The Hidden Lives of Dick & Mary Read online

  On the other hand, Jared just filmed, knowing not to speak and to be as quiet as possible. This made him the perfect cameraman for Dick’s walks. For the first episode, the producer had sent a guy named Ramsey who had a habit of talking almost incessantly during the shoot. He was let go and Liz, Jared’s wife and the show’s make-up artist, asked if they would give Jared a shot. Fortunately for all, Jared proved worthy.

  Despite his discipline at remaining quiet, Jared thought of speaking up now. On the first walk he filmed, he felt a tingle at the back of his neck that caused the hair to stand right up. Dick had led them to a place where he had a powerful vision. Jared did not feel that sensation on all the walks he filmed, but he was experiencing it now.

  Dick tapped his chin in thought as Mary’s question about a possible murder hung in the air. “I don’t think so. I see rope and feel . . . despair. He—I’m pretty sure it was a guy—could have been murdered, but I think he more than likely killed himself.” He walked into the space, looking at the walls.

  Jared shivered, feeling like someone was watching him.

  Dick was too far in his trancelike state to take notice of his cameraman’s slight tremble. “He had secrets like this room. He must have been someone in charge. An architect? The contractor?” He looked back over his shoulder at Mary and Jared as they filmed him. “There is just overwhelming sadness here. I think they walled it up after finding him here. But someone else used it.”

  “For what?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know. There are papers . . . like records. Books scattered about and photos. Old-timey photos.”

  As Dick and Mary talked, Jared saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a dark figure, and he did his best to dismiss it as a trick of shadow until it moved, only to then fade into nothingness. Instinctively, he jerked his camera to point at the now empty space.

  At the same moment, Dick’s gaze snapped to where the figure had been standing. “Jared, what is it? Did you see something?” Dick’s voice was calm and collected, knowing the answer before asking the question.

  Jared blushed. “Aw, I don’t know. I thought I did.” He was a little embarrassed, thinking he could be wrong. “I thought I saw a shadowy figure, like it was watching us. I was trying to ignore it because I thought it was a shadow from our lights . . . until it moved.”

  Dick stepped toward the cameraman and looked at him for a moment before placing a hand on his shoulder. “It very well could have been,” he said, a reassuring tone in his voice.

  Chapter Three

  Jackie’s rental weaved its way through downtown traffic toward Saint Louis University. The route was longer than necessary in order to showcase the city’s parks, gentrified neighborhoods, and the efforts of the university to revitalize the area around campus; the university did not want to highlight the urban blight surrounding the campus to prospective donors and parents. Later in the studio, the editor would splice her voiceover onto the footage Dan had shot.

  “Normally I would speak to other people who lived, or in this case worked, in the building we are investigating. However, that is not the case here, given the sensitivity of being in the military and the subject matter being something few people were willing to talk about publicly for a TV show.

  “However, we lucked out. Military installations are fertile grounds for ghost stories and hauntings for a paranormal investigator to study Lieutenant Colonel Delaney provided us with enough stories that he had collected through the years so that we could jump straight to the experts.

  “So, today I am traveling to Saint Louis University, or SLU, to speak with Doctor James Simokaitis. He is a professor of American history specializing in the frontier and westward expansion. Those who run the museums around the base all mentioned his name as the foremost expert on the history of JB and the surrounding area.”

  Jackie entered Chouteau Hall after parking at a meter and hiking a block to the campus. She navigated her way to the professor’s office and knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” The voice from the other side was friendly and inviting.

  She pushed the door open, and a gentleman in his early sixties stood up and took off his reading glasses. He wore a tweed jacket, a dress shirt with the top button unfastened, and a pair of Dockers. He had the business casual look of a liberal arts professor who came of age in the ’80s.

  “Special Agent, Retired, Bierman, I assume?” He half bowed with a mischievous yet charming smile on his face.

  “Professor Simokaitis, I presume?” she asked, extending her hand which he shook.

  “Yes, yes. Please, just call me Simo. No reason for all the formality stuff. You said you wanted to talk to me about JB and the hauntings there? Hm?”

  “Yes. I spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Delaney—”

  “I know him,” he said, his tone flat and unreadable.

  “He spoke about some experiences he had on the base, seeing things. He also spoke about things other soldiers saw—”

  “Airmen. Soldiers are Army, Delaney is Air Force.” His chiding was friendly, but it was still a correction. “They get touchy when you confuse one for another.”

  “He said there was a long history of hauntings at the place,” she pressed on. “Perhaps you could shed some light on events that could have led people to stick around after shedding the mortal coil?”

  He leaned back in his desk chair, collecting his thoughts. “Well, there is plenty of drama centered around Jefferson Barracks. It was the first military base established in the West. St. Louis was a jumping-off point for westward expansion, and for about a century was one of, if not the, most important forts in the U.S. It was a POW prison for Confederates, Nazis, and the Japanese. It was the birthplace of cavalry and an early training base for the Army Air Corps. In 1890, they started to modernize the base; by the end of that decade, all the primitive limestone structures were torn down and replaced by red brick buildings.”

