In fairness, there was very little for a guy to do in Orlando—on that point, Fat Sal had been right. But Parker’s boredom turned into almost nightly flings with prostitutes on Orange Blossom Trail, an eight-mile stretch of road littered with hookers, gamblers, perverts, drug dealers, and pimps.
If Disney were to find this out, Kenton Parker would be out on his ass faster than you could ride Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. The Disney Company did not tolerate behavior of that nature.
Ever.
“You want me to stay on him?” Boyd asked. “See if I can get more?”
“No,” Declan said. “You’ve done enough. What do I owe you?”
“Three hundred ought to do it,” Boyd said.
Declan handed Boyd $300 in cash, and then peeled off another $200 and held it out to the private detective.
“This is so nothing we’ve talked about goes any further than this room.”
Boyd shook his head and grabbed his bowler hat from the chair. “All part of the service,” Boyd said. “You need anything else in the future, especially things of a delicate matter, you know where to find me.”
Now Declan felt he could handle the rest on his own.
Topsy Olson was enjoying the role she’d been offered, even if it was only for one night.
Topsy, who’d been given the nickname in the seventh grade because of her large chest, was one of a hundred girls who serviced the men who drove up and down Orange Blossom Trail late at night.
On this night, however, Topsy felt like a Hollywood actress playing a role, rather than the common streetwalker she really was. And for $250, could she ever act.
“You want to go again, mister?” Topsy said, sitting on the edge of the bed with her large naked breasts in full view of the camera. Behind her, Kenton Parker rolled out of bed and searched around for his pants. He found them on the floor and began to pull them on.
Then the closet door opened.
Parker’s mouth fell open.
“Smile, you’re on candid camera,” Tommy said, now knowing what Allen Funt must feel like, catching people doing stupid things each week on his TV show.
“What? What is this?” Parker stammered, struggling with his pants, trying to pull them up while in a state of shock.
“Leave the pants off,” Tommy said. Parker let go and the pants dropped to the floor. “Now, sit on the bed, next to the girl.” Again, Parker did as he was instructed.
“What do you want—money? I’ve got money,” Parker said.
“No, not money,” Tommy said. “Just some information.”
“Information?” Parker repeated, confused. “I don’t know anything.”
“Ah, but you do,” Tommy said. “Now, put your arm around the girl and thank her for the great time.”
Kenton Parker finally understood why the girl insisted on keeping the lights on during the act and why she’d turned up the air conditioning—so it would mask the sound of the eight-millimeter Bell & Howell camera whirring only ten feet away.
“Here’s how this is gonna go down, Kenton,” Tommy said, turning off the camera and placing it on a chair. “Tomorrow, an associate of mine is going to make contact with you. When he does, he’s going to ask you some very specific questions, and you’re going to give him some very specific answers.”
That’s when Parker realized what this was about.
The land he was buying for Disney.
“And the film?” Parker asked.
“My friend gets what he needs and it never sees the light of day,” Tommy said. “Or should I say it never makes its way to your wife—or to Disney.”
“I’d like a copy,” Topsy said excitedly. “You know, something I could use as like an audition tape maybe?”
“Sorry, sweetie,” Tommy said. “Not part of the deal.”
The next day, as Kenton Parker parked his car in the lot outside the Orange County Assessor’s Office, Declan walked up from behind and grabbed the man by the elbow.
“Got time for coffee, Kenton?” Declan asked.
An hour later, Kenton Parker had told Declan everything he knew.
“The name of the park is still a big secret,” Parker said. “But it’s going to be big.”
“How big?” Declan asked.
“Twenty-seven thousand acres,” Parker said. “I told them it was impossible to buy that much land without anyone noticing. So I guess you’re being here isn’t all that much of a surprise.”
“I want the dummy corporation names,” Declan said.
In an attempt to hide the land purchases, a series of dummy corporations had been established, including Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation, Knot Real Corp., M.T. Lott Real Estate Investments, and Retlaw—which was Walter spelled backwards.
The land would be held by the dummy corporations until it was time to make a formal announcement about the new park.
Declan handed Parker a map and a red Magic marker. “Outline the locations where the new parks are going to be.”
Parker did as he was asked. “The main park will be here,” Parker said, drawing a circle on the map. “And EPCOT will be over here.”
“What does EPCOT mean?” Declan asked.
“Experimental Prototype something or other,” Parker said. “I can never keep it straight.”
Now all Declan had to do was fake a photo that made him look like he was dead.
THREE DAYS LATER, IN Chicago...
Fat Sal was having lunch with Chuckie Bags when Tommy walked into The Purple Pig.
“Tell me you got good news?” Fat Sal said.
Tommy reached into his suit pocket, pulled out a stack of black-and-white polaroids, and dropped them on the table. Fat Sal lifted one of the pictures and looked at it, and then turned to Chuckie Bags. “That look like Mulvaney to you?”
Bags leaned forward, and studied the photo. “It’s hard to tell if it’s him with all that blood, Boss. But, yeah, I’d say it’s him. And he’s definitely in two pieces.”
