“Many more,” the inspector looked at Tom as if he were looking at a killer. “But at this point I will ask only one, and it is not for you.”
Inspector Cerone looked at Anna. “Can I ask you what you and Monsieur Renard were doing in that old room downstairs?
Tom stepped back from Anna. The inspector watched his and her reactions closely.
“Why don’t you ask Phillipe,” Anna said.
“I was going to ask him, but I believe he has left? Also, do you know what he might have been trying to hide on that table? You know that room has been vacant for years. What you two were doing in there is . . .”
Anna had to stop him before he brought up the condition of her clothing, or anything about Phillipe’s obvious state of excitation. “We weren’t really doing anything. We were just exploring a little bit while we waited for Tom.”
“Wasn’t Phil going to help you find some records or something about the hotel,” Tom said to Anna for the Inspector’s benefit. “You know, the police reports about Ariene LaMoreau’s murder.”
“Mademoiselle?” the inspector looked at Anna. “Is this true?”
Anna looked at Tom and shook her head. Tom looked away.
“Would you please answer my question?”
“Okay, look,” Anna said to the inspector. “Phillipe had a friend of his pull out some old records from 1924 about the murder. That’s all. I didn’t want to tell you because he said his friend would get fired if anyone found out. You can understand that, can’t you? He was just trying to protect his friend.”
“These police reports regarded the murder of Ariene LaMoreau?”
“Yes.”
“You say you saw them, and you believed them to be real?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
Inspector Cerone smiled. “I’m afraid that your Monsieur Renard was . . . um . . . playing a game with you? Hum? And, from the appearance of your clothing when I arrived, I believe he might have been winning, no?”
The inspector watched as Tom’s face darkened.
“We were just looking at the files. He was translating them for me.”
“That is quite impossible.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it really is, believe me. You see, after you told me your story earlier, I requested those files myself.”
“So?”
“So, they were all destroyed in a fire exactly one year after the murder. Those reports do not exist.”
* * *
“He is so full of shit,” Anna said as she stormed from the police station. “I saw those files myself. They were real, and signed by the same inspector that was in the newspaper.”
“What did he mean about your clothes?” Tom snapped. “What happened down there?”
“Nothing fucking happened,” Anna’s anger bubbled up and overflowed. “That asshole inspector is making it all up. I saw those files. I’m not an idiot. Phillipe read them to me.”
“He could have faked it.”
“No,” Anna stated dryly, clipping each word. “He could not have.”
“Then how did he get records that were burned up almost 100 years ago?”
Whenever Anna didn’t have an answer, she would tend to ignore the question. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
* * *
The cab ride back to the hotel took place in total silence. Even the cab driver had nothing to say. As soon as the cab stopped at the front entrance, Anna got out and walked quickly inside.
“Anna! Anna, it’s me!”
Anna turned at the sound of the familiar voice. She saw the woman running toward her from across the lobby. “Stacy!”
Anna opened her arms and a moment later Stacy filled them. The two women hugged and cried.
“You know, don’t you?” Stacy looked at Anna. “You know about Jeffrey.”
“I know,” Anna felt the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I wanted to tell you,” Stacey’s tears matched Anna’s. “I didn’t want you to hear it from that shit-head cop.”
“He told me.”
“I visited Jeffrey the night he was . . . the night he died. When I was leaving he said he wanted me to tell you that he loved you. He also said to say goodbye. Anna, I think he knew what was going to happen to him.”
Anna hugged her close. “I have to stop this before someone else dies,” Anna cried softly. “I have to stop this now.”
Chapter 25
Anna started from the bottom and pleaded her way to the top. She tried desperately to convince everyone from the most newly hired chambermaid to the hotel’s top manager to let her into room 531. One person said no because the room was being painted. Another said it was being fumigated. A third said that there was no room 531 at all, only a storage closet with numbers on it so it matched the other doors.
While the excuses varied, all of the employees Anna approached had one thing very much in common. All seemed uncomfortable with Anna’s questions, and would always look around the room nervously while making up their answers.
Anna kept asking until she ended up in front of the manager in charge of all hotel operations.
“Please, let us stay in room 531 for just one night.”
“No,” the manager didn’t ask for or want the reasons for Anna’s request. “That is final.”
“But why? I’ll pay more. I’ll pay whatever you say.”
The manager shook his head. “This is not a matter of money. You simply can not have 531.”
“Why?”
The manager thought for a moment. Anna saw his eyes quickly scan the room. “Because it is already occupied.”
The man quickly walked away, covering his ears to block out Anna’s protests.
When Anna finally fell silent, she knew that finally someone had told her the truth.
“They just won’t let me in there,” Anna took a sip of wine, and then another. “They’re all scared.”
* * *
Anna, Tom and Stacy met for dinner in the hotel restaurant. All of the employees were now intentionally ducking away when they saw Anna coming. Nobody even bothered trying to hide the fact that they wanted nothing whatsoever to do with this particular crazy American.
Anna raised her glass. She swung it slowly around for the whole room to see. She spoke in a voice loud enough for the whole room to hear. “A toast my friends. To those who know, but won’t speak.”
