Krewe of Hunters The Unholy (14 page)
Read Krewe of Hunters The Unholy Online
Authors: Heather Graham
Sean nodded to him. He stepped back with the doctor.
Of course, he was using Madison. Watching to see what would happen, wondering what she might see and hear.
“Oh, Jenny!” she said very softly.
Madison, he thought, hadn’t wanted to come here. Jenny had been a casual acquaintance, someone she’d met through Alistair Archer. But she
had
known her, had seen the place where she’d been murdered; she’d heard Alistair’s rendition of the events that had stolen the young woman’s life.
And now, she was seeing her here, naked and lifeless on the gurney, the essence that had made her vital and beautiful and human long gone.
At first, it looked like the last thing in the world Madison wanted to do was touch the corpse.
Sean waited, feeling like a jerk, but knowing he had to.
And in a moment, Madison came forward. A tear dripped down her cheek and fell on her own hand.
She reached out, and her fingers gently brushed Jenny Henderson’s arm.
She closed her eyes.
She trembled suddenly, as if she’d been hit by a bolt of electricity. Chang almost stepped toward her, but Sean raised a hand and stopped him.
They waited. Madison stood by the corpse as the seconds passed by. She seemed frozen, unable to move.
At last, Sean took two steps and stood behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. He looked down himself and saw Jenny. Once again, in his mind’s eye, Jenny’s eyes were open. And she was staring at the two of them, staring as though pleading for the help that hadn’t come to her in life.
Sean felt as if he was picking up on the end of a conversation.
Jenny was saying,
Um, I don’t know. I suppose… I really care about Alistair! But yes, there were a number of people who knew that he and I were friends. All right, more than friends. That I liked to tease ckedabouhim and sleep with him because…because I care about him and because it wasn’t such a bad thing to sleep with him. We weren’t destined for life but—
She paused, staring at them again.
But I—and many others—have slept with people for much worse reasons. It wasn’t a secret. I was talking about it during…lunch at the old café down on Sunset…. I was with a girlfriend, Molly Ives, and I told her I was going to try to seduce Alistair that night, because I was desperate for a role in
The Unholy
. My roommate, Kathy McCarthy, knew. I was probably stupid. I should have been more discreet. I should have…
Jenny’s silent voice in Sean’s head was suddenly stilled.
Chang was standing next to Madison, holding her arm. “Breathe. Just breathe. I know the smell of the room isn’t great, but breathe deeply, and you won’t pass out.”
Sean was dismayed that he hadn’t seen how white she’d become. He cleared his throat.
“Definitely right-handed killer?” he asked.
“Or someone totally ambidextrous,” Chang said.
“Thank you. Call me when her brother schedules his appointment to see her. I’ll be here,” Sean vowed.
Chang nodded, covering Jenny’s corpse with the sheet. His action seemed to restore a degree of dignity to her poor abused body.
“Is there anything else, Agent Cameron?” Chang asked.
“No, not right now. Thank you. And I will be back. I know you’ve recovered what you can, but I don’t want the body released yet.”
“Then she will not be released,” Chang promised him.
Sean nodded. He set his hand at the small of Madison’s back and led her out of the room, down the antiseptic hallway and out to the light of day.
In the bright sunshine, she was even more pale.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, gazing up at him. “Really.”
She had beautiful large eyes. He noted that they were perfect—not too large for her face, but the kind of eyes that seemed to give her vitality as well as beauty, that seemed to radiate emotion and life.
He let out a breath and looked at his watch. His team was coming, but they weren’t due for another few hours.
“How about we stop by your house?” he suggested.
“My house? But where will that get us?”
“It will get us to your house,” Sean said. “And give me time to think about what I want to do next, what I want to say to my team head and what I want to ask my team to start heading up for me.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said. She was trying to speak casually, but he suspected she was glad of the opportunity to go home.
She needed to regroup herself. She wasn’t admitting it yet, but she’d just carried on a conversation with a corpse.
“Fine,” she said. “Well, you’re driving, and you know where I live. Let’s go!”
So he did.
Her little car, an old Pontiac Vibe, was sitting in the driveway.
“That’s mine, too,” she said, pointing to the space beside it.
