Demons Are a Ghoul's Best Friend

by Victoria Laurie

  We made it to the parking lot, and that was when I was able to pull myself completely inside the van and close the door. In the distance we could hear police sirens making a beeline for us. Gilley didn’t wait for them in the parking lot; instead he drove straight for the school’s entrance. “Where are you going?” I asked as I made my way to the front seat.

  “The hell outta here!” he said, his eyes wide and frightened.

  “We have to stop for the police!” I shouted at him.

  “Nuh-uh!” Gilley said. “We are outta here!”

  “Gilley,” I said, trying hard to make my voice calm. “Stop the van.”

  “He’s coming for us!” Gilley said. “Jack is coming for us, and he’s going to kill me!” And then he burst into tears.

  We were almost all the way up the driveway then, and in the distance I could see the first cop car make the sharp turn onto school property. “Gilley!” I pleaded. “The police are here! Please stop the van!”

  Tears were streaming down Gilley’s cheeks, and I knew he could barely see. One cop car passed us going about ninety, and another had also just made the turn into the driveway. Gilley gave two huge gulps and pulled over to the side of the pavement. A third car turned into the drive, this one an unmarked car with a strobe light, and it stopped at the entrance not ten yards from us.

  I reached out to hug my partner, knowing full well that he didn’t take scares like this easily, and that was when I saw a bullhorn poke through the window of the car up ahead, and a metallic voice called out, “Come out of the van with your hands in the air!”

  Gilley yelped, and his shoulders shook with emotion. “I thought you were dead!” he wailed. “I saw that man running at you with his ax and I thought I wasn’t going to make it to you in time!”

  “People in the van!” yelled the metallic voice again. “You have ten seconds to come out of the van with your hands in the air!”

  “Gil,” I said gently, rubbing his back. “We’ve got to go, sweetie.”

  “Five seconds!”

  Gilley’s sides shook with sobs, but he nodded and opened up his door. I did the same, and we very slowly exited the van with our hands in the air. A spotlight was flashed directly at us from the unmarked car, and I squinted hard into the brightness of it. The moment it lit on us we heard,

  “Gilley? M.J.? What the hell’s going on?” come from the bullhorn.

  “Someone was murdered back there,” I called. “You may want to check it out, Bob, before your suspect gets away.”

  The spotlight clicked off, and I could see detective Muckleroy hurrying toward us. Gilley and I lowered our hands and waited, out of breath and tense, for him to come to us. “Mind telling me what the hell’s going on?” he asked.

  It was then that I noticed his disheveled look, with messy hair, a shirt half buttoned, and pants with no belt that kept sliding down his waist. He must have been self-conscious, because he pulled them up hard when he stopped hurrying to us and held the waistband with one hand. “There was a man,” I began.

  “And he had an ax!” Gilley said.

  “He had a hatchet,” I corrected.

  “And he killed someone!”

  “We’re not sure if they’re actually dead,” I reminded him.

  “There was blood everywhere!”

  “I only saw it on the hatchet,” I said.

  “And he tried to kill M.J.!”

  “He was chasing me; he never got close enough to take a whack at me.”

  “We left him in the dust back at the school!”

  “That part is true,” I said.

  The detective’s head was going back and forth from Gilley to me as if he were watching a tennis match. His mouth was partially open—as if he couldn’t quite believe what we were saying to him—and when we finished he opened his mouth further to say something, but his radio crackled and a garbled, excited voice whipped off some numbers through the speaker. Muckleroy’s eyes became even larger than when he’d been listening to us, and he pulled the walkie-talkie from his waistband and spoke into it. “Unit ten, what is your location?”

  “On the school lawn next to Hole Pond. Just follow the blood, Detective; you won’t be able to miss it.”

  Gilley and I both gulped, and he mumbled, “Aw, man! I didn’t have to hear that!”

  Muckleroy clipped the walkie-talkie back onto his waistband and pointed to the two of us. “You two,” he said. “Get in the back of my car.”

