Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Please don’t do this, Steven. I can make it up to you.”

  “It’s too late for that, Lizard. You had one simple job. Just make the call and get Laswell out to the bottom of the river.” A beat. “Simple. But then you go and leave your prints on the girl’s phone.”

  “Let me fix this, Steven.”

  “I don’t think so, Lizard.”

  And Jacoby pulled the trigger.

  Two months after the shooting…

  Kate Laswell stood in the middle of Laurie’s bedroom, and stared at all the pictures she had pinned on her wall. For her thirteenth birthday, they’d given Laurie a wireless photo printer. The girl had run out of photo paper in less than a day.

  Laswell walked up behind his wife. After several silent minutes, he asked, “You all right? What are you looking at?”

  Kate removed a photograph from the wall and studied it. It was one of Kate’s favorite pictures of Laurie and her father. Laurie, dressed and made up for her first-ever school dance, was standing with Laswell in front of the fireplace. Laurie looked like this was possibly the happiest day of her life. Bill looked as though he were about to be forced to navigate frightening, uncharted waters.

  “I didn’t want her to ever grow up,” Laswell said.

  “Why hasn’t an arrest been made?” Kate asked. “I need to know that the man responsible has been caught.”

  “I wish it were that easy, Kate. I really do.” He hated to admit what he was about to tell her, what he had to tell her. Sometimes the truth is the last thing a person wanted to hear, whether they realized it or not. “We may never make an arrest, Kate.” He swallowed. “With each passing day the likelihood grows slimmer and slimmer. You should be prepared for that outcome.”

  “I need this,” Kate said. “I need closure.”

  Laswell placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder. He wanted to hold her, but he sensed that wasn’t what she needed right now. “No one ever really gets closure, Kate. It sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t exist. No amount of understanding will help you make any sense out of it. There’s nothing at all that will make the hurting stop. Never. It might become more manageable over time, dull to a quiet ache, but it will always be there.”

  Laswell let his words hang between them. He didn’t know what else he could tell her. Instead, he stared at the photograph in Kate’s hand.

  “I miss you so much,” she said.

  Laswell stood in the belly of the concrete river with the blue murder book in his hands. He crouched down like a baseball catcher, set the book on the ground in front of him and then, opened it to the first page of crime scene photographs. One by one, he flipped through the pages, carefully studying each image. There had to be something here, something he had missed before.

  He felt the biting chill of early-morning, the rain in his hair, wetness heavy on his coat. He heard the hiss of rubber gliding over slick pavement, and it was suddenly dark. It was night. It was that night. The last photo he looked at didn’t make sense. What he saw was all wrong…had to be. But when he looked down to study the picture more closely, it was gone. Both the photograph and the murder book…gone.

  Bill Laswell was alone again, alone in the cold wet early-morning hours. Another car passed above on the Olympic Boulevard bridge. One hundred yards away, his daughter was bound to the large wooden pallet.

  “Laurie,” Laswell shouted. He sprinted toward his daughter, no longer caring about being cautious. Maybe if he got to her fast enough he could save her this time.

  But when he reached his daughter, he didn’t see a frightened young girl clinging to the hope that her father would arrive in time to save her. What he saw was what had been depicted on the crime scene photograph in the murder book. Laurie’s lifeless body hung from the wooden pallet, arms and legs secured to it with black zip ties, face bloodied and bruised. She had been beaten before she died. Her words from that night filled Laswell’s ears. Daddy, I’m sorry.

  But it wasn’t her voice he heard—it was his own. In his moment of realization, unable to accept the truth, he had tried to convince himself that it wasn’t true. He told himself he could still save her; they still had a chance.

  After the first shot rang out, Laswell, realizing he’d been hit, turned to search for the source of the gunfire. He hadn’t known he’d been followed, never expected his emotional attachment to the situation would make him so careless.

  Lieutenant Lewis had been right.

  “I fucked up,” Laswell admitted.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Laswell recognized that voice. He glanced around, looking for the speaker.

  Steven Jacoby stepped out from behind the support pillar. “Sorry it has to go down like this, partner.”

  “Why, Steven? Can you tell me that?” Laswell glanced over at his daughter’s lifeless body. Then: “Why did you have to kill her? She had nothing to do with any of this.”

  “I needed to make sure you came out here alone. I needed to make sure you weren’t thinking straight. If you weren’t distracted by fear and anger, you might have realized this was a set-up.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her for that.”

  “I swear to you, partner, that wasn’t the plan.”

  Laswell struggled to say something, but the words died in his throat.

  “If she had just cooperated,” Jacoby said, “maybe she’d still be alive. But she fought back. She used some moves I can only assume you taught her.”

  He had, and Laswell now imagined Laurie not going down without a fight.

  “I only intended to subdue her to get her under control.”

  “I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of your life in a dark, cold prison cell, Steven. You can count on that.”

  “I don’t think it’s gonna work out that way,” Jacoby said.

  “Count on it, partner. You’re lucky I don’t simply end your sad, pathetic life right here and now.”