No one reacted to Anna’s toast. She hated to be ignored.
“And, to Ariene LaMoreau. May she rest in peace.”
Anna’s glass shattered in her hand.
“Holy shit!” Stacey reached for Anna and wiped her wine covered hand with her napkin. “Are you alright? Are you bleeding?”
Anna put down the stem, which was all that remained of the wine glass. “I don’t think so.” She watched as the red wine slowly seeped into the white table cloth. The shards of glass sparkled in the candle light.
The waiter, Louie, arrived a moment later with a large white towel. He knelt next to Anna and tried to wipe the spilled wine from her sleeves.
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. “The glass exploded. I guess it was just some bizarre accident.”
“You believe that it was just an accident?” Louie asked.
“What do you mean?’
“I heard your toast,” Louie continued to wipe. He spoke softly, barely moving his lips. He didn’t want anyone to see that he was talking, or hear what he was saying.
“Mademoiselle, please. Leave Paris. Go home. What just happened proves you are in danger here. Go. Never mention that name again and forget about room 531. This is not a door you should open, ever.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, it is you who does not understand.” Louie scanned the room. He moved closer to Anna. “Room 531 is the room de mort . . . the room of the dead. Many people on the staff have seen things near that room. More say they’ve heard noises from inside.”
“What kind of noises?”
&nb
sp; “Music, laughter, screams, many kinds of noises.”
“Did they ever find anything inside.”
“No one has been inside for 20 years. That room has been locked and off limits to all. No exceptions, ever.”
“Why, what happened 20 years ago?”
Louie pretended to be wiping up the floor. “The last guest to stay there, a young writer, committed suicide.”
“Do you know how he did it?” Anna asked.
Louie held out his right arm and ran his left thumb up from his wrist to the inside of his elbow.
“Louie, I would have a word with you please?” The gruff voice came from the manager who now stood next to the table. “Immediately.”
The manager looked at Anna and smiled politely. “Bon nuit, Mademoiselle.”
“Yeah, right, goodnight,” Anna said, watching him and Louie walk away.
As soon as the two men were far enough from the table, Anna got up and followed them. They walked into the lobby and stopped at the far end of the room. Anna hid by the door between the lobby and the restaurant. Although she couldn’t hear what the manager was saying, she could see his anger in his wild gestures and rapidly reddening face. Finally he pointed toward the door and looked like he was holding his breath.
Louie threw the wine soaked towel at the manager’s feet and stormed out of the hotel.
Anna quickly returned to Stacy and Tom. “Louie’s been fired.”
“The waiter?” Stacey said. “What for? For talking to you?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “I have to see him. I’ll be right back. Wait for me here.”
“Haven’t you done enough to the poor guy?” Tom asked. “Maybe you should just leave him alone.”
A mean little smile spread across Tom’s face. “Unless of course you just want to add another Frenchman to your stable of studs.”
“Shut up.” Anna didn’t look at Tom as she half ran from the table. She didn’t want to see his face.
“Slow down. Keep your clothes on,” Tom called after her. “If you can.”
Anna thought of going through the lobby, but instead pushed through the restaurant door. It led to one of the streets next to the hotel. Anna sprinted to the corner, hoping to catch up with Louie before he disappeared. As soon as she reached the front of the hotel, she slowed to a walk. There really was no need to rush. She saw Louie on a bench in the park across the street.
It took Anna less than a minute to sit down next to him. For a long moment the two sat in the growing evening shadows, silently staring straight ahead, back at the massive hotel.
Without turning her head, Anna said, “I’m sorry you were let go.”
“It is not your fault,” Louie said, he also continued to look at the Baronette. “I chose to speak with you.”
“Maybe I can talk to the manager and . . .”
“No,” Louie said. “It was probably better this way.”
“How so?”
“Very bad things happen to those who involve themselves with that room. By firing me, he may have saved me from worse, who knows?”
Louie turned and looked directly into Anna’s eyes. “Please, I beg you once more. Go home. You must leave now, while you can.”
“Why must I leave? Tell me, Louie.”
Louie remained silent.
“Why won’t you just tell me?”
Louie looked from Anna to the hotel. Anna followed his gaze up the fifth floor. “Look,” Louie pointed. “The fourth window from the left. Room 531.”
Anna counted the windows. All were dark, except for the fourth one from the left. It looked as though someone had a lit a candle in the room.
“You said no one goes to the room and that it’s locked.”
“They don’t. It is.”
Anna then noticed that the curtains in room 531 were slightly parted, as if someone was watching.
* * *
That night, Anna dreamed of Jeffrey. They were sitting at an old wooden picnic table under an enormous flowering tree. The tree, with its millions of small pink flowers filled the center of a clearing in a large field of very tall grass. The grass was blowing in the gentle summer breeze and stretched out to the horizon in all directions.
The grass in the clearing itself had been chopped short and was very bright green. Occasionally small petals would drift gently down from the tree like pink snowflakes. They dotted the earth with color. Anna sat on the bench on one side of the picnic table. Jeffrey sat on the other.
“Jeffrey,” Anna heard and felt herself saying. She reached out and carefully took his arms over the table. She could feel his hands gripping her arms as well. Anna saw that Jeffrey’s right arm was once again whole.
