The Ghoul Next Door (22 page)

“What about Ken?” I asked.

Tracy shrugged. “After Gracie died, I didn’t see Ken again for, like, six months. The next time he came back in was just after Christmas and what was so weird was the guy was covered in crosses.”

My forkful of salad paused on its way to my mouth. “Covered in crosses?”

Tracy waved her hand over her chest. “Yeah. He was wearing like ten crucifixes and had a couple more pinned to his coat. I didn’t know if he’d gotten super religious or what, and I didn’t ask. I just pretended to be really happy to see him. Anyway, he sorta sat down and ordered a beer, and he’d completely changed. Like I said, Ken used to have an edge to him, but when he started showing up again, it was like that edge was sharper. Meaner. Darker.” Tracy shrugged a second time and she seemed at a loss as to how to completely convey what Ken was like now. “He creeps me out and all the crosses and the fact that he barely talks anymore sort of makes me want to keep my distance from him, but it’s hard to get away when you’re stuck behind a bar, you know?”

“Has he ever threatened you?” I asked. I had a feeling the crucifixes were to ward off Sy the Slayer, but I wanted to be sure.

Tracy shook her head. “No,” she said, but I could tell she had more to say. “I mean, not in a way that would make me want to call the police, but every once in a while I’ll be working, you know, in the weeds a little and the bar will be packed and all of the sudden the hair on the back of my neck will stand up on end and I’ll feel goose bumps on my arms, and I don’t know—it’s like there’s a change in the atmosphere, and I’ll stop and look around and Ken will be looking at me like he wants nothing more than to do really bad things to me. I can’t explain it other than—”

Tracy stopped midsentence and her gaze traveled to the door.

“What?” Heath and I both whispered to her.

“Speak of the devil,” she said.

We turned slightly and looked behind us, spying a man in his mid to late thirties with dirty blond hair, unshaven, a little unkempt, and his own gaze firmly on the floor. He started to shuffle our way and Heath and I both turned our attention back to our lunch. Ken took a seat at the bar and Tracy greeted him warmly, but I could detect the false note in her voice.

Ken muttered something unintelligible and I eyed him discreetly. He took off his coat and I could see half a dozen necklaces wrapped around his neck; each had a crucifix dangling from the chain. He crossed himself as the beer he’d obviously ordered was set in front of him. “Your usual, Ken?” Tracy asked him.

He grunted but didn’t look at her. Then I noticed he had started muttering under his breath, and although I couldn’t quite catch what he was saying, I swore it sounded like the Lord’s Prayer.

Tracy turned and put her back to Ken as she made a face for us like, “See? He’s a freak!” We nodded subtly.

Heath and I continued to eat in silence, both of us sneaking glances at Ken here and there. As we were wrapping up our lunch, Ken’s burger and fries arrived and he finally lifted his chin to mutter a thanks to Tracy. As he did so, however, something really odd happened. I’d been watching Ken subtly, taking in the way he fiddled with his crucifixes and noting that he was clearly right-handed, but as he finished thanking Tracy, something in his expression changed. It was almost exactly what Heath and I had experienced with Guy Walker. In an instant he became someone else; even his voice changed as he said Tracy’s name.

She hid it well, but even she seemed startled and somewhat alarmed. She backed up and headed straight for the kitchen, and as she passed by us, I could see the goose pimples lining her arms.

Ken lifted the burger and did something else really odd. He sniffed it. The burger was dripping with juices—I could tell it was quite rare—and the way he sniffed at it was revolting to me.

Ken then snickered and put down the burger. Turning to me, he looked me dead in the eyes. “Hello, Mary.”

I heard Heath’s breath catch and felt his hand immediately go to the small of my back.

Ken then took his left index finger and swirled it in the juices from the burger on his plate. Lifting it then to put it in his mouth, he made an
Mmmm
sound and I felt my stomach muscles clench.

Heath stood up, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his wallet. Taking out a twenty and a ten, he laid it down on the bar and grabbed my elbow. “Let’s go.”

“Leaving so soon, Mary?” Ken said. “And here I thought we could have a playdate together.”

I took Heath’s hand and let him pull me quickly toward the door.

“Maybe next time, then,” Ken called, and he followed that with a wicked laugh that sent my skin crawling.

Once we were outside, I said, “We can’t leave Tracy to deal with that!”

