by Roger Hayden
He signaled for Mary to get up from her chair as they brought Theo over and forced him to sit. “Bob,” the mayor said, snapping his fingers. “Get that rope and tie them both up.” Mary stood to the side helplessly, watching as the mayor looked at her with narrowing eyes.
“Any other surprise guests we should know about?” he asked.
“No,” Mary said. “No one else.”
“And just why didn’t you mention your psychic friend before?” he asked, pointing at Theo. “Slip your mind?”
Mary nodded, feeling more hopeless by the second as Bob hurriedly wound a long line of nylon rope around Theo’s wrists and ankles, binding him to the chair. With a cut of the rope, he then moved to Curtis, tying him up as before.
Upstairs, Beatrice seemed to enjoy the view, almost as though it were a type of dinner theater. “Frederick, it’s getting late, and this storm outside is simply atrocious. Can we move on with it, please?”
“Here’s the deal,” the mayor said to Mary as she stood close by. “You’re going to tell me where I can find Phil’s files. And then, after that, you’re going to help me find something that has eluded me for over forty years. You’re going to help me discover the Bechdel fortune.”
“Don’t help him with a thing, Mary,” Theo called out. “They have no intention of letting any of us live.”
“Shut your mouth,” the mayor said, snapping a finger in Theo’s face. “She can make her own decisions.”
Theo glared at the mayor, ignoring the water still dripping from his wet hair. “My mother, Elizabeth, and my uncle, Ben. What happened to them?”
Mayor Taylor stared back, confused. “The hell you talking about, kid?”
“Thirty years ago, my mother went missing. In 1985. She was last rumored to be investigating the Bechdel case. I want to know what happened to her.”
The mayor leaned back, thinking to himself. His eyes suddenly lit up as though the memory had just come rushing back to him. “Oh yes. Now I remember! Young woman with three losers. They were trespassing on private property. We were only trying to send them a message. It was all an unfortunate accident really.”
Theo’s face went pale as the mayor recounted the terrible secret that had been lost for decades. “The woman. Her name was Elizabeth?” he asked. “Well, she was part of that little group of so-called investigators. Innocent inquiry, she had claimed. She tried to run. Attacked one of my men. Things got a little heated and…”
“And what?” Theo said, infuriated.
The mayor shrugged and wiped his hands together. “It was a mistake.” He then took a closer look at Theo, marveling at his appearance. “Gee, so that was your mother, eh? Wow. Small world.”
“You demonic fucking monster!” Theo shouted at the top of his lungs, shaking the chair forward.
He fell on the floor, helpless, unable to get up but filled with the rage of twenty men. “I’m going to kill you!” he cried. “I’ll kill all of you!”
Beatrice laughed from the upstairs railing. “You’re not going to let him talk to you like that, are you, Frederick?”
The mayor looked up and nodded to her. “You’re right, Bea.” He then turned to Garret and pointed to Theo, who was crying out in unbridled despair. “Go ahead and put him out of his misery.”
“No!” Mary shouted. She rushed forward and grabbed an arm of the mayor’s coat, pleading with him. “No, please. He’s just upset. His mother died when he was an infant, and he never knew what happened to her.”
The mayor yanked his arm away and shook his head. “I’m sorry to hear that, but you heard him. He intends to kill me.” He then paused and backed away from Theo, pulling Mary along with him as she squirmed in his grip. “Take him out, Garret. We don’t have all night.”
“Don’t do it,” Curtis said, cutting in.
Garret stood between the two men tied to their chairs and the mayor, who maintained a safe distance.
“What are you waiting for?” the mayor said. “Do it!”
Garret stared back with vacant, unblinking eyes and lowered his rifle. “No…”
For a moment, the mayor was speechless, stunned in disbelief. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I’m sick of killing for you, understand?” he said, voice rising. Liam watched in wonder as Garret approached their powerful older brother with angry defiance. “You had us gun down that Bechdel family in this very room forty years ago. All for what? For some stupid curse and the family fortune? None of that exists! How long has it been? How long have we been searching? No more!”
