“It’s worth a try. The worst that happens is he takes off again to parts unknown,” Sage replied.
Brody snickered. “If his apartment it high enough up, I’ll push him out the window before that can happen.”
“Brody…” Sage shook his head.
“Now what?” Mike asked. When Sage told him, he said, “Don’t even think about doing that, Brody. Understand?”
“I was kidding, although it would solve the problem and serve him right. He’d be getting as good as he gave.”
Sage debated telling Mike what Brody had said—and did anyway.
“While I agree, personally, the law frowns on revenge killings,” Mike said. “Right now, though, we need to put together various snippets that the ghosts of George’s two previous victims might say to him, if they could. Then Sage and I will record them onto separate recorders, one for each of you.”
For the next hour, they worked on coming up with things the two other victim ghosts might say, some generic, some specific to how they died. Kurt said he already knew what he’d say, and Sage wrote down his suggestions.
“Okay, that should be it for now,” Mike finally said. “When do we want to do this? I’m off tomorrow, so it can be anytime, day or night.”
“Yesterday? Last week?” Kurt muttered, getting a commiserating smile and a very surprising hug from Tonio.
“I know exactly how you feel,” Tonio told him when Kurt looked at him in shock. “I think we all do. I probably shouldn’t have hugged you but…” He shrugged.
“It’s okay,” Kurt replied. “It helps to know someone cares.”
Brody glanced at Jon and Sage, lifting an eyebrow in question. “Maybe?” Jon mouthed. Sage nodded.
Mike was unaware of what was happening and Sage kept it that way, for the moment. “I think Kurt would like to do it as soon as possible,” he said. “But I’m not sure it would be as frightening in daylight.”
“Good point,” Mike agreed. “Why don’t we meet back here around five tomorrow afternoon? By then Sage and I will have the recordings ready for you guys. We’ll go over the plan one more time then we’ll take you to George’s place and—” he grinned, “—you all can have fun driving him crazy.”
“Works for me,” Kurt said. “Let’s go home.”
“They’re gone,” Sage said seconds later. “And we have work to do.”
* * * *
When they were back at the boarding house, Brody asked Kurt, “Are you okay with what we’re planning?”
“Yeah. Honest truth, I wish you could shove him out a window. Or that I was able to. It’s what he deserves, damn it!”
“Easy, now,” Tonio said. “If you don’t ease back on your anger you’re going to be useless tomorrow.”
“Like you’d know.”
“Yeah, Kurt, I do. I’ve got a different type of…well, anger isn’t the right word for it, though in some ways it’s close.”
“You caught your killer. You can move on now. I’m stuck here if this doesn’t work, just like Jon.”
“It’s not so bad,” Jon protested.
“You’ve got someone who loves you,” Kurt retorted. “What do I have? Memories of someone who made me believe he cared and then murdered me.”
“You have friends,” Tonio said, putting his arm around Kurt’s shoulders. “Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet, but you do. If things don’t work out the way we hope, you’ve got us to keep you company. Is that so bad?”
“I guess not, although you’ll leave as soon as…” Kurt snapped his mouth shut. Pulling away from Tonio, he went into his room, wishing he could slam the door closed instead of going through it. He sank down on his bed, only to find Tonio beside him seconds later.
“I know what you were going to say and maybe you’re right. I might go, once I accept David doesn’t care if I stick around anymore.”
Kurt felt like a heel for even bringing it up. “I was upset. I had no right to say what I did.”
“I know and it’s okay.” Tonio sighed, leaning back on his hands. “It’s taking time, but I’m slowly beginning to face reality. It was a nice dream, that he’d still want me in his life; although without Sage he wouldn’t know I was there even if I was standing right beside him. He’s got Vern, now, which was what I hoped would happen, here.” Tonio tapped his forehead. “You can’t be in love with a ghost. Well, if you’re human, you can’t. He can love the memories of what we had together. But they’ll fade and new ones will take their place.”
