Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited

by Heather Graham

  Then he heard Bogie reassuring her.

  Dear God, the rest of the world would think they were totally insane. Officers, today we have the victim with us. Painful, yes, but she’s going to reenact what happened to her. It’s okay. She has a damned decent guy to hold her hand. Bogie, you know him, right? Humphrey Bogart, legend of the silver screen.

  “Agent Cameron!” Duffy said, hailing him.

  “Officer Duffy,” Sean responded as he stepped out of the car. “We’re going into the Black Box Cinema. The rest of the team will be along shortly.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Have you heard from Detective Knox?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s at the station, sir. I believe he’ll be coming here with your people.”

  The others exited the car, as well.

  Duffy frowned, as if perplexed, and suddenly shivered as Bogie and Jenny passed by. He looked sheepishly at Sean. “California,” he said. “Los Angeles. You’re burning up one minute and freezing the next.”

  “Right.” Sean nodded as he walked on.

  They neared the door to the Black Box Cinema.

  Jenny stopped suddenly and burst into tears.

  “I was murdered here!” she cried. “Murdered…and you want me to go inside and relive what happened…and walk through pools of my own blood?”

  Officer Duffy was watching them, Sean knew. They couldn’t appear to be a pack of lunatics; dealing with the local police was difficult enough as it was.

  “Please, Jenny!” Madison whispered.

  “We need you, kid,” Bogie said. He had an arm around Jenny’s shoulders, strong and supportive.

  No good.

  Jenny was still sobbing.

  Sean could see the strained expressions on the faces of his living companions.

  Madison walked up to him, took his arm and whispered, “Oh, God, Sean, should we be doing this to her?”

  “Do you want to help the living?” he asked.

  “Yes, but…”

  He wasn’t happy about what they were doing himself. He just knew they had to use any method they could to find the truth. Duffy kept staring at them; thankfully, Bogie had managed to move Jenny along.

  As they approached the front door to the cinema, Jenny again tried to hang back. Her tears were coming in a geyser, despite Bogie’s attempts to calm her down.

  Sean waited until they were inside. To the best of his knowledge, the only camera running was the one that scanned anyone trying to enter.

  Torn, he tried to touch Jenny, but of course, he couldn’t. He could only feel the cold where his hand stirred the air. Lamely he said, “Jenny, I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry. But you did care about Alistair. Jenny, you said you felt guilty about using him. Maybe you can redeem yourself by helping us. We really need you to do that. It would be such a good thing for Alistair and Eddie and all of us—and God knows, you must want to catch this bastard.”

  She wiped her cheeks and tried to square her shoulders. “Do you think I can…make up for the bad things I did?” she asked hopefully.

  “We stay around for a reason, Jenny,” Bogie said. “This may be your reason.”

  “And I do want that bastard nailed to the wall and skinned alive!” she said.

  “I’m not sure we can make that happen,” Sean told her, trying to smile.

  It worked; she smiled back through her tears.

  “Everything’s okay. We’re with you,” Madison assured her.

  As they walked through the lobby, Jenny sniffed. “I…I can almost smell the popcorn,” she said.

  “There is a nice scent of popcorn in the air,” Kat agreed.

  They passed the cinema, and Sean paused. “Jenny, was the door really open when you arrived?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No.”

  “I didn’t see you opening it on the security footage,” Sean said.

  “I was really careful. I knew there was a camera so I hid my movements with my body,” Jenny admitted. “I had a key.”

  “How did you get the key?”

  “I’d taken Alistair’s earlier in the week and had a copy made. Can you tell him that?” she asked. “I’m sure he feels horrible. He really loves and admires his dad.”

  “Of course we will!” Madison said. “What happened to your key?”

  “I—I don’t know. I slid it back in my pocket, I think.”

  Sean made a mental note to ask Knox and the medical examiner about the key.

  They walked through the office. The poster hiding the door had been moved aside, as it was whenever the museum was open to the public. They started down the stairs to the tunnel, Bogie holding on to Jenny, who clung to him as if she were going to a second execution.

