Revenge Walk

by Melissa Bowersock

  “Do you think there could be two different entities?” Lacey asked softly.

  Sam frowned, his eyes narrowed. “That’s possible. It’s certainly not this one in the house.” He brought his attention back to the Reeds. “I think I need to walk the yard. Could we come back this weekend some time? It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Oh, sure,” Price said. “Maybe Saturday afternoon?” He looked to his wife.

  “Yes, that would be the best time,” she said. “How about two p.m.?”

  “Two p.m.,” Lacey repeated, jotting it down in her notebook. “We’ll be here. Now, let me ask you a few questions. When did you buy this house?”

  “Eight months ago,” Vicky said. “February.”

  “And you bought it from…?”

  “Her name is Yvonne Lindlor. The house had sat empty since 2008. At the time, we thought that was due to the recession, but now we’re not so sure. She never mentioned any… problems with it.”

  “Is she local?”

  Vicky shook her head. “She lives in Illinois. Arlington, I think. I can look it up.”

  “If you don’t have to dig too much, that would be great,” Lacey said. “Save me a little time.”

  “Sure. I’ll be right back.” Vicky rose and climbed the stairs.

  Sam took the interval to drain his glass of water. Tansy climbed into her dad’s lap and yawned widely.

  “We’re almost done,” Lacey told her. “This won’t take much longer.”

  And it didn’t. Vicky returned with the contract for the house sale. She read off Yvonne Lindlor’s address and phone number as Lacey wrote it down.

  “Great,” Lacey said. “I’ll get started on the research right away.” She tipped her head at Sam. “Anything else we need?”

  He shook his head. “No, we’re good. We’ll let you folks get back to your evening.”

  Price and Vicky walked them to the door. “I sure hope you can sort this out,” she said.

  “I’m sure we can,” Lacey replied. “I’ll call you if I have any questions, but otherwise we’ll see you on Saturday.”

