by J N Duncan
“And Mr. Anderson,” Margolin said, the smile still on his face, “CEO of Bloodwork Industries, philanthropist to the Chicago arts community, and oddly, a PI on the side, helping people with paranormal problems. An interesting team”—his gaze roamed over Cynthia and Shelby—“to say the least.”
“You have a point to any of this? Before I decide to throw you out on your ass?” Jackie said. If he had something, he would have said it already. Reporters were antsy like that in general. He was fishing. Though she might have to give him one good shot regardless.
Margolin chuckled. “You aren’t an agent anymore, Ms. Rutledge, at least officially. So you have no authority to be throwing me anywhere.”
She stepped forward again, staying in his face. “Who said I need authority? It would be a civic service.”
The smile faded somewhat. “I’m not here to pick a fight with you, Rutledge. I just want to know what you’re investigating here.”
“None of your fucking business,” Jackie said.
“Anything to do with all of the ghosts around here?”
Sonofabitch. There would be no getting rid of him now. “You’ve seen some ghosts then? Maybe you could point them out for us, help us out.”
“Hey, you guys are the Ghostbusters. Isn’t that your job?”
Ghostbusters? Weaselly motherfucker. Jackie cocked her fist and started to swing, only to lurch off balance when Nick’s hand grabbed her wrist and halted all forward momentum.
“Not worth it, Jackie,” Nick said, barely above whisper.
“The big, bad PI going to do your dirty work for you?” Margolin did, however, take another step back.
Purposefully egging me on. The little bastard is picking a fight for some reason, and he knows we could kick his ass. What the hell is he up to? Just then, a Thatcher’s Mill police car rolled up in front of the diner and Chief Carson stepped out.
Shelby sounded amused behind her. “Well, well. Isn’t that convenient?”
“Great.” Jackie took a step back and bumped into Nick, who had not moved. “Last thing we need right now.”
“Think it’s time we put a little space between us and the Mill,” Nick replied.
The diner’s door jingled as Carson walked in, the dark worm on his lip following the frown of his mouth. “You folks having a problem here?”
Margolin moved toward Carson. “Hey, I was just asking what they were doing here, and she got all up in my face over it.”
“Tucker!” Carson yelled. “What’s going on?”
The cook walked out to the counter. “Pretty much what the newsboy said, though I can’t say much for his attitude either.”
“I see,” Carson said, leaning against the cash register at the end of the counter. “Perhaps I was a bit too subtle with my suggestion yesterday, Ms. Rutledge. Then again, you didn’t strike me as the type to heed good advice when you heard it.”
Jackie started to retort, but managed to cut herself off before saying something too stupid to recover from. Not having a badge was proving difficult. “Our research isn’t done yet, Chief Carson. When it is, we’ll be out of your hair. As it is, no laws have been broken, nor do we intend to be breaking any, unless newsboy here decides to take a swing at me. We’ll be on our way, though.”
Carson folded his arms over his chest. “Be that as it may, I don’t believe the good folk of Thatcher’s Mill appreciate or want you to be researching their town. I suggest once again that you take your team elsewhere to conduct your business. It’s not wanted around here. Is that a littler clearer for you, Ms. Rutledge?”
She felt Nick’s hand resting against the small of her back, a gentle warning to leave this alone. She did not want to leave it alone. In another life, she would not have left it alone at all.
Laurel took the opportunity to ease herself into Jackie’s head. Hon, I know. Let’s just get out of here. We’ll figure out what to do later.
This civilian stuff is bullshit, Jackie told her. I want my damn badge and gun. Jackie walked toward the door, making sure to step on Margolin’s toes as she went by, and paused next to Carson. “I got the message before, Chief. I’m a smart girl. Smart enough to know this town is hiding something. So I don’t give a shit how clear you are. We’ll be back.” Without waiting for his reply, Jackie pushed open the door and left.
Back in the Explorer, Jackie forced herself to go the speed limit as she guided them out of town and toward the airport.