  “So those are the broad brushes of the history of the place. What about specific incidents?” As she interrupted with her question, she made a show of taking notes for the camera.

  “That’s one of the problems. So many people have passed through the old North Gate that there are plenty of stories. There’s a cemetery there. How many people are buried there because they died in the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918? Or other disease outbreaks? These are legends shrouded in mystery. My favorite one is the haunting of the White Elephant.”

  “White Elephant?”

  “Yes, otherwise known as Atkinson Hall or Building 78. It was built in 1912 as a chow hall. At its height, it could feed thousands. Some of the officers in charge have placed the number between 1,600-4,000 troops at one time. Anyway, there is a room on the third floor that, rumor has it, the contractor who built the facility committed suicide in.”

  “So, you are familiar with the base’s ghost stories?”

  He nodded. “It is kind of hard to miss. St. Louis has a long history. As American cities go, a lot has happened here. Including the real exorcism that the movie was based on.”

  Jackie’s interest was piqued. She knew she should stay on topic and steer the conversation toward Jefferson Barracks, but the morsel of the real exorcism was too much red meat to leave unexplored. “You mean the girl—”

  “It was actually a boy from the Northeast. He was Lutheran, and members of his family were into the Spiritualism movement and regularly tried communicating with the dead. Weird things began happening, all centered on the boy.” His eyes got big, and his cordial tone got even more excited. “The family pastor attempted an exorcism but was untrained in the ritual. Reportedly, he got his ass kicked and refused to help anymore. The boy had family in this area, a cousin or someone was going to Saint Louis University for nursing. She said she would speak to one of the Jesuit priests here, and one who was a trained exorcist agreed. The boy came and lived in St. Louis for a while. After being rid of the demon, he converted to Catholicism.”

  “Do you know why the
character was a girl in the movie?”

  “William Peter Blatty wrote about it after hearing the story at George-town, which is why he changed the city from humble St. Louis to D.C. He may have changed the gender to protect the identity of the kid who wanted to remain anonymous.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “1949. The boy lived with his family or at a hospital that was torn down a couple of decades ago. Although he did meet with Father Bowdern at the college’s church.” He indicated the direction with his eyes.

  Jackie shook off her uneasiness at the story of the historical events behind The Exorcist. “Well . . . back to the White Elephant. Do you have any pictures or information about the man who committed suicide in that room?”

  “Unfortunately, no. There is nothing to corroborate the stories; that said there is nothing to disprove them either. In the absence of truth, at some point in history, the stories take on a life of their own.” He shrugged his shoulders in exasperated defeat. “Now I do know the Army has allowed some of its soldiers to live in the building from time to time if they are down on their luck. From what I have heard from my friends serving there, stories of hearing someone, or something, moving about are common. As are reports of shadowy figures who appear to be watching the temporary residents.”

  Chapter Four

  Dick’s voice was dubbed over images of him, Mary, and Airman Dunn getting in their cars to head to the next building.

  “On post, we were only allowed access to Atkinson Hall and Building 28 because they were empty, and we were not deemed a security risk in buildings that were going to be completely renovated into office space. We were accompanied by an airman who was very good at keeping his distance so as to not interrupt my trance. As I approached Building 28, it just felt like a barracks. It looked like where you would expect the Army to house groups of soldiers who would then share their space and their lives with one another. The sense of camaraderie and drama that comes with such a lifestyle hit me the moment I stepped foot in the door.”

  “So many have lived in this building,” Dick said as he stepped inside. To his left and right were open bays where bunk beds once lined the walls for men trained to go fight in Cuba, Europe, and the Pacific. “So many people, mostly men, passed through here. They are whispering. It is hard to make out any one voice. Perhaps if we got higher?”

  Airman Dunn, following at a distance, was visibly uncomfortable being in the building after dark. He had refused to go into Building 78 with the crew, opting to stay outside by Dick and Jared’s rental vehicles. However, this building was in the beginning stages of renovation, and the workers had left tools behind that needed to be safeguarded.

  As they started the final flight up to the third floor, they noticed a light glowing meekly against the dark.

  “It’s quieter up here. The voices on the first two floors are still here, but they’re muted,” Dick said as Mary focused her camcorder on him. “Still, we are not entirely alone.”

  The third floor consisted of an anteroom serving two empty conference rooms. In it was the source of the light they had seen coming upstairs—a work light carelessly left on. The medium walked from the empty room on his left to the empty room on the other side of the third-floor foyer.

  “It is important that we know this building is haunted. I see a man, close-cropped hair. He has five . . . six stripes on his sleeves. He died in this building, suddenly, but not up here . . . and not the way that people think. He wants me to check out the basement.” Dick moved with purpose out of the room and toward the stairs.

  Airman Dunn was milling about the anteroom as the group started moving downstairs. He stepped over to the work light the contractors had left on and flipped the switch. The room fell into darkness, which did not suit him, so he hurried after the group.

  They made their way down to the basement. It smelled slightly of dampness and history. Light from the flashlights carried by Dick and Airman Dunn, reinforced by Mary’s and Jared’s camera lights, splashed across the walls and floor, putting the 1890s construction methods on full display. In a few places, they even found ancient electrical wiring complete with paper insulation.

