Dark Night Part 6

We made it back to Kerse’s office when I saw something on his door “Wait… it's spelled “Kearse”? With an 'A'?”

He blinked at me a few times. “Yeah.”

I handed him the business card I’d lifted off his desk when we were getting ready. His expression soured and he muttered what I assumed was a curse word. “You know I’ve got about seven hundred of these.” He tapped the card in his hand for a minute. “Well, it is what it is.” He tossed the card in the trash can and sat at his desk. “So what did the ghost give you?”

I shook my head, setting the box down on his desk. “Before I open this… I have a few questions.”

“Fire away.”

“Okay, you seem oddly comfortable with ghostly encounters. Did you know that the ‘historical society’ were ghosts before we went in there?”

“Yes.”

“The fu… okay what? I’ve seen ‘oddly comfortable with the paranormal’ before, but you are on an entirely other level.”

“Really? I am? Even in your line of work?”

“Especially in my line of work, and I had a lady write me asking me to examine a spectral snake that was coming out of the back of her television.”

“Really? Was there a ghost in her television?”

“No, it was a cord and she was off her meds, but that’s part of my point, Kearse. You actually asked the question sincerely. So either you are way more comfortable with the paranormal than anyone has any right to be, or you are crazy in a very convenient way.”

“Probably both,” he said with a nod.

I gave that a moment to sink in, and finally said, “Fair enough.”

I opened the box to find old newspapers dating back to 1954. Fred and I started digging through, carefully examining the articles for any details that might help explain what was going on. A photograph stuck out to me. It was of a newly integrated neighborhood, featuring prominently a young black man and a white woman standing dangerously close to each other. The woman, I recognized from her obituary, was Beverly Hamilton, looking much younger. The tag on the picture indicated the young man was Daniel Childs. They looked pretty close, dangerously close, and if what the librarian said was true, it may not have mattered that Beverly was no stranger to other men. The very fact that a white woman was taking up with a black man in the wake of the official, legal destruction of segregation would have probably irked more than a few people. I looked through the list of names also in the picture. “Hello…” I said. “Looks like Morgan Lighthouse knew our two love birds.” I was mostly talking to myself so I looked for the picture of Lighthouse and nearly dropped my magnifying glass.

“What’s wrong?” Fredrick asked. He looked at the picture. “Hmm…Lighthouse has aged well since 1954.”

“That’s… fascinating, but not what I’m looking at,” I said. “I know that face.”

The face was pale with dark, scraggily hair and sunken in eyes and a crooked smile. “You ever hear about a serial killer named Jonathan Kenneth Rogers?”

I’ll admit, I could feel my blood run cold. The goosebumps that crawled their way up my arm were real, as was the tension in my neck and shoulders, and the sudden drop in my stomach. Kearse poured me a scotch, handing it to me without asking. I took it and brought it to my lips. It filled my nose. I could taste it in my mouth before it crossed my lips, its aroma promising me that my problems would go away, that I would think more clearly once I swallowed it. It was an old lover, gently caressing the back of my head as I nuzzled her chest, wanting to forget it all.

I put it down, not taking a sip, and slid it back to him, my hand shaking. “No… please pour it back in. Water will be fine.” My mind played in my head a woman in white, her arms torn open by razor blades, of squealing tires and crushed metal, and of a jail house door banging with inhuman strength behind each blow.

Kearse didn’t ask, he didn’t push, and I appreciated that. “So, who’s Jonathan Kenneth Rogers?”

“He was a very, very bad man. He died in a Texas jail house, killed in a knock-down, drag-out fight with another inmate. Then his ghost haunted the jail, until he tried to piggyback his way out of jail inside a human body. He and I have… a history.”

“When did he die?”

“Not long before this picture was taken.”

“So it shouldn’t be him. As you said, he was in jail, dead, and tied to a haunting when this went down. Not to mention the distance issue.”