  Laswell tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. He moved to wipe perspiration from his forehead, wincing at the pain from his gut.

  Jacoby laughed. “Look at you,” he said, indicating the bullet wound in Laswell’s abdomen. “I don’t think you’re going to be seeing too much of anything.”

  “Maybe,” Laswell said.

  “You should have just looked the other way, partner. Maybe none of us would be here right now.”

  “You know I couldn’t do that, Steven. No one is above the law, not even a cop. Not even my partner.”

  “Maybe you could have saved your daughter; maybe you could have even saved yourself. It didn’t have to go this way.”

  “Tell yourself what you have to, Steven.”

  “So long, partner.” Jacoby lifted his gun and shot Laswell twice more.

  Kate Laswell answered the knock at the door and found Steven Jacoby standing on her porch. A spark of hope brightened the darkness that had haunted her since the night her daughter and husband had been murdered. “Please tell me you’re here with news, Steven.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She led him to the kitchen. Over coffee, she grilled her husband’s partner for information.

  Is it finally over? Have you made an arrest? Can I finally say goodbye?

  Jacoby looked down at his hands before finally lifting his face and looking at the new widow. “It isn’t good, Kate. But I wanted you to hear it from me before the media gets ahold of it and starts painting an ugly picture of Bill. He was a good cop, a good father, he doesn’t deserve what they’re probably going to do to him…do to his memory.”

  “Oh, God,” Kate said. “I don’t think I want to hear this, but I know I have to.”

  Silence filled the room until Jacoby sighed, then said, “Bill got mixed up with some bad people; he was involved in some really ugly shit.”

  “No,” Kate said, her voice a little more than a whisper. “Bill would never do anything like that. He was the most honest person I’ve ever
known.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it either, Kate. I’m so sorry.”

  “It has to be a mistake,” she insisted. “I knew Bill better than anyone. It’s why I fell in love with him.”

  “Once the last piece of the puzzle fell into place, it all came together. There’s no avoiding it now.”

  Kate set herself down on a bar stool, mentally preparing herself for what she didn’t want to believe. Couldn’t believe.

  “Bill recognized the voice on the phone that night, and he knew what he had gotten himself mixed up in had ultimately put Laurie in danger.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kate admitted.

  “Bill was going to turn himself in, face the consequences of his actions. He was finally planning to do the right thing. But Lizard couldn’t let that happen. He knew he would have gone down with Bill. He knew he wouldn’t survive being sent back to prison. He was desperate. He had to do something.”

  “You need to slow down, Steven.” She paused, then asked, “Who’s Lizard? What are you talking about?”

  “Patrick Walsh. Known on the street as Lizard. I did some digging. Bill was using him as a confidential informant. That’s probably how he got mixed up in everything to begin with.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. What was Bill supposedly mixed up in?”

  Jacoby frowned. “It’s still an ongoing investigation, Kate. I shouldn’t even be here telling you what I’m telling you. But I wanted the news to come from me.”

  “I appreciate that, Steven. I do.” She shook her head. “So this Lizard person. Has he been arrested? Is that what you came to tell me?”

  “He’s dead,” Jacoby told her. Blunt, all business. “Shot himself to death. He left a suicide note explaining everything. How and why. It’s a very detailed note. It directs us to a very condemning paper trail which clearly implicates Bill.”

  “You saw the note?”

  “Yes.”

  “He admitted to killing Laurie?”

  “He admitted to killing them both.”

  Kate began to cry.

  Jacoby moved closer to her, placed his arm around her, gently pulled her close to him. “It’s over, Kate.”

  She wept and cried into Jacoby’s chest, grateful for her husband’s partner. She pulled away and whispered, “I’m sorry, Steven. None of this seems real.”

  “I understand,” Jacoby said. “It’s perfectly all right.”

  Kate Laswell stepped away from Jacoby, and announced, “Bill’s been here.”

  “What?”

  “The past few days. I’ve felt him, his presence. It was as if he had something he needed to tell me. Unfinished business.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. And based on what you’ve just shared with me, maybe he was trying to tell me he was sorry for what he had done.”

  “Maybe,” Jacoby agreed.

  Kate stared at her husband’s partner for a long moment. “Or maybe he was sorry for what he had allowed to happen.”

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it,” Kate admitted. “I’m not sure I fully understand all this ‘afterlife’ stuff. But…I talked to him.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “I told him I was mad at him, that I was trying not to hate him.”

  “That’s understandable, Kate. You’re angry. You’re hurt. You feel as though he abandoned you, as though he failed Laurie.”

  She nodded. “Yes. You’re right. You were. But I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “Maybe I was wrong about all of it. I felt him. It was real. When I was standing in Laurie’s bedroom, he placed his hand on my shoulder. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to move. I was afraid to break the connection we had. I swear I could even smell his aftershave. And then he spoke to me.”

  “It’s what you wanted to believe, Kate. Your mind playing tricks on you, telling you what you wanted more than anything to hear.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Steven. But I know what I felt, and I know what I heard. It was real. The energy in the room…it was the same energy that was always there when Bill was angry, when he was determined.”