“How dare you,” the mayor shouted. “I’ve carried you three along for long enough. Without me, this family is nothing! Now do as you’re told and shoot that man at your feet.”
Garret took another step forward and handed the mayor the rifle. “You want it done? Do it yourself. Get your hands dirty for once. Only person I’ve ever seen you kill with your own hands is your own damn brother. We should never have listened to you. You’re a spineless coward. That was as true forty years ago as it is today. Always getting people to do your dirty work.” Garret spit at the ground, inches from the mayor’s boots, and then turned away. “Let’s go, Liam.”
The mayor held the wet rifle in his hands, trembling with rage. Bob stood nearby, not daring to say a word. Not even Beatrice made a sound.
“You’re right,” the mayor called out, causing his two brothers to turn around. He then aimed the rifle at Garret. “I don’t get my hands dirty nearly enough.”
Though Mary was standing close to the mayor, everything happened so fast, Mary hadn’t a moment to respond. The mayor pulled the trigger and blew off half of Garret’s face. His body plummeted to the ground as Liam stumbled to the side, disoriented and losing his balance.
He fell against the china hutch and then raised his rifle, aiming at Mayor Taylor with a thunderous battle cry—but the mayor had beaten him to the draw. One shot from the rifle, and Liam’s chest exploded and his body slumped to the floor in a bloody heap as glass shattered around his lifeless body.
The security detail looked confused and frightened, suddenly out of place, their pistols drawn but with an uncertain target.
“Don’t just stand there,” the mayor said, lowering the rifle. “Get these bodies out of here.” He turned to Bob just as he was slowly recoiling into the hallway. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Give my men a hand.”
The mayor’s detail assembled in different positions in the room as though they had “disposed of” a few bodies before. Bob reluctantly walked to the wall below where Beatrice stood and helped one of the guards place Jeffery’s corpse on a tablecloth ripped from the dining room table.
Curtis looked sickly pale, and even Theo went still. These were the beasts who had taken his young mother’s life. Mary stood near the mayor, her hands slowly dropping to her side. She had just seen a man kill his three brothers over nothing. She had never seen anything so evil or known that such evil even existed. The mayor, however, was showing no signs of slowing down.
“Tell me now, Mary. Where can I find the documents? Where did Phil hide them?”
“I don’t know…” she said in a soft, shaking voice.
The mayor shook his head in disappointment and then sighed. “That’s just too bad. Now I’m going to have to go down the line until you change your mind.” He stepped forward and held the barrel to Theo’s head.
“Wait!” Mary said.
The mayor paused and looked up. “Yes?”
“The gazebo…” she said, barely audible.
“The what?” he asked.
Mary pointed toward the backyard. “The gazebo out back. That’s where it’s hidden.”
The mayor leaned forward, intrigued. “Really? I would have never guessed. And what, pray tell, are we talking about here?”
Mary looked down, sounding ashamed. “Files. Photos. Written logs of the town elite, just like you said.”
“And where’s the map?” he said in a cold, demand
ing voice. “Could never get that family to talk. There’s something in, or around, or under this house. A vast fortune, one beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Yes…” Mary said. “There’s a map and a key.”
The mayor smiled and squeezed his fists in victory. “You’re going to venture to this place, Mary. You’re the only one that can, and you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked at Theo and Curtis, and Julie’s image entered her mind. There was more to the Bechdel story than simple wealth. The mayor wanted power. He wanted a legacy. He wanted immortality. And even with the threat against her life and that of Curtis and Theo, she knew she couldn’t go along with it, no matter what happened.
“I can’t help you,” she said.
The mayor stopped and leaned closer to her. “Excuse me? Come again?”
“I heard her just fine from up here,” Beatrice said. “She’s refusing to help you. I think you know what to do.”
