The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told (11 page)

I held a hand out. “Easy, Prout.”

He wasn't listening. “You come to me in the shape of my enemy to mock me. I did harm to your pet. That opened my heart to you, didn't it?”

I had no idea what he was going on about, but talking was better than slashing. “You begin to see things, my son.”

He nodded and studied his reflection in the blade.

I looked at him through magic. Prout had always been leopardspotted, just full of weaknesses. That had changed. The spots had become long, oily rivers that ran up and down his body, like circulating currents. I'd never seen its like before, but it wasn't part of Prout. He had no talent.

I closed my fist and opened it again. A blue spark, invisible to Prout and his family, flew from my palm and drilled into his forehead. His stripes went jagged. He tried to rise, then toppled and fell, snuffing two of the candles against his belly.

I looked past him toward the kitchen. “Come on out, Leah. This ends here.”

The young artist stepped from the darkened kitchen, glowing silver with magic. She'd streaked paint over her face and in her hair. It had to be her trigger—something in it, or the scent—and the glow made her very powerful. She opened her hands innocently and stared into my eyes.

“You don't know what he did, Trick.”

“He arrested Martha for your murders.”

“Not that.” Her voice came soft and gentle, like a lover's whisper. “Before that, when he was investigating you. He knew you were set up. He had evidence to clear you. He didn't. You know why? Your mother is part of his church. You were an embarrassment for her. He wanted to make you go away.”

I stared down at the man and suddenly found the knife in my hand. Prout
had
known I was innocent. He destroyed my life because magic was evil and he couldn't abide it. He got me tossed from the force and hid behind being a good church-going man, an upstanding officer.

I weighed the knife in my hand. “Right. He's a hypocrite.”

“Just like the others. They all pledged money, but only in trust, only upon death, for capital expenses, not operations.” Leah's eyes narrowed. “They knew how tight things were for the mission. They helped Martha to expand until she couldn't keep the place going. They had their own plans. They'd move her out, revoke their gifts. They had to be stopped.”

“You made them pay.”

“I made them reveal themselves. They wallowed in their own vanity. They died embracing their inner reality.”

“Why the staging? The rotten food, from the
vanitas
paintings?”

“It was all a warning to others. They should have seen death coming.”

“And the Twinkie. I saw one at each site.”

Leah smiled coldly. “The promise of life everlasting. They never saw it.”

“They never could have understood.”

“But you do, Trick.” Her eyes blazed. “You have to kill Prout. He betrayed you. Let him die here. Let everyone see how black his heart really is.”

Argent arcane fire poured over me. Every moment of pain I'd felt exploded within. I'd made a good life. I'd had friends. I'd been respected, and Prout conspired with my mother and with criminals to smear me and destroy me. Leah's magic wrapped me up and bled down into the blade, tracing silver lightning bolts over the metal.

One second. A heartbeat. A quick stroke and Prout's blood would splash hot over me. I could revel in it. Victory, finally.

Then it was over.

I dropped the knife.

She stared at me. “How?”

“I've been where you've been, darlin'. As low as can be.” I let blue energy gather in my palm. “No vanity. No illusion. I know exactly what I am.”

The azure bolt caught her in the chest and smashed her back against the wall. Plasterboard cracked. She left a bloody smear as she sank to the floor.

In turn I used magic to put Prout's family out and to let them forget. They'd have nightmares, but there was no reason to make them worse.

And it was going to get worse.

I'd been worried that Martha could have turned a jury with her
talent.
There's no juror in the world, much less jurist or lawyer, that isn't a little bit vain. I never figured the way Prout did, that being talented meant one was evil; but I knew better than to rule it out.

I had to deal with it.

I picked up the knife. I wrapped Prout's hand around it.

We went to work.

Cate found me on the hill overlooking Anderson's graveside service. Huge crowd, including Prout. He dressed properly. The only white on him was his shirt and bandages on his face. He stood beside my mother, steadying her, being stoic and heroic.

