Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

  Lazlo reluctantly agreed, and since Nurse Roberts had turned out be full of vitality and goodwill, it didn’t seem likely to be an entirely unpleasant ordeal.

  On the way to the x-ray room, Lazlo showed her the pills. She recognized the logo immediately and said she’d come across them in the possession of a man in his twenties who’d been brought into the ER along with his girlfriend, who’d been in a critical condition. A witness said he’d beaten her savagely and she then suddenly collapsed. She survived the ordeal with two broken arms, but her attacker was diagnosed as brain-dead on arrival. The girlfriend had described some pills that her boyfriend had taken earlier as having had a red spider logo. She remembered this because it struck her as odd.

  Lazlo made a mental note to find out what was in the pills as his chest was tightly bandaged following the scan. He was then left a while to wait for the results. Just as the doctor had foreseen, he had a fractured rib, and he was instructed to take painkillers and get plenty of rest. He could manage the first, he thought to himself as he left for home.

  Jennifer had been waiting, nervously, all night for John. Finally, at 2 a.m. and in a panicked state, she decided that however hopeless a search of a whole Manhattan district might turn out to be, she would go look for him. She would drive along the bus route to DNA, searching for him along the way and in the immediate surroundings of the club. But sneaking out of the house without her father, David, noticing would demand a mixture of skill and luck. Her car was noisy at the best of times, but in the quiet of the night, it would sound like a Sherman tank starting up. David had always slept well; his work usually exhausted him. But now, with everything that was going on, he had every reason to be sleeping more lightly.

  As she walked out onto the landing, she was relieved to hear his snoring. This just might work. She grabbed a coat and some sneakers and quietly tip-toed outside. Her six-year-old Ford Escort was parked next to her father's Volvo station wagon. The driveway gently sloped away from the house, which would allow her to roll the car out onto the street and put some distance between it and the house before she would have to start the engine.

  She got in and released the hand brake, looking over her shoulder as she came out of the drive and backed into the road. Then, looking forward through the windshield and getting ready to turn on the ignition, she was shocked to see a glowing figure.

  There was a spirit standing on the road in front of her. Her breath was taken from her a split second before she realized it was John.

  Back in her room, John told Jennifer all about the events of the evening, including his visit to DNA, his witnessing El Gordito being possessed, and the subsequent attempts to evade the angry spirit which emerged from one of his bodyguards. When she heard the last part, she was furious.

  “Jesus, John! You were lucky that it didn’t catch you. You could’ve been…” She paused, searching for the right word. “You know—completely destroyed!” Her whisper had become coarse with anger, such was her affection for him.

  “I guess so. I’ve no idea who that spirit was. For sure it looked nothing like the one you described coming out of Hardwell. This one was tall but very wiry, had a shaved head, and was tattooed.” John added with a smile, “Maybe I could have taken him, maybe not.”

  Jennifer didn’t find it funny. She paused and took a deep breath. “I know who the spirit that came out of Hardwell is—or was.”

  “How?” John was stunned.

  “I could sense my father was holding something back about his meeting with Devereux, so I confronted him about it, and he told me exactly what Devereux had come to discuss with him. The case wasn’t just any case, it was the one that ended my dad’s career as the D.A. for Miami.”

  “Your father was the D.A.? Why wouldn’t you tell me something like that?”

  “Because we left Miami in secret. I knew it was because of something to do with his job. But tonight, he told me it was specifically because of this one case. He had planned to tell me the full story one day, but kept putting it off. He had been too embarrassed to admit to me that out of all the many bad guys he had put away, one had defeated him by getting to him with threats.”

  “Christ! Who did he put away?”

  “A guy named Juan Santiago. He oversaw the distribution of all drugs in Miami and had many people murdered and tortured. . . He’d already been in prison once, and . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “And what?”