  “Thank you,” Price said. He shook their hands warmly. “I sure hope this works.”

  ~~~

  SIX

  Friday morning, Lacey jumped on her laptop as soon as Sam left for his studio. Her fingers itched to start digging into the research.

  The first thing she checked—her go-to resource—was property records. Yvonne Lindlor was listed as the owner as of 2009. Before that was a brief period in the estate of Jean Hawkes, then from 2008 clear back to 1964, it was Jean Hawkes. From 1964 back to 1955, it was listed to Vern and Jean Hawkes.

  Quite a long history for one family in one home, at least for Southern California. In the Midwest, in farming or ranching areas, it wasn’t unusual for a house to be inhabited by multiple generations of a family, but people in the LA area tended to move around as they climbed up—or fell down—the social and economic ladder.

  There were two other owners before the Hawkes, in the 30s and 40s, and Lacey wrote those down in case the haunting went back that far. For some reason, she couldn’t imagine a family hanging onto the house for over fifty years if the ghostly manifestations were active all that time.

  First things first. She put in a call to Yvonne in Illinois, noting it was mid-morning back there and not too early to call. The line went almost immediately to voicemail.

  “Ms. Lindlor, my name is Lacey Fitzpatrick and I’m a private investigator in Los Angeles. I’m calling to find out some information about a house you owned in Kagel Canyon. The current owners are having some issues that I hope you can shed some light on. If you’d give me a call back, my number is…”

  Lacey had barely keyed off the call when her phone rang, startling her.

  That was fast.

  But it wasn’t Yvonne. It was Sam.

  “Hi,” she said. “You forget something?”

  “I think you’d better come down here.”

  “Oh? How come?” She sat up in her chair, hearing a serious tone in Sam’s voice that she didn’t like.

  He exhaled heavily. “Someone broke in to the studio last night.”

  “Broke in? Is anything missing?”

  “No, it’s all here. But it’s all in pieces.”

  “Pieces? What… what do you mean? Broken?”

  “Destroyed. It looks like a tornado went through here. Come on down.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  She grabbed her keys and barely remembered to catch up her pack on the way out the door. It wouldn’t do to be stopped with no license on her, ex-cop or no ex-cop. She warned herself to stay present as she drove just slightly faster than the limit.

  Destroyed? Pieces? Who would do that? All their hard work, gone. Then another thought: the open house. How could they have the open house if Sam had no artwork to display?

  She pressed down on the gas pedal.

  The cops were already there, one car out front, another behind Sam’s truck in the driveway. She pulled up next to the curb and sprinted to the open door of the studio.

  And stopped. Stared.

  “Oh my God.”

  Sam’s simple description had been accurate. It did look like a tornado had torn through. The floor was littered with broken pieces of pottery. Two of the shelves hung off the wall, connected only tentatively by mangled brackets at one end. Sam’s work table had been tossed against the wall and the heavy wedging table had been knocked over onto its side.

  “Lacey,” Sam said, drawing her attention. “Come around to the back door. Don’t walk through this.”

  Lacey raised her eyes from the mess to Sam, standing in the kitchen. She gaped at him for a moment, then finally his words sank in. She backed out the front door and jogged around to the back.

  He met her there, the back door already open. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. “They’re dusting for prints.”

  She stepped inside and surveyed the damage from this angle. Just as bad, except she could no longer see the broken shelves. The litter on the floor was heartbreaking. All Sam’s hard work, the starkly painted unglazed pieces mixed in with the glossier Fauve pieces. A beautiful mess.

  “Lacey.”

  She dragged her eyes from the sad jumble on the floor to the detective making his careful way back to them. She’d barely noticed any of the cops before. Now it took her bewildered brain a moment to react.

  “Rod,” she murmured, unsure at first why he was there. She hadn’t seen him in months.

  He stopped before them and sighed. “Whoever did this did a pretty thorough job, I’m afraid. I’m hoping we’ll be able to pull some prints.”

  Lacey forced her brain to function. Rod Irwin was a seasoned detective with a couple decades on the force. Steel-gray hair grew thickly from his high forehead, and a matching gray mustache gave him a distinguished look. His eyes were a startling ice blue. She didn’t know him well, but knew him for a straight-shooter.

  “What … what have you got so far?” she asked finally.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. They broke in here at the back door. Left the same way, since Sam said the front door was still locked. Could have been just kids tearing things up.”

