The Garden (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “I appreciate your concern, but this is the choice I made when I did what I did.”

  The other guard exited the cell, and the young man followed him but stopped a moment to place a slip of paper in the inmate’s hand. He signaled and the door shut, giving the illusion of separateness in this box of damaged men. The inmate waited until the guards moved on before moving to his cot. He sat down and opened the piece of paper tenderly folded and sealed with a small disc of wax.

  Hagan broke the seal. As the red wax crumbled away and the paper was opened, he puzzled as to why he had received it in the first place. But the message was for him. His eyes clouded with tears, and a sob pushed out of his tightly controlled throat as he read it.

  I know your torment, and I pray for you each day. May your strength continue and your will be strong. Without you, all is lost.

  Father Santos

  ~

  Ralph sat at Mia’s desk fiddling with her laptop computer. He was waiting for her to finish getting dressed so they could go on the promised day of beauty Mia had agreed to attend with him. “What is taking her so long?” Ralph turned, and from his vantage point he could see his pseudo goddaughter fiddling with a wand of some kind in the master bathroom. He got up and inched over to the doorway and overheard her.

  “Fuck this, I can’t see if it’s a plus or a minus,” she said, moving the wand to get better light.

  Ralph, overcome with excitement, forgot himself, ran into the bathroom, and picked her up in his arms and swung her around. “I’m going to be a grandpa!”

  “Whoa! Put me down,” Mia ordered. “What gives you that idea?”

  “The plus, the minus, the pregnancy test,” he listed.

  “The positive and negative of the battery case in my automatic toothbrush,” Mia explained, holding out the device and triple-A battery to Ralph. “In this light I can’t see a thing.”

  “So, no grandchild,” he said disappointed.

  “I’m sorry, but one has to have sex to have kids and so far no, nada, nothing.”

  “You’re kidding. What’s wrong with the boy? Do you think he bats for our team? I didn’t get a vibe. Fooled Bernard too.”

  “Sorry to disappoint my gay godfathers, but Ted and I are taking things slow. He is courting me. He says I can’t take advantage of his joystick until we are sure that it’s love and not just infatuation.”

  “Where’s this boy from? In this day and age…”

  “Before you give me your sordid history, ew, by the way, let me point out that Ted has never, um, had relations with a woman before.”

  “No! What’s wrong with him?”

  “Hold on, just because you’re an under the bleacher type of guy… Ted hadn’t the opportunity of, well, you know.”

  “Must make you feel like a slut,” Ralph said, trying to get a rise out of her.

  “No, actually, treasured. All Ted’s ideas about relationships come from comic books. Sure I bet he’s whacked off…”

  “Stop!” Ralph held up his hand. “You’re my goddaughter, for cripes sake, you can’t talk to me about masturbation!” He blushed and turned his head away from Mia.

  This caused her to laugh and say, “Slapping the monkey, peeling the banana…”

  “Stop it! Honestly, Mia, you have no manners.”

  “He wants it to be right. I agree. Things will happen at the right time. I’m honored he’s taking it slow considering there has to be a backload of sperm large enough to blow the poor guy’s…”

  “Not another word! I’m going to have a talk with Bernard about sending you to charm school. I think they still have them.”

  Mia reached around and hugged Ralph. “Oh, Ralph, I’m just having my way with you. I’ll be good. I have company manners, I swears it,” Mia said in a voice suspiciously close to Gollum’s.

  “You really are too much. But you’re happy aren’t you?”

  Mia got up and danced around the room before twirling to a stop in from of him. “I am so happy that I feel guilty. I should divide up my happiness and share it with others, I have so much. I have a man that loves me for who I am. He doesn’t try to change me. Isn’t afraid to talk to me about anything. Doesn’t mind that I live between two worlds at times. Protects me. Honors me. Defends me. Need I go on?” she asked.

  Ralph smiled. “This is how Bernard makes me feel. I’d say the boy is worth waiting for.” He sighed. “You didn’t feel this way with Whit?”

