“Poor little boy. Do you think Jack murdered him?”
I nodded, absolutely positive now that Jack wasn’t just chasing the boys in spirit; he was repeating something that had happened in real life. “I will so enjoy locking up that son of a bitch,” I said with a shudder.
“Where do you think the other two boys are buried?” Steven asked, reminding me of the boys we’d seen at the classroom.
I frowned. “I don’t know,” I said, scanning the ether for any hint of their energy but coming up empty.
Just then Muckleroy approached us looking decidedly less mocking. “I’ve got the coroner and some techs on the way. You mind answering a few questions before you head back to town?”
His tone indicated that he wasn’t so much asking as stating that I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. I gave Steven a rueful smile and said, “Why don’t you head to town and let Gil know what’s going on and get something to eat while I talk with the detective.”
“Can I bring you back something?” he asked.
I glanced at the hard look on the detective’s face and said,
“A club sandwich with a side of scotch might be just the ticket.”
Steven smiled, then looked warily at Muckleroy. “Call me if they give you too much problems,” he whispered into my ear.
“Will do,” I said, and gave him a gentle squeeze on the arm.
Steven stepped onto the path leading back to the van and quickly disappeared into the thick brush. Turning to the detective I gave a wave of my hand and said, “Fire when ready, Detective.”
Muckleroy already had a small notebook out to take notes on our conversation. “Tell me again how you knew there were skeletal remains buried there.”
I resisted the urge to sigh. “Dealing with the dead is my specialty,” I said. “As I’ve already told you, I’m a professional medium who specializes in dealing with spiritual energies that refuse to leave our plane of existence.”
“Can I please have that in English, Miss Holliday?” Muckleroy said with a pained expression.
I smiled tightly. “I’m a ghostbuster. And I’ve been hired by the family of a girl who attends Northelm to look into the spiritual activity at the school. While on that investigation my colleagues and I came across three young male energies.”
Muckleroy cocked his head. I didn’t think he was quite following. “Come again?”
“Three little-boy ghosts are haunting the school,” I explained as informally as I could. “One of them identified himself to me. He said his name was Eric and that he and his friends were running from a man carrying a hatchet.”
At this, Muckleroy’s expression seemed to light up. “Hatchet Jack?” he asked.
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone in the department’s heard of him,” he said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “A summer doesn’t go by around these parts without a couple of calls coming in about him chasing kids around here.”
“And what is the department’s view of these reports?” I asked, feeling a little pissed off that Muckleroy had been so dismissive of my claim that there was a body by a tree known to be active with sightings of a ghost wielding a hatchet.
Muckleroy shrugged. “No one in the department’s ever seen him, so we all thought it was one of those urban legends that the local kids were keeping up.”
I scowled. “So typical,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Listen,” he said, becoming defensive. “I’m not the only one who don’t believe in ghosts, Miss Holliday. You fortune-tellers are all a bunch of con artists to me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really?” I said. “Con artists?”
“Yeah,” he said, caring not one whit that he had obviously insulted me. “I mean, I believe in science, and there’s no evidence that this stuff exists.”
My back went ramrod straight. “On the contrary, Detective,” I snapped. “In the past fifteen years there have been over a thousand intensive and comprehensive experiments conducted and published in all sorts of scientific journals that clearly point to the fact that paranormal activity doesn’t merely exist, but can, in fact, be quantifiably measured.”
Muckleroy wasn’t so easily swayed. “Like what kind of journals?” he asked.
“I have a list of them on my computer. Leave me your e-mail address and I will send them to you, along with some of the better findings.”
It was Muckleroy’s turn to narrow his eyes. “Whatever,” he said dismissively. “You’re not going to convince me. You’ll just have to consider me a skeptic.”
Now, someone like me can’t hear something like that without taking it as a personal challenge. The switch I used to turn on my communication link with the other side flipped itself on, and I immediately welcomed a lovely older female into my energy. “I see,” I said. “Well, your grandmother on your father’s side, Martha, thinks that you shouldn’t be so closed-minded. She says that she’s disappointed that you don’t make time in your schedule to get up north to visit your dad as often as you should, and she really doesn’t like the new wallpaper you’ve put into your bathroom. She says the paint was a better color in there.”
Muckleroy’s jaw fell open so far I could see his tonsils. I smiled and continued on. “And your mom agrees,” I said. “Carol, but with the middle initial A, for Anne, right? She’s telling me she crossed over due to something that happened in her brain. It was sudden, like an embolism, correct?”
Muckleroy’s expression turned from dumbfounded to downright stupid. “How…?”
I ignored his question and plugged along. “She’s grateful at least that you put fresh flowers on her grave site last weekend, but next time she’d prefer tulips to carnations.”
And then something occurred that had never happened in all the years of my giving away my impressions. Muckleroy fainted.
He went down hard and fast, thumping to the ground like a huge sack of potatoes. The two cops who had been over by the burial site setting up crime-scene tape stopped and snapped their heads in our direction as they heard the loud whump of Muckleroy’s body hitting the dirt.
