A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder (25 page)

“That was amazing,” Chris said. “Like, really, Heath. That was amazing.”

He blushed. “M.J.'s just as good,” he said.

She looked at me, and there was a hint of newfound respect in her eyes. It was immensely satisfying. “Getting back to Murdock,” I said, because I knew we really did need to focus on figuring this case out, “is there anything more you can tell us?”

“Well, I did get a few things out of the mother. Beginning two weeks ago a man came to her house to speak with her son. She said she didn't like him, but Charlie—that's Murdock's first name—told her that he was a friend and he was doing a job for him.

“I showed her a picture of Lavinia, but she said her eyesight is bad, and she couldn't say for sure that it wasn't him.”

“Crap,” I muttered. “Is that enough to get a warrant and maybe do a search of Rick's financials to see if the deposits made to Murdock and Sullivan correlate to any of his accounts?”

The detective shook her head. “No. And because I'm desperate, I even ran it by the lieutenant, and he all but laughed in my face. We need something solid to connect Lavinia with Murdock and Sullivan—something that we don't need a warrant to prove.”

We all were silent while we thought about how to
go about doing that, but without even knowing where Rick Lavinia was, there didn't seem to be much of a place to start.

Finally, Gil said, “Was there anything else that Murdock's mom said? Any other clue she gave?”

Chris sighed and set her glass of iced tea aside. “The only other thing she gave me about this mystery man was that he showed up wearing a cape, and she remembers that because it was soaking wet and he refused to take it off, so it dripped on her carpet. I checked a couple of Google images for Lavinia, and he seems to be a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of guy. There's no image anywhere of him wearing a cape.”

I stared in stunned silence at Chris. She looked back at me, furrowing her brow. “What?” she said.

I turned to look at Gilley, and he stared at me with an equally shocked expression. “No.
Way!
” he gasped. “No,
freaking
way!”

And then he jumped up and ran to his backpack to pull out his computer.

“What's happening?” Chris said as we all continued to stare at one another, shocked to our toes.

“We know who the killer is,” Heath said to her.

“Rick Lavinia?” she guessed.

“Nope!” Gil said, bringing her his laptop. “Count Chocula!”

“Captain Comb-Over,” I added. “He
always
wears a cape.”

She looked first at Gil, then at me, then at the computer screen, which is when her jaw dropped. “
That guy
is the killer?”

“Yep,” I said, getting up to go over and look at what I assumed was the image of Bernard Higgins. “In a million years I never would've thought him capable of something like this,” I said.

Gilley took his laptop back and sat on the ground to type furiously. “Bernard Higgins,” he said, while his fingers flew over the keyboard before pausing so that his eyes could focus on the screen, “is a world-renowned medium. At least that's according to his Web site. He's a medium to the
stars
, or so it says here.”

“He looks like a joke,” Chris said.

“That's what we've always thought,” I told her. “But apparently, we've
way
underestimated him. A couple of years ago, Heath and I were paired with him and some other woman who looks like Elvira—”

Gilley gave a tiny gasp. “Angelica Demarche!”

I snapped my fingers. “
That
was her name!”

“She and Bernard were married in twenty-thirteen,” Gil said, his gaze darting back and forth across the screen.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “You're kidding me.”

“Nope, not kidding,” Gil said. “And you know what else, M.J.?”

“What?”

“Bernard—Bradley; Angelica—Angela.”

“Who's Angela?” Heath asked.

“Bradley's assistant. The one I spoke to at the studio when I called his business line.”

“She's a part of this,” I guessed.

“Has to be,” Gil said.

“Okay, I'll give you that all this is starting to add
up for Bernard,” Heath said, “but I mean, Gil, that guy really didn't seem smart enough to pull something like this off. There was a lot of tech stuff involved here.”

Gilley looked up from the computer long enough to say, “According to Bernard's bio, he was an electrician until nineteen ninety-five, when an electrical shock gave him the powers to speak to the dead.”

“An electrician could certainly figure out how to demagnetize our equipment,” I reasoned, wondering how I could've underestimated Bernard so fully. It must've been a bias I formed at our first meeting, when he focused on my cleavage and only my cleavage. Also, he just looked silly parading around in that cape. I hadn't really considered that there might be a whole lot more substance to the man.

“Plus, he's from San Francisco,” Heath said, pulling me out of my thoughts on Bernard. “And he was there at the hotel when the dagger first appeared. He definitely could've known all about it.”

“He also could've followed the Drake murder case,” I said. “He could've put two and two together and figured out that Ayden had given us the dagger to keep it safe.”