“I think we can count him as an enemy now,” Cynthia said. “He gave me the creeps.”
“He wasn’t our friend to begin with,” Jackie said. “This whole town is giving me the creeps.”
“OK,” Shelby replied. “Back to more important matters. What was it Laur said about one of the ghosts being named Rebecca? Coincidence?”
“Not likely,” Nick replied. “What are the odds we have a girl named Rebecca Thatcher, a dead girl at the Thatcher’s named Rebecca, and a Rebecca Thatcher who died over one hundred years ago?”
“Slim to none,” Jackie said. “Maybe we can find something in the county records?”
“And who’s the other sister?” Shelby wondered. “Who was it back then, babe?”
“Charlotte,” Nick said. “Her name was Charlotte.”
“Care to tell us that story? We’ve got some time to kill here.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Guess I’d better.”
“And make it the short version. You know how long-winded you can get.”
Jackie caught Nick shaking his head out of the corner of her eye and smiled. “Oh, yeah. A real blowhard, our Nick.” He gave her a sidelong glance, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile.
“All right, then,” he replied. “The CNN version of Nick’s trip to Thatcher’s Mill.”
Surprisingly enough, he finished by the time they got to the airport, and once again, Jackie realized just how different a life this man must have compared to everyone else in the world. It was difficult to imagine how many bodies had fallen in the wake of his pursuit of that monster, Drake. She could relate to the singular purpose of tracking him down, just not the part about finally catching him. Somewhere out there, her stepfather Carl still lived and breathed, and God only knew how many lives he had ruined beyond hers and her mother’s. Only Nick had never stopped, never been given the choice really, and she had. At some point, Jackie had given up her pursuit, and only held on to vague hopes that, some day, he would pop up on her radar again. If she never made it back to the FBI, however, even those small hopes would be gone.
Shelby’s hand reached over the seat and squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Goes without saying, I guess, that I’m sorry, babe. Tough price for only trying to help.”
He shrugged. “Is what it is, and that was over a hundred years ago.”
“Still, no fun to have it all dredged back up,” Cynthia said. “Figures, this would be the one case we manage to pick out of the stack.”
“Karma,” Shelby replied. “Maybe we were supposed to come back. It is beginning to seem like there’s a correlation of some kind.”
So it would seem. Jackie had to agree. This went beyond mere coincidence. “Let’s see if Hauser has anything more for us. We need a bigger picture. There’s a link to all of these ghosts there somewhere, and I don’t think we’re going to find it by going door to door.”
“One has to wonder,” Nick said, “why everyone would be so unwilling to talk about the ghosts. Most small towns would milk this kind of thing for all the tourism dollars they could get their hands on.”
“Which means there’s a reason they don’t want anyone to dig,” Jackie replied. “So let’s keep digging until we find something. I want to go back with something, anything that I can shove up that chief’s ass.”
Shelby laughed and opened the door. “A girl after my own heart.”
Back in the air headed toward home, they got Hauser back on the speakerphone. “Give us good news, Hauser,” Jackie said.
“Hey, beautiful. Not so su
re about good.” He laughed. “How about more weirdness, because that’s all I’m finding.”
Jackie sipped on the good coffee Nick had brewed on the plane’s built-in machine. “That’s what we expected anyway. Shoot.”
“I’ve compiled all of the vital records I could find, and it would appear that if you were born in Thatcher’s Mill, you died there as well. Nobody has moved into or out of that place in decades, except those Thatcher men and women, which I guess explains the consistency in population over the years.”
“An island unto themselves,” Cynthia said.
“Pretty much,” Hauser replied. “And like I said before, everyone there has died either from an accident or natural causes.”
“Hauser,” Jackie said. “Can you tell me how many girls named Rebecca have been born there?”
“Sure, one sec.” There was silence for a moment before he returned. “Two, according to official records.”
“Figured as much. How about the Thatchers? Can you tell me how many Thatcher children have been born over the past century?”
