The Saint

The Saint

by

Darren R. Hawkins

Smashwords Edition

© Darren R. Hawkins, 2008-2013

* * * * *

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

About the Author

1

They pulled up to the house in a panel van shortly before eight o’clock on a cool late-Autumn Friday. The van was white, freshly painted, but somewhat shoddily so. At close inspection, one could still see the outlines and ridges of the ages old decals that were underneath: Grimes Plumbing and Repair, with smaller bits beneath, chipped letters that might have said small appliances or heating and cooling, possibly. Maybe a street address, too small to be read as the van zipped past on the interstate at sixty miles an hour, but suitable as a sort of traveling billboard, which was one of the things panel vans were presumably good for.

The van was merely white now, though Edward had told them he had plans for decals of his own sometime in the future. Kingsley Holistic Investigations, with an attention-grabbing logo, though he hadn’t quite hammered out the imagery yet. It was being designed by a graphic artist of his acquaintance, his sister’s nephew or something, a community college student, someone who would draw for cheap and be happy just to get his work out there.

The brakes screeched and the van shuddered as it slowed to a stop hard against the sidewalk. Edward winced from the driver’s seat. I’m having those fixed next week, he confided. New pads and machining the rotors. Two hundred and seventy nine dollars. It’s highway robbery. Simply outrageous.

Ray wondered only mildly what sort of design Edward would have in mind. Something ludicrous, probably. It was hard not to be ludicrous. No one wanted to think they took themselves too seriously. Ghost hunters. Paranormal investigators. Their business was more the stuff of B-grade Hollywood movies or humorous and naïve anecdotes from high school retold at parties years later when everyone had had a bit too much to drink and were feeling silly and nostalgic. Stuff that put a shiver up your spine, but that no one really believed in the light of day.

The spectral universe’s insurance appraisers, Edward called them, selling peace of mind at reasonable rates to people with one too many Stephen King novels on their night stand.

It’s always better to be ironic. People trusted irony more than sincerity. There’s something maudlin about sincerity, something precious and a bit embarrassing. Strange noises from the basement, lights that flicker inexplicably, zones of chilled air: it was the stuff of adolescent sleepovers after the parents have gone to bed. It recalled mildly post-pubescent girls swapping stories by flashlight beneath sleeping bag tents.

Irony keeps an open mind while simultaneously pointing out the alternative. Your house is clean. Your investment is sound. Here’s a certificate to show the buyer when it comes time to sell. You can giggle about it over coffee, gives the place a bit of cachet in an otherwise cookie-cutter suburban wasteland. Everyone loves a haunted house except the people who actually live in one. It’s quirky.

Irony holds out the illusion of belief while suggesting more forcefully that there’s a logical explanation. It’s the pipes. It’s the compressor on your central air unit acting up. People would rather believe it was all in their head. And here are some videos, some paper print outs and thermographic images to prove it.

Hand me my sport coat, will you, Ray? Edward asked. It’s hanging there behind you.

Edward was unrolling his shirt sleeves and buttoning them at his wrists, doing his best to smooth out the wrinkles as he went, his pudgy, pink fingers flying. Ray reached behind the passenger seat and pulled the jacket off its hanger, a seedy tweed with worn leather patches at the elbow, as Edward tugged his pre-knotted tie over the rearview mirror and slung it over his head. He was half out into the street as he pushed into his coat, slightly disheveled and quickly patting his thinning hair into place. He looked the part of the absent-minded and eccentric academic, which was at least authentic. Dr. Kingsley, associate professor of religious philosophy, Clark University. He was in his late fifties, portly, pinkly cherubic; a toothy smiler behind his wispy, golden Colonel Sanders goatee. Edward was on sabbatical, trying to make a go at being an entrepreneur before someone fully investigated what he was up to and derailed his tenure track.

Ray studied the house from the street while he waited for Edward to come around from his side. It was a two story Colonial, decently kept, with a field stone half-façade that ran up to the window ledges. The curtains were drawn upstairs, but it looked like all the lights were on. That likely meant he’d be lugging his equipment all the way up to the attic. There was an attached garage with the door closed with a cement drive. The security light was burnt out, but in the glow of the cul-de-sac’s street lights, he could make out an early nineties faded brown Chevy Cavalier, dabbed with rust, parked half in the driveway, half in the yard. At least one teenager, most likely. Probably a girl, he thought, because the lawn needed cut in comparison to the neighbors’.

