THE DEATH OF LACIE BELLHART PART 2
"Sorry about the mess. It was kind of…spur of the moment, so I didn't think about cleaning up." Philip quickly apologized before letting the Cromwell siblings into his home.
Aiden and Alice stepped into the doorway of the house and just stared in awe and disgust. The house was more like a poorly built shack than anything. Aiden tried to be civil and hide his displeasure, unlike his sister that had it shown clear on her face. They could see signs of water damage on the ceiling with mold covering the walls that must've been white at some point in time. There were empty beer bottles and take-out cartons scattered around the floor too, and the kitchen sink had dishes piled high with traces of rotten food still on them.
Aiden reached down and lightly patted his hand against Alice's turned-up face, trying to silently let her know to watch her tongue and not be so blunt. He always had to be mindful of that aspect of her because she really did lack the sensitivity and filter to go easy on people sometimes. "Had it always been this way…or did you just let it go after the haunting?" Aiden began by asking.
Philip turned his head down, a little sheepish. "Ah…a little bit of both."
Aiden shrugged and looked to be satisfied with the answer. "Fair enough." He elbowed Alice in the arm and made a motion with his head. She responded back by nodding and patting his back.
"Hey, man. Where's your bathroom?" she asked.
"Ah. It's in my room. Door to your right," Philip said and pointed out the door.
She gave him an appreciated wave and headed inside Philip's room to start her secret examination. She gave a quick glance at the state the room was in, which was no less different from the rest of the house. The walls were dirty, clothes laid around the floor, and there was a suffocating smell of cigarette smoke and mold lingering in the air. Despite all that though, his bed was the only thing that was different. It was messy, but his sheets looked pretty decent, so she assumed that he must've bought them a couple of months back.
Next was the bathroom, which was more of the same. The mirror was dirty with a thick layer of grime on it, and the toilet was…indescribable, for lack of a better word. The floors themselves seemed relatively clean, and so was the bathtub to some extent. Aside from that, nothing looked out of place in her eyes, except for the offensive smell that was assaulting her nose.
"Go easy on him my ass..." Alice grumbled under her breath and hurried out of the bathroom before she could pass out from chemical inhalation.
She walked back out into the living room and made a subtle gesture towards Aiden to let him know that she didn't find anything suspicious. He nodded his head and began to explain what they were going to do.
"Alright…so this is what I think we'll do. Rangeley is a small place, so if it's not a relative doing the haunting, I'm willing to bet money that the spirit was once a resident of the town. I'll head inside the town and see if I can find the identity of our mystery lady," he said.
Philip's body jolted with shock. "Wait, what? Do you…is that really a necessary thing?" he nearly raised his voice with alarm but brought it down a couple of notches after the first two words.
"Yeah, it is. Spirits can be stopped in a couple of ways, but the most trustworthy method is to find the body and salt and burn it. That way it won't come back…hopefully," Alice said and watched as Philip's face morphed between anxiety and unease. He looked like he wanted to back out of the deal they made but didn't know how to say it. "What's wrong, Phil? You hired us to do the job. You wanna back out? Mind you though, the way things are going now…you might not live long after we leave. An aggressive spirit always leads to death if left alone. That alone Is a stone-cold fact." Alice warned him in a stunningly cold voice.
Philip felt a chill of ice run under his skin when he made eye contact with Alice's striking blue gaze. He dropped his head pretty quickly after that. "It's just…burning the body seems little…psychopathic."
"Man. If I had a dollar for every time someone says that to us. We won't have to worry about getting paid for these jobs," Alice groaned and sat down on a chair beside the table. "Trust me though when I say this, it ain't a glamorous life…but this is a norm for people who work in this business."
"Believe it or not, we're actually professionals in this kind of thing. This case should be a walk in the park. We should be able to get it done pretty quickly," Aiden followed up by patting Philip on the shoulder. He could feel him tense up under his hand. "Alice. I want you to stay here. I bought some newspapers in town, so I want you to look through them to see if anyone came up missing in the last couple of months. Call me immediately if you find anything."
"Sure," Alice nodded.
Aiden began to head for the door but stopped with his hand just dangling above the knob. He looked back at Alice with an uneasy look in his eyes, expressing silently to her if she was alright being alone with Philip. Alice scoffed and made a 'move along' gesture with her hand to send him out the door without worry. Aiden nodded his head and opened the door, hesitating for one final second before walking out.