More lightning flashed outside as the lights flickered above them. Doors creaked from afar and Mary could see that the chandeliers were gradually coming alive, swinging back and forth.
Mary wrestled with her options and the consequences, then rose from her seat feeling more empowered than ever before. “I will never help you. I’m here to help Julie Bechdel. To find peace for her, and in the process, justice for her death.”
The mayor glanced from Theo to Curtis with amusement while caressing the trigger of his gun. “Well. If that’s how it’s going to be, I have no choice but to provide you some incentive.”
Suddenly, all the lights went out in unison as thunder and lightning boomed and flashed all around the house, illuminating the ballroom in intermittent spurts. The chandeliers rocked from their mountings and chains. Doors slammed shut, booming closed on both floors in startling synchronicity. The very ground they stood on trembled.
The mayor’s six-man security team looked ready to bolt as they inched toward the foyer in the darkness. Bob Deckers backed against the wall, cowering behind the nearest sofa. Beatrice Thaxton gripped the guardrail, paralyzed with fear. The mayor lowered his rifle and scanned the room, frantic, as lamps and tables fell over and furniture shifted, scraping against the floor.
Theo lay on the ground, pulling at his ropes with growing panic. There was no doubt in Mary’s mind that the spirits had returned in full force, with a chaotic entrance she knew only too well. And it was at that moment that she knew what she had to do.
She stepped forward, approaching the mayor with a steely and determined focus. As the lightning flashed around the mansion in deafening blasts, the mayor took several steps back from Mary, holding his rifle close and searching for his security team.
“Mayor Taylor,” she began. “Your time has come. You are hereby charged with conspiracy for murder in the deaths of George and Anabelle Bechdel and their children Travis, John, Alex, and Julie, and Victor and Holly Drake and their daughter, Katelyn. You are also charged with the deaths of Harrison Grant, the Bechdel’s doorman, Allison Comey, their executive chef, servers Ryan Lutz and Nicholas Freely, and cleaning staff Meghan Bowe and Rose Attwood.”
“What is this? What are you doing?” he said, aiming his rifle at her. “You better stop this, or so help me God, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
Mary maintained her steady pace, backing the mayor into a corner. His staff was thrown to the ground by an unseen force upon entering the foyer, pinned down against their will. One of the largest men attempted to break free and run down the nearby hall, only to be thrown high into the air and crash down onto a table, breaking his neck instantly.
“I can’t control them,” Mary said, raising her voice over the booming thunder and bursts of lightning descending upon the mansion. “I don’t even know what they want, but I sure as hell have an idea.”
“Frederick, what are you waiting for? Shoot her!” Beatrice yelled from upstairs as she ducked down behind the railing. “End this now!”
Suddenly, a window blasted open in the room next to her, followed by an overwhelming gust of wind that sent a screaming Beatrice over the railing head first and onto the hard floor below. Her skull split open and her body smacked the floor like a bag of bricks, silencing her screams instantly.
“Oh my God!” Bob said, gripping a sofa chair. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.” He ran to the nearest window and tried to open it, desperately pulling on it to no avail.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Bob?” Mayor Taylor shouted.
Bob turned around, grabbed a stone Mozart bust, and threw it at the window with all his strength. The bust shattered the glass and sent a typhoon of wind and rain into the ballroom, further adding to the chaos. Mary ducked as the mayor steadied his aim directly at Bob. “You’re a part of this too, damn it.”
Bob stuck his arm through the shattered glass, slicing his lower bicep, and fell back screaming in agony as blood gushed from his arm. Theo’s chair suddenly levitated ten feet above the ground and then came crashing down, splintering in a dozen pieces. He crawled away from the wreckage, finally free, and then tried to steady Curtis’s chair while untying him.
With growing panic, the mayor fired several shots indiscriminately into the air. Mary fell to the ground and rolled to the side. Bob rose, clutching his arm, and then ran at Curtis, terrified, just as Theo pulled the ropes loose.