Ray slammed his door and the porch light flicked on.

Show time, Edward announced.

Where’s Cate? Ray asked as he dragged the panel door open.

She had to drop Rory off at her mother’s. Something about her sitter having the flu, then she was picking up Henry on the way. He reached into pile of boxes, totes and electronic paraphernalia scattered about the cargo area and retrieved his accounts clipboard and briefcase. Can you handle unloading this on your own? I should get up to the house. I think that’s Mrs. Kirby peering at us past the curtain. Ah, wait, this looks like Cate now.

A late model BMW pulled in behind them and the passenger door opened, spilling out the chorus of a Bob Seeger tune from the radio and Henry’s unmistakable, but good-natured laughter. Henry was Edward’s unpaid research assistant, a Ph.D. candidate AI from two semesters ago. He was twenty-six years old and still lived with his parents. He had sandy hair and the sort of studious, tedious demeanor one expected from brown-nosing graduate students. His hair was a bit too long and his blue eyes glittered with humor at almost exactly the wrong moments most of the time. He waved amiably at Ray and Edward as he trotted over, flashing his perfectly white teeth. He wore an expensive suit coat over khaki pants and brown loafers—the consummate upper class professional slumming with grubby, money-minded normals.

Ray did not find it surprising at all that Cate had picked him up along the way. She was recently divorced, largely idle due to the considerable alimony settlement from her philandering but otherwise successful and conscientious ex-husband of twelve years, and Henry had been sharing her extra room two or three nights a week for the past few months to write his dissertation so as not to disturb his parents with the late hours. This appeared to be quite a reasonable arrangement for both of them at the stages they had separately reached in their lives, especially when one understood that working on Henry’s dissertation was largely a euphemism for fucking.

Edward handed him the brief case. Let’s go up, Henry. Do you have your copy of the case file? I made some notes in mine that I’d like to keep handy.

Henry showed him the manila folder he was carrying. Right here. I found some interesting features I’d like to discuss before we get too far into it.

Their voices trailed off as they made their way up the lawn. Ray began shifting boxes around, looking for the camera case.

Did you by any chance grab my shawl when we left Pittsboro last week? Cate came up beside him and peered into the shadows. "I hope I haven’t lost it. That one is just perfect. Ever since Poltergeist, everyone thinks any psychic worth her salt has to have a shawl."

Ray pulled her carefully folded wrap from a tote of odds and ends he had stowed behind the passenger seat. Ever since Zelda Rubinstein, everyone thinks psychics are fat, Jewish hausfraus with squeaky voices who smell like cloves.

Well, thank God I don’t smell like cloves.

She turned her back to him and Ray draped the shawl around her shoulders. Cate Marks was mid-thirtyish, athletically built, tall and red-headed. She had on a white silk blouse, a string of pearls at her neck, and a long pleated skirt. She had her long hair piled up on top of her head, showing off her small ears and dangling dreamcatcher earrings. The shawl was a webbed brown knit, the color of freshly turned soil that matched her eyes. Big, brown, puppy eyes.

Can I help you carry something? Edward and Henry are already inside. Not something dirty, though. I’ll ruin my shirt.

I can get it. Edward doesn’t like the talent mucking about with the hardware. It blurs the roles, undermines professionalism. He tugged a leather binder from the seat back all the same and handed it to her. I have an extra copy of the case file here, though.

That’s thoughtful of you, Ray. I seem to have left mine in Rory’s bag, but I try not to read the preliminary documents anyway, she answered, giving it back. It clouds my perceptions with the client’s. I like to be a clean slate.

Suit yourself. Ray hardly ever read the intake files, either. Not his bailiwick.

He finally found the heavy camera case, shifted a few boxes out of the way and pulled it free. It was spray painted Clark University College of Liberal Arts Audio/Visual in white letters on the side. Ray had wanted to cover this fact with some electrical tape the first few times out, but Edward—correctly, no doubt—reasoned that there was no harm in leveraging the illusion of academic reputation to bolster their claims while they were still establishing themselves. He’d let Dr. Kingsley worry about the cost of replacing the gear when his sabbatical ran out.

