W is for Wicked (Paranormal in Manhattan Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “That, too.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes. “In addition, it’ll be exciting. Think of all those beautiful women literally fighting over you.”

  “I know.” He winked. “But I have no intention of pursuing a career in Hollywood. I’m already named in the most eligible bachelors list, and having more women fighting over me is just meaningless. Besides, supermodels and A-list actresses tend to be a little shallow for my preference.”

  “Where does your confidence come from?” I blurted out.

  “Don’t get me wrong.” Making tsk-tsk sounds, he said, “I’ve just stated the obvious fact. By the way, we have a new case.”

  “Oh, no. Not another dead kid...” I groaned.

  “Don’t worry. This time, the victim’s an elderly woman, which means she’d have died sooner or later.”

  My jaw dropped. “Rick, that’s the most insensitive remark I’ve ever heard. You know what? You just qualified as the jerk of the year, and it’s only May!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Shrugging off my accusation without even a twitch of his perfectly shaped eyebrows, he went on. “And guess what? It just gets better, because we’ll be handling the Giselle McCambridge case.”

  “Giselle McCambridge? Are you talking about the super-rich widower of McCambridge Steel?”

  “Yes, take a look at this.” He handed me a file.

  On a night in early December last year, the victim, the widow of the previous chairman of the board of directors and the mother of the current CEO, was murdered at her residence. It was a scandal in an established family, and gossip papers like the New York Post went wild. It had been four months since the incident, but the killer hadn’t been caught.

  I read through the case file to learn that most of the information had been already reported in the press.

  Giselle Carolynn Axtell McCambridge, age seventy-seven was found lying unconscious at the base of the grand staircase in the foyer. Willow Ganong, the maid at the mansion, was the first to find the demise of the mistress of the house. Following Willow’s shriek, Marcus Warne-Smith, the butler of the house, pitched in to rescue. While the butler had the maid call the ambulance, Warne-Smith roused his employer. It turned out to be an assault case, as she told the butler that she was pushed from the stairs. She also told the butler to find W, her attacker. The butler tried to ask her who this W person was, but before Giselle could answer, she had become unresponsive. She was taken to Beth Israel for emergency surgery, where she fell in coma. And four days later, she was pronounced dead.

  Warne-Smith told the police about his employer’s words, claiming she was pushed by W. At first, the police assumed this little piece of information to be helpful. The case could have been handled as an accident as there was no murder weapon and there was no solid evidence that could lead to the killer. Toxicology and blood alcohol also came back negative. The information brought by Warne-Smith could have pointed at someone with W in the initial of his/her name as the killer. Except, all the people staying at the McCambridge mansion at the time of the alleged crime—nine people, to be exact, including the victim’s adopted son, his wife, three grand kids, their two friends, the butler, and the maid—had at least one W in their initials.

  “As you may have heard about the McCambridges, just like other old families from the establishment, they’re rumored to be cursed, just like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers. The treacherous drama of America’s most hexed family, the complex relationships between the family members, love and hatred…. Then comes a murder, with way too many suspects. Talk about spectacles!” While I was reading the case file, Rowling went on. “Hell, should I call my attorney to acquire movie rights for this case, or what?”

  This time, I rolled my eyes, and I didn’t even try to conceal it as he wasn’t even looking. In my opinion, he certainly qualified as the asshole of the year.

  After going through the case file, I asked, “Then how can it be a case? For now, it doesn’t qualify as a murder. If it was not for the butler’s words, no one would have thought foul play.”

  “I know.” Rowling’s grin grew wider. “According to the case file, at best it could qualify as an accident, except that the fortune she left is too big to conclude her death as an accident. Also, it has become much too high profile to be regarded as a simple accident.”

  “I see.”

  According to the Post, it was already official that the feud between the victim’s adopted son and Miranda Wolffe—Giselle’s sister—triggered the murder.

