Fire Spirit

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Hey, how’s Jeffrey?’ he asked them, standing up.

  ‘We’re hoping and we’re praying,’ Ruth told him. ‘There’s not much else we can do. The doctors seem to be pretty optimistic. But he’s not out of the woods yet, not by a long way. He could still go into shock, or get an infection.’

  ‘Listen, Ruth, I’m sure he’s going to make it,’ said Detective Magruder. ‘It’s amazing how they can treat burns these days. I saw a TV program about it a couple of weeks ago. They can even grow artificial skin, in case a burns victim doesn’t have enough spare skin of his own.’

  ‘So how are things going?’ Ruth asked him. ‘Has Jack been in touch with you about Nadine Gardner, and the way she and her horse got burned up?’

  ‘Yes, he has, and he’s going to call you about that. He said something about remains. “More of the same,” he said, whatever that means.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘I know what that means. I think I do, anyhow.’

  ‘But you ought to see what I’ve dug up,’ said Detective Magruder. He held up a black leather document case, as triumphantly as if it were a baseball trophy. ‘This is the main reason I came here to see you.’

  ‘Oh, yes? I thought you had that eager-puppy look on your face.’

  ‘Say what you like – you really need to hear this. Yesterday I called the superintendent’s office at the Indiana State Prison, and asked about your friend Pimo Jackson. It turns out that six weeks ago Pimo was sent from the ISP to the burns unit at Carmel Hospital for extensive plastic surgery on his face. But while he was being prepped for his surgery, he escaped.’

  ‘You’re kidding me! There was nothing about it on the news. Not that I saw, anyhow.’

  ‘The federal authorities sat on it, that’s why. Apparently, the corrections officer who was supposed to have been guarding him decided to take some unofficial time out while Pimo was on the operating table. He wanted to play doctors and nurses with a couple of nurses. And they weren’t female nurses, either.’

  ‘So . . . Pimo’s on the lam.’

  ‘Not just Pimo, either. Six days after he escaped, a prison bus was taking Pimo’s two brothers back to the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute from a rehab center in Indianapolis when it was ambushed by a man in a white mask. The bus driver was shot in the cheek and seriously injured. Pimo’s two brothers and three other unrelated inmates got clear away.’

  ‘I didn’t know that Pimo had any brothers.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Freddie and Karlo. And this is where it gets really interesting. When they were in their late teens and early twenties, they all used to live with their mother Velma in a house on South Home Avenue.’

  ‘I see. And?’

  ‘And their mother was a hopeless junkie, who used to sell herself two or three times a day to pay for her habit. But Pimo and Freddie and Karlo were whacked out of their heads, too, most of the time, and they used to have regular sex with her themselves – sometimes two brothers at a time, sometimes all three of them. She would do anything, their mother, or so it seems. Things that would really turn your stomach if a woman did them with a stranger, let alone her own sons.’

  ‘Jesus. How did you find this out?’

  ‘Social services. Kelly Wulwik told me, so long as I promised on my life not to mention her name. She owes me big time after that Catholic school business.’

  ‘How come none of this ever came to court?’

  ‘Simple. Some of Mrs Jackson’s clients were prominent members of the Kokomo civic and business community. We’re talking chamber of commerce here. You think they wanted the lurid details of all of their perverted little antics to be plastered all over the Tribune? And, like I say, we’re talking about very perverted, not just whips and handcuffs and Johnson’s baby oil.’

  Ruth glanced to one side to make sure that Amelia wasn’t listening to any of this, but Amelia was kneeling down by the tropical aquarium on the far side of the reception area, talking solemnly to the angel fish. ‘What’s it like in there? What’s it like in that water? Can you see me?’

  ‘OK,’ said Ruth, ‘we’re talking drug addiction, prostitution and incest. But what does that have to do with any of these fires?’

  Detective Magruder unzipped his document case and pulled out a green cardboard file. ‘Mrs Jackson had a fourth son, Andrew, who was thirteen at the time Kelly was detailed to look into the Jackson family. Andrew’s school attendance record was very poor, and his teachers had reported that he appeared to be undernourished and unwashed, and that he regularly turned up at school with bruises on his face and arms.

