The Frighteners Page 2

  Magda read out loud as Bayliss fidgeted and tugged at the collar of his freshly pressed white shirt. “ ‘Third mysterious death this week, twenty-three in two months. What is happening to the people of Fairwater?’ ”

  To him, she added, “What is happening, Steve, is a fit of bad writing.”

  He cleared his throat.

  She continued: “ ‘The mystery heart condition that has killed twenty-three people in two months has claimed another victim. Doctors are baffled as to why seemingly fit and healthy people are suffering massive heart attacks.’ ”

  Magda sucked in her breath and sighed deeply. “Steve, I expected better from you.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Ravanski.”

  “Please, call me Magda. I’ve asked you.”

  “Sure . . . Magda.”

  “I mean, this isn’t the Daily Planet, although if Superman is anywhere in the neighborhood I would love to hear from him.”

  Steve smiled uncomfortably.

  She said, “Remember: who, what, where, when, and why.”

  He checked his notepad. “I have that written down.”

  “Good. Memorize it. Who is Chuck Hughes? What happened? Okay, he died, we know that, and we know where and when—in Fairwater last night. The big question is why. The man looks fit to me.”

  She bent over and looked more closely at the photo. As she did so the front of her blouse opened slightly and Steve got a whiff of the scent of Passion splashed between her breasts. He wondered, however, not about her sex life but if she didn’t need a new prescription for her contact lenses. Steve was very young, in fact as well as in appearance.

  “The man looks very fit to me,” she concluded. “So what killed him? Don’t give me this half-assed speculation about strange epidemics of heart attacks. Here, look at what you wrote down here.”

  She read out loud again: “ ‘Many of Fairwater’s residents are claiming that the shadow of Death has once again descended on the town.’ Steve, what’s this ‘shadow of Death’ stuff?”

  “It’s what they’re saying,” Steve replied. “People are starting to freak out.”

  “Steve, death is not a proper noun. There’s no capital D.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hanging his head.

  She continued: “ ‘For decades the name of Fairwater has been synonymous with death, following the infamous 1954 Bradley-Bartlett murder spree, when twelve people died at the hands of hospital orderly John Charles Bradley and Patricia Anne Bartlett. Now, forty years later, the Grim Reaper is once again stalking the quiet streets of Fairwater.’ ”

  It was Magda’s turn to hang her head. Steve went back to fidgeting. She said, “No, Steve . . . no, no, no. Have you learned nothing during your internship with us? This is tabloid trash . . . irresponsible scare mongering. What are you trying to say here? That Death is the greatest serial killer of all time? This really sucks, Steve.”

  He flinched. Suddenly the prospect of working on a lobster boat alongside his father and grandfather no longer seemed quite so distant. He looked around nervously at the small newsroom, the six other denizens of which—two reporters, a secretary, a sportswriter, a gossip columnist, and the executive editor—were pretending they weren’t aware of the dressing-down he was getting. Bayliss loved the newsroom, even though it didn’t smell of ink and there wasn’t a single typewriter in the building, only computer screens and the soft tapping of electronic keyboards. He was not about to lose this job without a fight. He decided to risk Magda’s anger by defending himself.

  “Magda, people are scared of what’s happening.”

  “Me, too, I’m scared of what’s happening to a bright . . .”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. He gaped at her hand as if it were something just descended from an alien spacecraft.

  Magda lowered her voice: “. . . and attractive young reporter.”

  Again the scent of Passion drifted past his nose.

  He said, “They never really forgot what happened here in 1954. I mean, that’s before my time.”

  “Mine, too,” she said quickly.

  “But my dad told me plenty about it. That Bradley-Bartlett pair were really brutal killers. Some people say they ripped the hearts out of their victims.”

  “Now, Steve.”

  “Well, that’s what my dad said.”

  “You know what? Skip what your dad says, unless he’s giving advice on how to broil a five-pounder. This Hughes guy who died yesterday is being buried today. Call the coroner’s office and get some usable quotes. Get me detailed medical background. Find me a doctor who will go on record saying what killed Hughes.”

