Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 14
Graham and Gabriella pulled up outside of St. Christopher’s Parish, an imposing Catholic church on the west side of Leominster. It was all whitewashed wood and towered over the busy road, with a stretch of old trees beside it, all of them nearly as tall as the steeple. A worn sign out front announced the Mass schedule and clearly hadn’t been adjusted in several years. The A in “Mass” hung precariously from its perch as they pulled past it and into the way too small parking lot behind the church.
“It’s a simple one,” Graham said. “We did all the interviews already, but there’s a Father McRose that might want to talk to us if he’s around. Deacon Garcia and Deacon Fahey already gave statements when Amelia and I were here.”
“Great,” Gabriella said, her mind half on the Third Classroom of Sixteen Roses and the complete lack of progress she’d made there. And maybe an eighth on going home and crawling into bed.
“Do you want to interview McRose if he’s there, or do you want to get the cameras down?”
“I’ll do the cameras,” Gabriella said. “And the readings.”
They got out of the car and Gabriella immediately stepped into a half-frozen puddle. Water poured into her sneakers and she swore softly, wondering if she’d remembered to bring extra socks when she replaced her spare clothes at headquarters last time. But there was no fixing it right now, so she sloshed after Graham and headed into the church.
It smelled like incense inside and, up in the choir loft, the organist was practicing long trailing melodies that would cut off abruptly, or end on a harsh note, then continue. As they walked in, Gabriella absently tapped her fingers into the holy water and made the sign of the cross. As Graham gave her a slight smile, she shrugged with a laugh, suddenly self-conscious.
“Old habits.”
“Well, it’s not like that holy water hasn’t saved us before.”
She had no response to that, but she was saved from having to say anything by the appearance of a middle-aged priest, who spotted them and began hurrying down the aisle, his cassock fluttering behind him. “Thank you for coming,” he said, voice tight with worry. “I know you were here before, but things have changed. It broke a window in the sacristy.”
Gabriella was not going to get excited about that, but at the same time, the case had suddenly gotten more interesting. “I’ll meet you over there,” she said to Graham. “I know we weren’t planning to get on comms yet, but if there’s stuff happening, Bradley’s going to lose his mind if we don’t.”
Graham hurried after Father McRose and Gabriella took out her phone, stepping off to the side of the church as the call connected.
“What?”
“We should connect to comms now, there’s activity at the church.”
“Got it.”
Bradley hung up without another word, and Gabriella briefly wondered why she bothered. But she set up her comms and reconnected with him through that a moment later.
“Graham’s already in the sacristy,” she said as she strapped the camera to her chest. “I’m going to meet him now.”
There was probably nothing to worry about. But as she got to the sacristy door, she braced herself, then stepped through.
It was oddly bright in here, and cold. Sure enough, the stained glass window on the other side of the room had been smashed. Based on the surviving feet walking across a river, she assumed it was St. Christopher himself. But most of the saint was gone, and there was a jagged hole revealing a parking lot and an old brick laundromat next door to the church.
“It broke from the inside,” Father McRose was saying.
“And was anyone hurt?” Graham asked.
“No. Deacon Garcia was here and heard the noise, but didn’t actually see it occur. He came in seconds later and there was nobody here.”
Gabriella took a few pictures as her comms unit crackled slightly. “Just to let you know, this is recording,” she said to the priest, who looked hesitant when she said it.
“I don’t…”
“It’s only going back to our headquarters,” she said quickly. “There’s another agent at the other end, who is just listening for safety reasons. He’s not going to be speaking.”
Unlikely, but the priest nodded. Gabriella pulled out the energy reader and sure enough, the levels were high here. “Let’s stick with the original plan,” Graham said to her. “I’ll do the interview, you get the readings and cameras?”
“Great.”
Graham and the priest left the sacristy and Gabriella looked at the broken window, zipping her coat as far as she could without covering the camera strapped to her chest. She stepped closer, considered how to look out to see the broken glass outside.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Bradley said over the comms.
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m sticking my camera out the window, tell me what you see.”
She was never that brusque with anyone else, but whatever. She was just going to meet his energy today. Gabriella unhooked her camera and held it out the window, staying clear of the sharp edges. “Do you see it?”
“I’ll zoom in from my end, don’t get closer.”
“Yeah, because I’m gonna stick my face in another broken window and slice up the other side. Oooh, that’s what I want, a fucking matching set.”
Apparently she was fully committing to meeting Bradley’s energy today. He half-laughed, which maybe should have offended her. But considering his knee was currently destroyed, she wasn’t going to. Besides, there was something satisfying in getting something that wasn’t a scowl out of someone she didn’t want to admit still slightly intimidated her.
“I see the glass,” he said. “It looks normal, but the window was definitely broken from the inside.”
Wait… She looked at St. Christopher’s feet in the water, the jagged hole over it, the laundromat beyond. The clue was outside the window.