When he pulled in next to her car and parked, Madison quickly got out and he did the same. She walked to her door and fit her key into the lock.
“This is a wonderful old bungalow,” he said, standing back to admire it.
“Yes, all the houses in this neighborhood are.”
The door opened and he stepped into her house. Instantly, he felt an intriguing sensation of being watched—suspiciously.
Madison isn’t the only one residing here,
he thought.
“Come in. Make yourself comfortable,” she told him.
She didn’t seem to be very comfortable herself. Her next words confirmed his feeling.
“I’m going to make a drink. Would you like one? I’m not exactly a full-service bar, but I have Scotch, rum, whiskey…”
She disappeared into the kitchen and then popped her head back out, continuing with “…a que ch gn="lefstionable red wine and an Irish beer in bottles.”
“Sounds like a pretty good bar to me,” he said. “I’ll take an Irish beer.”
He heard her in the kitchen, despite the fact that the television was on.
“Have a seat,” she called to him.
He did. The second he was seated, a ball of fur leaped up beside him and gazed at him with mammoth cat eyes. “Hey, it’s cool, I like cats,” he said in a low voice.
“Don’t mind Ichabod!” she called.
“I like animals!” he assured her, speaking more loudly.
But as he stroked the cat, he felt an odd presence. He turned and realized he was right.
Madison was not residing in the bungalow by herself—and it wasn’t just the cat who was residing with her.
There was a man seated at the far end of the sofa, watching him gravely.
“I Love Lucy,”
the man said. “Love that show. The physical comedy is exceptional. Ah, Lucille! She had some major talent.”
Sean just nodded, incredulous. “Bogie?” he whispered.
* * *
She wasn’t alone. He hadn’t merely dropped her off—he was inside the house with her!
Vengeance was irritated. Sean Cameron. Everyone hero-worshipped the bastard.
Could have been a movie star, excellent leader and team player, brilliant, artistic, talented…
FBI?
Vengeance was thoughtful; it was said that Cameron had left because a friend was dying. A woman. Although they’d been apart, she’d been the love of his life. So he’d gone home to Texas. Texas. Cowboys and guns and ranches…
Then he’d joined the FBI. But he was back.
Panic set in. No, just stick to the plan—with Madison now part of the scenario. It was very film noir. She wasn’t the love of Cameronont> c Cac set is life, but…
It made vengeance
all the sweeter.
Let him kno
w….
Let him know that another woman, Madison Darvil, had died.
A woman
he’d
brought in on the case. Or, better still…one
Eddie Archer
had brought in.
Yes, she must die.
Vengeance wasn’t sure that vengeance
could wait.
7
W
hy hadn’t she said NO? One gigantic NO, that would’ve done it. She could have explained that she didn’t bring people to her house, that work was separate from her private life, even when it came to saving Alistair Archer and finding a murderer. They could have gone somewhere else.
Anywhere else! She wasn’t against being with him—not at all. Under other circumstances, she would’ve loved to have had him in her house. Every moment she spent with Sean seemed to draw her closer to him, draw her further into the web of fascination he created for her. She liked being next to him, feeling the warmth he seemed to exude, feeling she wanted to come closer and closer….
They were just working together; she was a studio guide for him, and a guide into the lives of those around Eddie, the people she might know better than he did.
And she really didn’t need him here! Not when Bogie was bound to tease her and cause trouble. It was going to be hard to behave normally, to pretend that the ghost of a classic film star wasn’t sitting on her sofa or leaning nonchalantly against a wall.
But she’d tried to remain casual. She’d been nonchalant.
Sure, what the hell, let’s go to my house.
Bogie would behave. Bogie knew that a murder had taken place. This wasn’t like trying to destroy an evening because she was dating someone he considered a jerk. This was different. Sure, the television was on. Lots of people left their TVs on. No big deal. It was all going to be fine.
Madison dug around in her refrigerator and produced a beer for Agent Cameron. Luckily, she was so close to the studio that she brought her coworkers home for weekend evenings fairly often—and Bogie always behaved then. She was well-supplied with snack food and a decent selections of drinks—alcoholic and non. Beer. Beer was easy. She had a case of Guinness f> c Cnt selecher assistant had brought last Friday. Nice cold Irish beer in bottles. What about her? Hmm. Maybe she’d have something a bit harder. Like Scotch or whiskey. She looked around on the counter. She had both. A whiskey and ginger ale. Yeah.