That was his right, after all, since he'd put an end to the Society Murderess.

“How can you watch this, Trick?”

“Only way I can make sure he's dead.” I half-smiled. “Think my mother will throw herself on the casket?”

“Not her. Prout. Preening.”

“Why shouldn't he? He's a hero. He killed a sociopath.” I nodded toward him. “She put up a hell of a fight before he stabbed her through the heart. I heard his jaw was broken in two places.”

“Three. Cracked orbit, busted nose.”

“Whoda thunk she could hit that hard?”

“Never met her.” Cate shook her head. “How's your hand?”

“Scrapes and bruises. I'll be more careful walking to the bathroom in the dark.”

“You know, there were some anomalous fingerprints on the knife.”

“Ever match 'em?”

“No. Was I wrong about you, Trick?”

“I don't think so, Cate.” I met her stare openly. “They need their heroes. They need someone to fend off the things lurking beyond the firelight. Prout battled to save his family. Its best he never knows how much danger he was in. How much danger they were all in. All their fear and they couldn't even imagine.”

“I don't think they really want to.”

“You're probably right.”

Down below, Martha Raines closed the prayer book and made a final comment. I didn't hear it. I didn't need to.

They did, and they looked peaceful.

P. N. ELROD

Chicago, February 1937

When the girl draped in black stepped in to ask if could help her with a séance, Hal Kemp's version of “Gloomy Sunday” began to murmur sadly from the office radio.

Coincidences annoy me. A mournful song for a dead sweetheart put together with a ceremony that's supposed to help the dead speak with the living made me uneasy—and I was annoyed it made me uneasy.

I should know better, being dead myself.

“You sure you're in the right place?” I asked, taking in her outfit. Black overcoat, pocketbook, gloves, heels, and stockings—she was a walking funeral. Along with the mourning weeds she wore a brimmed hat with a chin-brushing veil even I couldn't see past.

“
The Escott Agency
—that's what's on the door,” she said, sitting on the client chair in front of the desk without an invitation. “You're Mr. Escott?”

“I'm Mr. Fleming. I fill in for Mr. Escott when he's elsewhere.” He was visiting his girlfriend tonight. I'd come over to his office to work on his books since I was better at accounting.

“It was Mr. Escott who was recommended to me.”

“By who?”

“A friend.”

I waited, but she left it at that. Much of Escott's business as a private agent came by word of mouth. Call him a private eye and you'd get a pained look and perhaps an acerbic declaration that he did not undertake divorce cases. His specialty as an agent was carrying out unpleasant errands for the unable or unwilling, not peeking through keyholes, but did a séance qualify? He was interested in that kind of thing, but mostly from a skeptic's point of view. I had to say
mostly
since he couldn't be a complete skeptic what with his partner—me—being a vampire.

And nice to meet you, too.

Hal Kemp played on in the little office until the girl stood, went to the radio, and shut it off.

“I hate that song,” she stated, turning around, the veil swirling lightly. Faceless women annoy me as well, but she had good legs.

“Me, too. You got any particular reason?”

“My sister plays it all the time. It gets on my nerves.”

“Does it have to do with this séance?”

“Can't you call Mr. Escott?”

“I could, but you didn't make an appointment for this late or he'd be here.”

“My appointment is for tomorrow, but something's happened since I made it, and I need to speak with him tonight. I came by just in case he worked late. The light was on and a car was out front . . . ”

I checked his appointment book. In his precise hand he'd written
10 AM, Abigail Saeger
. “Spell that name again?”

She did so, correct for both.

“What's the big emergency?” I asked. “If this is something I can't handle I'll let him know, but otherwise you'll find I'm ready, able, and willing.”

“I don't mean to offend, but you look rather young for such work. Over the phone I thought Mr. Escott to be . . . more mature.”

Escott and I were the same age but I did look younger by over a decade. On the other hand, if she thought a man in his mid-thirties was old, then she'd be something of a kid herself. Her light voice told me as much, though you couldn't tell by her mannerisms and speech, which bore a finishing school's not so subtle polish.

