Dead Sure?: A Paranormal Mystery (37 page)

*    *    *

Jack had been driving around for thirty minutes now, his mind in a daze. Maybe he should just give the stupid journal to Steve, then the crazy book wouldn’t be his problem anymore. Although something about that solution just didn’t feel right to him.
Why would he call me at work to get this old journal?
He thought, pulling the journal out of his tool belt while he waited for the light to change. He eyed it suspiciously, as if the thing had a mind of its own.

I’ve only got another fifteen minutes or so before Steve expects me at his place.
Pulling over, Jack thumbed through the journal, desperately trying to figure out why it was so important. Backtracking from the final few pages he had read for Rene several nights ago, Jack began to read intensely, searching for some justification not to just get rid of the troubling book. Nothing particularly interesting jumped out at him.

He just shook his head and skimmed back through the part where Sam Weston was mentioned.
Sam Weston, that’s just too much of a coincidence, that has to be my great uncle. I wish there was more to read.
Jack flipped past the last written page, and, squinting at the blank page, he could see pen indentations. A closer inspection revealed that several pages had been neatly cut out of the journal.
These indents might be from the missing pages and not this last one. This could be good;
he thought excitedly, reaching for the tool belt he had thrown hastily onto the back seat. Jack rifled through the belt and quickly found what he was looking for; a builder’s pencil.

With a gentle sideways motion, he began to move the pencil back and forth across the blank page. Slowly, ever so slowly, words began to appear out of the nothingness. He hadn’t done something like this since he was a kid and read about it in a mystery book. Who would have thought a silly trick like this might actually apply to real life?

Well, things at the museum didn’t go as planned. I encountered an unknown assailant, who I fear is one of the Scarafini Gang. He killed my partner Reggie and very nearly did the same to me. I fear the fact that he showed up at the museum may mean Angela’s dead. She hasn’t arrived at the rendezvous point yet. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. We didn’t really have a backup plan. This one just had to work, and now in hindsight, not having a plan b was foolish. Maybe just writing my thoughts down will help me think more clearly.

She’s already an hour late; maybe I’ll give her another half hour before I go looking for her.

My search for Angela has proved fruitless so far. I was unable to find any trace of her at the Foshay building. The party was long over and everyone had cleared out. Only the nighttime desk clerk was around. I drove around town for hours and found nothing. I could go back to her main house, but she made me promise not to. She said it would be too dangerous after tonight’s events. Still it might be the right thing to do.

First I have to hide that medallion once and for all. Somewhere nobody will find it until the time is right. When will the time be right, and who should find it, and how? Perhaps someday my sweet grownup Rene Melissa can set things right, whatever that means.

I need to leave some type of cryptic clue and a cipher to extract the information. I’ll write the medallion’s whereabouts in code on the last couple pages of this journal, and as for the clue. I need to see that Lefty kid and give him my last will and testament. For a small amount of money, I’m sure he’ll make certain that my wishes are carried out when the time is right. 

Well, I can’t leave this page in the journal. It makes things just a little too obvious, and if it falls into the wrong hands I shudder to think about who else’s life’s might be torn apart. Writing it down really did help to sort things out and bring clarity.

Until the future meets the past!!!

Jack sat there in silent thought, rolling the details over in his mind.
Lefty is mentioned again in the journal. It couldn’t be, could it? I have the strangest feeling that it is my uncle. I can’t let this go, not yet, not without knowing more.

Picking up his cell phone and whipping it open, Jack dialed the number for information. “Hello, yes, I’d like the address for a Sam Weston,” he tried to say clearly, feeling a nervous energy inside of him building up.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t show a Sam Weston in the directory,” answered back a woman’s voice in a somewhat snippy tone.

Stunned, Jack just sat there for a second without replying.
I felt so sure about this.

“Sir, sir, do you need any further assistance?”

It’s a long shot but what the hell,
“How about a Lefty Weston?”

“Yes, I do show a listing for him. The address is listed as Sunny Meadows retirement home, 324 West Center Street.”

Jack scrawled it down quickly, thanking his lucky stars he’d tried Lefty.

*    *    *

A few minutes later, Jack was pulling into the parking lot of Sunny Meadows. The place looked nice enough on the outside. Jack had never been one that liked the idea of institutions; hospitals and old age homes gave him the creeps. He remembered for a brief moment visiting his grandma at one when he was really little. Walking in with all the old people staring at him, “what a cute little boy” they were saying. They all tried to pinch his cheeks or poke at him. The memory of it just gave him a small involuntary shiver.
Kind of ironic locating the place right across the street from a cemetery,
he thought, noticing the graveyard across the street on his way in. M
akes for a short trip, when you’re all through with your stay.

A fat black lady sat behind the main desk. “Can I help you, sir?” she said in a rather abrupt tone.

The woman was staring at him intently, and he found it kind of unnerving. “Yes, I’m looking for my Uncle Lefty Weston.”

“I knew you looked familiar. You look a lot like him, child, only much younger. I bet you’re just as much of a trouble-maker too,” she finished with a large smile showing a mouthful of beautiful white teeth.

The smile was genuine, and it helped warm Jack up a little. “Me a trouble-maker, I don’t think so, now Uncle Lefty, I could believe that.”

“Don’t you have a gift for him or something? Everyone needs a gift, honey, specially that man. I don’t remember the last time somebody came to visit him.”

Jack thought for a second, he wouldn’t have a clue what to get Uncle Lefty, other than maybe a six-pack of beer. He figured they would probably frown on that here. On the other hand, he did remember his dad and him always buying a tin of lemon drops before stopping over to visit Lefty when he was little. “No, I don’t have anything with me today. I wish I did.” Jack glanced at his watch nervously. He was now fifteen minutes overdue for his meeting with Mr. Yates.
This had better pan out in a big way.