She poured whiskey into a glass with ice.
She didn’t add the ginger ale. She knocked the drink back in a swallow, felt the burn and coughed. That was good. Okay, no problem. She poured herself another shot and added the ginger ale. She shook back her hair and managed to call out calmly, “It’s Guinness. You want a glass?”
“Nope.”
She picked up her glass and his beer and tried to sail smoothly back into the living room. Agent Cameron was seated on the couch, left side.
Bogie was on the right side.
Bogie offered her his charming half smile. She returned it with a warning frown.
“Here you go.” She handed Sean the beer, and took a seat in the large upholstered chair.
“Thanks,” he told her.
She nodded. “So when does your crew get in?” she asked.
“The rest of my unit arrives tonight.”
Why did casual conversation have to be so damned hard?
Because she’d brought him to her house. After a trip to the morgue.
She was insane. Totally insane.
And it was all worse than she’d imagined. He was staring at her. Just watching her. As if he knew something she didn’t know…
She gave him her best effort at an expectant smile, as if she was waiting for him to tell her where they were going from here.
But, at first, he didn’t speak.
And she was completely unnerved.
She looked at her glass. She didn’t remember having gulped down the second drink.
“Wow,” she murmure k sote>
d.
“First trip to a morgue isn’t easy,” he said.
“No. I mean, people don’t usually drop in on the morgue,” she said.
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“Excuse me,” Madison said, standing again and hurrying back to the kitchen. She really had to stop. She didn’t normally slurp down three shots in ten minutes. But one more…
She made herself another drink. She would
sip
it, she promised herself.
Once again, she sat in the big chair diagonally across from him. Bogie was shaking his head in some kind of warning.
She ignored him, looking at Sean Cameron.
And he looked back at her.
“So, about Texas,” she said. She felt as if she was awkwardly trying to speed-date. They weren’t at a speed-dating event. They were working on a murder case. She was an artist. She could create wonderful special effects and work on her own designs and the designs of others; she was a fabricator, accustomed to fabric and foam and latex and other materials with which marvelous
things
could be fashioned. She knew nothing about morgues and murders.
“Texas, yes,” he said pleasantly.
“Nice state. Big state. Lots of horses, cowboys…all that.” Oh, God, she sounded like she was doing horrendously at a very
bad
speed-dating event.
“Yes, Texas is a big state,” he said. He seemed amused, even
charmed,
by her desperate rambling.
But before she could make some other inane remark, he asked, “What did you get from the morgue? Really. Seriously.”
Madison frowned. “I got the same thing you got. Exactly what the medical examiner said. Her killer caught up with her from behind. Held her tight and slit her throat, the stroke going from left to right.”
“And?” he persisted.
She forced herself to meet his eyes. “If he had any other facts, I didn’t hear him say so,” she said primly.
He smile k"-1
Her jaw must have dropped to her feet.
He actually reached over to tap it shut with his hand.
“Madison!” He said her name softly but firmly. “Madison, this isn’t the time to be shy about your abilities. We’ve got to get this all out in the open, now, here—and make use of everything we can throughout this case. We need
whatever
help there is. All the help we can get—from the living…and the dead.”
She was still staring at him. At least her mouth was no longer gaping. But she couldn’t seem to speak.
“Please,” he said. “Eddie told me you speak with the dead. And Bogie told me he hangs around here because he loved the time he lived here—and because you’re the only one he’s come across who sees him and responds to him. He really likes you, too. But he’d haunt those he loved during his lifetime if he could.”
Her jaw dropped again. And once more, he gently tapped it shut.
She glanced at Bogie, who was watching her gravely, and then turned back to Sean Cameron with total shock.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said harshly.
“It’s all right, kid,” Bogie said. “He sees me.”
In torment, Madison looked from her ghost to Sean Cameron. He was studying her with his deep green eyes. Eyes that seemed to accept nothing but the truth. Challenging eyes, defying her to contradict him.
Madison couldn’t help herself; she sat rigidly silent. She didn’t want to hurt other people with what she saw, nor did she relish being ridiculed. In her entire life, she’d never come across anyone else who admitted to seeing the dead.
