by Fynn Perry
“There’s one more thing,” the detective said. “Hardwell’s jacket had blood on it. Naturally, we believe it to be John Logan’s, but a DNA test would prove it. What we have on Hardwell already is so strong that we probably won’t need to take a blood sample from Mr. Logan. Obviously, we would like to spare his family further distress by avoiding doing so.”
“Thanks, Geoff, I appreciate it. I’ll see you at Hardwell’s arraignment tomorrow,” David said.
The detective took his cue and shook David’s hand, then Jennifer’s. David walked him to the door.
“I’ve got to get back to the office,” David said after the door had closed behind the detective.
“Dad, there’s something…” Jennifer’s words stopped short as she saw John standing behind him, shaking his head, seeming to have anticipated what she wanted to say.
“He won’t believe you about the possession,” John said, the words only audible to her ears.
“Nothing—it can wait,” she said and immediately saw her father’s expression of concern fade to be replaced by one of relief. She hugged him and they kissed good-bye before he exited the house.
Minutes later, Jennifer received a text message from her mother. She had canceled their dinner because a client had arranged a last-minute meeting with her in the city. She showed the text to John. “This is typical, and why I chose to stay with my dad. He would never cancel on me like this.”
John gave her a sympathetic smile.
They spent the rest of the evening talking before David returned a few minutes after eight. Jennifer’s father tried not to react at the news of his ex-wife’s cancellation of her plans with Jennifer––just furrowed his brow and got busy as he tried to piece together some form of stir-fry for the two of them. It was a little burnt but still edible.
They caught the local news after the meal. The attack got a mention for a few seconds in the ‘Other News’ segment without any reference to an arrest having been made.
Eight
The next day, Hardwell’s arraignment took place, as scheduled, at 10:00 a.m. Just as Jennifer’s father had predicted, Robert Devereux had tried to submit a plea that his client was not competent to stand trial for reason of insanity. But Devereux lost the ensuing argument with the judge, who ruled the case would, despite the plea, go to a full trial. Hardwell was forced to amend his plea to Not Guilty.
Outside the courtroom, Jennifer waited in the wood-paneled corridor, deep in thought and tuned out from the sounds of whispered conversations, the rustle of papers, and hurried footfalls echoing off the polished marble floor. Her priority was to get back to John, who was still cooped up in her bedroom, but she couldn’t leave without first saying good-bye to her parents. They had not stopped bickering since the arraignment finished and were continuing to do so in hushed tones to her side. Her only reason for showing up had been to see if Devereux or Hardwell was still possessed. There was no sense in John coming along and risking an attack by the evil spirit she had seen in the precinct. As it turned out, neither man was possessed anymore. She had no doubt in her mind that the spirit had provoked the aggressive behavior in Hardwell—the desire to kill—but she wondered now whether the stabbing was some kind of random act of opportunistic evil on the spirit’s part or whether there was a motive. Was the entity out there now, somewhere in the city, looking for John’s spirit? How would they see him coming if he chose to hide within someone new?
She was forced to abandon her thoughts when two men approached. She recognized Jim Donovan but not the second man, whom she had seen earlier, at a distance, in the courtroom. Her parents stopped talking and after Jennifer had forced herself to smile and say a greeting to Donovan, they introduced the second man as Tom Logan, John’s father, explaining they had first met both men outside the ICU on the night of the stabbing. Up close, the resemblance was more than passing, his warm greeting giving her a brief reminder of John’s crooked smile before his face settled to a look of concern and exhaustion as he queried how she was feeling. Jim Donovan stood close by him, playing the supportive friend. Jennifer was glad John wasn’t there to see it.
As Tom Logan and her father compared what news they had on the case, Jennifer was pulled away by her mother until they were out of earshot of all three men. “I don’t want to appear insensitive, sweetheart…” Which meant she was about to be very insensitive. “… But now this Hardwell character has been caught, you can put it all behind you.” She paused and tried to speak more softly, but her words came out in the same, official-sounding tone. “You can’t wait forever for John to recover. He has no choice in putting his life on hold, but you do. You have to get on with your own life.”
A few years ago, Jennifer would have reacted differently––confused and angry at the callousness— but now she knew better. There was always an ulterior motive behind it.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I have a meeting at my hotel. It’s another art investor. I’ll be as quick as I can and I’ll meet you back at your father’s house later. Are you OK to go home?”
“I’m fine, Mom, as always,” Jennifer answered. As usual, her mother just wanted to get on with her own life and assume that all Jennifer’s problems were solved. She watched her say hurried good-byes to everyone and hail a cab.
“I have to get back to the office, honey. Are you OK to get back yourself?” her father asked.
Jennifer nodded and called an Uber.
Back home, Jennifer passed John lying on the couch as she headed straight to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Her love of tea had come from her mother. She couldn’t imagine her day without tea—six cups a day was her average. It was her addiction and her comfort, and she needed one now.
She told him first about meeting his father, about his smile, his charm, and how they’d reminded her of John.
