by Lotta Smith
“Okay.” I nodded and took a bite of the tomato and chicken pound cake, still warm on my plate. Fiona told me to help myself to her kitchen, so I’d just concocted it in hopes of distracting myself and killing time.
“Hey.” Rick raised his hand as Brian came into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Brian responded, waving back. “What’s that?” he said, glancing at the food on our plates.
“It’s pound cake with tomatoes and chicken. Would you like some?” I asked him.
“Yes, please. Thanks,” said Brian, sitting at the dining table with us.
“How’s Fiona doing?” Rick asked.
“She’s good. She just made up her mind to file for a divorce,” Brian said, wolfing down the pound cake.
“Wow, that’s good,” I said. “Brian, you’ve been a great moral support for Fiona.”
“Of course.” Brian gave me a thumbs-up. “I’m a fully licensed priest. Helping others cope with difficult situations is part of my job. I’m glad I can be there for her. Anyway, she seems to be recovering nicely.”
“Does she have a lawyer?” Rick asked.
“I asked her about that, but she fell asleep before answering.” Brian cocked his head to the side.
“Okay, I’ll ask her about the lawyer when she’s awake.” Rick nodded. “My old man should be able to arrange topnotch lawyers for her.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“Has Fiona come down?” I said abruptly. “I feel someone close by.”
“I didn’t hear any footsteps.” Rick stood up to check the corridor outside of the kitchen. “No one’s here.”
“Wait a minute. Mandy isn’t the only person feeling someone’s presence.” Brian put his fork back onto his plate and closed his eyes. “Someone’s there.” He glanced in the direction of Fiona’s private living room.
“Let’s go.” I stood up.
“Oh my God, what if it’s a thief or something?” Jackie’s eyes widened.
“No need to worry,” Brian said. “You’re not getting any deader, even if it’s some extremist terrorists.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Let’s go.” Rick stood up.
We went into the corridor and proceeded quietly so we didn’t make unnecessary noise and wake Fiona up from her much-needed beauty sleep.
When Rick opened the door to the private living room where Fiona showed the strange 8mm movie the night before, the curtains were pulled to make the room dark and the projector was rattling yet running.
In the darkened room, the movie of Fiona smiling as if there was no care in this world while she picked flowers was airing.
“Beverly… is that you?” I asked the elegant old lady keenly watching the movie.
“Oh, hello there.” Beverly Kimmelstiel turned to us, smiling and waving. Just like the previous day, her Lilly Pulitzer summer dress flowed over her ghostly form, except its color was a dramatic violet.
“Beverly, I’m so glad to see you again!” Jackie bounced happily, prompting the ghost of Fiona’s granny to smile wider and nod.
“Me, too!”
“Beverly, Fiona is shocked but she’s good. Well… at least, physically, she’s unscathed,” I said. “Thank you so much for clearing the fog.”
“Oh no, not at all. I’m the one who must thank you all. I insist.” Beverly chuckled. Then her face turned serious as she faced Brian. “Hello there. I saw you saving my baby girl from that maniac. I know I can’t thank you enough, but thank you so much.”
“Oh, that was nothing.” Brian brushed off her gratitude with a casual smile.
“Oh my….” Beverly’s jaw dropped, with her lips in the shape of O. “Can you—?”
“Oh yes! Brian here can see people like us,” Jackie chimed in, then took the initiative on introducing the exorcist and the ghost to each other. “Brian, Beverly. Beverly, Brian. That sexy hunk here is Rick, Mandy’s fiancé, but unfortunately, he can’t talk to us directly. No worries, Mandy here is the acting liaison between people like us and Rick.”
As Beverly and Brian exchanged greetings, Rick cleared his throat. “So, Beverly, was it Wesley Andreano you’d been warning about?”
“Yes and no,” she replied. “I was aware of an extreme danger coming Fiona’s way. However, as for the crucial details, I could only see the blurry outline of them. Why did that man try to kill Fiona?”
I relayed her words to Rick.
