+++
“Eliot, NO!” Melinda yelled, over and over until her voice cracked. “How could you!?”
“Please, for God’s sake, stop showing her! You evil beings, I’ve paid for my crimes for twenty years, and will surely pay in the afterlife, please leave my love out of this!”
But the phantoms didn’t care.
+++
“We haff good time, no?” the young hooker said as she slid her dress to the floor. The Safe Room was chilly and dank, but she didn’t care. She was about to lay the owner of Hawthorn Island himself, and that made her very happy, for she knew there would be a truckload of money in it for her down the line.
“Oh, yes, I think we’ll have lots of fun.”
She didn’t notice the dark red stains on the floor or the walls. She didn’t notice the pieces of rope tied to the cot, or the chains anchored to the wall. She simply climbed on the bed in a sultry fashion, and spread her tanned legs open just slightly, suggestively, not in the typically whorish way as she’d been taught to in Cuba.
“Do you like wha you see, señor?”
Eliot let out a mischievous laugh. “Yes, indeed.” He slowly opened a metal cabinet across from the cot and removed a blindfold. “Put this on, I would like that,” he said in a low, breathy voice full of anticipation.
“Oh ho ho!” she said shaking her finger at Eliot, “a naughty one! Sí, I put it on.” She slid the blindfold over her eyes and lay flat on the cot. Moving quickly, Eliot tied her hands, then her ankles, to the bed frame.
“Oh, my, Señor Hawthor’, you are so keenkee!”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, sister,” he said under his breath, and taking a small axe in hand, mounted her.
+++
“Enough!” Melinda cried, tears streaking her haggard face. “Enough, I don’t want to see any more.”
Hawthorn had given up trying to stop the phantoms. He simply slumped in the chair, his head hung low and sorrowful. Jessica, to my right, seemed to be in some sort of trance, her eyes fixed on the ghostly woman next to Hawthorn. Me? I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Things were so far out, I couldn’t be sure I was really seeing them or if one of the chicks slipped me a mickey. Either way, things got even heavier as the show went on.
+++
Eliot knelt in a pool of blood and other bodily fluids as they soaked into the cot. Before him lay the ruins of a girl, not yet eighteen, dead and bloody beyond recognition. Her hands were severed from her arms. Her once beautiful, full breasts were a mound of torn flesh and chopped, broken ribs. The axe was still imbedded in her heart, the final blow that ended her torment. Eliot was covered in blood, was soaked with it. And finally, he was sated. At least for a while.
+++
The images swirled around my head like strawberries in a blender. Was this insanity really true? Eliot Hawthorn, a murderer? And a crazy fucking psychopath at that? It was too much. I knew I was just an unlucky observer in someone else’s nightmare, but I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“How many, Hawthorn?” I yelled over the sounds of the phantoms, in a much angrier voice than I intended. “How many, you sonofabitch?”
“Twelve!” he shouted at the top of his ancient lungs as if his volume would acquit him.
Strangely, everything went quiet. “Twelve, plus three,” he finished softly.
It was on the “plus three” that all hell really broke loose.
Sunday, August 30th, 1935
Sunday was as calm and non-threatening as Saturday had been, with the exception of that evil, eerie darkness lingering in the east and an occasional gust of wind blowing through the tops of the palms. There was no doubt now; the weather service issued a hurricane warning for all of the Florida Keys.
Eliot sat on the veranda of his elegant island home, sipping bourbon and ginger ale from a tall glass. The island was now deserted except for his wife Vivian, his best friend Gregor, and Rose. Rose was tucked safely away in the boathouse where no one would find her. Gregor was stowing the last of the luggage on his boat. From Eliot’s position he could see Gregor, the boat, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Strange images floated over Eliot’s mind as he made his way down to the dock, lazily twirling a nine-iron. It had been months since he learned of his friend’s secret, but the memory still burned in his mind as if it were still happening. Gregor had no idea that Eliot knew. But he soon would.
“Ahoy there, captain!” Eliot hollered to Gregor as he approached the dock. “All set?”
