The Ghoul Next Door

by Victoria Laurie

  “M.J.?” said a high squeaky voice. “This is Chandler Wilcox. Kendra’s assistant?”

  “Oh, Chandler, thank you so much for returning my call,” I said. “And I’m so sorry about Kendra.”

  Chandler’s voice cracked a little as she thanked me, but she pulled herself together and got to the heart of the matter. “I went through all of Kendra’s notes, and the last thing she had me research was Brook Astor’s legal name.”

  My brow furrowed. “Her legal name?” I said.

  “Yes. She wanted to know if Astor was Brook’s married last name, or her maiden name.”

  “That’s weird,” I said, at last coming out of the maze to the automatic doors of the front entrance. “Which one was it?”

  “It was her maiden name. She changed it from Lucas back to Astor right after her divorce.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I wonder why that was important.”

  “There’s nothing else in the notes,” Chandler said. “But I know she had me pull up all the research I could find on Brook yesterday afternoon. She wanted me to try and get a copy of the divorce decree too, but I got pulled in another direction by one of the other reporters, so I didn’t have time to get to it, and Kendra said she’d handle it. The last time we talked, she was headed down to the public records department to hunt that down.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d been listening to Chandler, but something else had been tickling my thoughts. Something that was tugging on my mind so much that I felt I needed to pay attention to it. And then, I realized what it was, and I nearly dropped the phone as all the rest of the pieces hovered above their respective slots, ready to be cemented into place. “Chandler!” I said sharply, shaking with excitement.

  “What?” she asked, alarmed.

  “You said that Brook’s married name was Lucas? Was that by any chance Mickey or Mike Lucas?”

  “Yes. Dr. Mike Lucas.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said, leaning against my car. “I need you to do me one more favor, Chandler. I need you to see if you can locate a previous address for Dr. Lucas, see if he once lived on Stoughton Street—”

  “He did,” Chandler said. “Kendra asked for me to verify that for her yesterday.”

  I was trembling so much now that I almost couldn’t manage to swing my messenger bag around to get into it and dig for Kendra’s phone. At last I had my hand on it and pulled it up; clicking it on, I swiped to unlock it and there was the photo she’d been trying to show me. I searched the faces and spotted Dr. Mike Lucas in the back row, wearing a forced smile and glancing sideways at his ex-wife and Luke Decker, their arms around each other’s waists.

  I had one more call to make to completely cement my theory and I ended the call with Chandler and dialed Courtney’s number. “Pick up!” I whispered as it rang. “Come on, Courtney, pick up!”

  She did on what must’ve been the final ring. “I was just about to call you,” she said. “I was on the other line with Luke, asking him where he’d learned about the rental house on Stoughton Street.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  “He said that someone wrote down the address and left it for him on his desk one day. He told me the note simply said that the anonymous person heard that he was trying to find a place to rent, and that the house was cheap and close to campus. He said he didn’t even think about it until I asked.”

  I knew all too well who’d left that note. And I could clearly picture Dr. Lucas standing in front of Lester, holding out his right hand, which held those pills that made Lester so tired and weak and vulnerable to his brother’s comings and goings.

  And then I was grabbed from behind and yanked roughly backward into a choke hold. “Hello, you little bitch,” Dr. Lucas whispered at the same moment I felt the tip of something sharp go into the side of my neck.

  I made the only sound I could—a squeak of terror. I clutched the arm holding me and clawed at it, but the choke hold only intensified and I couldn’t breathe. Little dots of light began to color my vision and I was lifted off the ground and carried several feet away from my car. With mounting panic I realized Lucas was carrying me toward the large fence that enclosed the Dumpster. Once we were around the other side of it, no one would see us.

  I kicked and clawed for all I was worth, but the edges of my vision began to go dark. I was losing consciousness and nothing I did even slowed Lucas down. But then I remembered something I’d seen on TV a few years earlier. An expert in self-defense had suggested that if you were put into a choke hold, the best thing to do was to let your body go completely limp. This would force the attacker to bend forward, and put him off his center of gravity. From there, you could pivot and kick back against the extended leg of the attacker.