Heath hesitated, looking back toward the bar door, and I could tell he was really torn. That spook had tried to get inside his head down on Comm Avenue, and I wondered if it might try again. It was dangerous to let him get too close to the spook. And it was clearly dangerous to let me get too close to Ken. We had no magnets with us. We were completely vulnerable.

Heath solved the problem by taking out his phone and punching the screen. “Hi, I’m outside Sheedy’s Place on Knox Avenue and I think I see smoke coming out of the roof and it smells like something electrical might be burning. I don’t know if there’s a fire up there, but maybe somebody should check it out?”

With that, Heath hung up and grabbed my hand again and we were rushing toward the car. Once inside we hunkered down and waited as a series of sirens began to sound in the distance. They got closer and closer and within another minute there were two fire trucks parked outside the bar. The patrons and staff came out soon after, and Heath and I watched Tracy hover safely with the other employees as Ken, back in his coat with his head down and crossing himself, ambled down the street without a backward glance.

Heath and I then got out of the car and approached the small group of employees. We motioned to Tracy and she pushed her way over to us. “Listen,” Heath said, handing over his business card to her. “I want you to stay away from Ken. Tell your manager that he skipped out on his bill or something, but make him persona non grata from now on, okay?”

She took his card and appeared a little confused. “I don’t know that I can do that.”

“You can, Tracy,” I told her. “And you will. He’s dangerous in more ways than you know. You have to stay away from him.”

Tracy licked her lips. “Yeah, okay. He really is creepy.”

“And no leaving the bar without an escort either,” Heath said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If you get scared, or stuck in that place alone at night, you call me on the number on the card. That’s my cell. I always answer, no matter what time, day or night.”

Tracy smiled up at him, a look of wonder in her eyes. “Wow,” she said. “You’re so nice.”

“I have my moments,” he said, grinning back. “Just stay safe, okay?”

“You don’t think Ken actually wants to hurt me, do you?”

“I don’t know what that guy wants to do, Tracy, which is why you need to be really careful from now on, okay?”

“Should I call the police?”

“Not unless he tries something or gets upset that he’s not allowed in the bar anymore. If he says or does anything that’s threatening, you get a restraining order, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay. Thanks, you guys.”

We left Tracy about the time the firemen had cleared the building. We avoided eye contact with them, and hoped the guilty looks on our faces didn’t give us away. Still, it was the only way to make sure that Tracy was safe from the likes of Sy the Slayer.

Heath and I then walked down the block to the next street and turned left, keeping a careful eye out as we went. We got to the alley behind the bar and peered warily into it.

It smelled of stale beer and garbage. Not exactly inviting. Heath and I proceeded into the alley, and I flipped on my sixth sense, “feeling” out the energy of the place. I also knew that Heath did the same.

We walked slowly and cautiously, constantly looking behind us to make sure Ken hadn’t come into the alley, but for the most part we were alone. We got to the door that we suspected was for Sheedy’s, and Heath tried the handle. It was locked. Good.

Then I looked at him with a silent question. “I don’t feel her,” he said.

“Let’s head down a little further.”

We walked another few yards to the large Dumpster—which I assumed had been the crime scene for Gracie’s murder—and poked around the area, but there was nothing left in the ether to feel out. The area was sort of dense with the comings and goings of people cutting through the alley, from the bar, from other shops, the garbage trucks, etc., etc. It was impossible to cut through all that “noise” to get to Gracie’s murder, and neither of us could sense her ghost, so it was likely that she’d already crossed over.

Mentally I tried to reach out to her spirit, but I got nothing. I could tell Heath also tried, but it was radio silence.

At last we gave up and headed back to the car.

“Now what?” I asked Heath as he started up the engine.

He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Did you see how Ken switched hands?” he asked me. “He was right-handed up until the spook took him over.”

“I did notice that. Which means he could be a suspect for Brook’s murder. If he’s been under the spook’s influence for this long, maybe he’s turned into a killer who doesn’t need a spook to do his dirty work.”

“The guy is definitely whacked,” Heath said. “And what the hell was he mumbling?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it was the Lord’s Prayer. I think Ken is super freaked-out by Sy the Slayer getting into his head and he’s doing whatever he can to keep him out. What’s scary is that it seems to be the case that once this spook has ahold of you, he doesn’t seem to want to let go. I’m caught between feeling sorry for these guys and wondering if they were already bad men who would’ve murdered anyway.”

“Tracy did say Ken had an edge to him even before Gracie was murdered,” Heath said, staring out the window moodily.