“So you are ready to move on.”
“You asked me before and the answer’s still the same. I don’t know. As I said, I’ve got friends here. Good friends. Leaving them would be hard.” Tonio smiled, gazing off into space. “It might be harder to leave you and Brody and Jon behind than it would be to leave David, as strange as that might sound.”
“It’s not that strange. Love dies, when there’s nothing to sustain it. Friendship, if it’s real, goes on forever I think.” Kurt tapped Tonio’s arm. “Who knows? Maybe it can continue wherever we end up, if we do go to the—” he chuckled, making finger quotes, “—Great Beyond, whatever that might entail.”
Tonio nodded. “It would be nice if we did. It would only be you and me, if we can prove George killed you. Brody’s not leaving if Jon can’t. You know that.”
“Maybe Mike and Sage will show up when they die. Then it’ll be a foursome. Oh, boy, that didn’t come out right.”
Laughing, Tonio agreed. “Are you feeling better, now?”
“I think so. Deep down I know there was nothing I could have done to change what happened, other than not taking him up on his offer to go to dinner to begin with. He knew how to push every button to keep me with him. I’m sure he did the same with his other victims.”
“No kidding. It makes me wonder why. Did someone he loved screw him around and now he’s getting his revenge?”
“Maybe. He takes his time about it, but I guess he’d have to. The thrill probably comes from leading them…us on. Making us fall in love with him before he shows us it was all a sham on his part.” Kurt shuddered.
“Now, if everything works out the way we’ve planned, Mike will be able to put him behind bars for life.”
“And if it doesn’t…” Kurt smiled shyly at Tonio. “If it doesn’t, at least I’ll have someone I like to talk to.”
Tonio lifted an eyebrow. “As in someone you like to talk to? Or someone you like that you can talk to?”
“Both.”
“Honestly, the same goes for me,” Tonio replied. “Brody and Jon are good friends, but sometimes…”
“They’re obviously in love and it can get to you.”
“Exactly! I try not to be jealous but on occasion—especially after I’ve talked to David—I can’t help it. I used to have what they have and now it’s gone.”
Impulsively, Kurt hugged him. As always, when he touched Tonio, or the others, he was somewhat surprised his hand or arm didn’t go right through them. Because we’re all ghosts, I guess.
“Thank you,” Tonio said quietly.
“For caring?”
“For showing you do. It helps.”
Kurt nodded. “Then I’ll do it more often, when things get to you.”
“As long as I can repay the favor when you start getting down.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’d better get out of here before we get maudlin,” Tonio replied. “We both need sleep. It’s going to be a difficult night, tomorrow, especially for you, I suspect.”
“At least I’ll have you, all of you, there when it happens, even if all I can do stand and watch while you torment the bastard.” Kurt looked at his hands. “Someday…”
“It’ll happen. Then you can start taking photos again.”
“I hope. Okay, as you said, we’d better go get some rest. I hope I can sleep.”
“Dream of me, if you need incentive,” Tonio replied with a laugh before he walked through the wall into his room.
>
“Maybe I will,” Kurt said under his breath. “It would be better than worrying about tomorrow night by a long shot—and much more interesting.”
Chapter 8
It was Saturday evening and the ghosts were spread around the living room at George Neville’s, or as he was calling himself now, Norman Garrett’s apartment. Kurt, because there was nothing he could do but listen, stood beside the door to the hallway.
“At least here, I’ll know when he’s coming. That way I can be prepared.”
Tonio had nodded, giving him a thumbs-up. “Breathe deeply and remember he’s no one, a non-entity.”
Brody laughed. “I think non-entity is us.”
Right after they’d arrived at the apartment, Brody and Jon had moved a few things around. Brody got a cup from the kitchen, placing it upside-down on the corner of the coffee table. Jon had broken the glass on one of George’s family portraits asking rhetorically, “I wonder why he kept these.” Then he put it in the middle of the carpet between the sofa and an armchair. Tonio got into the spirit of what they were doing. Opening the coat closet, he tossed two jackets on the sofa. The last touch was Brody’s turning on the laptop sitting on the desk. With an evil grin, he opened a porn site, whistling as he asked, “Is that even possible?”
