Chapter Text
“Hey, Decker,” called the Lieutenant. “Got a case for you.”
If the barely veiled sneer in Davidson’s voice hadn’t made Chloe wince, the sight of Paolucci standing next to him, grinning manically in her direction, certainly did. With a sigh, she pushed herself to her feet, closing the file of paperwork she’d been listlessly checking. Why did she get the feeling that she was gonna miss that paperwork?
“Get a move on, Decker,” said Paolucci as she reluctantly made her way over. “This one needs your immediate attention.”
She gritted her teeth, held back the retort that sprang to her lips. Her job was in enough peril as it was, without mouthing off to a senior detective in front of the Lieutenant, even if they all knew the score. “What is it, sir?” she asked instead, holding her hand out for the file.
“Oh, it’s a good one,” Paolucci laughed.
Davidson snorted. “Reports of multiple homicides at this address,” he said, tapping his finger on the card attached to the file.
She blinked, her heart speeding up. Multiple homicides? That sounded big. So why would they assign her, the department pariah? Maybe she was just supposed to assist, though it hadn’t sounded that way. She took the folder, shooting a sideways glance at Paolucci’s ill-hidden malicious glee before opening it.
“A haunted house?” she exclaimed.
Paolucci burst into open laughter as the Lieutenant merely raised his brows, keeping his face admirably blank even if his eyes gleamed at her disbelief.
“Now, Decker,” intoned Davidson, “You know we have to take this kind of thing seriously.” He ignored Paolucci’s loud cackling, and continued, “Several witnesses have claimed they saw dead bodies here, and, although officers called to the scene were unable to find any of them, this has happened on multiple different days, with the latest incident last night putting our ‘body’ count at four. A potential serial killer in our midst is no laughing matter.”
“Of course not,” responded Chloe, pointedly looking at Paolucci, who was practically doubled over at this point.
“This,” said Davidson, with a mock solemn expression, “Is the kind of case I would only assign to one of our best detectives.”
“Thank you, sir,” she gritted out as she clenched the file in an attempt not to make a fist and slam it into his smug face.
“‘You know we need to take this kind of thing seriously,’ he says,” she grumbled to herself as she climbed out of the car, staring at the huge, dingy gray, apparently decaying Victorian mansion in front of her. “Sure.” She slammed the door of the cruiser, frowned at the nearly empty parking lot, and walked over to the locked gate in the tall wrought-iron fence.
A prominent sign said, ‘Closed’, and listed the hours as ‘dark to past the witching hour’.
She pressed the incongruously modern intercom button by the gate, listened to the crackling audio for a moment before a bored feminine voice came on. “Yes?”
“Detective Decker here,” Chloe said. “I believe I spoke to you on the phone?”
“Oh—oh yeah,” squeaked the voice, suddenly sounding very young. “I’ll open the gate for you.”
A buzz sounded as Chloe thanked the voice, and the gate popped as the lock released.
She pushed it, brows rising at the groaning sound of rusty metal grinding as it opened, allowing her into a large, sloping yard. A stone path led up to the long porch and steps to the main door of the house. To one side of the path was a huge, gnarled tree, shedding orange and brown leaves onto the ground and the walk. On the other side stood a large wooden sign, carved in ornate letters, spelling out ’Twisted Oak Mansion’. Cobwebs and partially dead vines threatened to overtake the words, and a skeleton, nearly hidden in the nest of vines, sat propped on the far side, drinking from a cracked green glass bottle.
Chloe closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. She started up the path, trying to ignore the skeletal hands that reached up towards her from the browned grass on either side.
The steps, wide and slightly uneven, with peeling white paint, creaked as she went up. Shadowy, gossamer curtains of gauze draped from the ornately scrolled but faded gray beams of the porch, while several skeletons in disintegrating formalwear held a cobweb-festooned tea party to one side of the door.
It was all very artistically done, and genuinely kind of creepy, even in the light of day. Normally that would impress her, but in this circumstance, it merely added to her aggravation. If everything here was this well done, she was sure the ‘bodies’ were pretty realistic, too. She sighed, but straightened her shoulders and put on a pleasant professional expression as the door opened with a loud, drawn-out moan.
The woman peeking out of the door looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, dressed in jeans and a black tee shirt with the Twisted Oak Mansion logo on it.
“Hi, D-detective?” she stammered.
“Hi.” Chloe smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “Chloe Decker. You’re Maria?”
“Yes,” she said, then, “Oh, sorry,” as she pulled the door further open on its groaning hinges to let Chloe come in.
“Thank you,” said Chloe, wincing as the door lamented loudly again as Maria shut it.
“So, you … ah … want to see where the reports were made?” asked the girl, sounding a little more professional as she gathered herself.
