The Traveler: Book 5, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (22 page)

Christie frowned. “I was just wondering the same thing. It’s not a wiretap. We’re not listening to their conversations or watching them in their homes. We’re just measuring energy fields around them?”

Eddie nodded.

Christie said, “I have to clear this with the DA first. In the interim, let’s divide and conquer.”

Eddie said, “Mark Schubert’s co-workers have seen me so I should stay off him. Daria, can you stick with Mark for now?”

She gulped. “Oh-my-God yes. But how am I going to get readings and drive and not be seen?”

Christie said, “We’ll have somebody with you.”

“Okay.”

It was 3:30PM. Eddie realized, with a sense of foreboding, it would be dark soon. So far, the ghost had visited everyone at night and since it had begun with Stahl, it hadn’t taken a day off. It was going to strike again soon.

They were running out of time.

***

Stan followed them back to the police station. He parked his SUV in the visitor section, and they introduced him to Harney and the chief. Then Christie paired him up with a patrolman who was happy to have pulled this special detail because it got him out of his uniform and out of his routine. His name was D’Amato.

Harney told Christie they had to talk in the conference room, so everybody met there.

“Preliminary search on the brothers uncovered a few things,” Harney said. He addressed Christie like Eddie and Stan weren’t there. “The middle son, Wallace, has been a complete mess since his sister died. Just so happens he called out of work today. We went by his place and there’s nobody there.”

“Did you talk to his wife?” Christie asked.

“She just served him. Divorce is in the works. She moved away and he kept the house.”

“Do we know what happened there?”

“Not yet. I have a few more people I can call.”

“Did he take a sick day or was it a planned vacation?” Christie asked.

Harney made a face. “I just said he called out of work today. It wasn’t planned.”

“It’s an expression,” Eddie said. “It could have meant—”

Christie held up a palm and Eddie shut up. He realized he wasn’t helping. But all the same, he wanted to clock Harney for dressing down Christie, his own partner, in front of everybody else.

Harney continued. “I don’t see anything between him and the victims, or the women and Engel. But we just started working this.”

“How about the youngest brother, Jon?” Christie asked.

“It’s weak, but Jon became very religious after his sister’s murder.”

Christie’s face lit up. “That’s right. With that church, what were they called?”

“Rariville Congregation.”

“I don’t think it’s that weak a connection,” Christie said.

“What is it?” Eddie asked.

“The Congregation is very fundamental and takes a dim view of homosexuals,” Harney said, matter-of-factly. “They frequently demonstrate and are very vocal about banning gay marriage. Felicity and Alicia once led a counter-demonstration across the street from their church.”

“That gives us motive,” Eddie said. “For at least Felicity and Alicia.”

“Then why didn’t your ghost hurt them?” Harney asked.

“I don’t know. Yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

“
Riiiiiight
.” Harney rolled his eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have real police work to do.”

He left the conference room without another word. Christie followed him out. D’Amato, the young patrolman, didn’t know what to do with himself. Finally, he left the room also so Stan and Eddie were alone.

“Moira’s really okay with you helping me on this one?” Eddie asked.

“She’s okay with me ghost hunting. But she’s not okay with me helping you.”

Eddie nodded. “So what do you think?”

“Of what we just heard? There’s no reason why all three brothers can’t be helping her. That would make things easier.”

“But also less plausible. We have Tonya killing Stahl and O’Donnell out of some warped kind of vengeance. Then we have Tonya frightening Felicity and Alicia because her Christian fundamentalist brother hates gays. We also have Tonya killing Fellov, a nice old woman by all accounts, for herself or one of her brothers…and then Engel is also part of this.”

Stan shook his head. “Separate haunting. I think you should stop trying to add Engel to the picture.”

Eddie didn’t agree, but the mention of Engel reminded him he hadn’t gotten through to the man earlier. Christie had left her phone on the conference table. He picked it up and flipped through the call history and found the number to Engel’s agency again.

“Hi, it’s Eddie McCloskey again.”

“Oh, Eddie, I’m sorry. But he’s out. I don’t know when he’ll be getting back.”

Eddie was in no mood to wait. “Give me the number to his cell.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Engel doesn’t like that—”

“Ma’am, I appreciate your loyalty to your boss. But this is a murder investigation and we need to speak to him right away.”