“Miss Saeger, would you mind raising your blinds? I like to see who's hiring before I take a job.”

She went still a moment, then lifted her veil. As I thought, a fresh-faced kid who should be home studying, but her eyes were red-rimmed, her expression serious.

“That's better. What can I do for you?”

“My older sister, Flora, is holding a séance tonight. She's crazy to talk with her dead husband, and there's a medium taking advantage of her. He wants her money, and more.”

“A fake medium?”

“Is there any other kind?”

I smiled, liking her. “Give me the whole story, same as you'd have told to Mr. Escott.”

“You'll help me?”

“I need to know more first.” I said it in a tone to indicate I was interested.

She plunged in, talking fast, but I had good shorthand and scribbled notes.

Miss Saeger and her older sister Flora were alone, their parents long dead. But Flora had money in trust and married into more money after getting hitched to James Weisinger, Jr., who inherited a tidy fortune some years ago. The Depression had little effect on them. Flora became a widow last August when her still-young husband died in a sailing accident on Lake Michigan.

I'd been killed on that lake. “Sure it was an accident?”

“A wind shift caused the boom to swing around. It caught him on the side of the head and over he went. I still have nightmares about the awful thud when it hit him and the splash, but it's worse for Flora—she was at the wheel at the time. She blames herself. No one else does. There were half a dozen people aboard who knew sailing. That kind of thing can happen out of the blue.”

I vaguely remembered reading about it in the paper. Nothing like some rich guy getting killed while doing rich-guy stuff to generate copy.

“Poor James never knew what hit him, it was just that fast. Flora was in hysterics and had to be drugged for a week. Then she kept to her bed nearly a month, then she read some stupid article in a magazine about using a Ouija boards to talk to spirits and got it into her head that she had to contact James, to apologize to him.”

“That opened the door?”

“James is dead, and if he did things right he's in heaven and should stay there—in peace.” Miss Saeger growled in disgust. “I've gotten Flora's pastor to talk to her, but she won't listen to him. I've talked to her until we both end up screaming and crying, and she won't see sense. I'm just her little sister and don't know anything, you see.”

“What's so objectionable?”

“Her obsession. It's not healthy. I thought after all this time she'd lose interest, but she's gotten worse. Every week she has a gaggle of those creeps from the Society over, they set up the board, light candles, and ask questions while looking at James' picture. It's pointless and sad and unnatural and—and . . . just plain
disrespectful
.”

I was really liking her now. “Society?”

“The Psychical Society of Chicago.”

Though briefly tempted to ask her to say it three times fast, I kept my yap shut. The group investigated haunted houses and held sittings—their word for séances—writing their experiences up for their archives. Escott was a member. For a buck a year to cover mailing costs he'd get a pamphlet every month and read the more oddball pieces out to me.

“The odious thing is,” said Miss Saeger, “they're absolutely
sincere
. When one has that kind of belief going, then of course it's going to produce results.”

“What kind of results?”

“They've spelled out the names of all the people who ever died in the house, which is stupid because the house isn't that old. The man who supervises these sittings says that's because the house was built over the site of another, so the dead people are connected to
it
, you see. There's no way to prove or disprove any of it. He's got an answer for everything and always sounds perfectly reasonable.”

“Is he the medium?”

“No, but he brought him in. Alistair Bradford.” She put plenty of venom in that name. “He looks like something out of a movie.”

“What? Wears a turban like Chandu the Magician
?
”

Her big dark eyes flashed, then she choked, stifling a sudden laugh. She got things under control after a moment. “Thank you. It's so good to talk with someone who sees things the way I do.”

“Tell me about him.”

“No turban, but he has piercing eyes, and when he walks into a room everyone turns around. He's handsome . . . for an old guy.”

“How old?”

“At least forty.”

“That's ancient.”

