The cop, whose name tag read, MICHELSON, pivoted his head back to me, his mouth slightly agape. “How do you know that?”
Karen took a cautious step forward. “This is M. J. Holliday. She’s a psychic medium, and I believe she’s talking to the deceased Randy Donaldson.”
“Randy was a cop,” I said, seeing the familiar badge flash in my mind’s eye. “He says a woman’s been hurt in some kind of accident. He’s called for backup and an ambulance, but he can’t seem to find the woman, and he doesn’t see the ambulance.”
“Okay,” said the cop, and he stepped angrily away. Drawing his weapon again, he raised it at us. “That’s enough out of all of you! I’m calling for backup, and until they get here I need everyone to just face the van and shut up!”
Karen obediently turned toward the van and placed her hands on it. “The imager’s still in the van, right?” she whispered to Gilley.
“It’s on the front seat,” he said.
“Officer,” Karen said evenly. “The thermal imager is right there on the front seat. You can pick it up and see what M.J.’s talking about.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the cop hesitate as he raised his microphone to his lips. Randy, meanwhile, was still over my right shoulder, dazed, confused, and really furious that it had taken so long for his backup to show. “Randy is telling me that he’s had enough of this mandatory overtime,” I said. “He says it really sucks to be forced to work on Christmas Eve.”
The cop behind me gasped, and then he did come forward and peek into the van’s window. Seeing the imager on the front seat, he lifted it out and looked at it. “Randy is over my right shoulder,” I said. “If you raise the imager up you’ll see the outline of all of us. Test it first on those three, then point it at me.”
The cop stepped back and raised the imager, seeing the outline of everyone leaning against the van. I then saw him swivel it toward me, and he gasped again. Randy was becoming more and more agitated. He wasn’t getting anyone but me to listen to him, and this was pissing him off royally. I heard him shout at the cop behind me, then stomp off in his direction. The cop obviously saw through the imager the shape of a tall man charging at him, and he dropped the imager, raising his gun again. “How is that happening?” he asked when he saw that no one was there.
“Randy died on Christmas Eve,” I said calmly. “He was responding to an accident with a woman in a car. I think it was icy that night, right?”
The cop nodded dumbly at me. “We had accidents all up and down the highway.”
“Something happened,” I said, feeling out the event that Randy was describing. “He said he checked on the woman in the car, and she was okay but had a bad cut on her forehead. He called for backup and was setting up road flares when…” My voice trailed off. The imagery got intense as I saw a pair of headlights coming right at me.
“Another car hit him,” said the cop.
“He’s stuck here,” I said. “He thinks he’s still alive, Officer.”
Michelson lowered his weapon and holstered it. He then walked over to Steven and clicked open the handcuffs, handing him back the wad of money he’d found in his jeans. “Sorry,” said Steven sheepishly.
“You have to help him,” said Michelson to me with a rather pained look. “He was my best friend, ma’am.”
“I’ll need to go over there,” I said, pointing to the spot where the accident had occurred. “Can I take my hands down and do that?”
The cop nodded. “Yes, go ahead.”
Teeko gave me a warm smile, while Gilley was still shaking. “It’s okay, Gilley,” said Steven. “We are not going to be shot.”
I waited for a car to pass, then jogged across the road. To my left there was a small piece of taillight, and up ahead what looked like a shard of rusty metal. Randy had followed me, and as I glanced over my shoulder I could see Gilley holding up the imager, and everyone—including the cop—staring over his shoulder to watch what happened next.
I closed my eyes and said mentally, Randy, I know you can hear me. I want you to know that I can hear you too.
You need to get back in your car, ma’am. The shoulder’s not safe tonight, Randy replied.
No, Randy, you’re right. The shoulder wasn’t safe, I agreed.
I need to put down some flares. I wish those salt trucks would get here already.
“Randy,” I said aloud. “Hear what I’m telling you. It’s no longer Christmas Eve.”
I’m glad Bruce is here. He can keep the gawkers moving while I put down the flares….
“Randy!” I yelled, and felt his energy snap to attention.
“Last Christmas Eve, when you were setting down road flares, something happened, didn’t it?”
Randy’s energy seemed to hesitate. A woman had an accident. She’s hurt pretty bad.
“No, Randy,” I said patiently. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what happened when you were setting down flares. Do you remember?”
There was a car…, Randy said, and I could feel him do something like a wince as the memory floated back. It slid on the same patch of ice and it hit me.
I smiled. “Great job,” I said. “You remember. But what you don’t remember is what happened next.”
The lady in the car is missing, Randy said, and I could feel his energy growing agitated again. Where did she go? I called for an ambulance. She must have driven away while I was setting off the flares!
“No, Randy, that’s not how it played out. What happened was that you were hit by that car so hard that your body died.”
Good one, he said. I’m here talking to you, aren’t I?
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you are. But here’s the deal: Your soul survived the crash. Your body didn’t. Sarah and the baby buried your body almost six months ago, Randy.”
Randy’s energy vibrated, almost like a shock wave. That’s not possible, he said, but I could tell he was starting to realize the truth of things.