Dropping the roll of tape, both cops were quick to react as they ran to the detective’s aid. “What’d you do?” one shouted as the other pulled his gun and leveled it at me.
My hands shot straight in the air. “Nothing!” I insisted. “He just fainted!”
The first cop got down on the ground beside Muckleroy and rolled him gently over onto his back, looking for any signs of a wound. The other closed in on me and whipped me around so fast I nearly fell myself. “On the ground!” he screamed in my ear.
I obeyed quickly and dropped to the dirt, resisting the urge to pee my pants as I felt the gun press itself against my back. The cop patted me down while the other one said, “I can’t find a wound!”
“What’d you use?” the other growled in my ear. “Stun gun?”
“I swear to God,” I said, grimacing as the cop felt his way in between my legs. “The guy fainted. I had nothing to do with it.” Okay, so that was a lie, but I wasn’t exactly thinking it was a good idea to tell these two that I’d prompted Muckleroy’s reaction.
“He’s breathing, and his pulse is normal,” said the cop behind us. I heard some faint slapping sounds and the cop said,
“Detective! Bob! Come on, man, wake up!”
The cop over me finished patting me down and placed his foot on my back to prevent me from moving. I heard him shout into his walkie-talkie for an ambulance and add something about, “Officer down!”
“This is ridiculous!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Guys, he fainted! You’re overreacting here!” The foot on my back pressed itself with unnecessary force, and I felt the air whoosh out of my lungs.
“Shut up!” the cop over me yelled. “You don’t talk until I tell you to talk!”
I gritted my teeth and swallowed my frustration. From behind me came a moan. “Mom?” I heard Muckleroy say woozily.
“He’s comin’ around!”
said the cop at his side. “Bob? Can you hear me?”
“Wha…?” Muckleroy said. “Where am I?”
“Lie still,” said the cop firmly. “We’ve called for an ambulance.”
There was an irritated grunt, and I imagined Muckleroy pushing the cop away as he sat up. “What the hell is she doing on the ground?” he demanded.
“She hit you with something,” said the cop over me.
“No, she didn’t!” Muckleroy snapped. “Larry, get the hell off her!”
The foot lifted off my back and I inhaled deeply. “Help her up!” the detective yelled.
Rough hands scooped under my arms and lifted me straight up off the ground. “What happened to you?” said the cop by Muckleroy’s side.
Muckleroy’s face went from slightly pale to deep red. “I fainted,” he admitted. “I remember her talking about my mom, and then the world just spun and I went down.”
“So she did hit you with something?” the cop next to me said, shooting an accusing look in my direction.
“No,” said Muckleroy with a small laugh as he too got to his feet. “Just the truth. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Miss Holliday, how the hell do you do that?”
“It’s a gift,” I said woodenly, looking at the cop next to me with venom in my eyes. He stepped away a few feet and gave me back my personal space.
“I never would have believed you,” he said. “But no one knew I went to my mom’s grave last week. I didn’t even tell my wife, and those flowers I got last-minute at a gas station.”
“She prefers tulips,” I said quietly.
Muckleroy laughed so hard he doubled over. The other two cops broke into grins and looked at each other quizzically, unsure what was so humorous. Finally Muckleroy stood again and said, “Mom’s favorite flower was the tulip. Her front lawn used to be covered with them. My dad always got it wrong. Over the years he would bring her roses or daisies or carnations, and she would always say thank-you, but that she preferred tulips. It was kind of the joke in the family, and I didn’t even remember it until you mentioned it.”
I nodded and shrugged my shoulders. What else could I say? To my left the cop pulled his walkie-talkie off his shoulder and called into his dispatch to cancel the ambulance and report that the detective was okay.
Smoothing back his hair and wiping off his dirty trousers, Muckleroy cocked an eye at me. “Okay, so you’ve obviously made a believer out of me. Now tell me more about this little boy over there.”
An hour later the area around the giant oak tree was teeming with crime techs and police. Muckleroy was over by the grave site, hovering next to the coroner, who had the area marked off with a grid of twine and pegs while she carefully scooped up dirt and placed it into a screen that one of the techs was holding.
The coroner, a woman in her forties with round features and mousy brown hair, lifted something round out of the dirt as I watched and peered closely at it while she dusted it with a small brush. I realized that she was holding a skull and felt a great sadness in my chest that such a young boy had died so tragically.
“How is it going?” I heard a familiar voice say from just behind me.
“It goes,” I said wearily, turning to face Steven. Gil was standing next to him holding up a brown sack in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other. “Club sandwich and a Coke, as ordered,” he said with a cheerful smile.
I took the food gratefully and gave a long pull on the soft drink. Flashing Gil a smile, I said, “Awww. You added lemon. Thanks, buddy.”
Gil beamed at me and placed a friendly arm around my shoulders. “You look beat, pumpkin.”
“I am,” I said, and motioned over to the coroner.
“They’ve been here for about an hour, and they just found the skull.”
“Maybe dental records will help identify who the boy was?” Gil said hopefully.
“Let’s just hope the kid had some cavities and that his dentist is still alive,” I said.