“And remember,” Gilley said, “he and Angelica were fired from the
Haunted Possessions
cast. He was pretty steamed about that.”

“So he's carried a grudge against us all this time?” I said. It never would've occurred to me to hold on to something like that for so long.

“M.J.,” Gil said, “from the
Haunted Possessions
show,
you and Heath got your own thirteen-episode cable show; then you got a movie deal. Of course he held a grudge. In his eyes, you probably stole his big break.”

“We probably stole Angelica's too,” Heath said.

“Plus, as a medium, he'd know all about portals and such.”

“He would,” I agreed.

“So, this Rick Lavinia . . . ,” Chris said. “He had nothing to do with this?”

“Oh, I'm guessing he did, but I'm also guessing he didn't know he did. Gil, remember that Instagram photo he posted? The caption said that he was sent that image, right?”

“Something to that effect,” Gil said.

“I'm thinking Bernard sent Rick the image in the hopes that Rick would post it and we'd get thrown off Bernard's trail.”

“It worked,” Gil said.

“It did. That bastard.”

“Okay, so what do we do?” Chris said next. “Should I put out a warrant for him?”

“No!” Gilley and Heath said together.

“He's got the dagger,” I reminded her. “And I doubt that, if he's in Boston, he's staying anywhere under his real name. Plus, this guy's been dogging us from the beginning. He's been stalking us and unleashing the demons at us at will. I think we should use that to our advantage.”

“How?” Heath asked.

I bounced my eyebrows because I knew
exactly
how we'd find them. “By making them come to us, baby.”

“How exactly are we going bring Bernard and Angelica to us?” Gilley demanded.

“Well,” I began, “if I had to guess, I'd say that Bernie and Angie really want to get noticed, right? Their goal is probably to get on camera and show off their skills by saving the day. But in order to do that, they'd need to be in control of the spooks, because, let's face it, as mediums, those two suck.”

Gil snorted. “Angelica in particular was just god-awful,” he said.

“She was,” I agreed. “So, if we post something online suggesting that we're going to be busting a haunted apartment house and filming it to show off our skills to those people who might think we're big fat fakers, how could Bernard resist showing up with the dagger and unleashing his little demon horde at us? It's win-win for him, especially if one or all of the
demons kill us. He'll get to make his grand entrance on camera as a gifted medium who felt a disturbance in the force and came to save the day.”

“Wait,” Gilley said, his expression alarmed. “You
want
him to open up Oruç's portal?”

“No,” I admitted, feeling a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. “But I don't see how we can avoid it. Bernard has the dagger. He's in control of the portal. The only way to get to him is to survive the gauntlet.”

The room was very quiet after that, and I knew that they all saw that I was right. “I don't like it, Em,” Heath said.

“Me neither, sweetheart, but what other choice do we have? It's too big of a risk to hope that Bernard doesn't choose some other crowded event to unleash the dagger so that he can garner some attention.”

“You think he'll be lured to a concert or a mall or something over our little get-together?” Gil said. “I mean, he'd have a
much
bigger audience.”

“True,” I said. “But he'd also have a hell of a lot more risk with it. He already tried to orchestrate a big disruption at our event, and that failed miserably.”

Chris took a deep breath and raised her eyes skyward as if she were sending up a prayer. “I'm in.”

“You
are
?” Gilley asked her. “Sorry,” he added quickly. “I mean . . . you are?”

She grinned. “Yeah. I figure if my dad sees me making captain someday, then I'll probably survive the night. You guys also need all the help you can get, so tell me how to fight these spooks and I'll do it.”

I sent her a grateful smile, then turned to Gilley. He rolled his eyes. “If you weren't pregnant, M.J., no
way
would I walk into an ambush like that.”

I let out the breath I'd been holding. “Thanks, Gil,” I said.

He scowled irritably at me but picked up his laptop again and began to write the post I'd mentioned to our fan page. “If that kid turns out to be a boy, or if you ever have a boy, you'd better name him after me,” he grumbled.

“That goes without saying,” I said, ignoring the sharp look I got from Heath. Our children could have more than one middle name.

At last I turned to Heath. There was no question that he'd join us, but I did wonder if he'd put up a fight to exclude me in the brawl with the spooks. I gave him a few moments to think about it before I said, “You can't do this without me, and I wouldn't let you even if you could. We either use everything we've got to get the dagger back and put Bernie behind bars, or we're chased by these spooks for the rest of our lives.”

Heath sighed. “For the record, I wasn't going to try to talk you out of it. I just want us to use every available precaution, and I'm worried about the timing.”