My phone rang at that moment and it made me jump. I answered it and heard Kendra say, “Guess what!”

“You found out who owns the house on Stoughton Street?” I asked hopefully.

“No,” she said, her voice still excited. “Dan Foster has agreed to an interview. We go in tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Great,” I said, but there was no enthusiasm behind the sentiment. “Swing by my place and pick me up?”

“Sure. I just dropped Gilley off at his condo and he said he lives one floor below you, so I know where it is. By the way, Gilley is supercute.”

Kendra had already changed tracks, but I was still contemplating the interview with Dan Foster. I knew the spook was going to make an appearance, and Kendra had no idea what she was in for.

Kendra chatted at me about Gilley for another minute or two before promising to pick me up the next morning between nine and nine thirty and I hung up.

“Trouble?” Heath asked when I tucked my phone away.

“Isn’t there always?”

Kendra arrived at my door promptly at nine. Gilley was in my kitchen, conspicuously hanging around, pretending to want coffee. This was after an entire late afternoon the day before where he’d complained and complained about how clueless Kendra was not to spot the obvious and how she’d practically hung all over him. “Girl has no gaydar . . . at all. It got embarrassing!”

And yet, I’d learned that after I ducked out on them, the pair had soon grown bored researching the Stoughton house and opted for a quick bite at a nearby restaurant that had turned into several hours of lively conversation, giggles, and appletinis. I wondered if Gilley realized that he’d just been on a date with a girl.

So, when Kendra arrived with her cleavage pushed up, a fresh coat of lipstick, and boots with heels high enough for her to wobble on, I knew that Gil had a problem.

Still, he flirted and she flirted back for ten minutes before she boldly wrapped her arm around his middle and said, “I think you and I should go out. How about Saturday night?”

To which Gilley immediately stiffened and said, “Uh . . . Kendra, you should know something about me.”

“Uh-oh,” she said, but still in that playful flirtatious voice. “Sounds serious.”

“It is.”

“What is it?”

“I’m engaged.”

I leveled a look at Gil. The little bastard. Why he didn’t just tell her he was gay was beyond me, but maybe he was thinking of letting her down easy.

“You’re engaged?” she said, immediately letting go of him. “For real?”

Gil nodded solemnly, and then his phone rang. “There’s my fiancé,” he said.

“What’s her name?” Kendra asked, her hands finding her hips.

“Michel.”

Well, at least that part wasn’t a complete lie.

Kendra harrumphed and glared at Gil while he took the call with an exuberant, “Hey, sugar, you’re up early!”

I waved at her and motioned for the door and we left a red-faced Gil to talk to his “fiancé.”

“Men are such pigs,” Kendra said as we got in the car.

“Some of them can be,” I said. “But some are really wonderful.”

“You referring to your boyfriend?”

“I am. He’s pretty great.”

“Yeah, well hold on to him, M.J., because all the ones I meet are either born liars or gay.”

Little did Kendra know she’d just flirted with both.

“Oh!” she said suddenly. “I almost forgot. Look what one of my assistants found!”

Kendra handed over her smartphone and I looked at the display. It was a photo of a group of what looked like hospital staff and other people in business attire. Behind the group was a sign that read
WINSTON SENIOR CENTER ELDER CARE FUND
, and as I squinted at the faces, one stood out.

“That’s Luke,” I said, pointing to his image.

“Yep. Guess who he’s standing next to.”

I looked and saw Luke’s sister, Courtney, standing to his left. “That’s his sister, Dr. Decker,” I said. I searched the group for Steven’s face, but didn’t see him.

“Look to Luke’s right,” Kendra said.

I did and there was a woman with long wavy brown hair and a tremendous smile. She looked both relieved and excited. “I don’t know her.”

“You should,” Kendra said.

“Why should I?”

“Because that’s Brook Astor.”

I gasped and felt a sense of dread settle into my midsection. Luke had his arm wrapped around her waist. They were definitely friendly.

“She worked at the hospital a couple of years ago. She was the fund-raising coordinator for the hospital and the elder care center across the street.”

“When did she quit?” I asked, still staring at the photo.

“Not long after that picture was taken. At that time, her ex was a resident at the hospital and, according to my source, a nurse who was friends with Brook, the split was hard on her—she learned that her ex had cheated on her, and she hadn’t seen it coming. The nurse also said that, for a short period of time, Brook and Luke hung out together.”