  ‘The Jacksons’ neighbors had complained about the constant coming and going of strange men at all hours of the day and night, and also the loud music and laughter and screaming. Because Andrew was underage, and he was missing so many days at school, social services were able to send Kelly around to the family home to see what was going on.

  ‘Kelly talked to Mrs Jackson, who was totally high and very abusive. Kelly said that the whole house stank to high heaven. The kitchen sink was filled up with dirty dishes and there were take-out boxes everywhere, with moldy noodles still inside them, crawling with cockroaches. There were stains on the walls and stains on the furniture and stains on the rugs, and Kelly said she didn’t even dare to imagine what they were.

  ‘She interviewed Andrew out in the yard, which was cluttered up with shopping carts and rusty auto parts and a dog kennel that she couldn’t pluck up enough courage to look into, because there was something hairy and collapsed inside it, that’s exactly the word she used – but she didn’t know what it was.

  ‘Andrew told her that he was unhappy because his mother didn’t love him. She didn’t feed him properly or wash his clothes or take proper care of him. Worse than that, though, she had regular sex with his older brothers but she wouldn’t allow him to do it. He used to stand in his room with the door ajar, watching his mother and his brothers performing every kind of sex act you can think of, and quite a few that you can’t, and he didn’t feel disgusted or outraged or anything like that. He simply felt excluded.’

  ‘God almighty,’ said Ruth. ‘I think I need to sit down.’

  She sat down on a couch underneath a large impressionistic painting of poppies by one of the Hoosier Group. Detective Magruder sat down beside her.

  ‘I don’t mean to upset you, Ruth. Especially not now. But what happened in the Jackson house, I think it’s really significant.’

  ‘Significant?’ Ruth had never heard Ron Magruder use a word like that before. She looked at him closely and she realized that he was beginning to show some gray hairs. She thought: How each day leaves us, one day after the other, like overnight guests slipping out of the front door at dawn, and very quietly closing the door, so as not to wake us.

  ‘Kelly tried desperately to have Andrew removed from the Jackson household, but she found her recommendation blocked at every turn. Of course it was being stonewalled by the same local bigwigs who wanted to make sure that none of their visits to Mrs Jackson became public knowledge.

  ‘One afternoon, about three weeks after Kelly’s visit, Andrew came back early from school to find his mother lying in bed, stark naked and stoned out of her brain. The forensic evidence indicated that Andrew took advantage of the situation by taking off his clothes and having sex with her, in all the same ways that he had seen his brothers doing it.

  ‘When he was through, he lay next to his mother and hugged her and made the mistake of falling asleep. Freddie and Karlo came home, both of them high, and when they saw Andrew lying next to their mother, they went berserk. They went out to the back yard, lugged in a jerrycan of gasoline, and splashed gallons of it all over the bed. All they intended to do was to set the bed alight. They were so high that they genuinely thought they were doing nothing more than teaching Andrew a lesson. But there was so much gasoline vapor in the air that the whole bedroom exploded, and Freddie and Karlo both suffered severe facial burns. Freddie was blinded in one eye and Karlo lost his nose.
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  ‘Needless to say, Andrew and Mrs Jackson were both burned to death. Freddie said that Andrew ran round and around the bedroom, naked and in flames, screaming like a cat that Freddie had once set fire to when he was eight years old. Mrs Jackson was so drugged up that she was cremated alive without ever regaining consciousness. Least, that’s what Freddie said.’

  ‘So the fire at South McCann Street—’

  ‘I know that I was skeptical about it before, Ruth, and I’m sorry. But I’m prepared to believe that your friend Martin could be at least half-right. The burning of Julie Benfield was a ritual of some kind, just like the fire that killed Tilda Frieburg, and the Spirit of Kokomo bus fire, and the fire that killed Nadine Gardner at Weatherfield Stables. Like, they were all re-enactments. Don’t ask me if there was any supernatural element involved; supernatural doesn’t come within my remit. But look at these pictures – these are what convinced me.’

  Out of the cardboard file he produced two photographs, both of young women. One of them was holding the reins of a chestnut horse and smiling, one eye closed against the sunshine. The other was sitting on a porch swing, with autumnal trees behind her.