“Don’t forget the water,” Kurt said.
Brody smirked. “On it.” He set the recorder on the desk before going into the bathroom and Kurt heard the shower turn on and off. Brody returned, dripping wet, leaving puddles of water from the doorway to the middle of the room as if they come from Kurt’s drowned body. Moments later he was dry again and had put the recorder back in his pocket.
Then, they waited. Twenty minutes later, Kurt heard footsteps coming down the hallway, and then the sound of the key in the lock before the door opened. He felt a rush of emotions when George stepped into view—rage, attraction very briefly which horrified him, and disgust that the bastard looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If I could knock that smug look off his face…
“What the hell!” George spat out, looking around.
“Like my redecorating?” a disembodied voice said from one side of the room.
“Why did you drown me, George?” another voice asked.
“It hurt, Gerald. You hurt me,” said a third voice. “The car…” There was a sob.
“I loved you, Gordon,” the first voice moaned.
George spun around, looking for the sources of the voices. “Where are you hiding? Who are you?”
There was a pause, which Kurt knew meant Brody was finding the correct reply on his recording, listening through the ear bud until he got to it. His ear bud, and the ones Tonio and Jon were wearing, wouldn’t be visible to George as they were hidden on their persons, just as the recorders were hidden in their pockets and so a part of them. If they’d been holding them, they would have seemed to be floating in mid-air.
Brody turned up the sound again and…“We’re the men you murdered.”
“The ghosts of the men you said you loved.” The words came from Jon’s recording.
“You’re crazy if you think I’d believe that. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Kurt saw Tonio move swiftly to the sofa then a cushion seemed to levitate on its own—or so it would seem to George—before flying at him.
George ducked, shouting in fear. “This isn’t happening. It’s…it’s impossible.”
Another cushion rose into the air, moved a few feet, and dropped to the floor. Seconds later the sound from the porn site went up a decibel before going silent.
“Stop it, stop it! Leave me alone,” George cried out.
“You killed me.” “You murdered me.” “You drowned me.” The whispering voices came from three sides of the room. “You said you loved me, Gerald.” “You swore we would be together forever, Gordon.”
“Now, we will be, George. Forever.”
Kurt knew what was coming next, but it still surprised him that Brody could pull it off so quickly. He had vanished into the bathroom. When he came back his torso was soaked with water. He wrapped his arms around George and stepped back. George’s shirt was dripping wet.
“No,” George screamed. “Get away from me, Kurt. You can’t be here. You’re dead. I saw you drown. I held you under until I knew you were dead.”
“You shoved me in front of a car,” one of the voices said.
“Pushed me down the stairs,” said another one and suddenly George was stumbling across the room until he fell onto the sofa.
“It was an accident,” George whimpered. “I didn’t think you’d die.”
“It was murder,” all three voices said at the same time. One of them continued. “You said you loved us, and then you killed us. Did it make you feel powerful, knowing we were stupid enough to believe you? Did it give you a thrill, plotting our deaths?”
“You deserved it,” George cried out. “Stupid men who thought anyone could really love you, just like I believed…” He took a deep breath, his gaze flitting around the room. “You had it coming.”
The apartment door opened and Mike and Sage came into the room. “I’ve heard enough,” Mike said. “You are under arrest for the murders of Kurt Foster, James Parker, and Thomas Allen.”
“You’ll never prove it,” George said defiantly, trying to slither away from him across the sofa.
“I think your confession will do that for me,” Mike replied as he pulled George to his feet then cuffed him.
“You don’t even know who I am,” George blustered.
Mike smiled. “As of late this afternoon, I do. Your real name, your birth name, is Graham Nash.”
The wind seemed to go out of George’s sails. “They deserved it.”
