by Noel Hynd
“Here’s our Sarah,” he finally said. “I always carry her with me. You know, if you live in the hearts of people who loved you, you’re still alive for them. Did you know that?”
He offered Annette an old Polaroid wallet shot, crinkled and faded, of an adorable little girl in a bathing suit playing by an inflatable pool in some long lost backyard in an America of the 1970s.
She had freckles and a beguiling smile, a little tomboy. She held the end of a hose. In the picture it appeared that she may have just filled her pool. The picture had been taken on Sarah’s final summer, her father explained.
Annette’s gaze settled upon the photograph. The flash of shock that she felt was inevitable. But she suppressed it. And she didn’t say anything.
Nor did she give any indication that she had met the little girl before. The little girl in the party dress that three times had appeared near Cort Street. Or was it Annette’s imagination? No, Annette knew, it wasn’t. The conversation replayed itself in Annette’s mind.
“Have you seen my parents?”
“Who are your parents?”
“Have you seen my parents?”
“Who are your parents? What’s your name?”
“Yes, now I’ve seen your parents,” Annette thought. “And now, little girl, I know why you’re keeping a vigil around my house. Looking for Mommy and Daddy, aren’t you? But they’ve moved.”
“Miss Carlson?”
Annette was suddenly aware that Mr. Shipley was speaking to her. She had been staring at the photograph so hard that she was barely aware of him.
“Are you all right?” Daniel Shipley asked. He withdrew the photograph and closed his wallet again.
“I’m fine,” Annette said, leaning back and steadying herself. “I’m just fine.”
He smiled as his wife returned. “You looked startled for a moment,” he said.
“No,” she assured him, gathering her poise. “I’m all right. I’m fine.”
The flight was called. They boarded.
And Annette was fine. Or at least, she was composed. She remained so through the short journey back to Nantucket. Yet certain phrases kept running through her head with alarming frequency. Phrases like…must sell and get off this island… and… so the little girl is a ghost, also… and… is there any sanity left in this world?
But none of this really pushed her to the breaking point. The latter came when she returned to Cort Street. She looked, but there was no little Sarah maintaining an eerie lonely sentry at the periphery of the property.
There, at 17 Cort Street, she saw Emmet Hughes’ truck in her driveway. There at 17 Cort Street, she found her rear door unlocked. There in the kitchen she found the cellar door unlatched and open.
The light to the basement was on. The radio downstairs was playing faintly.
Annette knocked loudly at the cellar door. She announced that she was home. She called down below.
“Mr. Hughes? Emmet? I’m back from New York…”
No response.
She slowly descended the stairs. And that was when, her feet upon the basement floor, she stepped around the furnace to an angle at which she could see the workman.
And that was when and how she found the late Emmet Hughes, his body contorted and mauled, his blood splattered around the basement, his neck snapped and broken, the side of his skull smashed, his arms twisted, his clothing torn.
The most brutal homicide the island would ever see.
His head had been twisted at an obscene angle, but his eyes were open and facing upward into Annette’s. And the expression on his face strongly suggested that if he hadn’t met the Devil himself risen from Hell he might have met something that had broken forth from much the same place.
Annette shrieked until she was senseless. She howled with terror until she had raced back up the steps and out into the street and hysterically flagged a passing car, begging, pleading, imploring, that someone summon the police.
Fast!
The carpenter’s ice pick had been shoved directly into his skull between the eyes.
Between the eyes and into the brain.
Not that it had even been necessary. The gesture with the ice pick was a macabre mocking touch, one to add a mocking element to the death. A challenge to those in this world.
And for that matter, it was a warning to anyone who might foolish choose to oppose the same dark homicidal force in the future.
Chapter Forty-six
“This case is mine.”
Tim Brooks spoke softly to his commanding officer as he looked downward at the contorted, twisted face of Emmet Hughes. Lieutenant Agannis stood behind Brooks and stared with equal intensity. Two other detectives from the Nantucket Police Department were already present, as was a sergeant from the State Police barracks. But Brooks had been there first. Dr. Herbert Youmans knelt over the body, then stood.
“Horrible,” the doctor muttered. “Poor Emmet.”
Youmans shook his head in disgust. He glanced to Brooks, as if to repeat the question he had asked earlier. Brooks read his thoughts.
Tell me honestly, Timmy. Is there something strange happening on this island?
This time, however, Herbert Youmans didn’t give voice to his question. He didn’t ask because he already knew. He gave Brooks a second glance and gave Lieutenant Agannis a more hostile one. Then he filled out and signed a certificate pronouncing Emmet Hughes deceased.
Two medical technicians moved in to prepare the corpse to be moved.
“What do you think, doc?” Brooks said.
Youmans looked from Brooks to Agannis and back again.
“You want an honest answer or a polite one?” the doctor asked.
“Honest,” said Brooks.
“You got a homicidal maniac loose on this island,” he said. “You guys might want to give some thought to catching him. If you can.”
His aged but wise eyes shifted back and forth.
Lieutenant Agannis sighed. He was in a white cloud of his own manufacture, via a Marlboro.
“Talk to me, doc,” Agannis said.