  ‘I had the Scottsdale PD email me this picture of Helen McTighe, who was the girl who killed all of those horses at the Flying X. And this is Nadine Gardner.’

  ‘My God,’ said Ruth. ‘They could almost be the same girl. Or sisters, anyhow.’

  ‘Now take a look at these,’ said Detective Magruder, and handed her two more photographs. One of them was a black-and-white Police Department mug shot, showing a woman with scraggly hair and puffy eyes and a bruise at the side of her mouth. The other one showed a laughing woman in a park someplace, with swings and roundabouts in the background.

  ‘On your left, Velma Jackson, prostitute and crackhead and mother of Pimo, Freddie, Karlo and Andrew. On your right, Julie Benfield, wife and mother and respectable personal assistant at the Harris Bank. But there’s no question, is there? Apart from a distinct difference in personal grooming, they could be the same woman.’

  Ruth looked at the photographs again. Four women from totally different backgrounds, but all of them born to be sisters in a grisly and agonizing death.

  She was still looking at them when Detective Magruder handed her another photograph. A pasty-faced boy, with unkempt curls and wide-apart eyes, and strangely cherubic lips.

  ‘Andrew Jackson,’ he said. ‘This picture was taken in the fifth grade at Maple Crest Middle School. He was one of almost thirty-eight per cent of pupils who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch.’

  Ruth felt as if she couldn’t get enough air. ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘It’s the Creepy Kid. You saw him too, didn’t you, at South McCann Street?’

  Detective Magruder nodded.

  ‘Have you shown this to Bob Kowalski yet?’ Ruth asked him.

  ‘Not yet. I want to wrap this whole case up first. Right now, Sandra’s using the NCIC database to see if she can locate any suspicious fires that involved the deaths of six or more senior citizens, and also any fires in which a single woman was burned to death in a bathtub. I may be wrong, but I think we can tie all of these fires together with irrefutable forensic evidence.’

  Ruth said, ‘Andie’s ashes.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Ammy keeps hearing somebody whispering in her ear. Andie’s ashes. Andie’s ashes. The cremated remains we found in the burned mattress at South McCann Street, they must have belonged to Andrew Jackson. But the cremated remains we found in Tilda Frieburg’s bathtub and in the Spirit of Kokomo bus, they had the same DNA. And I’ll bet that Jack found cremated remains at Weatherfield Stables, too – that’s what he meant by “more of the same”. And he’ll find them in the back seat of Jeff’s Grand Prix. And they’ll both match the same genetic code.’

  Detective Magruder tugged at his prickly little moustache. ‘So you think that this Creepy Kid is the late Andrew Jackson, but somehow he’s more than Andrew Jackson? He’s, like, generic? He’s every abused thirteen-year-old boy rolled into one?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘So he’s Billy McTighe, too – who was Helen McTighe’s brother at the Flying X. And he’s the same kid who killed Tyson, and the same kid who set fire to Jeffrey’s car? His brothers burned Andrew Jackson up, and then what was left of him was professionally cremated, but he keeps on coming back, time after time, and he can set light to anything and anyone?’

  Ruth stared at him, unblinking, and then shook her head, disbelievingly, and smiled. ‘Didn’t I hear you just say that supernatural doesn’t come within your remit?’

  ‘No, Ruth. It absolutely does not. I’m asking you what you think, is all. I still prefer to believe that for some obscure reason those cremated remains were deliberately left at the crime scenes by some human perpetrator. Maybe some religious nut.’

  ‘There was far too much, Ron. Even the remains of a fully-grown man rarely weigh as much as three kilos.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned if I know. Maybe he was twins. Maybe he was triplets, even, all with the same DNA. Let me finish up my investigation first.’

  Ruth said, ‘OK. But I should really go now. You’ll let me know if you find out anything from NCIC, won’t you?’

  ‘I surely will. And I hope that Jeffrey gets over this real quick. And Craig, too. Give him our best.’

  Ruth and Amelia hurried down the hospital steps and ran across the rainswept parking lot. As soon as they had climbed into the car and slammed the doors, Amelia said, ‘We have to do something, Mommy!’

