Dead Suite

by Wendy Roberts

  Sadie panicked and blurted, “I just got the name from you . . . it was a vibe I felt,” she explained quickly. “I, um . . . I never met him or anything.”

  Gayla lowered the knife and wiped sweat from her forehead.

  “Sure. I guess you’d get that kind of vibe off me because I can’t help but think about him and worry. I never should have told him about that creep. Stupid because, of course, Lester wanted to get involved and turn him in . . . protect me like a knight in shining armor. He was supposed to text me every day but it’s been almost a week.” She rolled her head on her shoulders and cracked her neck in a nervous gesture. “Still, he promised he’d only make contact once he was sure things were safe. But soon we’ll be together and this house will give us enough money for a fresh start.” Her hands fluttered in the air and then she nervously looked at her watch. “We really need to move things along here.”

  Gayla walked to the closet and flung open the door, revealing only a small enclosed area vacant of any black swirling mass or entities. Even without its dark mist, the space made Sadie nervous.

  “Feel free to use whatever you need.” She pointed to the debris on the floor. “The wand is oak, which is supposed to make it great for this kind of thing, but it gave me no luck.”

  “I kind of usually just talk to them,” Sadie said. “I help them move on to the next dimension just by listening.”

  “Really? Fascinating. Well, the extra buzz I gave you should really help you connect. I’m desperate here. Promised him you’d take care of business and I’d do whatever it takes to make that happen. And I will.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Start talking.”

  Sadie hesitated. She wasn’t used to doing what she did with an audience present and certainly not with an audience of craziness carrying a long, sharp knife.

  “Um. Iris?” Sadie called out to the room. “Iris, dear, I think it would be good for us to talk about how I can help you. You don’t have to exist this way. You must be tired.”

  “This really works for you?” Gayla asked skeptically. “Because I gotta say, I’m used to a little more oomph to bring spirits. Why don’t you try this.” She picked up a bottle of something labeled BANISHING OIL and tossed the small vial to Sadie. “Sometimes this works.”

  “What the heck do I do with this?”

  “Haven’t you done this before?” Gayla demanded.

  Sadie ran a trembling hand through her hair. “Look, if I’m going to talk to Iris I think it has to be alone.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Gayla said firmly. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  Well, yes, I do, but that’s beside the point.

  “It’s just that she’s obviously frightened, so I think if it were just me it would be less intimidating,” Sadie stated reasonably. “How about you wait just outside the door?”

  Gayla seemed to think about it and finally nodded. “Fine. I’ll wait in the hall. You’ve got five minutes. Ten tops.” She walked over to Sadie and pointed the tip of the knife at her chest. “Don’t try anything funny, because I will hurt you.”

  With that threat, Gayla stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Sadie swallowed nervously.

  “See what you’ve gotten me into?” Sadie said to the room. She walked tentatively closer to the closet. “Please, Iris. If you could help me out here I would really appreciate it. What is it that’s keeping you here? If you tell me, maybe I can help you move on . . . hopefully within the next five to ten minutes.”

  A dark swirling cloud formed inside the closet and Sadie stared at it with fear. She wanted to run, but she knew she needed to stand her ground.

  “Okay.” Sadie nodded. “This is a start. Show me what you want me to help you with.”

  Sadie stared into the dark mist and walked closer to the closet until she stood on the very edge of the doorway. She watched Iris appear far into the distance, still wearing the outfit with the Marlene inscription over the pocket, and now that she knew it was a costume it explained a lot, but not everything.

  “Let me help you,” Sadie whispered.

  A loud bang sounded as though the front door opened downstairs. Sadie looked over her shoulder.

  “If she’s gone, I’ve gotta make a run for it,” Sadie told Iris. “No offense.” She turned to walk away and said to Iris, “This might be my only chance.”

  “No-o-o!”

  Iris’s toneless voice echoed from deep inside the closet and before Sadie could take a single step she was sucked inside the small space and smothered in an ink-like blanket. She couldn’t breathe and then everything went dark.

  When she came to, Sadie was sitting upright in the dark, cramped closet, with the door closed. The mist and Iris were gone. She opened the closet and stepped into the room.

  “That didn’t go well.” Sadie scratched the back of her head. “I’ve done my best and it isn’t good enough.”

  She made up her mind that if Gayla hadn’t left the house, the next step would be a bald-faced lie. She’d tell Gayla that Iris was gone and hope that she’d be let go.

  She opened the bedroom door and called out quietly.

  “Gayla?”

  There was no response. Maybe the sound she heard was Gayla leaving after all? Maybe she’d been scared off by whatever loony-tune ghosts rambled inside her crazy little head!

  Sadie took off down the stairs at a dead run. When she hit the main-floor landing she turned the corner and came to an abrupt stop.

  Gayla lay in a heap on the floor. She’d been stabbed multiple times and she was missing the index finger of her right hand.

  Chapter 18

  Sadie bolted out the front door of the house and into the torrential rain. In her state of shock she didn’t even notice she was shoeless and jacketless. All she knew was that she had to get away from that crazy house and the body of Gayla. She made it up the street about a block when she spied a boy about sixteen years old walking with his hoody pulled up over his head. He was hunched over, chatting on his phone. Sadie snatched the phone from his hand.