“According to the detectives interviewing Andreano, he always had a secret crush on Fiona, in spite of knowing she’s married and everything. He admitted to having sent Fiona messages like ‘I’ll always be there for you’ and ‘Your husband doesn’t deserve you’ and so on, only to scare her off. Like she said, she was growing suspicious that some creep was stalking her,” Rick explained. “Anyway, when he found Leo fooling around with another woman, Andreano felt horrible for Fiona and immediately decided to kill Leo. However, he mistakenly whacked Vina Burwick, killing her instead. Fiona didn’t ask him to do so, nor would she ever have asked in the first place. Sometimes criminals have an unnecessarily active imagination that will drive them to write scenarios that only exist in their heads—liberating Fiona from her cheating husband, for instance—and try to go on with said scenarios. After murdering the wrong person, he got desperate and attempted another murder and suicide. He was so deranged that he didn’t care about snatching your granddaughter and strangling her in front of Mandy here.”
“I see.” Beverly let out a sigh. “I know I should be offended, but I can only pity him. On the other hand, I’m boiling inside about Leo. How could he do that to my little angel?” she fumed.
“In retrospect, this incident might be good for Fiona, as she seems to have made up her mind to divorce Leo. Leo might be just a sorry excuse of a dirtbag for now, but considering Fiona has assets and he’s just an unemployed man with no significant resources, he could have decided to kill her for money,” Rick continued.
“So, Beverly, I heard you’ve never appeared in front of Leo, and she could never play the film you’re watching right now for him. Were you aware of his infidelity? Was it the reason for your avoidance of him?” I peppered her with questions.
“Oh, did Fiona say that?” Beverly tilted her head to the side. “Actually, I’ve appeared in front of Leo several times, but he never noticed me. I knew there was something fishy about him, even though I didn’t know the details like the name of his mistress and so on. I could sense something about another woman with him, but he didn’t have the audacity to commit adultery at home until last night. As for the film never playing properly in his presence, I had nothing to do with that. A part of me was reluctant about having Leo watch it, for seeing it might give him unnecessary ideas about how to murder her, but I didn’t do anything to interfere with its showing.”
I noticed that she put an emphasis on “I.”
“If you didn’t meddle with the film in front of Leo, who did?” Rick asked after I relayed her words, noting the emphasized part.
Without answering his question, Beverly turned to Brian. “So, how is Fiona doing?”
“She’s beyond shocked,” he replied. “However, she’s trying her best to stay positive. I have a hunch she’ll recover nicely.”
“That’s wonderful.” Beverly smiled. “She’s young and bright. Brian, I agree with you. Fiona will recover from this traumatic experience. I’m sure about that. I’d appreciate it very much if you could be there for her. And Mandy and Rick, please don’t shun her out of your wedding. Of course, if she says she doesn’t want to do anything wedding-related, it’s her choice, but could you at least ask her if she still wants to participate?”
“Of course, of course.” I nodded like a bobblehead. “I’m looking forward to having my BFF as a bridesmaid at my wedding. I will tell her my honest feelings about everything, and then I’ll respect her opinion. I’ll do what I can to help Fiona while she’s going through this hard time.”
“Thank you so much. Fiona is such a lucky gi
rl to have friends like you,” Beverly cooed as she moved her arms to look like she was hugging me.
Rick glanced at the Super 8 film playing. “So, what was this film about in the first place? Did you create it to warn Fiona about the danger coming in her path?”
“Oh, right. I was dying to ask you about it.” Jackie bounced up and down enthusiastically. “If you created it, I’d love to learn to do it myself. You know, I can be the first dead celebrity coming out on YouTube. How cool is that?”
“Oh no. If an ordinary dead person like me is capable of making such a movie, the world would be so cluttered and oversaturated with films and movies made by the dead.” Beverly shook her head and indicated the screen. “That’s not Fiona.”
“Excuse me?” I gasped before relaying the words to Rick, so instead of me, Brian fed him Beverly’s words.
On the screen was the woman all of us recognized as Fiona. Even she recognized it as herself. “Is that woman on the screen some kind of a doppelganger of Fiona?”