Truthfully, Aiden didn't feel all that comfortable leaving Alice alone with someone like Philip, even though she gave him a signal that she'll be fine before he left. He knew his sister to be quite tough for her age and more capable than any adult he had met before. He couldn't imagine her having difficulty with someone as roughly put together as Philip was.
He may be a twitching oddball, but he seemed way too used to dancing around his own problems instead of fixing them. It was clear to both Aiden and Alice that he wasn't telling them the whole truth, or at least leaving a lot of details out. They just didn't know if it was the influence of drug abuse that was making him do that or if he was just being deceitful. Either way, the only thing they did believe was that something was definitely scaring him.
After arriving in town, Aiden headed into one of their small grocery stores that had a young teenager managing one of the cash-out lanes. The look on his face immediately let him know that he would rather be anywhere else but there, which was understandable. The store could rival a graveyard with how dead and quiet it was, so the kid must've been bored out of his mind.
Aiden walked right up to the counter and greeted him in his usual overly friendly manner. "Hey, man. How's it going?"
He must've shocked the young cashier since he nearly jumped out of his dull green apron. He was obviously startled when he looked up to Aiden but recovered quickly. "Oh, uh, hey…sorry, is there something I can help you with?"
"Yeah, actually. I'm Aiden Summers. I work as a journalist that covers small-town missing cases. I heard someone may have disappeared around these parts a couple of months ago, but I don't know her name," he explained, coming up with a pretty believable lie on the spot. It was scary how good he was getting at that.
It took a moment for the kid to think, but once he did, his gloomy expression morphed into a disheartened one. "Oh, uh…I might know who you're talking about. Small town, so you kinda know everyone. This person…is she young, blonde hair, big blue eyes?" he asked.
"Yeah, that's the one. Do you have a name or anything? Any other information?"
"Yeah, we got a bulletin board right outside the store with her flyer on it," he explained with a quick hand gesture towards the door. "It'll have all the necessary information on it. Including the address of her mother."
Aiden briefly looked towards the door he just came through before turning back to the cashier. "Really? Thanks, man. I appreciate it." He offered his hand out and the kid shook it.
"No problem. You take care."
Aiden gave the kid a small wave and walked out of the sliding double doors. He looked to his right and saw the bulletin board the kid was talking about and headed up to it. He looked past the meaningless advertisements to see if he could recognize who their mystery specter was…but he could, instantly. Aiden was actually glad that he didn't show Philip's picture to anyone because he knew they would recognize her right away.
The missing poster was that of a young girl who was probably 12 years old or younger. It was hard to tell because of how innocent and gentle her features were. Not even Alice looked as innocent at that age when she was young. The girl was fair-skinned with pale blonde hair, slightly curly, and stunningly bright blue eyes that could catch anyone's attention.
Aiden pulled the missing poster off the board and held it up beside Philip's picture. He gazed at them back and forth just to make sure it was the same person. Philip's picture was blurry and hard to distinguish… but there was no mistaking those lively eyes of hers. She was the one they were looking for. She was the specter that was haunting Philip.
"Lacie…Bellhart?"
"What's up with the pacing, Phil? You look like you never stood still a single day of your life." Alice called out nonchalantly on Philip's endless pacing around the room. He had been walking back and forth over a hundred times already, simultaneously biting down on his nails and glancing over to her. "You look like you wanna say a few things to me."
Philip stopped his pacing the instant she called him out on it. "No, uh, sorry…I'm just more than a little ready to get this done and over with. I'm so tired that I just wanna sleep." He pulled up a chair and sat across from her, fiddling with the newspapers that she had placed on the table. "You don't have an idea what it's like…living with something like this."
"There ain't an experience I haven't already lived through, dude." Alice scoffed while turning the page in her newspaper. Her eyes scanned over the words as her voice dropped in pitch. "I do know what it's like though…to feel hopeless. I'm the same as you. Wanting to sleep…but just can't bring yourself too."
Philip blinked and hunched his head low to try and get a better view of Alice's dark circles, not really becoming aware of them until now. "Are you an insomniac?"
"Pretty sure I am." She shrugged and spoke dryly. "But at least I got my brother to lean on…unlike you. Why don't you have any family? You just didn't get along with them or something?"
"Well…that's half it, I guess. I don't think it's hard to tell, right? I'm what you call a screw-up."