Stan made a surprised face. They hadn’t worked together in a long time so this was a side to Eddie he’d never seen. In fact, Eddie was pretty sure he hadn’t even had this side when he’d last worked with Stan.

The receptionist made a few noises of protest but they quickly died away. She gave him the number. Eddie thanked her and hung up.

He dialed Engel’s cell.

“Hello?”

“Max, this is Eddie McCloskey. We spoke in your office yesterday.”

“Oh, right. Yes. Is everything okay? Did something happen?” Suddenly the guy was eager. “How can I help?”

Eddie said, “The ghost that visited you, I need you to walk me through the experiences again.”

“What more can I tell you?”

The man had been exhaustive in his details yesterday, providing them dates and times and summaries of the ghostly visits. In all the hauntings, the ghost had hovered, had never really threatened him, and had been more of a looming presence.

Eddie had hoped to get the information from Engel in a roundabout way, so Engel volunteered it without prompting. That way, Eddie could know it was genuine. But the clock was ticking and the sky was beginning to darken.

“When the ghost visited, did you experience any visions?”

The answer came very quickly. “No.”

“No daydreams, or hallucinations?”

“No. I told you, it was just there, not really doing anything. If anything, it seemed nice.”

“You told me yesterday you were scared,” Eddie said.

“Well, I was…at first. It was a ghost, you know? But the more I think about it, looking back on it I mean, it wasn’t there to hurt me. And definitely not to kill me. It was just there, like it was watching me.”

Eddie didn’t like the sudden discrepancy in the man’s account, even if it was a minor one. It came off like he’d taken the time between yesterday and today to revise his story. But why would he lie? Like Christie said, even honest people had reasons.

“Max, I need to come by your apartment to take some readings this evening. When will you be home?” he said.

“My condo? I haven’t been there in awhile. I moved back into the house after my wife disappeared.”

“Then I need to take readings there,” Eddie said.

“Oh, okay. That’s fine. I’ll be home later this evening, after dinner. When would you like to come by?”

“I’ll call you back and let you know. Thanks.” Eddie hung up.

He put the phone back on the conference table. When he looked up, he realized Stan had been watching him the whole time.

“What?”

Stan smirked. “For a minute, you reminded me of your brother.”

Eddie shook his head. “Tim would never have steam-rolled somebody like that. He was a lot nicer than me.”

Eddie had never thought he’d say his brother was nicer than him. In the old days, it had always been Eddie who calmed the clients down and worked the people angle. Tim had been stand-offish and serious and had a tendency to rub people the wrong way.

Stan said, “That’s why I said,
for a minute
. You really are different now.”

“Don’t get all sappy on me.”

Christie and D’Amato came back. “The DA wants us to get a warrant on the bugs.”

“No surprise,” Eddie said.

“It’s C-Y-A,” Christie said. “If we don’t get the warrants and a court down the road throws out the evidence…I don’t blame him.”

“I get it, believe me,” Eddie said, thinking back to the trial in upstate New York where he’d served as an expert witness on the paranormal.

“So we don’t know where Wallace is,” Eddie said. “Daria is covering Mark. That leaves us with Jon.”

The man turned off his phone. He didn’t want any distractions because, despite his protests to the contrary, they were going to kill Renee now.

In the middle of the afternoon.

It was madness. The ghost was consumed with rage and no longer even considered his arguments.

And it was getting stronger.

Before it hadn’t been able to travel with him in a car. As soon as he started moving quickly enough, it would disappear and then pop back up when he had been in the same location for a short period of time.

But now it was finding him much more quickly. About halfway through the ride, it had found him while he was briefly stopped at a red light. It had never been able to do that before.

With mounting fear, he realized the ghost would soon be with him all the time. She could torture him ceaselessly and drive him to do her bidding.

He opened the glove box and put his cell phone inside. His eyes fell on the revolver he kept there.

Some part of him wanted to stick the gun in his mouth and blow his own head off. It had been difficult enough to live with the ghost when it wasn’t always around. But now that it could stay with him constantly? He couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t contemplate living out his life like this.

It wasn’t worth it.

But the man wasn’t ready to give up just yet. He’d barely scratched the surface on paranormal research. Maybe there was something he could do to get rid of the ghost permanently.

He felt the ghost manifest behind him, in the backseat of the car. Its skeletal arm passed through his shoulder and the
touch
for lack of a better term sent a cold jolt through his body. The ghost hissed and the finger of its outstretched arm pointed at the house.