  Directly three stories down from where Dick spoke with the spirit, they entered a large room. As they moved deeper into the darkness, the temperature got remarkably colder.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Dick stated, coming to a full stop inside the cold spot.

  The airman had stopped in the doorway—a primal survival instinct preventing him from entering the room.

  Jared felt the hair on the back of his neck rise once more. He was starting to decide he did not like this base. He felt relieved when his camera’s light revealed an exterior door not 10 feet from them.

  “It was here. In this spot where the soldier—no, not a soldier,” he paused, “Air Force . . . died. It looked like natural causes, but it wasn’t. It was . . . evil. Vengeful. Dead. Something down here does not like the military.”

  At first, Airman Dunn thought the movement was a trick of light and shadow. There was no possible way the hazy figure really existed; it was the power of suggestion using his own eyes to fool him. The form stalking toward him with purpose and moving like smoke was just a figment of his imagination. Nonetheless, he froze, his heart pounding in his chest. His mouth opened to speak, but no words escaped his lips. Tears slid down his cheeks. He shook his head as the figure started to develop recognizably human features.

  For the crew, not paying attention to the airman, the room suddenly got noticeably warmer.

  “It was here. The entity that killed the airman upstairs. But it’s gone now,” Dick observed.

  The shadow had manifested itself behind them. It was wearing a black uniform. A skull and crossbones adorned the peaked hat the terrible visage wore. Its blue eyes burned with hatred as it reached for Airman Dunn with skeletal hands. He pressed his back against the door and fumbled for the doorknob. The creature’s human character suddenly disintegrated in front of him, leaving a black-eyed skull with its jaw hanging open as if to consume the young man’s very essence. As his hand found the doorknob and turned it, his throat found its voice. A shrill scream escaped as he fled through the door.

  The crew turned, catching a brief shot of the airman disappearing through the open door into the blackness on the other side. They all noticed that the air between them and their escort seemed to have a hazy quality to it.

  “Guys, I’m sorry to interrupt, but can we go out this door?” Jared said, ready to end the shoot and leave without passing through the dark, stagnant fog now standing between them and the way they had just come.

  “I think that would be okay,” Dick said as Mary nodded in agreement. This time, he was not the least bit upset with the cameraman for interrupting his trance.

  * * *

  The exit Jared had found opened to an alley behind the building that was built into a hill. This meant the walk to their cars was a slight uphill trek, but it did not bother them in the least. All were happy to be out of the building and away from whatever inhabited the basement.

  They found Airman Dunn curled up in front of his car across the street in front of Building 28. He was trembling.

  “If it is okay with you guys, I think I’m going to go home now. The next part of your walk is in the park. That’s no longer military so . . . yeah. I’m going home. You don’t need me anymore.” He stood and walked to the driver’s side of his beaten-up compact.

  Jared’s voice made him pause. “Hey, goodnight and thanks. Didn’t you turn off the light on the third floor?”

  The airman turned around and looked up. His gaze followed Jared’s extended arm to the middle windows of the foyer. The third-floor window was lit by the soft glow of a work light. Shaking his head, Airman Dunn slid into the driver’s seat of his car and drove away.

  Chapter Five

  “This was an unusual episode for me. Usually, I would attempt to set up several meetings with local experts such as the
police chief, other first responders, medical examiners, or anyone else with the credentials to shed light on the property we are looking into. But Jefferson Barracks is different. It is not just one building, but many. Some are on a military base, and the rest are either in a public park or in private hands. So, I only needed to talk to two people: Professor Simo and Major, Retired, Darryl Goodman.”

  “You mentioned Atkinson Hall. That is one of the buildings we are allowed in because it is empty at the moment.”

  “Interesting,” Simo said, leaning across his desk. “What are the other ones?”

  “Well, there is only one other one on the base itself. It does not have a name, just Building 28. Then the last one is the Old Powder Magazine located in the park. We set up a walk there with the county.”

  “Building 28, you say?” He leaned back in his chair, tapping his glasses on his desktop. “Interesting. There was a death there in the 1960s. A master sergeant was working late after a drill on a Sunday down in the basement. He was a little older, in his late forties, and he had a heart attack. The full-timers found him the next day. His name was Master Sergeant Eric Hale. I kinda figured they would limit you to unused buildings, so I went ahead and found the obituary from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It had his picture, so I printed it out if that helps.”

  He slid the picture across the table toward Jackie. She studied it for a moment. He had been a handsome man, and if he were a little younger, he would have been a poster boy for the Air National Guard or the Air Force. Fit with close-cropped hair, the man fit the ideal of every recruitment poster she had ever seen.

  “Do you know anything special about Building 28?” she asked hopefully, looking up from the printout.

  “It was a barracks at one point, serving as quarters for the men mustering there to ship out to the Spanish-American War or World War I. I’m not sure if it, like all the buildings numbered 26 through 29, housed trainees assigned there for basic or technical training for the Army Air Corps.”