Human vs. Phantom

Chapter- 7 Episode- 8 A Dive in the Past

Chapter- 7

Episode- 8

A Dive in the Past

With the start of a new morning, a new day, Reeve and Jim also started with their work. They drove all the way to the opposite of their take-up residence to have a chat with someone. Thanks to the morning rush it took them forever to get there.

Stopping the car in front of an average-looking house they got out of the car. The house looked like it needed repair in a few places. Still, it wasn’t too bad looking. Walking to the door they dinged the door-bell. A young woman, not too tall or skinny but the one with cute soft features open the door ajar, peeping her head out of the door. Her eyes didn’t respond to the person standing behind the door, she didn’t know them. Her eyes were where they were, she looked in their eyes as if she was asking what they wanted. When Jim said breaking up the few seconds long silence,

“Ms. Linda?”

“Yes!” the woman said in a soft tone, her expression kind of seemed confused.

“Hello, we are from the police department and we are investigating the murder of John Phoenix.” Jim again said in his calm voice, which was a complete opposite of his tall and manly appearance.

“Who?” she again sees them, peeping out through the ajar door, not sure what they needed from her. Looking at her Jim again added,

“He died in The Club Room club, two days ago.” With this line, the girl’s expression changed from the confused one to a more confused one.

“How is his death related to me?” she asked in her amazingly feminine high-pitched voice.

“It is not related to you but to your ex-boyfriend, who died in the same VIP lounge room of the club two months ago as of this man two days ago,” Reeve spoke out this time seeing her being confused with every line Jim spoke.

“Okay, show me your id then.” The girl now said, this time with a commanding but still requesting tone.

“Of course, here.” They both showed her their card.

“I am detective Patterson,” Jim said and Reeve added, “and I am detective Dolce.” They keep back their badges to their original place. And the girl said,

“Okay come in.”

Her home from the outside was nothing like from the inside. It was warm and cozy inside, kind of like the one they were settled in at. Getting inside Jim said,

“Thank you.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” she said being nice to them, maybe she was awkward for being kind of rude to them before.

“No, we’ll make it fast,” Jim said as they got seated on the sofa in the living room.

“what you tell us about your ex-boyfriend Ronnie?” Reeve said.

“How are those two related? Do you think the murderers of both cases are the same?” she asked.

“We are just working on a theory; it will be good if you can help us out in this,” Jim said not wanting to tell her anymore about the case.

“yes, sure I can help. He was a nice man, he treated me well most of the time.” She was saying when Jim interrupted her saying,

“Most of the time?” he pointed out this particular sentence that she said.

“Yes, he had some anger issues. I asked him to seek some medical treatment, that could help, but she always denied saying that he does not need it. He got angry every time I said that to him.” She continued.

“Was he abusive to you, I mean physically?” Jim asked.

“Sometimes he couldn’t control his anger. He would throw things in the house, he would shout at me too, but he never hurt me, it just happened one time, the day he died.” She responded to Jim.

“What happened that day?” Reeve said.

“It was our anniversary that day. We completed two years of dating each other. We were both very happy that day. He booked a private lounge in that club, so we can spend our evening there. I was happy with his arrangements. I knew he was excited too, he planned it for quite some time. We drank a lot that day for him it was hard to hold his liquor, he got too drunk. He started flirting with the waitress who was serving us. The waitress in the club dresses up in a kind of seductive way. I saw him drooling over her. I got angry and threatened him saying that I will leave him if he keeps doing that. He got angry when I say that to him and threw me on the floor. He started hitting me really badly. I was screaming and begging for him to stop but he didn’t, he started hitting me even more. He was thrice my size; I can never stop him. My head started spinning and hurting from the alcohol and the pain. The pain numbed my whole being.

I was praying for it to stop, and it does, but when that happened, I see Ronnie against the wall, struggling to breathe, like someone was strangling him. But there was nothing that was choking him, I couldn’t see anyone there. I don’t know what happened after that. But the next thing I know was me waking up at the hospital and till then Ronnie was long dead. I was hospitalized for three months I had multiple fractures over my body.” She told them what they asked for.

