Tales From Gulinger High Tale Twenty-Seven E-Book

Julie Steimle

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

When Officer Johnson catches wind of a convention in NYC about moon theory with chaos and crime, he sends his son Joshua to go undercover to find out what the gathering is truly about. But when JJ arrives, he discovers an even more heinous crime afoot. After all, JJ can see ghosts, and they have a story to tell.

Leseprobe

Julie Steimle

Tales From Gulinger High Tale Twenty-Seven

Partings

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Uninvited

“Hey, did you get the invitation yet?”

“What invitation?” Officer Johnson hardly looked up from his paperwork. He had stacks of forms to upload into the computer. Most were unsolved homicides the chief wanted him to resolve, if possible. Of course that actually meant he wanted Officer Johnson’s son Joshua to speak with the murder victims, if their ghosts were still around.

The police officer that had stuck his head into Officer Johnson’s office, blinked the man and stepped farther into the room. Regarding Officer Johnson’s mussed up hair and dark-circled eyes carefully, the man began rethinking whether or not to tell him. “The convention. You haven’t heard about it? Downtown, the one that has the discussion group about moon theory with chaos and crime. It was sort of up your, how do you say it, weird alley.”

Leaning over his desk, frowning, Officer Johnson stared at him. “What?”

“You haven’t heard of it then?” the policeman murmured.

“I didn’t get a memo, if that’s what you mean.” Officer Johnson turned back to his work. “What’s involved? Who’s hosting it?”

The policeman shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. But I found this brochure in the lobby. One of the attendees had dropped it.”

He held out a glossy paper folded in thirds widthwise. The cover said something like The Full Moon Phenomenon. It showed a dark background with a large moon ringed with a tinge of red.

Taking it, Officer Johnson tentatively opened the brochure, peering inside. Most of the information was sensational speculation. How supernatural phenomena could be explained “scientifically” by the effects of the full moon.

“This is hokum,” Officer Johnson said. “There is no proven link between crime and the full moon.”

His fellow officer shrugged.

“All the same, I thought you should see it,” the man said. “There’s a large gathering at the hotel where that suicide was, a lot of out-of-towners dressed in funny clothes. I just figured you’d be interested.”

The policeman turned to go.

“Wait a minute!” Officer Johnson quickly rose. “What do you mean dressed in funny clothes?”

Nodding, the other policeman replied, “Leather-clad. Some in Kevlar. Weird people. And they were carrying unusual luggage—like those NRA types that carry their rifles into convenience stores. I almost asked for their ID’s, but one of them flashed a government security badge at me and said it was private gathering—invitation only. Which is why I asked you if you got an invite.”

A shiver ran down Officer Johnson’s arms. He opened the brochure, inspecting the contents. It still looked like a piece of law-enforcement mythology. Something for TV.

He murmured, “I could go investigate this but…”

“But what?”

Sighing, Officer Johnson said, “If I wasn’t invited, that means I was not wanted at this gathering.”

“Even with all your experience with, uh, full moon phenomenon, you mean?” the officer asked wryly.

Everyone in the precinct, if not the entire New York City police force, knew of Officer Johnson’s connection with the supernatural world. He had become their unofficial specialist over the past twelve years. He was their go-to man if any supernatural crime went down. It had started right after he had learned his son could see ghosts. The rest came with his connection to Gulinger Private Academy and Mr. Howard Richard Deacon II, a known (yet peaceful) werewolf. Most of the time his fellow officers used code words when talking about the freaky stuff, as everyone else still had trouble with accepting that monsters, ghosts, and elf-kind were real.

“Full moon phenomenon…” Officer Johnson murmured, thinking on it. The full moon would not be for another week. And the only thing he ever worried about on the full moon was whether or not hunters would be after Howard Richard Deacon III, Mr. Deacon’s son, who went to Gulinger.

“Sir?”

Coming out of his reverie, Officer Johnson said, “I can’t show up at that convention. They’ll know me.”

