An Apple for Zoe: Book One ~ The Forsaken

'Yes it's definitely Russian,'

'What does it say?' asked James.

'Tom, the missed call on your cell phone. The one that came from here at the house, who was it?' asked Summers as she continued to examine the words written in blood.

'I don't know, but I can tell you it was a girl,' he said.

'A girl? What did she say?'

James began to speak when his voice left him. Taking a moment to regain his composure he whispered the words as if he were telling a secret. 'She said, 'Kirkland isn't dead.' '

The words caught Summers by surprise.

'Did she say anything else?'

James hesitated and then finally spoke. 'No, she hung up right after she said it. Why, is that what it says?'

'No, that's not what it says.'

'Then what does it say?'

'It says, Julie Jackson burns in hell.' '

James became white as a ghost and backed into the wall.

 'Tom, are you okay?'

James turned and looked directly into Summers eyes.

'The voice on the phone...'

'You recognized it?' she asked.

'I can't be sure, but I think it was Julie Jackson.'

Chapter Twenty-Two Julie Jackson

Agent Summers slowly turned her head to emphasize her puzzled expression. Her body shook with a chill as she started to speak but she stopped herself.

'Is something wrong Agent Summers?' asked James. This time it was Summers who needed to find her voice. 'Did you just say Julie Jackson?'

James stared at her silently. 'Yes, why?' he asked cautiously.

Summers looked around the room as if she was attempting to be certain they were alone.

'Why are you here?' asked James in a curious tone that caught Summers off guard. But before she could answer James continued, 'I assumed that because you're FBI, you were here because of Hermann Kritzler. But you didn't flinch when I mentioned the film can in the crawlspace at the hotel. So you obviously didn't know anything about that. What happened at the station house was as much as shock to you as it was to us. So if you didn't come here for Kritzler, Valerie Rivera, Amanda Carlyle, or Clem...' James hesitated as he looked at Summers. Running the names through his mind he tried to sort through why she was here. He narrowed his eyes and looked dead into hers. 'It's me. You came here for me. Why? Does it have something to do with Julie?'

'Yes,' said Summers in a flat, matter of fact voice. She left the room and made her way out of the front door and back to the car. James quickly followed her feeling frustrated and confused.

'Do you know Julie? Is she in some kind of trouble? Just what the hell does that writing on the bedroom wall mean!' he shouted after her.

Summers reached into the backseat of the car and pulled an evidence pouch from her interview folder. With her back to James she clutched the folder against her chest. She closed her eyes.

'What the hell is going on?' James demanded.

Summers took in a deep breath and then turned to James so that they were face to face. She held the evidence folder out, offering it to him.

'This is why I am here.'

James looked at Summers cautiously and then opened the file. A series of photos spilled out from the folder and onto the ground.

James looked down at the top photo and recognized it immediately. The glossy black and white photo had captured the image of a bisected nude female laying in a vacant lot.

'You're here because of The Black Dahlia?' asked James.

'I wish, look again,' she said as she pointed to the second photo. This one was a close up of the face of the victim. The eyes were glazed, the mouth gashed into a sardonic grin.

'It's Elizabeth Short, so what?'

'No, Inspector James, it's not. Her name is Julie Jackson.'

James looked at Agent Summers with disbelief in his eyes. She felt the pain of his lost blank stare.

'This is Julie? What happened?' asked James through gritted teeth. 'I mean, do you know what led up to this? Is there a suspect?'

'No, there's no suspect.'

'You must have some idea otherwise you wouldn't be here in San Francisco talking to me.'

'I believe our cases our linked but I'm not supposed to tell you that,' said Summers as she pulled the report from the file and handed it to James. His eyes scanned the page of the coroners notes: Nude bisected female found in vacant lot. Jane Doe identified via fingerprints as Julie Anne Jackson. 

'This murder was obviously meant to be a copycat of Black Dahlia, just as yours was supposed to be a reconstruction of the Arbuckle scandal,' said Summers. James thought hard about what he had seen in the hotel and looked again at the photos Summers had shared with him.

'This is your case? This copycat of Elizabeth Short?' asked James. Summers nodded as she tried to read his expression.

'Did you take it over from the Los Angeles police department?'

'No, it was ours from the beginning,' said Summers.

'Then that means your case is connected to another murder. One you took over from local jurisdiction. That case led you to Julie didn't it?'

Summers, knew she could no longer keep James in the dark.

'Yes, but I swear Tom, I had no idea your case was going to link to me personally. Whatever this is, it's beyond any kind of traditional investigation.'

'Don't give me a bunch of mis-directional bullshit. What was the case that lead you to Julie?' demanded James.

'Two days ago in the early morning hours the Hollywood police were called to the address 401 S. Alvarado Street. The manager of a retail store met them in a panic. He was trying to calm a vagrant who kept shouting, 'He's dead' and pointing to an abandoned house across the street. The police made their way inside the house where they certainly did find a body. But this was someone who had been dead a very long time. The corpse was lying flat on it's back and was extremely well dressed with a diamond studded lapel pin that carried the initials, 'W.D.T.' This, of course, told the officers who ever it was had money when they were buried.'

'Were buried? Are you saying someone dug the body up?' asked James.

'That's exactly what I'm saying and robbery was obviously not the motive, otherwise the diamond pin would have been missing. That same morning the police also received a call from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Inside their Catholic mausoleum a vault that contained the body of film director William Desmond Taylor had been broken into and his body was missing. The crypt's marble faceplate was shattered in half and the casket was left lying on the ground empty.'

'Who's William Desmond Taylor?'

'One of Hollywood's most famous unsolved murder cases.'

'The body in the house was his?'

 'Yes, someone had taken his corpse and delivered it to the abandoned house.'

'And the only way the police knew it was there was because of the homeless man?'

'Yes, but it doesn't stop there. The store manager told police when he arrived to work that morning, he found