No Ghouls Allowed (22 page)

“How much is he offering?”

“Twenty-five grand,” Gil said. “And when an art historian is offering you a giant
wad of cash like that, you know he can get double or triple that price on his own.”

“Whoa!” I said.

“I know. Crazy, right? Anyway, the elaborately painted flowers and filigree indicate
a style that was popular in Portugal in the early nineteen hundreds before showing
up here. The board from the playroom was designed and created by a much sought-after
artisan, named Paco Padesco.”

“Where did Padesco settle when he came here?” I asked.

“New Orleans, of course,” Gilley said. “Anyway, my source in Louisiana happened upon
Padesco’s journals, which include sketches and receipts for all the Ouija boards he
sold. Padesco was pretty well-known in his day, and his boards were very popular with
the wealthy spiritualist set. He sold them on a fairly exclusive basis, demanding
crazy money for them. Oh, and he also designed the planchettes, which he said would
only work on his boards.

“Now, the planchettes Padesco designed were a sort of interesting device. Most of
the traditional planchettes were solid with a small hole where you were supposed to
put a pen or a pencil to aid with automatic writing. That morphed into the creation
of the Ouija board, which had the letters of the alphabet and a set of numbers printed
on it, and the planchettes became solid and ended in a point, which would point to
the letter in question. But other sets took the original planchette, with the small
hole for a pen, and enlarged the opening so that a letter could be seen through the
hole.

Padesco took his boards and planchettes to the next level. He created very elaborate
boards with lots of color, which he said would awaken the senses of the living and
attract the dead. And then he had his planchettes molded out of sterling silver and
he sold a bunch like that, but he saved his most expensive creations for his wealthiest
clients. In these planchettes he’d put a gem in the hole rather than just leaving
them open. He theorized that by using a pure metal like silver and putting a highly
polished gem in the loop instead of leaving it empty, the energy of both the spirit
and the medium would be exponentially magnified, throwing open the floodgates to communicate
with the other side.”

“No doubt he was onto something with that theory,” I said. “The Sandman didn’t get
here from some crappy cardboard-and-plastic Ouija set—that’s for sure.”

I looked to Heath to see if he agreed, but he was staring at the phone with his brow
furrowed. “Can I see your phone for a sec?” he said. I motioned for him to go ahead,
and he picked it up and began to tap at it.

“What’s happening?” Gil asked.

“Hang on,” Heath told him while we all waited for him to show us what he was doing.
And then he simply stared at my phone and said, “Gil, are you looking at the photo
M.J. took of the board and the planchette from the playroom?”

“Uh, no, do I need to?”

“Yes,” he said, setting my cell down in the middle of the table again, and I saw that
he’d pulled up the last image I’d taken of the board and the planchette. To Beau and
me he said, “Does anything look out of place to you?”

The deputy and I leaned forward to look closely at the screen. “No,” I said, and Beau
also shook his head.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” Gil said from the speaker.

Heath pointed to the planchette. “Em,” he said to me. “Look close.”

I did and all I saw was the beautiful silver planchette with its amethyst crystal
gleaming in the light from my flash. “I am, Heath. I don’t see anything odd. What
is it that you’ve noticed?”

Heath leaned in too. “See how the board is covered in dust?” he said. Beau and I nodded.
“But the planchette doesn’t have a speck of dust on it. And if it’s made out of sterling
silver, why isn’t it tarnished?”

My jaw fell open, and we heard Gilley say, “Holy shit! Heath’s right! That thing looks
practically showroom ready.”

Heath then swiped his finger across the screen. “And look here,” he said, moving to
another image that I’d taken much earlier of a section of the playroom near the door.
“See that?”

“It’s a footprint,” I said, of the imprint in the dust.

“Yeah,” Heath said. “But Beau and I were never over on that side of the playroom.
It’s to the left of the door and we stuck to the right. Now, I can’t say for sure
that it’s not your footprint, Em, but neither one of us walked over that way.”

“Neither did I,” I whispered, amazed that I hadn’t noticed the footprint in the dust
when I’d photographed that section of the playroom. “I walked in to the right too,
and I’d kept Everett on my left, circling around the table with the tea set to photograph
the room. That’s not my footprint, Heath.”

“Can someone catch me up to speed, please?” Gil said.