“Anything else you can remember about that day, like flickering lights, some chills anything that sort,” Jim asked again.

“Yes, the light was a bit off there,” she said and Jim and Reeve’s neck rotated ninety degrees to look at each other. Then they continued to hear her saying, “we complained to the waitress about it. Manager said that he would get us a discount because of the flickering but didn’t fixed it. And the room was chilly too, I remember. But how did you know?” she said.

“Lucky guess.” He replied.

“Okay thanks for your help, we will leave now.” They went back inside their car and took off.

- - - - - - - - -

“so, what do we know till now?” Reeve said driving his car.

“Okay so both the men were abusive to their partners for a long time. And they were abusing them sexually or physically in the same room, and then they died.” Jim said.

“there must be some connection with an abusive partner in this case I’m guessing,” Reeve said.

“Not to forget that there were flickering lights and cold spots too. both are the signs of a malevolent spirit.” Jim added.

“So, what is it? A Suppeditat animus?” Reeve asked.

“No, it can’t be a vengeful spirit. Both of the victims were not connected to each other. I can’t be some revenge; this is a completely different pattern for a vengeful spirit. Maybe some other malevolent spirit.” Jim suggested.

“Let’s do some digging about the place,” Reeve said.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Getting back to their comfy haven, Reeve and Jim started looking through anything and everything they can find on that piece of land or the building or a word on its past owners, literally anything and everything. Sometimes building on a cursed land can cause spirits to haunt the place for several years.

“So, the landmark is almost a century old, before it was the city’s most popular night club, that it is right now, it used to be a home to one of the most wanted mob bosses back in the day.” Jim showed him some pictures of the mob boss.

“Cool, that’s exciting,” Reeve spoke out kinkily.

“And even before it was that, it used to be a bakery. Quite famous that too, public loved the cakes of this bakery, they baker as famous for his wonderful and unique cake decorations. Ethe sunset street, where the bakery was, was a famous stretch too. But suddenly one day the owner sold the place to the mobster in 1970. The bakery shifted to somewhere else. And the mob boss reconditioned the place to be his home.

“So, the place was piled up with slices of bread, muffins, and beautifully decorated cakes. Then a mobster brought the poor gluten store and used it for drugs and murder?” Reeve said in a kind of teasing manner which sounded weird.

“It sounds fancier when you say it like this. but yeah, something like that.” Jim responded. “This place has been closed for many years, almost forty years after the mobster was killed in a manhunt supposedly after his wife reported him to the police.” Jim was telling Reeve, “Recently a few months ago a famous textile merchant bought the land and renovate it to make it into the city’s most happening vintage nightclub, you know many celebrities have been visited the place quite frequently?” Jim added.

“Anything about who could have died there. Maybe the one doing the hauntings?” Reeve said.

“Dude it was a f*****g mobster den, no one can tell how many people would have died in there,” Jim responded to his brother’s silly question.

“So why suddenly now this ghost or anything it is, is acting up?” Reeve said.

“I don’t know. I would have to hack into some more databases to get more details of this place. This time the thing we are looking into is so old, when everything was physically recorded, it is harder to find this way.” Jim complained. “Anything from Jody?” he again added.

“No, she has been quiet, maybe she is figuring things out. It must be a lot for her to take in.” Reeve suggested.

“Anyways I need some more time to find more.”

- - - - - - - - - -

after going through his computer for hours, Jim finally found something.

“Got it,” he said, stretching out his body.

Hearing him saying Reeve walked up to him and said, “What did you get?”

“Okay so, in the Club Room, I mean when it was not the club but a home to the mob boss, a total of five deaths has been recorded since then, excluding the recent ones,” Jim told his brother.

“Just five, I thought they would cross at least a total of fifty murders.” He said kind of disappointed.

“I thought something similar but apparently the mob boss and the new owner of the place, Bob Richard he lived there with his family and his wife and kids didn’t know what he actually was, or where he worked. And when she knew she got him arrested. So, the five people who died there was Bob’s wife Maria and his two sons, Robert and Riley. Other than them two people died, they were the staff of the place, they used to clean and cook in the house, Nicole and Palmer. Robert killed them all.