The Traveler: Book 5, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (3 page)

As if on cue, the shrink checked the time and Eddie knew the session was coming to a close.

“So what’s the lesson today?” Eddie asked.

“Stacking,” Colin said.

“I love that.”

“What?”

“When shrinks make up a term to describe something everybody already understands.”

Colin smiled, genuinely. “We’re good at that. But I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“Okay.”

“Stacking is when you start adding up all your problems, real or imagined. Most of the time, they’re imagined. Or they are the things that
might
happen if such and such happens today, and such and such happens tomorrow, and such and such happens next week. Before you know it, you’ve piled up dozens of problems in your mind, most of which are hypothetical and contingent and are therefore unsolvable in the near-term.”

“And you feel overwhelmed,” Eddie said.

“Exactly.” Colin nodded. “You paralyze yourself. You stop facing the immediate issue and then they begin to accumulate and you feel worse because you haven’t done anything positive, then you feel helpless, then…you get the idea.”

Eddie nodded.

“The key is to take everything one step at a time. Face the first real problem and take care of it immediately. And then the next one, and then the next one. Your attitude will change and the worry will start to go away and all those imagined problems will fade away.”

Their time up, Eddie thanked Colin and went to his car. His adrenaline was still going from the session and the-whatever-they’d-just-done with the tuning fork. A voicemail from an unidentified number was waiting for him but he wasn’t ready to listen to it. Instead he drove a few minutes to take the edge off. A few minutes turned into a half hour and when he spotted the next big parking lot, he pulled in. There was a grocery store and a restaurant with a long bar attached to it.

The neon beer signs attracted his eyes and that little weak devil inside nudged him. Just one drink wouldn’t hurt, it told him. Just one.

But there was never just one.

Never.

Even if he managed to keep it to one tonight, it would be that much easier to have two the next day, three the day after that, and…

He took a deep breath. His chest tightened as his heart raced.

He was stacking, just like Colin had explained.

Stop piling up a ton of what-ifs
.

You can only deal with the present moment.

He pulled back onto the road and drove another five minutes till he found a chain bookstore and parked.

He listened to the voicemail.

“Mr. McCloskey, this is Detective Christie with the Rariville Police Department. Please call me back as soon as you can. I’d like to enlist your help with a case I’m working.” She left her number.

Eddie had never heard of Rariville so he cross-referenced it with the area code from the phone number and realized it was roughly in the middle of Pennsylvania, maybe two hours from his apartment in Philly.

Detective Christie sounded young to be a detective. She did not have a Philly accent and he wondered if she had a Pittsburgh accent, and then wondered what a Pittsburgh accent sounded like. He had no idea.

He called her back.

“Detective, this is Eddie McCloskey returning your phone call.”

“Mr. McCloskey, do you mind if I call you Ed?”

She sounded very happy to have heard back from him, surprised even.

“Mr. McCloskey was my father. Eddie will do just fine.”

“Eddie, thank you for returning my call. I think we could use your help on a case. The county will pay for your expenses. It is urgent so I need to know if you’re available right away.”

Eddie was going dark at a house this weekend. It sounded like a run-of-the-mill residual haunting and would only require one night of work. It was times like these he considered hiring someone or at least using somebody per diem to help him with the overflow.

“I’ve got a gig coming up. Could it wait till after this weekend?”

“We need someone right away. Can you rearrange your other job? This is very important.”

He heard the urgency in her voice. She sounded nice. He wanted to help her. Maybe he could do her job quickly and be home in time for the other one. And it would keep him busy. Busy was good.

“Detective, what is this about?” he said.

“Our counsel advises that we need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement for this job.”

Eddie laughed. “If you can’t tell me what the job is, how can I make a decision?”

“That’s what the lawyer told me to do. But I don’t like lawyers very much. I need somebody good. I heard you were good. So I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it a secret.”

“Cross my heart.”

“Can ghosts kill people?”

***

Eddie packed a bag of clean-enough clothes and grabbed his gear. He checked the time. A little after 9:00PM, so he figured it was safe to call Stan, his best friend and the guy he always turned to for advice and quick and dirty research.

Stan and his wife Moira had a very young daughter named Maddy. Eddie knew she went to bed a little after dinner so he figured it was a good time to catch Stan. His friend wouldn’t be distracted.

Stan answered on the second ring.

Of course Maddy was screaming in the background.

“Every time I call that kid is in tears,” Eddie said. “What the hell are you guys doing to her?”

“Fuck off, I’ll call you back,” Stan said.