  Besides that, they featured interview articles with the insiders, claiming that they heard weird clicking sounds from the doors and walls, and some of them had even witnessed the ghost of the victim standing at the stairs where she was found dead. Now the case had been upgraded from a possible murder of a wealthy widow into a possible murder and haunted mansion. In short, the whole nation, if not the whole world, was watching developments of this case with more attention than they give to the presidential nominee race. That meant it required some concrete evidence for a closure, be it an accident or otherwise.

  “Still, this case should belong to NYPD, shouldn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yup, and it still belongs to NYPD, which makes it even better. Basically, the NYPD and the FBI are not on friendly terms. Assuming from the time it took for them to call the bureau as backup, they’re in deep shit, perhaps up to their eyeballs. Now, let’s go to the McCambridge mansion.” He stood and took the jacket from the coat hanger.

  “Um, one moment, please. I can’t go there looking like a zombie movie reject, can I?”

  Rowling frowned. “Actually, I was looking forward to taking my zombie assistant to the ultra-exclusive mansion inhabited by extra-snobbish people.”

  “I’m so going to fix my makeup!”

  CHAPTER 3

  When Rowling’s silver metallic Ferrari skidded to a stop at an extra gorgeous, stand-alone mansion in the glossy, moneyed, and privileged neighborhood in the Upper East Side, police officers guarding the McCambridge residence saluted us in welcome.

  “Wow! It looks more like a hotel than a residence,” I muttered, looking up at the enormously large New England style mansion, which stood on a huge lot on Park Avenue.

  “Wait till you go inside. It’s more like a museum than a hotel,” Rowling commented.

  “Have you been here before?” My eyes got wider.

  “Yes,” he said nonchalantly. “They happen to be clients of USCAB, and occasionally, they invite me to their parties.”

  “Please come inside. Captain DeLaurentis is waiting for you.” One of the officers led us into the building.

  The inside was even more extravagant. Once we went through the imposing door, we set foot in the grand foyer, which was at least a thousand square feet. Spreading in front was the white marble floor leading to the grand staircase. With just a glimpse of the place, I saw at least three statues I had seen in art textbooks and several paintings by Matisse and Chagall. If it were not for the presence of the detectives—they were well-dressed for detectives, perhaps, reflecting the locality of the Upper East Side—the place looked like a museum. Maybe, even better than an average museum.

  I looked up at the ceiling. Soaring up high at the top of the stairwell, I noticed the huge chandeliers—like the one that crushed some of the unluckiest theater patrons in Phantom of the Opera. I made a mental note to myself: Do not go beneath the chandeliers. As a young woman, getting squashed and turned into uncooked meatloaf at the tender age of twenty-five wasn’t high on my to-do list.

  As I stood there gawking at the artwork, a Hispanic woman in her late thirties to early forties approached us. She was tall, skinny, well-dressed, and had the looks that made me almost blurt out something like, “OMG! What are you doing wasting your time at a crime scene when you actually ought to be strutting the runway in Paris as a supermodel?”

  “Agent Rowling, Ms. Meyer, I’m Captain DeLaurentis from NYPD 19th Precinct,” she greeted us, displaying a polite smile on her face. “Than
k you for taking your time to help us.”

  She also had a sense of authority. Standing tall and confident, she wasn’t looking up at Rowling like I often had to. As she moved, her dark, long, silky hair swirled around her beautiful face. Her café latte complexion was smooth and flawless, and her hazel eyes twinkled with intelligence.

  Jennifer Lopez, eat your heart out! I thought.

  “How may we help you?” Rowling said, before I had a chance to shake hands with the captain. I remembered that I was here for the job, not to make friends.

  “Well…” For a fraction of a second, she frowned and fidgeted with her words. “Actually, I need Ms. Meyer’s expertise to communicate with, you know, the deceased?”

  I sensed more than a negligible level of skepticism in her words; mostly they sounded more like a question than a statement.

  “In that case, you’re in good hands,” Rowling stated matter-of-factly. “She’s already sensing Giselle McCambridge’s presence. Don’t you, Mandy?”

