GHOSTS: 2014 edition (THE GHOST STORIES OF NOEL HYND # 1) Page 6

  “His name is Eddie Lloyd,” Lieutenant Agannis said. “He says he came to the island with the girl last night. Says they did some drinking, heard some music at the Atlantic Cafe, came up here and camped out. He banged her, but he alleges it was consensual. He says he staggered off to take a leak in the middle of the night, fell down drunk and couldn’t find his way back to her. Woke up at dawn, came back over here, and found her dead.”

  “Who called in the initial report?” Brooks asked.

  “The kid did,” Agannis said, meaning Eddie.

  Brooks took a long look at the youth. “What do you think?” he asked his chief.

  Agannis shrugged again.

  “Ah, who knows?” Agannis said with disgust. He drew heavily on his fifth Marlboro of the morning. Then he dropped the smoldering butt. He killed it with his toe.

  “These days who knows anything? The kid probably killed her, unless he didn’t.”

  “Does his story check?” Brooks pressed.

  “Brooks!” Gelman interrupted. “We got the report less than an hour ago. So we treat him like any other smart-assed college kid who comes here during the summer. We read him his Miranda and figure he’s lying through his teeth.”

  Brooks studied the devastated youth braced against the police car. Eddie had a police officer on each side of him. The boy thought the cops were there to console and support him. He didn’t even realize that he was tentatively in custody. Brooks looked back at the smirking Gelman and Rodzienko.

  “That kid’s shattered,” Brooks finally said. “Any idiot can see that. You guys don’t have any suspect.”

  “It’s not your case,” Dick Gelman answered. “So get out of here, would you?”

  “Know what else, Brooksie?” Rodzienko said. “You and your college diploma wouldn’t know a rape-murder if one French kissed you on your buns.”

  The young detective was readying his response when his superior’s voice interrupted.

  “Brooks!” Lieutenant Agannis bellowed. “Get over here!”

  Agannis motioned that they were to walk out of everyone’s earshot. Reluctantly, Brooks came along. At the same time, Agannis jerked his head toward Detective Gelman, leaving him to proceed.

  Brooks walked several feet in silence with his commanding officer. Boomer gathered himself to all four legs, followed and plopped down behind the lieutenant, a jingle of the collar and loud sigh marking his relocation.

  “Do you try to be an obnoxious S.O.B., or do you do it naturally?” the lieutenant asked. “I got to remind you again what the rules are?”

  “Aw, come on, Lieutenant…”

  “Gelman and Rodzienko were on duty. They were here first. It’s your day off. I’ve asked you a hundred times already not to antagonize those guys. What do you want? An official reprimand?”

  Brooks blew out a long breath.

  “Look…” he began.

  “No ‘look’ about it! First cops on the scene own the case, unless they ask out of it. Clear enough?”

  Brooks stared at his shoes and then looked at the remains of the young woman being loaded into the ambulance. Gelman and Rodzienko began to take charge of the scene.

  “Yeah. Clear,” Brooks said.

  “Can’t you let one thing come down on this island without wanting to put your own personal paw prints on it?”

  “You wait,” Brooks promised. “What these guys know about a homicide investigation you could fit sideways into a thimble.”

  “This might be open and shut,” Agannis said quietly. “I don’t think there was anyone around the girl except her boyfriend. “

  “Chief,” Brooks protested, “you can tell just by looking at the kid.”

  “Enough!” Agannis snapped. “Get out of here or I’ll assign you to the A & P parking lot to watch for auto break-ins. And I mean it!”

  The lieutenant’s eyes were ablaze.

  Brooks backed off. “Yeah,” he said. “Fine. Okay.”

  He paused. Agannis took one step to walk away.

  “I don’t know why you’re not using Herb Youmans anymore,” Brooks said.

  “He’s starting to hear bells, Tim,” Agannis said. “I think he’s on the edge of senility.”

  “Never seemed that way to me.”

  Agannis looked him up and down. “Then maybe you’re on the edge of it, too,” he growled.

  Agannis turned his back and walked away. A wave of resignation swept Brooks. He eyed the paramedics as they closed the ambulance doors behind the young woman’s body.

