A Horribly Haunted Halloween Read online

  She then studied their personal lives. While it was possible the killer had a family and children, she doubted it. This was going to be someone who lived alone, and most likely, able to walk into a home or apartment and wash off blood. Someone with space to commit murder—and then take a long time with the body.

  Her list went down to ten suspects. Out of those ten, eight were permanently working.

  And then she found a man who had a record. And digging further, she found out he wasn’t working at the current time. His anger had been building. More research showed her this man did have a record; he’d been arrested for aggravated assault after a road-rage situation.

  She was staring at the page when Corby came back in.

  “Mom!” he said anxiously. “There’s a man who wants to talk to you.”

  She looked up frowning. “Okay. Is everything all right?”

  “I found him on the sidewalk when I came back with my bike. He looked lost, and I talked to him, and I told him I’d bring you down. and you could help him. I mean I don’t bring people up here, though I suppose he could have followed me.”

  “Corby.”

  “Mom, it’s a dead man.”

  Chapter 4

  Jackson reached for his phone to call Barry before leaving the offices; he was sure their suspect was not going to be found at his home. Maybe he’d carried out his first project—turning a man into in a Halloween pumpkin scarecrow—at his place.

  But he’d be gone by now.

  He’d surely been watching, anxious for his work to be discovered.

  Still, police needed to get out there. It never paid to second-guess any situation. But before he could dial Barry and then Angela, his phone rang.

  It was Barry.

  “Jackson, we’ve got another one. This time, it’s an evil doll—and it was set up at the drive-thru spooky place. It was set up because of the pandemic. Halloween Haven. Can you—”

  “I’m on my way, but I have a suspect. His name is David Andre. He was turned down for work at Foxy—where our victim was the one who turned him down for his work not being up to their standards. I don’t think they’ll find him but get someone out to his residence. I’m sending you and Angela his picture and his address. And I’ll be out to Halloween Haven as fast as I can get there,” Jackson told him.

  “I’m on it!” Barry promised.

  Jackson hurried out to his car. He used his speaker phone to call Angela.

  She didn’t answer.

  She would get right back, he knew. She was probably doing something with the baby, or maybe helping Corby with his schoolwork. But she was always efficient; she would get right back to him.

  Traffic was middling; it didn’t take him long to reach the Halloween theme park.

  Of course.

  What better place to leave a corpse dressed up as a creature?

  How many would they find?

  Barry had seen to it they had closed the park for the night before he got there, so Jackson produced his credentials and was given directions to the display that held the body.

  Barry came rushing over to him as he drew his car up to “Evil Doll Alley.”

  “Can you believe this?”

  “Sadly, I can. The Krewe had a case having to do with a Halloween amusement park,” Jackson told him. “Do we have an I.D. on the new victim.”

  “We do! Fingerprints came right back. Roger Newsome. He was a soldier in Viet Nam, and a cop in Colorado for years—and homeless now. He was living on the streets. He had nothing to do with special effects or the movies.”

  “He might have been a random target to prove a point,” Jackson said.

  “What point?”

  “That our killer can make anyone into anything,” Jackson said. He paused with Barry. The detective had seen to it Dr. Martina Lopez had been called in again. She was directing the replacement of the corpse as he stood with Barry, taking in the scene.

  On the one hand, the park was great. Drive-thru—something for kids and adults alike as Halloween arrived at a difficult time in the history of a nation that embraced Halloween. On the other hand . . .

  It had provided a venue for a killer.

  There were all kinds of life-sized evil dolls on display in the “alley.” Dolls from movies, and superhero dolls turned bad. There was an evil Raggedy-Ann, and a vicious teddy bear with blood and ooze dripping from his mouth. There was a zombie werewolf doll.

  And the doll had been human. Roger Newsome. It had been a clown doll, one in a typical blousy clown costume with giant polka-dots, red nose, big ears, and floppy hat.

  As he watched, Marty’s assistants carefully removed the body from the pole it had been attached to so the image of a standing, lurking clown might be created. The mouth had been painted grotesquely, making it look as if the “clown” had also been gnawing on flesh.

  Jackson and Barry walked up the podium where the body was lain on a stretcher. Photographs were taken again, and then Marty worked over the body, quickly coming to the point where she ripped open the costume and looked up at them.

  “Knife wound, through the heart,” she said. “But this man’s coloring is bad. I believe, if he hadn’t been murdered, he would have died soon. Not sure yet, but I think he was suffering from cancer or liver disease. I’ll know more after autopsy. I’m going to say he was in his early seventies, severely emaciated . . . suffering.” She looked up at them. “The prints came back fast. This man was a soldier who stepped up and fought for his country. And he was a cop, but he left before his pension, and I guess whatever money he was getting just didn’t pay rent.” She winced, shaking her head. “This is so not right! I mean, the killing might have been a mercy killing and . . . we must do more for our vets!”

  “Agreed,” Jackson said. “But—a knife through the heart, a mercy killing?”

  “For an old soldier and cop, yeah, maybe,” Marty said. “I don’t know yet what he was suffering from, but I will find out.”