The ghost was ready.

“It’s still light out.”

Another jolt of cold electricity zapped his body. It wasn’t crippling, but it was enough to get the point across.

“Can we just wait an hour or two?”

This time, the ghost didn’t zap him. Instead, the vision appeared in his mind. The worst one. The cops came to his house and arrested him. The scene shifted to the court house where the jury convicted him not only of the past crimes but also of the murders of Stahl, Fellov, and O’Donnell. He could see his mother and sister in the back of the courtroom as the jury read its verdict. Their faces twisted in pain. Then the scene fast-forwarded again to the worst part: prison. Where hardened criminals used him for their sickest pleasures. He knew what he was experiencing was only in his mind. And yet it felt more real than his everyday existence. Everything was amplified.

His heart was ready to explode. A crippling pain shot through his chest and it made him realize: he wasn’t ready to die yet. Not yet.

“Please…”

Slowly the visions faded. When he opened his eyes, his sweaty back clung to the seat and a dull ache had spread throughout his body, like every muscle had been taxed too much when he’d strained.

The ghost hissed.

It was time.

***

Christie entered the Rariville Congregation church alone. It hadn’t always been a church. They had converted the old recreation center where her ex-husband had played a lot of basketball growing up. The floor was dusty and the baskets hadn’t even been taken out. They’d just been levered up and now hung close to the ceiling. She walked through to the back and found the church office. A young man of college age was typing at a computer.

“Welcome to our church.” He smiled politely. “How may I help you?”

She badged him. “I’m here to see Jon Schubert.”

The badge did nothing to his smile. “And what is your name?”

She told him.

“Right this way.”

He got up and led her past his desk, through a door, and down a narrow, very short hallway. At the second door, he knocked.

“Come in.”

The young man opened the door and announced her. “Ms. Christie from the Rariville Police Department to see you, Mr. Schubert.”

Jon wasn’t much older than the college kid. She guessed he hadn’t hit twenty-seven yet.

“Thank you, Russell. Ms. Christie, please come in.”

She did and Russell closed the door. Jon shook her hand and sat down at his desk. She had his vitals. Before becoming very religious, he had worked at an auditing firm and made a decent living. But once he found God after his sister’s death, he’d left the firm and taken a vague position in his church that probably paid him a quarter of what he used to make. From his title, Manager of Spiritual Operations, she had no idea what his responsibilities were. But she was going to find out.

“You visited my mother earlier today,” Jon said.

“Did she call to tell you that?”

“That’s not important. You have some questions you want to ask me.”

“I’ll decide what’s important in a murder investigation.” Christie leveled her eyes on him.

“I’m sure you will.” He smiled cheerfully but there was nothing friendly about it. “You are wondering if we still see Tonya.”

Christie immediately disliked him. Jon hadn’t stopped smiling but he’d answered her dismissively so far. He gave off an air of superiority, either because of his faith or because of his gender or both. She was determined to wipe that fake smile off his face.

She sat down and reached inside her purse for the digital recorder.

“When was the last time you saw her?” she asked.

“I see her all the time.”

***

Eddie rounded the corner of the converted gymnasium. The K2 meter was jumping all over the place. He didn’t care if Jon or someone from the church saw him as he was essentially the decoy now. They had assigned Stan to follow Jon when he left the church this evening.

Eddie stopped behind the church and held out the meter. It was going crazy. Each light was flashing and there was hardly a break between hits.

Stan had reminded him before he’d gotten out of the car: churches were usually bustling with paranormal activity. The K2 only confirmed that there were possibly
many
entities in the general area. Eddie lowered the K2 and leaned back against the brick wall. Things had hit a lull. In the last couple of hours they’d come across more information but they’d spent much of the time talking and driving without anything much happening. His lack of sleep was catching up to him and he felt like he could just conk out leaning against the wall.

***

The man had no choice. He didn’t want to do it this way but if he stayed outside, someone would see him. It was getting dark, but not dark enough. And the houses here were close together.

He couldn’t risk being seen.

He knocked on the door and turned around so anybody looking out would only see the back of his head.

He heard someone moving inside the house and getting closer. The front door had an opaque glass window at eye-height so the person could no doubt see him on the porch.

“Hello?”

He recognized Renee’s voice through the door. She was smart. She wasn’t going to open it, especially when the man on the porch had his back turned.

“What do you want?”