“LANGUAGE!” Moira shouted in the background.

Eddie sat down in his recliner and waited. Stan usually called back in a few minutes and he didn’t want to take it from the road because he had to follow directions to get to Rariville.

He tried watching TV and tried reading but his mind was racing with possibilities. What Detective Christie had shared with him was intriguing. There was always a good chance there was nothing paranormal going on, but he lived for those rare instances where he experienced something truly supernatural. Something that no one else had ever experienced before. The one hit made up for the thousand misses.

Finally his phone rang.

“Stan.”

“You call at the worst fu…
frigging
times.”

“Language!” Eddie said mockingly.

“Fu…frig you.”

“Is Maddy still up? Why are you talking in curse code?”

“No, she’s not still up. I’m trying to make a new habit by substituting frig for…you know. Everything we do is habit.”

“So the kid is going to start saying frig? Isn’t that just as bad?”

“Quit frigging busting my balls. I already get this from Moira and now I’m getting it from you?”

“You know I love you, pal.”

“I know you’re calling for a reason, and it’s not to hang out.” Stan had said it jokingly, but it was the truth and it stung. Eddie had
finally
visited them a month ago after literally years of not seeing them. Their beautiful little girl, Maddy, had melted his heart. Stan and Moira had even referred to him as Uncle Eddie. The gesture had left him speechless.

The joke stung because Eddie only called Stan when he was working a job and needed advice. Over the last few years, Eddie had been so busy trying to get his life back together, then trying to get his business off the ground, he rarely had any time to call his closest and longest friend just to hang out.

But those were all excuses. Stan made time for him. He needed to do the same.

“Sorry, pal, I know I’m always doing this.”

“No worries. You need help with something?”

It eased Eddie’s mind that Stan was obsessed with the paranormal and always more than willing to help. Stan’s interest made asking for the favor much easier because he knew he wasn’t putting Stan out.

“Rariville, Pennsylvania. Ever heard of it?” Eddie asked.

“Nope.”

“Me neither. I just got a call from a cop out there.”

“About what?”

“Sorry, I’m literally on my way to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t share any details.”

Stan whistled. “I never thought I’d see the day where a cop asked
for
your
help.”

Eddie laughed. “Ha, ha. Very funny. If you have some time tonight or tomorrow, could you check the usual for me?”

“The usual being violent deaths, weird goings-on, mass hysteria, previously reported paranormal activity, et cetera?”

“When you put it like that…”

Stan laughed. “I’ll get right on it. How long do you think you’ll be out there?”

“I don’t know. I have to move a gig this weekend.”

“I’ll cover it,” Stan said.

Eddie thought about it. The job sounded run-of-the-mill and very low risk, but he’d never forgive himself if he handed an assignment over to Stan and then Stan got hurt, or worse, on it. There was little chance of that, but still he balked.

“That’s a no,” Stan said, before Eddie could answer.

“You’re a father now.”

“Eddie, research is cool but I prefer the action. I don’t want to sit in an ivory tower the rest of my life.”

In the past Stan had mockingly complained about helping Eddie with research. But this time Stan’s tone was different. He sounded sincere.

Eddie said, “Would Moira be okay with that?”

Stan didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Eddie wasn’t so sure. Their last investigation together had been almost ten years ago, and Eddie’s brother, Tim, had been murdered during the course of it. Eddie didn’t think Moira would be okay with her husband, now also a father, going dark anywhere.

“I need to stay in the game,” Stan said.

Eddie didn’t respond. Stan had hit a big payout in the lottery in his early twenties and hadn’t worked a day since. He had enough fuck you money to last two lifetimes and his daughter would never have to worry. But Stan wasn’t lazy. He didn’t spend his days sitting on his ass, watching TV, getting fat and stupid. He worked out religiously and pursued all his hobbies passionately. He had many interests and kept himself busy.

But apparently not busy enough. His first true love was the paranormal. He and Eddie had spent so many nights up late, talking about hauntings and all the things they read about.

“Okay, on one condition. You keep the entire fee.”

“No way,” Stan said. “I don’t need the money and you’ve got a business to worry about.”

They argued about the money for a few minutes and didn’t get anywhere. Eddie had to get on the road so they agreed to table it. He told Stan he’d clear it with the client first and get back to him later.

Eddie said, “Do you still have your gear? I’m taking all of mine.”

“Oh yeah. Got it all. Are you going to take that ghost box I got you for Christmas?”