“No, she is not Fiona’s doppelganger. If she were, I should be worried about her, since meeting your doppelganger is bad.” Beverly chuckled, sounding as if she read my mind. “Look at her carefully. She’s very alike to Fiona, but she’s not Fiona.”
Rick squinted at the screen. “I see. So, who we regarded as Fiona on the screen has something that looks like a small freckle by her right eye. Fiona herself has clear skin around her eyes. I thought it was some kind of an artifact at first, but now I can see the difference.”
“Oh, you’re right.” I looked harder at the woman on the screen. Her hairstyle was similar to Fiona’s, but it wasn’t identical. I assumed the difference was caused by some minor variation in the temperature and humidity, though. “So, she is….”
“This is Fiona’s mom.” Beverly indicated to the screen. Her hazel eyes were sad.
“Fiona’s mom?” I parroted. “But….”
I had seen Fiona’s late mother, but she’d looked nothing like the victim on the screen.
Beverly shook her head. “Oh, I’m talking about Fiona’s biological mother, not Diane. Though Fiona herself still believes Diane is her only mother. Fiona is nearly identical to Elizabeth, her birth mother and my daughter-in-law, but Diane shared the eye and hair colors. As I’m looking at Elizabeth on the screen, it’s almost horrifying… their physical similarity is so strong that they almost look like identical twins.” Beverly paused. “I think I’ve wandered off topic a little. Diane, the woman Fiona called her mom, was her former babysitter. She was such a smart lady who actually cared for and cherished Fiona. When she married Fiona’s father, Fiona was still too young to remember her birth mother, and her father passed away young. Even after her husband passed away, Diane stuck around with us. I can’t thank her enough.”
As Beverly went on, there was something indecisive in her tone.
“Excuse me, Beverly, but… are we looking at a recording of what actually happened in the past?” Rick furrowed his eyebrows.
“Yes.” Beverly nodded.
“Mandy.” Rick glanced at me. “From now on, you’ve got to relay every one of Beverly’s words, okay?”
“Got it.” I nodded.
Rick went on. “So, Beverly, you had a daughter-in-law who suffered an untimely demise, and a grandchild who grew into someone who is almost a duplicate of your late daughter-in-law. Fiona inherited not just Elizabeth’s looks but the taste in attire as well. So, who murdered Elizabeth? Was that her husband?”
“No.” Beverly shook her head slowly. “He wasn’t directly responsible for Elizabeth’s death, even though, in retrospect, I’d say he was definitely responsible for her murder.”
“If the husband didn’t kill Elizabeth directly, who did?” Rick pried after I relayed her words.
The ghost of Fiona’s grandmother shut her eyes tightly. Finally, she said, “Fiona’s grandfather, my late husband, was a tyrant and a monster. He had this strange desire to molest Elizabeth. To the outside world, he was a fine gentleman who was well-respected among the community and the society of industrialists. However, he sometimes manifested this unfathomable cruelty toward animals. I feared that he might commit some horrible deed sometime, and I kept my eye on him. Now that I’m dead, I often find myself wondering why I didn’t leave him, but I couldn’t abandon my only son. When Elizabeth came to this house after marrying my son, Stan, my husband, seemed to have turned into a different person. He was nicer, and his inner monster seemed to have vanished… but I was wrong. Everything was just an act for him so he could fool Elizabeth into believing he was just her nice father-in-law and wouldn’t harm her. At that time, Elizabeth had already had Fiona and my guard was a little off. Anyway, Stan had his way with Elizabeth.”
“No,” Jackie and I gasped in unison.
I stood there frozen, completely forgetting about relaying her words to Rick, so Brian filled him in.
“So, your late husband was a monster who molested his daughter-in-law. What was your son doing while his wife was being disgraced?”
“He didn’t have the grit to rebel against his father.” Beverly shook her head. “Instead of fighting for his wife, he preferred to look the other way. As for Elizabeth, her parents were already dead by that time, and she had nowhere to escape from her living hell in this home. I’d implied to her that she could still leave her marriage anytime, and I’d offered to help her financially. When the film was shot, she was about to leave her husband, but Stan somehow found out about her escape plan. He suspected that Elizabeth had another man, and he strangled Elizabeth to death in his uncontrollable fury.”