  She was, in a way.

  They moved past the tableaux. Ahead, Sean could see the chalk marks and the blood still on the floor. He wondered if bringing Jenny here could really help.

  “Hey,” he said to her. “You said Alistair didn’t do it. We believe that. In fact, we know it, thanks to you. You don’t want to see him go to prison for the rest of his life, do you? Or…worse?”

  Jenny looked back at him. “No,” she said solemnly. “No. I’m sorry—I’m dead, and I’m still being a coward. What can happen to me in this place now? No, no, you’re right. I can fight back. I can help you.”

  She led the way.

  They walked by The Maltese Falcon, Citizen Kane and The Glass Key. And then Laura, Casablanca and more.

  Bogie, Sean noted, paused for a moment, a look on his face that was so poignant Sean felt his own heart skip a beat. But the horrible tinny smell of blood and death seemed to have become more intense since he’d entered the tunnel, and he knew that tomorrow, they’d have to bring in the hazmat clean-up crews. It was important that they get it right today, that they get whatever they could.

  They reached the last tableau. Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum.

  Jenny stood very still, staring at the chalk on the floor. And the blood.

  Then she pointed to the tableau. “It’s like it’s just a touch off-kilter.”

  “I thought so, too,” Madison said. “But the cops were up there—they probably didn’t know how to put it back exactly right.”

  Jenny nodded distractedly. “We saw the tableau—it’s Alistair’s favorite film! Then he noticed that the door leading into the studio was already ajar. It should’ve been closed and locked. When he walked ahead, I heard a noise. I caught a glimpse of gold braid on a sleeve. I tried to turn, but then he had me. He came up behind me. I was so stunned and so scared…I screamed. Alistair came back—but even as he did, I felt the blade….” She touched her neck. “I don’t really remember the pain. I remember the spurt of blood and thinking, Wow, that’s so much blood. I’m going to die. And then…then I was cold, and the world seemed blank until…I knew I was dead. I could feel no pain, and I just wanted to sleep and pretend it wasn’t real. There was the morgue—so humiliating. And then…then I heard you speak to me!” she said, turning to Sean.

  “Jenny, this is important,” Sean said. “Was there still a priest in the tableau when there was a robed guy with a blackout on his face behind you?”

  She frowned. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t look at the tableau again. I remember falling—or being flung down. And I remember seeing Alistair’s face. I think he wanted to fight for me. He would have died for me. He never got the chance.”

  “Did the killer say anything, Jenny?” Sean asked.

  She thought for a minute, then shook her head. “No. Alistair screamed at him, but he didn’t say anything at all. The last thing I recall was Alistair shouting and trying to reach me. He started to rush forward…and went down in the blood. My blood.”

  “Is that it?” Bogie asked. His voice was low, rough and raspy. Jenny seemed to be holding her own, but Bogie was torn by the pain of it. “Is it okay if we leave?”

  “Yes, you can take her out. Thank you, Bogie,” Sean said.


  Bogie walked her back toward the Black Box Cinema, one arm around her. They seemed to disappear before they got to the stairs.

  “Where did this get us?” Madison demanded. Her eyes were narrowed. Accusing.

  “To the world of illusion,” Sean told her. He stepped over the velvet cord into the tableau and walked through the scene, studying each character.

  Kat and Madison stood there quietly, observing him.

  “We need to watch Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum,” Sean muttered.

  “I know you think the movie might have something to do with the murder,” Madison said, “but how? And are we talking about the original or the remake?”

  “The original. Alistair was watching the movie. The killer knew he’d be watching it, and dressed up as one of the characters—as the killer in the movie, to be precise.” Sean went from mannequin to mannequin. They were just that. Nothing flesh and blood about them at all.

  But the killer had been flesh and blood. No question of that. So how had he gotten in and out?

