The Haunting of James Hastings (22 page)

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Authors: Christopher Ransom

Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Suspense

BOOK: The Haunting of James Hastings

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‘Confess to what?’ I said.

‘Sneaking extra hits of morphine.’ Bergen grinned. ‘Doc says no injuries other than the bruising on your back and some raspberries on your knees. They’re going to do a psych-o on you before you check out. You might have a few rounds of PTSD to go yet, but I told them you were tough. You feel up to a talk?’

‘Sure.’

He looked at Annette. ‘Can you give us a minute, Annette?’

Annette stroked my hair reassuringly. ‘You’ll be okay?’

I nodded.

‘Want anything to eat?’

‘Mm. Fatburger?’

Annette smiled and walked into the hall.

Bergen shut the door after her. He dragged the chair over and sat so that I was looking down at him, which felt strange. I did not have the energy to concoct a cover story.

He nodded happily, ready to eat me for lunch. ‘Between your neighbors and the driver, and Annette’s statement about certain events prior, we have a good picture of what happened outside the house. Want to tell me what happened inside? Can you remember?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Most of it. I was about to get into the shower, the one in the upstairs bathroom. I heard someone screaming. I ran into the ballroom. Lucy was standing there in my wife’s clothes, holding the gun. She stopped screaming when—’

‘Where’d you get the gun?’ Bergen interrupted.

He’s a good detective, I thought. Don’t lie. He’ll read it in two seconds flat. But Hermes might be pissed when you rat on him, oh yeah. Which one would you rather have as an enemy? The LAPD or the local drug dealer?

‘Hermes gave it to me.’

‘You bought the gun from Herman Willocks, the driver?’

‘No, he gave it to me. I offered to pay. He refused.’

‘What, as a loaner? Temporary deal type deal?’

‘No. More like a gift.’

‘Why?’

I shrugged. ‘We’re neighbors. I got him some concert tickets a couple years ago.’

Bergen looked pissed for a moment. I wondered if that made it less of a crime, the fact that money had not changed hands. Is it illegal to give someone a gun? Probably.

‘Why’d you decide you needed a gun?’

I told him about the weeks surrounding Stacey’s anniversary, how things seemed out of place, how I felt someone had been in the house. I told him I might have been paranoid, or freaking out about the anniversary. I told him I had contemplated suicide, a truth that revealed itself to me even as I spoke it.

Bergen was frowning, checking his notes. ‘When did he give you the gun?’

‘A few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘Just before the anniversary.’

Bergen eye-drilled me.

‘What?’

He read from his notepad. ‘Quote, “He came to see me about needin’ a piece a year and a half ago, said it was for security.” End quote.’

‘What?’

‘That’s your neighbor’s statement,’ Bergen said.

I was confused. ‘That’s not true,’ I said.

‘Were there two guns?’

‘No.’

‘Well, one of you is mistaken,’ Bergen said.

Had I asked Hermes for a gun more than a year ago? Had I forgotten, somehow gotten mixed up? I didn’t think so.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Right,’ Bergen said. ‘It’s not important right now. I’ll check on that. Meantime I’m more interested in why you decided you needed a gun. Was it because of Lucy?’

‘I didn’t know she was dangerous, if that’s what you mean.’

‘How many times did you speak to her on the phone?’

This was an easy trap to spot. I knew I had not spoken to her on the phone at all, not once. I had only heard her messages, and I told Bergen so.

‘But you knew about them, right? The numerous phone calls?’

‘All I heard was the one message about our dinner date, before I blew her off, and then the second one, the angry one a couple weeks later.’

‘We didn’t find those,’ he said. ‘You erased them?’

I nodded. He would have the records by now. He knew more than me about this whole situation.

‘Did she threaten you on these messages?’

I thought back. ‘No, she told me to stay away from her, that I shouldn’t call her or wave to her ever again.’

Bergen diddled his ear with his pinky. ‘Her records show she called you almost every day for two weeks leading up to the event.’

‘Same time, right?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Nine-twelve.’

‘Right. What’s the significance of that? Something special between you two?’

‘It’s the time Stacey left her last voicemail to me. The day she was killed. I let Lucy listen to the message months ago, when we were on better terms. She might have noticed the time stamp then. I don’t know.’

‘So, you had a relationship with Lucy Arnold.’

‘Wouldn’t call it a relationship, Tod. She used to come around. We had drinks. She tugged me off in the kitchen once, if you really want to know. We never broke up. It just sort of fizzled.’

He chewed on that for a while. ‘Let’s go back to the ballroom.’

I nodded. Fun.

‘You hear her screaming, you walk in, she’s wearing your wife’s clothes. What did you say or do next? Be specific. ’

I took him through it as best as I could remember, which was pretty clearly, except for her exact words. I told him I was just trying to talk her down, to keep her from popping me.