Their eyes locked for a long minute after that, the division between them becoming almost unbearable. She broke the silence and told him about the arraignment. There wasn’t much to say. It was a brief process by the court, with a single but important takeaway––Hardwell would stand trial. “All we know for sure is that Hardwell attacked you. And now he’s in custody. Maybe it ends here, John. He was jealous of you because he thought I was my mother and you were dating me. I mean, my mother…Sheesh! How screwed up is that?” she commented.
“Very,” John shrugged. “But it doesn’t end with Hardwell being put away. Donovan is somehow connected. He threatened his employee, McGinty, to keep quiet about the attacker’s identity. And then there’s the manic-looking spirit you saw coming out of Hardwell. It’s somehow involved too.”
“Come upstairs. I might have something that could help explain the spirit part in all of this.”
In her room, Jennifer got out her phone after hearing she’d received a text message. “My mom’s not coming today after all. Apparently, her meeting with an art investor had been extended.”
“She buys art?”
“Yeah, she was big on art when we lived in Miami. She ran an art gallery for some investors my father introduced her to. Now her boyfriend, Phil, has invested a stack of money in it and they’ve opened a gallery together. She’s doing well, much better than Dad.”
Another ping, and yet another text from her mother. “Now she wrote that she has to fly back to Miami tomorrow. A meeting with another art investor.”
“So that’s it? She just flew in and spent a few hours with you? And after all the crap she gave your father?”
“Yes, but she told me at the arraignment how to sort my life out. So, in her mind, she’s done all she can. That’s my mom.”
“Wow, and you’re OK with that?”
“Actually, it suits me with all that’s going on. Come on, we must be able to find something in all this.” She motioned to an old, fancy-looking wooden bookcase dominating one of the walls of her bedroom. It was stuffed with books and binders. “This is all stuff on the paranormal. I started collecting books, articles—anything on the subject after I became c
onvinced I had seen the ghost of my grandmother that day as a child.”
John nodded in recognition of the conversation they had had on the subject on the night of the stabbing.
“Turned out I was right!” She reached for a big reference book and started to thumb through it, then scanning pages until she found something of interest.
“Hey, listen,” she said, quoting, “Earthbound spirits are disembodied people who have stayed on Earth, attached to the physical realm, not wishing to move on beyond it after their physical body has expired.”
“I could have told you that,” John smiled. “You know, horse’s mouth and all that…” He paused, looking at her confused expression. “Remember…what the wise spirit woman I met told me?”
She gave a brief nod and carried on regardless. “When the body dies, the spirit of the person should move on to another spiritual plane, where it may rejoin loved ones and where a feeling of peace, love, and joy is experienced. This is a cleansing process for the spirit, blah, blah,” she continued, scanning the text. “Ah, this is more interesting.” She fast-forwarded through the text. “Spirits choosing to remain earthbound are found void of this cleansing and closure process and thus remain with those on the earth as ‘unclean spirits,’ having no peace, love or joy. Hell truly is found here on Earth. Disembodied spirits co-exist and unhealthily interact with those physically embodied.”
“No shit! I’d say causing someone to stab me is an unhealthy interaction!” John said and paused for a moment. “I guess it could have been a spirit’s random act of violence, but I doubt it, not with Donovan being involved with Hardwell.”
John leaned over Jennifer and read ahead. She shivered from the cold air settling on her back. “And we can’t just rely on it being random anyway, not while it seems to be hanging around. Remember, it possessed Hardwell’s lawyer and spoke to me,” she added.
“Here’s something else.” John started reading out loud. “The condition of the disembodied spirit will remain in the same condition that the mortal was in at the time of death. If the ghost was, in real life, addicted to drugs, sex or alcohol, for example, then those same addictions remain. In fact, the addictions and traumas will drive the disembodied spirit into trying to find relief, even though relief will not be found in the physical realm. As the ghost looks backward to the past and cannot move on, remaining earthbound, the prison is complete.”
John skipped through the next section. “It goes on to say that we should reason with the spirit and persuade it to move on.”
“You can’t reason with what I saw,” Jennifer exclaimed. “This isn’t some elderly person who needs gently guiding to the light. That looked like a psychotic killer in a prison jumpsuit with knife holes in it. We have to find out who the hell it is or was. How he died and why he targeted you. John, are you sure there’s not something you haven’t told me—someone you might have wronged at some time?’’
“Jen, of course I am!”
“What about your dad? You said he made a lot of money in land deals and developments . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe there were dealings with a gang or some cartel got involved?”
“Jen, really? No! For God’s sake! He was one of many Irish farmers who got lucky selling their land. He wasn’t even in the US until we moved here four months ago. I have no idea whose spirit you saw.”
David Miller had gotten back to his office from the court building and was sitting at his desk in front of a pile of re-used, tatty manila files. Many of them had previous case names crossed out. Gone were the days when he had been a criminal prosecutor, of sleek modern offices and expensive lunches with clients. He used to spar with high-priced opposing counsel and make damning closing arguments founded upon weeks or even months of evidence collection. Now that he was a pro bono lawyer in a legal clinic in Brooklyn, his court appearances were many—short and sharp, with a great deal of rapid plea bargaining. Clients had to be realistic. Free legal representation didn’t go far.