“And what about my money?” Fat Sal asked.
Tommy shook his head. “You ain’t never said nothin’ about the money, so I didn’t even ask.”
“He’s right, Sal,” Chuckie Bags said. “I was here, and I don’t remember any discussion about retrieving the cash.” This was a definite oversight on Fat Sal’s part, but Chuckie was right—getting the money back wasn’t part of the deal.
“So, are we square?” Tommy asked. “I want to go take a nap without having to sleep with one eye open, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Fat Sal said. “But that doesn’t mean Phil is going to be satisfied. You want to sleep good at night, better square things with Phil, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Orlando, Florida
August 2, 2010
The only thing John “Stormy” Boyd knew about Koda Mulvaney was from headlines he’d seen on tabloid magazines at the grocery checkout.
Then there was Declan Mulvaney.
Stormy remembered Declan Mulvaney very well.
Stormy had been hired by Declan over forty years earlier, helping the elder Mulvaney identify the executive in charge of purchasing land for Walt Disney’s secret new project that, at the time, would not be made public for another year.
The executive was named Kenton Parker. The park was called Disney World. And the information Stormy provided helped make Declan Mulvaney rich.
Very, very rich.
While Stormy would have preferred to tell Declan Mulvaney the truth—that he’d died in 1904, giving his life so a young girl named Katherine Keane could live—doing so was out of the question.
Stormy had no idea if Declan Mulvaney believed in ghosts or what his reaction would be if he knew the truth. And he’d worked too hard to make a life for himself—if you could call it that. He simply couldn’t jeopardize everything by sharing too much with anyone.
Like telling Koda to call him Stormy. That was a stupid mistake, something he might have to deal with later, w
hich he hoped he wouldn’t.
Now, however, the task at hand was doing research on the information Koda had given him about the girl—a girl everyone assumed was dead. A dead man searching for a dead girl—what a way to make a living.
Stormy started the investigation with the same four things he’d started every investigation with for the past hundred years—with the objective, a notepad, a number two pencil, and the facts as he knew them at that moment.
Some habits simply died hard.
Starting at the top of the first page, Stormy wrote: What is the objective? To determine the name and details of the girl in the mirror.
When he was young, Stormy used to sit on the porch of his family’s cabin in the Ozark Mountains of central Missouri and watch his father whittle any manner of things from small blocks of oak and pine. Cut by cut, chip by chip, his father’s knife would whittle away what wasn’t desired until all that was left was the item being created.
But in this case, Stormy had no list from which to whittle from—the number of possible suspects was zero.
Not much to whittle down from when starting with zero.
So Stormy took a different tactic and wrote down a second question:
What things did he know for certain?
The short answer was not much. This was where the majority of private investigators would have probably quit, waiting a few days—or perhaps even a week to pad the bill—and then submit a dummied report saying they’d spent thirty-two hours turning up nothing in terms of leads. After all, why chase a lead that was nothing more than a figment of the client’s warped imagination?
But Stormy Boyd had an advantage other detectives did not have. He believed in ghosts. As such, Stormy began with the assumption that Koda Mulvaney had seen a girl in the mirror.
Such things were more than possible, Stormy knew, because he had been there himself once—on the other side of the mirror looking out.
So what were the facts?
The girl was young, probably in her late teens
The girl in the mirror had been seen by Koda Mulvaney at the Forsyth Park Hotel in Savannah, Georgia
The girl in the mirror was wearing a gown
The girl in the mirror was pretty, had light- colored hair—probably blonde—with freckles—but it was hard to be sure since everything Koda saw was gray
The girl in the mirror looked confused, like she didn’t know where she was or what she was seeing—Koda said he could see it in her eyes
A second person—a television personality named Olympia Fudge—also saw a girl in the same mirror several months later
The piano in the lounge where the mirror was hung had reportedly been playing on its own, drawing crowds of people who wanted to witness the supernatural phenomenon
Witnesses said whoever was playing the piano was extraordinarily talented—almost as if the ghost were a concert pianist
Next, Stormy made a list of assumptions:
The dress the girl was wearing was most likely a bridesmaids dress, or perhaps a prom dress
The girl most certainly was attending some kind of function at the hotel
The girl may have been from out-of-town, but chances were good she was from the Savannah area
The girl was almost certainly dead
And that meant there was probably a police report
Looking at the two lists, Stormy picked the things from each that—when combined—would be the most likely place to start.
On the list of facts, Stormy circled numbers: 1, 2, 7, and 8.
On the list of assumptions, Stormy circled: D and E.
Stormy looked at his watch. Savannah was only 280 miles from Orlando, a four-and-a-half-hour drive without speeding. If he left in the next half hour, he could be standing in the Savannah Police Station when the shifts changed at 8:00 a.m.
Stormy didn’t need to eat.
Stormy didn’t need to sleep.
Being dead had drawbacks, but it also had its advantages.
Chapter Thirty
Crimson Cove
December 30, 1937
The wolf was large, a good eighty pounds or more, its hair a mix of gray and brown. And, for now, it was alone. Even so, if there was a fight to be had, the wolf already knew how it would end.