She hadn’t checked if that broken window in Sixteen Roses could be accessed. The one she’d passed six times with barely a thought. What if she could go through it?
Before she could forget, Gabriella pulled out her notebook and jotted down a note for later. Then she slid it back in her pocket and tried to return her focus wholly to the case in front of her.
“What are you thinking?”
“What?”
“With the broken glass. What was that about?”
“Nothing. It reminded me of something for Sixteen Roses.”
She waited for another comment about focusing on the case at hand, but it didn’t come. Gabriella considered the window again. The damage lined up well with everything else about this case, though it escalated it. “Did James leave yet?” she asked Bradley.
“Yeah. Why?”
“We weren’t expecting this, so I wanted to check in with him in case he wants to change anything.”
“He’s on Orson with Madelyn and they don’t have cell service. They barely have fucking comms service right now. Call Amelia, she had to meet with a client, but is coming back now.”
“Got it.”
Amelia told her to keep going as normal and just record the area and get as much data as possible. And to keep the cameras up for another two days so they could get even more data. Gabriella moved a redundant camera over to the window, then went to find Graham.
Graham was sitting with Father McRose. “I don’t think it’s a parishioner,” McRose was saying as Gabriella got there. “We’ve had recent deaths, of course, every parish does. But it makes no sense. Janine and Peter were good people. They loved our church. They wouldn’t-”
“What about their families, though?” Graham asked. “Their children?”
“They both had children, yes.”
“And did they report anything unusual?”
Gabriella paused. Graham had his notepad out, but she hadn’t heard anything about looking into specific parishioners on this case. And if it was part of the plan, she would have. “No,” Father McRose said. “Why do you ask?”
“I want to be sure that individuals are taken care of,” Graham said. “Dead or alive, you know?”
“And your organization thinks that maybe Janine Reynolds or Peter Bankman might be…” McRose swallowed hard.
She had to step in. “Graham?” Gabriella called, motioning back toward the sacristy.
“Just a moment,” he said to the priest.
He followed her back inside and over to the broken window. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Why are you asking about people who died?”
“It’s a possibility,” Graham said. “What if they’re still here and they’re scared? Or angry? What about their families?”
Yeah, her gut had been right. “Listen,” she said, glancing at the closed door behind him. “This isn’t that. They saw no sign of an intelligent haunting and your data backs that up.”
“But are we positive?”
“No,” Gabriella admitted. “But we’ve seen plenty of intelligent hauntings and you and Amelia-”
“So if we don’t know, and we don’t check, then how do we know that all these people and their families aren’t being permanently harmed?”
“But we do check, and we do know the differences in cases. And this isn’t that.”
She shook the thoughts of Jarvis Street out of her mind as Graham bit his lip and looked over at the shattered window. Then he looked back at her. “I don’t want to let them down,” he admitted. “What if I’m dismissing people who just need some help so I can finish a case?”
He looked like he was on the verge of tears, just for a second. “You haven’t let anyone down,” Gabriella said, trying to show him that same patience and comfort he had for everybody else. “And you’ve never dismissed anybody. But we have to try and have a little distance if we’re going to do this job. We can’t just take on everyone’s pain, it’ll kill us.”
“What if Ezekiel is still here?” Graham asked, his voice almost a whisper. “What if he can’t rest and I hurt him by not helping until now? I had a responsibility to him. I have a responsibility to all my students, even if I’m not a professor anymore. Even if he’s dead.”
“Not like that, though,” Gabriella said. “You couldn’t have saved him. And you’re helping him now.”
“I-”
“No,” she interrupted firmly. “You didn’t hurt Ezekiel. And unless you were driving the car that ran him over, you didn’t hurt Bradley either. But you are in a position to help Ezekiel in a way no one else can. And if you blame yourself for anything that goes wrong, anything you can’t do to save everybody, you’re going to lose your mind. And you’ll spend all your time going over and over it and you won’t be able to help Ezekiel or anyone else. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
Graham nodded, wiping his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’ve been there,” she said. “I understand. We all do. Do you need anything else from Father McRose before we go?”
“No.”
“Alright, how about you head out to the car and start the report? I’m going to take a few more pictures, then I’ll wrap up with him and meet you there.”
He nodded again and walked out, leaving Gabriella alone in the chilly sacristy. No, wait, not quite alone.
“You heard all of that, didn’t you?”
“‘Unless you were driving the car that ran him over’,” Bradley mimicked. “You’re a fucking asshole, McManus.”
He dissolved into almost silent laughter on the other end of the comms. Oddly pleased, she started taking the final pictures she needed.
***
When Gabriella and Graham got back to headquarters, Graham headed straight down to the gym while Gabriella went up to the living room to do her part of the report. Bradley was still on comms with James and Madelyn, though they seemed to be wrapping up.
