A Soul To Steal

by Rob Blackwell

  “But they were from Lord Halloween?”

  “Oh yes,” Buzz said. “Most definitely.”

  “Do you know anything about what they contained?”

  Buzz shook his head.

  “Don’t you think I wanted to know?” he asked. “I tried everything I could to get a copy, or see if Tim would talk. But the letters were promptly handed over to police. Ethan said we could never publish them.”

  Quinn got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Lord Halloween didn’t approve?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Buzz said. “I know that…”

  His voice trailed off. He was staring into space.

  “You know that what?”

  “Tim begged to publish those letters, Quinn,” Buzz said. “I don’t mean he asked, I mean he literally begged. Laurence and he had giant fights about it, but…”

  “Laurence just did what Ethan wanted.”

  “Same as it ever was,” Buzz said, and nodded.

  “What happened to Tim?”

  “I really don’t know,” Buzz said. “One day he just didn’t show up for work. You won’t find him on any official list of Lord Halloween’s victims. But I know he’s dead.”

  “Why? Maybe he just freaked and ran away?”

  “You couldn’t keep a guy like him away from writing,” Buzz said. “He was born to do it, just as you were. He had a great beat and was a star reporter. He wouldn’t have left.”

  “Sometimes people do funny things when their life is on the line,” Quinn said.

  “He angered Lord Halloween,” Buzz said. “Then he disappeared. You tell me what is more likely. That is one killer with a lot of follow through.”

  Quinn thought of the blood in the basement, the reports of a ghost in the building. Maybe Lord Halloween killed Anderson here and hid the body? He shivered at the thought of someone lying down in the press room, screaming for help. But if the press was running, there would have been no one to hear. He could have died surrounded by people that might have helped him, but just couldn’t hear him.

  “I need those letters,” Quinn said. “If Lord Halloween is back, I need to know more about him.”

  Buzz looked at him.

  “The police have all of them,” he said. “Technically.”

  “What do you mean, technically?”

  Buzz looked around the office. There was still no one around. He leaned into Quinn’s face.

  “I think Laurence kept copies,” Buzz said. “I don’t know for sure, but I saw him copy one of them late at night. Ethan would not have approved. But he doesn’t keep them in his office.”

  “How do you know?” Quinn asked.

  Buzz smiled and shrugged.

  “You broke in, didn’t you?” Quinn asked.

  Buzz shrugged again.

  “Still, if he copied one…”

  “There’s a good bet he copied others,” Buzz said. “Stay on your toes, Quinn. If Lord Halloween writes you a letter, I would make your own copy first. And I’d print it.”

  “If they let me,” he said.

  With that, Buzz walked off again. Quinn went back to his desk and sat down.

  He put his head in his hands. When he looked up, Kate was staring at him. She looked pale, almost sick. He wasn’t sure when she arrived. He got up and walked over to her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t sleep well,” she replied. “I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”

  “I know the feeling,” Quinn said. “When I do sleep, all I have are nightmares.”

  “Believe me, I understand,” she said. “What was that little pow-wow about?”

  Quinn filled her in on the brief and tragic career of Tim Anderson.

  “So he’s the blood in the basement?” she asked.

  “It’s a good guess, but it isn’t conclusive,” Quinn replied.

  “We need those letters,” she said.

  “But how are we going to get them?” Quinn asked. “I doubt Laurence will admit he has them-if he even still does.”

  “We can find a way,” Kate said, and Quinn did not like the look on her face. Not one bit.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “If it is Lord Halloween, he’ll make another move soon. He’ll want more attention then he got here. And it’s less than two weeks to Halloween.”

  Rebecca stood at the door of the conference room and called everyone into the staff meeting. Both Kate and Quinn went inside.

  That afternoon, Kate, Janus and Quinn sat in the coffee shop down the street.

  “You want to do what?” Quinn asked. “Are you insane?”

  “Well, can you think of a better way?” Kate asked.

  “Than breaking into Laurence’s house?” Quinn responded. “We could just ask him, you know.”

  “And he’ll deny they exist,” she responded. “You’ve got exactly one person who saw him making a copy-and that’s Buzz. Is he the most credible source?”

  “How do we know they are even at his house?” Quinn asked.

  “Cause they aren’t in his office,” Kate responded.

  “How could you possibly…”

  Quinn’s voice dropped off. He looked at the two of them. He had wondered why Kate had insisted on bringing Janus along. And now he knew. Only Janus would have been crazy enough to go along with this plan.

  “You broke into his office, didn’t you?” Quinn asked, looking at Janus.

  “Broke in is such a strong term,” Janus said with a smile. “I prefer active investigatory intrusion.”

  “Are you two nuts?” Quinn said. “He is your boss. Your boss. If he had caught you, you both would have been fired. ”

  “I had a cover story,” Janus said.

  “Which was what?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I needed a stapler,” Janus said.

  Quinn put his head on the table and softly but repeatedly banged it against the ceramic stone. It felt strangely soothing. My job will be the first thing to go, he thought. He looked up and they were both staring at him. Janus at least had some vaguely apologetic look on his face, as if he were aware that some line had been crossed. Kate, on the other hand, just looked determined.