And so did Onyx.
Onyx knew she was helpless, too weak to defend herself. She also knew from the howling of the pack—growing louder with each passing second—the lone wolf would not be alone for long.
Onyx pulled her head away from the tree and scanned the ground around her, looking for a rock or a stick—anything she might use to defend herself.
There was nothing. Even if there were, Onyx was unsure she’d have the energy to pick it up, let alone wield it.
Onyx leaned her head back against the pine, her eyes locked on the wolf who she knew could sense her helplessness—that any fight to come would be brief.
As the howling of the wolves grew louder, Onyx found herself thinking about the day her father had taught her what to do if she ever encountered a wolf.
“There aren’t any wolves in the bayou, Daddy,” Onyx said. “Everyone knows that.”
Catfish Webb shook his head. “Not true, Jitterbug. I seen a whole pack once, came up on me early one mornin’ when your daddy was settin’ traps in the delta, south of the Mississippi River. Sneaky little things, them wolves. Came up on me real quiet like—‘fore I knew it, they had me in the middle of a circle. Six of them, there were.”
“But teacher said—”
“Teacher only knows what she reads in books, Jitterbug,” Catfish said. “But I’m your daddy, and I’m tellin’ you as honest as I can—there are wolves in the bayou. Maybe they come here all the way from California or Texas, searching for food, I don’t know. But they here, and I’m tellin’ you what to do if you come across ‘em.”
Onyx did her best to hide the fear she was starting to feel and simply nodded.
“Now, as your daddy was sayin’, wolves can take down something big as a deer, or a moose even, or smaller things, like beavers and rabbits. But, they get hungry enough—”
“They eat us?”
Catfish shrugged. “Who knows, maybe they might. What matters is that you come across a wolf or even a pack of ‘em like I did? You just turn and walk away, Jitterbug. And don’t look ‘em in the eye. If you do, the wolves will sense your fear.”
“What if I’m not afraid, Papa? Can I look then?”
“Trust me, Jitterbug, you come face-to-face with a pack of them forest dogs, you can’t help but be afraid,” Catfish said. “God put fear in our legs so we could run, but you come across a wolf, you just back yourself away, slow like, with as much calm as you can muster. You understand?”
“If I come across a pack of wolves, I’ll run fast as I can and get away!” Onyx said.
Catfish nodded. “Seems like that would be best, doesn’t it? But you got to understand, no matter how fast you can run—and I seen you out runnin’, Jitterbug, and you as fast as the wind—but the wolves are faster. If you run, they’ll catch up fast almost like you was standin’ still.”
“So what do I do if they—?”
“Then you curl yourself up in a ball on the ground, all tight like, so if a wolf tries to bite you they can’t get at your vital parts.” Catfish reached out and touched Onyx, first on the face, then neck, then dropping his hand and touching the inside of her thigh. “You keep these places covered best you can, Jitterbug. That’s ‘bout all you can do.”
“What did you do?” Onyx asked. “When the wolves surrounded you that day?”
“Nothing,” Catfish said. “I just stood there, all still like, and after a while them wolves just walked away.”
The rest of the pack had arrived—five wolves in all—surrounding Onyx.
Remain still and stay calm, Onyx thought. Perhaps they will turn and leave, like they’d done with her father.
They didn’t.
Without warning, all five wolves rushed tow
ard her—their fangs bared, attacking in unison—as if an invisible dinner bell had been rung.
Using what little energy she could muster, Onyx raised her arm in an attempt to protect herself. The first set of fangs sank deep enough to strike bone, sending waves of searing pain through her. Moments later, a second set of fangs sunk into her thigh, and Onyx reflexively reached down with both hands in an attempt to push the enormous beast away, exposing her face and neck.
Just as the wolves knew she would.
The pain was gone now, as was the sadness and fear.
All that remained was an indescribable sense of lightness and calm as Onyx found herself floating in the air—an observer in the dark of night, detached—watching as the wolves below had their way with what was left of her earthly body.
Then darkness. A black so black it felt as if everything in the universe had folded in upon itself, leaving Onyx floating in a void where neither space nor time existed.
All that existed now was Onyx’s spirit.
Then, in a blinding burst of energy that lasted but a fraction of a second, Onyx knew.
She knew everything.
Everything.
Every question Onyx had ever asked, everything she’d ever wondered about—and a hundred million other things she’d never even thought of—filled her spirit with sense of overwhelming joy and understanding.
Who are we?
Where do we come from?
What is the truth?
What is reality?
How much of our existence comes down to fate?
Do heaven and hell exist?
Do we have a soul?
Where does the soul live?
Where do we go when we die?
Do we come back?
Or is this the only life we’ll ever get?
Is there a purpose to life?
Is there a God?
If there is, does He listen when we pray?
Does He love us?
Or are we simply on our own?
Then it was over. As quickly as the answers had presented themselves, they were gone.
Onyx Webb: Book Three Page 12