My eyes widened. “Hung out how exactly?”

Kendra shrugged. “Don’t really know for sure, but the rumors suggest that they were more than just friends. The nurse suspected something was up, and she was shocked by it because Luke’s about ten years younger than Brook. She thought Brook might’ve been leaning on Luke to get her through the divorce. She said she thought maybe he didn’t take their split so well.”

I sighed and handed Kendra back her cell. This was looking worse and worse for Luke, and I had to question my theory that he wasn’t a murderer all over again.

I told Kendra a little about what’d happened with Heath and me at the bar the day before. She was riveted, but I could also see some of the skepticism in her eyes. “So, was this Ken Chamblis ever listed as a suspect in the investigation?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. Heath and I couldn’t find out much online. I was hoping maybe you had a source at the police station that could look into it.”

“Oh, I do and I will.”

“Also,” I said, “if you can possibly ask your source whether or not there’s any indication in the autopsy report of a right-handed or left-handed killer in Gracie’s murder, I’d appreciate it.”

“Which hand was Ken’s dominant?”

“Right, until the spook took him over—then he became a left-hander.”

“That is so freaky!”

I then tried to prepare her for the same possibility happening to Dan Foster during our interview. “Which reminds me,” she said, completely unfazed by the thought of Foster becoming possessed by an evil spirit. “You’ll have to hold the camera during the interview. I was going to bring Mike, my camera guy, but we’re only allowed two people in at a time.”

Kendra then fished around in the small pocket next to her seat and brought up a sheet of paper. “These are the questions I’m going to ask. Can you take a look and let me know if I’ve left anything out?”

I took the paper and peered at the list of questions. I was shocked by how terrible they were. Kendra was obviously interested in poking the bear, because most of her questions were meant to bait Foster into admitting he’d killed Bethany Sullivan—something he’d steadfastly refused to do throughout his trial. There were a few token questions at the end where Kendra was humoring me by asking Foster if he felt possessed by an evil spirit at the time of the murder, or if he often heard the voice of a ghost telling him to do bad things. It was a joke. And it ticked me off.

“Kendra,” I said evenly. “If this is what you plan to ask Foster, then I’m not going with you and you can pull over right now and let me out.”

She turned her attention away from the traffic to stare at me. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious.”

“M.J.,” she said, curling her hands tightly around the steering wheel, “I went through a lot of trouble to set up this interview. Something
you
asked me to do.”

“Yes, I wanted your help getting in to see Foster, but if you’re gonna treat this as an opportunity to get his confession on camera and turn my investigation into a joke, then I want no part of it.”

“I didn’t say it was a joke!” she yelled.

I lifted the interview sheet. “Mr. Foster, do you often hear the voices of evil spirits urging you to kill innocent women?”

Kendra’s face reddened. “I thought it’d be in line with what you were after.”

I shook my head. “We’ll never get to that question because either your first, second, or third question is gonna make him stand up and walk out of the interview.” Kendra glared at me, but I wasn’t backing down. This little chat with Foster was too important. “Kendra, you’re putting him on the defensive, and the reason he granted us the interview is because we let him know we believed there was another force at work here. We have to go in there making him believe we’re there to help him. This is not the time to hit him with some gotcha journalism.”

With narrowed eyes, Kendra shifted her gaze away from me and focused on driving in silence for the next few minutes. At last she grudgingly muttered, “Fine, M.J. We’ll play it your way. Tell me what you want me to ask him and I’ll ask.”

But I didn’t trust her. I suspected the reporter in her was just a little too ingrained and I was really starting to doubt this whole plan. “I should do the talking,” I said.

She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“M.J.,” she said, using as level a tone as I’d used earlier, “I asked you along as a courtesy. I could’ve taken Mike in with me and left you behind.”

“You think this’ll be fun for me?” I shot back. “Kendra, you have
no
idea what we’re up against. I know you don’t quite believe any of this is real, but I’m here to tell you that it is, and we are playing with forces that are incredibly dangerous. If you start underestimating the potential danger involved in exposing yourself to Dan Foster and by extension the evil spirit who may be taking over his mind, then you expose yourself to a danger you will be completely unprepared to handle.”

She rolled her eyes. “Foster’s behind glass,” she said. “There’s no way he can hurt me.”

“Ken Chamblis is still out there,” I replied. “And maybe there’re others, Kendra. That closet had seven names and we’ve only accounted for five of them. And that still doesn’t answer the question of who the right-handed killer of Brook Astor is.”