“No one deserves to be murdered,” Sage said quietly.
George shot him a bitter look. “What do you know about it?”
Before Sage could reply, Mike ushered George out of the room. Sage paused long enough to get the recorder from Kurt, saying, “Not that we need it. Mike recorded everything.”
“But it’s backup,” Kurt replied as Sage took it from his pocket. He almost quipped “A little to the left,” and thought better of it. Now was not the time and Sage definitely wasn’t the man.
As Sage left the apartment a strange feeling came over Kurt, as if he was being pulled from the light into some dark, hollow void. He knew why—and fought it.
If Brody can stay, and Tonio, so can I. I don’t want to leave my friends. What’s there for me wherever I end up, other than loneliness?
He clenched his hands whispering, “I can do this. I can!”
“Looks like you have,” he heard Brody say. “Not sure why you want to stick around, but hey, it’s your choice, apparently.”
“It’ll drive me crazy if I don’t find out why he killed me and the others,” Kurt alibied with as much of a smile as he could muster.
“Hell of an excuse.” Tonio took Kurt’s hands, carefully uncurling his fingers. “If you were alive, you’d have dug holes in your palms with your nails. Now…what’s the real reason you didn’t leave?”
“You, and Brody and Jon. Even Mike and Sage. I haven’t known any of you very long, but I think you’re friends and I don’t desert friends if I can help it.” He squeezed Tonio’s hand. “Of course, now that I’m sticking around, you can’t vanish on us.”
Tonio grinned. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Unless you can think of a reason for us to stick around, let’s head home,” Brody said—and they did.
* * * *
Mike booked Graham Nash, aka George Neville, in on three counts of murder in the first degree. Nash had immediately asked for a lawyer and was allowed to call one. His arraignment was set for the following Monday morning. Until then, he’d remain in a jail cell.
“How did you find out who George really is?” Sage asked as he and Mike left the station house.
“Good detective work, and a lot of luck,” Mike replied. “I told you t
his morning that I was going into work, even though it’s my day off, to send out inquiries nationwide about accidental deaths that happened two years prior to when Thomas Allan died from the fall down the stairs. Ones that may have been murders or attempted murders, but couldn’t be proven as such, and involved anyone whose initials were GN. It’s a damned good thing I added that parameter. Even so, I got more responses than I expected because in my hurry I neglected to set an age range. After I weeded out anyone who wasn’t between the ages of twenty-six and thirty I had four men to look at. That’s where I got lucky. I ran a search for their driver’s licenses and Nash’s photo matched the other ones we had for George in his various guises.”
Sage nodded. “Had he tried to kill yet another boyfriend?”
“No. This is where it might be considered sad, if he hadn’t murdered all those men. According to the detective I spoke with, Nash was on the balcony of the apartment he shared with his lover when he plunged over the railing. The only reason he didn’t die was because he hit an awning three stories below the balcony. As it was, he spent six months recuperating from the fall. His lover claimed Nash had been leaning on the railing, reaching up to hang a potted plant, and lost his balance. There was a pot on the ground where he landed, which seemed to validate that. When he recovered enough to talk about the incident, Nash said he didn’t remember what had happened.”
“You think he was pushed.”
“The detective who investigated thought it was possible, but he couldn’t prove it, even though the pair had a reputation for violent arguments that sometimes turned physical. Anyway, Nash’s lover left town soon after it happened. When Nash was fully recuperated, he took off as well, leaving behind everything he owned except a couple of family portraits.”
“And then decided to pay back the lover in absentia, as it were, by murdering other men.”
“I think so, from what little he said at the end, before I stepped in to arrest him.”
“The guys did a fantastic job of scaring the shit out of him.”
Mike chuckled. “We knew they would, once you showed them how to pick the right responses off their recorders to match what was happening at the moment.” Sage had done that after Mike had left that morning, even adding a couple of whispery sentences that Brody had suggested to his recorder, just in case.
Dead and Hating It Page 7