  ‘What do you mean, we have to do something? Like what?’

  Amelia put down her rain-hood and clamped both hands over her ears. ‘They’re going to come through! I can hear them all the time now! They don’t want to wait any longer!’

  ‘You mean those people we saw at Doctor Beech’s clinic? Those people who were all on fire?’

  Amelia turned to her and her face was miserable and frightened. ‘They won’t wait any longer. They say it’s their turn.’

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, don’t worry. I know that the past couple of days have been really horrible, but we have to be strong. You said so yourself, didn’t you? We have to stick together, and not allow ourselves to be intimidated. You know what your grandpa used to say? “I’m not scaredified. Not of nobody nor nothing, not never.”’

  She switched on her cellphone, and it warbled almost immediately. It was a voice message from Martin.

  ‘Ruth? What’s happening? I’ve been trying to call you all morning. I tried the Fire Department but they wouldn’t tell me where you were. Ruth – I think it’s urgent. I think it’s all hell let loose.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Martin arrived outside the house a few minutes after one. The sky was beginning to clear, as if a dark curtain were being dragged away, and a fresh wind was blowing, but there were still unsettled rumblings in the distance. Jeff’s burned-out Grand Prix had been taken away by the Fire Department, although the front of the house was still cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tapes that bounced and flapped in the wind. The red bricks of the driveway were scorched and cracked, as if a meteorite had landed there, and the lower branches of the basswood tree looked like the blackened fingers of an arthritic witch.

  ‘What happened?’ Martin asked her, as soon as Ruth opened the front door.

  ‘What do you think? The Creepy Kid happened.’

  ‘Oh, God. Tell me.’

  ‘The Creepy Kid set himself alight inside of Jeff’s new car. He just caught fire, like a thermic lance. Jeff has forty per cent burns and Craig’s hands were burned, too, when he was pulling him out.’

  ‘Oh, Ruth, Jesus. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Martin. You did warn me, didn’t you? You warned me once and you warned me twice.’

  ‘I know. I know I did. But I never thought that he’d come after you so quickly. Mind you, I think that things are coming to a head.’

  Ruth led Martin through to
the living-room. Amelia came out of the kitchen, wearing a sloppy orange sweater with a cowl neck and overlong sleeves, her hair tied up in bunches. ‘Hi, Martin! I’m making some iced chocolate with chocolate flaky bits. Do you want some?’

  Martin smiled but shook his head. ‘I think I’ll pass on that, thanks, Amelia.’ Ruth thought that he was looking bloodless and tired, as if he hadn’t slept well. His hair was mussed up and he hadn’t shaved.

  ‘How about something stronger?’ she asked him. ‘I could use a drink myself, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Jeffrey and Craig . . . where are they now?’ Martin asked her, as she poured them each a large glass of Goosecross Merlot.

  ‘St Joseph’s emergency unit. Jeff’s airway was burned so he’s still on a respirator. They’re giving him fluids and trying to keep him free from infection. There isn’t a whole lot more they can do, not just yet. Craig – well, his hands are badly blistered, but they think that he should make a ninety per cent recovery.’

  ‘Ruth – I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I should have realized what was happening a whole lot sooner.’

  Amelia came out of the kitchen tinkling her glass of iced chocolate with a spoon. ‘They’re coming through soon, aren’t they, Martin? I hear them all the time now. They’re jabbering, like jabberwockies. Jabber-jabber-jabber! We’re coming through, we’re coming through!’

  ‘I can hear them, too,’ said Martin, wearily. ‘That’s why I wanted to see you. We have to find where they’re going to come through, and how, and we have to try and stop them. This is serious, Ruth. It sounds to me like the whole nine circles of hell are in a turmoil.’

  ‘“We’re all coming through! We’re all coming through”!’ Amelia repeated, vigorously nodding her head. ‘“You can’t stop us now! We’re all coming through!”’

  Martin reached across and took hold of Amelia’s hand to quieten her. ‘I think I understand what’s happening. I may be completely wrong, but if Amelia can hear the same voices that I can, then at least I know that I’m not the only one who’s crazy.’