“Any sign of the other two we saw in the classroom?” Gil asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. And Eric has been woefully quiet ever since we started digging around his grave.”
“How is it that a ghost knows where his grave is?” Steven asked. “I thought that ghosts didn’t know they were dead.”
“Many don’t,” I said, taking the sandwich out of the bag while Gil held my Coke. “But I’ve always found with child ghosts that they’re more likely to accept that they’ve died.”
Steven scrunched his face up in a confusion. “Then how can he be a ghost? Wouldn’t he have ‘crossed over,’ as you say?”
I took a huge bite out of the sandwich and moaned. It was delicious. I waited to chew the food before answering. “Not necessarily,” I said. “Children will accept the death of their bodies, but often they haven’t truly absorbed the concept of heaven. They may be frightened of moving on, and they’ll stick to this plane like glue out of fear of the unknown.”
“That is so sad,” Steven said as he thought about it. “He should not be afraid to go to heaven.”
“I agree,” I said, munching on another bite. “That’s why we’ve got to work our tails off to help him and the others, and lock up Jack forever.”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t a lot of help today,” said Gilley. “I looked through all the local obits, M.J., and came up empty for anyone fitting Jack’s description.”
“Crap,” I said, wadding up the wrapping that came around the sandwich. “I was really hoping for a solid lead there.”
Gil looked dejected. “Sorry,” he said.
I was quick to reassure him. “Buddy,” I said gently, “it’s not your fault. This one’s just going to give us a run for our money.”
“What do we do now?” Steven asked.
I stretched and yawned tiredly. “Now I could use a nap,” I said. “There’s not a lot I can do here if Eric won’t talk to me right now. We should probably head back to the ski lodge and chill out until tonight; then we’ll go back to the classroom and try it again.”
I noticed as I was speaking that Muckleroy had gotten up and was coming over toward us. We fell silent as he approached, waiting to see if he’d tell us anything about what the coroner had found in the dirt. “Looks like you’re right on more than a few fronts, M.J.,” he said, now addressing me by my first name, as if we were fast friends.
“Do tell,” I encouraged.
“Coroner says that the skull appears to be of a young adolescent between ten and fourteen years old.”
I dug into my memory of what I’d gotten off Eric. “He was thirteen,” I said confidently.
Muckleroy cocked his head quizzically, but didn’t jump on the comment. “She says there is one cut mark on the back of the skull, and we’ve found a rib bone with some of the same marks.”
“Like those made by a hatchet,” Steven said.
Muckleroy nodded. “Too soon to tell definitively, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“Anything else so far?” I asked.
“Yeah. From the surrounding soil and the condition of the bones, the coroner is estimating the body to have been buried there for at least the last twenty to thirty years. That also fits with what you got off the boy’s spirit.”
“And it fits with the timing of the first sightings of Hatchet Jack,” said Gilley.
“The question of the day, then, gentlemen, is how did Hatchet Jack die?” Everyone looked blankly at me, so I elaborated. “I think it’s every bit as important as who this maniac was. Based on the ghost sightings, he must have died shortly after Eric. Every description I’ve heard describes a thin male in his late thirties to early forties with black hair who chases young people through classrooms and the woods. I’d be hard-pressed to believe someone that young and that vital died of natural causes.”
“Could have committed suicide,” Gil said reasonably. “I heard once that a lot of serial killers commit suicide because the guilt eventually catches up to them.”
I shook my head. “I’m not
buying it in this case, Gil. That lunatic got off on what he did. He wasn’t the type to feel one ounce of remorse.”
“I’ll check through the county records,” said Muckleroy.
“Maybe I can come up with a death certificate.”
“I already looked through the obits,” said Gil. “Got nothing.”
“Not all deaths are reported to the paper,” said Muckleroy. “If this guy had no family or close friends, then his death would likely go unreported.”
“Great,” I said to Muckleroy. “In the meantime we’ll try to find the other boys.”
“That’s right,” he said thoughtfully. “You said there were two other ghosts at the school. Did you get names for them?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But we’re going to work on that tonight. We’ll call you if we get anything.”
“I’ll work the missing persons for Eric too,” added Muckleroy. “Maybe we’ll catch a break and find his family.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said, handing him one of my business cards. “Call the cell number for me if you need us. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch.”
We drove back to Karen’s without a lot of chatter. It seemed I wasn’t the only one worn out by the long day and night. “What time do you want to head back to the school?” Gil asked me.
“Midnight,” I said.
“Of course,” he said with a grin.
I yawned again and stared blearily at the road passing under our van. “I am plumb tuckered,” I said. “I did a reading for Muckleroy while you guys were in town, and it wore me out.”
“He asked you for a reading?” Gil said, surprised.
“Not exactly,” I said with a sneaky grin.
“Don’t tell me; let me guess,” Gil said with a knowing glance at me. “He was spewing skepticism and you gave him the old medium one-two punch. Am I right?”
I laughed. “You know me too well.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Lights-out in two rounds,” I said, and giggled at my own wickedness.
“Will they ever learn?” Gil said with an exaggerated sigh.