Krewe of Hunters 1 Phantom Evil (13 page)

“He sees him?”

Whitney grinned. “Yes, which of course, is strange to people who don't know what he does—Adam didn't have a real gift. Josh did. Josh was killed in an accident, but he handed on something very special to the friend who was with him. She was the first person Adam worked with, I'm pretty sure. And that was several years ago now. Anyway, at first, Adam began really discreet investigations. He kept a very low profile. But people in power began to know about him, and he knew about people here and there and he called on them when he needed them. I guess he decided to try putting together an actual team,
a unit to stick together, and go about on some of these unusual investigations.”

Whitney spoke in a straightforward manner—as if Adam Harrison had been a contractor who had been doing piecemeal jobs, and then had decided to open his own company. Even working with police who knew a great deal about her, she was still certain that they looked at her as an anomaly fairly frequently. Even when she went through the academy, she was teased, some of the recruits tried to pick on her, but some friends also let the too-obnoxious know that she had suffered a loss, and she was tough and they might not win a fight with her.

She wasn't so sure about that; she was tough. She worked hard, and she maintained her strength with cardio equipment. But she didn't know how many of the really huge guys she'd ever take down through sheer brute strength.

“Well, this is an unusual situation,” Angela said.

Whitney was relentless. “So, what are you seeing in the room?”

“It's not like a vision in a crystal.”

Whitney waved a hand in the air. “I'm not expecting one. What are you seeing?”

Angela sighed. “Children—a little girl, Annabelle, and her older brother, Percy. They were among the first victims of Madden C. Newton.”

“Your face turned green,” Whitney told her.

“Green?”

“Yep, an ashen green. So—I imagine you're seeing them dead?”

“Worse—I see them getting dead,” Angela told her.

“Hmm,” Whitney said thoughtfully.

“What's hmm?”

“The children aren't evil spirits, and they should be resting in some form of gentle afterlife. Of course, you're seeing a ‘residual' haunting—something that must happen over and over again. If the children are active—”

“The children
are
active,” Angela said.

“But—”

“Percy has stood over my bed.”

“Now, that's interesting. I wonder if Regina Holloway saw the children,” Whitney mused. “Maybe.”

“Maybe she was gifted. Or not. Maybe she was susceptible,” Whitney said.

“To the suggestions of others?” Angela asked.

“That's always possible.”

“But who would suggest she hurl herself off a balcony?”

“Someone human,” Whitney said. “Or—”

“Or what?”

“The strongest ghost who ever existed.”

Angela laughed suddenly. “Okay, so, we both agree that your great-grandmother is an exceptional woman, and she said that a banishing spell done correctly would allow for ghosts to move on. Which is it? Ghosts exist, but they don't believe in banishing spells, or they don't really exist, but someone suggested to Regina that there was a ghost in her bedroom, and so she saw the ghost of a little boy, and he was so strong he hurled her over the balcony?”

“That's what we're supposed to find out,” Whitney leaned across the table. “So, how did you really find the skeleton in the basement?”

Angela looked back at her new friend and sighed at last.
“I thought about the killer, and I thought about the victim, and I
imagined
a scene between the two of them. My skeleton would have been Newton's first victim—in New Orleans, at least—and he would have been testing his skills along with the logistics of committing murder. Easy. Have the man in the kitchen, get him ahead of him on the stairs and bash his head in with a prestashed spade or the like. Get him down—and finish the job. The sound couldn't possibly have carried, and since the basement is part of the foundation, he had plenty of dirt down there, and he could also hide the stench down there. Fill the place with some kind of herbs while the soft tissue rotted and then the skin mummified around the bones until it became earth to earth as well.”

“The basement may give us more than any other room,” Whitney said.

“Hey, by the way, did you pick up anything unusual on your cameras, or on tape?” Angela asked her.

Whitney smiled, just like the Cheshire cat. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Will and I will show the film tonight. And roll our recordings. Oh, yes, we've begun.”