  “Okay,” Bayliss agreed. At least he wasn’t being fired.

  “Get quotes from the sheriff’s office. And please, get rid of all those references to Death as a person.”

  “Sure thing, Magda,” he said. “I’ll get right on top of it.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to hear,” she replied.

  Seen at any time when it wasn’t night or pouring rain, Fairwater was a small but pretty town, nestled in a wooded valley where the Manasseh River flowed into Fairwater Bay. For the most part, houses were perched on the slopes of the hills that ringed the harbor, reachable only through a complex series of steep and winding roads.

  The business district sat on the flat plain surrounding the harbor. Roads paralleled the series of docks, some of them dating back to the seventeenth century, when Fairwater was a stopover point in the coastal shipping trade that ran from Plymouth Colony and Salem through New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. Later in its history, Fairwater served as a whaling town second in importance only to Portsmouth. In the twentieth century, the harbor became a lobstering and yachting center. Most recently, tourism took hold in Fairwater, with restaurants, inns, and summer condos rising to cater to the same New York and Boston residents who made L. L. Bean shirts and slacks fashionable. To allow them better access, several on- and off-ramps connected the coastal highway with the business district and the harbor.

  The funeral of Chuck Hughes was not on any of the tourist agendas, however. Only a handful of mourners surrounded the coffin as it sat on the electronic lift that soon would carry Hughes on the final six feet of his life’s journey. Fairwater Cemetery was an old burial ground, situated halfway up the steep hill above town and itself including a number of gently rolling hills. Standing by its entrance, on a clear day the twice-weekly ferry to Plum Island could be seen chugging its way across the bay.

  On that day only one thing made the funeral unique—the presence of Frank Bannister. A handsome man in his late thirties, he was in the process of going to seed. His suits were old and no longer fit. His hair was badly cut and seemed always uncombed. And his demeanor fitted his appearance. Bannister was nervous and appeared to be ashamed of something. All in all, he gave the impression of being a man with a mysterious, perhaps tragic past who was clutching at the straws of life. Unfortunately for him, enough people in Fairwater knew Bannister’s business well enough for them to become very uncomfortable when he was around.

  Some of them were in the funeral business. When Bannister approached funeral director George Zmed, he had his head down, as usual, and was avoiding eye contact as he thrust his business card into the hand of a man who knew him well and hated the thought of him. The funeral director glanced at the card, then crumpled it up and dropped it onto the rain-softened ground. He drove it into the mud with his heel.

  “What did you do that for?” Bannister asked, in a whisper that was loud enough to earn him suspicious looks from other mourners.

  “I was afraid it was going to burn a hole in my hand,” Zmed whispered back.

  “I don’t mean why did you rip it up? I mean why did you read it at all? You know who I am.”

  “I was hoping you’d changed; got religion or something.”

  “I can help your business,” Bannister said. “You know I can. That’s why I gave you my card.”

  The man rolled his eyes. Th
e preacher was reading the Twenty-third Psalm.

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters . . .”

  Bannister grabbed hold of the funeral director’s coat sleeve and gave it a tug. “Your stubbornness maketh me sick,” he said. “Is this what you consider an exciting funeral service?”

  “They’re not supposed to be exciting, Bannister,” Zmed hissed between his teeth. “They’re supposed to be poignant.”

  The preacher continued: “He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

  Bannister said, “If you use my service, you can have funerals your clients will remember forever.”

  “They don’t remember anything,” the man replied. “They’re dead.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. In the afterlife, for most people there’s nothing much to do but remember. Which is why it’s important to give the dearly departed a good send-off. ’Cause if they don’t like the way they were treated at their funerals, there can be hell to pay.”

  “There will be hell to pay if you don’t get out of here,” the funeral director said. “I swear, this time I’ll have you arrested.”

  The preacher droned on: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me . . .”

