From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel Read online

  The other one?

  The director turned his back to me and spoke to no one in particular. “Are we almost ready?”

  A member of the director’s crew said that he had just finished placing the cameras and infrared motion sensors in the house.

  “Show me,” the director said.

  The two men and Jodi retreated to the black van.

  Hannah smiled at me. “Nervous?” she asked.

  I surprised myself by answering, “Yes. I’m not used to all these cameras.”

  “You’re supposed to pretend that they’re not there.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Are you sure it’s just the cameras, McKenzie?”

  “What else?”

  “You’re the one who wants to talk to Leland Hayes.”

  “What I want…”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember when we first met? I told you I was confused and that I didn’t like being confused. I’m hoping after tonight I will be unconfused.”

  “One way or another.”

  I had to chuckle at that.

  “Yes,” I said. “One way or another.”

  “Once we get inside, follow my lead. I’ll explain things as we go. It’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Because I’m so innocent and naïve?”

  I didn’t laugh the way I had when Jodi first told me what my role in the TV show would be, yet I did smile.

  “Big, brave, gun-toting ex-cop—were you ever innocent, McKenzie?” Hannah asked.

  “Probably not. You?”

  “Oh, yes. When I was younger. Sweet and innocent. Not now, though. McKenzie, the stories I could tell.”

  “Where’s your mom?” I asked.

  “She’ll be along.”

  A few moments later, a car parked across the street and Esti Braaten stepped out of it. She was followed by Kayla Janas.

  I glanced at Hannah.

  “She wants to learn,” Hannah said. “She wants to help. Besides, if I can’t read Leland, maybe she can.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that Kayla will discover you’re not the superstar you claim to be?” I asked.

  “I’ve never claimed to be a super anything.”

  The women joined us. Hannah and Esti hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other for a while, which I found refreshing.

  “I’m sorry we’re late,” Esti said without offering an explanation.

  Hannah and Kayla also hugged.

  “Are you okay?” Hannah asked.

  “No,” Kayla answered. “This is all new to me, like I said when you called, so no.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just keep yourself open. Tell us everything that you see or hear.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “There are no locks on the door, Kayla. No one is forcing you to stay. If you start to feel that it’s too much for you, just walk out of the house. All right?”

  “All right.”

  Kayla turned toward me. “McKenzie,” she said.

  She hugged me close, but it wasn’t about affection. Kayla needed someone to hold on to. She told me why in a whisper.

  “I’m scared to death,” Kayla said.

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Didn’t your parents tell you? There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  Kayla thought that was funny, but Hannah and Esti didn’t.

  I released the young woman when Jodi motioned me toward her.

  “Take this,” she said.

  I took the electronic device that she offered and bounced it in my hand.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “An EVP recorder.”

  “EVP?”

  “Electronic voice phenomena. We use these to digitally record what the spirits say to us. We might not hear the spirit, but these devices are specially designed to capture voices and sounds that can’t be detected by the human ear, voices and sounds that are considered paranormal or supernatural. We hope. Mostly everything we record will turn out to be a whole lot of nothing, just mushy static. Sometimes a producer will be convinced that he heard a spirit speaking from the other side and will replay the mush over and over again, telling us what it says. Then he’ll throw up a caption on the screen that translates the mush and replay it a half-dozen more times and the audience will say, ‘Yeah, I hear it, too.’ But mostly it’s mush.”

  “Are you saying that sometimes producers will fake EVPs?”

  “I’m saying that you sometimes hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear more often than not helps support a dramatic plot line. Except, this one time—I’ll never forget it. We recorded an EVP of a woman’s voice, speaking clear as a bell. She said, ‘He’s sleeping now.’ It was captured near a fresh, unmarked grave that turned out to be a newly buried child. It still raises goose bumps when I think of it.

  “Sometimes you wonder if it’s your imagination, if it’s playing tricks on you,” Jodi added. “Other times … I’ve been involved with paranormal crews that have been able to document the existence of the spirit world over and over again. ’Course, scientists rarely accept our evidence as valid, for the simple reason that crews are all over the place. Nobody’s tools, methods, and practices are standardized. Our conclusions can’t be reproduced in a laboratory; they don’t lend themselves to peer review. That doesn’t make them any less true, though. McKenzie, I have a very good feeling about tonight.”

  Well, that makes one of us, my inner voice said.

  “Okay,” the director said. “Is everybody here? Is everybody ready? Hannah? Kayla? McKenzie?”

  Jodi and I joined the others at the gate. Hannah had picked up a large leather purse and draped it over her shoulder. I didn’t think she was going on a shopping expedition to the Mall of America, so I asked her, “What’s in the bag?”

  “A few necessities.”

  “Necessities?”

  “A girl never knows when she’ll be invited on a long weekend in Vegas.”

  Esti shook her head and turned away. Everyone else laughed.