  “Um… yes.” I nodded, though he sounded like a con man. Lately, he had developed an observatory skill, and he knew when I sensed deceased people’s ghosts, which made my job harder. As much as we living humans had our own feelings and priorities, dead people had their own lifestyle. Sometimes they were talkative—like Jackie—but sometimes they didn’t want to be bothered. I’d like to respect their intention and privacy as much as possible, but he didn’t understand or care.

  Besides, the ghost of the elderly woman didn’t seem to be very talkative. She was standing at the grand staircase, centrally situated in the far perimeter by the wall. According to the case file, she was found lying at the stairs five steps from the bottom floor. She was tall and slender. Despite her death, she managed to look radiant. Her perfectly coiffed short hairstyle, a la Helen Mirren, was beyond fashionable and her red lipstick flattered her flawless, botoxed complexion. Clad in a midnight blue lace dress with long sleeves—from Oscar de la Renta—and sporting Jimmy Choo d’Orsay, Giselle McCambridge looked glamorous and, at the same time, somewhat annoyed. Tapping the marble floor with one of her Jimmy Choo toes, she was giving disapproving glares at the police officers attending the space near her.

  “What is she wearing?” Captain DeLaurentis asked abruptly.

  “A beautiful, midnight blue, long-sleeve dress from Oscar de la Renta and Jimmy Choo d’Orsay shoes,” I replied.

  “Excellent, especially the part of you answering the designer of the dress correctly. So, she’s wearing the same outfit she was wearing when she fell off the stairs.” Nodding, the captain continued. “Actually, we’re in a tad bit of a hurry. I need you to have the killer’s name from Giselle McCambridge in,” taking a glance at her iPhone screen, she said, “eleven hours.”

  I looked at Rowling, who raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Excuse me, Captain.” I cleared my throat. “I can’t promise anything.” I had every intention of making my point, but when I saw her sharp glare that said I might have to shoot you, I changed my tactics and added, “I’m afraid sometimes the deceased is confused, withdrawn, or uncommunicative. If the victim decides not to talk to me, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Still, you must at least try.” She didn’t take no for an answer. Anger flickered in her eyes, and her beautiful hair flung like a storm. “It takes less than a minute to ask the killer’s name. Considering that the victim told the butler to catch W before she died, she should have seen the killer.”

  “At least one thing’s clear,” Rowling interrupted. “We’ll get nothing by intimidating her, because she’s stubborn. And to tell you the truth, I don’t have 100 percent control over my assistant. Oh, don’t even think about bitch-slapping her, because that might kill you. I’m not bluffing. She’s actually killed three people just by touching.”

  “I so didn’t!” I protested. I was extra sensitive about this particular topic. It’s complicated. Okay, most of his words were accurate, but he was exaggerating. Rick Rowling, for instance, made physical contact with me a number of times, but he was alive.

  “Excuse me?” DeLaurentis’s eyebrows, shaped like a cupid’s bow, shot up. “Agent Rowling, I heard so much about you, but your previous words are the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard,” the captain shot back. “Fine. So you can keep on making stupid excuses, but you two will be laughingstocks with us if we can’t close this case before the séance starts.”

  “The séance?” Rowling and I said in unison.

  “Excuse me, but are you talking about the kind of séance like the ones taking place in Agatha Christie mysteries?” I asked. Meanwhile my crazy boss was laughing his as—I mean, his behind—off.

  “Are there any other séances?” Captain DeLaurentis got me back with a question of her own.

  “Not that I know of,” I replied sheepishly.

  The captain turned to Rowling. “You can laugh as much as you like, but think of it—Aurora Westwood talking to the deceased, closing the case before we do, and broadcasting this event to the whole nation, if not the whole world. That’s a major snafu.”

  “Aurora Westwood?” Rowling wiggled his right index finger as if he was toggling for a clue or something. “The TV psychic? Hmm, that’s interesting.”

  Everybody knew Aurora Westwood, the famous psychic medium. Her books, with her smiling face on the cover, were in every bookstore, CVS, Walgreens, and Kroger all over the country. Wherever you went, Aurora’s heavily lined dark eyes were looking into the window to your soul, which was kind of creepy. She looked fortyish, but considering she looked fortyish in an old TV show shot thirty years ago, she might be seventy… or a witch. Anyway, she was busy locating missing children, disentangling mysteries of spirit photographs, and conveying messages from the deceased to their loved ones.