  “I loved Whit, part of me still does, but Whit was more of a phase than a relationship. Burt, now, that was different, at least I think it was. Burt made me sad. Whit did too. Ted’s insults about my eating habits can’t even bring a frown to this face.” Mia demonstrated by trying to frown and a smile crept up from one side to the other. She looked so funny that Ralph broke into hysterical laughter.

  “See, that’s what Ted does for me.”

  “Congratulations, Mia, you’re in love.”

  “It’s about time. Speaking of time, we better hurry. Once they get a look at the state of my nails, they’re going to be very cranky, and if we’re late, I fear they will toss us out.” Mia showed Ralph her chewed and broken nails.

  “I’m not sure if I have a goddaughter or godson at times. Get a move on, lady!”

  Mia jammed all her necessary items into one of the small backpacks she carried instead of a purse. She met Ralph at the door, and the two of them braved the February cold together.

  ~

  Alan put down the phone. His conversation with Richard Kowalski was very illuminating. The Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners had not only saved their lives, but brought peace to Richard’s and his mother in-law’s homes. He hadn’t minded the publicity because his daughter Gwen was safe now. Alan had his assistant Brenda run background checks on the present employees of PEEPs. They all came back with clean slates. There was a bit of a gray area in Mia Cooper’s juvenile record which was closed. Brenda said the clerk gave her a wink that it was nothing that their firm needed to be worried about.

  Alan reached for his intercom. “Brenda, if you have a moment, could you drop in?”

  “On my way, sir.”

  Brenda Wells was the gem of their firm. She had thirty years of legal secretary experience, a professional attitude which rivaled all others, and a personality that made clients instantly feel at ease. She walked into the office, moving her large-sized frame as if she were a ballet dancer. Today she had chosen a figure hugging electric blue suit that complemented her dark skin. As with most of her peers, Brenda chose to straighten her black curls and wear her hair up in a French twist.

  “You’re looking too hot this morning, Brenda. You’re going to send me back to gender harassment class if you keep this up.”

  Brenda pursed her lips to negate the appreciative smile that was tugging at the edges of her mouth. “Young scamp, you’re just fooling with this old lady’s heart. I told you in the beginning, if we are going to make this work, you’re going to have to be professional,” she scolded him half-heartedly.

  Brenda smiled remembering their first day together. Alan had arrived with his tie crooked and mismatched socks. He had been hired, sight unseen, after his internship with a rival firm. The patriarch of the firm discussed his qualifications with Brenda before he made the offer to Alan. Brenda thought Alan needed seasoning, and her boss agreed. He asked her to mentor him. Brenda, after meeting the young man, approved. It meant a postponement of her promotion as head executive legal secretary but not a postponement of her salary increase. She knew she made the right choice. Alan was raw but trainable. He didn’t have the type of arrogance that most of the new hires did. He was brilliant but not bossy.

  “Sit down, Brenda, we need to have a confab,” Alan requested.

  “Is this a beverage type of confabulation or a dry one?”

  “Let’s start and see where it takes us.”

  “Very well.” Brenda sat down in one of the large wing chairs Alan had refinished on her advice: “No one wants to feel p
inched when they are in a bad time in their life. It’s bad enough we pinch their wallets, best not their hind ends in small cheap chairs.”

  “This is regarding the Hagan Fowler property.”

  “Ah, ghost central.”

  “I’m a bit surprised; you never mentioned having a problem at the mansion to me.”

  Brenda waved her hand dismissively. “No ghost is going to stop me from my work, no siree Bob.”

  “I didn’t know until yesterday that the house was haunted. When did you know?”

  “Right from the moment I entered that library. There I was getting settled, and I feel eyes on me. Reminded me how the librarians looked at me and my sisters when we were looking for books. They used to follow us, convinced we were going to steal something. This was the same type of feeling. I just started right out and announced to the room, ‘Listen here, I’m not going to take anything. I’m just making a list, so I would be pleased if you would leave me be.’ After that, I may have found some books moved out of place, not like it was messing with me, but actually helping me to finish my job and get the hell out of the library.”