“Help me, please!” Bob shouted.
Curtis raised his foot and kicked Bob’s face, sending him backward, up and through the air. Mayor Taylor fired another shot, blasting through the chain of a chandelier directly above Bob. It dropped down like a missile and crashed down on Bob, glass spears and shards shredding his flesh with brutal ferocity. Curtis then fell back in his chair, hitting the ground as Theo jumped over him, shielding him from the mayor’s random rifle blasts, furniture stuffing raining down on them from above.
Not finished with the mayor, Mary put both hands on the floor and pushed herself up as he backed into a wall with the rifle shaking in his hands. Several more names entered her mind along with a vivid vision of the past that froze her in her tracks:
Bob Deckers reentered her mind. He was wearing a suit and tie and sitting in an elegant office with dark wooden walls filled with plaques and framed pictures of the Taylor family. Mayor Taylor paced around the office near a large mahogany desk with an American flag on a pole standing in the back.
“It’s about that time, Bob. I need you to locate this couple and get them into the Bechdel property,” Mayor Taylor was telling him.
Bob nodded. “I’ve been compiling a list, but it’s getting to be a harder sell. Especially with the Internet out there.”
“Never mind that,” the mayor said. “These two. These are the ones. We’ll finally be able to get inside and get to the fortune. Who would have thought that this is what it takes?”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Bob asked.
The mayor slammed his fist on the table, irate at the question. “You want to make a joke about this? I’m not in the mood. Did you know that Pastor Phil tested me once? And one time was all it took. We got his children out of town and left him a widower, but I just couldn’t bring myself to quite finish the job. He’s on thin ice, though.”
“Why not just let him leave?” Bob asked.
The mayor leaned forward, stunned at the question. “You know as well as I do that no one who knows anything about what’s going on here is ever allowed to leave.” He grabbed the half-smoked nearby cigar, jammed it into an ashtray, and re-lit it, puffing away. “I’ve been waiting forty years for this moment, Bob. Don’t deny me. Some have said that hidden somewhere on that property is the key to immortality. A spiritual void between life and death.”
Bob shook his head. “That’s all fine and well. As long as I get that loan you promised, I’ll make things happen.”
The mayor smiled and took another puff. “Consider it done. Just don’t gamble it awa
y again.”
“That’s slander, Mr. Mayor. I’ve been clean a long time. I’m currently in touch with a Realtor in Chicago. He knows the husband, Curtis. But he warned me that it wasn’t going to be that easy getting them here. They have a life in Chicago, careers and the like.”
“Well, there you go,” Taylor said with his arms out. “We’ll just have to do what’s in our power to convince them otherwise.”
Bob leaned back with a reserved smile. “I’d sure hate to see what you have in store for them.”
“They’ll come around,” he said, stubbing the rest of his cigar out. “I guarantee it.”
Mary snapped out of her trance to see the mayor rushing toward her. He then smacked the rifle’s buttstock against her head, sending her to the floor as lightning flashed around them. The mayor stood over her, aiming his rifle ahead at Theo and Curtis, keeping them at bay.
“Don’t fucking move! I only want what’s mine.”
He then brought the barrel down, sweat dripping from his face, and held it to her temple. “I never wanted it to come to this, Mary. All I want to know is what’s buried beneath this house. I had high hopes for you, and you let me down. Well, if I’m going to die tonight, I’m taking you with me!”
Mary sat up, flinching in terror. She gasped and took a deep breath. The air began to swirl around her. She thrust her head back and began to scream: “Julie! Julie!” at the top of her lungs.
The house rumbled again, the gradual tremors of an earthquake building. “Julie, where are you?”
Suddenly, the rifle flew from Mayor Taylor’s hands and smacked against the wall. He studied his empty hands as his gray hair flipped wildly in the wind. Mary rose with resolve, staring at the mayor, fury in every cell and muscle of her body. Frightened, he backed away, searching for a way to escape.
