The Supernaturals (56 page)

“Personally, I bet you
want
to confess that you had the disappearance of your student staged. That’s what I’m hoping for. And then I’ll arrest you all over again.”

“I guess we’ll see eight hours from now, won’t we?” Gabriel smiled and started to turn away. “By the way, are you armed?”

Damian Jackson smiled and patted his coat. “Always. Professor. Always.”

Gabriel allowed his smile to grow. The policeman’s grin vanished as he wondered what the professor’s question had been about. Why would he need a gun against ghosts? Now he had to wonder if Kennedy was running a game, just as Julie Reilly had been.

Dalton absentmindedly watched
the commercial airing from the New York studio. The soap advertisement showed a small girl in a clean, unbroken field of wheat as the image of the bar of soap spread across the screen. Dalton blinked and then caught himself.

“Okay, we’re back in ten, people, get to your places. Professor, Julie, you’ll start off by taking Leonard up to the second and third floors to explain his tech. Then we’ll switch to Lonetree in the stables and his walk-through of the pool area. Then after the next three-minute commercial break, we go dark. All power inside the house gets turned off, save for the ballroom. Okay, here we go in five, four, three, two—”

As the camera
panned backward, bringing the base of the large staircase into focus and showing the expansive stairs leading upward—just the effect Harris Dalton had been hoping for—Leonard Sickles, Gabriel Kennedy, Father Dolan and Julie Reilly began their slow climb to the second floor. Leonard started explaining the technology behind his motion detectors. He pointed out the small blue LED lights that had been strung along the thick wooden banisters of all the stairs. From the first floor to the third, the little lights were designed to detect the slightest variance in temperature and air movement; the miniscule swirling of dust particles to the minute drop in temperature. The system would track anything moving along the stairs or hallways. The blue illumination would be picked up in the dark by the naked eye, and would also show brightly for the infrared cameras.

After Leonard finished and Julie and her team started back down to the first floor of Summer Place, Dalton switched over to John Lonetree, Jennifer, and George in the stables. John repeated the story of the assault on the riding trail and then moved the show outside and along the colorful pool. The atmosphere was developing well. Inside the van, Kelly allowed herself to breathe. Everything was going smoothly for the moment. She chanced a glance over at Peterson who brushed at a nonexistent piece of lint on his black slacks. While he looked outwardly bored, Wallace Lindemann, who sat next to him, was anything but. He continually shifted in his seat, as if his ass was on fire. He watched nervously for anything on the monitors that might spell disaster for his plans to sell Summer Place.

After the teams
finished their tours, the commercial spot for their main advertiser came on. Everyone had three full minutes to gather themselves. Julie stood to the side and listened for any instructions that might come over her earpiece. She glanced at Gabriel, who stood silently, mostly ignoring those around him. He didn’t even flinch when the makeup girl started tapping at his face and neck with a sponge.

“Okay, Julie, make sure the professor is ready to go lights out after the break. We’ll start with your team on the third floor,” Dalton said over her earpiece.

“What about the basement and the subbasement? We didn’t cover them yet.” She stepped further away from her team, brushing off the makeup girl who attempted to get at her.

“If things bog down, we’ll send Lonetree and his team to the basement. If anything happens down there, we have remotes.”

“Harris, I think it’s important for the creep factor. If we—”

“Look, if you want to direct this thing, I’ll go home right now.”

“Okay, okay.” Julie ducked away, knowing that Gabriel was hearing all of this in his own earpiece.

“Everyone, this is Leonard,” came a voice cutting into the chatter.

“What is it, Sickles? Make it fast,” Harris called out.

“We have something interesting on the computers here. We have some photos from the Lindemann foundation showing the wedding of Lindemann and his wife Elena.”

“I think we have enough background on the Lindemanns, Mr. Sickles, maybe we—”

“That’s not what I’m getting at.”

“Leonard, what have you got?” Gabriel cut in, silencing everyone.

“We have plenty of pictures of Elena after her marriage, but not one photograph of her before. Even the Romanov family history and family tree don’t show any Elena Deleninov—that’s her maiden name.”

“The official Lindemann family lineage declares publicly that Elena was a member of the Romanov family.” Gabriel stepped toward the ballroom door so he could see Leonard inside.

“Look Gabe, we know from the archives that Elena was the daughter of a lowly fifth cousin of Nicholas the Second, but these photos and records show that family as two parents and three boys. There is no Elena.”

“Hold onto that for now, Leonard. See what else you can dig up,” Gabriel said. He nodded into the ballroom toward Leonard and his three computer hackers. Sickles gave him a thumbs up and then leaned back over the shoulder of one of the operators.

“Sounds like old Lindemann may have been sold a bill of goods,” Dalton said from the van.

“I don’t think so. The history is clear on this: Elena and her family financed Lindemann’s expansion into the United States. We’re talking five million dollars. Quite substantial for that time. It’s on record.”

Julie looked over at Gabriel. He was concerned about Leonard’s revelation, even with his secure knowledge of the financial history of the old family.

“Keep digging, Leonard. Mr. Dalton will check on you again in an hour.”

“Okay people, we’re back in one minute. We’re ready for team one to go to the third floor, and then we go lights out.”

“Hey, be sure not to cut the power to my equipment up there. Only the spectrograph has battery backup.”

“Mr. Sickles, do not break in on me again,” Dalton hissed angrily.

“Okay, okay. Chill, man.”

“Thirty seconds. All other teams go to the ballroom as per the professor’s instructions. Okay, where is Father Dolan? I don’t see him.”

“He’s praying over by the coat check station. He’s coming now,” Julie said. She took her place by the broad stairs and Gabriel joined her in silence.

