1
Burbank, California
Kelly Delaphoy waited for her presentation, and the accompanying memo, to set in.
“As you can see in the folders before you, I was sent a copy of the investigation by a network contact at the Pennsylvania State Police. It was verified by a court clerk, who filed several injunctions after rulings in the Kennedy case.”
The men and women sat around the large conference table and eyed the beautiful young woman with suspicion as she stood smiling an arrogant smile. Only her executive producer, Jason Sanborn, pretended to read the package she had painstakingly pieced together and placed before them, although he knew the contents almost as well as Kelly did.
“I assume you know that possessing this report is a criminal offense, since the case hasn’t been closed yet.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done fifty times for this show, as far back as when we were a mere half-hour throwaway on basic cable in Cincinnati. I never use these types of items in our case studies, so no one is ever the wiser. And you have never once questioned my research, as long as the advertising money comes in.” She continued to challenge Lionel Peterson, staring directly at him. “Should I have also not accepted the notebook and police entries?”
“Okay, let’s put the legalities aside for the moment.” Jason stood and moved to the small refrigerator, removed a bottle of sparkling water, and then returned to the conference table. “Did you get a chance to talk with this Harvard-educated”—he leaned over and looked at his notes for the show as he opened the bottle—“Professor Kennedy?”
For the first time in a production meeting of this nature, Kelly lowered her head, looking defeated just minutes into the expected confrontation. She would corner Jason later about embarrassing her with his question.
“He won’t see me. He wants nothing to do with us,” Kelly finally said.
“You mean you’ve finally come across someone with a little dignity?” Peterson smirked.
“We don’t need him.” Kelly smiled broadly, and then looked around the room for effect while biting her lower lip. It was the best little girl being attacked face she could muster. “I have the sole owner of the estate, the great-grandnephew, Wallace Lindemann.”
That created the buzz she was hoping for. People started talking all at once. Her show, Hunters of the Paranormal, would indeed air live in two months on Halloween night from the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania; she knew it by the excitement in the room. They had already forgotten about her not being able to obtain the reclusive psychiatrist Gabriel Kennedy.
As she looked from person to person, her eyes finally fell on Lionel Peterson. He was looking at her with his left eyebrow raised once more, in that maybe you have us hooked, and maybe you don’t way of his. Peterson had been overruled two years before by the man who had previously sat in the entertainment president’s chair, and so a small cable series that had shown promise in the ratings had become a network franchise that was now a juggernaut according to the television god Nielsen. The man just would not, could not, let go of his failure and embarrassment at the way Kelly had outmaneuvered him years ago.
Peterson slapped the table twice. His entertainment people quieted, returning to some semblance of a professional group.
“I can’t help but think we’ll look like Johnny-come-latelies on this, Kelly. I mean, so many ghost-hunter shows have investigated the Lindemann summer house and found absolutely nothing since this Kennedy fiasco—they couldn’t even air the footage they had in the can.”
Kelly was actually stunned that Peterson knew of the summer house and its television history. She tried not to show her surprise.
Peterson looked down at the conference table, thumbed the thick pages Kelly had placed before him, and then looked up with a smirk.
“Kennedy won’t see you because he probably made a deal with his missing student to take it on the lam so that Kennedy could get a book deal out of his disappearance.” He again thumbed through her proposal and pulled a sheet of paper from the binding. “In addition, devoting four prime-time live hours, and another four live hours into late night, well, that may cost us too much. The advertisers would run for cover. As you said, there’s not much of an ‘evil owner’ angle here. Even I’ve heard about the philanthropic Lindemanns.”
Kelly pulled out her chair and sat down. She had done the interviews herself, everyone from Philadelphia television news reporters who had covered the Kennedy story, to a few of the canceled ghost-hunter shows that couldn’t keep up with hers in the ratings. They all claimed the same thing: the place was so beautiful and charming and so very much not haunted. After listening to them all, she even started having her own doubts. Then she’d heard what happened there in 2003. It was something the other shows never touched on because of legalities, or they claimed never to have even heard of the Kennedy incident. Her research had taken her from USC to the Poconos; from Beaumont, Texas—where either USC or the Pennsylvania authorities tried to hide Kennedy from the rest of the world—to this very boardroom, pitching the greatest live event since Orson Welles and his War of the Worlds broadcast in the thirties. The one difference that emerged from her research was the one thing the other shows lacked, her imagination.
