“Yeah. Back then, they didn’t think a lot about PTSD outside of military cases. Psy was taken in by an aunt and uncle who lived in Seattle, but they didn’t want him, and he ran off when he was fifteen. He fell into heavy drug and alcohol addiction, but then he returned to Moonshadow Bay. He set out to create a new family for himself.”
“And of course, it didn’t work. So, they committed him to the asylum instead of putting him in jail?” I asked, torn. On one hand, it was obvious he had a predilection for violence. On the other, if they had helped him when he was young, he might have lived to an old, easy age.
Tad nodded. “Right. And he died in that asylum. On Christmas morning, the next year, Psy Schooner was dead. The administrator reported it as a suicide. Nobody paid much attention when inmates died. Back then, mental illness wasn’t understood and treated like the condition it is.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
Tad consulted his screen, scrolling through information. “The doctor on call recorded it as death by hanging—self-inflicted. However, the gravediggers who buried him got a look at the body when the lid to the coffin came loose. The diggers reported that his body had gashes all over it, as though he had been cut with a sharp knife. The cops ignored the report.
“Since the asylum wasn’t officially within the boundaries of Moonshadow Bay, they sent the report to Bellingham, where it was probably tossed in the round file.” Tad frowned. “The next year, the feds came in and closed the asylum. The owners fled. They just disappeared.”
“So…we have a shady institution, a bunch of criminally insane inmates, some of whom died under mysterious circumstances…what else?” I asked. “Where did the other inmates go?”
“They were transferred to other institutions. But here’s the kicker, “Caitlin said. “Every December since then, the legend says that Psy Schooner returns to take people through the Veil to be part of his family. He kills them but leaves no marks, and there’s no sign of foul play. The one thing all his supposed victims have in common is that their bodies are found on the property that used to belong to the asylum.”
I shuddered. “Whether Psy is haunting the land or not, it’s going to take a powerful witch to cleanse that land.”
“I forgot to ask you yesterday, what’s your specialty?” Tad said.
I shrugged. “Witch of all trades, I guess. My aunt specializes in herbal magic, my mother was skilled in making potions and reading the cards. I’m good with protection and cleansing magic, along with scrying. I’m actually planning on reopening my mother’s card-reading business on the side. She also created charms for people. It won’t interfere with my work here.”
“Actually, that could come in handy,” Tad said. “That was one thing I was hoping for—that whoever we hired would be good at paranormal extermination, so to speak. It would be nice to have someone in-house to take over that job. But you’re right, the magic that would be needed to cleanse the old asylum is more than I think anybody in town could muster.”
Caitlin cleared her throat. “By the way, Tad really didn’t give us thorough introductions yesterday. I’m Caitlin Tireal, bobcat shifter,” she said, holding out her hand with a big grin.
I grinned. “Nice to meet you.”
Hank pulled up a chair next to mine. “I’m Hank Warren. I’m a specialist in bilocation, in spatial displacement, I can travel out of body onto the astral realm, and I’m really good at blocking psychic attacks. I’m also an expert in martial arts.”
Tad grinned. “As I told you yesterday, I’m about as human as they come, but I was a child prodigy. I graduated from college when I was thirteen, had my doctorate in psychology and parapsychology by the time I was sixteen.”
“You said someone else is on vacation?” I asked.
“Wren. Wren has a connection with birds. She can commune with them, she has a falcon for a familiar and she can see through the bird’s eyes.” Tad slapped the file folder on the table.
“So, this is my first case?” I asked, staring at the mass of notes and pictures.
“Welcome aboard,” Tad said. “We need to examine the asylum and the land it’s on, and then talk to the developer about how safe it is to begin building there.”
I frowned. “So we have Arabella, found dead with no apparent causes, and a homeless man, also dead with no apparent cause. What are our goals?”
“Find out if something paranormal was involved, specifically—the ghost of Psy Schooner. If it was, we need to ascertain whether we can do psychic cleanup on the area. The developer wants to move on this, so we need to jump right in,” Tad said. “Since you’re now our frontline investigator, you’ll go out first and scope out the area.”
“I suppose we should also research ways in which to lay him to rest,” I said.
“Yeah, except we should probably figure out exactly what we’re dealing with first,” Hank countered. “We could be dealing with something bigger than just a ghost. Some places are haunted just by their nature, and the Mystic Wood, which buttresses a good share of Moonshadow Bay, is filled with oddball things and paranormal beasties.”
Tad yawned and stretched. “However, we have to approach this objectively. For all we know, it’s all a scare story and these people’s deaths are coincidence. We don’t want to go in just assuming it’s paranormal in nature.”
“Can someone get me a list of all the suspected victims over the years? When did they start keeping records?” I asked, turning back to my desk, my mind churning. I was already captivated by the story—in a gruesome sort of way—and was champing at the bit to look into it.
“I can do that,” Caitlin said. “It will take me awhile, so why don’t you fill out your paperwork while I start researching. I’ll also get you a list of any names that were associated with the asylum, if I can find anybody still alive from then. There were, I believe, a couple nurses and maybe a doctor from Moonshadow Bay who worked there.”
Tad handed me a bundle of intake papers for me to fill out. I began to sort through the forms, still thinking about the case. While ghosts could—and sometimes did—kill, generally they weren’t usually so violent. However, given dark magicians had owned the asylum, there was no telling what sort of mayhem they’d been up to. They could have empowered his ghost, or perhaps they stirred up something that had already been tied to the land.
Turning back to Caitlin, I asked, “Is there anything special about the history of the land? Anything physical, like was there any sort of nuclear power plant there, which I doubt, but you know what I’m talking about. Or anything on a paranormal level—was it by chance—”
“An old Indian burial ground?” She laughed. “I know what you’re talking about. Let me look into that too.”
Tad smiled. “I told you she’d be right for the job, guys. She’s already thinking like an investigator.”
“I don’t watch The Dead Files for nothing,” I said, grinning. As I went back to filling out the paperwork that would officially net me a paycheck, my thoughts were picking over the pieces of what we knew, and I found myself dwelling on the family who had lost their lives to the disturbed yearnings of Psy Schooner.