  His tone meant business, and Gil and I shuffled quickly to his car. While we waited in the backseat we watched Muckleroy pace back and forth in front of his car, his form illuminated brightly by the headlights, which were still on. He was talking into his walkie-talkie and making large gestures with his free hand.

  A moment later he came around and got into the car, but he didn’t speak a word to Gilley or me. Instead he put the car in gear and punched the accelerator hard. Gil and I both jerked backward at the force of the acceleration while the car whipped down the driveway, across the parking lot, and up onto the lawn. Muckleroy stopped where the other two patrol cars were parked and looked over his shoulder at us to bark, “You two, stay here!”

  He then got out of his car and moved over to the other two officers, who were setting up a perimeter of crime-scene tape using some stakes and any available tree. In the center of the perimeter was a form lying prone on the ground. From the headlights of the three patrol cars we could see a lot of red, and Gilley moaned and went slightly pale. “I hate this job, M.J.,” he said as he sat back in his seat and laid his head against the headrest.

  I reached out and grabbed his hand. “Sorry, Gil. I had no idea this was gonna happen.”

  “How is it even possible?” Gilley asked. “I mean, I understand the cut on your forehead, but for a ghost to actually kill someone…I’ve never heard of that.”

  I looked sharply at him. “You think that was Jack?” I asked.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Gilley,” I said firmly, “that was no ghost. That was a real, live human being.”

  Gilley’s eyes became huge and he sat up. “No way!”

  I pumped my head up and down vigorously. “Way,” I said. “A ghost couldn’t inflict that much damage. They wouldn’t have the strength for that kind of attack. The cut on my forehead was the very most someone like Jack is capable of.”

  “Then that means there’s a real, live man walking around with a hatchet, killing people?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said with a shiver.

  Gilley was silent for a few seconds, and then, in a voice that was high-pitched and frightened, he said, “Please tell me we can quit this job and go home.”

  I looked at him with sympathy. I really wanted to say, “Hell, yes!” but I had made a commitment to Mrs. Hinnely and to Karen and to Evie that I wouldn’t quit the job until it was done.

  “How about if you stay at the ski lodge and I work this one alone?”

  Gilley grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Are you crazy?!” he screeched. “Or just a little slow on the uptake? M.J.! There’s a maniac running loose out there killing people with a hatchet! This isn’t something you can fix! This is real life, and you’re in real danger if you continue this job!”

  I didn’t get a chance to respond because Gilley’s door was whipped open, and Muckleroy yelled, “What’s going on here?”

  Gilley let go of me instantly. “Nothing at all, Detective,” he said sweetly. “Just having a little talk with my partner here.”

  Muckleroy glared at Gilley. I could tell he thought Gil had been manhandling me so I was quick to reassure him, “Gilley is a little overcome with emotion, Detective. It’s been a tough night for us.”

  Muckleroy grunted and motioned to me with his finger. “You, come with me.”

  I scooted out of the car, leaving Gilley to sit tight. I tried to give him a reassuring look as I closed the car door, but he was busy pouting in the corner of the cab and wouldn’t look at me.
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br />   I rounded the car and met up with the detective. “So tell me exactly what happened here,” he said. “And don’t leave anything out. I want to know what you did and saw from the moment you arrived here tonight.”

  I gave him a lengthy statement, leaving nothing out. He asked a few clarifying questions along the way about Eric’s request to follow him up to the teachers’ lounge. “And you didn’t find anything?” he asked me. “Nothing at all that was suspicious?”

  “No,” I said to him. “I have no idea what he wanted to show me. He’d already gone by the time I entered the lounge.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Muckleroy asked.

  I shrugged. “I wish I could tell you. It could be that he simply ran out of energy and had to leave, or that he felt I’d find a clue on my own.”

  “Could it also have been to keep you out of harm’s way?” Muckleroy asked. “I mean, while you were up in the teachers’ lounge, Skolaris was being murdered.”

  My mouth dropped open and my head whipped over to the prone figure on the ground some ten yards away. “That’s Skolaris?!” I gasped.

