Heather Graham - Phantom Evil

Suddenly the twilight became infused with dust motes that sailed on pink-and-yellow ribbons of light, a palette fueled by the dying of the day. Soon, the harsh neon lights of night would take over on Bourbon Street, and the rock bands would reign over the plaintive drumbeat of jazz. Soon, David would come home, and she would hear some psychobabble about her imagining the ghost of a long-dead child to take the place of Jacob.

No one could take her son’s place.

But suddenly she wasn’t frightened. She needed to reassure a child.

“It’s all right,” she said again.

“It’s going to be dark. See, outside, in the courtyard, it’s going to be dark,” the little boy said.

“There are lights everywhere. In the courtyard, on the gates,” Regina said. “I’ll turn on the room light. I won’t leave you in darkness.”

She sat up, still feeling the cling of that little hand. She walked to the French doors; it was spring, and the air was so fresh and beautiful, as if newly washed, and the scent of flowers was in the air. The inhabitants of the Quarter loved to twine vines and set flowers out on their patios and balconies. For a moment, Regina inhaled deeply.

Yes, she was desperate. In so much pain. They would say that she was seeking a companion to make up for Jacob, not replace him. That sounded insane. She would never make up a little child with an ax sticking out of his head.

“I love the courtyard, Mommy,” he said, leading her.

“Yes, it’s so pretty,” she said. Hysteria started to rise in her again. She was thirty-five years old, and now she had an imaginary friend.

He looked at her again, leaning against the railing. Suddenly, it seemed that the light hit the child’s great blue eyes strangely. There was a look of cunning in those eyes.

She thought she heard something behind her. She turned and frowned with confusion.

And then shock.

She was dimly aware of being pushed.

She was fully aware of falling.

Her scream tore from her lips at last, until it was cut off abruptly.

Skull shattered, neck broken, Regina lay dead with her eyes wide open.

Jackson Crow sat staring at the pile of dossiers before him. This was his first meeting with the man on the other side of the desk: Adam Harrison, white haired, dignified, slim and a taste for designer suits. The office was modest, nicely appointed, but far from opulent. Plate-glass windows looked over row houses in Alexandria, Virginia, and other companies with shared space in the building had names such as Brickell and Sons, Attorneys-at-Law, Chase Real Estate and B. K. Blake, Criminal Investigation.

Adam had just handed him the folders. “Jackson, do you have any idea of why you’re here?”

He’d returned to his old Behavioral Sciences Unit in D.C. to discover that he was being given a new assignment. His leave of absence, it seemed, was somehow permanent.

His last assignment, despite the excellent work done by him and his colleagues, had ended with three of them being dead. Yet if it hadn’t been for his intuition, two other fellow agents might have died as well. Local police had not responded to the call sent out, and there was no way to blame himself.

Naturally, he did.

Maybe the empathy of his superiors had caused them to give him a new assignment, in a different place—behind a desk.

He’d heard things about Adam Harrison. He’d worked solo over the years—and for the government where the government could not act officially. Adam went in where others did not.

It wasn’t because of extreme danger. Rather, it might be considered that he went in because of extreme weirdness.

“No,” he said simply.

“First, let me assure you, you are not being let go. You will still be working for Uncle Sam,” Adam told him. “The assignments will come from me, but you’ll be heading up the team. A new team.”

A cushy job somewhere behind a desk that didn’t involve serial killers, kidnapping or bodies discovered beneath concrete.

Jackson wasn’t sure how he felt; numb, perhaps.

“Take a look at this.”

He hadn’t had a chance to look at the files yet, but Adam now handed him a month-old New Orleans newspaper bearing the headline Wife of Senator David Holloway Dies from Fall into Courtyard.

He looked up at Adam.

“Read the full article,” Adam suggested.

He read silently.

Regina Holloway, the wife of beloved state Senator David Holloway, died yesterday in a fall from a balcony at their recently purchased French Quarter mansion on Dauphine Street. Six months ago, the Holloways lost their only son, Jacob, in an accident on I-10. While there is speculation that Regina cast herself over the balcony, David Holloway has strenuously denied such a possibility; his wife was doing well and coming to terms with their loss; they were planning on building a family again.

The police and the coroner’s office have yet to issue an official cause of death. The house, one of the grand old Spanish homes in the Quarter, was once the killing ground of the infamous Madden C. Newton, the “carpetbagger” responsible for the torture slayings of at least twenty people. Less than ten years ago, a teenager who had broken into the then–empty house also perished in a fall; the coroner’s office ruled his death accidental. The alleged drug dealer had raced into the vacant house to elude police.

An uneasy feeling swept over Jackson, but he calmly set the newspaper back on the desk and looked at Adam Harrison.

“That’s a tragic story,” he said. “It sounds likely that the poor woman did commit suicide, and the senator is in denial. I’m afraid I’ve seen other instances in which a woman could not accept the loss of her child.”

“Many people are insistent that the house is haunted,” Adam said.

“And that a ghost committed this murder?” Jackson asked. He leaned forward in his chair. “I’m not at all sure I believe in ghosts, Adam. And if they did exist, wouldn’t they be things of mist and imagination? Hardly capable of tossing a woman over a balcony.”

“The senator has friends in high places, though he’s still only a state senator. He absolutely insists that his wife did not commit suicide,” Adam said.

“Does he suspect murder?” Jackson asked.

“The house was locked, no lower windows were open, and the gate to the courtyard was locked as well.”

“Someone could have crawled over the wall or gotten through the gate,” Jackson suggested.

Adam nodded. “That’s possible, of course. But no witnesses have come forward in the past month to suggest that such a thing might have happened. The death was determined to be a suicide fairly quickly. Are you familiar with the city of New Orleans, the French Quarter or Vieux Carré, specifically?”

An ironic smile curled Jackson’s features. “Land of vampires, ghosts, voodoo and fantasy. But some of the world’s best cooking, and some truly great music, too.”

“All right then. You work in behavioral science. Don’t you agree that people’s beliefs can create actions and reactions?”

“Yes, of course. Son of Sam…Berkowitz believed that howling dogs were demons commanding him to kill. Or, it was a damn good defense.”

“Always a skeptic,” Adam said. “And yet you’re not really, are you?” Now, Adam smiled.

“I am a skeptic, yes. Am I open to possibility? Yes,” Jackson said carefully.

“You know, both of your parents were amazing believers,” Adam reminded him.

Jackson hesitated.

Yes, they had been believers, both of them, always believing in a higher power, and it didn’t matter what path someone took to that power. Jeremiah Crow had been born a member of the Cheyenne Nation, although his ancestry had been so mixed God alone knew exactly what it was. He had loved the spiritualism of his People, and his mother had loved it as well. Nominally Anglican, his mother had once told him that religion wasn’t bad; it was meant to be very good. Men corrupted religion; and a man’s religious choice didn’t matter in the least if it was his path to decency and remembering his fellow man.