The Haunting of Anna McAlister (26 page)

“Ah, yeah but . . .”

“Also, if we are caught my friend could lose his job.”

Job
, Anna thought. The word sounded like it was from a different world. She remembered back to when her job was the most important thing she had to worry about.
When Jeffrey was alive.
She thought about how upset they would become with Tony over an account or having to answer the eternal questions, “What-cha-workin-on?” It all seemed so simple, so clean. I miss Tony, she thought and started to laugh.
Girl you are losing it now.

“Why are you laughing?” Phillipe asked.
 

“Never mind, honey.”
Why did I call him honey?
“Let’s get to work.”

Chapter 24

Even translated, the language in the police report was terse, direct and graphic.
 

It detailed the murder of Ariene LaMoreau in language void of emotion or concern. Somehow, to Anna, that made it all sound even more frightening.
 

The reports described how Ariene had been found with her arms and legs tied to the four corners of the bed with leather straps.
 

Like Belts? Anna thought.
 

She had many puncture wounds and cuts, as well as “several dozen” deeper stabs and lacerations. The report said several of her fingers had been “hacked” away, and that her head had been removed and was missing.
 

Phillipe stopped reading. “That is exactly what happened to Madam Lapautre.”

Anna just nodded. She got up from the stool and started pacing the room. She wanted to run, vomit or cry. Instead, she just listened as Phillipe continued to read through the files. He read that from the amount of semen present it appeared that the victim had been repeatedly raped and sodomized. It was difficult to determine the number of sexual assaults because her vagina and anus had also been penetrated and pierced, presumably by the same knives that killed her.

“Enough, Phillipe.” Anna slid down on to the floor in the corner of the room.
 

“But there’s more,” Phillipe said.
 

“Go past. Go to the next report, please. Pick it up after they talk about the body.”

Phillipe closed one file. To Anna he seemed strangely disappointed.
 

The next report contained a long list of possible suspects. All of the names had been crossed out, except for the last one. The final name Phillipe read was “Renee Desan.” It had been circled . . . twice.

“I saw him,” Anna whispered.
 

“I know,” Phillipe opened the next folder. He read about the arrest of Mademoiselle LaMoreau’s lover and long time family employee, Renee Desan. Several of the hotel workers said they had seen him with Ariene after her birthday party that night. Others reported that he removed several knives from the kitchen that evening to, as he put it, “cut sausage.”
 

Two male servants testified that they saw him leaving the hotel in an agitated state early the next morning, and that it appeared that his clothing was stained with blood. Two others said they had heard him threaten Ariene at the party after she danced with a man whom Renee considered to be his rival.
 

Upon searching Renee’s home, the police first found hairs “the color of the victims, on his clothing. Then, they found several female fingers in the pocket of his coat.

The last file detailed Renee’s suicide much more vividly than the newspaper report. The cause of death was said to be self-inflicted head wounds. The police report stated that he had rammed his head against his cell bars with such force that his skull fractured in several places. Despite this, according to the document, the suspect kept slamming into the bars until his skull actually split open, allowing his head to squeeze between them. There he dangled and finally died.
 

Phillipe then read the last line in the report. It was the first time that the writer had deviated from objectively stating the facts. He wrote a simple prayer for the victims.
 

May they rest in peace and in the merciful light of God’s love, Amen.
Case closed.” The page was signed, Paul Martan, Inspector, Paris Police.

Phillipe closed the folder and tapped its cover with his right index finger. “As the good inspector said, case closed.”

“I don’t think so,” Anna said.

Phillipe looked at Anna who remained huddled on the floor in the corner. Her arms were wrapped around her knees and she was rocking back and forth. She stared off as if either deep in thought, or viewing a reality visible only to her.
 

“Anna?” Phillipe got up from his chair. “Are you all right?”

Phillipe walked quickly over to Anna and squatted down in front of her. He was directly in her line of sight, but she was looking elsewhere. “Anna?”

Suddenly, Anna’s eyes focused on Phillipe’s face. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “I was just thinking about whether Renee was ever questioned in this room.”

“It’s possible,” Phillipe said. “He certainly was in this building for questioning.”

“Yeah,” Anna reached out and put her hand on Phillipe’s knee. “I’m sorry I went into the twilight zone. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Phillipe placed his hand over Anna’s. “Did you see anything when you where in this place, the twilight zone?”

“You mean now, in here?” Anna didn’t pull her hand away.
 

“
Oui
,” Phillipe squeezed ever so gently.

“No,” Anna looked around the room. “Nothing.”

Phillipe moved to her side and sat next to her on the floor. Their arms and hips touched . . . neither moved. Then, Phillipe looked at Anna. He took her head in his hands and turned it until they were face to face, lips to lips. Phillipe leaned in and kissed her, first lightly, then deeply.
 

Anna responded and returned his kiss. She moaned as a gentle fire raced through her body.
This is wrong. This is wonderful
.
 

As they kissed, Anna felt Phillipe’s hands move from her hair slowly down to her neck. There, they paused just a moment before continuing on, one to her back, the other to her breasts.
 

Phillipe unhooked her bra through he blouse with one hand, while exploring under it with the other. Anna felt her nipples harden against the palm of his hand. She was drifting through time. She was in this room, on this floor. She also saw herself on a canopy bed looking up at a brightly colored ceiling.
 