“Yes. Like I said when we spoke earlier, I’m just following up. Kinda has to be done,” she said, earning a sympathetic smile from Maria.
“We always get some over-the-top reactions, you know,” said the girl, “We’ve had people faint before. But I don’t think we’ve ever actually had anyone call the police.”
“You’ve worked here for a while?”
“My parents own the business,” she said. “I help build some stuff, set the stages, help with costumes and such. I even got to contribute to some of the artwork this year.”
“Great,” said Chloe. “So, you’re very familiar with all the set-up?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sorry, though, that my parents couldn’t be here to answer your questions, but grandma’s been sick so they had to head up to Paso Robles for a couple days.”
“That’s okay,” Chloe reassured. “I’m certain you can answer any questions I have.” Especially since she probably wouldn’t have many. But the first one was obvious. “Why do you think this year’s display has had people calling the department? Is it very different from past set-ups?”
“We’ve expanded a bit,” she said, sounding proud. “We’ve got a ton of really great actors and effects people. So, I do think it’s a little more … impressive this year. But….” She shrugged. “Still not sure why anyone would be that spooked. I mean, they come here to be scared, but they’re expecting that.” Another shrug. “Could be the fake blood?”
“Oh?”
She gestured Chloe to follow as she led them into a broad, black-tiled entry hall with a sweeping staircase, predictably draped in spider webs. “It’s a new brand,” she said. “More realistic, I think, but … that much more?” She shook her head. "Anyway," she added, walking over to a door behind the staircase, “All but one of the ‘incidents’ was in the basement.” She pulled open the door, which echoed the front door’s complaint, if a little fainter, to reveal a narrow staircase heading down. “Which makes sense, ‘cause it’s probably the spookiest part of the house.” She flipped on a light, which flickered dramatically, illuminating the stairs in a red-tinged glow.
Chloe sighed.
“Sorry about the lighting,” said Maria, noting her response. “It’s all set up for the effects right now. But I do have a high-powered flashlight if you need it.”
“Thank you,” said Chloe. “I’ll let you know.” She followed the girl down, each step creaking as first Maria and then Chloe stepped on it. “You’re the only one here right now?”
“Yeah. Monday’s the only day we’re not open. And next week is Halloween, so we’ll be open all week and really, really busy. So, I’m just fixing some stuff up. Everybody else is off.”
At the bottom of the stairs was a large main room inhabited by a couple skeletons seated in front of an eerily orange-lit wine rack with broken and ‘dripping’ bottles. “So, we usually have a group of actors here playing zombies.”
“Victorian zombies?”
Maria shot her a smile. “Why not? Why should zombies only be in post-apocalyptic settings?”
“No reason, I guess.”
“Anyway, the first time we got the cops called, a little over a week ago, two of the guests said there was a dead guy—with no head—in this room here.” She waved toward an opening on one side. “The guillotine room.”
“Ah. Right. Why would anyone think they saw a dead body—a headless one at that—in a guillotine room?” asked Chloe sarcastically.
“Well, the funny thing was that, when they started yelling about it, the actors who usually work it were helping with an incident in the witches’ brew room.”
Chloe had stepped into the room, eyeing the very realistic, sharp-looking, apparently blood-stained blade of the full-scale guillotine in the corner, accompanied by a severed head in a basket at the base. “What sort of incident?” she asked. “And I’m assuming the current theory is that they were spooked by the disembodied head?”
“I mean, yeah. Since there was no body there when other people looked, much less by the time the cops arrived. And the bookcase in the witches’ room had collapsed, and fallen back onto the effects girl behind it. Now, if anyone was gonna be hurt that night, that’s what would have caused it.”
“So, everybody went rushing in there to help, and that’s when the ‘body’ was seen?”
“Yup. I wasn’t there that night, but Tasha told me all about it—that’s our poor effects girl who got trapped behind the bookcase.”
“Okay. And I assume there was no evidence of a body afterwards?”
“No. And nobody was missing, either, when the cops asked around the groups of guests.”
“Right.” Chloe sighed. “So, the second incident…?” She consulted her file, squinting in the half-light to remind herself. “The dead body covered in spiders?”
“Oh, yeah. In the back hall.” Maria gestured her towards the other side of the main room. Through another doorway, they entered a narrow hallway that seemed to go around behind the front chamber. Thick webs arched from floor to ceiling, and black, fuzzy, basketball-sized spiders with red eyes dangled from them and hid in corners. Maria knocked on the far wall, and a hollow sound echoed around them. “So, this wall hides the actors and effects people, so they can make noises, move the spiders, and pop up to scare people.”
“And did they see this body?”