“Someone else entered that playroom before we did and planted that planchette,” I
told him.

“But who and how?” Beau said. “The room was sealed tight.”

“Could there be another entrance to the playroom that we don’t know about?” I asked.

Everyone fell silent while we all considered that. “I don’t see how,” Heath said.
“I mean, it’s easy to see how the architecture of the playroom was hidden on the outside
by the magnolia tree, but there didn’t seem to be any other doors or windows in it.
And it wouldn’t make sense anyway because this footprint is facing into the room from
the door. Someone came through that door and planted the planchette; then they probably
walked back out the way we came in, and I think their footprints might’ve been obscured
by ours when we walked in to investigate.”

“So, how the heck did they get into a sealed room?” I asked. “And why was that planchette
planted there?”

“To wake up the Sandman,” Gil said. “Remember, Padesco said the planchette wouldn’t
work without his board, and probably vice versa.”

I shook my head. None of this was making any sense. “So the board and the planchette
have been separated for forty-five years, and now someone thought it was a good idea
to put them back together? Why? For what purpose?”

“It’s got to be Glenn Porter,” Heath said. “I mean, you guys saw his office. He must
have three hundred planchettes nailed to the wall.”

“Wait. What?” Gil asked. I filled him in on our visit to Porter’s office and he whistled
appreciatively. “That’s just playing with fire,” he said.

“But how does that work?” I asked them all. “I mean, why would Porter make it so obvious
by displaying all of those planchettes in plain sight? He’d have to know we’d think
he was responsible for both Scoffland’s murder and Everett’s.”

“He is an arrogant SOB,” Beau pointed out.

“Arrogant I’ll give you, but he’s not stupid, Beau. And again, I gotta ask, why would
he use the Sandman to kill Scoffland, and, if we really want to get technical with
this, why would he then kill Cisco?”

“He committed suicide,” Heath said, referring to the construction worker who’d thrown
himself out the window at the mental hospital.

“Did he?” I said. “Beau, you remember what Matt said? He said that the windows at
the hospital were triple-paned. No one should’ve been able to break through all three—so
how did Cisco manage that kind of a physical feat if he wasn’t possessed by the Sandman
at the time?”

Heath nodded. “She’s right. You’d have to have superhuman strength to do that, and
only someone possessed or on serious drugs would be able to do something like that.”
And then Heath seemed to have another thought. “You know what else bothers me?”

“What?” I asked.

“Do you remember when we first got to the Porter house, and that stuff was being thrown
off the balcony and we went inside to get away from it and the air was a little thick
with dark energy, but then . . .” Heath paused, as if he was searching for the right
words.

“Then there was a shift,” I said, remembering back to when he and I were in the yard
after escaping the house through the window and he’d told me he’d felt it.

“Godzilla,” Gilley said.

I rolled my eyes at the phone, but Heath was nodding. “Yeah, Em. The energy shifted
right before that big black shadow showed up and tried to attack Gil. I felt it.”

“So what are you saying?” Beau asked him, and I knew he had to be confused.

I sighed heavily, because I suddenly realized exactly what we were up against. “He’s
saying that there isn’t just one evil spirit at work here. It seems we might be dealing
with two.”

“Two?”
the deputy gasped.

“Yep,” Heath said. “One significantly less powerful than the other, but two separate
dark entities were at work in that house.”

“But when we went back there to look for the Ouija board, you guys said you didn’t
feel anything weird.”

“That’s true, Beau,” I said. “Which means both spirits were either dormant or on the
move.”

“Do you think they were both being controlled by Padesco’s board and planchette?”
Gil asked.

I shrugged even though I knew Gil couldn’t see me. “I don’t know, buddy. But I hope
so.”

“Why do you hope so?” Beau asked me.

Heath answered for me. “Because once we destroy the board and the planchette, we can
safely lock those spooks up together forever.”

“Still, it would help to know who the other spook is.”

“He felt way more powerful than just a grounded spirit,” Heath remarked. “I mean,
those planters were heavy and that took some serious power.”

“Very true,” I said. The whisper of an idea was starting to form in my mind, and I
so hoped I was wrong.

“Okay, so we have more questions than answers,” Beau said. “If we go back and push
Porter on all this, I know he’s gonna lawyer up. We’ll need to come up with a different
angle to work.”