“Camera ten, we’ll start with you. Take the opening shot at the stairs and just follow them all the way up to the third floor.”

The camera operator, a man named Steve, moved his remote camera up and then down. He had worked with Harris before and knew when not to speak.

“Okay—three, two, one, back from commercial, cue Julie.”

“Welcome back,” Julie started. “We’re now ready for the start of our ghost hunt, so if you, America, are ready, we’ll begin with arguably the most haunted part of Summer Place, the third floor. Professor Kennedy has instructed our technical team that it is most effective to conduct the experiment with as little light as possible, so at this point we will go to the very expensive ambient night vision. Don’t attempt to adjust your television’s picture if everything seems to be green-tinted; this is normal. Your screen will be absent color only. I promise you that you will see everything we see. Shall we start, Professor?”

Gabriel stayed as professional as he could and smiled down at Julie. He took the first step up the staircase and raised a small hand-held radio to his mouth.

“Gentlemen, let’s go with lights out, please.”

As the world watched, every visible light inside of the giant summer mansion went out. The property was thrown into inky darkness. If it wasn’t for the faraway flash of lightning, the grounds would have looked nearly primeval.

Halloween had truly begun.

Damian Jackson watched
from the coat check area just inside the massive entranceway. He saw Gabriel, Julie Reilly and Father Dolan take their initial steps up the staircase and that was when the lights went out. Jackson placed his heavy raincoat on the counter of the hatcheck station and then his fedora on top of that. He straightened his suit collar and moved to the stairway. The sound man was the only person to turn, but was careful to keep his microphone boom pointed forward toward Kennedy and Julie. Father Dolan would only answer questions or give an opinion when asked.

The trio climbed the staircase with the cameraman and soundman in tow. Once more the soundman turned and looked at Jackson in the darkness of the staircase. Damian raised a finger to his lips and then pointed ahead, indicating the soundman had better watch where he was going. As the team reached the second floor landing, Julie stopped in front of the giant Lindemann family portrait.

“As we showed you earlier, this is the family that originally built Summer Place—the matriarch and patriarch, Elena and F.E. Lindemann,” Julie whispered in a low, mysterious voice as she gestured up at the portrait. “An interesting bit of information has been learned by way of Professor Kennedy’s computer research team, which we met earlier. It seems our motherly figure, Elena, had no pictures ever taken of her before her wedding day. How do you account for that Professor Kennedy?”

Gabriel wasn’t the least bit surprised that Julie would use the partial information that Leonard had given them earlier, and he really couldn’t be mad since he’d hadn’t told her not to use it. Still, Gabriel knew he had to fight fire with fire where Reilly was concerned.

“As a matter of fact, Ms. Reilly, I don’t account for it at all. Our research has only indicated that there are no photos of Elena that we have yet found. You must remember, she was a part of a very tightly protected royal family. Sometimes daughters, beautiful though they were, were not photographed for security reasons. We should know more later in the evening.”

Julie was silent for the briefest of moments. The cameraman zeroed in on the face of Elena Lindemann, casting her features in the ghostly green and grays of the ambient light system. Behind them, even Jackson had to stifle a chuckle at the way Kennedy had turned the tables on the reporter.

“I’m sure our viewers will be waiting with anticipation,” Julie said in the lowest tone of voice she could muster. “For right now, we will pause on the second floor landing and view the extraordinary hallway from here. As you know from the tour, the Lindemanns placed the second tier guests on this floor, where the rooms were much smaller. Royalty from Europe and guests from Hollywood stayed upstairs on the third floor. If there were any incidents on this floor, they were kept quiet by the family. Let’s listen.”

Inside the production van, Harris Dalton shook his head. He knew that Kelly could see Julie setting herself up to be the firm and sound mind on this little experiment—she would leave Kelly and Kennedy holding the bag for its failure.

“You have to hand it to her, she’s like a clairvoyant when it comes to sensing danger to her career,” Harris mumbled.

“Harris, New York is on the line. Mr. Feuerstein would like you to call him at the next commercial break,” one of his assistants said, lightly placing a phone back in its cradle.

“Jesus, this better not happen all the way through the next eight hours. The damn woman was his choice, not mine.”

In the corner, Lionel Peterson watched without comment. His eyes never left the low light photography of the second floor, but he heard all.

The camera swiveled and caught Father Dolan as he tried his best to peer into the blackness of the second floor. Gabriel turned a low-power flashlight on, casting a pinpoint beam of soft light ahead of them down the hallway. They saw the still cameras and the digital audio equipment right where they had been placed. Kennedy slowly walked up to the equipment and the camera followed with the soundman in tow. Julie squeezed past them to see what Kennedy was doing. Then she spoke softly into the mic clipped to her blouse.

“The professor is checking the activity of the digital sound recorders and the infrared still cameras. Professor, exactly what do you hope to find on this very expensive equipment?”

Gabriel was leaning over the sound devices, hiding his frown of annoyance at Julie. After checking both the cameras and the digital sound recorder, Kennedy straightened and looked into the camera. He would explain once more to the viewing audience and ignore Julie completely. Down in the ballroom, Lonetree, Cordero and Jennifer smiled at the slight.

“As we explained earlier, with the infrared cameras we hope to pick up any variations in heat and cold emanating from this floor. That could be an indicator of paranormal activity. The digital sound recorders are something totally different. They can pick up sounds that the human ear cannot, or will not, hear.”

“And have we caught anything on either the cameras or the sound equipment, Professor?” Julie asked, though she knew the answer.

“Not at this time. The cameras have not been activated by any sudden changes in temperature, and the digital recorders have detected only us coming up the stairs, and our own voices.”