  “It wasn’t,” Sam said. “One man, Hispanic, thirtyish. He was wearing gloves, so you won’t get any prints. It wasn’t random. He was here with a purpose.”

  Both Rod and Lacey blinked at Sam.

  “How do you know... oh, that’s right,” Rod said. “You’re a psychic.”

  “A medium, actually,” Sam corrected.

  “But you can see that?”

  “No, I can’t. But someone else did.”

  “Theodora!” Lacey blurted.

  Now Rod looked thoroughly confused, his brow a series of winkles layered up his forehead. “Who’s that?”

  “She’s a ghost,” Lacey said. “She lives here.” She turned to Sam. “What else can she tell us? What else did she see?”

  “He’s not tall, maybe five
seven or five eight at the most. A little heavy. Very short black hair. Thin pencil mustache, soul patch. Oh, and he’s got a big purple bruise on his left temple.”

  Rod’s eyes widened at the detailed description. “Did she… hit him with something?”

  Sam shook his head, a single jerk. “No, she can’t manipulate physical objects. But once he started wrecking things, she manifested in front of him, about an inch from his nose. Scared the shit out of him and he jumped backward and banged his head on the corner of a shelf.”

  Just then Rod let out a yelp and stumbled backward, wheeling his arms for balance, stepping on a piece of pottery. The crunch was audible, as was his labored breathing.

  “Holy shit,” he gasped.

  Sam couldn’t contain a chuckle. “Yeah, like that. Sorry. She just wanted you to understand. And, as a matter of fact…”

  Sam stepped past Rod and made his careful way through the dining area to the front room. There, he examined the corners of the shelves still attached to the wall.

  “Here,” he said. “A tiny bit of blood, maybe a small piece of skin.”

  Rod followed, placing his feet where Sam had, avoiding the broken pottery, and leaned in close to study the edge of the shelf. He’d gotten his breathing under control enough so his voice sounded normal. “Dolan, get over here. Bring your tweezers and a sample bag.”

  The other detective—younger, not one Lacey knew—stepped over. He nodded to Sam and Lacey and peered at the small sample of evidence that Rod pointed out to him.

  “Got it,” he said. He plucked a tiny bit of flesh from the wood and bagged it. “There’s dried blood there. We’ll have to take the whole shelf.”

  “Do it,” Rod said. He herded Sam and Lacey back into the kitchen. “Is there anything else you—or the ghost—can tell us?”

  Sam was quiet for a moment, staring sightlessly at the linoleum floor. “He was wearing dark clothes, jeans and a black t-shirt. Black tennis shoes.” He looked up. “That’s all.”

  Rod had pulled a small notebook from his pocket and jotted notes to himself. “Got an estimate on weight?”

  “Probably just under two hundred pounds. Maybe one-ninety.”

  Rod nodded as he wrote. “Are you aware of anyone who had a grudge against you? Anybody you’ve pissed off lately?”

  Lacey might have laughed; they’d asked the same question so often of their clients. It seemed unreal to have it asked of them.

  “No,” Sam said. “Anybody who might be is in jail.”

  “So no threatening phone calls, no hang-ups, no suspicious activity?”

  “No. None of that.” Sam glanced to Lacey, but she just shrugged.

  “Okay.” Rod made a last note and jammed the notebook back into his pocket. “Well, we’ll be here for a while longer. You don’t need to stay if you don’t want to. We’ll call someone to board up that back door until you can get it fixed.” He looked around at the mess. “You can probably start cleaning up tomorrow morning.”

  Lacey looked again at all the broken pottery and felt tears welling up. “We’ll have to cancel the open house.”

  “No, we won’t.” She glanced up sharply at Sam. “He didn’t get in the storeroom. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Sam pushed the door open with his elbow, avoiding the knob that was dusted with black powder. “This was still locked,” he said. “Everything in here is okay.”

  Lacey scanned the shelves. One held half a dozen pieces of green ware, unfired pottery. Another had several pieces of traditional unglazed pots and bowls, fired but not yet painted, and a third held a collection of the Fauvist pieces, green fired but not glazed. Lacey lifted her eyes to Sam.

  “Can you get these all finished in a week?”

  “I can try. It’ll take two firings, one for the green ware and one for the glaze, but while that’s going on I can paint the traditional.” He nodded. “Yeah, I can get it done. It won’t be as much as I had before, but enough, I think.”

  Lacey took a survey of the pieces. It was less than half of what had been out front, but still gave a good accounting of Sam’s talent and versatility.

  “You know,” she said, “this might be better.” Sam tipped his head at her. “Less might be more. With a limited number of pieces, it just might spur sales, people jumping on it before they all get sold.” She grinned. “Yeah, this just might work out better.”

  “Hmm, hadn’t thought of that. I guess we’ll find out. Now, grab that box over there and help me load up some of the traditional. I can paint at home until the cops are done here.”