“You know who they are?” the officer said.

Frowning, Officer Johnson narrowed his eyes at the brochure. “I can’t know for sure. Not without sending someone top spy it out.”

His fellow officer immediately stepped back, lifting up both hands. “Oh. Not me. I’ve already been told to scram. Those were government ID’s. Like NSA level.”

Officer Johnson nodded to himself. “Of course not. Someone they wouldn’t suspect should go. Someone without a badge.” He frowned at the empty space in front of him. “I wonder. Are they still cleaning up after the hotel suicide?”

The other policeman nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got mixed reports on the scene. The manager said the man who killed himself had been caught stealing and was just fired. And he’s asked us to investigate more theft among the staff. But one of the hotel workers told me the hotel manager drove the man to suicide—”

“Making it a possible homicide,” Officer Johnson murmured. “Which is my department.”

The policeman nodded. “But all we have is hearsay on that allegation. No evidence that we could find.”

“I see.” But Officer Johnson was still thinking. He looked to the policeman. “I wonder, would the manager agree to undercover policemen in his hotel?”

His fellow officer smiled.

JJ Undercover

Joshua Johnson was still in training to be a cop. But that didn’t stop his father from having a word with his superiors at the police academy. And since JJ had grown up working with the police on homicide cases on a regular basis, and since he was at the top of his class at the academy, they let him do it.

It was a simple job. And a seasoned officer would work with him, so no worries there. Both would go undercover. Both were commissioned to find out who in the staff was stealing from the hotel. But only JJ was tasked with finding out from the ghosts about the possible homicide.

All that was on the record.

Off the record, JJ’s father asked him to investigate the group gathering for the Full Moon Phenomena Conference.

The hotel manager eyed both undercover policemen severely when they arrived. Both were assigned as porters, though the seasoned officer replaced the man who had killed himself—a man named Jason Bates. Joshua could see Mr. Bates’ ghost glaring at him as if he would push them off the roof or down the stairs.

And there were other ghosts in the hotel.

When JJ went on his duties, once carrying luggage for a portly man and a woman with unnaturally red hair to the third floor, one ghost hovered over them in the elevator, neck kinked to the side like she was still hanging from a noose. Another ghost roamed the fourth floor halls, going back and forth while singing an off-key ditty about a daisy and a bicycle over and over and over again. A different one lingered in the lobby. A ragged urchin-like man. He begged every passerby for change. But of course no one could see him.

Then there was the one in the hotel bar. He slumped in the second red stool on the end, moaning over and over again that things were hopeless. Everyone avoided that stool, even if they could not see the ghost.

Then there was the ghost on the roof.

Joshua went up there out of curiosity. He had found three ghosts in the laundry, and one in the kitchen. But if there was ever a place to be haunted, it would be the roof. JJ had seen plenty of haunting grounds in his lifetime, roofs being one of the big ones. And sure enough, a vaporous silhouette stood right on the ledge, peering down to the street below as if contemplating to jump again.

The figure was a man. He wore a suit, or at least a vest and tie. JJ had spoken to most of the ghosts he had seen when he could manage to be alone with them, but they all had acted like he wasn’t there. Most were too fixated on their own lingering misery. And though this one did not look any different, he still tried.

“Why did you jump?” he asked.

This ghost turned around.

Most ghosts merely glanced at him then went back to their fixation. This specter’s transparent face was gaunt, hopelessness staring out from his eyes. Shades of navy blue and brown flickered in the phantom form of clothes around him—a memory of who he once was. The ghost replied, “I had nothing left to lose.”

“What about those around you?” Joshua asked, coming a little closer. He knew some ghosts fled when approached too fast. They got spooked. Which was ironic. “Your family? Friends?”

With a dry chuckle, the ghost said, “He destroyed all that. He destroyed it, and left me with nothing.”

JJ frowned. “Who?”

“Who else?” the ghost replied, almost pity in his glance. “Our manager.”