“Well, Ahmed said he thought he’d seen someone on the floor, but he was wearing a big spider mask at the time—it’s a whole head thing.”
Chloe rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache building up behind her eyes. All the dim and blinking lights weren’t helping, but she knew that wasn’t the primary reason. “So, between the lights and the mask, he didn’t see anything, really?”
“Yeah. And the guests who said they did ran out, screaming. In all the chaos, I don’t even know who was in the hall at the time.”
“Were you here?”
“Tuesday night. Yeah. But I was taking tickets, so I missed the whole thing, pretty much.”
“Right. But no body, once again, once anybody actually looked?”
“Nope. And again, nobody missing.”
“But, in theory, there wouldn’t have been bodies here, as part of the effects?”
“Well, aside from the web victim—that was Laura on Tuesday—but she’s on the other side of the hall, over there.”
Chloe followed her pointing to see an extra thick bit of webbing in one spot. “And she didn’t see anything?”
“No.”
“Okay.” She used her phone to illuminate her folder. “‘Victim’ number three. The ‘vampire attack’?”
“On Thursday, yeah.”
“Don’t tell me—the vampire room?”
“The library. But yeah.”
“And that’s down here, too?”
“Over here.” She led Chloe out of the hall, through the main room and to another doorway. Inside the room, several bookshelves were loaded with antique-looking tomes as well as a skull, ‘melting’ candles, and several jeweled boxes. When Maria flipped a switch, the candles lit, the skull’s eye sockets flared, and a fireplace sprang to life, ‘flames’ flickering. Lights that looked like gaslamps glowed a wavering orange.
Chloe wasn’t sure whether the lights helped her see the details or obscured them. “So, who’s usually here? Actors playing vampires?”
“Yeah. Lina, Joe, and Yan were here on Thursday. Two of them usually stand by the fireplace, drink ‘blood’ in wine glasses—it’s really cranberry juice. The third will pop out from behind the bookshelf over there.” She frowned. “But, when the ‘body’ was found—”
“Don’t tell me,” Chloe interrupted. “Something happened, and they left the room?”
“The lights in the zombie area went out, and someone tripped into the skeletons. Joe and Yan went to make sure everyone was okay, but Lina stayed behind the bookshelf to keep an eye on things.”
“Oh. And did she see anything?”
Maria shook her head, but it wasn’t in denial. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it was weird. She said the fireplace suddenly got really bright—probably a result of the same electrical issue that cut the lights in the zombie area—then went out for just a few seconds. That’s when the screaming started. Then it came back on, and as she was blinking and trying to clear her vision, she thought she saw a body on the floor. Of course, that’s when all the lights in here went off, and when they came back on, nobody was there.”
“Oookay,” Chloe drawled. “And nobody missing,” she added, checking her notes again with her phone flashlight.
“Right.”
“So.” Chloe flipped to the last page. “Last night’s ‘victim’ was the one upstairs?”
“Yeah. In the tower room.”
They made their way back up the narrow, creaking stairs to the main floor. “I’m assuming the tower room is at the top of the house?”
“Yeah. Where the ‘mad prisoner’ is kept.”
“Right. So, the notes said the body was fallen with the arms sticking out of the bars of the ‘prison’, wrists slit. That sounds hard to miss.”
Maria shivered. “Well, but the ‘mad prisoner’ does stick her arms out and drip blood on people.”
Chloe sighed. “So, what happened last night?” All it said on the notes was that the room was found empty. “Why was the ‘prisoner’ not there when the cops arrived?”
“She started feeling sick about halfway through her shift, and we didn’t have anyone who could come and fill in—I know, I called like five people. So, she went home, and we closed the stairs.”
That was a little different. “Show me where the stairs are?”
“Sure.” Maria gestured her to follow, and they made their way up the web-covered but remarkably quiet stairs to the second-floor landing. “It’s that door there,” said Maria. “And what’s weird is it was locked. I know it was, ‘cause I locked it myself. But it was open when—” She broke off as her phone started ringing. “Oh, shoot, it’s my mom,” she said. “Can I take this?”
“Go ahead,” said Chloe. “Just open the door for me, and I’ll take a look. If I have more questions, I’ll find you.”
“Thanks,” said the girl, answering her phone as she made sure the door was unlocked for Chloe. “How’s grandma?” she was asking, as she made her way back down the main stairs.
Chloe looked through the door at yet another narrow, ill-lit staircase, this one spiraling up around a central rail. At least this one seemed to have some natural light coming in from above. She waited for the creak as she put her foot on the first stair, was not disappointed. She sighed, started up.
As she rounded the last twist in the spiral, she stopped abruptly. At the landing, next to the bars of the ‘prison’, a man in a three-piece suit knelt, examining what looked like a blood stain on the floor.