  Bannister tossed his hands up in frustration. “You see, you can’t send men to their final rewards thinking someone with a rod and a staff will protect them. I’ve seen it. It’s a jungle down there. Some of them carry Uzis, for God’s sake. What are you going to do with a rod and a staff?”

  “Get religion, Bannister,” Zmed snarled. “Get born again. I’ve seen it work for killers on death row. It can help you, too. If that fails, get a shrink. Try Prozac. But whatever you do, get out of my face.”

  And he gave Bannister a shove that momentarily caused him to lose his balance, stepping backward and nearly tumbling over the headstone of a chandler—a provider of ship supplies—who died in 1867.

  Undaunted, Bannister waited until the mourners had stopped looking at him before slipping up to some of them and thrusting business cards in their hands. Then things began to heat up. A spanking-new black Mercury Tracer hatchback pulled up. Steve Bayliss got out and scurried through the headstones toward the funeral, brandishing a steno pad and a newly sharpened pencil. Zmed frowned at this latest intrusion and began gesturing to his chauffeur to call the cops. Bannister beat a hasty retreat to his battered old Ford. The bloodred four-door sedan, with more bumps than a clogged artery, sat in one of the cemetery’s one-lane roads, its hood pointing down the hill. Bannister often parked on hills so he could roll-start the car if the battery died.

  He switched on the radio, checking his watch to see if he was in time for the morning news’s “milestones” segment. That was the part where they read births, weddings, and deaths. It was the latter news that interested Bannister as he held one of his business cards up to the light to see if he could improve it. It read:

  FRANK BANNISTER

  COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE DEARLY DEPARTED

  PSYCHIC INVESTIGATOR

  As he started his car he muttered, “Damn Luddites don’t know what’s good for them. They think once you’re gone, that’s it. Hah! They don’t even remember that the original purpose of headstones was to keep the dead in their graves. What do they think, you die and it’s right off either to Saint Peter or to the other guy? It should only be that easy.”

  He started the engine and headed out of the cemetery and down the winding hillside road. As he took the first turn a copy of that day’s Gazette tumbled onto the floor. It landed in a heap on the mat, but the article he had circled in pen remained on top. The headline of Steve Bayliss’s story read HUGHES TO BE BURIED TODAY.

  The old Ford sputtered down the winding and rocky road, its engine sounding like one of the outboard motor-equipped rowboats that could be rented for $12.50 a half day for those who wanted to try their luck on bay flounder. Still angry over the way he’d been treated at the funeral, and seriously worried about where his next meal would come from, Bannister took a turn too fast, cutting across the white line. A bunch of his business cards slid off the front seat, landing on top of the newspaper.

  He glanced down, cursing. When he looked back up, a lobster delivery truck loomed in front of him. The big Mack’s horn blared as the driver gritted his teeth and spun his wheel. Bannister also whirled the wheel around and, in so doing, sent the old Ford into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree spin. For a few seconds his world wasn’t cemeteries and ghosts but squealing tires and a hint at his own mortality.

  “I can’t die just yet,” he found himself saying. “They’d kill me down there.”

  But the car missed the truck somehow, and instead of finding himself at the pearly gates Bannister opened his eyes to find that his car had crashed through a tall hedge and plowed twin furrows across the front lawn of a moderately expensive house. The car had stalled, and Bannister found himself listening to the sounds of chickadees squabbling over the seed in a front-yard feeder. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

  “Jesus,” he swore. Then in the rearview mirror he saw the flattened hedge. “Oh, my God!” he added.

  The front door of the house flew open then, and out flew Ray Lynskey, a muscular man in his early twenties. From his designer sportswear and well-toned physique, it was clear this was someone who was into physical fitness in a big way. Even his forehead, which was frowning at the time, was in great shape. He ran out onto the lawn, around Bannister’s car to the driver’s side, and stared at it in disbelief.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said. “This is not happening.”

  He stared at the two deep grooves that had been sliced into his lawn by Bannister’s tires.