“Yep. There were ... two. Charlotte and Rebecca.”
“That’s it? They’ve been there over a hundred years and never had any kids?”
“According to the records.”
Nick frowned. “That doesn’t add up. What are the ages of death on the Thatchers?”
“Let’s see here.” Jackie could hear the clacking of Hauser’s keyboard in the background. “Forty-two, thirty-five, thirty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-two. Man, I wouldn’t want to marry into that family.”
“So,” Shelby wondered, “who is the kid living there with them now?”
“Laur?” Jackie asked. “Could that ghost you talked to be the Rebecca Thatcher who died back when Nick was there?”
“Possibly,” she replied. “She looked the part, had on a pretty, old-fashioned wool dress with lace trim.”
“As did some of the other female ghosts we saw,” Nick said.
Shelby nodded. “The ones I saw as well.”
It made no sense. “All of those ghosts can’t be from that era,” Jackie said. “And there weren’t enough deaths in the appropriate age range to account for them all.”
“Exactly,” Nick replied. “So, if nobody has moved into Thatcher’s Mill besides the Thatchers, where did these girls come from and why is there no record of them?”
“And Robert Thatcher was dressed up old school as well,” Jackie said.
“Yes,” Shelby replied. “Which means it’s safe to assume that our current Rebecca Thatcher is, too.”
“So the Rebecca that Laur talked to may not be the original Rebecca at all,” Jackie said.
Cynthia brought her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. “Could some of those other ghosts be Rebeccas, too?”
“Holy shit,” Shelby exclaimed. “We should have some Roberts, Beverlys, and Charlottes, too.”
“The Thatcher’s Mill curse,” Cynthia said. “It kind of makes some sense.”
“Curse, my ass,” Jackie replied. “Thatchers are dying for a reason. We just don’t know why yet.”
“Damn, this is great stuff,” Hauser piped in. “You guys get the coolest cases.”
“Hardly,” Jackie said. “Hauser, how long has the police chief, Carson, been on the job?”
“Sec. I’ll check.”
Jackie got up to pace. She wished she had her board to look at. “Let’s assume for the moment that Thatchers have been dying at an absurd rate for years, and that it isn’t some stupid curse afflicting them all.” She stopped and laid a hand on Cynthia’s shoulder. “Sorry, Cyn. No offense.”
She smiled. “None taken.”
“Seventeen years,” Hauser said. “Carson has been chief for seventeen years.”
“Great, thanks,” Jackie replied. “So, it’s probably safe to assume that they haven’t all died of natural causes or accidents.”
“That would be beyond coincidence,” Nick said.
“OK then,” she continued, “why would they all be listed as such on their death certificates?”
“Because,” Shelby replied, “the coroner falsified the documents.”
“Or didn’t even do autopsies,” Nick added. “If there’s no indication of suspicious death, then no autopsy would be performed unless requested.”
“We need to have a word with the coroner, then,” Jackie said, “which we can’t do until tomorrow.” Another thought suddenly occurred to Jackie. “Hey, Hauser, one more thing.”
“Shoot.”
“Run obituaries on the Thatchers and see if there are any,” she said.
“Gotcha.”
Jackie ran the fingers of her hand through her hair. They were missing a key element here. Someone or something had to be making this all happen. “All right, so we have the Thatcher family—Mom, Dad, Rebecca, and Charlotte. Rebecca dies, for whatever reason, her ghost haunts the house, and then, sometime later, a new, unknown Rebecca shows up and assumes the new daughter role.”
“Given what we know,” Nick said, “that does sound plausible.”
“So, someone tracked down and brought a new Rebecca into the family,” Jackie said and groaned in frustration. “Why? What’s so important about maintaining the semblance of the Thatcher family?”
“And what if their deaths aren’t natural?” Shelby asked. “What if they’re being killed off?”
“Why would you kill off people you went to the effort of finding and bringing into the family?” Cynthia asked.