He tried to concentrate, but his mind kept wondering about Hardwell. Something about his behavior didn’t add up. David considered that his illness could have led him to confuse David’s daughter with his ex-wife. Jessica had, after all, been strikingly similar at the same age. But to stab someone? There was a cold heart behind the attack, and disheveled, disorganized Hardwell didn’t fit that profile.
The internal line on his telephone rang. It was the receptionist, Abigail Schmidt. David had a visitor, she said, an ex-employee of the clinic. It was Robert Devereux.
David Miller sighed. Robert had been the least welcoming of the lawyers in the clinic when he’d worked there and was always clearly suspicious of David. At nearly six feet tall, he would have been imposing, possibly handsome, had it not been for his hooked nose, rakish frame, and the unpleasantly bony feel of his hand in a handshake. When he smiled, which was rare, his thin-lipped mouth went taut over teeth that were too large, and his lips drew in rather than back.
There was a brief knock at the door and then Devereux sauntered in. They exchanged strained pleasantries. Devereux put his hands up in mock surrender, giving that smile of his which gushed insincerity. “I can’t talk about the Hardwell case, but I have a few questions about a closed case that you worked on a while back,” he said.
“What case?” David replied hurriedly. “I’m busy.”
“Juan Santiago.”
David looked up in surprise. He had never so much as mentioned that name to anyone in New York. Only a few people knew he was that David Miller, a former Miami-Dade District Attorney who, among many others, had put away Santiago, the most violent drug distributor in Miami, to serve long sentences. When he could no longer cope with the countless death threats to his family, David had called in some favors from a few trusted individuals in positions of influence. Together, they had secretly organized his placement in the New York clinic and move to the city to escape the reaches of Santiago’s network of criminal associates, which the drug kingpin continued to control from prison.
He had thought about changing his surname to something really popular like Smith or Johnson. But there were literally thousands of David and Jennifer Millers in New York State, not to mention throughout the States––he had checked online. Besides, such a change would undoubtedly leave some kind of administrative mark that could be later discovered. So, he had settled on a change of appearance: his clothes were nothing like those from his former life, and his full beard was a new addition to his look. Only one trusted member of the Miami judiciary knew David’s true identity and whereabouts and why his life had changed so dramatically. Or so he’d thought.
“I think you must have been under great pressure to convict him. You guys controlled the evidence. It would be easy to mess around with it, you know, make your own evidence to help the case, wouldn’t it, Prosecutor?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I think you have me confused with someone else,” David lied. He was confused by Devereux’s accusatory attitude and by his apparent defense of a remorseless killer. “Didn’t he sanction and participate in hundreds of murders?” David said, trying to tease out how much Devereux knew.
Devereux’s smile dropped off his face as though it had had a hard time belonging there. The intensity of his stare and prominent, beaklike nose reminded David of a hawk sizing up its prey. “Murders? The only person murdered was Juan Santiago, Prosecutor!” he raged as he slammed down a printout of an article from the Miami Herald’s website dated five months ago. It was the story of Santiago’s murder in prison by a group of inmates loyal to a rival drug gang. A small headshot of David with shorter hair, crisp shirt and tie, and minus the beard, was inset in a small circle next to the main picture of Juan Santiago. The bright orange of Santiago’s prison jumpsuit contrasted with his dark skin, rampant hair, long beard, and insane, almost black eyes.
David’s mouth dropped open. Before he could deny that the man in the poor-resolution photo was him, Devereux hissed, “Do you think that your probl
ems are over with his death, Prosecutor?”
David had hoped that the death of the drug mobster would have marked the start of his return to public office and the well-paid life of a district attorney or at least a partner position in a private legal practice. However, he had decided to lie low in New York in his current employment a while longer, just in case there were still some members of Santiago’s gang, who even after a change in leadership, would somehow still be willing to re-start Santiago’s death threats against him. None had come to light, thank God. In his new work it had felt good helping people who had nowhere else to go. Now it seemed Santiago’s death and his unintended part in it, far from closing a chapter in his life he’d rather forget, had finally caught up with him. But via Devereux and with such anger? It was almost as if he was taking the death personally. It made no sense.
Devereux’s gaze landed on an antique letter opener with an ornate handle and substantial blade. He picked it up by the tip of the handle, using the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “They don’t make them like this anymore. You can tell, just by the weight, that it’s built to last.” His tone was measured, bordering on threatening. A beat passed as he stood admiring the engraved scales of justice on the handle.
“Justice!” he scoffed, and with his free hand suddenly grasped the wrist of David’s right hand with remarkable strength, pinning it flat to the desk like a starfish. Before David could struggle free, Devereux had wrapped his remaining fingers around the handle, forming a fist with the blade protruding below. David watched the blade come down onto his hand. It pierced the flesh between the metacarpal bones and the tip embedded itself into the surface of the table below. He shrieked with pain.
“Too late for justice! Now there is only revenge!” There was a manic glint in Devereux’s eye as he released the handle from his grip. “This is nothing compared to what is coming to you, Miller!” Devereux shouted before storming out of David’s room.