  How all that made its way into my brain, I’ll never know, but I did exactly as the instructor had suggested. Allowing my body to go completely limp went against every instinct I had, but I forced myself to do it, and it actually worked. Lucas bent forward, and the second he was bent almost double, I shifted my weight to one leg and kicked back as hard as I could with the other. I heard a loud snap and Lucas screamed in my ear. He let go of me quick and I tumbled out of his arms to the ground.

  In turn, he fell too, and reached for his knee, holding it and howling with pain. I didn’t wait around for him to get up again. Instead I scrambled to my feet, darted forward, and kicked him right in the face, also as hard as I could. I was mad enough to kill him in fact.

  There was another sound that is best not described, but let’s just say I was pretty sure I either broke or dislocated his jaw, and probably broke his nose to boot. The blow knocked the sense right out of him. He didn’t pass out, but he looked close to fainting, so I staggered away from him to run for the door of the senior center, screaming bloody murder the whole way.

  • • •

  A considerable amount of chaos followed. Lucas was in no shape to do much but try to crawl away from the scene. He didn’t get very far, and a large knife was found lying near where I’d drop-kicked his ass. A knife that had dried blood on it. When Souter showed up, she pulled me into a vacant room at the senior center and eyed me critically as I sat in the chair, trembling from head to toe. After eyeing me up and down, she said, “You look pretty shook-up, Holliday. You okay?”

  I actually let out a small laugh. It was so absurd. This woman had been such a hard-ass and on my case for over a week, and I was shivering so much that my teeth were rattling while I pressed a small piece of gauze to my neck where the knife had nicked me. Souter’s sudden concern was ridiculous. “I’ll live, Detective.”

  She seemed to get it and her next move was unexpected. She got up, told me to sit tight, and ducked out the door. A few moments later she was back with two steaming coffees. Handing one to me, she said, “How ’bout those Bruins?”

  I shook my head ruefully and sipped at the coffee. “I like them for the Cup,” I said, laughing a little again.

  “Yeah. Me too. They’re wicked good.” Souter added a wink and then she made a little more small talk, about the weather and such. At last the coffee and her relaxed attitude took effect and I stopped shivering. “You ready to tell me what happened?”

  I nodded and got on with it. I told her everything, holding nothing back, not even my conversation with Lester Akers. I didn’t care if she thought I was crazy, I knew I wasn’t.

  To her credit she listened to all of it without interruption except to have me elaborate on a point or two while she took detailed notes. When I was done, she leaned back in her chair, moved her reading glasses off her nose, and said, “So, let me get this straight: This Sylvester Akers possesses these men and gets them to commit murder?”

  I shook my head. I’d seen too much of the real nature of the men listed in the closet to think that’s what was going on. “No, but he does help draw out the psychotic nature of men already predisposed to violence. At bes
t, I think he encourages them to act on their homicidal thoughts, and during the act of murder I think Sy is very much present, hence all the wounds made by a left-handed attacker. Sy enjoys the bloodlust and jumps into their minds to share the experience.” And then I remembered Gilley standing in front of me in the doorway of his condo wielding a knife, and I knew that Sy had been getting stronger as his brother’s condition worsened, and he was starting to influence the minds of innocent men too, like Luke and Gilley. I kept that part to myself, however, because I knew that Souter wasn’t likely to understand.

  Souter looked back at her notes. “Still,” she said skeptically. “Seven homicidal men all living at some time in one house? That seems a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  I shook my head again. “Not to me. It’s my experience that positive energy attracts positive energy, and negative energy attracts negative energy. I believe the men in question were drawn to that house by some inexplicable force they couldn’t quite name. Once they were there, they became angrier, more withdrawn, and their thoughts grew darker and eventually turned to murder. But I also want to point out that, for the record, it’s not seven homicidal men we’re talking about—it’s six, including Sy Akers. I believe that Murdering Mike and Lethal Luke were one and the same.”