“Because they don’t fit the mold,” Jackie said. “Beverly isn’t the right Beverly. Rebecca just isn’t acting the way Rebecca should.”
“Or they try to leave,” Shelby said.
“So, we’re back to who in Thatcher’s Mill would want or need the Thatchers to be there,” Jackie said. “And not just be there, either, but maintain their original state from a hundred years ago.” She plopped back down in her seat next to Nick. “God, this is fucked up. Maybe I’m way off base with all of this.”
“Hey,” Hauser’s voice crackled through the speaker, “no obits on the Thatchers other than the original from 1897. Not a single paper in the area has ever mentioned a Thatcher dying.”
Jackie leaned forward, pointing her finger at the speakerphone. “Which makes sense if you’re trying to cover up their deaths, and that’s not easy to do unless you’re in a position of authority to make it happen.”
“Chief Carson,” Nick said.
“Whose father was chief and his father before him,” Jackie said. “He told me that. We need to see those police records.” They’d also been up to the Mill to chat with the Thatchers. If Carson knew and was involved in this, he would be suspicious. “We also need to find out who this Rebecca is. If we’re right, someone’s missing a teenage daughter.”
“If we’re right,” Shelby said, “that town could be full of missing daughters.”
“We’re going to need some surveillance gear before we go back,” Nick said, “if we’re going to stake out the Thatchers’.”
Jackie downed the last of her coffee. A town full of missing daughters. Years of them, and all dead. What had they gotten themselves into? “We’re going back tonight. If we’ve stirred up what I think we have, then that family is in danger.”
Chapter 14
“Jack, don’t do anything stupid,” McManus said. “You’re pushing it with surveillance.”
Her retort died before it even got started. She could make no claims to not doing stupid things. “We need proof, McManus. Belgerman won’t OK you coming in unless there’s something concrete. If we can find out who that girl is, we’ve got kidnapping. All we need is a clean photo so we can run her.”
“Not really,” he replied. “You just have a girl pretending to belong to another family. Still have to show she was taken there forcibly.”
“Oh, come on. You really think a girl is going to come in from out of town and just decide to settle in with a new family?”
“We’ve seen weirder thin
gs, Jack.”
Could not argue with that. “Still, with a dead girl going by the same name, I’m going to assume something very wrong is going on in Thatcher’s Mill.”
“I’m with you, for sure,” he said. “You’ve got something fucked up going on there. Just please don’t jump the gun. You’re a civilian. If shit hits the fan, call me in.”
Civilian. Thanks for the reminder. “Soon as we have something. Thanks, McManus.”
“Hey, no problem. I knew you’d make something of this situation, Jack. You’re too good not to. Talk to you soon.”
Jackie hung up and leaned back in her desk chair. She stared at her board, running through the events of the past couple of days, trying to make better sense of what was going on. McManus’s words weighed on her. What if there was no force involved at all? What if these people came into the Thatcher family and wanted to stay? Then they would be left attempting to prove murder, a much tougher proposition, especially as a civilian. They needed to get hold of the records. If they could show forged police reports or autopsy records, it would be enough to bring the rest of them in. The real authorities.
She rubbed her hands over her face. With a little effort, she could still feel the badge in her jacket pocket, the snug fit of the holster beneath her arm. They were symbols of the authority she once had, and hopefully would again. But was she really that much less without them? Was she little more than a weapon and a shiny badge?
Quit it, hon. You’re more than a badge and gun.
Yeah, I’ve clearly got it going on with this life now.
Transition is hard. You can’t expect to just slide right into a new life without any complications. It doesn’t work that way.
My whole life has become one big complication.
Are you speaking personally or professionally? Because professionally, I see how this might work great for you. I saw you on the plane. You were getting into this just like you did as an agent. I could feel that excitement in you, hon. This is a real, legitimate case. Ghosts or not, this is no joke.
I know, I know. Working this as a civilian just limits me in ways I’m not used to.