  “I’m sorry,” Bannister said, hoping for dear life that his engine wouldn’t conk out. Given Lynskey’s size, a fast getaway could be important. Regrettably, the Ford hadn’t been capable of a fast getaway since 1993.

  “My lawn . . . it’s destroyed!”

  Bannister decided that the human touch was called for. He got out of the car and offered Lynskey his card.

  “I’m really sorry, but that truck went over the center line.”

  “What truck?” Lynskey growled. “I didn’t see any truck.”

  “The newspaper truck. You must have seen it. The guy had to have been drunk.”

  “I was in the kitchen making myself a health shake and you plowed through my lawn. That’s all I know.”

  “Well, it’s just grass,” Bannister said, trying to be helpful.

  “Grass? Grass! You got to be kidding me. This isn’t just grass.”

  “It kind of looks like it.” Bannister looked down at the swatches of green surrounding his tire marks.

  “Grass is what you see in front of town hall,” Lynskey said. “This is a custom mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and Chewings fescue. It’s the only thing that will grow here.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for any damages.”

  Shaking a fist at Bannister, Lynskey said, “I swear to God, I’m gonna sue your ass.”

  “Look, just send me the bill. My address is on the card.”

  Lynskey scanned the piece of paper in his thick, muscular hand and snorted in derision. He read out loud: “ ‘Frank Bannister, Communications with the Dearly Departed. Psychic Investigator.’ That’s a good one. So how come you didn’t see the curve coming?”

  He ripped the card in two. “This is goddamn bullshit,” he concluded.

  Frank slid back into his car and put the transmission into reverse.

  Seeing the escape attempt, Ray moved in on the driver’s side window. “It’s gonna cost you, buddy. I want this lawn completely resurfaced.”

  “Sure, sure,” Bannister replied, craning his neck so he could drive back through the hole in the hedge without knocking any more of it over.


  “And remember, this isn’t grass. This is a custom mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and Chewings fescue. Very expensive.”

  “Just have your insurance man call me.”

  “It’s my lawyer that will call, buster,” Lynskey went on. “And not for just the grass, for the hedge. I suppose you think that’s an ordinary hedge.”

  Bannister shook his head. He was nearly through it.

  “This hedge is a custom mix of Japanese yew, bush honeysuckle, and rugosa rose,” Lynskey yelled after the rapidly retreating car.

  “I saw that the second I hit it,” Bannister replied, rolling up the window and taking a sigh of relief as he heard his tires finally connect with solid pavement.

  “I want a fully grown hedge transplant,” Lynskey yelled after him. “I don’t want any half-assed little seedlings that are gonna take ten years to grow. You hear me?”

  As Bannister got his car onto the road and put the transmission into drive, Lynskey picked up the shattered remains of a lawn ornament, a ceramic dwarf dressed in livery and holding a ring to which imaginary horses might be tethered. The dwarf’s black face had been painted white in keeping with current sensitivities. Lynskey shook the now headless statue at Bannister’s retreating car.

  “And I want my lawn dwarf replaced,” he hollered. “This is a gaddamn collector’s piece, so don’t try to pick up some cheap plastic thing at Kmart.”

  Three

  About the same time Ray Lynskey was having his lawn furrowed by Frank Bannister’s old car, the bodybuilder’s young wife Lucy was driving her Lexus up the narrow road approaching the dilapidated entry to the Fairwater Tuberculosis Sanatorium. A rusty chain-link fence led to a rusty iron gate that was swinging squeakily from one hinge, the other having long ago fallen off. A sun-blistered sign announced the name of the once-proud institution.

  A pretty woman of twenty-five years or so, she peered cautiously from behind her steering wheel. She had seen some pretty weird places in her young medical career. Patients had the awful habit of living in the most horrible of circumstances. These were the poor wretches who couldn’t make it to the emergency room—the normal option for those without money or medical insurance—and thus had to be treated at home. Said homes could be run-down trailer parks, filthy and noisy apartments above saloons, or even monstrous old Victorian haunted houses attached to abandoned sanitariums.