I remembered seeing the visions, no matter where I went, taunting me, threatening to make me slip, trying to get us to kill ourselves, nearly succeeding with me a few times. “Time, space, and death didn’t matter to Rogers. I don’t… I don’t know how it all works, but this can’t be a coincidence.”

The thought hit me like a shot and I bolted out of my chair and went around the room, my hands running through my hair. “Shit…Lighthouse…” I said. “Do you have a picture of him?”

Kearse nodded and keyed up Lighthouse’s website. “Yeah, like every politician he loves his own image.”

Looking back at me was the face of Jonathan Kenneth Rogers. I handed Kearse the old newspaper. He looked at the pictures, back and forth a few times. “Son of a bitch.”

“Son of a bitch…” I agreed. They were the same man, taken decades apart.

“Any idea who his father is?” I asked.

Kearse went to a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder. “No father on the birth certificate—weird for that time period.”

“Not weird if you really didn’t want your kid tied to a serial killer,” I pointed out.

We got in the car and headed to Lighthouse’s campaign headquarters. Call it a thing, but I wanted to dig up as much information as I could before I went and actually confronted the person a ghost with an unknown agenda told me to stop. I mean, honestly the number of ghosts with pure intentions that I’ve met I can count on one hand, and still have five fingers to spare.

The dead, and I’m waxing philosophical here, aren’t as wholesome as you might think. I mean, think about it, how many 100 percent saintly people do you know? Everyone has something, some grudge, some regret, something that they aren’t proud of. That’s part of what makes us human. The ghosts that I’ve met, and maybe I’m just running with the wrong type of ghosts, don’t do things or ask for things out of the kindness of their ectoplasmic hearts. They want something. Rogers, when I met him, wanted to cause mayhem in the world. That was his schtick, his unfinished business, his reason for not passing into… hell I guess.

I think about this kind of thing a lot. It’s an occupational hazard, I guess. But the ghost that wants you to unveil their murderer, or find the deed to the house, or give one last message… it’s kind of selfish. You are asking, sometimes demanding, and the living take time out of their lives, up ending their sense of reality because you won’t go crossing into the light because you want that last little thing that ultimately doesn’t matter. It won’t bring you back, that murderer still has been running free for whatever time it’s taken to get to them, the house deed is still going to go under legal examination and may not matter in the end, and that person they left behind needs to move on with their life. Ghosts are selfish. That’s really all that amounts to.

We pulled into the parking lot of this little shopping center that had more empty shops than loaded ones, and I saw Lighthouse’s campaign headquarters sitting pretty. “Lighthouse: The Beacon of the Future!” I read out loud.

“Subtle,” Kearse said wryly.

We got out and entered the office. It was converted from a moderate sized shop with partitions for walls and the back end walled with a door and a one way mirror window. Lighthouse, I knew, would be there. I approached the receptionist.

“Come to pledge your support?” she said cheerily. She was a pretty blond girl with black rimmed glasses, and her hair pulled back in a fun little pony tail. Kearse gave her a winning smile and she blushed. He was more “heart throb” where I was more “grizzled reporter.” I don’t have the greatest people skills when Scott isn’t with me. He relaxes me.

“We need to talk to Mr. Lighthouse," Kearse said, leaning on her counter.

“I’m so sorry, but Mr. Lighthouse takes meetings by appointment only.”

I gave a grim smile to that. “Can you just ask if he’ll see us? Tell him it’s about Beverly Hamilton.”

She looked a little confused but nodded and picked up her phone. I didn’t hear half the conversation, but I really hoped that Lighthouse didn’t bolt out the back door. There was no way we were going to get around to the back of the building in time. I suppose one of us could have covered the back door, but…

She hung up the phone. “He’s coming right up.”

She chatted with Kearse for a little longer, and I won’t bore you with the details. They were flirting, and I was only paying attention if information vital to the story came up. Lighthouse emerged with an older woman and he escorted her to the front of the office.

“Gentlemen…” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Morgan Lighthouse. But I’m sure you knew that already.”