  “I’ve gotta call 9-1-1!” she explained.

  The teen looked at the crazy shoeless woman in the rain and took off running in the opposite direction.

  It took the cops less than five minutes to find her even though she thought she was hiding pretty well behind a clump of bushes at the corner. She was grateful it was them and not Owen Sorkin wielding pruning shears.

  An officer tucked her into the back of the cruiser and then drove up the block to Halladay Street. Sadie watched as unmarked cars pulled up to the scene and rushed inside. When Petrovich arrived, the detective nodded to her in the back of the cruiser first, then went inside the house. After a few minutes, the detective came back out. He pulled Sadie from the squad car and, in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, he drew her into a fatherly hug. She began shaking and sobbing against his shoulder.

  “I thought I told you to stay with friends?” he said, patting her on the back.

  He brought her over to his car and tucked her into the front seat. He turned the heat on high and got her a blanket from the trunk. The wool blanket smelled like mildew and scratched against her bare arms, but to Sadie it felt plusher than the best hotel duvet.

  “Lester Pacheo was Gayla’s fiancé. She thought he was waiting for her in Mexico,” Sadie said. She blurted it all out in a rush. She didn’t bother to withhold anything, including the part about her being sucked into a closet while Gayla was being hacked up. She ended with, “It’s gotta be Owen Sorkin.”

  Petrovich didn’t say anything for a minute. He was obviously trying to absorb the deluge.

  “I’ll be back.” He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t go anywhere until the EMTs get here.”

  Truthfully, Sadie didn’t think she
was capable of putting one foot in front of another at that point, so she just put her head between her knees and tried hard not to vomit. By the time paramedics arrived, she’d restored some control over her jackhammering heart and trembling fingers.

  “I’m fine,” she told them.

  “She’s not fine,” Petrovich barked from a few feet away. He came closer and said to the paramedics, “Take her to the hospital.”

  He instructed an officer to follow the ambulance to the hospital.

  “You were drugged. You gotta get checked out,” he said to Sadie. “I’ll come by the hospital later to take your statement.” Then he added, “And I called Bowman. He’s coming in from Portland.”

  “What!” Sadie shook her head. “You didn’t need to do that. You shouldn’t have called him, because—”

  “There’s no way SPD is going to assign an officer to watch you 24/7 when you get out of the hospital. We don’t have that kind of budget. Who knows how long it’ll take to catch this guy?” Petrovich said evenly. “And I’d rather have an ex-cop keeping an eye on you right now than one of your strange psychic friends.”

  “Then there’s something else you need to know.” Sadie swallowed. “I slept with Owen Sorkin.”

  Petrovich stared at her.

  “You probably want to leave that part out when you tell Bowman what happened.”

  He turned on his heel and thundered away, making his word final.

  ***

  When she arrived at the hospital it felt good to lie beneath clean, cool sheets and to be fussed over. Even all the blood work was bearable when she considered the alternative—that she could’ve been full of holes caused by Owen Sorkin.

  The doctor insisted she stay overnight and Sadie tried to argue that she couldn’t afford it, but he used some lame-ass excuse that your health had to come first. Sadie figured that was something only doctors and the rich could afford to say out loud.

  A nurse wheeled her back to her room after tests and there were so many people waiting they had a hard time making a path to allow her to get to her bed. Maeva was there with Osbert and Terry. Rick and Rosemary were also there, along with Sadie’s mom and Dawn.

  “It would be really nice if you wouldn’t always put yourself into such unsafe situations,” her mom griped.

  Sadie climbed into bed and wanted to offer her mom a sarcastic reply, but when she saw the tears in her eyes she only said, “Sorry, Mom.”

  The nurse gave everyone five minutes before they had to leave.

  “Detective Petrovich asked that we tell you that Owen Sorkin’s car was spotted on the I-5 headed for Canada. They’ll apprehend him at the border,” Maeva said.

  Relief lifted from Sadie’s shoulders and suddenly she felt very tired.

  “I can’t believe I got such a good vibe off that guy.” Rosemary shook her head.

  “He fooled us all,” Rick added.

  Sadie yawned and everyone took that as their cue to leave.

  Maeva was the last one in the room.

  “Osbert wasn’t crying,” Sadie remarked.

  “He got his first tooth,” Maeva said.

  “So that’s what all the fuss was about?” Sadie smiled. “Good news. You’ll only have to go through that another nineteen times.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out,” Maeva said sarcastically. “I’m going to let you get some sleep. Petrovich told me Zack will be here to get you in the morning. Are you okay with that?”

  Sadie nodded hesitantly. “You know what? Considering I slept with a serial killer, I think the next time I get romantic feelings about a guy, we need to have some kind of intervention.”

  “You betcha,” Maeva agreed with a laugh.

  Once she was alone in her room, Sadie stared at the ceiling and debated the outcome of the rest of her life, or at least the next few months. She had enough savings to help her pay bills for a number of weeks, if business didn’t pick up. After that, she’d have to consider selling her house and moving into an apartment. Or going back to teaching primary school. Something could definitely be said in favor of dealing with snotty noses and tattletales instead of maggots and blood spatter.