* * *

In the living room, they were drinking coffee already. Edward and Henry sat on the couch with their backs to the bay window, papers and file folders spread out on the table in front of them. Mrs. Kirby was seated opposite them in a chair, on the edge of her seat, wringing her hands like a nervous hostess. She had put out a cheese and veggie tray. Cate hovered near the edge of the room, just inside the doorway. Her eyes fluttered first toward Ray as he bustled in, then up with longing toward the high ceiling of the entry hall and the staircase to the second floor.

And this is my other research assistant, Mr. Foster, Edward said. Ray nodded vaguely in the woman’s direction since his hands were full. Go ahead and frame her there, Ray. The lighting is good. Maybe only one set of lights?

Two, I think, Henry offered. The corner will cast shadows back.

Of course, of course.

Like either of them had the foggiest.

Would you like some coffee, Mr. Foster?

No, thank you, ma’am. I’ll just set things up. He put down the camera case out of the way beside the dormant fireplace and unlatched the lid.

In your intake paperwork, Edward said, continuing the conversation Ray’s arrival had interrupted, you reported that you’ve lived in this house since 1990. Is that correct?

She nodded. We had the house built in 1990. Moved in the winter of 1991, in February. Only the Jansen’s next door were here then. The others were still under construction.

And your son, Tanner, he was born shortly after?

Before. Tanner was born in March of ’90. He was the reason Tom wanted to build in the first place. We didn’t like our old neighborhood for raising children.

Understandable. Tanner is a student, I gather?

Up at Ball State, yes. In Muncie.

Edward scratched some corrections into his file. Ray had assembled the camera on its tripod and aimed it at Mrs. Kirby. She flushed self-consciously and checked her hair while Ray centered her in the view finder, the way women tended to do who were uncomfortable as the center of attention. She was in her mid to late forties, pale and plain, a dishwater blonde, but otherwise unremarkable; the sort of woman who dressed smartly on a limited budget, but held out no pretension that she was particularly interesting or anything beyond run of the mill attractive. She worked for one of the mid-level law firms downtown. Ray guessed she was a secretary, maybe a filing clerk. Someone who tiptoed about like a mouse, competent in her limited context, but mostly invisible.

And your daughter is at home, Henry observed, pointing at the spot in his case file that said so. She’s fourteen.

Yes.

Is she at home now? Edward asked.

Upstairs, in her room. Mrs. Kirby smiled weakly. She would prefer not to be bothered, if that’s possible. Melanie thinks the whole thing is silly. A waste of time and money.

When I was that age, Cate said, I’d have worried more about the embarrassment of it. The potential embarrassment, of course, but what isn’t embarrassing to fourteen year old girls, who tend to die of shame at least once a day?

Oh! That is so true, Ms. Brechtold!

Please, dear. Bertana.

Bertana Brechtold was Cate’s professional name. Psychics with American-sounding names did not test well with clients, Cate had told Ray once. She had done copious research. People liked their seers with a bit of Old World sensibility: paranormal street cred. No turbans, no crystal balls, no Sedona crystals or tarot cards, please. That was all sideshow, as bad a name like Cate Marks.

They wanted calm, dignity, confidence. An unflappable sense of ease with the spirit world. And an accent. Or barring an accent, a good name.

Unless it was reality television, then they wanted cleavage.

Would you consider your daughter to be particularly sensitive? Cate asked.

I’m sorry, sensitive how?

Edward smiled reassuringly around a sip of his coffee. I believe that what Ms. Brechtold is alluding to is the well-established cultural expectation that young girls of a certain age…that is, girls approaching puberty, have been known to attract certain types of spiritual phenomena. There is a great deal of authoritative documentation on the subject of transitive-pubescent poltergeist activity.

Puberty is a time of great emotional upset for a young girl, Henry confirmed sagely. There’s a certain sense of potential, of creative essence and power that comes with the emerging awareness that she, as a woman, has the power to give life, to create life inside her own body. This burgeoning sensitivity to the great cycle of universal being, of opening one’s self to—

Mrs. Kirby blinked at them. My daughter plays field hockey. She’s been having her period since she was eleven. She put her hand to her mouth suddenly. Oh, my! I didn’t say that on camera, did I? She would absolutely kill me.

You’re fine, Ray said. I haven’t started recording yet.

The woman sighed in relief.

Now, then, if you would, Mrs. Kirby— Edward began.

"Please, Dr. Kingsley, call me Jenny. Or at the very least, Ms. Kirby. Jenny is better."