  Muckleroy nodded. “You didn’t know?” he asked me.

  “No!” I said. “I didn’t get close enough to identify who it was that had been attacked.”

  “Well, it’s Skolaris, all right,” said Muckleroy. “And he’s a mess, let me tell you.”

  “That poor man,” I said.

  “So how do we stop him?” Muckleroy asked me, and his expression held deep concern.

  “Stop who?”

  “Jack,” Muckleroy said, like I should know.

  And then it dawned on me. Muckleroy thought this had been the handiwork of a ghost too. “Detective,” I said, “let me be clear on this. Skolaris wasn’t attacked by a ghost. He was attacked by a real, live human being.”

  A mixture of emotions seemed to cross the detective’s face. He looked almost relieved when he asked me, “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive,” I said. “Jack was nowhere near here tonight. I would have sensed him. Hell, given that I’m responsible for taking another little boy away from him, he’d have come after me, not Skolaris, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “So we’ve got a real killer on the loose. Maybe a copycat?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But that sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” I said, thinking out loud, “if you wanted to murder someone, and you knew this area was known for sightings of a ghost with a hatchet, wouldn’t that be the perfect cover to help hide the crime?”

  “Detective!” someone yelled from behind us, and we both whipped around to see one of the officers pushing Nicholas Habbernathy in front of him. Immediately I noticed that the front of Nicholas’s shirt was covered in dark red smears and there were grass stains on the knees of his jeans. He was walking with his head bent and his arms secured behind his back. “I found him around back, behind one of the buildings. He had this,” the officer said, and he held up a hatchet with blood on the blade.

  “Oh, no,” I said as the two men approached. “Not Nicky!”

  The officer stopped in front of us, and I could see tears streaming down Nicholas’s cheeks. “I didn’t do it!” he sobbed. “I didn’t do it!”

  “He was hiding behind the dorm wing,” said the officer.

  “I found him digging a hole, and the hatchet was in his possession. I figured he was going to toss the hatchet in the hole to hide it.”

  “Bury the hatchet!” Nicky wailed. “I’ve got to bury the hatchet!”

  I looked sharply at Nicky. The double meaning was a little too ironic. “Who told you to bury the hatchet?” I asked him.

  “Eric!” Nicholas moaned. “He told me that I should bury the hatchet. Forgive and forget.”

  Muckleroy looked at me. “Eric left you in the lounge to go to Nicky?”

  “That makes sense why Eric left so quickly after showing me the teachers’ lounge,” I said.

  “You think Eric made him do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill Skolaris,” Muckleroy said impatiently.

  I turned to Nicholas and asked him, “Nicky, did you hurt Mr. Skolaris?”

  “No!” Nicholas said. “I saw a man chasing you! I ran after him and he dropped that on the ground. Eric always tells me to bury the hatchet, so I did.”

  “What happened to the man you saw chasing us?”

  Nicholas paused. He seemed to be thinking carefully about how to reply. “I dunno,” he finally said.

  “Nicky,” I said earnestly, “if you have any information about who this man was or where he went, it’s very important that you tell us.”

  Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno,” he said again.

  Muckleroy sighed. “Take him in,” he said to the officer. “Book him on suspicion of murder and call his brother. I’ll want to have a talk with him too.”

  “But he just told you he didn’t do it!” I protested.

  Muckleroy looked at me like I was incredibly naive. “If it’s all the same to you, M.J., I’d just as soon lock up the guy in possession of and with intent of burying a murder weapon.”

  “Detective,” I said, trying like hell not to yell at him, “I know he didn’t do it.”

  “Can you give me a description of the guy who did?” he asked me.

  I hesitated. “Not really,” I admitted. “It was dark, and I didn’t get a good look at him, but I know he was tall.”

  Muckleroy looked pointedly at Nicholas. “Nicholas,” he said, “how tall are you?”

  “Six feet tall. I am six feet tall,” Nicky said.

  “The guy I saw was taller!” I insisted.

  “So we’re looking for an NBA player, then?” Muckleroy said sarcastically, motioning to the officer to take Nicky away.