Where was the ghost? Renee was four feet away, so the ghost should have been able to attack by now.

“Help!”

Without thinking, the man whirled and faced the door. Someone
else
had just shouted help, from deeper inside the house. Another woman.

The ghost was attacking someone else.

No.

He grabbed the door knob, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked. He looked up and his eyes met Renee’s.

“Mom!” she screamed. “Mom, call 9-1-1!”

Then Renee seemed to remember she had a cell phone. She reached into her pocket and took it out.

The man threw himself into the door, hoping to break it down. But it was new and didn’t give an inch. Pain erupted in his shoulder. He stepped back to kick the door down. He realized now he’d crossed the point of no return. Someone was screaming inside the house, Renee knew who he was, and it was likely one of the neighbors would see him trying to break down the door. His life was over.

Then Renee fell and the door was unlocked.

The man threw open the door, banging Renee on the head, and shut it behind him. The ghost hovered over Renee, who was lying on the floor of the foyer and twitching. Her eyes had rolled back into her head. The man knew from having watched the other victims that Renee would be dead soon.

The ghost hissed to get his attention. Then it pointed up the stairs.

The man didn’t understand.

The ghost hissed again. And now a vision came to the man, but not the usual kind. He was seeing the upstairs of the house. An old woman was crawling across the floor, toward a phone.

And the man understood.

“No.”

The ghost hissed.

“But I can’t.”

Renee wasn’t dead yet. She was still twitching, still experiencing the horrible visions that only the ghost could create. The ghost let Renee be for a moment and hovered in front of the man. She hissed and sent another vision. The old woman, upstairs, inches from the house phone.

“Don’t make me do this.”

But he had to. He had no choice. They couldn’t let her call to report a ghost.

The man hurried upstairs to kill the old woman.

***

Christie took out the digital recorder Eddie had let her borrow. They hoped to catch some EVP during her conversation with Jon Schubert, and it was the perfect ruse. Jon would just think she was taping the interview.

“Do you mind?” she said. “The interview will go more quickly if I don’t have to take notes.”

“Is that what this is?” he asked. “An interview?”

“What do you think it is?”

He didn’t answer the question again. It was annoying her to no end but she buried her true feelings about the man.

Jon said, “Women are usually good at taking notes. They’re much better at shorthand than men.”

He was pushing all the right buttons and speaking with just enough condescension in his voice to get his real thoughts across.

He smiled. “I meant that as a compliment. Men and women are different. Men are better at some things, and women are better at other things. For instance, women are much more efficient with fine motor skills, like sewing and knitting, and men are better with gross motor skills, like moving heavy weights around.”

Christie had to get his permission to use the tape recorder. “Unless you object, I’m going to turn this on.”

He said nothing. Just smiled pleasantly and kept his hands folded in front of him.

Christie said, “Let’s go back to what you just told me.”

“What did I just tell you?”

“That you see your sister, Tonya Schubert, all the time.”

He said nothing. She feared he was going to recant or modify the earlier statement, now that she had the recorder on.

“That’s what I said.”

She folded her arms and tried not to act surprised. “What do you mean by that?”

“I see her everywhere. In my thoughts, in my prayers, and everywhere around town.”

“What do you mean, everywhere around town?”

He was toying with her. The smile curled into something almost wicked.

He said, “Every landmark around here reminds me of her. We were so close growing up and shared so many fond memories. There isn’t a minute that goes by where I don’t think of her, or have something remind me of her.”

“Has Tonya visited you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Since she passed away.”

He paused and thought about his answer. “Yes.”

“Yes? What does that mean?”

“I’ve felt her presence. After all, she is why I joined the church.”

“She told you to join?”

He shook his head no. “
Told me
isn’t quite right. Let’s just say she guided me here. And it was exactly what I needed.”

He was being evasive. Almost taunting her.

She had to come out and ask him point-blank. “Has your sister visited you as a ghost?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do believe that her spirit has lived on.”

Her dislike was turning into hate. She was also beginning to hope Jon was the one helping the ghost. She wanted to nail him.

“You don’t like homosexuals much, do you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Half your blog is devoted to the subject.”

He frowned and shook his head. “That doesn’t mean I hate them. I disagree with their lifestyle and find it offensive, which is my
God
-given right.”

He leaned on the word God and it sounded creepy coming out of his mouth. As if God had made him write those hateful posts.

“Felicity and Alicia Jones.”