The Church of Christ Arisen was an impressive building, mid-1800s, handsomely whitewashed and gleaming in the sun. It was on St. Charles, set back about forty feet from the road, and commanding half a block.

Jackson was driving Jake's car, and he pulled to the side of the road to stare at the building. Jake, at his side, was reading from the most recent file Jackson had acquired from Detective Andy Devereaux. “The main body of the church dates back to 1840 and was originally constructed by the Baptists,” Jake said. He looked up from the paper and pointed. “Main building there, and the add-ons, either side, were built in the 1900s. The Baptist congregation moved into a new location, and in the 1970s, the place was a trendy nightclub. The nightclub was purchased by the Church of Christ Arisen in the mid-1990s. They've owned it since. The church has a bishop, currently Richard Gull, and he deals with all tenets, all legal matters
and everything having to do with the church along with a council of five members, but their identities are known only to members of the church.”

“Why?” Jackson asked him.

Jake looked at him. “Why? I don't know. I'm reading from a file!”

“Yeah, sorry. Go on.”

“The bishop lives in the building to the left. The building to the right houses members of the church who are downtrodden or need a place to stay,” Jake read. “Hey, and Detective Andy scratched in some notes on the side. Says here, ‘Downtrodden seem to be female. Nothing to prove. No one talks.'”

Jackson had seen his share of cults, and they tended to have one strong central figure. Jim Jones. David Koresh. A host of others. Charismatic men who preyed upon the weak and needy, and promised them something far better than the struggles and misery they faced in their lives. They must have spent half their time laughing in their sleeves, since they brought women into the flock to have their choice of wives or lovers, and get away with multiple relationships in the name of God.

“Okay, so Richard Gull is over here—and his little harem is over there. And the main body of the church separates the two. Interesting.” Jackson opened his door.

“Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing? I thought we were just going to ride by and see the place,” Jake told him.

“I'm going to see it closer,” Jackson said.

“No, wait. Stay here. I'll take a closer look. Come on, Jackson. You look like the wrath of God, come to take them all down. I'm just a young man in need of spiritual guidance.”

Jackson weighed Jake's words; he was right. He was wearing a tailored shirt under his jacket, even if it was a casual leather
jacket. Jake was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the New Orleans Saints logo.

“Just get whatever information they give out and get back here,” Jackson told him.

“Will do,” Jake agreed.

He watched the traffic and then sauntered across the street to the brick path that led the way to the church. It was ironic; an old Jewish cemetery sat on the corner of the street, nearly blocked out by a large sign that advertised:

The church door opened before Jake reached it. From his position in the car across the street and slightly down, Jackson saw Jake offer the young woman who opened the door one of his devilishly charming smiles. She looked uncertain for a moment, but she opened the door wider, and Jake walked on in.

A few minutes later, he left the church and returned. Jackson reached across the car to open the door for him. “I was about to sound the cavalry horn,” he said.

Jake laughed. “I was gone ten minutes, total.”

“And what did you discover?”

“I have some leaflets,” he said, pulling printed material in sleek leaflet form from his jacket pocket, “and, drumroll, please…”

“Jake,” Jackson said flatly.

“There were three young women in there, cleaning. It's
modern inside, lots of hard, stern benches, an altar, a big cross hanging above it.”

“That's the drumroll?” Jackson asked.

Jake laughed. “No, no. There was something interesting about the young girls who were doing the cleaning.”

“Oh?”

“All three are pregnant.”

“And how young?”

“I'm not certain about that. One might be fifteen or sixteen. I think I could guess the baby's daddy on the three. On the side of the altar, almost as big as the cross, is a portrait. In big letters on a brass plaque below, it has the name Richard Gull. He has a good face. Graying hair—and I can see how he might have an allure. He has something else.”

“What?” Jackson asked him.