  “Just great,” Brooks mumbled to himself.

  “Eunuch!” proclaimed the new unwelcome voice within him. “Professionally, you just got humiliated!”

  Where was this voice coming from, he asked himself again.

  Subconscious thoughts? He couldn’t even recognize the sentiments as his own. Brooks frowned. Was he receiving signals from somewhere?

  No, that was an idiotic idea, he concluded. The stress of a homicide had merely triggered something deeper in his psyche than he had even known was there. Brooks indulged himself in a long profane oath, completely silent and to himself. He tried to withdraw from the crime scene.

  The ambulance put on its lights but not its siren. Slowly, it pulled away from the spot where Beth DiMarco had died. Brooks’ eyes jumped to the self-confessed boyfriend of the deceased. Eddie was crying now—real loud noisy tears as the van pulled away. The boyfriend asked if he could accompany the body. The police were not permitting it.

  Rodzienko and Gelman had moved over to Eddie by now as well, ready to escort him to the Gray Room, a somber, windowless interrogation chamber in police headquarters on South Water Street. The Gray Room was furnished with a steel table, the tape recorder, the notepads, the three chairs and the single door. There Rodzienko and Gelman would inevitably work their unimaginative “good cop-bad cop” routine on him, hammering away looking for a confession, whether one was there to be had or not.

  Unfortunate Eddie, Brooks thought. The poor dumb kid didn’t even realize that for him the worst was yet to come. Angrily, Brooks walked back toward his car, feeling the amused eyes of a couple of state troopers upon him as he passed.

  He reached his car, got in, and turned the key. The ignition came to life and the Jeep’s rotary engine purred. Brooks backed his car slowly across the field. When he had enough space, he made a U-turn. He found the road again. Murder. Bloody murder, he thought to himself.

  What were things coming to on this island? There used to be a homicide every two or three years. No more often than that. Brooks remembered the most recent one. It had involved a couple of blue collar soreheads in pickup trucks who got into a beery territorial brawl over a girl—the ex-wife of one guy was bedding down with the other—until one of them decided to settle it with a shotgun. Now one guy was buried, the other guy was doing twenty-five years to life, and the woman was happy as a clam with yet someone else.

  So it went. Sometimes he wondered. Why did he even bother to care?

  Chapter Six

  Less than five minutes after leaving the scene of Beth DiMarco’s slaying, Tim Brooks pulled into a parking lot behind the island’s only high school.

  From the basketball court, George Osaro waved. Given the early hour, Osaro was alone. He already had a ball in play and was sinking shot after shot. Brooks stopped his Jeep and stepped out. He pulled off his sweatpants. He wore shorts underneath. He left his own ball in the car. Brooks walked toward the asphalt basketball court.

  Osaro waved to his friend, then ignored him. Osaro was not the typical local pastor. He was given to alternating swings of deep introspection and philanthropy, but could also tell some of the most vulgar jokes on the island. His few close friends knew he had a mouth to match his jokes. And yet he also possessed a keen mind to wrestle with the complexities of his philosophies and his many interests, the latter running from spiritualism and local history to tennis and shooting hoops.

  In the latter, in one-on-one against Tim Brooks, Osaro made
a surprisingly equitable opponent. He gave away five inches of height but against Brooks, his senior, got back five years in age. Their “even five-against-five exchange,” they called it. And normally, in games to fifty points, each would win about half. It was small, crafty, agile, quick and inside against tall, driving, strong and outside. The equation washed perfectly; it was a rare outing when one man would triumph by more than three hoops.

  Brooks arrived at the edge of the court. “Have you made a shot yet, you turkey?” he asked.

  Osaro readied himself, then used a one-handed set shot from twenty feet out to pop a ball through a hoop. No rim. Swish. The ball obediently rolled back to him and the pastor sank one off the backboard from fifteen feet.

  “See that one?” Osaro asked. “Or do you want to see it again?”

  “First two of the day, huh?” Brooks asked. “I’d like to see you do that with someone taller than forty-eight inches guarding you. “

  “Get out here and you will.”