  “I’m sure it must have felt that way. But it was just what you wanted, what you needed to feel. It’s normal, Kate. It’s a form of coping mechanism.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe not. He spoke to me.”

  “Kate, don’t. You’re not—”

  “It happened more than once.” She took a slow breath. “I was in the kitchen, at the sink doing dishes. Bill was there with me. I felt him. I didn’t turn to look because I needed to feel him there with me; I didn’t want him to leave me again.”

  Jacoby opened his mouth to speak, but Kate said, “I was angry. I was reminding him that he had promised me he would never let anything happen to Laurie. I don’t know, I guess I wanted him to know how much I was hurting.”

  “I’m sure he knows, Kate.”

  “I know you’re right. Just like I know he didn’t do what you claim he did.”

  “I wish it wasn’t true, I swear I do. But the evidence doesn’t lie.”

  A familiar chill moved through Kate. She fought back the urge to glance around the room—they were no longer alone. And she didn’t want to let on to Jacoby that she was beginning to learn the real truth. She could feel Bill’s worry and concern. And then he spoke to her.

  He isn’t going to hurt you, Kate. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let him do anything to you, I promise. He thinks he thought of everything; he thinks he’s going to get away with all of it. But that isn’t going to happen. What he just said about evidence against me was all a lie. There is evidence. I know, because I’m the one who compiled it. He thought killing me would get him off the hook…but he was wrong. Get rid of him now, Kate. Tell him to leave. And once he’s gone, I’ll show you where I had been keeping all the evidence. You can take it to Lieutenant Lewis. She’ll know what to do with it.

  “I think it’s time for you to leave, Steven,” Kate blurted. “I don’t want you in my home any longer.”

  Jacoby cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you, Steven. I heard him. Bill talked to me. At first I thought I’d imagined it, that I had wanted it so badly that I simply made it up. But I didn’t. He was here, he spoke to me.”

  Jacoby smirked. “Okay, okay, fine. What did he say?”

  “He said he was going to find the bastard who did this. He said he was going to make him pay.”

  Jacoby just stared at her.

  “Bill’s trying to make things right,” Kate continued. “He feels guilty because of what he didn’t do not because of what he did. He failed to save his daughter, he failed to save himself. I think he even believes he failed me somehow. He won’t be able to rest until he gets to the bottom of what really happened that night. You know how relentless he can be. He’ll figure it out. I know he will. Maybe he already has.” She nodded. A nearly imperceptible movement. “Either way, someone will have hell to pay.”

  Back to TOC

  The Funnel of Love

  Cyndra Gernet

  May 5, 1934

  “Two bucks a night,” said the old man behind the desk at the Ride-in Motor Court somewhere on the jagged edges of Los Angeles. Pelum Thomas fingered the few coins inside the pocket of his overalls. He wouldn’t have to pay until check out. He’d figure something out before then.

  “Number six.” With a gnarled hand, the clerk in the tiny front office snagged a key from a half-filled rack and stretched it toward Pelum. As he reached out, the key clattered onto the counter.

  “Sorry,” said the clerk. He settled himself more firmly on the padded stool and pointed out the window.

  Pelum opened the office door and scooted out into the balmy night air. He maneuvered his battered Nash sedan into the room-side garage, grabbed a satchel from the back seat and entered his room. The déco
r was attempted Western; maple headboard with twisted rope detail and matching nightstand. The chenille bedspread featured a cowboy twirling a straw-colored lasso. The theme petered out at the dresser, which was standard-issue brown.

  Pelum flopped onto the bed, twisted his hands beneath his head, and stared at the ceiling. What in hell was he going to do? His stomach, long past growling, tweaked with hunger. Too busy driving, he hadn’t eaten in two days. Seeking shelter had seemed more important than food, but now…

  He grabbed the room key, locked up, and walked down the road to the nearby restaurant he had passed minutes before.

  Approaching a building shaped like a train car, Pelum blinked at the bright pink neon sign proclaiming The RR Diner. Inside a scatter of customers sat in yellow plastic booths arranged under the picture windows of the café to simulate train seats. He circled around back of the diner and paused at the kitchen’s open screen door.

  An angry male voice floated on a whiff of smoky air. “You son-of-a-bitch, you don’t know what you’re doing. You said you could cook. Those burgers are charred, and you’re behind on the orders.” The man speaking gave the order wheel a vicious spin. Pelum couldn’t make out the softer voice.

  “Well you better catch on fast, or I’ll fire your ass.”

  Pelum cleared his throat and raised a fist to knock.

  Two faces turned and stared. One was angry red and towered above the other. “What do you want?” said the taller man, eyeing Pelum’s wiry frame covered in worn overalls.

  “Food in exchange for helping you cook. I’ve worked short order for years.” Pelum looked in the other face and saw alarm rising in the small man’s eyes. “Don’t want your job, I’m just hungry. Can I come in?”

  “Looks like you’re in already. Name’s Wilson.” The big man moved forward extending his hand. As he shook Pelum’s, he gripped it hard. “Teach idiot Sam here something quick. I got customers waiting.”