“Charles Manson eyes,” Jake said. “The church is a cult massacre waiting to happen.”

 

Jenna had found a stash of floor pillows in one of the closets, and she had arranged them before the screens in the ballroom. She had also taken the dust sheets off the furniture, and somehow, with the camera equipment, their jackets hung on the pegs on the rack just inside the front door, the cushions and the now-uncovered furniture, the house seemed comfortable.

Almost like being at home—someone's home, anyway.

Coming back in with Whitney, Angela was glad to be greeted by Jenna and Will, who had been industriously moving about the house—and keeping an eye on the cameras and the equipment, and going through the digital film from the night before.

“This is super creepy,” Jenna said with enthusiasm. “Lemonade, guys? Iced tea? I made popcorn. I'll just go get it.”

“You made popcorn?” Angela asked her incredulously.

“Hey, it's kind of like sitting around at a friend's house to watch a DVD,” Jenna defended herself.

“I think it's great,” Angela assured her.

Will asked Angela about her trip to the voodoo shop, and Angela told him that she felt she'd learned a great deal. When Jenna returned with a tray filled with popcorn bowls, glasses and pitchers of iced tea and lemonade, Angela was telling Will that Mama Matisse was not madly in love with the senator.

“That's putting it mildly,” Whitney said. “I think she considers him…not quite as honest and straightforward as he seems.”

Will laughed. “That's just being a politician!”

“I don't know what to think anymore,” Angela said. “When I spoke with Senator Holloway, I believed that he was truly bereft over the loss of his wife. It really seemed that he had loved her.”

“My great-grandmother thinks that Holloway was guilty of something. Perhaps having an affair—or not an affair, but that he'd at least gone out and had a one-nighter somewhere,” Whitney said.

“That would make him an adulterer, not necessarily a murderer,” Jenna pointed out.

“That's true,” Angela agreed. “But we can all figure that out when Jackson and Jake get back. Right now, we've got the popcorn, we've got the refreshments, let's see some movies!”

“All right, roll 'em!” Will said. He pointed to the screens. “Jenna and I went through them individually, but it's kind of cool to watch them all at once, because mostly, nothing is happening.”

“Should I turn out the lights?” Whitney asked.

“It's daytime. You can't turn off daytime,” Will told her.

“I can pull the drapes.”

“Hey! Just roll it, please,” Angela said.

The four of them folded themselves in various positions on the cushions, cool glasses of tea and lemonade in their hands, and the popcorn set on the floor before them.

Will explained that they were watching time elapse at a high speed.

He hit the control to slow it down at one point. Up in the left-hand screen, she saw Jackson come bursting out of his room and to her doorway. His dark hair was tousled; the light in the hall reflected off his deeply bronzed and well-muscled chest, and his expression bore a look of confusion and concern.

Will looked at her. “What happened?” he asked.

Angela felt that her few years of maturity on the others faded; she was blushing, she was certain.

“Hey, that's none of our business!” Jenna said.

“No, no, no! Nothing like that,” Angela said.

“Like what?” Whitney asked, laughing.

“I had a nightmare, and I woke up screaming,” Angela said.

“Yeah, when the sound is up, you can hear the scream,” Will said sympathetically.

Angela glared at him, and then at Whitney and Jenna. “Well, then, you all know that Jackson came rushing to my defense.”

“I wonder if he'd look quite like that if he came rushing to my defense!” Whitney said lightly.

“The big chief looks really good shirtless,” Jenna teased.

“Charming to watch the pretty people do weird things in the night!” Will said.

“Oh, Lord, please—children!” Angela said firmly.

“Did you change rooms?” Jenna asked, no longer teasing, but looking at her with concern.

She shook her head. She hesitated, but after her conversation with Whitney that morning, she was certain that they'd all had some kind of brush with the paranormal.