“You can’t begin to know how lucky you are,” Sean said, looking at Bogie with awe. “Sir, you were magic on the screen. Magic. And from everything I’ve read, you were an all-right guy, as well.”
“I had my spats with a few folks.” Bogie shrugged in that characteristic Bogie way.
“We all do,” Sean said. “Every life includes some dark spots and hard times knd dth="1. But, sir, the totality of your life, on-screen and off…it’s fantastic.” He suddenly turned to Madison. “Really! You can’t imagine how lucky you are to be haunted by such a legend!”
“Right, there you go, kid. You’re lucky as hell,” Bogie told her.
Madison stared at Sean. “You…you really see Bogie?” she whispered.
“Clear as day.”
“Yup, he
sees
me,” Bogie said, pleased.
Madison had no idea what to do or how to react.
Sean leaned toward her. “So, here’s the thing. I know you saw our victim, as well. I know you spoke to her, and that she replied.”
“You…you heard,” Madison said weakly.
“Yes.”
She was afraid she was going to fall off the chair. In a way, her life, her private life, had remained easy. She’d been able to tell herself that she was imaginative—she was, thank God, which was why she had the job she did—but that she wasn’t really so strange. That it wasn’t real, it was all in her head.
And now she was sitting here with someone who was
making
it real.
She didn’t think she liked this reality. Actually, no, she knew she didn’t. Reality was Alistair Archer accused of murder, and Jenny Henderson dead on a table in the morgue.
She realized then that Sean was looking at her with far more than speculation.
He was looking at her with hope.
She managed to speak through numb lips. “She doesn’t know.”
He sighed, leaning back, his eyes still on her. “Yeah, same thing I got,” he said wearily. “Except she was pretty honest with you, gave you more detail. We’re going to have to interview her roommate and the friend she was with.”
“You were expecting something different?”
“Something more,” he said. “Well, I hate to say it, but we’re going back to the morgue tomorrow. We
have
to find out who else she saw that day. She says people knew s kpeoate to sayhe planned to drop in on Alistair. We have to know who those people are.”
“I’m sure this young woman wants to help you.” Bogie spoke quietly. “And I’m sure she’s scared, and uncertain, and hoping to move on from…haunting a morgue. But I know she’ll help you all she can. Now, just how crazy the morgue workers are going to think
you
are—well, that I can’t say.”
Sean turned to Madison and grimaced. “Yeah, he’s got a point. They’ll think we’re crazy if we insist on trip after trip to the morgue.” He looked directly at Bogie. “Maybe, when the crew gets in, you could join us. Talk Jenny Henderson into…coming home with us.”
“What?” Madison didn’t mean to squeak out the question—but she already lived with one ghost.
“Away from the morgue, at least. She could haunt the studio or the Black Box Cinema,” Sean told her.
“God, no,” Bogie said. “She was killed there.”
“There has to have been a place she loved,” Sean mused. “We just have to figure out where. Then she can leave the morgue and haunt a place that made her happy. Until she’s ready to move on.”
Madison glanced over at Bogie.
“Hey, I gotta say, I’m not sure why
I’m
still hanging around,” Bogie said. “Maybe it’s for the reruns. Life can’t be rerun, but you can now see those old shows over and over again.” He pointed a finger at Madison. “Or maybe it’s for you, kid.”
Sean leaned toward Madison once more. “Most of the time, despite forensics, when perpetrators are caught, it’s because someone had a theory. Forensics can be brilliant tools, but they don’t mean much unless you have a direction in which to take them. Sure, you can get DNA, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find it in the system. But I’m willing to bet this culprit doesn’t have any kind of rap sheet. So we need a theory. The official theory now is that Alistair did it. Our theory is that someone else did, someone who has a bone to pick with Jenny, Alistair or most likely Eddie. Could Jenny have provoked that kind of hatred at her age? Probably not, but it
is
possible. Could the killer want Alistair out of the picture? Yes, but he’ll go to prison for life, which doesn’t really remove him. Does his incarceration and the stigma of murder hurt Eddie Archer? To the bone. So I think the murderer is out to make Eddie’s life miserable and perhaps close down the cinema and the studio.”