Recalling my task to relay her words to Rick, I passed them on to him that time.
“And no one reported her murder,” Rick said matter-of-factly.
“That’s right.” Beverly looked at the floor as if she was looking for some stain only visible to her. “Stan was well-connected to the darker side of society as well, and he hired someone to bury Elizabeth’s body in the cemetery in New Jersey under a false identity. At the same time, we buried this tragic murder in the deepest corner of the closet, and yes, I’m definitely responsible for that.”
“And Stan captured all the details of Elizabeth’s final moments with his 8mm video camera,” Rick muttered, almost to himself.
“Yes. I think he loved Elizabeth in his own disastrously crooked and disgusting way, but he loved her anyway. It might be that he couldn’t help keeping every moment of it. I was married to a psychopath.”
“Gosh, that’s so terrible. I mean beyond sick!” Jackie shuddered.
“I know,” I stage-whispered in agreement. I couldn’t agree more, but I didn’t want to sound like I was criticizing Beverly.
“It’s okay, Mandy,” Beverly told me. “I don’t feel bad about any criticism… because I deserve it. I could have done the right thing, but at the same time, I was scared of losing everything—the manor where I lived for decades and cherished, our reputation in society, and on top of it all, I didn’t want to risk losing Fiona to the social service that could have sent her to some foster care parents where she could have encountered someone like Stan. At that point, Fiona’s father, Warren, was still alive, so social services wouldn’t have taken her, but my gut feelings told me otherwise. From the track record of Warren’s negligence over his family, they could have taken Fiona away from us, especially considering he passed away just three months following Elizabeth’s death due to a car wreck. So, instead of reporting the murder of Elizabeth and turning Stan in to the police, I used the tragedy as leverage and took charge of running this household completely by myself. Perhaps even he could feel the hot water ahead of him had he committed one more sin, or perhaps losing our son so young might have taken a toll on him. He suddenly started behaving, or rather pretending to be a caring granddad to Fiona instead of the murderer of her birth mother. There are so many things that I’m not proud to admit as parts of my life. However, I’m proud to say that I managed to keep Fiona safe from Stan’s ha
nds.”
“So, you said you and Stan buried everything about the murder of Elizabeth in the deepest corner of the closet. Why did you keep the 8mm film Fiona interpreted as a prediction of her future?” Rick said.
“Well, of course, I would have definitely destroyed the film and thrown it away had I known it existed,” Beverly said, flattening her lips. “Except Stan hid it well. I didn’t even know he’d kept a record of his crime until Diane and I worked in the storehouse to organize Stan’s stuff after his death.”
“Finding the film must have been shocking,” I muttered.
“Yes,” Beverly admitted. “Just like when Fiona found it, when we discovered this film, it was just mysterious, nameless footage. When I viewed it, I almost had a coronary. I was going to throw it away, but Diane said that if I got rid of it, what had happened to Elizabeth would vanish in the darkness of the past forever. When I thought about Fiona, I thought it wouldn’t be fair for her, so I decided to keep it.”
“And Fiona found that particular film,” Rick said, tilting his head to the side. “Or rather, I have a hunch that you led her to find it.”
“You’re so right.” Beverly nodded. “When I saw Leo for the first time in the storehouse, I sensed something sinister about him, and that’s why I meddled with Fiona while she was picking up stuff in the upstairs of the storehouse. After separating her from her husband, I had her find the film, and then I warned her about the danger coming her way. Though, in retrospect, the danger in her path was much more serious than I had first expected. In the deepest part of my heart, I wanted to warn Fiona about Leo’s sinister demeanor, but I myself wasn’t perfect after looking the other way from my husband’s murder and actively covering it up. So I couldn’t pop up in front of her, saying things like ‘Hi there, my little angel! By the way, watch out for your safety. Your husband might kill you someday,’ especially considering she was trying with all her heart and soul to better her marriage and establish a perfect family. Plus, Leo wasn’t the one who actually tried to harm her.”