  Jackson nodded and looked at his phone. It was buzzing. Angela.

  He answered it, speaking already. “I believe I know who are suspect might be, but we’ve found another victim—”

  “Roger Newsome,” she said.

  “Uh, yes. How do you know?”

  “Because I’m talking to him right now,” Angela said. “In fact, he’s in our living room.” She was silent a minute. “The ghost of the man is here, Jackson. And he thinks he can help us.”

  *

  Roger Newsome had been a tall, dignified man in life. He’d been slim to a point that showed his illness, but he still stood tall. He had a fine face with good cheekbones and a strong chin, and large dark intense eyes. When he smiled, she knew he’d had a fine sense of humor. She believed he must have been a kind man, and she was sorry for all the bad that had befallen him.

  “I shot a man; I don’t know if I could have talked him down or not, but I shot him and he died there and . . . I resigned. I should have been a traffic cop. I went to war, and I knew how to fight, but when I was a civilian . . . well, the fellow I shot was suffering from severe mental disease. I think something else could have been done, so . . . well, I resigned. And right after, I found out I’d gotten hep C from a blood transfusion during my time in the military, and while there are drugs now that can help, it was too late, so my liver has been killing me for a long time. Of course, I should have found decent work, but I wound up with odd jobs . . . and then on the streets.”

  “I’m so sorry!” Angela told him. Corby sat on her lap, listening. His dark eyes were big with compassion, and she hugged him tightly.

  “Anyway, this fellow, this man, David Andre, invited me to his place. He said he had some work that needed to be done in his cellar. But we didn’t go to his house; we went to a shop that looked like it had been abandoned. He said he just needed some tools that were there. I went in with him and he explained it had closed with the pandemic, that it had been a workshop for creature effects. And I was fascinated! There was a laughing,
adorable pig right next to one of the most grotesque zombies I’d ever seen. But while I was being amazed and enjoying myself, he was getting a knife. He apologized to me—but he said he’d been watching me and knew my death would be painful so . . . he was going to get it over with for me. He needed material. There were those who deserved to die—and me, who needed to die.”

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Angela breathed again.

  But Roger Newsome shook his head. “Don’t be—I’m finally feeling useful again.”

  “How did you know to come here?” she asked softly.

  “Oh, I’d read about some ‘Krewe’ cases. I hung around your headquarters sometimes. You have nice, compassionate people working for you.”

  Angela stood, setting Corby on his feet.

  Jackson should be arriving soon. She could explain more once they were in the car. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Remember, I don’t know exactly where we were,” Roger Newsome’s ghost said.

  “I know. But we’ll drive around the district where some of those workshops and factories are located. Hopefully, you’ll find it for us.”

  Corby looked at her. Mary, holding the baby in her arms, stood in the doorway to the bedrooms. She didn’t see the dead the way Jackson, Angela, and Corby did—but she sensed them.

  She shook her head at Angela.

  Corby shouldn’t go. Not when they didn’t know what they would find. He faced the evil men could do to their fellows often enough.

  “Corby, thank you. Thank you so much for helping. Now, will you help Mary with the baby?” she asked. “And you all will need to order dinner—”

  “Halloween is tomorrow,” Corby reminded her.

  “I know. And we’re going to do what we can,” she said. “You know that.”

  He nodded gravely.

  Roger Newsome was looking at her.

  “My husband—Special Agent Crow—should be here any minute,” Angela told him.

  He nodded.

  “Great. We’ll go. Corby, young man, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said.

  Downstairs, he stood with Angela as they waited for Jackson to drive around.

  “You have a beautiful family,” he told her.

  “Thank you. Roger, and you—”

  “Only child. Parents are deceased. I was in love once. And it was ironic. While I was in Viet Nam, she was hit and killed crossing the street by a hit-and-run driver. I never fell in love again.” He smiled. “Maybe she’s waiting for me,” he said softly.

  “I like to think all those we loved are waiting for us,” Angela told him. “And I’m lucky; I get to believe it’s probably true!”

  Jackson’s SUV came around the corner. He pulled over for them to hop in.

  “You take the front,” Angela told Roger. “You can see better that way.”

  Roger got into the car, introducing himself to Jackson. Jackson looked somber as he introduced himself to the man as well.

  “You just saw my corpse!” Roger said.

  “Yes. Sir, I’m so sorry—”

  “Hey! I got to go out in style,” Newsome said lightly. “The thing is this, David Andre is going to kill people who shouldn’t die. I take it he has killed already. We need to stop him, and if I can help—well, then it gives purpose to my life—and death.”

  Jackson glanced at Angela in the rearview mirror.

  She knew they both wished they had known the man during his life.

  They drove. Jackson—during the years in which the Krewe had existed—had learned the area like the back of his hand. He was familiar with areas in not just D.C., but Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

  Darkness fell as they searched. But finally, after an hour and a half, the ghost of Roger Newsome shouted out excitedly. “There! That’s it—that’s the place!”

  Jackson pulled the car into the driveway in front of the large, two-storied structure. There was a giant sign on the door reading, “Closed Until Further Notice.”