Eddie laughed. “That’s the one thing I
don’t
plan on taking. If anybody who knows anything sees me with that, they’ll think I’m a fraud.”

“Those things work. There have been a lot of field tests on the model I got you.”

Eddie shook his head. The ghost box measured the energies fluctuating in the immediate environment and translated them into words. He’d seen it on YouTube and had been immediately skeptical. Last he checked, nobody had discovered the Rosetta Stone for electromagnetic frequency or temperature changes so how the hell did the translation work? The device was rudimentary as well: the ghost box’s voice was Stephen Hawking-like and as a result many ghost hunters ended up purchasing an add-on digital text display (DTD) because that computerized voice was so difficult to understand.

Of course Stan had sent him the latest ghost box and most state-of-the-art DTD. Money to burn.

“Alright, I’ll take it,” Eddie said. “Just in case.”

“Better to have what you don’t need, than to need what you don’t have.”

Eddie laughed. “Where have I heard that before?”

It took Eddie two hours to reach Rariville and then fifteen minutes to find the police station. The building was big and rectangular. The font for RARIVILLE POLICE STATION was horribly dated. Eddie figured it hadn’t been changed since the late eighties or early nineties which made the building at least that old.

Still, it was big and well-maintained and there was an impressive fleet of cruisers and unmarked cars filling the side lot. What little he’d seen of Rariville told him there was some money here. They weren’t rolling in it but they were doing well enough.

He told the young man at the front desk who he was there to see. Less than a minute later, a short Asian woman wearing a black sport coat and pants met him. She had dark hair that was longer than her shoulders and intelligent eyes that he could tell missed nothing.

“Eddie?”

“Detective?”

Her smile was more polite than friendly. They shook hands. Hers was tiny to match the rest of her. He almost had a foot on her.

“Come with me,” she said.

He followed her back into the station. It was relatively quiet, most of the desks empty. The other cops looked up from their work to watch him as he followed Christie to her workspace. She led him deeper into the station and the open floor was replaced by cubicles that afforded a little privacy. Her cube had two of everything: desk, computer, chair. He assumed she shared it with another detective.

She hadn’t told him her first name over the phone, but he spotted her name plate on the cubicle wall.

Sumiko Christie
.

He was no expert on Asian culture, but thought she looked Japanese and the first name seemed Japanese to him also.

Christie sat and pointed at the chair. “Thank you for coming right away. We appreciate it.”

Eddie nodded. “So how is Lieutenant Whitmore?”

She smiled. “It’s Captain Whitmore now, and he’s well. He spoke very highly of you.”

Eddie said nothing. Whitmore was one of his best references but they hadn’t started out on great terms. They’d butted heads repeatedly during Eddie’s investigation in another Pennsylvania town where he uncovered a conspiracy to commit fraud. He’d won Whitmore’s begrudging respect and eventually the man’s friendship, but not until Whitmore had seen him in action and knew he was capable. But in the cop’s eye, he’d been incompetent and untrustworthy until proven otherwise.

So far, his experience with Christie had been the exact opposite. She treated him like a professional.

Stan was right. It was weird to be treated this well by the police.

“So I’m here to help,” Eddie said.

Christie produced the non-disclosure agreement. “Boilerplate. One thing they asked me to highlight was the prohibition around talking to the press.”

Eddie read the agreement from start-to-finish twice. “When the case is over, I want to be able to discuss it generally to use as a selling point to future clients.”

Christie said, “That will be fine. We’ll work out the details later.”

Eddie nodded and signed. She put it on top of some folders that were on her desk. He scoped out the rest of the stuff on there. Two framed pictures of her with her parents. The first looked like her college graduation picture, the second looked like her graduation from the police academy. Lots of blue uniforms in the background. He saw no rings on her finger.

She wasn’t his type but she was pretty and he could see the fierce intelligence in her eyes.

He caught himself staring at her.

She smiled politely, like she hadn’t just caught him checking her out. “We’ve got a room booked for you down the street at the motel.”

“Thanks.”

“I was thinking I could bring you up to speed tonight and then we could start fresh tomorrow morning.”

He nodded. “So you have reason to believe a ghost might have killed someone?”

She grew serious. “I can’t rule it out.”

***

She led him to a conference room with a whiteboard and a long conference table. He saw two columns of information written on the whiteboard in neat, precise handwriting. Had to be Christie’s penmanship.

She closed the door and gestured at a seat on the far side of the conference table. “You didn’t exactly answer my question on the phone.”

“About whether ghosts kill people.”

