The Ghoul Next Door

  It surprised me that she hadn’t heard that we’d been brought in for questioning by the police on Brook Astor’s murder, but then, we hadn’t been charged with anything, so maybe our presence just down the street hadn’t been reported to the media. Still, Kendra was like a dog with a bone, and I knew she’d find the connection sooner or later. “We were just down the street from Brook Astor’s crime scene on the night she was murdered,” I confessed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Heath look sharply at me.

  Kendra’s expression told me she was pretty shocked too. “Whoa,” she said, and I could see a thousand questions start to form in her eyes.

  “We can’t discuss what happened of course,” I said quickly, wanting to shut her down before she began pestering me for details I knew we couldn’t give her.

  “Oh, come on!” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, Kendra. And we’ve got to go. Thanks for sharing, though. We appreciate it.”

  Kendra put a hand on the window frame. “I can make you a confidential source,” she said desperately.

  I motioned to Heath, and he edged the car ever so slightly away from the curb. Kendra continued to cling to the window frame. “Hey!” she said, attempting to keep us there. “I think there may be more murderers connected to this house. I had to sift through thirty years of records to find Guy’s old address, but I think there may be more men who’ve lived here who’ve committed murder. What I can’t figure out is how this house plays into it. But I think you know,” she said as Heath put the car into drive. “I think you’re here fishing around for the same answers.”

  “Please let go,” Heath said to her.

  But Kendra wouldn’t. She continued to hold on to the car door even as Heath eased us forward a fraction. “Kendra,” I said to her, “please let go. We have nothing to offer you.”

  She did let go then, but she started trotting next to the car, and then a bit of paper fluttered into the car and onto Heath’s lap. I realized it was her business card. “I have tons of notes,” she said, panting now to try to keep up with us. “We could pool our information! This could be an amazing story, M.J.! I could make you famous! Think about it!”

  Heath cleared the curb and pressed the accelerator, pulling away from Kendra. He didn’t let off until he was well away from her.

  I turned to look back and I watched Kendra stand in the street watching us drive away. I had the most unsettling feeling about her probing into this case. I was having a hard enough time trying to figure out the spectral energy of that house and the men involved in what appeared to be a string of murders. It was eerie and creepy and way too much for a layperson to handle. This was the stuff of horror movies and I started to worry about Kendra.

  “What?” Heath asked, reading my expression.

  “I don’t like her poking her nose into this.”

  “This or you?”

  “This,” I said. “Okay and me, but I’m more worried about her. If there really is some sort of occult connection to all these murders, then she could be in real danger. We know how to protect ourselves. She’s too naive to get it.”

  “Should we set up a meeting with her?” Heath asked. “Just to warn her?”

  I lifted the card out of the cup holder where Heath had put it while he pulled away. “No,” I said. “Not yet. Let’s go back to my place and look at the names on the wall. Gil might be able to match them to other murders.”

  Heath’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “There were a lot of names in that closet, Em.”

  I nodded. “Including Luke’s.”

  “Maybe we’re wrong about him. Maybe he really did kill Brook.”

  I was so confused by my own impressions and the evidence that kept presenting itself to point the finger at Luke that I didn’t know what to think.

  We got home a bit later and found Gil in my kitchen raiding the fridge. “You just had lunch,” I said, passing him on my way to the living room.

  “That was hours ago,” Gil said, coming up from the fridge with a cupcake I’d been saving for after a really good run.

  Before I could stop him, Gil took a huge bite. “Hey!” I shouted. “I was saving that!”

  Gil paused his consumption of my cupcake long enough to grin at me. “I’m saving you from all these extra calories. Junk in that trunk ain’t gonna help you across the finish line, honey.”

  Between the two of us, Gil had far more to worry about. He’d put on some considerable weight while we were in Europe, but since he’d been dating Michel, he’d done a good job of trimming down. Now that Michel was in New York on a shoot, I could tell Gil was starting to really miss him, and was binge eating to deal with it.

  “When you’re finished stuffing your piehole, come over and help us with something,” I said, giving up because Gil could devour a sweet treat faster than anyone I knew. I’d get another cupcake.

  Heath came to sit next to me while I uploaded the photo from my phone onto my laptop, where I could expand the image to see if I’d gotten all the names.

  “There they are,” Heath said with a whistle. “There’re at least a half dozen, Em.”

  “Half-dozen what?” Gil said from over Heath’s shoulder as he peered at the computer screen. “Hey, why’d you take a picture of a marked-up closet? Which reminds me, did you get over to the rental house?”

  Heath and I both took our gazes off the computer screen to stare at Gil. He’d asked three separate questions in under ten seconds. “Have a seat,” I told him. It was just easier to start at the beginning with him. Once I’d filled him in on our little visit to Luke’s last residence and the conversation we’d had with Kendra and her theory that there were other murderers connected to the house, Gil looked properly intrigued. “Lemme see that photo,” he said.

  I tapped the mouse pad and the photo came up. I enhanced it so that we could read the names better, and Gil’s expression changed to a frown. “How the hell are we supposed to identify any more murderers with this?” he said. “Deadly Dan? Gut-you-Guy? What kind of a list is that?”