  “Mike Lucas,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She sighed and looked at her notes again. “We ran a quick background check on the good doctor and know what we found?”

  “Another body?” I guessed. I knew deep in my bones that Lucas had killed before.

  “Yeah. He had a girlfriend as a med student who was found stabbed to death in her apartment. Supposedly the doc found her and tried to revive her, before calling nine-one-one. She lived in a rough part of town with a dope dealer for a neighbor and he was a straight-A student, so nobody looked too closely at him as a suspect.”

  “Where was he living at the time?” I asked.

  She tapped her finger on the table. “Stoughton Street.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “In light of all this we’re going to open that case back up. And now it looks like I’m going to relook at him for Brook Astor’s murder, along with reopening the Gracie Stewart murder too.”

  “Ken Chamblis is someone you’ll want to interview for her murder. Talk to the bartender at Sheedy’s—her name is Tracy. I don’t know where Chamblis lives, but I’ll bet you can track him down.”

  “Oh, we will,” Souter said, making a few more notes.

  “As for Brook Astor, I’m telling you, Dr. Lucas did it,” I said. “And he tried to frame Luke Decker for it. He knew Luke and his wife had had an affair during their divorce.”

  “Yeah, we heard about that too, but he wasn’t the father of her baby; that we know for sure.”

  “Do you think it was Dr. Lucas’s?”

  Souter shrugged, but then she shook her head. “I don’t think so. One of the day nurses we interviewed said that Brook came to the hospital shortly before she was murdered to confirm her pregnancy. She’d confided to the nurse that she was dating somebody new—a guy who lived in L.A.—and it was getting pretty serious. Brook was thinking about moving out there to be with him, and we were able to eliminate the new boyfriend as a suspect. We thought that’d point to Decker as the killer more firmly, but then we couldn’t figure out how he might know about her pregnancy until we learned that any of the hospital staff could easily access Brook’s medical files. I figured maybe Dr. Decker had poked around where she didn’t belong and had passed on the info to her little brother, but that theory always bothered me because Luke and Brook had split up a full year before. And I couldn’t see Dr. Decker risking her medical license to pass on the news of the pregnancy to Luke. I mean, she’s a smart lady. Why would she want to stir up trouble?”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “It was Dr. Lucas who accessed the medical records. I think he found out she’d been to the clinic, started looking into her medical records, and discovered the pregnancy. Maybe he even knew about the guy in L.A. I bet he killed her because she’d had the nerve to leave him when she discovered he was cheating on her, and not even a year later she’s having another man’s child. He’s the type to want to get revenge for something like that, and I’ll bet he thought it was a pretty clever idea to frame Decker for her murder while he was at it.”

  Souter nodded, but I could tell she’d wait until after she had a chance to interview Lucas to confirm our suspicion.

  “The thing I don’t know,” I said, “is what was Brook doing on Comm Avenue in the middle of the night?”

  “She got a series of phone calls on her cell from an unidentified number,” Souter told me. “It came from a burner phone and we were pretty sure it was the murderer luring her there. I wanted to make it stick that the calls were all made by Decker, but the first two calls came into her cell while you had Decker under surveillance. We confirmed the time stamp on your end, and in the video Decker’s sleeping like a baby while Brook’s phone is ringing with whoever was calling her on the burner phone.”

  “Lucas,” I said. “He called her and somehow got her to go there.”

  “What I can’t figure out,” Souter said, “is how did Lucas know Decker was going to leave his sister’s place that night so that he could frame him for murder?”