“That’s true, those shoddy shows and news reporters didn’t find anything, but they don’t have our experience. Even if the place is benign, which I know it isn’t, we have the official Kennedy account from the great-grandnephew of F. E. Lindemann himself, that says something horrible did happen there in the summer of 2003, contradicting the official state police report. We tell that story along with the others we have related to you in the slide show, and then, if we have to, we’ll make our audience believe. And there’s one thing the other shows refused to touch on: whatever is in that house was triggered into action by Kennedy and his team. He awoke something in that house that had lain dormant for more than three quarters of a century. With a cast of ‘experts,’ I can get the house to awaken once more. Only this time, it will be on my cue and on live television.”
“Am I hearing you right?” Peterson asked, staring straight at Kelly. “You want to fake events at that house if it proves not to be haunted? I want to hear you say it, Kelly. I want everyone here to understand it clearly.”
“That’s a rather hard turn of phrase, Lionel. All I mean is that since we don’t have Kennedy, we push the boundaries a little. That’s all.”
“And your aboveboard hosts, writers, and other producers are good with this?”
“They will be, yes. They’re troupers. They’ve been through thick and thin on this show for five years and they’ll do anything to keep Hunters of the Paranormal on top of the ratings. I have a line on two of the students that walked out of that house with Professor Kennedy.”
“What of the other three?” Peterson asked.
“They have never spoken to anyone about Summer Place. Their parents wouldn’t even tell me where they were currently living. It’s like they dropped off the face of the earth.”
“How much?” he asked.
“The largest expense is the house rental itself. That will run one million dollars.”
“For just one night?” Peterson asked, loud enough to startle a few of the more timid people around the table. His eyes bore into Kelly’s and she could tell that this time he wasn’t putting on a front.
“The nephew, Wallace Lindemann, is rich beyond measure, but is also a cutthroat little bastard. He won’t take a penny less than the one million for the two weeks we need the house. That’s one week for signal testing and setup two weeks before, and one week for the actual broadcast on Halloween night.”
“You’re bordering on blowing a quarter of a season’s budget on an eight-hour special? The network brass would go ballistic. No way am I approving this.”
Kelly smiled with as much fabricated embarrassment as she could muster. “I, uh … already broached the subject to Mr. Feuerstein in New York when we attended the Emmys a month ago. He said corporate would be on board, on one condition.”
Peterson frowned. Kelly was sure he thought her an arrogant bitch for going over his head and making him look like a moron, or at the very least a dupe. However, she watched as he looked around the table at his very own people. Their enthusiasm for the project was obvious. He forced himself to smile and nod his head. He knew the game she was playing very well; after all, he had almost invented it.
“Okay, I’m all jittery inside with expectation and anticipation,” he said sourly. “What’s Mr. Feuerstein’s condition?”
“They want Julie Reilly of the Nightly News to go along, for window dressing and legitimacy.”
Peterson didn’t say a word at first. He stared at her and then lowered his head with a shake.
“You want the best investigative reporter at the network to tag along? And what if she sees through your little scam?” He finally looked up. “Some people in that moneylosing division are actually good at their jobs.”
“Lionel, she works for the network. She’ll do as she’s told. Besides, it will never come to that. We can trick the house out days before—and don’t give me that look. It won’t be people dressed in bedsheets being caught on camera, or things moving by a string the audience can see. I think I know a few things, after all these years, about how to scare people. Small stuff, it doesn’t have to be much, just enough to get viewers’ eyebrows to raise and their hearts to race a little. We’ll fine-tune it during the test broadcast two weeks before.”
She could see the gears turn in his head. If corporate wanted their star reporter in on this, it was so that entertainment could help prop up the sagging ratings of the news division. Ultimately, it would help those people he just mentioned—the ones who were good at their jobs.
“You’re taking an awful big risk,” he said. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t it Julie Reilly who made her bones by hanging Professor Kennedy, asserting that he was a publicity-seeking opportunist who wanted nothing more than to sell books? I believe she reported that an unnamed source claimed that the only way he could do that would be to have at least one of his students vanish into thin air. She cost him his career, and now corporate wants her to tag along? Ms. Reilly is another person who climbed to power by not naming her sources. This is quite a cast of characters you’ll be pulling together, Kelly.”
“Look, there have been other deaths at the estate. And if it was a hoax, why hasn’t this student ever turned up? I’m willing to cut Julie Reilly loose and see her investigate that, regardless of the outcome—it would make just as good a story if we could prove Kennedy is a nutcase and a murderer, or at the very least, the opportunist you claim he is. The angle here is the missing student and the stories about the house’s past.”
“What other deaths? I thought the only incidents were a disappearance, a horse riding accident, and a supposed assault.”
“Several prominent families have died on their way home from weekend stays at the retreat in the twenties and thirties … maybe not right at Summer Place, but on the roads leading from it. It’s everything rolled into one ball. And one very important bit of information you’re overlooking, Lionel, is the small fact that Kennedy has refused to write or discuss a word of that night, even though one publishing house offered him a flat two million dollars in advance money. And that, Lionel, is documented and quotable.”