“Randy,” I said gently. “Your body is gone. There’s nothing left for you here. If you’ll listen to me and do as I say, I can get you where you need to be. Will you agree to that?” I felt something like a nod in my head, and I continued.
“Above you there should be a bright white light. Can you look up and see that?”
In my head I heard a gasp, then, I see it!
“Excellent! Now, Randy, this is so important: When I tell you to, you’ve got to mentally pull that energy down around you. When you do that you’ll feel like you’re in a tunnel, or there may even be a path. Once you see that it will lead you home. Just let the white light carry you along, and you’ll be home in no time.”
But Sarah…, Randy said, protesting.
“Will be just fine,” I reassured him. “I think Bruce will make sure to look after her and your daughter. And where you’re going you’ll be able to check in on both of them anytime you want. Don’t you want to see them again, Randy?”
I do, he said.
“It’s been six months since you’ve seen them, my friend. But where you’re going you can see how your daughter is growing up and help keep her out of trouble.”
Okay, he said. I’m ready.
I stepped back and closed my eyes, seeing in my mind’s eye a huge ball of white light cover up his spirit and whisk him away. A moment later his energy was just gone.
Across the street came a round of applause, and I opened my eyes. Gilley, Steven, and Teeko were whooping it up for me, and Officer Bruce Michelson was gripping the thermal imager tightly and looking every bit like he’d just seen a ghost. Which, of course, he had.
Chapter 2
We got back on the road a short time later, leaving Officer Michelson in a bit of a stupor and heading, no doubt, straight to the bar after his shift. Gilley had managed to avoid a ticket, and even better, Steven had avoided arrest—this time. “From now on, Steven, try to keep your wad of cash in your back pocket, where it belongs,” I said, irritated that he’d nearly caused us s
o much trouble.
“Can I keep the roll of quarters in my front pocket?” he asked smartly. Gilley burst out laughing, but I wasn’t so easily amused.
“You’re just lucky that cop let us off,” I groused.
“That was pretty brilliant work back there, M.J.,” Gil said. “I mean, you should have seen that thermal imager the moment that cop crossed over. It was awesome!”
“What’d it show?” I asked curiously.
“Well, we could see you on the imager, and the outline of Randy—he was a greenish blue with a little hint of yellow around his outside. But then all of a sudden there was this flash of yellow all around him, then zap! He was gone!”
“Yep,” I said, nodding at him in the rearview mirror.
“Pretty close to what I saw in my mind’s eye too.”
“These thermal imagers are very good, no?” Steven asked as he held one up.
“They are the bomb,” said Gil. “I about had a heart attack, though, when that cop dropped it on the ground. I thought for sure he’d broken it.”
Steven turned the gadget over a few times, inspecting it for damage. “Looks good,” he announced.
“That’s a relief,” I said. “That thing works great, and I’d really like it along for this job.” Thinking of something, I opened up my laptop and began typing.
“Whatcha doin’?” Gil said, studying me in the rearview mirror.
“Seeing if I can find something on this boarding school Evie attends. Maybe there’ll be something out there that will point a finger at who this guy with the ax is.”
I plugged the name of the school into a search engine and opened the link. Northelm Boarding School was located in a valley by a large pond at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains. The school was founded in the early nineteen hundreds and on its home page listed several notable people in a stream of alumni, including two New York governors, several U.S. Congressmen, senators, and a half dozen journalists and authors.
The school itself was reflective of its surroundings, built to resemble something like a long ski lodge, with a main building holding classrooms for grades nine through twelve, and two flanking buildings, one housing grades six through eight, and the other, the old elementary wing, was to be turned into a large dormitory for the boarding students by the end of the year.
According to the school’s Web site, it currently housed ninety-eight boys and forty-two girls, and there were a little over a hundred kids in total boarding there full-time. Tuition was in the forty-thousand-dollar range, and of course that didn’t include miscellaneous expenses that comprised an average of an additional four thousand dollars a year.
Sports seemed to be a big attraction at the school, with miles of ski trails, a hockey rink, tennis courts, a track-and-field arena, and Lake Placid just twenty minutes away. The place was a young jock’s paradise.
“What’s it say?” Gilley asked me, and that’s when I noticed I’d been quietly reading for a while.
“It’s pretty much a country club for rich jocks,” I said. “A hundred and forty kids attend, and most of those board full-time.”
“Does it talk about the school’s history?” Gilley asked.
“Not much,” I said, skimming over the site. “Just that it was founded in the early nineteen hundreds by the Habbernathy family, who’ve had control of it ever since.”
“Nothing on our mysterious ax man, huh?” Gil said.
“Not on the school’s Web site, but then, that might be a bit of a turnoff to parents looking to board their kiddies.”
“Good point. Try plugging the school’s name and the word ghost into the search engine and see what it says.”
I did and came back with nothing but a few more links back to the school’s Web site and a couple of articles on ghosts. “I got bupkes, Gil,” I said. “There’s no mention of a ghost sighting on the school grounds, and since we already know this is a fairly active ghost, I’d be willing to guess that the school administration is working hard to keep it off-line.”
