“I tried calling you from the van. Your phone is turned off,” I said.
Gil pointed to a sign in the hallway that indicated in big bold ink that all cell phones be turned off within the clerk’s area. “They’re pretty grumpy about that,” Gil said, and I had a feeling his had gone off and he’d been put in his place by one of the employees.
“Ah,” I said, smiling at him. “So, did you find anything?” I asked, changing topics.
Gilley nodded. “Actually,” he said, “I did find a few police reports that give us a tiny insight into Jack’s comings and goings. The reports go back about thirty years, and of the handful that I’ve come across, they all describe the same thing, namely, a man in the woods near Northelm wielding a hatchet and chasing after local kids. The first report came into the police station in July of 1976, and the cops back then were pretty freaked out about it. The city had just won the rights to host the Olympics in 1980, and no one wanted some crazed psycho running around to spoil the friendliness of the place. Bad for publicity and all.”
“So, what did the police do?”
“Well, the cops conducted a very private but thorough investigation but couldn’t find a shred of evidence that anything unusual had occurred. No dead bodies, no missing person fitting the description of either the victim or the guy with the hatchet, so there wasn’t really anything to go on. Two summers later the next report came in of a man running across the water at Hole Pond with a hatchet chasing a kid, and the cops responded, but the witness was a homeless guy, and the whole running-over-water thing made them think he might be a little lulu. But then not three weeks later they got another report, this time by a young couple walking near the pond, and they claimed they were chased through the woods by a guy with a hatchet.”
“How did the cops react to that report?”
“They covered it up,” Gil said. “No one wanted this type of story to hit the local papers and cause a panic, so it looks like there was a lot of covert investigating going on.”
“That’s why we haven’t been able to find anything online, even under our public-records search,” I said. “I’m thinking these reports are only kept here and on paper—that they’re not part of the public online record?”
“You’d be thinking right. But that’s not all that unusual. It’s really expensive to go back through decades of data and digitally scan them into the database. Usually only the larger, wealthier communities can afford to do that. Places like this would rather focus on putting their tax dollars to better use.”
“Were any of the reports filed from students at the school?”
“Only a few that I’ve hit on so far. Twenty years ago a young kid who went to Northelm was chased on one of the running trails near the school. Another witness from Northelm called in a report fifteen years ago—a teacher named Martin Ballsach. He was a math teacher who lived in town, and he said that he been at the school grading papers after final exams when he’d heard a noise outside his classroom. When he went to investigate he saw a man with a hatchet running through the halls, chasing a young boy into one of the opposite classrooms. Ballsach ran to the aid of the student, but when he got to the doorway of the classroom, there was no hatchet man and no young boy.”
“Might be one of the three boys we saw last night,” said Steven.
I nodded. “Those have been the only reports associated with the school?” I asked.
Gil glanced at the notepad he’d been scribbling on. “Yep. That is, until ten years ago, when a seventh grader claimed he was cornered in one of the old classrooms by a man with a hatchet, but he had a nervous breakdown very shortly thereafter, and the police were never able to get any more from him.”
“That’s the incident we read about in the school’s newspaper,” I said.
Gilley nodded. “And before you ask, I’ve already checked into possible disappearances of students at Northelm from all the previous years, and there are none. No student at Northelm has ever gone missing or been killed, as far as I can tell.”
I frowned. “Crap. That makes it harder to identify who these boys are and why Jack keeps chasing them.”
“Well, at least I might have one bit of good news. I think I know why there are so few reports of sightings of Jack in and around the school.”
“Why?”
“The sightings always start during the third or fourth week of June. Northelm usually lets out the second week of June, but this year there was a nasty ice storm, and most of the teachers couldn’t get to the school to teach for a full week. That forced the school to extend the school year out one week. The same thing happened five years ago, when Ballsach reported his sighting. The school had to shut down that year due to a pipe bursting in the main building. School was extended that year too.”
“That’s curious,” I said, thinking about the implications.
“Why is it curious?” Steven asked.
“Jack has a pattern. He becomes active the week after Northelm usually lets out. That might tie him to the school in some way.” Following that thought I asked Gil, “You said that these reports always come in during the summer, starting from about thirty years ago?” Gilley nodded. “Are there any reports at all during the school year, or around the holidays?”
Gil looked down at his notes again. “Nope,” he said.
“They begin the third week in June and stop the middle of August.”
“When does the school year start?”
Gil swiveled over to the laptop sharing space with the other courthouse books on his table and typed quickly on the keyboard. “Northelm begins its school year the Wednesday after Labor Day.”
I sighed. “I think Jack was connected to the school in some way. There has to be a reason why he’s beginning his haunts when there’s no one around at the school to see him.”
“Like how do you think he’s connected?” Gil asked me.
I shrugged. “Not sure. Gilley, dig around in Northelm’s records if you can. See if you can find anyone working at the school who died in 1975 or 1976. Since 1976 is the year that the activity began, it’s likely he died sometime within two years of that date.”
“That could be a pretty tall order,” Gil said with a hint of a whine. “Unless the old records are kept on a computer that’s networked to the Internet, I’m not going to be able to find much of anything.”