  “So you weren’t disturbed being in there alone with the ghost?”

  “The presence in the room no, although, I wouldn’t want it mad at me. It was those gossipy maids going up and down the hall, talking a mile a minute that disturbed me. I couldn’t get those gals to stop. Finally, I gave up and shut the door. The ghost inside promptly opened the door. We played that game for a while before I called it a day. It likes the door open.”

  “Yes, Audrey… Miss McCarthy,” he corrected. “We had the same experience.”

  “How does she feel about the ghosts?” Brenda asked.

  “She was more worried about the lack of peace there would be in the building for the future houseguests than for her own safety. She recommended a group to help us move these critters along.”

  “Messing with ghosts isn’t a good thing. Right now they’re putting up with us, but you mess with them and holy hell is going to break out,” Brenda cautioned.

  “I just talked with a man who had a problem worse than ours. This PEEPs group solved it. I know every case is different, but I would really like to get the Gruber mansion into the hands of a group that needs the space. Otherwise I’m going to have to find another use for the building. Hagan has his heart set on the abuse shelter.”

  “Hagan Fowler, now that brings me back. What a horrific young man he was. Did he find God or something? He seemed eight shades of nasty when he was on trial.”

  “Hagan is a man under a lot of personal stress. He believes that he has evil inside of him. He turned down parole after Gruber’s lawyers argued that he was mentally ill at the time of his episode.”

  “Episode? Is that what they call killing your parents, brothers and sister? Hacking them to pieces and burying them in the vegetable garden? An episode, indeed.”

  Alan raised his hand to stop Brenda from continuing. “Hagan agrees with you. He knows what he did. He acknowledges that he could have at any time gone for help and stopped the slaughter, but he wasn’t able to control himself after his father beat him that last time. His father had been beating that poor boy for years. The whole family was abused by the pillar of their small town. Everyone turned away and pretended not to see the bruises, blackened eyes and broken bones. This went on for years.”

  “By why kill the family?”

  “Hagan confessed that once he opened himself up to the rage he couldn’t stop. It was like he asked evil in and evil stayed. The poor son of a bitch believes that he has to keep himself alive to stop the evil from finding another host. That’s why we are working out an agreement to have him moved to a white collar prison where he can live out a long life of incarceration, in exchange for his property and assets being used to aid the victims of abuse.”

  “Why do you think the old lady willed the property to him in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. Hagan was receiving letters from her but had no idea she was using her fortune to fund his early parole. She wanted him to have her garden. The day he should have been paroled she hung herself, making way for him to take over.”

  “I bet she’s pissed at him.”

  “We will never know. He could have given the property to her original heirs, but something she had written to him stopped him.”

  “What was that?”

  “He won’t say.”

  “Oh. So what is your next course of action?”

  “Our,” Alan said. “I say our as you’re in this fifty-fifty with me, partner. Our next step is to hire us some PEEPs and clean out that mansion. A clean sweep of ghosties, ghouls and whatever has taken residence there.”

  “Would an Amen go amiss, Mister Jefferies?”

  “No, I think it would be quite proper, Brenda.”

  “Amen!” they said together, shaking hands.

  Chapter Four

  “Dr. Cooper, paging Dr. Mia Cooper,” a voice announced, causing Mia to sit up too quickly and lose her cucumber slices.

  “I’m Cooper,” she said, not wanting to continue the deception of being a doctor. What if someone at the spa had an attack? Who had the audacity, with the exception of Ted, to pin a degree to her name, let alone disturb her day of beauty?

  The aide, dressed in a scrub uniform of bright melon, handed her the portable phone.

  “Thank you.” Mia took the phone and waited until the aide moved a respectable ten feet away. “Cooper here.”