“This is unofficial. Nothing’s official until the postmortem is done. But I think I’ve been around the corner enough to know what a PM’s going to show.”
Dr. Youmans looked at the corpse again.
“I’ve also seen this handiwork before. Compound fractures to arms and legs. Shattered spinal cord at the neck. Severe trauma focused around the occipital bones. Crushed larynx. Heck! You want it in lay terms? Someone tried to rip this man’s head off.”
He glared back down.
“We’ve seen it twice before, Lieutenant,” Youmans continued. “I showed you those autopsy reports for the girl in the field and the boy in the riptide. I told you there was something there that defied coincidence.”
He shook his head. Brooks stared at the body, trying to imagine…
“And I’m not even a detective,” Dr. Youmans said sourly.
“Take it easy, Herb,” Lieutenant Agannis growled. It was just the sort of challenge that further rankled Youmans.
“You take it easy, Lieutenant! You were quick to start easing me out of this job. Now you got a couple of homicides that don’t make sense.” His face grew red with indignation. “Maybe if you’d listened to me the first time, Emmet would be alive today.”
Brooks placed a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Okay. That’s hindsight, doc,” he said soothingly. “The damage is done. Let’s see what we can do now.”
Youmans muttered softly to himself:
“You and I talked about this once before,” Brooks reminded the doctor. “You had this theory. That the DiMarco girl had been lifted up and dropped from a great height.”
“That’s right.”
Agannis frowned and looked at the doctor.
“Judging by my reading of the injuries,” Dr. Youmans said, “someone, something, picked her up, maybe fifteen to twenty feet in the air. Then smashed her down on the ground with a tremendous force. I tho
ught the boy in the water got hit every bit as hard, too.”
Brooks started to look toward the ceiling in the basement of Cort Street. Agannis and Dr. Youmans followed Brooks’ lead. Brooks went to the area above the earthen part of the basement floor and shined a flashlight upward.
“Look at that,” he said.
There were blood marks against the beams and water pipes. Brooks cringed. “Looks like Emmet got lofted up as well,” he said.
“By who? By what?” Agannis snapped. “Come on! Emmet wasn’t Tinkerbell. He weighed over two hundred pounds.” “Well, that tells you something right there then, doesn’t it, Bill?” Youmans growled.
“Something very strong was in this basement,” Brooks said. “And I’ll make you a bet that when we talk to the neighbors we’ll hear that they never saw anyone come and go.” Agannis looked at both his best detective and his most experienced medical examiner. He felt confused and disgusted. He said nothing for several seconds.
“More of this ghost bull, huh?” Agannis finally murmured.
“I’d like to see you take that one to a state prosecutor. You’re going to end up in a rubber room. Both of you!”
“I’m just a dumb old island doctor, Lieutenant,” Youmans said. “So you can think what you like. But it’s my theory that you’re not dealing with a human. That’s been my theory all along. Your killer’s in an open field at night. He’s in the water at Surfside. He’s in a basement of an old house. He kills but no one sees him. Something’s way off base here, Lieutenant.”
“Then you tell me,” Agannis answered angrily. “Who is it? What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Youmans said with residual bitterness.
“Anyone seen a trained ape around the island?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Agannis asked.
Brooks caught the allusion and explained it. The same one that Youmans had made once before. Poe. Murder in the Rue Morgue. The trained ape with superhuman powers.
“I can’t comprehend the strength with which this perpetrator works,” the doctor said. “Or, for that matter, the insanity. The violence of it.”
He looked back down to the body. “Poor Emmet,” he said again. “I bet he barely understood what was happening to him.”
“All right, Doctor,” Agannis finally conceded. “What are we talking about? If you got a theory, tell it to me, will ya?”
“I don’t have a theory. That’s not my job,” said Youmans.
“I tell you how they got killed. You find out who. Or what.” Agannis dropped the butt of his cigarette and nervously squashed it with his foot. Seconds later, he lit another.
“Timmy?” he asked. “Any bright ideas?”
“I told you my theories about this house,” Brooks said. “I know it sounds absurd. I know this is something that none of us ever expected to deal with. But…”
He motioned to the body of the repairman.
Agannis glanced around. The other cops avoided his gaze.
“Isn’t anybody sane on this island anymore?” he asked.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Brooks said. “Excuse me.”
Outside the house, on a picnic bench on the back lawn, Brooks found the two people he was looking for.
George Osaro sat next to Annette. They were speaking in low tones, the minister comforting the tearful woman who had discovered the body.
Annette looked up to Tim Brooks.
“I should never have let him work in that house,” Annette said. “I knew there was a problem.”
“It’s not your fault,” Brooks said, sitting down on the other side of her. His placed a hand on hers. “You knew there were disturbances in the house. But you had no way of knowing something like this would happen.”
She looked him in the eye. “I should have,” she said. “I should have known. Something’s in there. Something that doesn’t want the rest of us invading its space.”
In the distance, Boomer lounged on a grassy area beneath a tree.
“I felt so good when I came back to this island this morning,” Annette said. “I figured I had everything worked out in my mind. This house. My future.” She paused and stared at the house. “Now this.”