Gil sighed. “This stuff is never easy for us,” he said.
“Why is this such a bad thing?” Steven wanted to know.
“If there had been some information on this mysterious ax man, we could have had a starting point; even a name would have been handy. Sometimes the only way you can get a ghost’s attention is to call it by name,” I said.
“The fact that this guy is wielding an ax is really bizarre,” said Gil. “I mean, who goes around with axes these days?”
“Could be someone from the sixteen or seventeen hundreds,” I said. “Maybe one of the first settlers had a house where the school is, and he’s trying to get people off what he perceives to be his land.”
“Why the sudden activity, though?” Steven asked, swiveling in his seat to look back at me.
“Could be the renovations,” I said, and clicked back to the school’s Web site. “It says here that the school is about to undergo a massive reconstruction of its old elementary wing. They’re turning it into better housing for the students, and a new dining hall.”
Steven looked at Gilley, rather perplexed. “I am not understanding her,” he said.
“Ghosties hate construction,” Gil said. “It’s bad enough when you start rearranging furniture, but when you begin to tear down walls and whatnot it drives them crazy and they get wicked mad. That’s when you hear a lot of doors slamming and things being tossed around. The grounded spirit can actually throw a temper tantrum.”
Steven nodded his head; he understood. “Still, it is strange that such a violent ghost would wait so long to make an entrance, no?”
“Maybe not,” I said as my eyes flew back and forth across the screen of my laptop. “Guys, listen to this headline just posted on the school newspaper: ‘Hatchet Jack Returns.’”
“Read it!” said Gil.
I cleared my throat and read, “‘The ghost of Hatchet Jack has returned to Northelm Boarding School. This reporter has learned that ninth grader Evie O’Neal was picked up by her father this morning after being attacked in the elementary wing by everyone’s least-favorite bogeyman, Hatchet Jack.
“‘Jack makes a return to the school after almost ten years of relative silence. The last notable encounter between Northelm’s resident ghost and a student ended when Ricky Tamborne was sent to a mental hospital after suffering a breakdown when he was cornered by the evil demon. This reporter is further convinced that the old wing is more in need of an exorcist than a face-lift.’”
“Well,” said Gil, “at least we have a name.”
“Somehow I can’t see myself reaching out politely to Mr. Hatchet,” I said with a scowl, and closed the lid to the computer. “Something tells me this is going to be a tricky bust.”
“Aren’t they all?” Gil said.
We drove in silence until eleven o’clock, when Teeko pulled off an exit and led us to a lovely hotel. Wearily we checked in and each headed off to our rooms. Teeko and I shared one room, and the boys were left with the other.
Even though I was tired, I still caught the look of glee on Gil’s face as he was handed his key to the room he’d share with Dr. Delicious. Gil had a major crush on the man.
The next morning we were up early and headed to our cars. Teeko waved me over to her Mercedes and asked if I would ride with her to keep her company. I agreed and we got in. As I waved to Steven and Gilley, I noticed Steven pouting a little that I wasn’t riding with him. “What’s going on with you two, anyway?” Karen asked me.
“Hmm?” I said coyly. “Nothing.”
Karen gave me a look that said she wasn’t buying it.
“Really. We’re colleagues.”
This got me more of the same look from Karen.
“There’s honestly nothing going on,” I said, giving her my most innocent face.
“Can you check my driver’s license?” she asked. “I think I might have been born yesterday.”
“Fine,” I said with a laugh. “So I like him.”
> “Ah,” she said.
“And I think he might like me.”
“I see.”
“And we have really good chemistry.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” she said with a smirk.
“But we haven’t done…er…anything about all that yet,” I said, feeling myself break out into a sweat.
“Why not?” she asked, giving me a quick quizzical glance.
“Because we work together, for one,” I said. “And as Steven is an investor in my company, romance might make things a bit sticky.”
Karen laughed. “I’ve had a few sticky nights of romance, honey, and trust me, they were memorable in a good way.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to turn the tables on her. “So, have you heard anything from John?” John Dodge was Karen’s ex-boyfriend. Dodge was a major financial player, voted one of the top bachelors in Boston two years running. He and Karen had dated seriously for about three years when she’d given him an ultimatum. Against expectations he’d proposed, but to everyone’s surprise she’d actually turned him down flat.
Later Karen claimed that she realized the moment he got down on bended knee that he was doing it only to please her. She didn’t want to get married because she’d forced his hand, so she’d broken it off then and there.
Since then, rumor had it the guy had dated every blond, blue-eyed Karen look-alike he could find. And when that didn’t ease his apparent broken heart, he started sending her flowers by the truckload. When that didn’t work the jewelry arrived. We’re talking bling that could be seen from space, it was so sparkly. She’d sent it all back.
“Oh, I hear from John every day,” she said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t give up easily.”
“Are you sure you want him to?” I asked.
Karen didn’t answer me. Instead she adjusted the volume on the radio and said, “Oh! I love this song!”
I let it go, and we drove for a while just listening to the radio. Finally she asked, “What’s going to be your first step, M.J.?”