  Sean left the tableau, aware that Kat and Madison were studying him intently. “Okay,” he said. “Right now, we don’t know how the killer got down here. But he manipulated two minutes from the security video. I think he got in here somehow and that he knew where to hide. Kat, how much blood would he have on him if he caught her from behind? Would he be covered in it?”

  “Not necessarily. Not if the blood spurted forward and he pushed her away from him immediately. I’m assuming he’d have gotten some on him. From the knife, certainly. And a sleeve probably would have had to have caught some. From what we’ve reconstructed of the attack, the flow of blood would’ve been forward.”

  Madison was still watching him, frowning. She moved from the position where Jenny had been seized toward the door that led to the studio. She shook her head, looking at Sean, a baffled expression on her face.

  “Even if it was just a few drops…if the killer had gone this way, he’d have tracked blood. I can’t believe he escaped through the studio,” she said. “Surely, there would’ve been something here, some clue.”

  The crime scene unit had gone over the tunnel with fine-tooth combs. But they’d expected to find blood there. Spatter, spray…drops.

  Because Alistair had run back through the tunnel to reach Bailey over at the studio.

  Dropping low, Sean began to inspect the area of the tableau again. And it was then that he noticed the slight smear on the skirt of the Dianna Breen mannequin.

  “He came back this way,” Sean said.

  Both of the woman looked at him in surprise. “He came back this way,” he repeated, “and then…”

  The backdrop was black. A black-painted plaster wall. Sean walked over and began to tap it. The sound was hollow.

  “There’s something behind the tableau,” he said.

  Standing next to him, Madison tapped, as well. They heard the same hollow sound, and she turned to him with large eyes. “But there’s nothing back there. We’re actually underground now, Sean. This is just a tunnel.”

  “We may be underground, and this may be a tunnel,” he said. “But there is something back there. Keep tapping, press on things—there has to be a release here somewhere. I know the killer came back this way.”

  They spent the next few minutes pushing, prodding, tapping the wall. They were still at it when Sean heard Logan calling out to him. The others had arrived.

  “Logan! We’re in the tunnel.” He stepped down and waited for Logan, Jane, Tyler and Kelsey to join them.

  “You’ve done a great job getting along with Knox,” Logan said. “He was receptive to us and actually helpful. We have the notes from all the employee interviews, and he gave us lists of others we might want to question. That’s pretty good, considering how unusual it is that the FBI would be called in for one murder in his jurisdiction.”

  “He was a little annoyed at first. I guess he’s resigned, maybe even glad. Whatever happens, he won’t be the fall guy.”

  “So, you’ve found something?” Kat asked. “This is quite a place. And eerie—the tableaux are really excellent, and being down here is kind of creepy.”

  “A special-effects studio filled with monsters and surrounded by a cemetery,” Tyler commented. “And the work I’ve seen here is amazing.”

  Madison smiled at him. “It is an amazing place,” she agreed.

  “The cemetery was always here,” Sean said. “If I remember correctly, the property was all owned by the previous owner—or his father. His father or grandfather, first. They donated the land for the cemetery in the late 1800s. The studio was built in the 1930s, right?”

  “Maybe a bit later,” Madison said. “The early 1940s.”

  “Someone had a sense of humor,” Kat remarked. “Building a special-effects studio—known for fantastic zombies, mummies and vampires, among other creatures—beside a cemetery.”

  “Forget the cemetery for now,” Sean said. “There’s something behind this wall, and I want to know what it is. Or I should say—there isn’t something. If you listen, you can tell there’s no earth behind it.”

  “You think there’s some kind of hidden door here?” Logan asked.

  “Yes, but I can’t find any mechanism.”

  The rest of the team joined them, tapping, stamping on the floor, feeling for cracks in the wall’s surface.

  “We could break it down,” Tyler Montague suggested. “We’d need to get some sledgehammers….”

  Sean grinned. Tyler was as muscled as a linebacker. He could break it down.

  “I think we have to find the trap door or whatever it is,” Sean said. “Or come at it from the other side.”

