by Emery, Lynn
“Some have more than few,” Jessi mumbled.
“You kept a killing machine because you thought it might come in handy?” Charmaine gazed at her in morbid fascination.
“And it did. Enough talk. Let’s get moving. I have a plane to catch.” Mrs. Forstall cast a sideways glance at Darrius and nodded for him to leave.
“Look, I don’t know what she promised you, but I think you need a new business partner,” Charmaine said.
“I got a lot less to lose. I ain’t no socialite with a fancy name and reputation to protect,” Darrius replied.
“He’s right of course, which is why he’ll be joining you in the great beyond,” Mrs. Forstall said.
A tall man with salt and pepper hair appeared from a sliding panel in the wall. The revolver he pointed looked more lethal than the automatic pistol Darrius had. He wore a cashmere wool blend jacket, pale blue shirt and navy blue slacks. His leather shoes alone cost more than three of Charmaine’s car notes. He could have stepped from the pages of St. Charles Ave., a glossy magazine about the city’s wealthy class.
Darrius stood rigid. His eyes glittered as he aimed at the newcomer’s head. “What the hell is goin’ on?”
“You may notice the resemblance to this portrait of his grandfather,” Mrs. Forstall gestured to a painting over the fireplace. “But I won’t keep you in suspense. Meet my handsome husband, Hamilton Bienville Forstall.”
“You’re an attractive bunch. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. As it is, we’ll have to kill you all,” her husband drawled in a cultured tone. He might have been expressing regrets that a dinner party had been cancelled.
“I don’t think so, slick. I’ve got a gun, too,” Darrius growled. “So drop it or I’ll plug the missus and then you. And then the whole world gonna know you been stealin’ from the family company, and they’ll get video of our sex games.”
“Think carefully, dear. Who gave you the gun?” Mrs. Forstall raised a perfectly arched auburn eyebrow.
Hamilton Forstall shook his head, and then laughed. “You told me, but I didn’t believe he was that dumb.”
Darrius pulled the trigger several times. “You lyin’ bitch.”
“Watching my wife screw you this way is even more fun,” Hamilton Forstall said.
He ducked when Darrius threw the gun at him. Darrius let loose with a stream of profanity. He included ever generation of both sides of their families. Then he started in on the rest of the world. Jessi exchanged a glance with Charmaine, a message in her dark gaze. Maybe they could take advantage of the distraction. Charmaine lifted her head just enough to signal she understood.
“I don’t get why you hired us?” Charmaine gazed at Hamilton Forstall to keep him from paying attention to Jessi.
“We needed witnesses to verify Shawntelle tried to blackmail us, and Darrius had a motive to kill her,” he replied in a cool voice.
“We certainly couldn’t go to our society friends for help, could we?” his wife added. “Besides, she did in fact blackmail us. Both of them did. They’re greedy, always demanding more and more.”
“So there’s no ghost,” Charmaine said.
“Oh, that old thing. It’s been bumping around for generations, moving a candle stick a few inches and making the usual noises an old house makes even louder. Nothing serious. But the stories are legend, so we capitalized on it.” Mrs. Forstall gave a casual shrug.
“You knew we’d research your family and find the stories,” Jessi put in.
Mrs. Forstall nodded. “Credibility.”
Hamilton Forstall’s smile twisted into something terrible. “Darrius enjoyed the feeling of power he had to destroy us. He and Shawntelle didn’t just want money. They wanted to own us. They used our vacation home whenever they wanted. Trashed the place. He even forced me into letting him drive my father’s vintage 1948 Bentley. Can you imagine? A classic parked at some crack house in the ninth ward? Intolerable.”
“Killing them had its disadvantages, so we got creative. Ham thought of using my ancestor’s little contraption as a prop. Brilliant, dear,” Mrs. Forstall said.
“Thanks, darling.”
“A prop? You used it to murder a man,” Charmaine shot back, giving them the deadly couple a scowl.
“Actually I killed the thug. Cutting off one of his legs was an added bit of drama.” Hamilton lifted his chin.
“They’re going to kill us and leave town,” Jessi said to Charmaine. Then she looked at the Forstalls. “The story is going to be Darrius came back here to steal and get revenge. We confronted him because we were here for the same reason. He killed us, but we managed to shoot him during the fight. He dies from his wounds.”
“You truly are psychic darling,” Mrs. Forstall said with a smile.
“They’re not only pretty, but quite smart. Too bad we can’t enjoy them before…” Hamilton studied Jessi and then Charmaine, a sparkle of lust in his hazel eyes.
“No time sweetheart. Your fingerprints and DNA are all over the house. Our house cleaners will verify we left town. They’ll find your bodies in the morning. Darrius will be discovered in an alley some miles away. Evidence will show he bled to death from his wounds.”
“Neighbors will hear the shots,” Charmaine said.
“We love our privacy. The house has sound absorbing wall paper. We even managed to comply with local historical reservation ordinances.” Mrs. Forstall smiled with pride.
“So it seems like y’all thought of everything. Almost,” Jessi said.
Her eyes went glassy. She swayed as if about the faint. Charmaine put an arm around her shoulder and braced herself. The lights flickered, but stopped after ten seconds.
“Damn it, we should sue that electrical contractor, Loretta,” Hamilton growled in irritation.
“You muthafuckas ain’t gonna take me out,” Darrius blurted when the lights flickered a second time.
The lights inside the house went out. Then yard lamp bulbs outside shattered. Jessi started to hum low in her throat. Mr. and Mrs. Forstall cursed when running feet pounded toward the door. A second set of rapid thumps followed. Charmaine pulled a limp Jessi down to the floor seconds before a gun went off. She bumped up against the desk and used it as a shield. She hoped darkness and panic would throw off Mrs. Forstall.