  ~~~

  SEVEN

  Sam took over the dining room table and converted it to a workspace. He covered it with an oil cloth and set out the unpainted pieces along with his paints and brushes. This was the only aspect of his artwork that wasn’t totally traditional. Making his own paints from plants or minerals would be excessively time-consuming, and it would be difficult to make as much as he needed. He’d surrendered to expediency and used simple acrylics instead.

  Lacey took her laptop to the smaller breakfast table in the kitchen; her work required much less space, just the small computer, her notebook and a glass of iced tea. It was odd to know Sam was working in the next room when she was so used to being alone in the apartment all day. Odd, but nice. She found it comforting to know he was just a few feet away, especially after the break-in.

  She scanned her notes on the Kagel Canyon house but had trouble concentrating. Her mind kept drifting back through their past cases, contemplating who might have a grudge against them. But Sam had been right; most of the criminals they exposed or helped track were in jail—or dead. There were times when friends or family of a criminal got their feathers ruffled because Sam and Lacey exposed unsavory secrets, but none she could think of that might take such destructive revenge. And if it was someone from a past case, why now? Just as they were getting ready for the open house…

  The open house. Their publicity push. Marina’s piece on Sam had aired late on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. The break-in happened late Thursday night. Was that a coincidence? Lacey thought not.

  As they’d found before, celebrity was a two-edged sword. It certainly brought them more cases as their fame spread, but it also made them targets. But of whom? And why?

  Blowing out a frustrated breath, she shook her head to clear it. They’d just have to see what the PD came up with. Maybe the detectives could find some telling piece of evidence in the mess at the studio. In the meantime, Sam and Lacey had a case to work.

  She checked her phone; no calls missed, so Yvonne hadn’t called back. Perhaps the woman worked and would call later. She lived in Illinois; two hours later than Pacific Time, twelve-thirty to Lacey’s ten-thirty. Thinking she might catch the woman on her lunch break, Lacey dialed the number again. No answer. Voicemail. She didn’t bother leaving another message.

  Instead she started a search on Jean Hawkes and got lucky right away. She found an obituary dated 2008. Hadn’t Vicky said the house had been empty since 2008? Yes, so that fit. Lacey sat back in her chair and read the obituary.

  Jean Rochelle Hawkes left this earth on October 5, 2008. The daughter of Isaac and Henrietta Clifton of Arlington, Illinois, she was born August 20, 1935. Although she wanted to become a teacher, those plans were cut short when she fell in love with Vernon Hawkes, married and had two daughters of her own. Hawkes was devoted to her church, St. Odelia’s of San Fernando, attending regularly and volunteering much of her time until ill health confined her to her home in Kagel Canyon. She was predeceased by her parents and two brothers, John and Richard, by her husband and her youngest daughter, Lynette. She is survived by her older daughter, Yvonne (Phil) Lindlor. Contributions can be made to St. Odelia’s.

  Lacey leaned forward and read the obituary again, this time with a critical eye. No cause of death mentioned, but that was typical. She could find that out in other ways. No service mentioned, either. Was that because the woman’s only family—her
older daughter—lived in Illinois? Was it logistics that prevented a service, or something else? Lacey had learned to read between the lines or, like this time, to read what wasn’t there at all.

  She sent the obituary to the printer and started a new search, this time on death records. Again, she found the document without a problem. She matched up the name and date, then checked the cause: liver cancer.

  So perhaps Jean had a drinking problem. Lacey wondered if the “ill health” she suffered from was the drinking or the eventual consequences. Most of the time, liver cancer did not result from a nightcap now and then; it often denoted a long and constant history of drinking.

  She jotted a note in her notebook and went back to the death record.

  The date of death was October 5th. The date the obituary ran was November 29th. That seemed like a long time in between, but there could be perfectly acceptable reasons for that. Yvonne would have been the sole surviving family member, and as such all the paperwork—the will, the probate, the house title—would have fallen to her. She might have hired a lawyer to help her with it, or might have waded through on her own. Either way, writing the obituary might have taken a back seat to the more complicated legal issues.

  But something else was missing from the obituary. There was a distinct lack of detail. What had Jean done with her days, beside drink? Had she pursued any hobbies, any passions? She volunteered at the church, but doing what? Most obituaries cited some love, whether it was painting or fishing or crossword puzzles. Had Jean had no interests, or had the obituary-writer, who Lacey guessed was Yvonne, had no knowledge of them? Or no desire to list them?

  Peering closer at the obituary, Lacey looked deeper. Detail wasn’t all that was missing. The most glaring omission was emotion. There was no mention of Jean being a loving mother, a devoted wife. There was no praise whatsoever, which was odd. Most people, when speaking of the dead, tried to find something good to say. For Jean, no such attempt had been made.