  Brooks stalked onto the court.

  “Where have you been, man?” Osaro asked. “I’ve been here half an hour.”

  Osaro passed the ball to Brooks on one big friendly bounce.

  “We had a homicide,” said Brooks.

  Osaro stopped. “No, really?” He frowned in disbelief and genuine dismay. “Who and where?”

  Brooks was silent for a moment. He aimed the ball toward the hoop from the left comer of the court, his favorite game shot from about a dozen feet out. It missed everything—backboard, hoop and net. A genuinely miserable shot.

  Normally, Osaro might have needled his friend over an air ball. At this moment, however, he said nothing.

  “Looks like a college girl,” Brooks said as Osaro retrieved the errant shot. “From off-island.”

  “Got a suspect?”

  “Not really.” Brooks made a sour expression and shrugged as Osaro tossed the ball back to him. “I doubt it. Two of my partners are making a travesty of the justice system as we speak.”

  “Oh. Gelman and Rodzienko, huh?” Osaro asked.

  “That’s them,” Brooks said. He took the same shot as earlier, this time missing off the rim.

  “Want to warm up a little?” Osaro asked. He readied a shot of his own. “It won’t help you much, spastic that you are, but I’ll let you warm up.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Knife? Gun?” Osaro asked.

  “The girl? Broken neck,” Brooks said. “And the poor girl wore an expression that you wouldn’t have believed. Wow! Looked like she had gazed upon the gates of Hell itself before she died.”

  Osaro didn’t shoot. “What?” he asked.

  Brooks repeated, word for word. A look that Brooks didn’t understand, one of confusion and dismay, one that he didn’t remember ever seeing before, crossed his friend’s face. “Sorry. My terminology bothered you?” Brooks asked.

  “No,” Osaro said, recovering. “Should it?”

  “You reacted strangely.”

  Reverend Osaro shrugged and shook his head, innocently and convincingly this time. “No, no,” he said softly. “I was just reacting to the horror of it. That’s all. Wow.”

  Again, Osaro bounced the ball on one hop to the detective. Brooks walked to the free throw line. From the foul line, he had reigned as a prince since he was sixteen years old. He shot till he missed.

  This time, eleven straight.

  “I’m ready,” Brooks said when the twelfth rolled around the rim and failed to drop.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. What’s the game? Fifty points?”

  “If you think an old guy such as yourself can remain standing that long,” Osaro taunted.

  “I’m gonna kick your butt today, parson,” Brooks said.

  “How? You got Kobe Bryant coming to help you?”

  Brooks flipped his friend a playfully upraised center finger. Osaro laughed. With the exchange, Brooks felt good for the first time that morning.

  But the feeling didn’t last. Some intangible was missing from Tim Brooks’ game. He had never hit so many rims in his life. That, or Osaro was making him miss.

  For whatever the reason, the young clergyman triumphed fifty to thirty-six. The match was chalked up by both as a freak game, seeing how, in the five years that they had played each other, it was the most lopsided match in their frequent competition.

  Chapter Seven

  Annette Carlson had been ten years old when she first considered the notion of survival after death. The occasion had been the death of her cocker spaniel, a personality pooch named Bailey who had come out on the short end of a collision with a milk truck. Annette had asked her father where Bailey would go, where his spirit would rest. She always remembered asking, “Are there dogs in Heaven, Daddy?”

  Stephen Carlson had reassured his daughter. “Heaven is as you would want it to be,” he said, placing an arm around his little girl. “I’m sure Bailey’s there already, chasing cats up trees and rabbits across a field.”

  The response had been appropriate. It elicited a tear-streaked smile from a little girl. In the years that passed, looking back upon it, Annette, or Annie now to her intimates, could always recall similar tears and smiles from the memory of that conversation.

  Survival after death. Tears and smiles. These became the leitmotifs for a young actress’s life.