“Ah, just about, Eliot. What’s with the golf club?”
“Oh this?” Eliot asked, looking at the club as he raised it to eye level. “This is for you.” Without hesitation he whipped the club around and landed it squarely against Gregor’s temple, a whack hard enough to knock Gregor to the ground. He squirmed in pain, holding his hand against his bleeding, broken skull.
“My God, Eliot? What on earth did you…why?”
“I know about you and Vivian, old chum.”
Gregor rolled with pain. “Jes…Jesus, Eli..Whatever you think…”
“I saw you with my own eyes, old chum. Two months ago, in the cloakroom. I suppose you thought I’d retired for the night. I hadn’t.”
“Eli-Eliot, wait, I can explain, the parties, everyone was partaking…”
“Not Vivian. She has a strict rule about not sleeping with anyone at the sex parties. Which can mean only one thing, old chum. She was having an affair, with you.”
“It’s not…OW!” Gregor screamed as Eliot smashed his left kneecap with the club. “Christ, Eliot! Please, I swear it was only an indiscretion. Eliot… we’ve been best friends for fifteen years!”
“Yes,” Eliot said sadly, “Fifteen years. And no longer.” With that, Eliot lifted the heavy club high into the air and brought it down fast and hard, dead-center on Gregor’s forehead. Gregor barely had time moan before he passed out. Eliot repeated the action twenty-four times, counting each time, until Gregor’s lifeless body was completely unrecognizable. “Sorry, old chum,” he said to the bloody mass that was once Gregor’s face. “It seems I’ve gone over par.”
+++
Black and gray clouds formed inside the Safe Room, growing from nothing and covering the ceiling. Real lightning struck from them to the floor and furniture; the thunderous cracks shattered our eardrums and brought us all to our knees. The hurricane wind began to blow around us, and I knew that the storm had reached its solitary victim.
+++
Eliot walked along the beach, the bloody club dripping by his side. He had no remorse for murdering his friend. It was all part of the plan, all part of his final solution to ending his old life and starting anew. Everything was falling into place…even Mother Nature was cooperating fully, holding off the hurricane until the following day. In a little more than twenty-four hours he would be completely free, and would never need to return to Hawthorn Island with all its horrors again.
Up ahead, walking in the surf was Vivian, her shoes in hand, her white dress and hat flowing in the breeze. He gained on her steadily but softly, twirling the club in that nonchalant way that was so unnervingly disturbing. In a moment, he was upon her.
“Going golfing, Eliot?” she asked sweetly, not noticing the dark red essence of her former lover dripping from the metal.
Eliot got right to the point. “Vivian, I know about you and Gregor.”
“I know,” she answered, looking out over the Gulf. “I could tell by your demeanor these last weeks.”
“Why?” Eliot asked, almost childishly. He hated himself for that.
“Why indeed,” she said looking down. “Things have gone much too far, Eliot. You’ve changed. Our whole world has changed. I pretend to look away, but I know about the…the women. The women who…disappear. I can’t stand idly by as you continue this travesty, Eliot. And so…And so I’m leaving you, this weekend. I’ll shove off with Gregor, and we shan’t have to see each other again. Our lawyers can hash out the details. You can keep the Isla
nd for yourself. I don’t want anything to do with it ever again.”
Eliot was as cold as ice on steel in the dead of January. “No, Vivian. That won’t do.”
“It will have to. My mind is set.” She looked out at the Gulf, as if she knew it would be the last time. “I’m leaving Hawthorn Island forever.”
“On the contrary,” Eliot said as he cocked back the club, “You’re going to spend eternity right here, with your dead lover.” And before she even had a chance to cry out, with nothing but a look of shock and a short gasp from her throat, Eliot Hawthorn swung the iron golf club with as much force as he could muster and drove it into the middle of Vivian’s face, shattering it instantly, driving the bones deep into her brain.