  “Dan is Dan Foster—he killed Bethany Sullivan—and Guy is Guy Walker, who murdered Amy Montgomery, the ghost on Comm Ave that I bumped into this morning,” Heath said.

  Gilley blinked. “Wait,” he said. “Two guys on this list are the same men who murdered the two women on Comm Ave whose spirits you two fools bumped into today?”

  I nodded. “Apparently. Freaky coincidence, huh?”

  “Gurl,” Gil said with a tisk and a shake of his head. “Freaky doesn’t even half cover it. Okay, so we know who two of these guys are—”

  “Three,” Heath corrected, pointing to the name on the bottom. “That’s Luke.”

  Gil’s eyes widened. “Whoa!”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “But I thought we were going with the he’s-left-handed-so-he-must-be-innocent theory?”

  “Yeah, well my jury’s still out. I’ll admit that I’m still a little back and forth on his innocence or guilt.”

  “But what about your impressions at the crime scene this morning?” Gil said.

  I shook my head and sighed. “I know. I can’t figure out how to reconcile it. I mean, look . . .” I pointed to the screen where the words Lethal Luke were scrawled against the back wall of the closet. “I was all set to paint him as an innocent bystander, but his name in that closet is tough to ignore, you know?”

  Next to me, Heath scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I just don’t see Luke capable of being a killer, Em. Even if he was possessed by this spook. The kid’s strong. If that evil entity—whatever it is—really did get inside his head, he would’ve fought.”

  I looked Heath in the eye and said, “That’d be assuming he didn’t want to commit murder, though. And we don’t know him, honey. We don’t know what’s really going on inside that head of his.”

 
“You guys also don’t know this spook either,” Gil pointed out.

  Heath and I both looked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Gil shrugged. “Well,” he said, pointing to the image on the screen, “it looks like Luke was at least telling the truth about one thing. There is a spook that seems to be possessing the men who live inside that house. And either that thing is turning these men into killers, or they were already flawed to begin with and he’s helping them along with their evil deeds. I think the next place to look for clues is to find out more about this spook.”

  “We were in that house today, and we didn’t feel any kind of spectral presence,” Heath said.

  “Which reminds me,” I said, suddenly thinking of something. “What’d you get on the landlord, Ray?”

  Gil shook his head. “Nada. I found his name on the rental listing posted to Craigslist, but nobody named Ray ever lived at that address on Stoughton. I’m gonna keep looking, though. I mean, Ray could be a nickname or a middle name. I’ll find out who owns the place and for how long, not to worry.”

  I rubbed my eyes. I was suddenly very tired. “The hard part of this is finding that spook. He wasn’t at the rental house and when we were in Courtney’s place, we didn’t feel it there either. Where else is there to look?”

  Gil shrugged and said, “You guys said it yourself yesterday that this isn’t a spook that haunts locations. It haunts people. If you want to find this thing, you gotta go look for a person it haunts.”

  “We’re not allowed to talk to Luke,” I reminded him.

  Gil pointed to the screen again, but this time to the name of Deadly Dan. “No one said you couldn’t talk to one of the other killers.”

  My breath caught. I understood immediately. Still, I could see more roadblocks in front of us. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get in to see Foster,” I said. “Not with all the media scrutiny around his trial.”

  “But you could go see Guy Walker,” Gil said. “He’s still alive, at least according to the prison record I pulled up this morning.”

  I looked at Heath. “What do you think?”

  He tapped his knee with his fingertips. “I think it might be the only way to figure out who or what this spook is.”

  “I agree.” Turning back to Gil, I said, “How do we get in to see Walker?”

  Gil pulled the laptop toward him and began to type. “You simply send a request to the prison. They’ll inform Walker, and if he’s not in solitary or otherwise banned from visitations, they’ll let you come up. Visitors are allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. With luck we can have you talking to him the day after tomorrow.”

  “Do you think he’ll agree to see us?” Heath asked. “I mean, he doesn’t even know us.”

  Gil smirked. “Walker’s been in prison for over thirty years. I doubt there’s anybody left on the outside who comes to see him anymore. He’ll agree to see you out of sheer curiosity.”

  “Do you think we’ll be safe?” I asked, nervous about going into a prison, even for a visit.

  “Sure,” Gil said, like he visited them all the time. “Just don’t make eye contact with any of the other prisoners, and if Walker asks you anything personal, like where you live or what you do, try to keep it really vague.”

  “That’s a given,” I said as a small shudder went up my spine.

  “I can go alone,” Heath said, reading me well.

  Gil stopped typing and looked up. “Actually, it really should be just M.J. who goes to see Walker.”

  I blinked. “What? Why?”

  “If you’re not a relative, they only allow one visitor at a time. And Walker’s not going to turn down a visit from a girl. Trust me.”

  “Unless he plays for your team,” I told him with a wink.

  “Oh, please,” he said, swiveling the laptop around. “Does that look like a face pretty enough to be gay?”

