw power, why do so and display your kill in such a public way?”
“I spent quite a lot of time in the third world, son. When a new thug or warlord took control of an area, they would sometimes kill the opposition and display the corpse to announce their arrival. Cement in the minds of the locals that this was now their territory. Like pissing on a wall,” Ryan explained.
Everyone was quiet. Mia walked over and poured herself another cup of coffee as if she needed to connect with something normal, tether herself to this world for just a moment.
“Mia, are you alright?” Ted asked softly.
She nodded, deep in thought. She sat back down and cleared her voice and spoke, “If our soul-jumper is in Chicago, then who is running the show here in the hollow? Who is the power source? Perhaps it was happenstance that Lorna and Tonia showed up. Perhaps this Brentwood character wasn’t seeking asylum at all but was called. Something strong has been woken up and is now displaying its claws.”
“It’s not just flexing its claws, as you say, Mia, but I fear it has thrown down the gauntlet and has declared war with the living,” Ryan said. “We need to call in the big guns, and we need to do it now.”
> Mia watched mutely as John Ryan made a list. She looked over the names: Angelo Michaels, Father Santos, Beverly Cooper, Sabine, Gerald Shem. “Take Sabine’s name off the list. She’s recently given birth and has three babies and a sick husband to care for. Add Refugia and He-who-walks-through-time. You know them as Judy and Ed. Ted, can you think of anyone else?”
“The rest of the PEEPs team,” he said.
“I just assumed that,” Mia said.
“Lorna Grainger and Tonia Toh,” he listed. T O H, he spelled out for Ryan’s benefit.
Mia looked over at Cid and asked, “Do you have anyone?”
“What about that guy down in Haiti?”
“Judge Roumain. Let me get this straight, you want to ask the king of Purgatory to come out and play?” Mia asked amazed.
Ryan and Tom looked at each other. They weren’t familiar with the judge. Tom had met Ed and Judy at the wedding, but this Roumain character they had yet to meet.
“Yes, I just don’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“Maybe Komal,” Mia said. “If we are going to ask Judy and Ed, they could see if Komal could …”
“Mia, you can’t be serious,” Ted said sharply.
“Hold on, Cid has a good idea, but I’m not sure the judge would think so. He’s a wild card, Cid. He stands in the balance of the afterlife. Tell you what, we could ask Komal to give Roumain a heads-up to what is going on here and leave it at that,” Mia suggested.
~
Gerald Shem looked at the handset to his business phone as if it were an alien device. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. He put the receiver to his ear and asked again, “Could you repeat that?”
“You’ve been leveraged out of The Hollow Conservation Group. Maynard Industrial has purchased all but your shares and is taking over the project,” his business manager informed him. “My recommendation is to sell your shares. You don’t want your good name to be linked to Maynard Industrial. They’re into fracking, for god’s sake.”
“When did this happen?” Gerald asked stunned.