“Well, do your best and see what you can come up with,” I said. “Then look through the obituaries. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Thinking of something else, I said,
“Is there an address listed for that teacher…what was his name?”
“Martin Ballsach,” Gil offered. “And yes, I have his address here. Did you want to interview him?”
I nodded. “Might be a good idea if we can’t find Jack’s portal by the tree at Hole Pond.” Gil gave me a quizzical look, and I filled him in on what the kids at the library told us.
“Is that where you two are headed?” Gil asked.
“Yep,” I said. “We just wanted to bring you up to date and see what you’d uncovered.”
“Okay. I’ll keep digging through this stuff until you get back. If I’m not here when you two finish at the pond, I’ll be next door at that sandwich shop getting something to eat.”
We took our leave of Gilley and went back to the van. I took out the map the teenagers had given us and gave it to Steven. “Let’s go find ourselves a tree,” I said enthusiastically.
“You’re looking forward to this?” Steven said, giving me a sideways glance.
“Yep,” I said. “I like sealing up nasties like Jack once and for all.”
“You are like the ghost police.”
I grinned. “If the shoe fits,” I said, and we pulled out into traffic.
It took us a little while to find the tree the kids had told us about. After parking in a small clearing on the park side of Hole Pond we tried to follow the map they had drawn for us, which indicated that we should follow a trail by an old garbage can. Trouble
was, there were no old garbage cans—only new ones here and there around the pond. Steven and I were forced to follow every trail we could find and see if it came to a dead end near a big old tree at the edge of the pond.
As we followed our third trail we came to a small rise. In the distance we could see Northelm’s main building. “How far away do you think we are from the school?” Steven asked as he squinted into the distance.
I glanced at the building up ahead. “Probably a quarter mile or so,” I said.
“Seems like a lot of terrain for a ghost to cover,” he said.
“Not really,” I said. “Lots of ghosts are known to haunt more than one location. Abraham Lincoln, in fact, is supposed to haunt three buildings in three different states.”
“Really?”
“Yep. He’s famous for haunting one of the bedrooms in the White House, but he’s also been seen at his desk in the Illinois State Legislature, along with his childhood home, which has been moved to Greenfield Village in Michigan.”
“Impressive,” Steven said. “The man gets around.”
“It’s a pretty common occurrence,” I said, “which is why I’m really hoping we find Jack’s portal here. Otherwise it could be anywhere out here, and we’ll be hard-pressed to find it.”
The trail in front of us dipped again, and we entered some thick foliage that made keeping an eye on the trail difficult. “This can’t be it,” Steven complained as he pushed against the small branches from trees on either side of him to make his way through the narrow passage.
“All the same,” I said, pushing on my own branches,
“we’d better make sure before we give up and look for another trail.”
At that moment the branch gave way and the trail widened and became more distinct. We emerged from the woods and came to a clearing, and fifty yards in front of us was a gigantic oak tree on the edge of the western side of the pond. “Bingo,” I said, pointing to it.
“Well, I’ll be uncle to the monkey,” Steven said. “You were right.”
I smirked a little at his constant misattempts at American colloquialisms. “Come on; let’s check it out.”
Steven and I approached the tree cautiously. My senses were open and alert as I felt the energy surrounding the tree for any sign of nastiness. I was somewhat surprised as we approached that there was no apparent negative energy that I could pick up on. Instead a feather of something touched the edge of my radar, and as I tried to pull it closer we came to a stop at the front of the tree.
“Are you sensing anything?” Steven wanted to know.
“I’m picking up far less than I thought I would,” I admitted. Then I noticed the tree and my breath caught. “Would you look at that!” I said, reaching up to touch a deep scar in the trunk of the tree.
“There’s one there, too,” said Steven, and he pointed to another scar to the left of where I was looking.
“Over here too,” I said, seeing another.
“There must be half a dozen of them,” Steven said, edging his way around the trunk. “Nope, make that a full dozen, at least.”
As Steven walked the circumference of the tree, I stepped back and opened up my radar completely. I could still sense that feather of energy—it felt gentle and nonthreatening—but there was something about it that made me want to scratch my head. Something about that energy was tickling my mind with a puzzle that I couldn’t quite figure out. Momentarily frustrated, I pushed that aside and focused on trying to find Jack’s portal.
I scanned the tree, letting my eyes go unfocused, and looked for that little circle of vapor that indicated a portal was there. Nothing appeared to me, and I felt my shoulders sag. “Damn,” I muttered.
“Fifteen,” Steven said as he came up beside me again after having gone around the tree. “There are fifteen slashes in the trunk.”
“Hatchet Jack,” I said distastefully. “I’d bet you anything that they were all made by him.”
“Some look newer than others,” Steven commented.
“And there are quite a few on the other side, but they’re lower down.”
This got my attention. “Lower?”
“Yes, about this high,” he said, indicating a spot about midway up his chest. “And they are the ones that look the oldest.”