She spent a few minutes considering how to incorporate Graham’s shift in questioning into the case report without it becoming a thing. She didn’t want to leave out information that might be useful, but she didn’t want to get Graham in any hot water. After a few minutes of tinkering with the document, she had to admit she was just slightly out of her depth.
“Hey, Bradley?”
“What?” he asked as he closed out of the comms window.
“Can I get your opinion on something?”
“He’s an asshole, don’t date him.”
She blinked at him, reporting momentarily forgotten. Fucking psychic douchebag. “Not what I was going to ask, but I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”
She thought maybe he’d be embarrassed, but had clearly forgotten who she was talking to. “He’s a dick,” Bradley continued, then got his crutches and hobbled into the kitchen. There were the sounds of a mug clinking on the counter, coffee pouring, then quiet swearing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She followed him, knowing it’d piss him off, but also wanting her own coffee now. Bradley was by the sink, trying to carry his mug while keeping both crutches in place under his arms.
“Here, I got it,” Gabriella said.
“I’m fine.”
“Sure.”
She moved past him and poured her own mug, adding milk and sugar. By the time she was done, he’d attempted to walk back with one crutch and sloshed the coffee before nearly falling. He caught the side of the counter before he went down, but she wasn’t that clueless.
“Jesus Christ, give me that before you die.”
She took his mug before he could argue, then carried both coffees out to the living room without waiting for him to follow. Based on the clack of crutches on linoleum, he did, so she left his mug by his computer and went back to her own.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but just went back to his work while she considered her report.
“So you heard me talking to Graham at the church?” Gabriella asked a moment later after once again accepting she didn’t have the answer she needed.
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear his interview?”
“No, his comm was still loading. Why?”
“He went off script a little, and started asking about dead parishioners to see if they were behind the haunting. And you know it was out of bounds for the case, since we’d established this is poltergeist activity.”
“Yeah.”
“But the information he got is on record in his notes. How do you think I should incorporate that into the report so the Foundation doesn’t come after him for anything?”
She waited for the comment, but Bradley actually looked like he was considering what she’d said as he tapped his hands thoughtfully on the table. “Weave it into the context,” he said finally. “Instead of putting the whole thing in the interview section, mention it briefly – five words or less – then put the details in context.”
“And that’s fine? They won’t see that as us cheating or screwing around?”
She wanted to stuff the words back in as soon as she said them, but Bradley didn’t say anything about that either. Because it was apparently a day for miracles. “Did that somehow become a central part of the case in the fifteen minutes it took you to get back here?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did your findings have anything to do with the two dead people?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the fucking problem?”
“Right. Thanks.”
She kept going with the report as he scowled at something new and exciting on his own screen. About twenty minutes later, the front door opened and Gabriella waited for the sound of footsteps on the carpeted stairs. But there was nothing. Frowning, she looked up.
“I’m fine,” she heard Madelyn murmur in the doorway. “I’m just going to sit here for a minute. It’s fine.”
She was breathing heavily, even after she stopped talking. “Alright,” James said. “Then I’ll help you up the stairs.”
“I can do it…”
God, it was all just going to keep repeating itself, wasn’t it? Gabriella glanced at Bradley, who was also looking toward the front door. “Did you notice the way that box was hanging in the cellar?” James said from the bottom of the stairs, where he’d clearly sat down next to Madelyn on the bottom step. “I’m going to take another look at the photos we got, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some images from it.”
“We did,” Madelyn said, her voice a little stronger now, but still breathless. “I looked at them on the way back and there were some marks that definitely weren’t there in person.”
“Good.”
They were quiet for a second and Gabriella almost felt bad eavesdropping. Not that she was trying to, yet again. She glanced at Bradley, who was still looking intently over at the stairs. “You did really well out there,” James said.
“Thanks.”
“Ready to go upstairs?”
Madelyn groaned as they stood up and, from her seat, Gabriella saw them slowly start up the stairs, James nearly carrying Madelyn. When they reached the top, he steered her to the couch. “I just need a minute,” she said.
“Take your time.”
His voice was gentle, but he looked grim when he turned toward his office. Meanwhile, Madelyn stared dully out the picture window at the gray sky outside.
The team meeting started about fifteen minutes later. Graham was back by now and Madelyn had curled up against him, her heating pad pressed to her back and Fang on her lap. “Productive morning,” James said to the group. “We’re nearly done with Orson and, Gabs and Graham, you got some great data. Me and Amelia will take a look and see how to move forward there, but I don’t think this changes things too much. I’m thinking that maybe a different camera might be better. Mads, do you think-”
He stopped, then looked back down at his notes. “We’re going to wrap those both up tomorrow,” he said smoothly. “So let’s get the reports done and I think one visit each will be plenty to finish the cleanup.”
Gabriella stole a glance over and realized Madelyn was asleep against Graham’s shoulder. Then she looked away, pretending she hadn’t noticed. Just like everyone else in the room.