“It’s really you, isn’t it?” Anna said. “Oh, Jeffrey, help me. Please help me.”
Jeffrey smiled, but it was a smile void of happiness or joy. “Hello Anna,” he said sadly.
“What’s wrong, Jeffrey?” Anna asked. “We’re together again. We can stop this thing together.”
“Anna,” Jeffrey sat two feet from her, but his voice sounded as if it came from very far away. “I came to warn you. Don’t go into that room. If you do you might never come out again.”
“Jeffrey, what do you mean? Tell me more.”
“Anna, please listen to me . . .”
“Who killed you, Jeffrey?” Anna interrupted. “When I was walking with you to the ambulance back at your apartment you said that ‘he did it.’ Who is ‘he’, Jeffrey? Is it Renee?” She heard herself hesitate. “Is it Tom?”
“You don’t understand, Anna. You can’t understand. There is so much more to it. They’re trying to . . .”
Jeffrey turned his head toward one side of the clearing. He listened closely. Anna also could hear what had taken his attention. There was a distant rustling sound coming from somewhere in the grass.
“They’re trying to what, Jeffrey? What do you mean, they?”
Before Jeffrey could answer, the rustling grew to near deafening proportions. It was coming closer very fast.
“No,” Anna could hear Jeffrey screaming over the storm. She saw the tall grass part to her right. It revealed a path of fire through the field. Something then burned a charred streak in the cropped grass. It moved like black lightening through the clearing and cut between Jeffrey and Anna.
“No!” Anna heard Jeffrey scream as she opened her eyes. Anna stared up at the ceiling of room 201. She felt her heart racing in her chest.
“It was a dream,” Anna said out loud, as if hearing the words would make them true. “Please, just a dream.”
Anna was still sweating and scared. She rolled from her back onto her side in an effort to find refuge in Tom’s body. As she moved, she closed her eyes. When she opened them, she lay face to face with the severed head of Madam Isabelle Lapautre.”
Chapter 26
Madam Lapautre’s eyes opened and Anna screamed. The head moved closer to her face. Its mouth opened and blood poured freely onto the bed. Anna swung her right arm to knock it away, but her fingers became entangled in its long, gray, blood-soaked hair. Anna jumped out of bed, violently shaking her hand. The head was heavy, the hair, warm and sticky. “Get it off me! Get it off me!”
“What is it?” Tom muttered sleepily. He turned on the light to see Anna standing next to the bed madly shaking her empty hand in the air. “What are you doing?”
Anna looked at her empty hand. “It was her head,” Anna stammered.
“What? Whose head?” Tom forced his eyes open.
“Madam Lapautre’s head. It was in the bed!”
Now it was Tom’s turn to jump up. He pulled the blanket and sheet off. The bed was empty.
“It was here, Tom. It really was. I woke up and it was right in front of me, between our pillows. Its eyes opened and then it came at me. I tried knocking it away, but my fingers got tangled up in its hair.” Anna continued to shake her hand.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” Tom said, smoothing out the sheets. “You just had anoth
er nightmare. That’s sure not surprising under the circumstances.”
Anna looked around the room. “It was here.” She looked under the bed and behind the furniture. “It was.”
“Then where is it?” Tom said. “You know a head just doesn’t get up and walk away,” he tried to joke.
Tom put the blanket back on the bed and lay down. “Just a dream, mon cherie. Forget about it.”
“Would you stop speaking French.”
“I didn’t speak French.” Tom rolled over. “I don’t speak French.”
Tom turned off the light. Anna turned it back on.
Tom groaned, covered his eyes with the blanket and quickly fell back asleep.
Anna searched every corner and cranny of the room. Then, she searched them again. Finally, she sat down on the floor against the bed. It could have been a dream, couldn’t it have? she asked herself. It had to be a dream. Just like seeing Jeffrey was only a dream.”
Anna smiled at the absurdity of her situation. “I’m looking for a head,” she said out loud. “Me, little Anna McAlister, girl scout, soccer team, honor roll . . . looking for a head.”
Anna rose to her feet and walked to the bathroom She stared into the mirror. “Hall monitor, safety patrol girl and head hunter.”
Without looking down, Anna turned on the faucet. She cupped her hands beneath it and filled them with cold water. Anna splashed the water onto her face. “Ouch,” she felt something cut her right cheek. Opening her eyes, Anna looked at the fingers on her right hand, “No!” she whispered. “Please no.”
Anna tried to back away from her own hands, letting whatever remaining water drip to the floor. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she certainly saw it now. The nails on her right index and middle fingers were broken and they had snagged strands of long gray hair.
Anna grabbed a towel and wildly wiped the hairs from her nails before looking up at the mirror and screaming for Tom. Next to her reflection she saw that of Madam Lapautre’s head. It’s bloody mouth was smiling, moving as if it were trying talk. But, without breath, or vocal courts, all it could do was mouth the words, grin and bleed.
“Tom!” Anna’s eyes didn’t leave the mirror until Tom threw open the door and came running in.
The Haunting of Anna McAlister Page 19