The conference room grew quiet.
“This house sits on land that has some of the most treacherous roads in Pennsylvania. Let me venture further: most of these accidents occurred long before there were paved roads in the area. Am I correct?”
“I really haven’t checked the—”
“In addition, the fact is that the longer Professor Kennedy waits, the more money he will get when he finally does write his book. Am I right?”
Kelly Delaphoy raised her eyes from the table and looked into Peterson’s. She knew he was attacking her because of her discussion with corporate. She had a good guess he also knew she was after his job, just as he was after the CEO’s.
“Yes on one, but not on the other two points. Kennedy was frightened by something in that house. In order for him to write about it, he would have to relive it. He doesn’t want to do that.” She looked at the faces around the table that were silent, waiting for her last push. “I believe there is something here that goes far beyond the accidents. This Halloween special will bring viewership to an all-time high. And here’s something for you to chew on: The reason Professor Kennedy chose this house above all others when he sought his research grant from USC was the fact that it supposedly scared the holy shit out of one of America’s literary giants, Shirley Jackson.”
“You have to admit, Lionel, that coupled with these tales, this whole thing is pretty creepy stuff,” Sanborn said. He pulled his pipe from his pocket and placed it in his mouth.
All eyes turned to Peterson, whose jaw muscles were working as he looked at Kelly. She could see the hatred in his eyes at what she had done, but she knew with this latest bit of information out in the open, others would now bring pressure to bear on the entertainment president.
“I’ll let you know in twenty-four hours,” Peterson said.
“But we need to get—”
“Kelly, I said twenty-four hours, and not one minute before. And leave the Kennedy file here with me. I want to look it over.”
Kelly slid the thick file down the long table, passing it from one person to another until it reached Peterson’s girlish hands. A few executives nodded their supposed support as they left the room. Her eyes went to the four-inch-thick file on Professor Kennedy sitting under Peterson’s hand. She bit her lower lip, hesitated, and then turned and left.
* * *
Once he was alone in the conference room, Peterson opened the file to the eight-by-ten color glossy of the house in question.
Peterson shook his head and wondered what a joint like that would cost to build in today’s dollars. All of this opulence from money provided by the sewing machine—well, that, and ten thousand sweat-factory workers in New York City. He perked up at that thought, and then just as quickly deflated. It had been a well-known fact that the Lindemanns, at least the founding branch, had been the least likely candidates for scandal. It was Kelly’s slant or nothing. Anyway, since it had already been brought to the attention of the president of the network and the board of directors, he could do little about it.
Peterson lay the folder aside and looked at the facsimile of Kennedy’s notebook entry, the one also supposedly found on the wall that the boy had disappeared into. He furrowed his brow as he read the harshly written words once more.
“They are mine.”
The entertainment president repeated the three words from the fax aloud repeatedly, expecting them to lose meaning the way repeated words usually do. These did not.
“They are mine. They are mine.”
* * *
Kelly Delaphoy sat with her show’s two hosts inside her large study in her Studio City home. Greg Larsen and Paul Lowell stared at her, wanting desperately not to believe what she had just told them.
“You mean we have a chance to finally get into that house, and instead of really investigating it, you want us to fake it if something doesn’t happen?”
Kelly had known the two men since they were nothing but freelance photojournalists eight years before. They had been her closest friends during good times and bad. She smiled. “Listen, Paul, we’ll have too much invested in the live show. We won’t be able to explain away a flop to the sponsors and our viewers. Sometimes, as you know, ghosts don’t show up on cue.”
“But Kelly, we’ve always been on the up-and-up.”
“We need this,” she said. Her eyes could not hold his, so she looked away.
“Kelly, we’ve never faked anything that—” Greg started, but was cut short.
“Camera angles, tripping by clumsy soundmen, house settling noises? Come on, we’ve faked a lot. It’s all in the editing. Remember that statement, Greg?”
Greg Larsen shook his head. He had said that to Kelly years before—that scaring people on film or videotape was just a case of creative editing—and now it had come back to haunt him.
“Come on, at the very least we have an opportunity to go to a place we’ve always wanted to investigate. I promise we won’t go overboard on tricks.”
The two hosts sat quietly for a moment. It was Greg, just who she thought it would be, that spoke first.
“We only use outside people, a technician whom Paul and I trust to trick out the house, and only sound gags. No material props that can be caught by the investigative team. That’s the only way we’ll do it.”
“Deal! We’ll test-sound gags during the test broadcast. That’s a full two weeks before Halloween. I’m going to make another attempt at seeing Professor Kennedy. I know I can make this work—for all of us.”
Copyright © 2016 by David L. Golemon