“You little ghetto rats better stay put. I’ll kill you now rather than later,” Mrs. Forstall called out, her voice high-pitched with terror. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Get away. Get away!” Hamilton Forstall shouted from somewhere in the house.
“He’s upstairs,” Jessi mumbled.
“Ham? Ham, answer me. This is no time to play ghost games,” Mrs. Forstall shouted. “Hamilton!”
“Get it off me,” Darrius screamed from another direction deep in the house.
Then it started; the heavy thump, thump of a dense object dragging across the floor. Grinding noises, a cross between groaning and wheezing breaths surrounded them. The sound became palpable, making the darkness thicker. The atmosphere around them pressed in as if a humid fog filled the room. Crunching. More screams tore through the air. More shots. The house shuddered.
“We better get out. Out,” Jessi yelled.
She thrashed around in Charmaine’s arms until she stood. Charmaine jumped to her feet and gripped Jessi’s hand. Using touch and memory, Charmaine dashed to the French doors. One kick, then another. Wood and glass gave way. The awful sound of human wails and grinding chased them into the night. Sirens added to the pandemonium. And they kept running.
****
Three hours later Charmaine and Jessi sat in the back seat of Detective Harrison’s unmarked Chevy Malibu. They both shivered, but not because of the chilly temperatures. Musty police issue blankets helped anchor them to a more mundane world. For once the flash of police lights comforted them. NOPD uniforms moved around securing the crime scene. Techs suited up to enter the house. Harrison crisply issued orders, fully in control. After fifteen minutes he walked
over to the car. Harrison rubbed a hand roughly over his close cut hair. He sighed several times then leaned on the car, one hand on the hood bracing him.
“Let me get this straight. The Forstalls engineered the entire scheme because they were being blackmailed. So they killed three people,” Harrison huffed out.
“Hamilton Forstall fought his two older brothers for years over control of the business. He filed two lawsuits,” Charmaine said. “It’s all online. I found four articles written back in the nineties. He lost in 2008. Stealing from the company was his revenge.”
“Plus they didn’t want their reputations to go south. Imagine sex tapes of them on the internet for eternity. You’ll find video in Darrius’s phone I bet. Check if he has a desktop or tablet computer, too.” Jessi sound weak. She yawned, closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the car seat.
“Yeah, but gunshots don’t explain the bloody mess in there. Three dead people, two of them among the most prominent New Orleans citizens. Jesus, what a nightmare,” Harrison nodded at the house. “Looks like something out of a horror movie. You two wanna explain? Wait a minute, don’t answer. I’m guessing it’s nothing I can put in an official report that won’t get me fired and committed to a psych ward.”
“Okay, they started arguing about the blackmail. Things got out of hand and everybody started shooting. Mr. Forstall used that antique torture tool to hack up Darrius. In the dark everybody got slashed, shot and dead.” Jessi spoke without opening her eyes.
Charmaine looked up at Harrison. “We’ll back up they were all nut jobs with a taste for violence. I mean they tried to kill us.”
Harrison stood straight with another deep sigh, followed by a grunt. “I’ll make it work. Great. The pimple on my ass shows.”
His commander sat in a police Tahoe for a few minutes talking on the phone. He scanned the area, found Harrison and beckoned him with a sharp hand movement. With another grunt of resignation, Harrison trudged off in Murphy’s direction.
“Now we can talk the real deal. Lucas?” Charmaine gazed into the night as if she could see him.
“Yeah, plus he brought reinforcements. He was too scared to come alone,” Jessi mumbled.
“Your ghost boyfriend to the rescue,” Charmaine teased.
“He ain’t my boyfriend, and he’s too jumpy for my taste.”
“You almost passed out. What was that about?”
Jessi sat up, eyes open. “Lucas and the others started all talking at once. But I got the gist. I reached out to the… not sure what to call it. Negative force I guess. What about the lights? Sure wasn’t me.”
“I started thinking how we needed to get away. I stared at the lights, blocked out everything else and prayed hard. Then they flickered and went out. Didn’t know I could direct objects. Thank you, Lord.”
“There you go with the God nonsense. Pure energy and you’ve been practicing control of it. Remember? Science, not superstition,” Jessi countered.
“Intelligent design. Even Einstein said so. God is real, Jess.”
Jessi led her head fall back and closed her eyes. “Whatev. I’m too worn out to argue with you.”
“We gotta deal with that thing in the house. Alyssa and Grayson will be in danger,” Charmaine said as she gazed at the Forstall mansion.
“Agreed, though I doubt they’ll want to live there ever again. My bet is they sell the place. Still, we can’t let a string of rich white folks end up as ghost snacks. Wouldn’t be very polite,” Jessi murmured, her words slurred by fatigue.
“I don’t see how you can sleep. I won’t for a long time. That awful sound keeps echoing in my head, even through all the chaos. Staying awake looks really good to me now. I want some normal back in my life for a minute. Hey, I feel like Belgian waffles. What about you?”
Jessi’s soft snoring was the only answer she got.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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About the Author
Born in Louisiana, Lynn is a licensed clinical social worker. She has worked in a secure psychiatric hospital, a juvenile correctional facility, as a child abuse investigator, been designated as an expert witness twice and had a host of other fascinating encounters during her career. “All of my experiences as a social worker continue to feed my fiction. Louisiana is the home of colorful characters and tall tales. I’m definitely a product of my environment. My first babysitter taught me about voodoo when I was a toddler. And then my childhood really got interesting!”