The counter lady noticed Jack glancing at his watch. “I’m guessing you’re in a hurry. His room number is two- thirteen, but he hardly ever in there during the day.”

Jack noticed her name badge, “Janice, could you tell me where I might find him?”

“Well, if he isn’t up to his usual shenanigans, then he’s probably in the back garden. Otherwise, who knows where the man is. The rascal sneaks out of here all the time. The staff is always trying to locate him and bring him back. Honestly, he makes me laugh, child.” She flashed Jack another toothy grin.

“How do I get there?” Jack asked, smiling back. The woman’s smile was very infectious.

“Straight down the hall and take a right, than a left and out the double doors. I’d say you can’t miss it, but almost everybody does,” she laughed.

Jack started to walk away in the direction Janice had indicated.

“Don’t let him scare you with his crazy stories. He really could use more visitors,” she said loudly to Jack’s departing form.

*    *    *

After the dark hallway, the sunny garden was blinding. All Jack could do was squint as he began to walk around. There were elderly people walking all around the different trails that crisscrossed through flowerbed after flowerbed filled with multi-colored tapestries.

Slowly his eyes adjusted, and he began to wander in no particular direction hoping fate might lend him a hand. Several minutes later, sitting some distance away on a bench, he saw a familiar-looking face. Lefty was much older than he remembered and his hair was much greyer, but without mistake it was his uncle. 

Wow, the old guy is still alive. Now that I think about it, he was always old even when I was younger. The guy’s got to be in his early nineties.
Jack walked closer to him, his pace quickening. Drawing near, Jack stared hard at Uncle Lefty’s gaunt face, framed on either side by long gray hair tousled and hanging down to his shoulders. Lefty had a distinctive two inch scar that curled from his forehead straight down and under the black patch over his right eye. He remembered as a child how it scared him. Well, maybe not so much the scar, but how his uncle had yelled at him for asking about it.

Jack walked up and sat down. Lefty eyed him for a moment before looking away. To Jack, Lefty’s eye still appeared to be sharp; he was clearly still filled with the spark of life.

“How are you Lefty? Do you remember me, your nephew Jack?”

Still not looking at him, Lefty began to answer, “Of course I remember you, I’m old, not stupid! It’d be nice if you visited more often or perhaps ever.”

Whata say to that, he’s right. I haven’t seen him in, ooo, let’s see, twenty-some years. That was long before he lived at this place. 
“Well, I’m here now and that should count for something,”
perhaps I should be honest with him. Let him know I came because I want something from him. He’s still seems pretty with it.
“You know what; the truth is, I’m here because I want something. I need information.”

Lefty turned to look at him. He smiled through the many wrinkles that crisscrossed his thin face. Sincerely and with a steady gaze, he replied, “I appreciate your honesty, Jack, and if I can help you I’ll do it. What is it you need to know?”

“I found this old journal. Well, not me personally, but some friends of mine. A series of odd events has placed the journal with me. I started reading it on request and, shockingly, found references to you in it. The journal belonged to a Tim Bartington.”

Lefty grew pale at the mention of it. “I knew something was brewing, I just knew it,” he said with a slight tremble to his voice.

“What do you mean, something is brewing? I haven’t even told you any details yet.”

“I don’t need details. I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s long overdue.”

“Uncle Lefty, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Quite speedily for an old man, Lefty grabbed both of Jack’s hands, and stared hard at him. “You think I forgot, didn’t you, but I remember you asking me about this scar.” Letting go with one of his hands, the old man traced his pointer finger over it. “Today, I’m going to tell you about it.”

Jack was surprised at the power of his grip. For an extremely old man, he sure didn’t appear to be getting feeble. “The scar is not what I came here to talk about. Although, I’m sure it’s a very fascinating story.”

Sounding very cross, Lefty replied, “The truth is, you don’t have a clue what you’re messed up with and what you’re digging into. I’d tell you to let it be, however, I think it’s way too late for that.”

Lefty’s touch felt very cold to Jack, and he shivered involuntarily. The cross tone had taken him right back to being a little boy again, sitting on his uncle’s lap. “Listen, that’s definitely a story I would like to hear someday, just not today. Now, if you’re going to help me I have some questions to ask you.”

Uncle Lefty began to speak, his gaze shifting away from Jack and staring off into the distance. “It was just several days ago that I saw her again. She was as young and beautiful as ever. I tried to talk with her, but she just began to fade away.”

Maybe I was wrong about this old crackpot. He had a lucid moment and now he’s just blathering.
Jack pulled lose from the old man’s grip and began to get up. Before he could get several steps, he froze in his tracks.

“Angela, I said, it’s me, Lefty, I can help you solve this mystery.”

Jack turned back, “Why did you stop?”

“You didn’t want to hear it. You just think I’m some old fool. Maybe so, but I have information that you want. I guarantee it.”

“Fine,” Jack snapped back, “it’s possible I’m being a bit too hasty. Angela, you said, what about her? She is mentioned in the journal.”

“I know that, she and Tim were paying me to spy on Charles and feed him bad information about the two of them. Charles turned out to be one ruthless son-of-a-bitch. I was young and foolish, thought I knew what I was doing,” he said, shaking his head. “Then again, Angela and Tim thought they knew what they were doing.”

“So what happened?” Jack said, looking at Lefty intently.

“To make a long story short, Tim came to me several days before his death. He was hurt pretty badly. It appeared to me, the man may have been shot. Tim handed me a stack of cash, more than I had ever seen in my young lifetime. Then he made me promise to carry out one specific wish in the will that he gave me. Said he had no one else to trust.”