  They got out of the car. Jackson and Angela both pulled out their weapons, though she doubted David Andre was there—not even a night light was lit within.

  They pulled out flashlights as well and went in.

  And it was much as Roger Newsome had described it—her light fell on a smiling, giant pig. And she almost started at the gruesome realness of the zombie beside it.

  But there was more . . .

  Cute little animals.

  Mummies appeared ready to move.

  Little green aliens.

  “These creations are ready for the movies,” Newsome murmured. “As soon as they can be made.”

  They were so realistic! Angela walked through a line of living dead—ironically grateful for the dead man walking behind her. One of the zombie creatures held something resembling a human brain in its hands. She turned, and nearly jumped despite her many years of experience when an alien did move.

  It just . . . seemed to inch forward.

  “What the hell?” the ghost of Roger Newsome murmured.

  “Jackson!” Angela called.

  And she stepped forward, pushing the alien aside. There was someone on the floor.

  It was a woman—a real woman, flesh, and blood, trussed and hog-tied, the gag over her mouth so tightly Angela couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

  “Jackson!” Angela cried again, and he hurried over to her. Together they worked at the gag and the ropes that bound her. Angela got the gag off the woman’s mouth and left Jackson to deal with the ropes binding her, dialing for help herself, and desperately hoping they had found the woman alive.

  Chapter 5

  “Yes, it was David,” Veronica Chastain said, sitting up in her hospital bed.

  Jackson sat in a chair by her side, listening as the woman described her ordeal. “I had just gotten home from work. I was tired, not paying a lot of attention. I’m in an apartment. I have a great job and I love it, but my company is small and it’s not as if I’m rolling in riches. I walked into the kitchen and then bam—that was the last I remembered until I woke up there. I was already tied, but David was standing over me. He wanted me to wake up.” She hesitated, shaking her head. “He wanted a job with the company. When he came in, we weren’t hiring fulltime. A month later, it was determined that we did need another fulltime person and it happened one of the directors we work with frequently had a nephew who really is good and . . . he got the job. I knew David was angry; he wrote all kinds of horrible things on our review sites. But I never imagined . . . anyway, he told me he was sorry I’d never get to see just how good his work was going to be on me. And he showed me a picture of what he had done to Gerard Greenway . . . he’s gone insane. Or he always was insane. You know, he got into an argument in traffic once, having a fit because the car in front of him didn’t make the right—but you don’t have to make the right there, the lane also goes straight . . . he punched the guy out! I mean, he could be a loose cannon, but I never expected . . . thank you. Oh, my God, I’m alive! Thank you. How did you find me?”

  “Luck. Or, who knows? The homeless man was Roger Newsome. He was a veteran and fought in Viet Nam. Maybe he guided us somehow,” he said lightly. “We knew David Andre was . . . out for those who didn’t care for his talents, and we should be searching empty spaces having to do with special effects.”

  “But I heard that nice Detective talking—the homeless man—Mr. Newsome—didn’t have anything to do with the movies or special effects.”

  “No. We believe he was a victim of . . . circumstance.”

  “I’m sorry! The poor man.”

  “If it’s any comfort, he was ill. He wouldn’t have lived long.”

  Veronica was drawn and anxious; she was going to be fine. She had some bruises, a concussion, and she had been dehydrated. But David Andre had only taken her the night before, and the doctors had said she was going to make a full recovery. She was earnest and sincere, a pretty woman in her early to mid-thirties,
he thought. She seemed to care about others.

  “He’s still out there—David is still out there, right?”

  “Yes. Police have searched his home. He had a black SUV, but it was found abandoned. I don’t know how he plans to move his—”

  He had been about to say victims.

  He rephrased.

  “His materials around. We will get him,” he said, trying to be reassuring.

  “I’m afraid, even here!” she murmured.

  “We’re going to keep an officer on guard,” he promised her.

  There were officers in the hall. Barry was still there, and he would make sure the police were watching over her through the night.

  He’d talk to Barry and make doubly sure. He’d get one of his people in as well.

  “I don’t think he’ll come for you, Veronica. I think he has something big planned for Halloween, and it would be too risky for him to come here—even if he knew we had found you.”

  “He’ll know; he’ll return to the workshop. Or he’ll try to. He may realize you’ve been there and hide out rather than come in, but one way or another, he’ll know I’ve been found,” she said.

  “We’ll have an officer and an agent on guard,” he promised her, and leaning close he said, “I don’t like to sound too proud, but we’ve never lost anyone when an agent was watching.” He offered her an encouraging smile.

  She tried to smile back. She was frightened, clutching his hand.

  “Don’t leave me!” she said softly.

  “I have to go; I have to do everything in my power to stop him. I’ll leave you in good hands, I promise.”

  An alert had already been sent out to every Krewe member, those in the area, and even those working cases in other states.

  He stayed with her as he called Bruce McFadden, the oldest of three brothers now working for the Krewe. They would help.

  “Hey, if they’ll allow it, we’ll tag-team, doubled-up throughout the night.”