She put her coffee down and sat on the other side of the table in front of a laptop. She seemed too young to be a detective. But the older he got, the more difficult he found it to age people. She could have been twenty-five or thirty-two.

“Ghosts don’t
usually
kill people,” he said.

“What do you mean by that?” She started typing on her laptop.

“Ghosts don’t normally inflict physical harm on people.”

“Normally, as in, you’ve seen it happen before?”

“There’s some evidence in the admittedly questionable historical record,” Eddie said. “I’ve only seen it happen while the ghost was…” He thought about how best to phrase it. “…
under duress
. But a ghost, acting by itself, hurting somebody? I’ve never seen it happen personally. All that being said, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

“Why not?” She was still typing.

“Because in the last few years I’ve seen things I never would have thought were possible.”

“Such as?”

“Too many to bore you with, so I’ll just give you one example: reverse possession.”

“Reverse possession?”

“Yes. A human being can possess a ghost.”

She stopped typing and sat up. “Come on.”

He held up a palm. “Scout’s honor.”

“That’s not the Scout’s honor gesture.”

“Put me on the stand and I’ll swear to it.”

She smiled. “That won’t be necessary. So you wouldn’t rule out a ghost killing someone?”

Two years ago, he would have thought the idea ridiculous, the stuff of bad horror movies. But a lot had happened in that time. What he’d found was that anything could happen and you needed to walk a delicate balance between being coldly rational and keeping an open mind.

“I wouldn’t. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on here?”

Christie stopped typing. “Two nights ago, a man named Stahl placed a 9-1-1 call because he thought he’d seen a prowler. A patrolman made a routine stop, spoke to Stahl, searched the property and premises, and found nothing. An hour later, Stahl had called again, only this time claiming there was a ghost in his house.”

It was Eddie’s turn to take notes. He had his notebook and pen out.

Christie continued. “By the time we got a unit back to the house, Stahl was found non-responsive and dead on arrival at the hospital.”

“Don’t tell me.” Eddie leaned back and folded his arms. “Baskerville effect.”

Christie nodded. “How do you know about that?”

“I read a lot. It’s one of my good addictions.”

Her expression remained neutral. She had high cheekbones and exotic eyes. He was staring at her again. “Official cause of death was cardiac arrest.”

“They say people can be scared to death,” Eddie said. “The Baskerville effect works like that. Fear activates the fight-or-flight response, the adrenaline goes to work, but then the body never shuts off the adrenaline and the heart fails. It’s the same thing as an overdose.”

She nodded again. She was tough to read.

He said, “Beware of a man who reads too much. The one study I remember related to this was concerning tetraphobia.”

“Now you’re just showing off,” she said. “Fear of the number four. We Asians are very superstitious.”

“Not as bad as the Irish, I’ll bet.”

“Worse.” She smiled. “I found that study also. Japanese and Chinese deaths related to cardiac issues were significantly higher than their white counterparts on the fourth of each month. Four is a very bad number in Asian culture. In Chinese, the word for four is very close to the word for death.”

It was Eddie’s turn to be impressed. Christie had probably been chasing down leads using conventional policing since Stahl’s death, but also had found the time to research the Baskerville effect and consider supernatural causes.

“Do you have a partner?” Eddie asked.

“He’s working the crime scene now.”

Eddie sat up. “Still? You said Stahl died two nights ago.”

“The
second
victim died tonight.”

***

Christie stepped outside to take a call, leaving him in the conference room with the files. Eddie walked to the whiteboard.

On the left side of the board was a photo of a man, with Stahl written in block letters above the photo. Eddie scanned through the notes.

31 years old.

Divorced.

Certified coder.
He didn’t know what that meant.

Employed by Rariville Hospital.

Associate’s Degree.

Lived alone.

Pled down to disorderly conduct (bar fight) 5 years ago.

No children, parents retired to Florida, 1 sibling living in Michigan. Family notified.

No known cardiac conditions.

No illicit substances in system (See Autopsy report)

Elevated epinephrine at time of death.

There was more but Eddie got the gist. It seemed like they had no conventional leads on Stahl’s death and now were running down the paranormal angle as a matter of course.

Christie came back into the room. “They need another hour at the second victim’s house before anybody can go near it.”

“What about Stahl’s house?”

She checked the time on her phone. “You’re raring to go.”

He was tired but didn’t want to stop moving now. “What time did Stahl pass?”

“Around 1:00AM.”

It was 12:35AM now. “Perfect timing then. Can you get a cruiser to meet us there?”