I shook his hand and introduced myself.

“Oh, Mr. Spencer, I’ve read a few of your books.”

I was taken aback. Why does everyone in Michigan read my books? Do I need to change my base of operations?

Kearse introduced himself as well. “Ah, I’ve heard of you, Mr. Kearse. Please, come back to my office.”

We followed him back with Kearse slipping a piece of paper into his pocket. We sat down in his office, a basic kit desk and some cushy rolling chairs, clearly a budget operation. Likely this was furniture he could afford to toss when he wins or could repurpose if he lost. I thanked him for seeing us on such short notice. “Well…” he said. “When you mentioned Beverly, I had to find out why you came by here.”

“How well do you know Beverly?” I asked, pulling out my pad and pen.

He looked wistful for a moment, then turned his attention to me. “I’m sorry, but Beverly has been dead for a long time.”

“Yes, but how well did you know her?”

“We were friends. We were close.”

“Closer than friends?” Kearse asked, leaning on his armrest.

“What… is this about? Are you trying to dig up some kind of scandal?” He got defensive.

“No, Mr. Lighthouse. If you are familiar with my work, you know that I don’t do politics. I do stories on…”

“On ghosts, yes, I read your book about haunted prisons. That Rogers affair.”

I nodded. “So, when I speak of Beverly in the present…”

“You’ve met her ghost.” Lighthouse put it together rather quickly. What bothered me wasn’t how fast he was on the uptake, but rather that the revelation didn’t weird him out. He should be weirded out by now, if for no reason than having a pair of lunatics half his age in his office with the door closed.

“So Beverly sent you to find me.”

“Yes. She said that you shouldn’t take office because if you did, there would be a disaster.”

“Well, that does sound like Beverly. She was rather dramatic.”

I looked at my notepad. “The family she’s currently terrorizing may call that an understatement. Can you think of why she would want you not in office?”

“Well, we weren’t friends.”

Kearse straightened himself. “But you said you were close.”

“Well, you don’t have to be friends with someone to be close to them. Besides, I was speaking in euphemisms. The truth is, yes Beverly and I were, close, on more than one occasion.”

“Ah… well…” Kearse said, leaning back.

“So did your closeness affect her relationship with Daniel Childs?”

He closed his eyes and gave a laugh. “Daniel Childs. I know what you’re thinking… good old country boy didn’t like the new negro in town with the belle of the ball.”

Kearse pulled out a copy of the photo from the paper. “You certainly don’t look like a fan of Childs.”

Lighthouse examined the photograph. “I remember that day, and you are looking at it wrong.”

“You aren’t glaring at Childs?” Kearse asked.

“No, I’m glaring at Beverly. She was using that man to some end, I don’t know what though. I actually liked the guy. I didn’t like them together. Daniel was a good man, gentlemen. I never heard from him again, but men did stupid things for Beverly Hamilton. Daniel wouldn’t have been the first of her lovers that skipped town.”

“Do you know a man by the name of Jonathan Kenneth Rogers?” I asked pointedly.

“No. Should I?”

Something must have occurred to Kearse because he leaned to me. “Hey, do you have a picture of Rogers?”

I thought about it, and yeah, I had taken a picture of a mug shot of him from his file. It was part of my story on him. I pulled it up and my blood ran cold. I hadn’t showed it to Kearse and I was about to show it to Lighthouse, but the image was totally different from the man in the photograph sitting on Lighthouse’s desk. “No,” I whispered.

“What’s wrong?” Kearse asked.

“We’ve been had.” I stood up and went for the door almost in a trance.

“What’s wrong?” Kearse asked. I led him outside “That’s not the man in the picture. That’s not Rogers, and that…” I pointed at the office. “Isn’t or probably isn’t Rogers or Rogers' son or whatever the hell I was thinking. We’ve been played by a ghost.”

Kearse seemed to grasp the concept with far more clarity than I personally feel he should have. “Where are we going?”

“We are going to have a talk with Beverly Hamilton.”