“No, I think that I need to be in that room. But the dream was horrendously grisly, and it did shake me up. We discovered that there's a door that connects the two rooms, so we opened it. It was the only way not to have Jackson take charge as head of the team and tell me it was too dangerous for me to be sleeping in there,” Angela explained.

“Dangerous? Do you think that some manifestation in the room might be responsible for Regina's death?” Jenna asked.

“No. I really don't. What I—what I see is a pair of children, victims of Madden C. Newton,” Angela said. She frowned suddenly. “And—and Newton himself. Newton attacking the children. Annabelle and Percy. The nightmare had Newton in it. It was horrible. The terror those poor children felt was just beyond imagination.”

“And beyond the grave,” Jenna said, still watching her, troubled.

Will was thoughtful. “Those murders happened. We know that they were real. And you have the ability to see them, but…from what I understand, the Holloways
claimed
they didn't believe in ghosts.”

“There was an article in the paper—way back, when they first bought the place. Senator Holloway said it was a beautiful place and should be brought to life again,” Whitney said.

“I'm guessing he didn't mean like this,” Jenna said.

Will shrugged, drawing his knees to his chest. “Actually, Angela, you're
seeing
things because you have an extraordinary sixth sense. I'm not sure that it's not something that maybe everyone can tap into—we just don't know yet. I wonder what Regina saw. I mean, was there someone in there? Was she tricked into believing that someone was in there? Other than the fact that her neck was broken and her skull was crushed, Regina wasn't torn up. I mean, she didn't struggle with anyone. How did she wind up out on the balcony?”

“It might have been that someone was there that she trusted,” Jenna suggested.

“And she might have had that
illusion,
” Will said. He reached behind Whitney's ear and produced a dollar bill. “Illusion can be everything.”

“That was just a silly parlor trick,” Whitney said.

“All illusions carried out by magicians are parlor tricks. That's the point—illusions can be very real,” Will said.

“But an illusion didn't push Regina Holloway over the balcony,” Angela said. “Still, I do believe that what we have in the mind can be just as powerful as something hard and tangible. Maybe we're looking for…I don't know. Illusion, ghosts—and a live person somehow pulling strings somewhere.” The film had continued running as they talked. She gasped suddenly, and pointed at the bottom middle screen to images from the basement.

“What the hell is that?” she demanded.

“Oh, that's what we wanted you to see!” Will said, pleased.

They all stared at the screen. Will stopped and started the film, bringing the image back to the beginning of movement.

There was nothing. It might have been still footage. It was just a picture of the basement at the bottom of the stairs.

Then, subtly, it seemed that a shadow grew. Small, barely discernible, and then growing darker and larger.

It appeared as if some great, hulking beast in a cape might be there.

And then, the shadow dissipated. And they were just staring at the basement once again.

 

Angela's call came while they drove from the Church of Christ Arisen to the CBD.

“I've got a new spin for you,” she told him.

“And what's that?” he asked her.

“I'm glad I went out. Mama Matisse was willing to spend the time talking to us. She is the first person I've met who isn't so fond of the senator. She believed that he was having an affair,” Angela told him.

“Really? That is a new spin,” he said, glancing over at Jake. “We have our first suggestion that Senator Holloway was involved with another woman,” he said. “What made her think so? And is that why she doesn't like him?”

“I don't think so. She didn't think that he put enough hands-on work into it all when the city was in trouble. You know how some politicians hand-wash oil-laden birds when the cameras are rolling, and disappear right after? Well, that's what she thinks of him. I don't know—it seems to me that his grief for his wife is real.”

“So, why does she expect an affair?” Jackson asked.

“Well, Regina had been to see her, and the senator had picked her up. And he was dismissive of the shop, of voodoo, of Mama Matisse, and he was on the phone with someone
while waiting for her, and got off quickly when he saw her. Not much evidence, I agree. But an interesting angle. We have all believed that the senator was as pure as snow, a man to be pitied. He might just be an extremely fine actor, which does go hand in hand with politics,” Angela said.