  “Before his sentence ended, he was stabbed to death by a group of inmates with allegiance to a rival gang. It’s suspected that the guards had been paid off to allow it to happen.” Jennifer took her laptop out of sleep mode and turned it around so John could view the screen. “I found these photos of him.”

  John stared at the photo of Juan Santiago in silence. Tousled, dark locks and a beard framed the Mexican’s face, but in no way softened the hate in the black, remorseless eyes staring out at him. There was just a hint of a sneer to the man’s mouth, and his firm chin mirrored the power of his muscular shoulders.

  “It’s definitely his spirit I saw coming out of Hardwell! That same evil look, the same burning hate.” She scrolled down the list of image results. “You should see this one too!” She pointed to a photo showing a row of ten bodies, all belonging to young men, all with their hands cut off. “It says in the article that was Santiago’s way of punishing anyone he suspected might be stealing from him. He cut their hands off with a machete and left them to bleed to death.” She paused and tried to calm her panicky breathing. “He must be looking for vengeance against my father, and my father has no idea that Santiago is out there as a spirit...possessing people. Look what happened when his spirit possessed Devereux. What if the next person Santiago possesses tries to kill him!” She shuddered at the thought.

  “Even if you tell him, Jen, he wouldn’t believe you!”

  Jennifer nodded. “There’s nothing we can do,” she murmured, her face turning pale.

  John fell silent for a moment, thinking. “But if Santiago’s spirit was in Hardwell when he stabbed me . . .then why stab me? What does Santiago have against me?”

  “I don’t know, John. I don’t know anything anymore!” she wailed.

  John could see that her resilience, which had been strong until now, was starting to wane. “Stay with me, Jen.” His tone was urgent, determined.

  “Maybe Donovan encouraged Hardwell to attack you and the spirit just wanted to watch him do it for kicks?” she offered, knowing the theory was pretty far-fetched. Slowly, she was recovering her normal tone.

  “But why would Donovan want me dead? It makes no sense!”

  “To cover up selling the pub? God! Maybe Donovan wants to kill your father next!”

  “He wouldn’t have to kill me or my father for that. My father was never an owner of the pub; he was purely an investor. He just asked for some profit and loss reports a couple of times a year, and it would be easy for Donovan to continue fudging them, like he probably had done for years. Whenever the reports showed he needed more money for the pub, he got it. There’d be no point cutting off the hand that was feeding him.”

  “Let me think, John.” Her tone was now more positive. “We already know a lot more now than we did. Firstly, Donovan knew Hardwell was the attacker because he tried to stop his employee from identifying him. And we also know that Donovan is in debt to El Gordito.”

  “He could also be pushing drugs for him, given his habit. At the very least, he lets his employee McGinty sell drugs at the pub. I heard him say it.”

  “Add to that, we know that Juan Santiago was a drug mobster like El Gordito, and his spirit first possessed Hardwell, who tried to stab you, then possessed Devereux, who threatened my father and stabbed him with a letter opener. Hardwell is locked up and Devereux has disappeared. Finally, we know that El Gordito is possessed, but we can’t be sure by whom. It could be Santiago, but it could be just as easily be the spirit of someone else.”

  “The spirit who chased me looked Mexi
can and his mortal host was a member of El Gordito’s bodyguard team. Since mortals can’t give spirits orders, the only explanation seems that he must have been taking orders from the spirit inside El Gordito.”

  “OK, but it still doesn’t mean––“

  “It’s Santiago, Jen. I’m certain it is. There’s something I didn’t tell you yet about everything that happened after the club.”

  “Go on.” She waited with tense eyes.

  John related the incident in the van, the cut-up body, the possessed driver, and his last-minute possession of a hobo. As he spoke, he saw her brow crease with anger, her previous irritation flaring up again at this news of the extent of his risk-taking.

  He continued, telling her how a girl spirit had spoken to him and helped him. “She explained how for someone to become truly evil, like the serial killer in the van, it takes a second evil mind inside a body in addition to the mortal’s own. Also, she said the suffering that the serial killer will inflict will be nothing compared to what Santiago and his host El Gordito are capable of.”