  “Sorry about the doctor, but the lioness in reception wouldn’t put through my call unless it was an emergency,” Mike Dupree explained.

  “And the emergency is?” Mia asked.

  “We have the possibility of making some major dollars and cents if PEEPs can produce two investigators to make a late afternoon meeting today in downtown Chicago. I’m here at my condo all prepared.”

  “What about Dr. Martin?” Mia asked, conscious that the aide was listening in on her side of the conversation.

  “Honestly, he’s willing to stop his drywall project and help me out but - Mia, don’t take offence - but your new dude doesn’t fit the image I want for this meeting. He’s too…”

  “Exuberant,” Mia filled in. “I have a haircut and style scheduled for eleven. After that I can leave. But I need to break it to Ralph, find a way home, and then travel downtown. I’m not sure I can…”

  “Tell you what. I will send a car to bring you to my condo. We can leave together from there, and I’ll pay your fare back home.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “How are you fixed for clothes?” he asked timidly.

  “I’m here with Ralph, I assure you I will be dressed appropriately,” she informed him. “Have the car here at twelve-thirty.” She ended the call and signaled to the aide that she was finished. “Thank you for your patience. I need to get a message to Mr. Mendelssohn.”

  The aide dug into her pocket and produced a pad of paper and handed it to her along with a pen. Mia scratched out an apology, folded it over and handed it back to the pert woman. Mia memorized her name and made a mental note to tip the woman before leaving the spa. Ralph was teaching Mia how to behave in his world and would be horrified if she neglected this detail. The aide walked off, and Mia located the missing cucumber slices, put them over her eyes and lay back down. The seaweed wrap made her feel like sushi, but promises of soft skin and a radiant complexion, and twenty minutes away from Ralph’s constant chatter, had made her select this over a his and her massage. She shuddered to think of Ralph’s reaction to her bunking off and leaving him to eat the spa lunch of hedge clippings by himself. She would have to make it up to him.

  Mike’s call wasn’t unexpected. Ever since they initiated the move of PEEPs to the northern Illinois area, she had been on Mike’s speed dial. Since Burt was closing up things in Summerville, Kansas, Mike had volunteered to take over the relocation on this end.

  The founding partners decided to rent half of Ted’s converted barn s
pace, and Burt would be rooming with Ted until he could find an apartment to rent. Cid was already staying with Ted, helping him with the needed renovations. The young man hadn’t committed to becoming a full time PEEPs investigator but was game to help out until they could replace the fired Beth. They were short on the research end. Mia and Ted would have to fill in until a suitable replacement could be found.

  ~

  The ULockit security team had finished their sweep of the mansion. The dogs, nervous at first, moved like a team through the house. No evidence of squatters was found. New locks were installed on all exit doors. Windows were checked from basement to attic. The team of professionals left no corner untouched. If there were invaders in this abode, they didn’t come from this dimension.

  ~

  “Thank you. Yes, I will notify Mr. Jefferies,” Brenda said before disconnecting the call. The office door opened, and Alan’s three o-clock appointment walked in. Her previous research into the Paranormal Entities Exposure Partners involved viewing a few investigation shows. She recognized Mike Dupree and appreciated his dark good looks. He had an easy smile and a well-developed body. The woman next to him she hadn’t seen before. Her professionally-styled Nordic blonde hair and soft, moss green eyes gave her an otherworldly look. Her eyes moved around the room and stopped for a moment in the far corner of the office. Brenda looked over to see what was so interesting and found nothing but the twin, red leather club chairs Alan had rescued from an estate sale in Evanston.

  “You must be Mr. Dupree and Miss Cooper,” Brenda said standing up. “Mr. Jefferies is waiting for you.” Brenda moved gracefully around her desk and guided the couple into Alan’s office. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Could I inconvenience you for a very strong black coffee?” Mia asked and then explained, “I’ve been herbed tea-ed until I floated at the spa this morning. I can hardly think at this point.”

  Brenda smiled and nodded. “Mr. Dupree?”