Ghost Walk

by Melissa Bowersock

  “We understand,” Lacey said. “We’re going to research the property and see if we can find out the story here. If we can discover what happened here, and why, we should be able to clear it.”

  “Thank God,” Janet muttered.

  Lacey took her notepad from her purse. “You said you bought the house three years ago? Do you remember the names of the sellers?”

  “A single woman, Marci Addison. She was a widow, actually. Her husband drowned off Catalina Island. They had a sailboat, belonged to the Dana Point Yacht Club. I don’t know how long they’d lived here, but they seemed to be very well-established.”

  Lacey nodded as she wrote. “Do you know where she moved to?”

  “Washington state. Anacortes, I believe.”

  “All right,” Lacey said. “We’ll get on this and see what we can find.” She glanced at Sam. “Anything else?”

  He was staring toward the hallway. “Did you replace the carpet in your son’s room?” he asked suddenly.

  “No.” Janet shook her head. “It was brand new, so there was no need.”

  “You might want to smudge the whole house,” he said.

  “Smudge?” The word was clearly not part of her vocabulary. “I don’t—”

  “Find a crystal shop or a New Age bookstore. Get sage smudge sticks. Light ‘em, spread the smoke all through the house. Especially those back rooms. That should help.”

  “Uh, all right.”

  Lacey could see the confusion in Janet’s eyes. She couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day she’d be asked to perform a Native American cleansing ceremony in her house in a toney neighborhood.

  Sam stood up. Lacey scrambled to grab her recorder and toss it in her purse, clicking the off button as she did so, and stood up as well. Janet got to her feet and showed them to the door.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her slacks pocket and handed it to Sam.

  “Thank you.” He didn’t look at the check, just shoved it into his own pocket. “Let me know how the smudging works.”

  “All right.” Janet opened the door.

  “Thank you, Janet,” Lacey said, offering her hand. “We’ll be in touch. If you should have any questions, or think of anything to add, please call me.” She gave the woman a page from her notebook with her number on it.

  “Yes, I will. Thank you both for coming.”

  “Have a good day.” Lacey gave her an encouraging smile and followed Sam out to the car.

  They didn’t talk as Lacey retraced their path back toward the freeway. As they neared the 5, she noticed the ubiquitous fast food signs that crowded the on and off ramps.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  Sam pulled his attention from wherever it was and perused the signs. “I could go for a burger.”

  Surprised, Lacey pulled into a burger joint and parked. “I need to hit the restroom,” she explained. Inside, they ordered and Lacey left Sam to pick up the food while she made her stop. When she came out of the restroom, he had already gotten the food and was sitting in the car.

  “You’re not in any huge hurry, are you?” she asked as she settled in her seat. “I’d rather not try to eat and drive.”

  “Nope,” he said simply. He’d already taken a big bite out of his burger and was following up with a French fry.

  Lacey watched him obliquely as she unwrapped her own burger and took a bite. He seemed almost normal—as normal as he got.

  “This wasn’t as bad?” she guessed.

  He snorted. “As last time? Not hardly.”

  She sipped her shake. “Good.” Munched a French fry. “Just curious—why? Because it wasn’t a kid?”

  He nodded. “That, and this son of a bitch got what he deserved.”

  Lacey blinked at him, her food forgotten. “Really? You can tell that?”

  “Oh, yeah. Arrogant son of a bitch. Abusive.”

  “Self defense?” she asked.

  He considered that. “More like retribution. He wouldn’t have killed her. Just ground her down to nothing. Anyone on a major power trip like that needs a victim in order to feel strong. Killing wasn’t his thing.”

  “I’ll check the property records and crosscheck for police calls. It may be there were domestic abuse calls if this was an ongoing thing. But it sounds like it must go back a ways, before the last owner, since he didn’t die in the house. Did you get a sense of the time?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nah. It all feels like now.”

  Lacey felt a shiver as she finished her burger. That poor kid, Spencer, living with those emotions. No wonder he didn’t want to go home. Who would?

  “Will the smudging really help?” She tossed her wrapper in the bag and started the car.

  “It should. Actually my being there, just to acknowledge, to feel the emotions, should help a little, but smudging will help more. It might free him up so he can move on.”

  Lacey drove up the onramp and carefully merged with the freeway traffic. “Move on to where?” she asked.

  Sam took his time chewing his last bite of hamburger, then tossed the wrapper in the bag. He, like Lacey, still took an occasional French fry from the cardboard container sitting upright in the cup holder between their seats.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  Lacey cut him a look. “You don’t know? Your traditions don’t have an answer for that?”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah, they have an answer. The answer is that we don’t know. The living can never know until we cross over. How’s that grab you?”

  Lacey felt her face go hot. She kept her eyes on the road, not willing to give him a full view of her embarrassment.

  “Sorry,” she said, looking over her left shoulder as she changed lanes. “Just with all the stuff we hear about ancient knowledge, about people living closer to nature…”

  She mentally kicked herself. Served her right for baiting him. Whatever his beliefs were, they were valid for him and none of her business.