  As the drugs dissipated from her body, Sadie was left with a pounding headache and she closed her eyes. She wriggled under the blankets but the sheets were tucked too tightly around her legs and the place smelled too sterile. Slowly all the working sounds of the hospital became background noise and Sadie drifted off to sleep. Later that night she became aware someone was in her room but thought it was just a nurse because they seemed to take pleasure in waking her to check her pulse and blood pressure every hour. Her eyes fluttered open and settled on a man in a dark suit. Then Sadie spied a clerical collar.

  A priest? Wait a second. That’s not a priest. It’s an ex-priest hotel manager.

  “Herbert, is that you, or have the drugs not worn off yet?”

  “It’s me. How are you?” he asked, smiling down on her. “I was so worried when I heard what happened over at the house.”

  “Word sure gets around.” Sadie frowned. “That’s really nice that you took the time to visit me.” She looked him up and down. “I thought you left the priesthood?”

  “Nobody ever leaves.”

  “So it’s like ‘Hotel California’?” she joked, sitting up a little bit.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m okay. Really.”

  “You’re not okay. It’s all around you.”

  “What is?” Sadie looked around the room.

  “Evil. It’s all around you and even inside you. You’ve chosen a life where you taunt the devil on a daily basis. I thought that, given the opportunity to help me, you’d do the right thing.” He frowned. “A few years ago we were on the same page and shared the same thoughts. We had a connection. An unspoken agreement.”

  “What are you talking about?” Maybe there were still drugs in her system, because she sure felt confused.

  “When we talked after the death of our siblings and—”

  “The death of our—” Sadie stopped herself short. “Oh my God. Now I remember! The support group for families who suffered through suicide. I was there because my brother killed himself and you were there because your sister—”

  “Not my sister. I don’t call that whoring mongrel my sister anymore,” he seethed. “I’ve spent my time trying to get rid of all like her. When Gayla told me about your spiritual calling I thought you were like me. Ridding the world of Satan’s blight . . . you spiritually, me physically, taking hookers out of commission.”

  Sadie swallowed nervously. His voice was low and soothing but his eyes were crazy huge. Her hands groped along the bedsheets for the call button.

  “Gayla? How do you know Gayla?”

  “When I ran a hotel in Albuquerque she was my accounting manager and my lover. She had lots of great ideas about the afterlife that intrigued me. After too many martinis she told me how she had bought a couple spirit-infested houses and turned them for a profit. I thought we were on the same side . . . like me and you—she dealing with spirits, like you, and me dealing with those who sell their bodies for profit. I broke up with Gayla when I realized she just wanted money.”

  “But she bought your old house and—”

  “That was my idea. I’d been keeping an eye on the house. I knew that neighbor, Roy, couldn’t afford to hang on to it forever. The minute it hit the market, I called Gayla and asked her to buy it.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course she screwed that up too, having to partner with it. When she told me it was haunted, I couldn’t very well allow that bitch Iris to ruin everything.”

  “Y-you were Della’s husband . . . Iris’s father!” Sadie scooted up her bedsheets, trying to get away. “Wh-what do you want?”

 
“What I’ve always wanted, of course. To eliminate flaming whores, alive or spirited, who tempt men.” He tilted his head in surprise. “Don’t you remember? You told me you understood. . . . I shared in group about my sister going into prostitution and then killing herself and leaving an angry note blaming me. You said she pointed a finger at me because she was unable to deal with her own issues. That was very profound and accurate.” He sighed. “They all do that. . . . They all point their evil fingers at me, forcing me to cut off their accusing pointer and—”

  “I don’t remember saying any of that!” But her mind raced to connect the jigsaw in her head and then it clicked. She’d offered him consolation after the group meetings. Told him his sister’s finger pointing was wrong and that her death wasn’t his fault.

  “Of course you said it! Don’t pretend you didn’t know it all along,” he hissed. “The finger my sister pointed at me . . . the finger they all point at the men in order to corrupt their thoughts and deeds . . . that’s why I had to leave my family. I had to search out the offenders. They had to die!” He jabbed her angrily with his own finger. “I knew if I left you the fingers you would make the connection and you’d know what to do, but you ignored the fingers . . . the necklace to help you focus . . . all my gifts that were to help us be partners and—”

  “Partners? Fingers? Oh my God. . . . Those poor women, and you . . . you even killed your own daughter. . . . You killed Iris!”

  “Iris was weak. . . . She sold her body just like my sister . . . like her aunt! It was in her blood. I made sure her mother saw the truth. I didn’t have to kill her.” His smile was cruel. “I just needed to convince her mother to do what had to be done.”

  “She wasn’t a prostitute. She only wanted to be an actress. Not everyone that went to that acting camp was from the streets! Get out! Y-you need to leave!” Sadie said with a strength she didn’t feel. Her hands still searched the side of her bed for the call button.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Let me just pray for you first.” He raised his hands in the air. “Carnalem concupiscentiam est insatiabilis,” he murmured.