“We’ve already got one,” I said. “Sarah Porter. I think she knows what happened in
that playroom, and maybe if she can admit that her brother had a hand in Everett’s
murder, we won’t have to look to him for answers.”

Heath and Beau nodded and we started to get up to pay our bill when Gil said, “What
should I do?”

“Gil, I still need you to connect Mike Scoffland to Glenn Porter. Maybe if we can
find some bad blood between them, we’ll have a motive that will lead us to more evidence
for Scoffland’s murder. Oh, and I really want to know more about the Sandman. If Glenn
Porter has had that planchette for all of these years, and if he knew where the board
was, maybe he used it before now. See if there’s been anything to hint that the Sandman
has been around in Valdosta. Maybe there’s been some freaky occurrences that no one’s
reported to the police, but maybe they’ve talked about online.”

“That’s a lot of work,” Gil grumbled.

“Yes, but no one else could do it,” I said, stroking his ego a tad.

“Fine,” Gil said. “But you’d better bring me back some ice cream tonight.”

“Cookies and cream?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. And don’t forget the sprinkles.”

•   •   •

We headed out, backtracking our way over to Sarah Porter’s again. This time we made
it all the way up the front steps and Breslow knocked. The door was opened by a woman
wearing a maid’s uniform, who looked warily at the deputy. “Yes?”

“Afternoon, ma’am. I’m Deputy Breslow. Is Miss Porter available?”

The maid put a hand to her heart and sighed with relief. “Oh, then she’s all right?”
she asked.

“All right?” Beau repeated. “I’m sorry, but I’d like to speak to Miss Porter. Is she
in?”

“Oh, no, sir,” the maid said. “She’s at the hospital.”

“The hospital?” I said. “Is she ill?”

The maid focused her large brown eyes on me. “Well, in a manner of speaking, ma’am.
Miss Porter, sometimes, she don’t get along so well, you know?” The maid tapped her
forehead to give us an indication of Sarah’s issues. “Anyhow, she checked herself
into the psychiatric clinic the day before yesterday, and wouldn’t y’all know it?
There was some sorta riot and she got herself hurt. They took her to South Georgia
to treat her, and she’s supposed to be home later on today, which is why I’m here
makin’ sure everything’s all neat and tidylike.”

Heath and I exchanged a look. Sarah had been at the mental hospital when the Sandman
had wreaked such havoc?

“What time is she due back here?” Beau asked.

“Oh, sir, I don’t rightly know. Maybe in an hour or two? I could have her call you,
but she might be tired. Maybe it’s best if y’all call on her tomorrow?”

He tipped his hat and said, “Thank you, ma’am. It’s nothing pressing, so we’ll do
just that.”

With that, he turned and we followed him back to the car. “We’re really going to wait
until tomorrow to talk to her?” I asked once we’d loaded ourselves inside and Beau
had started the car.

“Nope,” he said. “But I didn’t want the maid to let Sarah know we were coming back
today to interview her. I’d rather show up at the hospital where she has some support
if she gets upset about our questions, and doesn’t already have a heads-up that we
want to speak with her beforehand. She’ll be more honest if she’s off guard.”

“She’s pretty fragile, though, huh?” I said.

“Yes. And one of the sweetest, most caring people you’d ever want to meet. It really
bothers me that Everett was found in her playroom. Wait till you meet her and you’ll
see what I mean.”

We arrived at the hospital for the second time that day and headed inside. Breslow
tipped his hat and inquired about Sarah and we were given a room number. We found
it on the second floor next to the stairs, and the deputy knocked lightly before entering.
“Miss Porter?” he said, opening the door a fraction.

“Yes?”

“It’s Deputy Breslow, ma’am, and two others. May we come in?”

“Oh, Beau, is that you?” she said. I couldn’t see Sarah, but I could hear her. She
had a wavering, thin voice without much strength. “Come on in here and let me look
at you!”

Heath and I followed Beau into the room and found Sarah sitting up in the bed. My
first impression was that she was a tiny creature, no taller than five feet by my
estimation, and reed thin. She was very pale as if she really didn’t get out to enjoy
the sun, and her hair was rather wispy, graying at the temples, and pulled back into
a severe-looking bun, but tufts of it had come loose, giving her a disheveled appearance.