  “My fault, actually,” she heard him say in a low voice. “I do tend to buy into that, the clichés about Native Americans being more connected, more in tune. Truth is that no culture, no belief system, has a lock on all the answers. We’re all just muddling through this life the best we can.”

  Lacey had trouble getting her jaw back up where it belonged. She was still trying to rectify that surprising response when she felt him nudge her shoulder with the back of his hand. She looked down and saw he was offering her a French fry.

  “Smoke ‘em peace pipe?” he asked with a lopsided smile. His eyes glittered.

  Lacey stared at him, then at the French fry before remembering to watch the road. She reached over and took the peace offering, stuck one end in her mouth and with the rest of it hanging like a droopy cigarette, asked, “Got a light?”

  She heard Sam’s soft chuckle.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m kind of used to being an asshole.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed,” she said. “You’re good at it.” But there was no sting in her voice.

  “Practice makes perfect,” he said dryly.

  They drove in silence for a while. Lacey thought again about how she’d ended up here, working cases with a granite-jawed half Navajo with a chip on his shoulder. If two weeks ago anyone had ever told her, she’d have never believed it.

  “So just for the sake of curiosity,” she said finally, “how much do you usually charge for a… walk? A session?”

  “Sixty bucks.” He pulled the crumpled check from his pocket, glanced at it and shoved it back in. “You want a cut?”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly, although she realized his question wasn’t defensive or belligerent. “I just had no idea. To tell you the truth, doing this has sparked an idea in my head.” Even with her eyes on the road, she could see him turn toward her. “I’ve been thinking about going into business myself. As a P.I.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “What kind of money do they pull down?”

>   Lacey laughed. “I have no idea. I’ve only just started thinking about it. I’ll have to research it.”

  “Right up your alley,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She looked over at him and grinned.

  As they neared the interchanges with freeways merging and splitting apart in all directions, Lacey concentrated on her driving, but she realized that just by voicing her idea, she had given it substance. Impetus. Yes, she would check into it. Right after they figured out the San Clemente case.

  She navigated the maze of freeways like the native-born Angelino that she was, and pulled off onto surface streets once they got to Silver Lake. She steered down the road through Sam’s neighborhood and finally pulled up in front of the dingy apartment complex. The blue truck, she noted, was parked in front of the second to last apartment.

  “I’ll let you know what I find out,” she said. She fully expected him to hop out as soon as she stopped the car, but he didn’t. He dug his wallet out of his back pocket, pulled out a twenty and handed it to her.

  “No, really,” she said, “I don’t—”

  “Gas money,” he said. “I appreciate you driving. Take it.”

  She looked at the twenty, then met Sam’s eyes. Determined, but friendly. She took the bill.

  “Thanks.”

  “Call me,” he said. He climbed out of the car and closed the door, lifted his hand in a brief wave.