Kendra lifted her phone with the fund-raising photo and waved it at me. “Obviously Luke’s the guilty one,” she snapped. “I mean, come on, how much proof do you need?”

“It wasn’t Luke,” I said firmly. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced, but Brook was stabbed by a right-handed killer, and Luke was a left-hander. Even if Sy the Slayer had taken over Luke’s mind at the time of the murder, he wouldn’t have switched Luke over to using his right hand, because Sy was also a lefty. I knew that was a threadbare thing to cling to, but I just couldn’t believe that Luke had committed that murder.

“This is my story,” Kendra said, and I could tell we were close to the point where she would grant my wish not to go with her to the interview, and pull over to let me out.

“I’m not trying to take the story away from you,” I replied, and then I had an idea. “Hey, you know what? Maybe there’s a way we can work together on this and still have it appear as if you’re asking the questions. I know that sometimes when a reporter is interviewing someone, there’s a sort of dub over of the reporter’s questions if the sound quality isn’t so great or the lighting is bad. What if I ask the questions, we get Dan to answer on camera, and then, later, we can dub you in asking the same questions?”

Kendra seemed to think that over. “Yeah,” she said at last. “That could work.”

“Cool,” I said, relief in my voice. But then I felt a moment of panic when I realized that I’d have to carry the entire interview with Foster. I had no idea who was gonna show up for the interview—whether we’d get Dan for the whole time, or if Sy would even make an appearance. And I wasn’t even sure I
wanted
Sy to show up. He scared the hell out of me, but I knew I also had to convince Kendra of his existence if she was going to take us seriously and continue to help us with the investigation.

In the few minutes that remained, I tried to mentally prepare for either scenario with Foster and felt the sudden presence of Sam Whitefeather—my spirit guide—step close to my energy. I relaxed a little, knowing he was extending me what protection he could from the other side.

Kendra and I had to show our IDs and press passes to be allowed into the back lot where the county lockup was. As Foster hadn’t been sentenced yet, he was still being held by Suffolk County. He’d be transferred to a state pen as soon as his sentence came down.

We went through more ID checks and a similar process to the one Heath and I had faced a few days before when we’d gone to see Guy Walker; then we were escorted into a fairly large concrete-block room. What alarmed me was that there was no glass separating us from the prisoner. There was simply a table with two chairs on one side and one chair on the other. We’d be face-to-face with Foster, and I could see Kendra fidget nervously with the camera while we waited. She hadn’t expected this setup either.

We sat in silence for maybe fifteen minutes before the far door opened and in shuffled Dan Foster. He wore handcuffs and leg shackles and a loop of chain around his middle. A guard escorted him in and kept one hand on Foster’s back as he made his way slowly over to the table.

Foster kept his eyes down, not, I suspected, because he was ashamed, but because he was trying not to trip. The leg shackles only allowed him to take very small steps, and I will admit that I felt not an ounce of sympathy for him because if Sy the Slayer came in at any time, those shackles could be the difference between life and death for Kendra and me.

Foster took his seat and put his hands up on the table. The chain from his waist made a loud clatter against the table before he finally settled into a fairly comfortable position.

Bethany’s killer looked us over and I let him without saying a word. I could sense Kendra wanted me to say something to get the party started, but I had to be slow and careful here. At last Foster sat back and seemed to stare at us expectantly.

“Hello, Mr. Foster,” I said softly. I wanted to keep my voice as level and calm as I could.

“You the reporter?” he asked, looking from me to Kendra, who was holding a small camera and recording the interview.

“I am today,” I said.

He cocked his head quizzically, but I didn’t elaborate. Instead I said, “As we said in our e-mail, we’re here to talk to you about the house on Stoughton Street.”

Foster’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but it was odd, because I could almost detect some contempt there too. I studied him closely. His nose was crooked and it’d obviously been broken more than once, and there was something about the set of his jaw that made me think that might’ve been broken too. His knuckles were thick the way a boxer’s were, and when I looked into his eyes, I knew he was no innocent. There was an edge to him—probably the exact same kind of edge that Tracy had described belonging to Ken Chamblis.

“That house is a bad place,” I told him, attempting to gain his trust. “It’s a place where decent guys begin to have nightmares, and if you stay there long enough, you start to lose sleep, and you get the feeling that even when you’re away from the house, something from there is following you.”