  Transplanted from Omaha, Nebraska to Portland, Oregon when she was seven, Annette grew up happy, if not carefree. She was a quiet child, given to somber reflection, and more likely to approach any event more as a spectator than a participant. But when she was fourteen, she became more self-assured. Approaching her mid-teens, she wanted to be part of what was going on, particularly if it involved performing. It was then that she acquired her first professional admirer in the person of Mr. Harvey, the English teacher and drama coach at South Portland High School.

  Annette had been into ballet at the time and was walking through the high school gym on her way to private instruction. Meanwhile, chaos was breaking out on the school stage. The school was three days away from presenting its annual production. This year it was My Fair Lady. And earlier that morning, the school’s Eliza Doolittle had been diagnosed with mononucleosis. Annette had watched the movie fifty times. She tugged on Mr. Harvey’s sleeve after that day’s rehearsal.

  “I can play Eliza,” she said.

  “I’m sure you could, Netty,” Mr. Harvey said. “But there’s only three days.”

  “I already know the role.”

  “How could you?”

  She lied and said she had watched the movie a hundred times instead of fifty.

  He looked at her and blinked. She was a long-legged, gawky American teenager with straight blond hair and a pretty face. Her? Eliza Doolittle? But the other girl had left school with a temperature of 102.8.

  “Can you sing?” Mr. Harvey asked in desperation.

  She showed him. Then three nights later, she was sensational before a packed auditorium. The only thing embarrassing about her performance was how much better she was than everyone else. Mr. Harvey, who became her first serious acting coach, was stunned. Then he got chills. She was that good. A career was launched.

  She stayed in the Northwest to go to college. She took the lead in almost every major production to come out of the University of Oregon during her four years there. Over summers, she traveled to locations around the country that other girls only read about in Glamour and Mademoiselle. She landed jobs in summer stock and after graduation went to southern California to try to win entry to the Screen Actors’ Guild. The latter took her another year, and she only managed it by carrying a successful role Off-Broadway in New York. From there she was spotted by a film producer who thought she looked just right—he really did think so—for an ingénue role in an upcoming film. So Annette landed back in Los Angeles by way of lower Manhattan.

  Her first role was as a saucy, witty upstairs neighbor who befriended the female lead in a thriller called Passport to Fear
. Annette had twenty-six lines and ended up dead twenty-eight minutes into the film. But she gave the public and the film industry the classic who-the-hell-was-that performance. How could anyone whom no one had heard of be so good? Other roles quickly materialized. She played a newspaper reporter in another thriller, made some money on a seventeen-day shoot, cable movie shot in Arkansas, then went back to Los Angeles and prepared for big-time lightning to strike.

  She was what directors dreamed about. She was beautiful, sexy and smart. She could give a good character performance and carry a main role, too. She could do it in a film, on television or even on a stage. Plus she was a joy to work with. No wonder then that she won the lead female role in Only the Living, a big-budget studio production based on a best-selling novel by a well-known author. Two dozen other actresses had read for the part. Only the Living was a horror thriller set in New England, the type of film with knives coming through doors and name actors lurking in every shadow. But as a piece of slick major league entertainment it worked. The studio campaigned hard for her at Oscar time and Annette came out a winner. Not just the nomination, but she took home the gold statuette as well.

  Tears and smiles. Survival after death. The formula visited itself upon her on Academy Award night, too. Watching from the family home in Oregon, Annette’s mother suffered a cerebral hemorrhage an hour after the awards. She died two days later at the age of fifty-three.

  It was a shock and a loss with which Annette had extreme difficulty coping. She had had friends and lovers over the years since university, but no one had ever been as close as her parents. She found herself with sudden fame and wealth, often unable to appear in public without being bothered for autographs or pestered by would-be screenwriters. Yet part of her life seemed gone, a voice of love from the other end of a telephone was missing. Her father seemed suddenly very old. Annette worried about him as well.

  A new boyfriend entered her life. His name was Ty. He was tall, dark haired, twenty-eight, and gorgeous. He was also the worst mistake of her life. He was abusive, untrustworthy and introduced her to sedatives and speedballs. He cheated on her flagrantly and, because it was a weak point in her life, she kept coming back to him. When he finally dumped her, she sank into a long depression, made worse by a drug complication that on two occasions had actually led to hallucinations.