  “Wait, let me check something,” Jennifer said as she typed the words ‘El Gordito’ and ‘Juan Santiago’ into the search engine. “So, what did this spirit look like? Pretty?” she added casually.

  “Kind of,” John said. “She had a bit of tomboy thing going, you know? Like a sort of Lisbeth Salander vibe, from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Not my type, and, there was something else—when she had finished talking, her eyes became hollow and she just disappeared into nothing.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  John nodded. “Maybe I should change my type, keep a lookout for her. You know, keep my options open. In case I have to stay like this.” He paused, giving her that same teasing, crooked smile she knew from their flirts at school. “You, on the other hand, cannot start seeing anyone else. Remember, I can stick my head through any wall at any time to check up on you!”

  “Don’t even joke about not coming back to me, John!” she said and turned back to look at her screen. “Here,” she said, pointing. “It turns out that Santiago frequently visited El Gordito’s DNA club and would book the whole VIP lounge to host large, drug-fueled parties. One article mentioned rumors that he and El Gordito were going to expand their operations and carve up the drug trade in the Eastern Seaboard between them.”

  “Wait a second. In one of your books on the afterlife, it said something about earthbound spirits staying on because they can’t let go of addictions they had in their previous mortal lives...not drugs or alcohol but certain feelings…Maybe . . . Maybe Santiago has stayed on here as an earthbound spirit and, through possessing El Gordito, can re-live his addictions to power and cruelty?”

  “That could be it, John! El Gordito seems to have grown his empire rapidly in the last year. The number of killings he’s suspected of being involved in has more than tripled and the murders have become more sadistic. That could be Santiago’s effect on him. It adds up. From what I could find in the news reports, the rises in violence seemed to occur a few months after Santiago died in prison.”

  “Fuck! Two drug lords in one!” John sighed, then paused, knowing Jennifer wouldn’t like what he was about to say next.

  “Whichever way we look at it, I have to go back to DNA. In one of the articles you found online about El Gordito, it said he does all his business at DNA. It’s still the only lead we have and the one thing that seems to connect everything.”

  Jennifer frowned.

  “I’ll go back to the club during the day. There will be fewer people around; I will have a better chance to give the place a recon and find something that could help us.”

  “And what would that evidence look like, John? Where would you start looking?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll know it when I see it. Like I did at Donovan’s.”

  “And what about the spirits? There will be fewer people during the day, most probably, but that doesn’t mean Santiago and his henchman spirit won’t be there!”

  “What other option do we have? Run and hide? Eventually, it will find us. Then there’s your fath––”

  “I know, I know, my dad!” Jennifer looked frantic for a moment. “What about a priest? Couldn’t we get a priest to exorcise Santiago?”

  “We will never get a priest to believe and take seriously what we’ve seen with our own eyes. Even if we found one skilled in exorcism and willing to try, how would we get a priest anywhere near El Gordito, let alone have him strapped to a chair or bed for days, weeks, or however long it’s supposed to take to do an exorcism—assuming that it would actually work.”

  “I guess you’re right… We have no other choice but to take this into our own hands,” she said resignedly.

  They fell silent.

  “I’m so tired, Jen,” John finally muttered.

  Jennifer watched as John succumbed to a deep sleep. If there was anything she envied about his state, it was that he wouldn’t be up most of the night, worrying like she inevitably would. There was nothing more she wanted right now than to fall asleep in his arms, but that was impossible.

  Eleven

  Unable to sleep due more to the barrage of thoughts in his head than the dull ache in his chest, Lazlo stared, in the dim light from a streetlamp below his window, at the piece of abstract art hanging on the wall opposite his bed. The shapes and lines on the painting seemed to follow no discernable pattern, much like the events of the night, which seemed to be linked only by the strange new drug he had come across. His eyes had finally started to close when he received a call from Duty Sergeant Watson at the precinct. The sergeant informed him that Siobhan Kendrick had left a message about her missing brother, Mark. She said she’d received news that her brother been in a fatal car accident on Staten Island.