  “And is that going to be your cover story when we break into his actual house?” Quinn said. “When the police show up, we’re going to tell them that the three of us really needed staplers?”

  “No, I was going to go with we all were tweaked out on ecstasy and thought we were throwing a party there.”

  Quinn returned to banging his head on the table.

  “It’s the only way,” Kate said.

  “The only way?” Quinn asked, and laughed. “Again, we could ask him. I’m just throwing out a crazy idea that instead of breaking into a house-a home I might add that we don’t even know has the letters, much less where to find them-we could just confront him and demand he give over the letters.”

  “And when he says no?” Kate asked.

  “Have you met Laurence?” Quinn said. “He doesn’t say no. Traveling salespeople probably come from miles around because he is physically incapable of saying no. If he were drowning, he wouldn’t say no to more water.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kate said.

  “I’ve known him for years,” Quinn said. “You’ve known him for like 20 minutes. Come on.”

  “She’s right,” Janus said.

  Quinn pointed his finger at Janus.

  “You just want an excuse to break in somewhere,” he said. “You’ve been wanting to do that for ages. Remember that Cascades bar?”

  Janus just shrugged.

  “She’s right and you know it,” he said. “Laurence can’t say no, but he can pretend the letters don’t exist. And that’s what he’ll do.”

  “We are taking way too much on faith here,” Quinn responded. “That he really did copy the letters, that he has kept them all these years, and that they are sitting at his house.”

  “We have to start so
mewhere, Quinn, or are we just going to be wait for Lord Halloween to find us?” Kate said.

  “What if they tell us nothing? They didn’t tell the police much, did they?”

  Still, within two hours, Quinn found himself along with Kate and Janus outside of Laurence’s house. He had a modest enough place just outside Leesburg. Quinn didn’t know for sure, but he thought Laurence must have moved recently. The house looked relatively new and had that cookie-cutter look that most of the developers were going for.

  The nice thing about the outskirts of Leesburg was that they had so much surrounding woodland still left. The three journalists positioned themselves in Laurence’s back yard and scoped out the house.

  “It’s all dark,” Quinn said.

  He thanked God it was October and the sun was starting to go down so early. Somewhere he could hear a dog bark and he hoped it wasn’t making noise because of them-or that Laurence owned it. At least now they could lurk around without anyone seeing them. Quinn couldn’t see why Lord Halloween enjoyed that aspect of his work. Instead of feeling invisible, he was worried any minute he might be seen or, knowing Virginia residents, shot at.

  “So who’s going in?” he asked.

  He shouldn’t have bothered. Once they confirmed that Laurence wasn’t home yet, Janus was already moving to approach the house.

  “Does he even know where he’s going?” Quinn asked.

  Kate shrugged.

  They watched Janus approach the backdoor. It was a nice double door opening out to a patio. Janus tripped a motion-detecting floodlight, but clearly didn’t seem worried about it. He stood there, standing out.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Quinn said.

  “Could you please try and be a little positive?”

  “Well, I didn’t bring up the part where we all get fired and go to jail. I thought that was pretty positive.”

  Janus had pulled something out of his pocket-Quinn at first thought it was going to be his lighter, the one he carried with him everywhere. Instead it appeared to be a tool of some kind. He was using it on the door. Within seconds, the door came open.

  Quinn braced himself. If there was an alarm, this would be when it was triggered. After the attacks by Lord Halloween, most Loudoun residents had bought an alarm. But he heard nothing. Instead Janus gestured back at them.

  Seconds later, Quinn and Kate were through the door. The house looked nice considering he knew how little Ethan Holden paid anyone. It was possible Laurence was paid more money than most, but he doubted it. Laurence wasn’t a tough negotiator and it was hard to imagine Holden ever willingly parting with cash when he didn’t absolutely have to.

  “Let’s spread out,” Kate said. “The shorter time we’re here, the better chances we have.”

  “Nothing ever went wrong with that plan,” Quinn said, but Janus and Kate had already split up.

  Quinn decided to stick to the back. He walked through the dining room, which looked totally bare except for a table, and then briefly stopped in the kitchen. He doubted Laurence would have any files in there. As he turned the corner, he saw a door to the basement. He felt like he was in a bad horror movie. Don’t go in the basement, he told himself. But didn’t that seem like a better place to hide files?

  Slowly, he walked down the steps, taking care not to trip in the dark. When he got to the bottom, he fumbled along the wall until he found a light switch and turned it on. He hated turning on the light-what if Laurence came home-but had no choice. Without it, he was effectively blind.

  The basement wasn’t as dank or scary as Quinn had feared. It was largely bare, however, with a big TV and a stationary bicycle on the far side of the wall. It didn’t look like either had been used recently. But feeling the urge to be thorough, he walked to the back of the room and found another area off to the right.

  The room was an almost identical replica of Laurence’s office at the Chronicle. Two desks were pushed together and an older-looking computer sat at the direct center of one of them. He flicked on another light to get a better look. Bingo! Two filing cabinets sat by the far end of the room-just like at the office. He was just about to shout upstairs to the others when he heard something that made his blood stand still.