“Please don't make fun of me. I get that all the time from him, from all of them.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Saeger. Are you the only one left in the house with any common sense?”

“Yes.” She breathed that out, and it almost turned into a sob, but she headed it off. The poor kid looked to be only barely keeping control of a truckload of high emotion. I heard her heart pound fast, then gradually slow. “Even the servants are under his spell. I have friends, but I can't talk to them about this. It's just too embarrassing.”

“You've been by yourself on this since August?”

She nodded. “Except for our pastor, but he can't be there every day. He tells me to keep praying for Flora, and I do, and still this goes on and just gets worse. I miss James, too. He was a nice man. He deserves better than this—this—”

“What broke the camel's back to bring you here?”

“Before Alistair Bradford came all they did was play with that stupid Ouija board. I'd burn it but they'd just buy another from the five and dime. After
he
was introduced they began holding real séances. I don't like any of that stuff and don't believe in it, but he made it scary. It's as though he gets taller and broader and his voice changes. With the room almost totally dark it's easy to believe him.”

“They let you sit in?”

“Just the once—on sufferance so long as I kept quiet. When I turned the lights on in the middle of things Flora banished me. She said my negative thoughts were preventing the spirits from coming through, and that I was endangering Bradford's life. You're not supposed to startle a medium out of a trance or it could kill him. I wouldn't mind seeing that, but he was faking. While they were all yelling I had my eye on him, and the look he gave me was pure hate . . . and he was
smiling
. He wanted to scare me and it worked. I've kept my door locked and haven't slept much.”

“I don't blame you. No one believes you?”

“Of course not. I'm not in their little club and to them I'm just a kid. What do I know?”

“Kid's have instinct, a good thing to follow. Is he living in the house?”

“He mentioned it, but Flora—for once—didn't think that was proper.”

“Is he romancing her?”

Miss Saeger's eyes went hard. “Slowly. He's too smart to rush things, but I see the way he struts around, looking at everything. If he lays a finger on Flora I'll—”

I raised one hand. “I get it. You want Flora protected and him discredited.”

“Or his legs broken and his big smirking face smashed in.”

That was something I could have arranged. I know those kind of people. “It's better if Flora gets rid of him by her own choice, though.”

“I don't see how, I may have left it too late. I called here on Saturday to make the appointment, but—” She went red in the face. “I could just
kill
him.”

“What'd he do?”

“The last séance—they have one every Sunday and that's just
wrong
having it on a Sunday—something horrible happened. They all gathered in the larger parlor at the table as usual, lighted candles, and put out the lights. Soon as it went dark I slipped in while they were getting settled. There's an old Chinese screen in one corner, and I hide behind it during their séances. Negative feelings, my foot, no one's noticed me yet, not even Bradford, so I saw the whole thing.”

“Which was?”

“He put himself in a trance right on time. It usually takes five minutes, and by then everyone's expecting something to happen, you can feel it. He starts out with a low groan and breathing loudly, and in the dark it's spooky, and that's when his spirit guide takes over. His voice gets deeper and he puts on a French accent. Calls himself
Frère
Lèon. He's supposed to have been a monk who traveled with Joan of Arc.”

“Who speaks perfect English?”

“Of course. No one's ever thought of talking to him in French. I doubt Bradford knows much more than
mon Dieu
and
sang sacré
.”

She'd attended a good finishing school, speaking with the right kind of pronunciation. I'd heard it when I'd been a doughboy in France during the last year of the war, and had picked up enough to get by. Much of that was too rough for Miss Saeger's tender ears, though.

“And the horrible thing that happened?”

“It was at the end. He pretends to have
Frère
Lèon pass on messages from James. He can't have James talk directly to Flora or he'd trip himself up. He doesn't pass too many messages, either, just general stuff about how beautiful it is on the other side. She tries to talk to him and ask him things and she's so desperate and afterwards she always cries and then she goes back for
more
. It's cruel. But this time he said he was giving her a sign of what she should do.”