  “How do we get to the other side?” Madison asked.

  “Do you remember I told you that the elevator in the studio could reach the basement?” Sean said. “We have to get Eddie to come over with the key that’ll take it down there. The tunnel connects to the studio here. There has to be another tunnel on the opposite side. I’m going to call Eddie and ask him to bring the key.”

  “And instead of breaking things down while we wait,” Logan said, “Madison can show the rest of us the studio.”

  “Of course.” Madison gestured at the door. “We can go that way. I’m sure the forensics teams have gotten everything they can.”

  “They’re just waiting for us to finish in here,” Logan said. “Madison, if you would.”

  Madison glanced at Sean, almost as though she wanted his approval, and when he nodded, she led the others through the connecting door.

  Sean found himself alone in the tunnel.

  He stood very still for a moment. But he was truly alone. He didn’t know where Bogie had taken Jenny, but he was sure she was in good company.

  No…there was nothing that hinted of a world beyond in the tunnel now. There was nothing at all, except for the sickening smell of blood.

  * * *

  Madison felt as if she was taking a tour group through the studio. Sean’s team members were careful and polite, oohing and aahing over the work they saw going on. Logan Raintree was more somber, asking her about lockdown and the current projects, particularly The Unholy.

  “Anticipation can be the impetus that makes a movie score big at the box office,” Madison explained. “So, when we’re working on comic characters or some kind of movie monster—especially when there’s a nice budget, and it’s an important movie for a production studio—we go into lockdown. And you know that we’re working on the remake of Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum.” She brought them over to her workstation. “Right now, I’m fabricating all the costumes for Sam Stone, who’s being played by Oliver Marshall. He comes here for his fittings. He was due back in this week for his last one. I don’t know what the schedule will be now, and I haven’t heard from Mike.” She paused a moment, then began to explain. “In the movie, Sam is slipped some drugs, and the priest is able to make him believe that jackals and other monsters come
to life. He battles that in his mind. We work with foam and latex and all kinds of materials to create them.” She lifted one of the tarps covering her work. “He’s wearing typical contemporary clothing in most of the movie, but in the hallucination scenes, he has ancient Egyptian weaponry. Of course, a number of scenes are done with his stunt double. In the fight scenes, he’s got a helmet on, so you don’t see his face most of the time. When the stunt double’s working he wears a face shield. In this case, it’s easy. The helmet goes over…”

  Her words trailed off as she raised a piece of black cloth. The material was so sheer it could go over an actor’s face and still allow him to see and breathe.

  And when an actor wore a headpiece made of that material, he appeared to have no face at all. It worked extremely well for long shots when the stunt double was stepping in for the actor; sometimes, the character was too distant for the facial features to be clearly seen, and sometimes, the face could be digitized in.

  She looked at Logan and swallowed.

  “This…this is what the killer must have used,” she said in a hushed voice. “Both Jenny and Alistair said he had no face. If you had a headpiece of this stuff on under a hood, it would look like you were…faceless.”

  * * *

  Sean went out to meet Eddie Archer when he’d arrived at the studio. He wasn’t alone; he was with a woman, and to Sean’s surprise, it wasn’t Helena LaRoux, his present wife. Eddie had come within minutes of being called, and he was accompanied by Benita Lowe, his ex-wife.

  Benita was beautiful, but then Eddie was attracted to women who were showpieces. She was about five-foot-five, with raven-dark hair, deep brown eyes and exotic features. She was smart, too, and when it seemed that she was getting nothing but supporting roles and leads in B movies, she’d segued into producing and directing, performing only when she was offered a role she really wanted. Sean didn’t know what had really split the two of them up; there’d been rumors that she was unfaithful, according to Madison. But then, this was indeed Hollywood, and when there weren’t any good rumors to go around, some storyteller would invent one.

  “Sean!” Despite her solemnity, Benita said his name with warmth. “It’s wonderful to see you. I’m just sorry about the circumstances.”