+++
My mind was so screwed over that I couldn’t tell reality from hallucination. Had the storm somehow entered the Safe Room, or did it rip the building down and expose us to the elements? Heavy rain pelted us, lightning surrounded us. The black wall of phantoms seemed to stretch on forever. Then with a mighty crack, the walls exploded, allowing the dark waters of the Gulf to come pouring in around us.
It was then the horrid specter of Jessica’s mother seemed to grow ten times her size, and swirling around the room like a whirlpool I could hear her harsh voice spatter, “It’s time, it’s time.” In the center of it all, Hawthorn’s screaming body was carried up by the ragged ghosts, twisting him, tossing him. Water circled around my legs and pulled me down, but I managed to grab onto a table for support. It was too dark to see Melinda or Jessica now; only during the flashes of lightning could I see the phantoms tormenting Hawthorn.
“For God’s sake, Riggins, do something!” I heard his scream over the cacophony of wind and rain. “Help me!” He wasn’t ready to meet his fate after all. But there wasn’t a damned thing I could…or would for that matter…do to help the bastard. “HELP ME!”
+++
“Help me!” Vivian cried as she tumbled to the sand. Her vibrant, crimson blood gushed from the hole in her face and splashed across her white dress. Her hands involuntarily clawed at her smashed face, trying to find her eyes, her nose. Her breath was labored. With a gurgling sound she said, “I never…thought…you would…kill me.”
“You were exceptionally incorrect,” Eliot said, and swung the club as if aiming for the eighteenth hole. Vivian Hawthorn was dead within seconds.
Eliot dragged her limp body up from the beach, through the thicket of palms to the garden, and laid her body next to Gregor’s. He removed the support of a nearby cement bench, and dropped it on her face to make sure identification was impossible. When he did the same to Gregor, his skull collapsed entirely, leaving a surreal, flattened mass where his head once was. Eliot then tossed the cement support a few feet away, went inside his mansion, poured another bourbon, and took a shower. Soon, he would bring his whore into the house, ravage her in his and Vivian’s bedroom, desecrating their marital bed. One last spike through his unfaithful wife’s heart before finalizing his plan.
The next day Eliot made sure there was a length of heavy, lead pipe on the boat. The golf club just wasn’t heavy enough to quickly and efficiently finish the job he intended for Rose.
+++
“MURDERER!” Screamed the phantoms as they pulled on Hawthorn, twirling him around like a ragdoll. “PERVERT! WRETCH”
The ocean was pouring in at a quick rate, so quick that I figured it would be less than five minutes before we suffered a freezing, drowning death. As my eyes adjusted to the light I could see Jessica, shivering, clinging to the bar. Melinda, on the other hand, had somehow managed to conjure the courage to insinuate herself among the phantoms, trying desperately to free Hawthorn from their grip. Her efforts failed.
The water was at waist-level now. All I could think of was getting to higher ground, maybe finding something to float on. Tables and chairs floated by, crashing against each other. To my left was Jessica at the bar, to my right Melinda and Hawthorn among the spirits. The doorway to the stairwell was blocked.
I slowly sloshed my way over to Jessica. She looked at me with such a combination of sorrow and terror, I didn’t know whether to hold her or put a bullet in her head to relieve her misery. Then I realized, for the first time, what her torment was actually like. Her dead mother coming to her for so many years. The phantoms in the night. The torment, the terror. No wonder she shot up with heroin. Most people would have just jumped off the highest bridge they could find. “Jessica, do you…”
I didn’t get a chance to finish asking if she knew another way out. Before I could she screamed at the top of her lungs, “JUST GET IT OVER WITH AND LEAVE US ALONE!”
They say a mother’s love for her daughter lives on forever, even after the body dies. I believe that to be true. As Jessica screamed, Rose emerged from the bramble of spirits and came to us. As she did, the wind and rain died away, the lightning and thunder inside the room subsided. The water calmed. A light grew from above, and stayed lit.
“You got what you came for,” Jessica cried. She was still shaking, cold and wet. Sadly she muttered to her mother’s spirit, “You’ve got him, finally, after all these years you’ve got your revenge. Can you just leave us alone now?”