  By then the sun had set and night had settled over the Cities. There were plenty of streetlights, of course, and porch lights, and the lights streaming from the windows of houses where normal people were going about their business. There were no lights on in Leland’s house. The show would be filmed in complete darkness with night-vision cameras because—drama.

  I stood staring at the house for a few beats before I realized that Hannah and Kayla were doing the same thing. I wondered if they were thinking what I was thinking—that they would look fabulous in the spooky pale green color that night-vision cameras film in, while I’d probably resemble the alien in Predator. I found the idea disconcerting.

  When did you become such a Hollywood baby?

  “Remember,” the director said. “Don’t speak unless you have something to say. Audio is everything. We want to hear the things that go bump in the night, and we can’t if the performers are talking nonstop.”

  I turned on the EVP recorder and stuffed it into the pocket of my jacket.

  “Cameras,” he added. “Keep on the performers when they’re talking. If the editors hear a vital conversation and want to cut it into the show, they’re not going to be happy if you’re busy filming an empty corridor. Hannah, it’s all about you. Make it happen. All right. Let’s have a good show.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  One of the cameramen went first. There were three of them, and I never learned their names, so I referred to them by letter.

  Camera A went to the front door, opened it, stepped inside the house, and closed the door. A few moments later, the director said, “Action”—swear to God—and Hannah, Kayla, and I walked to the front door. I opened it and held it open for Hannah and Kayla, allowing them to pass through the doorway in front of me because that’s how I was raised, not because I didn’t want to go first.

  Camera A had positioned himself halfway up the staircase, filming us from an overhead angle as we entered the house. The door was closed and we eased in
to the living room. There were a couple of chairs, a tall side table, and a sofa left over from the previous tenants, yet we didn’t use them. Hell, I could barely see them. There was a brief pause as Cameras B and C entered the house and took positions around us. I used the time to close my eyes and cover them with my hands, applying slight pressure with my palms. It was something that Shelby had taught me from her caving days—it’s supposed to help your eyes adjust to the dark, allowing them to see better with limited light sources.

  “Keep yourself open,” Hannah said. I presumed she was talking to Kayla. I leaned against the back of a chair.

  Minutes passed without anyone else speaking; I couldn’t tell you how many. Finally I removed my hands and opened my eyes. It wasn’t as if the place was suddenly lit up like Target Field during a Twins game, yet now I could see shapes, if not distinct features, and the shadows on the floor and walls that trembled along with the branches outside.

  Hey, my inner voice said. The special effects guy is really good.

  “Do you feel it?” Kayla asked. “The air? It’s very heavy.”

  Hannah stood in the center of the room, her arms raised and her head bowed as if she were calling on an ancient deity.

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s real darkness here.”

  “I’ve never felt this before,” Kayla said. “It’s like the air is pressing down on me.”

  “I have. Kayla, you can feel this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told me that you communicate with the spirit world through words and pictures, not feelings.”

  “That’s what normally happens. This—I don’t know how this is happening. I can’t explain it. What is it?”

  “Nothing I haven’t felt before.”

  “Hannah…”

  “Evil, Kayla. We’re in the presence of evil.”

  That caused my head to snap toward her. Hannah had lowered her arms and was adjusting the bag hanging from her shoulder.

  That was pretty dramatic, my inner voice said.

  Is she telling the truth or playing to the cameras? I asked myself.

  The cameras, my inner voice said. We hope.

  We remained standing in the darkness for I don’t know how long. I had lost all sense of time. It could have been a few minutes; it could have been much longer. I flashed on something that Einstein once said to help explain his theory of relativity—When you are sitting with a pretty girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot stove a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

  I wondered what Einstein would think of what I was doing now.

  He’d think you were nuts, my inner voice said.

  “Something,” Kayla said.

  “What is it?” Hannah asked.

  “There’s an older man. He’s angry, a very, very angry person. He’s all about taking what’s his, about keeping what’s his. I can’t see him.”

  “He’s hiding.”

  “He enjoys tormenting the people who live here,” Kayla said. “The people who live here—he doesn’t like them. He doesn’t like their religion or their politics or philosophies or—he doesn’t like the color of their skin. He communicates with them mostly by yelling. He yells at them all the time. He yells at them so loudly that the furniture shakes. He stomps around so that it makes things move.”

  I heard a loud thud from the kitchen and jumped about six feet into the air.

  Better hope a camera wasn’t recording you, you wuss.

  “What was that?” I asked aloud. It was the first time I had spoken since we entered the house, and I was surprised by the sound of my own voice. It was like I hadn’t heard it before.

  “Probably the wind,” Hannah said.

  “There is no wind tonight. Not much, anyway.”

  “Not every little noise we hear in the dark is the spirit world trying to contact us. Take a deep breath. Try to relax. I learned a long time ago that it’s nothing until we can prove it’s something.”

  Yeah, you innocent, naïve victim, you.

  “But let’s take a look,” Hannah said.

  Camera C went first, positioning himself in the kitchen so that he’d have good video of Hannah, Kayla, and me as we entered the small room. I went last again, just to be polite.