  “She didn’t want to talk to me?” Lazlo enquired.

  “No, she said she’s too upset to talk to anyone and wants the local precinct to handle everything.”

  “That’s strange. Call Staten Island and find out how the accident happened and where the body is.”

  Watson confirmed he had already done so... “Kendrick was found in his car, which appeared to have been driven into the wall of a building. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and his airbag had failed to deploy. There was a high concentration of alcohol in his bloodstream. The local PD identified the body from fingerprints in the system. He had a few misdemeanors on record. They’re not treating the death as suspicious.”

  “And the body, is it with the Staten Island M.E.?”

  “No, due to budget cuts, all Staten Island cases are being transferred to the M.E. in Brooklyn. Kendrick’s body is being transferred there first thing in the morning. It’s an open and shut case.”

  “Obviously,” Lazlo murmured, unconvinced, before thanking the sergeant and hanging up.

  What bothered him was that Siobhan Kendrick’s profile of her brother didn’t fit this accident and his record showed no prior DUIs. It also seemed a little too convenient that the one missing person case he had become interested in, and which had a link to El Gordito’s club, should be neatly closed by a fatal car accident with no other vehicles involved. If the accident wasn’t the actual cause of death—as the pills with the red logo suggested—then surely the M.E. would find traces of the drug, whatever it was, in Kenrick’s blood and report it. But Lazlo had a feeling that the drug wouldn’t be mentioned. The pills were the link to the DNA club and its owner, El Gordito, had a way of making evidence disappear to ensure his record remained untarnished. Knowing the drug lord’s network of connections in the criminal world and, no doubt even in the establishment, Lazlo felt it was not out of the question that he could get an M.E.’s report changed if he needed to.

  It was 3:20 a.m., but the lateness of the hour didn’t stop Lazlo from calling his old friend Tom Stevens, a forensic pathologist who’d worked for the medical examiner for many years and was highly respected.

  Stevens picked up and immediately launched into a whispered series of cusses
. Lazlo assumed this was because the guy didn’t want to wake his sleeping wife. Sure enough, once his friend had calmed down and moved the conversation to the kitchen, he became more reasonable and eventually agreed to be at the chief medical examiner’s office in Brooklyn at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, which happened to be a Saturday and free from work for both of them.

  The forensic pathology center of the chief medical examiner’s office was located in the Kings County Hospital campus in Brooklyn. Daniel Lazlo and Tom Stevens had been there many times and quickly found their way to the autopsy room, which was right next to the mortuary.

  Luckily for them, the reception desk was unmanned, which saved them registering and leaving a record of their visit. They pushed through an unmarked swinging door and entered a long corridor. As always there was someone mopping the linoleum floors with harsh disinfectant. It never seemed to mask the smell of death but added to the acrid odor that Stevens had once described as similar to old Parmesan cheese.

  Soon they came to two doors on opposite sides of the corridor. To the right was the decomposition or special procedures room, which was used for potentially infectious, decomposing, and burned bodies. Through the door on the left, they could hear the forensic pathology team having their morning briefing. It seemed to be overrunning as usual—after all, the dead weren’t going anywhere. Farther along was the morgue, functional and organized, where the bodies were stored in rows of stainless-steel drawers.

  Stevens led Lazlo inside and checked the roster on a clipboard hanging on the wall. None of the seven deceased currently under examination was named Kendrick.

  Disappointed, Lazlo returned with Stevens to the reception desk. A blond woman was now sitting behind it, bent over as she hurriedly looked through a file drawer.

  Lazlo introduced himself and Stevens, and asked whether anyone named Mark Kendrick had been admitted. When she raised her head, she revealed a closed expression with a hint of annoyance and gave her response with a stiff smile before she returned to searching through the documents.