  Lacey nodded, pulling away from the curb as he walked off.

  ~~~

  SEVEN

  Camped in front of her laptop that evening, she divided her time between searching property records and researching private investigator practices and salaries. Being a P.I. employed by a company drew only about fifteen bucks an hour, while going it alone could bring more—or vastly less, depending on the amount of cases a person could get. Surveillance? Process serving? Did she really want to track down wayward spouses or step in the middle of domestic violence situations? She’d have to think about that.

  The property research was easier. She found the records for Marci and Doug Addison. They bought the house in San Clemente in 1996 and sold it—or at least she did—in 2013. They bought it from a couple named Fairbanks, who owned it for six years. Before that were the Staffords. Lacey had plenty to research here.

  She looked up Marci Addison in Anacortes and found her there. The woman hadn’t remarried, apparently. When Lacey searched on the name and Catalina Island, she found brief references to the drowning.

  As Janet had said, the couple had a sailboat and sailed frequently. They were apparently well known in Avalon, the major city on Catalina. They’d gone over for a long weekend, but strong winds had driven the boat onto rocks and it broke up and sank. Marci was able to make it to shore, but Doug’s body was never found.

  Her search even brought up a grainy newspaper photo of Marci standing on the beach, staring out to sea. Must have been tough, Lacey thought. Well, she’d start there.

  She dialed the number she’d found for Marci. Knowing the internet, of course, it might or might not be current, or the right number at all, but it was worth a try.

  Two rings. Three.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice.

  “Hello, I’m trying to reach Marci Addison. Is this she?”

  A hesitation, probably thinking she was a telemarketer.

  “Yes. Who’s calling?”

  “Mrs. Addison, my name is Lacey Fitzpatrick and I’m an investigator in LA. I’m looking into some strange occurrences in a home in San Clemente that you used to own. Could I talk to you for just a few minutes?”

  “Uh, occurrences? What do you mean?”

  Lacey drew in a deep breath. “I know this might sound pretty crazy, but I’m working for the family who now lives in your old house. They’re having problems with noises and uncomfortable sensations that have no obvious source. I’m just wondering if you experienced any such things in the time you lived there.”

  “Do you mean… ghosts?”

  Lacey was heartened by the serious sound of her voice. Not demeaning or dismissive.

  “We’re kind of going on that assumption in the absence of any other evidence. They haven’t been able to identify any cause for the noises they hear, and the other sensations are making it very difficult for them to continue living there. Did you have any odd or unsettling experiences when you lived there?”

  “Well,” Marci said, “not the kind you’re talking about. My husband was killed in a boating accident, and after that, I just couldn’t stay there. Too many memories, you know?”

  “Yes. I actually did run across an old newspaper article about that. I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

  “It was awful. He was so full of life, so… big. Big-hearted. He was the kind of guy that was always smiling, always happy, always ready for the next adventure. We had so much fun, and then he was just… gone. I felt like my heart had been ripped out.”

  “I can understand that,” Lacey said gently. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t suppose the people who sold you the house ever mentioned anything unusual?”

  “Not that I remember. And if they had, we might not have bought the house. But it was perfect for us, close to the marina and all.”

  “Yes, I see. Well, thank you, Mrs. Addison. I won’t take any more of your time. However, if you happen to remember anything later, can I leave you my number?”

  “All right.”

  Lace gave her the number, wondering if the woman were really writing it down.

  “And your name again?”

  “Lacey Fitzpatrick. Private Investigator.” So the woman was writing it down.

  “Got it,” Marci said.

  “Okay. Thank you again, ma’am. Have a pleasant evening.”

  “Thanks, you, too. Toodles.”

  Toodles? Sounded like the speech of a twelve-year-old, Lacey thought. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop and stared out the window. Okay, so they’d have to go back further. She wondered where the Fairbanks family had gone. The further back in time she had to go, the harder it would be to run people down.

  That came up clearly when she did a search on police calls for the address. There were several websites that promised the information, yet none of them went back more than a month or two. Obviously these sites just couldn’t hold a years-long—or decades-long—backlog of incidents. And what was available was nothing. Quiet neighborhood, obviously.

  She knew she had to call the San Clemente Police Department. She was aware that the town did not have its own police force, but contracted with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Too bad she didn’t have any old friends there, she thought as she dialed.

  “San Clemente Police,” a professional female voice said. “Officer Morris.”

  “Hello,” Lacey said, launching into her spiel. “My name is Lacey Fitzpatrick and I’m a private investigator in LA. I’m investigating a home in San Clemente and need some public records. I’d like to request all police calls as far back as you’ve got for this address.” She read off the address, knowing the woman on the other end was writing it down. Requests for public records were a normal occurrence at any police department, and were sanctioned by the Freedom of Information Act.

  “I can have those for you within five days,” the woman said, quoting the standard interval.

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  “I just need your name and contact information.”

  Lacey provided her address, phone number and e-mail address, jotting down Officer Morris’ name for her own records.

  “So you can e-mail those to me?” she asked to be clear.

  “Yes. We’ll have that to you within the five days,” Ms. Morris agreed.

  “Great. Thanks very much.”

  Lacey was glad the office didn’t need to know the reason for the request. The department would still be required to fill it, regardless of the reason, but it was just so much easier not having to explain. So far she’d been lucky to get very little in th
e way of negative or non-believing reactions to the story.

  She took a break from the computer to fix herself a tuna salad for dinner, then sat at the table, staring out the back slider as twilight deepened to full dark. She was happily energized. She’d always enjoyed the research end of her old job, running down leads, connecting the dots, and this brought it all back to her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. Still munching her salad, she jotted down the few avenues she had yet to pursue.

  Topping her list was tracking down the Fairbanks people to see if they’d experienced any anomalies in the house. She was sure she could do that; it just took time.

  Because Mrs. Addison said she’d never had any problems in the house but Janet obviously had, Lacey began to wonder if there were a gap between the two families, if the house had stood empty for weeks or months. It was possible—although improbable—that an empty house could have been targeted by criminals or the homeless. Lacey thought that unlikely in the upscale neighborhood, but it was worth checking on, if only so that she could cross that possibility off her list.

  And finally, she needed to find out if there were any unsolved missing person cases in the area. Only problem with that was that the man might not have lived there. Just because he was murdered there didn’t mean he was a resident. And that opened up the case exponentially. The man could be from anywhere—a different state, even a different country. She realized she’d have to call Sam and see if she could glean any kind of physical description of the man.

  Fueled by the prospect of doing some real sleuthing again, she washed her dinner dishes and got back to work.

  ~~~

  By early Sunday afternoon, she’d made some progress, but it was slow going. She’d tracked down the Fairbanks people—they’d moved to Santa Barbara—and had spoken to the elderly husband, now a widower. He had no recollection of any odd happenings in the house. Couldn’t remember any violent crime at all in the neighborhood during their years there.

  She located Janet’s phone number and called her to ask about the timing of the house transfer. The house was, in fact, vacant between families, but only for five days, and even during that time, the Weisses were moving their possessions over little by little. There was never any evidence of breaking and entering.