  The kitchen had a white refrigerator and a white stove, reflecting what little light seeped through the narrow windows. The cabinets were made of dark wood. At least they seemed dark. There was nothing lying on the floor or on the kitchen counters or in the sink, nothing that might have fallen from the walls.

  So what made the noise?

  I was tempted to pull out my cell phone, turn on its flashlight, and take a good look around, but I knew no one would like it.

  We stood in the kitchen listening for more noise. We heard none.

  “The atmosphere isn’t as oppressive in here,” Kayla said.

  “I read somewhere that the kitchen is the most important room in the house,” I said. “It’s where families gather not just for nourishment but also for conversations, debates, arguments, and hugs.”

  The way both women ignored me, I had the distinct impression that my words would end up on the cutting room floor.

  Oh, well.

  After a few moments, Hannah directed us back into the living room.

  “You can really tell the difference, can’t you,” Kayla said. “This room is so filled with negative energy.”

  “Can you still feel the old man?” Hannah asked.

  “No.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Hannah reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like little more than a black box in the darkness.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s a K2 EMF meter. It detects electromagnetic energy, which often indicates the presence of spirits.”

  “Does that really work?”

  “Yes, although … not tonight.” Hannah dropped the meter into her bag and turned toward me. I couldn’t make out the expression on her face, yet I could feel her eyes. “You’re on.”

  I stepped into the center of the room knowing that both Cameras B and C were pointed at me.

  “Leland,” I said. “Leland Hayes. We’ve never been properly introduced. My name is McKenzie. I’m the guy who shot you in the head.”

  I waited. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. I decided to explain myself.

  “You robbed an armored truck, stole over half a million dollars, and hid it somewhere,” I said. “When we caught you, you decided to shoot it out. You decided it was better to kill a handful of police officers than surrender. I’m the one who shot you in self-defense. You know what? They gave me a commendation for it. What do you think of that?”

  Are you talking to Leland or the cameras?

  Both, I decided. I wanted to justify myself to the TV audience. I didn’t want them to think I was a killer.

  We waited in the darkness in silence.

  “I’m not receiving anything,” Hannah said.

  “Neither am I,” Kayla replied. “If anything, the air seems lighter, somehow.”

  “Let’s try the cellar.”

  We moved back into the kitchen and found a narrow doorway that led to a wooden staircase to the basement. Once again a camera went ahead of us. I didn’t know which one; I had lost track of who was who. This time I made to go first, but Hannah put a hand on my shoulder and held me back so that Kayla could descend the stairs in front of us. Hannah went second. Suddenly I felt better about myself for going third.

  The cellar was completely empty. It had a cement floor, stone walls, and the floor above us for a ceiling. If there was any heat on in the house, it had been set only high enough to keep the water pipes from bursting. The temperature in the basement was particularly low, although I couldn’t see my breath. I put my bare hands in my pockets to keep them warm, fingering my car keys in one and the EVP recorder in the other.

  “I’m not feeling anything,” Kayla said. “The air is even lighter than it was in the
kitchen.”

  “I’m feeling something,” Hannah said.

  “What?”

  “Cold. It’s freezing down here. Holy mackerel, turn up the heat.”

  “Don’t cold spots sometimes indicate the presence of a spirit?” Kayla asked.

  “Yes. They also indicate that it’s December in Minnesota and we’re standing in a basement.”

  Kayla and the cameramen chuckled, and I thought, The woman has charisma, you have to give her that.

  “McKenzie,” Hannah said. “Try again.”

  “Hey, Leland, you worthless piece of dog excrement—”

  Editing your language for the TV cameras, are you?

  “I met some guys you knew the other day. I wouldn’t call them friends, though. You didn’t have any friends, did you, because you were such a miserable SOB. You know what they did for your funeral? Nothing. No one cared about you. Not even your own kid. They cremated your body and dumped your ashes into a hole because that’s what you deserved.”

  My words echoed in the empty cellar and faded to nothing. Again we waited in silence. Again nothing happened.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Hannah said.

  We climbed the stairs. As we climbed, Hannah whispered to me.

  “Next time ask about the money,” she said.

  We went up to the ground level and hung around some more. Eventually Hannah decided we should climb the stairs to the second story. Once again a cameraman went first.

  We crowded into the smaller of the two upstairs bedrooms. I assumed that it had been Ryan’s.

  “It’s not nearly as bad in here,” Hannah said. “The darkness. It’s almost like—it’s like a bubble of light.”

  “There’s a woman,” Kayla said. “She’s very quiet, very timid; she’s afraid.”

  “Can you see her?”

  “No. I can’t see her, I can’t hear her, but I can feel her. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.”

  “In the past, the spirits wanted to talk to you,” Hannah said. “They wanted you to help them communicate with their loved ones. Tonight, they’re hiding.”

  “Please,” Kayla said. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to help you. Please, talk to me. Please, tell me who you are.”