“Let me see,” I said, following him around to the other side of the tree. Sure enough there were several old cut marks in the trunk of the ancient gnarled tree that were decidedly lower than those on the opposite side. “That’s weird,” I said when the whisper of energy that had been tugging at me suddenly came on fast and strong. I stepped back away from the tree and looked at the ground, shocked by the imagery playing out in my head. “Steven,” I said breathlessly.
“What’s the matter?”
“Do you have your cell phone on you?”
“Yes.”
“Call nine-one-one.”
There was a pause, and then he said, “What is the emergency?”
“Tell them there’s been a murder.”
“What?!” Steven gasped.
I looked up at him, feeling a well of sadness form in my chest. “A little boy named Eric. His body is buried under my feet.”
Chapter 6
The police were quick to respond. They were equally quick to judge. “You mean to tell me that you called us out here to investigate a ghost?” said Detective Muckleroy, a portly man in his fifties with a close-shaved head and a bulbous nose.
“No,” I snapped, irritated that I’d wasted twenty-five minutes of my time trying to convince him that a young boy had been murdered and buried at the base of the tree we were standing around. “That’s my job. Your job is to take a shovel and dig where I tell you to!”
Muckleroy narrowed his eyes at me. “I’d watch that attitude if I were you,” he said evenly.
I narrowed my eyes, completely unperturbed. “Or what? You’ll arrest me for being snippy?”
“No, I’ll arrest you for reporting a false crime,” he growled.
Behind Muckleroy stood two cops, both with arms crossed and expressions that could carve granite. No one, it seemed, was giving me the benefit of the doubt about this. “What have you got to lose?” I asked. “Seriously, Detective, if I’m wrong then you can take me away in handcuffs. And if I’m right then you’ll make the local news. It’s a win-win situation.”
The detective snickered. “The way I look at it, lady, there’s a mountain of paperwork either way. Hardly sounds appealing to me.”
I looked back to the spot in the dirt I’d marked with a large stick. “Then do it for the family,” I said. “They’ve waited a long time for closure. It’s your day to be their hero.”
Muckleroy sighed heavily and considered me for a long moment before he said to the cop over his shoulder, “Davis, get a shovel.”
I smiled wide. “That’s the spirit!”
He eyed me critically, and when Davis returned with the shovel Muckleroy took it from him and handed it to me. “You’ve got ten minutes to dig up a body or I’m haulin’ you in.”
My jaw dropped. “Me?!”
Muckleroy nodded. “You think I’m gonna break a sweat over this?” he said, glancing at his watch. “Nine minutes, fifty seconds.”
I swore under my breath and snatched the shovel. Walking over to the stick marker I pushed the shovel into the ground, gritting my teeth as I thought about how I might be destroying evidence because some fat excuse for a cop was more interested in avoiding paperwork than in a possible murder investigation. My shovel of dirt revealed nothing. “Eight minutes, fifty-nine seconds,” Muckleroy said.
I glared at him, then dug in again, this time going deeper. My shovel hit something, and for a moment I got excited that I might unearth some bone, but as I pulled up on the shovel only a bit of tree root came up. There was a snort of laughter from one of the cops, and I felt my face growing hot. Suddenly there was a presence at my side, and strong hands gripped the handle of the shovel. “Let me,” Steven said.
I smiled at him and gave the shovel over. Steven jammed it into the small hole I’d dug and pushed hard with his foot. He pulled up a large chunk of dirt and swung it to one side, dropping it into a pile. “Dig through that with a stick while I keep going,” he instructed.
I nodded and grabbed one of the markers, pawing through the pile of dirt he’d made. “Six minutes, twenty seconds,” the detective said.
I ignored him, and Steven dropped another pile at my side. We worked like that for five more minutes. Steven had broken into a good sweat as he dug deeper and wider, pulling up huge shovelfuls of dirt while I poked around with my stick. “One minute!” Muckleroy said happily, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him rocking back and forth on his feet, enjoying the show.
That was when my stick poked into something hard, and I quickly scraped at the dirt, then jumped back like I’d been bitten. “What is it?” the detective said with a laugh. “Find a worm in the dirt?”
I snarled at him as I put a hand out to stop Steven from shoveling. “No,” I said slowly as I pulled my sleeve down over my hand and reached into the dirt. Pulling up gently, I lifted out a small skeletal hand.
“Shit!” Muckleroy said, all sense of mirth gone.
I set the hand down. “I suggest you call your CSI team before we do any more damage to the grave site,” I said. “Unless, of course, you want me to report to the local news how the town’s police department is forcing its tourists to dig up dead bodies because they’re too lazy to do it themselves.”
Muckleroy pulled his cell phone from the clip at his belt and began punching numbers into the keypad. Steven handed the shovel back to one of the cops, who was standing slack-jawed and staring at the hand lying on top of the dirt mound where I’d set it.
I walked over to my duffel bag, which I’d brought up from the van when we called the police, and searched inside for something to wipe my grubby hands on. “That was impressive,” Steven said, mopping his own brow with his sleeve. “How did you know the body was buried there?”
“Eric spoke to me when I went around that side of the tree. He kept drawing a cross on the ground, and I knew he’d been buried there.”