  On the computer screen was the image of an old man with mean beady eyes, bushy white eyebrows, and thick silver hair. His face was turned down in a lethal-looking frown, and he definitely looked like someone you’d want to avoid in a dark alley.

  Heath took up my hand. “Isn’t there a way to get us both in?” he asked.

  “I can try,” Gil said, swiveling the laptop back toward himself and fluttering his fingers above the keyboard. “I’ll have to get creative, though. Maybe I’ll go the route of calling you two documentary filmmakers. That may work.”

  • • •

  As it happened, that did work. We got the e-mail the following morning that Walker had agreed to see us, and the prison was allowing us to come together. We had to be there at ten a.m. sharp and the prison was in New Hampshire—Walker had been transferred there years earlier, as it was a prison that specialized in housing older inmates, many of whom had health issues. Heath and I were up early and on the road to beat the rush hour traffic, but it still took us a little longer than we’d estimated. Still, we’d packed in a little extra time just in case, so it turned out okay.

  At the prison, Heath and I were put through a full pat down and told to empty our pockets. We then had to turn over our phones and keys and other personal items, but Heath was allowed to keep the camera he’d brought along to record our interview with Walker and also to help keep up the “documentary filmmaker” facade.

  We were then escorted into a windowless room and told to wait to be called in with the other visitors. Heath and I looked around the room—it was empty, and we shared a smirk.

  We waited for about twenty minutes and at last the door opened and we were told to follow the guard down another hallway, through a locked door, and into a narrow cement block room with a row of cubicles that were really just desks with a chair. A window of Plexiglas separated us from an adjoining room that was the mirror of the one we were in. After we had a chance to look around at our surroundings, Heath pulled a chair from one of the other cubicles and we sat in silence while we waited.

  At last a door in the other room opened and in shuffled an old man, bent with age, followed by an armed guard with a set of keys. The old man wore a muddy-looking jumpsuit and plastic sandals and pretty much nothing else. I recognized him from the photo that Gil had shown us only by his beady eyes. Guy Walker from the photo had been at least thirty pounds heavier and about fifteen years younger. This man just looked like a crotchety old dude shuffling to the café for a cheap cup of coffee and the morning special.

  Guy stopped in front of the chair on his side and regarded us for a very long moment before he finally pulled it out and took a seat. “What?” he said, his voice sharp and jagged like rusty scrap metal.

  I took out a photo that Heath and I had taken the day before of the rental house where Luke had lived. “Recognize this?” I asked.

  Walker’s eyes held mine for another long pause before they moved to the photo. I could tell he recognized it, but he didn’t comment.

  I put the photo down and took out the one of the closet. I’d had it printed out and blown up. “That’s you, right?” I said pointing to his name in the closet.

  Walker’s eyes again flickered to the photo, then back up to me. His expression was unreadable. I searched the ether around him. I felt only one spirit connected to him. A female who felt distant and weak. Most likely it was Walker’s mother, and her connection to her son was tenuous because he wasn’t a good person. I see this sometimes with people who are inherently bad. They have very few spirits around them. I think it’s because they lose any semblance of spirituality, and so it becomes hard for the spirit world to connect to them.

  “My name is Mary,” I said to him. “The same as your mother.”

  Walker cocked an eyebrow.

  “Mary died in the month of November,” I told him, seeing in my mind’s eye the image of a calendar page marked with the word “November,” and also the image of a gravestone. “She had diabet
es and she lost part of her leg to it.” I waved my hand down around my own right leg. “She says it was very cold the month she died. It felt more like winter. I sense that the weather contributed to her death in some way.”

  “What’re you doing?” Walker snapped. He couldn’t figure me out and it was irritating him.

  “I’m a spirit medium,” I said, matter-of-factly. “And I’m connecting with your mom right now.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I smiled tightly. “She’s not surprised you don’t believe me. But she said to tell you that she’s glad you keep her picture on the wall of your cell. You’ve tucked it behind something else, but you know it’s there and it brings you comfort. It brings her comfort too.”

  Walker’s fist banged on his side of the desk. “What the hell is this?” he yelled.

  The guard at the other end of the room took a step toward him and I held up my hand to show him everything was okay. “Mr. Walker, I need to talk to you about something that most people don’t believe in. But I think you do. And in order to convince you that I know what I’m talking about, I needed to prove to you what I can do. Your mom really is talking to me about you. You can believe that or not. I don’t really care—it’s not the real reason I’m here.”

  “You’re talking in circles,” he said, starting to push away from the table.

  I decided to speak quickly and play a little fast and loose with the truth. “The other day I was walking along Comm Ave in downtown Boston and I came across the spirit of Amy Montgomery. The girl you murdered. She’d been wearing a white dress that night. That’s what drew you to her. You saw it even though it was dark outside. She was like a moth and you were the flame. But it wasn’t you that wanted to kill her, was it, Guy? It was the shadowman from the house on Stoughton. The one that followed you day and night and filled your head with dark thoughts and turned your dreams to nightmares. You heard his footsteps behind you everywhere you went, and you felt his presence in that house. You couldn’t get away from him. You couldn’t eat or sleep because he haunted you morning, noon, and night.”