"I can see that, yeah," Alice said bluntly. "Is that why you don't have a relationship with your folks?"
He nodded his head slowly and didn't look back up. "I always had this thought of some sort…that as you get older, you'll eventually find your place in the world. A place where you belong. Everyone has to have something they're good at, right? Even the lousiest of people have to have some sort of talent. Me though…I'm the prime example of how that theory doesn't exist. I never figured it out and just kept failing…time and time again. I dug myself in a hole that I can't come out of. You see…I was kicked out of the house when I was your age with nothing but the clothes on my back…and a damn syringe in my hand. I think the last thing my parents ever said to me was…'I'm disappointed in you'."
Alice could feel her heart throb after getting a better idea of Philip's life and where it went wrong. She couldn't relate to it because she and Aiden were very close to their parents, but she also can't imagine going her whole life knowing that she disappointed them to that degree. "Damn…that stings."
"I then hopped around from place to place…digging myself a bigger hole than I thought was possible. The only reason why I ended up here was to get away from debt that I couldn't pay." Philip finished and sank far into his chair.
"Sounds like you're in a pretty tight spot." The words left her mouth just as her phone began to ring, sending loud vibrations through the table that made Philip jump. "Relax, will ya? It's just Aiden." She rolled her eyes and answered the phone. "Yeah. Did you find anything?"
"I did. Did you get a name in the newspaper? Lacie Bellhart?" Aiden asked.
Alice's eyebrows crinkled together. "Name sounds familiar." She pulled a newspaper up in front of her and began to flip through the pages until she found the right article. "Oh, yeah. Lacie Bellhart. Born November 21st, 1983. She disappeared this year on February 8th. Last seen in the parking lot of the Redwood Concert Hall after winning a violin recital. She was reported missing soon after that by her mother, Margret Bellhart."
Aiden clicked his tongue after he heard the date of birth. "Crap...I had a feeling it was a kid. I was hoping it wasn't"
Alice sighed and softened her voice. "They called the search off after a month into her disappearance since they couldn't pick up the trail, but it looks like her mom's still searching, hoping that her daughter's still out there." Her ears suddenly began to ring when Philip abruptly shot up from the table and walked away. He turned around so fast that she didn't have time to see his face. "Yo, Phil. Where you going?" she called out but he didn't stop heading for the door.
"I...I'm going out for a smoke. I'll be right back." He picked up his cigarettes on the way out and closed the door behind him, leaving Alice totally alone.
Alice stared on and wasn't sure how to take his sudden change in attitude. "Sure…" She shook her head to get back to the call. "So what now? You gonna head up to Margret Bellhart's house next?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's the plan. Maybe she has additional information about her daughter's disappearance."
"Probably. Mothers are weird like that." Alice shrugged and began to get up from her chair.
"Alright. I'll talk to you later then. Stay safe," he said and hung up.
Alice tossed her brick-like Nokia across the table and rushed over to her duffle bag as quickly as she could. She eyed the front door for a couple of moments before fumbling through the things in her bag to try and find a bottle of luminol and a blacklight. She pulled the things she needed out and gave one last look towards the door before getting up and hurrying towards the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and immediately started to spray every nook and cranny that looked even remotely clean. She sprayed the tub and the floor around it, all the way up to the door.
She had her suspicion of Philip from the start, but those thoughts mainly bloomed from knowing the history of his drug abuse. Alice never took the thought of murder into consideration until the moment Philip stormed out when the name Lacie Bellhart came up. She hoped for the best that he didn't do something stupid, but with so many red flags popping up...she didn't have the luxury to look the other way when a kid was involved.
She turned off the bathroom lights and waited for a moment with her blacklight in hand. She counted to ten in her head before turning on the small switch. The vibrant purple of the blacklight hovered over the luminol-covered spot...and all she could see was the bright blue glow of blood that couldn't be washed away. There were trail marks from the door leading all the way to the tub where most of it was. It was like staring down at a gruesome light show of murder.
"No, no, no. Phil...what did you do?" She muttered with a trembling voice.
The door behind her suddenly began to give an ominous loud creak as light from the outside flooded into the murder scene, instantly making the glowing blood vanish from her sight. Alice whipped her head around quickly to see who it was and saw Philip rushing into the bathroom with a baseball bat in his hands. He didn't say a word and just immediately swung the blunt object towards her head.