“What do you mean you're worried about the timing?” Chris asked.

“We barely have time to prep, let alone set a trap.”

Gilley finished typing, then leaned forward with interest. “Trap?”

Heath nodded. “You don't think I'd let us walk in
there without orchestrating how it's gonna go down, do you?”

I smiled. “I'll get some paper and a pen. Let's map this puppy out.”

•   •   •

Several hours later, we were huddled in my kitchen, going over the plan from start to finish. It'd been a herculean effort to bring it together. Gilley especially had really come through for us, and he'd so cleverly thought of a way to hide the trap that I felt less trepidation than I probably should've about how things would unfold.

Olivera had left us only to go home and grab some extra clothes. She was dressed in them now—and they covered her thin form rather well. She wore a baseball cap with the brim pulled low and an oversized Windbreaker that hid her Kevlar vest.

She was wearing the bulletproof stuff for a reason, and that was that she'd insisted on bringing her gun. “Bernard's got a knife,” she told us. “You don't bring a spike to a knife fight if you want to win. You bring a big black gun.”

I had to give her points for coming up with that argument. Also for the fact that she was probably right: If we spotted Bernard, he'd be dangerous. The spirit of Oruç could take hold of him in a heartbeat, and the Turkish warlord wasn't going to give a crap if Bernie lost his life. He'd find some other hapless person to possess and do his bidding.

Still, I'd insisted that Chris pack some extra magnets inside her vest and her boots. Oruç could as easily
possess Chris as he could Bernard, and the last thing I needed was for the lone person with a gun to become possessed by a murderous, psychopathic ghost.

As for Oruç's demon and his merry crew of spooks of Christmas past, Gilley had spent the entire evening crafting a weapon that we hoped would level our playing field.

The idea actually came from Chris's argument that you don't bring a spike to a dagger fight. You bring a gun. That sparked a very creative idea for Gilley, who began to draft a design on paper, and then spent the next few hours tinkering.

In the end we all marveled at his genius. “It's perfect,” I said, hugging his arm.

“It's not,” he insisted, that worry line in his forehead creasing deeply. “If all the batteries drain, we're dead in the water.”

“Then we should house them in magnets,” I said. “And, we'll have to hope that luck is on our side.”

Chris picked up the movie camera—which was actually a fake. The outside was simply a housing for a large magnetizer locked away inside. “How is this gonna work, exactly?”

“Like a gun,” Gil said. “If you point it at something made of metal, it'll magnetize the crap out of it.”

As a demonstration, Gilley took the camera from her and pointed it at my utensil drawer. He then pulled the trigger on the handle of the movie camera. A moment later we all heard a series of clinks. I opened the drawer and took out several forks, which were stuck together. “You are so freaking cool!” I said to Gil.

He beamed and returned the camera back to Chris. Using air quotes, he said, “You're going to be our ‘cameraperson,' so you've gotta make it look like you're recording M.J., Heath, and me. If M.J.'s right, and Bernard shows up with the dagger, he'll unleash the demons first, but he shouldn't be too far away. While we're all dealing with the monsters, you've gotta track down Bernard and fire that thing straight at him.”

“Will it take him out?” she asked.

Gilley snorted. “Not hardly. It won't have any effect on him. But if you keep your finger on the trigger, it should neutralize or even kill the portal housed in Oruç's dagger. What I'm banking on is that his demagnetizer will have required a really big charge to open the portal and supply the spooks coming through it with lots of wattage. That takes away from his gadget's ability to keep the dagger demagnetized, and as my gizmo is
only
focused on magnetizing the dagger, he'll run out of juice long before we will. Once that portal is shut down, the spooks won't be able to draw power from it, and they can be neutralized. We've got enough magnets and spikes to do that.”

I nodded as Gilley spoke. I liked our chances, but Heath didn't seem nearly as enthused as I felt. “What?” I asked him quietly.

He shook his head. “Everything depends on Chris finding Bernard in time,” he said. “And we haven't even accounted for Angelica. What if she's going to provide him with backup?”

“Is there another way?” I asked him. “I mean,
because if you can think of something better, honey, I swear I'm all ears.”

Heath pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I can't think of one, and I've been trying to all night.”

“Then we just go in there with all we've got and keep our fingers crossed, okay?” Heath gave a reluctant nod and I turned my attention back to Gilley, who was speaking.

“. . . should split up the backup batteries for the camera. We can't have Chris carry all of them.”

“Why not?” she asked.

I said, “Because if you get zapped with a power drain, or if the magnets protecting the batteries get demagnetized before you get to Bernard, and a spook then drains all of them, then we're totally screwed. Everything depends on Gilley's gizmo. And it takes a big charge. If we don't have power to feed it, we've got no hope.”