  “Bob,” I pleaded, “you have to believe me. I know Nicky didn’t kill Skolaris! There’s not a mean bone in that man’s body! He couldn’t have done it!”

  “And you know this because…?” Muckleroy asked me skeptically.

  “I’ve spent time with him,” I said defensively. “Gil and I hung out with him one night. He’s a sweet guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Are we talking about the same guy who was swinging a bat at your partner the other night?” Muckleroy asked.

  “That was different!” I insisted.

  “Still,” Muckleroy said, not backing down. “I’ll go ahead and question him anyway. Just to be thorough.”

  By this time a large squad of police and crime-scene technicians had arrived and were crawling all over the area. One of them yelled, “Detective!” and Bob looked over his shoulder at the cop wearing blue latex gloves holding up a crumpled and bloody piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” he asked, moving closer to the cop, who was also moving toward him.

  “We found it in the vic’s hand. There are also a bunch more in his pockets.”

  I motioned to Gilley, who came out of the squad car, and the two of us crept closer to see what the paper was about. Muckleroy must have seen us from the corner of his eye, because he turned the paper around in our direction.

  “Whoa,” said Gilley when he saw what was on the paper.

  “Our flyers,” I said breathlessly. “Why would Skolaris have our flyers?”

  “He must have been the one who pulled them down after we hung them up,” said Gilley.

  “Or they were planted on him by the killer,” said Muckleroy.

  “Or when Skolaris confronted someone with them, they were what drove the killer to kill,” I said.

  “I like your theory best,” Gil said to me with a nudge.

  “So, who did Skolaris confront?” Muckleroy asked thoughtfully. “You’ve said Jack is dead, but are you sure, M.J.? Are you sure Skolaris didn’t confront the real, live Hatchet Jack?”

  “I’m sure,” I said immediately. Hatchet Jack was dead; there was no doubt in my mind about that.r />
  “So who could have been upset enough by these flyers to want to kill Skolaris?” Gilley asked.

  “Someone who knew the real story behind Jack,” I said.

  “Someone who either was related to Jack or knew him well enough to know what he’d done.”

  “Or…” Muckleroy said, then let his voice trail away.

  “Or what?” Gil said.

  Muckleroy gave the two of us a pointed look. “Or it was someone who may have murdered Hatchet Jack, and didn’t want to get pegged for that crime.”

  That thought rattled me. I had never considered that Hatchet Jack might have been murdered, because I’d been too distracted by looking at him as a murderer. “That is a really great point, Detective,” I conceded.

  “So you think Skolaris knew who either Jack or his murderer was, and was…what? Threatening to go to the police with it?”

  “Blackmail is a great motive for murder,” Muckleroy said. “Prosecutors love to whip that one out in court.”

  “Still, it could just as easily have been Skolaris who was being threatened with blackmail,” Gilley said. “I mean, it’s just as likely that maybe he had some sort of personal connection to Jack, and he’s been trying to hide it all these years.” Muckleroy and I gave Gil a curious look, and Gilley continued. “I mean, if I were going to blackmail someone, I’d go after the guy with money, and we’ve been to Skolaris’s house, and we know he’s the guy getting paid the big bucks here at the school. Maybe he tore the flyers down thinking they were put up by his blackmailer, and maybe he confronted the other guy and threatened him, and that’s what started the hatchet hacking!”

  I looked at Gil and the enthusiastic By Jove, I’ve solved it! look on his face. “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” I said with a grin.

  Gil nodded. “Kinda, yeah,” he said.

  “Well, a look around Skolaris’s bank accounts should tell us a lot,” Muckleroy said. Just then we noticed a man running from the parking lot. We all looked up and saw Dean Habbernathy wearing a raincoat over hastily buttoned silk pajamas and with wet, disheveled hair hurrying over to us with a frightened look. “Bob!” he said when he got to us. “What’s happened? I was in the shower getting ready for bed when my phone rang. It was your dispatcher; she said to come here right away, something about William having been attacked?!”