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Reverend Osaro said. “Whatever’s in there, I missed it.”
Annette looked to him. “You what?”
“I walked George through while you were in New York,” Brooks said. “As I said I would. I haven’t even had time to tell you.”
“Oh,” she said.
“How did you miss it?” Brooks asked. “For years you’ve been telling me: ‘I can go into a disturbed place and feel things. I know if there’s something there.’ Now we have the main event here, George. And you missed it?”
“Simple explanation. The spirit wasn’t there when we went in. That’s what we felt push past us when we entered. The spirit is feral. Its focus may be upon this house, but it moves around the island.”
He paused. “Have you sensed it anywhere else?” Osaro asked.
Brooks told him about the incident at the hospital. And at his own cottage. And possibly even at the Friedman residence at Milk Street.
“That proves what I’m saying,” Osaro said. “It moves. It avoided me. That’s going to make everything that much more difficult.”
Brooks grimaced. So did Annette.
“Want my further analysis of this, Tim?” Osaro asked very soberly.
“I’d love it.”
“We’re dealing with a malevolent haunting,” Osaro said. “A very evil one. Something, some tormented soul, some spirit, for some reason, is trying to break loose from a very bad universe.” He paused.
Tim Brooks and Annette Carlson looked at the minister as if this were a routine straightforward suggestion.
“What’s a ‘very bad universe’?” Annette asked. “Purgatory? Hell?”
“I don’t know whether those are the names you’d want to use. I don’t even know how many universes there are. I only know there’s more than a few after this one.”
Brooks watched the house as he listened. The body of Emmet Hughes was carried from it. Around front, a crowd of the curious had already gathered. Two or three reporters, all local, had penetrated the police lines and were asking questions.
“Call it what you want to call it,” Osaro said. “But it comes from some place parallel to our universe. But much more malevolent. What we’re dealing with is like a demon. This is like a possession, but in the case of a malevolent haunting, it’s the house that’s possessed.”
“You’re the expert,” Brooks said. “How do we get rid of it before it takes another life?”
“I can only guess. There’s no book of rules.”
“Try me with some ideas,” Brooks said, losing his patience. He looked up in time to see a photographer snapping a picture of him, Annette and Osaro. Brooks removed his hand from hers.
“I’m speculating. But I think this spirit has willed itself back into this world,” Osaro said.
“What was that name you had?” he asked Brooks.
“Henry Flaherty.”
“Did you check the name in the local registry of births, detective boy?” Osaro asked.
“Yes. I didn’t find anything. If the name is correct, the man wasn’t born here.”
“But he might have died here,” Osaro said softly. “Probably did. Damned careless of him, don’t you think?”
Osaro smirked. Annette frowned in confusion. Brooks explained that the name had come to him telepathically, which made her look even more confused.
“Oh, the spirit has done what it has done with a purpose,” Osaro reasoned. “When it comes back, it makes itself known for a reason. It wants something. Give it what it wants. Or eliminate its reason to be in turmoil, and maybe we can be rid of it.”
“So what’s so difficult about that?” Brooks asked.
“It depends on what it wants,” Osaro said. “Suppose it wants someone’s soul. Yours. Annette�
��s. Mine. Ready to give that away? Or lives? Suppose it wants more lives.”
“This is starting to sound insane,” Brooks muttered. “I’ve half a mind to take a walk on all your theories and start looking for a flesh-and-blood killer.”
“You’d be wasting your time, Timmy,” Osaro said. “And you know it. You saw the same things I did. In fact, you’ve seen more. And you hear the voice. You’re the only one who hears the voice. So you know what we’re dealing with.”
“What voice?” Annette asked.
Brooks explained. For several seconds, they sat beside each other in silence. Annette stared off into the distance.
“But if we do give this spirit what it wants, allow it to rest,” she asked. “Will it leave me alone? Will it leave my house?”
Osaro opened his hands and closed them again. “No telling. But judging by previous incidents, the chances may be good. In fact, that’s probably our best…”
“All right then,” she finally said. “Let’s go looking for our spirit. Communicate. The three of us. Find out what he wants and give it to him.”
“Great. How?” Osaro asked.
“We’ll use the checkerboard table.”
Osaro stared at her. “What are you talking about?” Osaro asked anxiously. “A séance?”
“Yes. Just like Mrs. Ritter used to do. ‘Come forth, any spirit in our home!’ That’s why she left me her table. Isn’t it clear? She was near death herself. And she knew this was going to happen.” She looked at the two men who flanked her. “We need three people at the table. Three who believe. And now we have them.”
Tim looked at her and tried to summon up his courage, wondering again if he would ever have any when he needed it. Osaro looked even less enthusiastic, but waited for Brooks to answer first.
Waited, because perhaps Osaro knew how Brooks would answer.
“Lord,” Brooks said. “I don’t know.” Something fearful was pounding in his stomach. Once again a challenge was before him. And once again, terror surged.
“Why not?” she asked.
Tim looked at Osaro, who said nothing. He looked back to Annette and saw the disappointment in her eyes. That, and the sudden comprehension that he might be, for once and for all…