As the phantom of Rose hovered in front of us, the hideous countenance changed subtly; the small crabs and mud disappeared, and the true face of Rose shined through, smiling. “My precious daughter,” the phantom said, “Yes, now that you know, now that you know everything, we can leave in peace.”
A rumbling noise came from behind the bar, and the room shook hard. Glasses fell off the shelves and shattered. The mirror cracked and fell to pieces, and the entire wall gave way, exposing the night outside, the beach, and the angry Gulf. “We can leave now. Goodbye, my daughter.”
Jessica wept quietly. “We’re leaving,” the ghost said again. Rose’s face turned black and skeletal as she shrieked the words. “And we’re taking HIM with us!”
And with that the drums began to beat again, louder and heavier and more menacing than before, and the entire roomful of phantoms began shrieking and screaming, ripping through the air like jets, carrying Hawthorn away on their misty backs. Hawthorn screamed over and over again with a horrified yell as the phantoms carried him out through the broken wall, over the beach and into the raging surf. The struggling, screaming man, mad with horror, crazed with the knowledge of his fate screamed again and again until his screams were finally drowned in the Gulf. Melinda tried desperately to follow him, to save him, but the wall sealed itself up before she could reach it. Hawthorn was gone, tied to his fate, murdered in the ocean by those he had murdered in the past.
And as if that were the final curtain on a horrifying play, the storm clouds retreated from the room. The water drained away, leaving a soggy, mucky mess. The emergency lights came back up dull and white. All was quiet, except for the distant, muffled sounds of the storm topside.
Jessica sat on the bar, crying. Melinda dropped to her knees and cried too, wailing with such sorrow I though she would die right there of a broken heart. As for me? I walked over to the bar, opened a new bottle of eighteen year old Scotch, and poured myself a triple. Raising the glass, I said quietly to myself, “Happy Halloween,” and downed the drink in one shot.
+++
The hours after Hawthorn was…taken away, were very surreal, like walking through whipped cream with a bad headache. Melinda sat in a heap on the floor sobbing. Jessica sat in a captain’s chair, staring at the wall through which the apparitions departed. The sloshing water was gone, leaving only a clinging wetness that dampened the room. The roar of the storm outside had let up too.
I found a door at the very end of the room, next to the bar; a heavy carved teak door, inlaid with mother of pearl and depicting a Hawaiian sunset. I figured behind it was Hawthorn’s private office or room.
I was right, although it was more of an anti-chamber than an office. There was a desk, but I believed it to be purely ornamental as there were no papers or even a pe
n on it, just an electric clock and brass lamp. There were several sofas and over-stuffed chairs, and the walls were lined with lawyers’ bookshelves, the kind with the glass doors covering them. There were books, mostly standard classics, along with some knick-knacks and very expensive-looking bottles of booze behind the glass. But I found what I was looking for in the bottom desk drawer.
The leather case held a hypodermic needle, two vials of liquid, and two vials of pills. One of the vials was marked Valium. I took it and returned the case to the drawer.
“Take these,” I said softly to Jessica. “Two will knock you out for a few hours.”
I hated giving a junkie drugs, but under the circumstances it was a necessity. With lifeless obedience she swallowed the pills.
“Melinda,” I said, “Take these pills. They’ll get you through the night.” With the same silent, limp manner she swallowed the pills down with a whiskey chaser.
“Now let’s go into the other room. There’s sofas in there where we can crash ’til this storm flies over.”
“Storm’s over,” Jessica said in a raspy, weak voice. “It got what it came for.”
I didn’t want to think about that just yet. The Jello I was wading through was becoming thicker, the whipped cream sloppier. I knew my mind and my body couldn’t take much more before I’d collapse for a week, and I needed to get the kids to bed before they passed out on the floor.
“Let’s go in here anyway. Sleepy time down south, girls. Let’s vamoose.”
Like zombies the two women followed me into the anti-chamber. I laid Melinda down on the big couch, and Jessica on a smaller love seat. The pills were working fast, and I’m pretty sure Jessica was out before I sat in the big chair.
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 46