  “It was Sy,” I said. “This spook forms intimate relationships with the men he possesses. They share thoughts and ideas and I’ll bet you that Dr. Lucas and Sy the Slayer had this all planned out for a long time. Our team was the wrinkle in their plan, though. And then I believe that Kendra made the connection between Dr. Lucas and his former residence on Stoughton Street and maybe she even discovered the murdered ex-girlfriend and put it all together. What she didn’t know was that Dr. Lucas was probably keeping tabs on us, knowing we were close to figuring it all out. He kept Lester drugged so that he could take full advantage of Sy and maybe he found Kendra all alone in the parking lot and had the perfect opportunity to silence her.”

  Souter inhaled deeply and let it out in a sigh. “I hope that girl pulls through,” she said.

  “I have faith,” I said, because I did.

  Souter smiled. “Faith is good. All right, Holliday. I’ve kept you long enough. Your boyfriend and your partner are outside in the hallway pacing a groove in the floor. I’ll let you go, but if you think of anything else you want to tell me, you call.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  Souter held the door open for me, and before I even knew what was happening, I was pulled forward and wrapped up in my boyfriend’s arms. “Thank God, thank God, thank God,” Heath whispered over and over as he carried me several steps down the hall.

  “Hey, babe,” I said, hugging him back just as tight. “I’m okay,” I told him before he could even ask.

  Heath didn’t say anything; he just held me for a long time and I was so moved by his concern that I felt tears sting my eyes. “I swear I’m okay,” I repeated.

  Heath sighed into my neck. “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered.

  “Deal.”

  Heath then set me down and kissed me lightly. I stepped back and was turning away when Gilley barreled into me and hugged me so fiercely that I couldn’t breathe. He also made an attempt to lift me off my feet, but he only managed to stumble a few steps with me. “Gil,” I squeaked. “I’m okay. Please ease up.”

  He released me and stepped back and I was so touched to see that he was actually sobbing. “You scared the hell out of us!” he shrieked.

  I winced but reached out to wipe at his cheeks. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t on purpose.”

  “Don’t do it again!”

  I held up a hand, taking a vow. “I promise.”

  And then another figure stepped forward and I realized it was Steven, his face a mask of concern. “Are you hurt?” he asked me, lifting my chin to look
at my neck.

  “I’m fine.”

  He took my pulse and then stared deeply into my eyes and I realized how much he actually still cared about me. I felt a flush hit my cheeks and I was glad Heath was standing behind me and couldn’t see my face. And then Steven seemed to catch himself and his expression became more clinical. “We were worried.”

  His fiancée then stepped forward and took up my hand. “I heard it all through the phone,” she confessed. “I recognized Mike’s voice, and everything clicked into place.”

  “Courtney was the one who called in the attack,” Gilley said. “That’s why the police got here so quick.”

  “And she called us,” Heath said, with a note of gratitude.

  “Well, it all turned out okay,” I insisted, feeling suddenly exhausted. I glanced at a nearby clock. It was only ten after eight, but I was ready to go home and get into bed. I eyed the skeptical faces all around me and I tried to push a reassuring smile onto my lips. “Really, guys, everything is fine now.”

  But it wasn’t.

  No sooner were those words out of my mouth than the sounds of screaming erupted nearby as a nurse came running down the hallway. Souter, who’d been talking to a few other detectives just down from us, whirled around and the whole group was off in a flash. A chill ran up my spine and Heath grabbed my hand and our little group rushed after the detectives.

  We were stopped by a male nurse in the hallway who warned us not to get close. “It’s pretty bad,” he said.

  “What happened?” I asked anxiously. I couldn’t be sure but I thought the commotion was coming from Lester’s room.

  “One of our residents fell just as the nurse was coming to give him his meds,” he said. “He impaled himself with some sort of spike, and I think he’s dead.”

  My jaw dropped and I reached around for my messenger bag. Digging through it, I counted the spikes in the bottom of the bag. I’d pulled seven from the car. There were only six in my bag. I hadn’t even thought to count them when I’d come back in from the hallway after talking to Heath. And Lester’s words about being like a vampire who needed a stake driven through his heart to stop the evil came back to me, and I knew—I just knew—what he’d done.