  “Why does she have to butt in with a murder investigation?” I said. “If she were a budding psychic craving attention, then I could understand. But she’s already famous. She doesn’t need any additional publicity, does she?”

  “No publicity is bad publicity,” the captain and Rowling said in unison.

  “It’s Miranda Wollf, the younger sister of the victim, who summoned Aurora for this séance, am I correct?” Rowling asked DeLaurentis. “If I recall it correctly, she’s obsessed with the supernatural, and she’s determined to claim the McCambridge fortune, including but not limited to the family company, McCambridge Steel.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” She nodded. “As you may already know, Giselle and Patrick McCambridge didn’t have any children of their own, and they adopted Wilfred, the current CEO of McCambridge Steel, from a distant relative of Patrick’s when the boy was three. Miranda has been declaring that she is the legitimate heir to the vast family fortune, rather than Wilfred—an outsider—and hence, even when the victim was alive, she was demanding Giselle leave the family fortune to her. There’s Miranda’s husband, Steven Wollf, whose consulting business is not doing well, and Miranda’s more than keen on getting the money herself.”

  “I see.” Rowling crossed his arms. “Psychics usually say whatever their client wants to hear, and that’s where Aurora comes in handy. Suppose some obscure psychic wannabe says things like Wilfred killed Giselle, no one would take it seriously. Then again, when the psychic happens to be the Aurora Westwood, it’s a totally different story.”

  “I know!” The captain grimaced. “If the said psychic-for-hire were a nobody, no one would take it seriously, regardless what this person said. However, if Aurora Westwood, America’s top celebrity psychic mentions something implying Wilfred’s involvement with the murder, it’s as good as a guilty verdict, especially when it’s broadcasted to the entire country.”

  “Still, Wilfred should have the power to cancel the séance, doesn’t he? He’s the current master of the McCambridge family and Miranda’s merely a former family member,” Rowling pointed out.

  DeLaurentis lowered her voice. “Miranda happens to be obnoxiously bossy, and everyone at this house, includi
ng Wilfred, would prefer to comply with her ridiculous demands rather than rejecting them and enduring the torture of listening to her endless criticism.”

  “Uh-huh. I guess I’ve just figured out the reason why we were summoned here,” Rowling commented, uncrossing his arms, with one side of his lips quirked up into a cocky grin. “Both Giselle and her late husband, Patrick, had been huge contributors to Senator Bill Greenspun. Suppose Wilfred takes over the company and the family fortune, he will keep on contributing to the senator’s campaigns. However, if the fortune goes to Miranda, the senator wouldn’t like it. The younger sister of the late Giselle is totally focused on spiritual mumbo jumbo and new-age psychobabble, and losing huge contributions is by no means in Senator Greenspun’s interest.”

  “Bingo.” DeLaurentis wiggled her fingers. “As we all know, the relationship between the FBI and NYPD hasn’t been peachy, but senators tend to suck at taking no for an answer, and alienating a senator is not high on our superior’s to-do list.”

  “Right, things keep getting juicier and juicier.” Rowling hooted.

  Giving him a side-glance, the captain told me, “Ms. Meyer, please try your best. The séance begins at 10:30 p.m., leaving us with ten hours and forty-five minutes.” She appeared so desperate that her words almost struck me as begging.

  “I can try,” I said.

  Then she continued. “Otherwise, I must have the ghost of Giselle McCambridge exorcised, because Aurora gave us the same reply as Ms. Meyer’s about the ghost’s attire. We haven’t released any information regarding the garment the deceased was wearing when she died. It’s possible that Aurora got the information from someone at NYPD, but we’ll be screwed if she turns out to be real.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Have the ghost of Giselle exorcised?” I parroted the captain’s words like a total moron.

  “Yes,” DeLaurentis said matter-of-factly. “We have already contacted Brian Powers as a standby. No offence, Ms. Meyers, but it’s always good to have backup plans.”