Phillipe’s hand left Anna’s shirt and moved down. She felt him open her jeans and lower her zipper. He ran his hand over her belly before moving it under her panties and between her legs.
 

Anna wasn’t sure where she was. She wasn’t sure who she was. She felt herself melting into Phillipe . . . and that is what finally scared her.
 

“No, Phillipe, no.” Anna pulled away and scrambled to her feet. “We can’t do this. We can’t.”

Phillipe was on his feet almost as fast she was. He moved toward her. “We can and we will.”
 

He reached for Anna but she ducked away. “No!”

As Anna ran by the door, it opened and Inspector Cerone walked in. He twirled a key chain from his fingers and smiled. “I trust I am not interrupting anything? It was somewhat difficult to find you.”

Anna turned around, and quickly adjusted her open bra and rezipped her pants.
 

As soon as the door had opened, Phillipe moved quickly between Inspector Cerone and the table, blocking his view of the files. Anna assumed he wanted to protect his friend.

Inspector Cerone waited until Anna once again faced him. “Monsieur Howard is being released for now. You can meet him upstairs.”

“Great,” Anna said a bit too loudly. She walked around the inspector and out the door.

“Coming?” The inspector looked at Phillipe.

“Un moment, s’il vous plait,” Phillipe motioned down toward the front of his pants and winked. “I will need just a moment to become, ah, less, shall we say, obvious? You understand.”

Inspector Cerone followed Anna out.
 

* * *

Within minutes, Phillipe joined Anna at the front desk. “I had to return the files,” he whispered.
 

Anna didn’t say a word. Her face was red with embarrassment.
 

“Anna,” he continued to whisper. “I apologize for what just happened. I behaved very badly. Forgive me, please.”

“I was wrong too,” Anna said and meant. “I don’t know why I let that happen.”

“I feel the same way. It is probably best that we forget it ever occurred, agreed?’

“Yes, very agreed.” Anna smiled.
 

“Friends again?” Phillipe held out his hand.
 

“Friends,” Anna smiled and shook his hand. They saw Tom coming toward them from the other end of the hall. “
Just
friends.”

Anna got up and ran to Tom. Phillipe walked away.
 

“You know they think I did it,” Tom said when he and Anna hugged. “I told them the truth, and they think I’m a murderer.”

“And they think I’m a lunatic.”

“What a perfect couple.”

As they started walking, Tom said. “You know I didn’t do it?”

When Anna didn’t respond immediately he held her head in his hands and looked directly into her eyes. “Don’t you?”

“I know it wasn’t you.” She shook her head and looked down. “Not you.”

“Just one moment please,” Inspector Cerone came walking up to Anna and Tom from around the corner.
 

“You have more questions?” Tom sighed.
 

“Many more,” the inspector looked at Tom as if he were looking at a killer. “But at this point I will ask only one, and it is not for you.”

Inspector Cerone looked at Anna. “Can I ask you what you and Monsieur Renard were doing in that old room downstairs?

Tom stepped back from Anna. The inspector watched his and her reactions closely.
 

“Why don’t you ask Phillipe,” Anna said.

“I was going to ask him, but I believe he has left? Also, do you know what he might have been trying to hide on that table? You know that room has been vacant for years. What you two were doing in there is . . .”

Anna had to stop him before he brought up the condition of her clothing, or anything about Phillipe’s obvious state of excitation. “We weren’t really doing anything. We were just exploring a little bit while we waited for Tom.”

“Wasn’t Phil going to help you find some records or something about the hotel,” Tom said to Anna for the Inspector’s benefit. “You know, the police reports about Ariene LaMoreau’s murder.”

“Mademoiselle?” the inspector looked at Anna. “Is this true?”
 

Anna looked at Tom and shook her head. Tom looked away.
 

“Would you please answer my question?”

“Okay, look,” Anna said to the inspector. “Phillipe had a friend of his pull out some old records from 1924 about the murder. That’s all. I didn’t want to tell you because he said his friend would get fired if anyone found out. You can understand that, can’t you? He was just trying to protect his friend.”

“These police reports regarded the murder of Ariene LaMoreau?”

“Yes.”

“You say you saw them, and you believed them to be real?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Inspector Cerone smiled. “I’m afraid that your Monsieur Renard was . . . um . . . playing a game with you? Hum? And, from the appearance of your clothing when I arrived, I believe he might have been winning, no?”

The inspector watched as Tom’s face darkened.
 

“We were just looking at the files. He was translating them for me.”

“That is quite impossible.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it really is, believe me. You see, after you told me your story earlier, I requested those files myself.”

“So?”

“So, they were all destroyed in a fire exactly one year after the murder. Those reports do not exist.”

* * *

“He is so full of shit,” Anna said as she stormed from the police station. “I saw those files myself. They were real, and signed by the same inspector that was in the newspaper.”

“What did he mean about your clothes?” Tom snapped. “What happened down there?”

“Nothing fucking happened,” Anna’s anger bubbled up and overflowed. “That asshole inspector is making it all up. I saw those files. I’m not an idiot. Phillipe read them to me.”

“He could have faked it.”

“No,” Anna stated dryly, clipping each word. “He could not have.”

“Then how did he get records that were burned up almost 100 years ago?”

Whenever Anna didn’t have an answer, she would tend to ignore the question. “I don’t want to talk about it.”