Chris turned a little pale. “No hope of what? Overcoming Bernard? Taking out the spooks? Making it out alive?”

“All of the above,” I told her, and there was no humor in my voice. I was dead serious.

“Great,” she said, tucking the tightly packed
batteries into the top of her vest. “No pressure on me to get the batteries switched out fast or anything either.”

“Practice,” Heath told her firmly. “On the way to the Commons. You have to be fast, Chris, and you can't mess up.”

She glared at him a little. “Like I said, thanks for not putting pressure on my role in this thing.”

“You volunteered,” Gilley said drolly.

I thought we might be ganging up a little too much on Chris, so before she could snap at him, I said, “You'll do great, Chris. You will. I have total faith in you.”

She attempted a smile, and it was almost convincing.

Taking a deep breath, I pointed to the clock. “It's nearly midnight. We gotta go.”

Grabbing our gear, which was no small feat, as we were bringing as much as we could carry, we headed down the stairs single file and without a word. It was like that on the drive over to Ashworth Commons too, except about ten minutes into the drive, Heath, who was at the wheel, said, “Someone's following us.”

I almost turned to look over my shoulder, but Heath reached for my hand and said, “Don't. They'll know we know.”

“It's gotta be Bernard,” Gil said from his spot in the backseat. He was still fidgeting with the giant spikes he was bringing along.

“Good,” I said. “Let him come to us.” After another slight pause I added, “Chris, when you get out of
the car, make a big show with the camera. Pretend you're filming the building so that Bernard can see we've come to record.

She said, “I could make a call and have him pulled over in less than three minutes.”

“No!” the three of us said at once. I explained, “If you have a couple of beat cops pull him over, one of two or both of these scenarios is likely to go down: Bernard unleashes the demon from Oruç's dagger and you have a couple of filleted cops, and/or he unleashes the demon
and
he lets Oruç take possession of him, and you have a filleted cop and a stabbing victim.”

“He could also let Oruç take possession of one of the beat cops,” Gilley said. “He could save the demon for us and turn one cop against the other.”

I shuddered and snuck a peek over my shoulder at Chris. She was mimicking my body language. “Sweet Jesus,” I heard her whisper. “Fine, no extra manpower.”

About ten minutes later we pulled up in front of Ashworth Commons. The rain hadn't let up all day, which made the atmosphere perfect for taking out some spooks.

When we got out, Chris did a great job of pretending to film the exterior of the building while we grabbed our gear and made our way to the side entrance. Heath led the way and held the door for us as we all filed in.

Once inside he pointed to the stairwell. “We need to take the high ground. Fourth floor, you guys.”

“What about Gertie?” I asked.

“She'll have to hide in one of her apartments. We can't worry about placating her tonight. We gotta keep the top floor so Bernard and Angelica can't get above us and trap us between two sets of demons.”

“Okay,” I said, falling into line to head up the stairs.

“Where do you want me?” Chris asked as she brought up the line.

Heath said, “Stick behind me until I clear a path for you through whatever's gonna come up those stairs. Once I do that, you head down and start clearing floors, looking for Bernard. Once you find him, point that camera at him and don't stop firing until you run completely out of juice.”

“What about the backup battery that M.J. has?” Chris asked.

I patted my right chest pocket subconsciously. The battery was safely tucked into my vest and was itself covered in magnets.

“If you need it, send up a war cry before you have to use your last battery,” I told her with a slight grin at Heath. “I'll come find you. Don't you worry about it.”

“Where am I?” Gilley asked as we crested the second-floor landing.

“You'll be behind M.J., supporting her with that bag of tricks, buddy,” Heath said. “If she gets in trouble, you get her out of it, you get me?”

Heath had said that a little forcefully, and Gilley and I exchanged a look of surprise. I'd almost always been the one to protect Gil, not the other way around, but then I realized that Heath was asking Gilley to step
up more than he ever had. Gil didn't get it, though, and he said, “I have to bail her out of trouble?”

Heath paused and rounded on Gilley. Poking him in the chest, he said, “Gillespie, you're braver and stronger than you think, man. Don't you remember earlier today when you fended off the Grim Widow? You always sell yourself short, and I'm sick of it. And what's more, we don't have time for it. You gotta step it up, dude. That's my
wife
,” he added, pointing to me. “And she's carrying my kid, and if anything happens to her or the baby, I will never, ever, ever forgive myself. So I'm counting on you to come through for me just like you did today. Understand?”