  The front door had opened.

  He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. He was a journalist-trained for stressful situations-but Quinn could see getting fired, possible jail time and the end of everything he had tried to build here. What paper would hire him now? He would be a part-time criminal. Maybe he could convince Laurence not to press charges. He could just walk upstairs and admit it.

  He heard footsteps as someone walked in the house. From the sound of it, it was probably two people. He heard voices, even giggling. Quinn had to do something.

  The files, a voice in his head said. Get the goddamn files. If he was going to go down, he shouldn’t be standing around waiting for something to happen-he should act.

  His eyes darted to the filing cabinets. Please don’t be locked, he thought, as he heard more talking upstairs. How long until Kate gets caught? What about Janus?

  Focus, he thought. Focus on what you are here to do.

  He examined the filing cabinets and tried to pull them out. But as he feared, they were locked.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath. “Motherfucking piece of shit.”

  He looked around the room. Keys, keys, there have to be keys somewhere. The desk was bare. Near the computer was a series of newspaper clippings, laid out in an unusually neat pattern. He opened the drawers and started looking through. How long before they notice the light is on downstairs? How long do I have? There were pins, pens, notepads, paper clips, staples, a letter opener, highlighters and every kind of other junk in the first drawer. The second drawer was filled with random stuff as well, as far as Quinn could tell. There were papers in there, but nothing else.

  There’s no key here, Quinn thought. He should run now. Just get out of there while he could. But this would be his last chance. He wasn’t going to get another shot at this. And if Laurence caught even a glimpse of him, he would know it was Quinn.

  He could hear the voices talking upstairs, moving around a little. It sounded like they were in the kitchen-he could hear glasses clinking.

  “Shit,” he said again.

  His eyes searched the room. He returned to the filing cabinet and gave it a good look. It looked like solid oak, but the lock was very small. Maybe it wasn’t that stable. He could see the piece of metal through the opening slat holding the drawer shut. If he had something flat, small and hard, he could maybe move it without a key. His brain was working on overdrive.

  The voices had stopped talking and he could not hear anything upstairs. He didn’t know where Laurence and his friend were, but they could be anywhere.

  The letter opener, Quinn thought. He moved back to the desk, pulled open the drawer and grabbed it. Please let this work. He slid the letter opener into the slat and tried to push the latch. At first there was nothing and Quinn thought it was over, but then it gave way slightly. He pushed a little harder. It was resisting him, but also moving.

  Above him, he could hear people moving and voices again. It didn’t sound like anyone had been caught-maybe Kate and Janus had gotten out already. But the footsteps sounded like they were coming towards Quinn. He could almost make out what the people were saying.

  The lock gave way. One minute it was resisting slightly and the next it had slid all the way into the drawer. He’d done it. He pulled open the drawer and looked at a series of files. At first he couldn’t make out what he was looking at. On each file was written a name-and there were at least two dozen files. They meant nothing to him until he saw one near the front: “Mary Kilgore.” The murdered woman.

  He pulled it out. In it was his newspaper article on the murder and even the metro article from the Post. A headshot also fell out. Until that moment, Quinn hadn’t known what she looked like. She looked in her early fifties. Her hair wa
s dark, but Quinn had a feeling it was colored. She had been pretty once, but in the photo she just looked tired. Her smile looked forced, as if she didn’t have any reason to be smiling. Quinn put the photo back in the file and returned it to the drawer.

  He looked at the other names until one jumped out at him: Sarah Blakely. It was Kate’s mom. He looked more carefully at the names now and could see he recognized many of them: they were all victims of Lord Halloween. Laurence had an entire drawer filled with information. Had he also done his own investigation?

  He didn’t have time to think about it. The footsteps now sounded like they were at the top of the basement stairs. He heard a voice as clear as day.

  “Just one second,” Laurence said.

  He started walking down the basement steps.

  “I didn’t think I left the light on down here,” Laurence said to himself.

  Quinn was finished. In five seconds Laurence would be down the steps and it would be over. Instead of his life flashing before his eyes, Quinn saw his career flash before him. Starting as a cub reporter working sports, trying to learn the ropes, then finally working his way up to general assignment. It was over. It was all over.

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. Laurence paused on the steps, turned around, and walked back up them. Quinn nearly shouted in relief. His heart was racing. Whatever chance he had just been given, he took it. He looked back at the files and frantically searched through the names until he found the one he wanted: Tim Anderson.

  He grabbed the file. It was clearly one of the biggest. Quinn didn’t read it. If the letters weren’t here, they weren’t anywhere, and now was not the time to check. As an afterthought, he grabbed the file on Blakely as well-and shut the filing cabinet as gently as he could.

  Hoisting the files under his one arm, he began to creep up the stairs. Whoever had rung the doorbell, he just hoped they would keep Laurence busy. At the top of the stairs he stood and listened.

  “I just thought it was worth bringing to your attention,” a voice said. With shock, Quinn realized it belonged to Janus. He had been the one to ring the doorbell. He must have snuck out of the house and gone back around to the front.

  “You really think he’s harassing her?” Laurence asked.