‘She seemed very scared, confused, not like herself,’ I said. ‘She said Stacey didn’t want me to live.’

‘She said that? She said, “Stacey doesn’t want you to live”?’

I thought it over again. ‘I don’t know if she used Stacey’s name. She might have said, “She”, not Stacey.’

‘But you had the impression she was talking about someone else, your wife?’

‘Yeah. She was angry with me. She was crying. I kept apologizing for blowing her off, but she didn’t seem to hear me. I told her to give me the gun and she said, “She won’t let me.” Like she was hearing another voice in her head.’

Bergen frowned. ‘Had she ever appeared mentally ill to you? Unstable? In any way, however minor?’

I thought back to our sad happy hours. ‘No. She was just shy. She seemed lonely but shy. She had a kind of passive way of coming onto me, whatever that means.’

Bergen shrugged. ‘You never can tell. Then what?’

‘Then I kept getting closer to her and she became agitated. She was sort of frozen, up until the very end. Then she pointed the gun at me. I almost had it and then she fired over my head and I collided with her. I guess she dropped the gun on her way out.’

Bergen frowned. ‘That’s it? She just dropped the gun and walked away?’

What was I forgetting? Lucy had said something on her way out the ballroom doors. ‘She screamed “Leave me alone” and ran out. Wait, no, she said, “Leave me alone, she won’t leave me alone.”’

‘And then she ran away?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you chased her?’

‘No, not at first. I was stunned. I thought she shot me.’

‘But you did chase her.’

‘Yes, eventually.’

‘Why?’

I was stumped for a moment. Why had I chased her? ‘I was worried about her. I heard her banging around in the hall and I thought she was going to hurt herself.’

Bergen sat back. ‘You weren’t angry with her?’

‘No.’

‘A woman breaks into your house, dressed like your deceased wife, and puts a gun in your face.’ Bergen came at me, making his hand into a gun and aiming it at my face. His fingernail was six inches from my nose and I could smell his coffee breath. ‘You weren’t mad at her. You wanted to help her.’

Something in me revolted. ‘I felt guilty! You think I wanted to beat her up? I was
relieved
. I thought she was going to kill us both.’

Bergen stepped back. ‘Easy, easy.’

I breathed. I was hungry. I had a hunger headache.

‘Are you calm? You want me to call the doc?’

I shook my head. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘Did you at anytime believe you were talking to your wife?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. When you found Lucy in your house dressed like that. Did you even for a minute think you were talking to your wife?’

‘No,’ I answered without hesitation. ‘I never thought that.’

‘Are you sure? Even in those clothes? You’ve been through some shit, all last year. You were screaming your wife’s name after the Lincoln hit Lucy. Do you remember that?’

I didn’t remember that, but I believed him. What the fuck was wrong with me?
At first I thought it was Annette. We’ve been playing dress-up. We’re kinky like that.

‘James?’

‘No. Soon as I saw her, I thought, holy shit, it’s Lucy Arnold.’

Bergen sighed. He seemed to be considering things, which way to go. ‘Man to man, off the record, James. What do you think happened?’

‘What do I think happened?’

‘What was her problem?’

Tell the truth
, James, Stacey said.
He’s trying to help you.

‘I think I led a lonely woman to believe I had feelings for her. I think she saw me with Annette, she knew we were seeing each other. I think I hurt her feelings and she got mad. I think she was in the house a few times, snooping. She might have buried the shoes in my yard and dug them up to fuck with my head, and when that didn’t work she stole the gun and waited until I came home from Annette’s, where I had been fucking another woman non-stop for a week, and . . .’

Bergen was staring at me in wonder. ‘And then?’

‘And then she snapped.’

He studied me for a moment. ‘Can you think of any other reason this might have happened? No matter how ridiculous it might sound. Anything?’

Did he know? How would he know about the rest? I needed to say it aloud. I needed someone to hear it. ‘Yes, I can.’

His eyes dilated.

‘Either Lucy snapped,’ I said. ‘Or my house is . . . there might be something inside it. Sometimes I can feel her there.’

Bergen stared at me. ‘Are you saying your house is . . .? That Stacey was, ah, influencing Lucy?’

I sighed. ‘Maybe.’

Bergen’s lips parted. He struggled to find the words. ‘Why would you—’ He shook his head once, then tried and failed to mask his patronizing tone. ‘Why would “Stacey” want to do that?’

He’s doing his own psych-o now. And maybe he’s been doing it since question one.

I decided to go all in. ‘Because she’s angry with me.’

‘For?’

‘For not being home when she called. For not answering the phone.’ I started to cry and looked away. ‘For not saving her.’

Bergen sat down. ‘You can’t save people from accidents, James.’

I cried for a bit anyway.