Yes, Jenny. Wonderful. If you would, Jenny, share with my colleagues a brief recap of the sorts of phenomena you’ve been observing. We have the intake Henry prepared with you over the phone, of course, and we’ll be probing your experience in greater detail on camera for the record, but it would be beneficial to have you go over the high level narrative now. Whatever comes to mind.

Ms. Kirby fidgeted in her seat. She glanced nervously at the camera again. Ray took a break from twiddling with the focus to offer her an encouraging smile. He made a point of showing her what he was doing when he pressed the record button, then gave her a thumbs up. Well, at first I thought it might be an infestation of some sort. Rodents, you know. They’re terrible around here, especially after the fields have been harvested. There’s a major co-op silo just to the west of us, you know. We’ve had four different exterminators since August, and they’ve turned up nothing.

Edward nodded. And what was it that prompted you to consider an infestation in the first place?

Oh, it was the gnawing, this grinding, scraping-wood sound. Just horrible. It sounded like it was right inside the walls, sometimes. And the noises from the attic! What sounded like footsteps scuttling from one end of the house to the other, things tumbling over, you name it. There was such a racket, some nights I couldn’t even sleep out of fear.

And the exterminators turned up nothing?

Nothing at all! And when I worked up the courage to check things out up there myself, everything looked to be in order. I kept all of the paperwork, if you’re interested. For insurance purposes mainly, you understand, or for the realtor in case we ever decided to sell the house. I wouldn’t do that, of course. I don’t want to uproot little Mel in the middle of her high school career.

That’s very understandable. What else, Jenny?

She was clearly warming to the telling, forgetting about Ray and his camera. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes lit up with interest. Despite his earlier impression, Jenny Kirby really was quite attractive when she was more lively. Ray toggled the zoom a bit to better frame her face in the shot. When reviewing the tapes afterward, Edward liked to study the client’s facial expressions and changes in posture. He believed that by closely examining the pattern of the eyes and lips, he could pinpoint the places where fact had unconsciously given way to fantasy and an overly stimulated imagination.

It takes a certain sort of person, Edward said, to make the leap to the paranormal. One has to become prone to it through education, association or study, to learn to interpret the signs appropriately rather than dismissing interesting phenomena as merely manifestations of stress, a disordered mind or even mental illness. People had to be conditioned to expect the sublime, otherwise all they perceived was randomness.

Then there was the cold, she continued. The house sometimes becomes horribly, inexplicably frigid at night. I thought it was furnace!

But it wasn’t.

No! Not at all. I had that checked out, too. And there were such terrible drafts. The temperature could plummet thirty degrees or more in the space of an hour. I started chasing Mel down here to sleep by the fire. My room became almost unbearable.

Your room in particular? Henry observed with interest. He made a scratchy note on his paper.

Make a mental note of that, Ms. Brechtold, Edward added. We’ll want to pay close attention to Jenny’s bedroom.

Ray coughed unobtrusively into his hand.

And such a feeling, too, Dr. Kingsley—

Edward, my dear. Call me Edward.

Why, thank you, Edward! She flushed with pleasure, all the way up to the tips of her ears. But as I was saying, the feeling: loneliness and dread. I don’t have any other words for it. You’re going to think this is silly, but sometimes, I actually feel like there’s someone else here in the house with us. It seems to come with the cold; a sad, mournful longing like someone who has been abandoned by all the hope and joy in the world.

Does it happen often, this presence?

No. Only a handful of times, though once or twice Mel and I have come home after an evening out and I’ve had the same feeling, like there’s been someone in the house. It makes me feel so very sad and empty.

How dreadful, Cate said, frowning in sympathy. I hope I can feel it, too.

Truth be told, it makes me a bit nauseous to think about it. I don’t believe I’ve had a decent night’s sleep in months.

Ray could hear the discomfiture in Jenny Kirby’s voice, and it made him melancholy for her. Her sadness settled in his gut like a lump of phlegm. Which sucked, since she was supposed to be the one being haunted, after all.

He finished with the camera and headed back to van to get more boxes: thermal imaging cameras, gauss meters, EMF readers, motion detectors, hyper-sensitive microphones, laptops to crunch all the data. Maybe later he’d break out the proton packs, containment units and statues of Gozer, as the situation warranted, of course. But first the klieg lights for the video shoot, the boom microphone and sound gear. He had his work cut out for him.

* * *

By ten o’clock,