"Those words! What were they?" Landry asked as Phil paused the video and smiled.
"Here’s why you pay me the big bucks," he quipped as he reversed in slow motion until he came to the right frame. Keeping one finger on the pause button, he moved his other hand to a machine and clicked them at the same time.
The video crawled one frame at a time while the other machine played the audio portion at the same slow speed. Caprice's mouth opened and sounds came out. They were pieces of words — syllables — and still unintelligible.
"Can you play it faster?"
"Who's running the show here, you or me?" Phil laughed. "I was just showing you how we're able to enhance words. Here it is again." He made adjustments on both machines, rewound to the proper place, and started the video.
Caprice opened her mouth and screamed, "My baby!"
Jack said, "When I ran to Tiffany's body in the courtyard, she was heaving in spasms. She was simulating the labor pains Caprice was having!"
Landry agreed. "This is good," he said. "We haven’t searched for where Caprice was buried. But I'll bet when we find it, we find a baby too."
Phil said, "I want you to hear one more thing. These are the words she said just as Prosperine threw her over." As Madam let her go, Caprice looked into her face and spat words.
Jack frowned. "They're garbled. I can't understand them."
Phil said he'd tried every enhancement in his arsenal. The sounds weren’t garbled. They were crystal clear but made no sense. Jack asked him to load the video to a flash drive so he could study the sounds.
Back in their office, Landry said, "I’m figuring more things out. I have to flush out Empyrion, and I know exactly what kind of bait to use."
While Jack worked on the sounds, Landry called the building's trustee. He told Shawn Leary about the secret room in the attic where Jack was held hostage in a cell filled with desiccated corpses. His hand was even nailed to the wall with a spike.
“As trustee of the LaPiere building, Jack Blair’s going to sue you for millions. The attorneys are preparing papers now.” Jack looked up and smiled.
The astounded lawyer admitted it sounded terrible, but it had nothing to do with the family or the estate. He reminded Landry that Madam LaPiere was the last of the clan, and she died in 1865.
“What about Empyrion?”
“You’re aware I cannot comment about him, but I will say he is not part of the family. Prosperine LaPiere was the last, and there’s no one left to sue.”
Landry paused to see what would happen next.
"What can I do to make things right?” the attorney asked.
Those were the words Landry was hoping for.
"I want the police to search under the patio flagstones for bodies. If we find them, they'll be exhumed, identified and reburied in a cemetery. If you allow that to happen, I think we can work this out satisfactorily for all parties."
"Why are you so interested in the building? This has nothing to do with you."
"It's about justice. Whether you admit it or not, the things your client did were beyond belief. Madam LaPiere ran a house of horrors inside the building, and Lucas may have been her willing accomplice. This went on for years, and the people they killed deserve justice. Get hold of Empyrion Richard. Let him know I’m going to blow his little secret right out of the water."
"Mr. Drake," the man protested, "I'm the one with authority over the building. Empyrion Richard can't give you approval.”
"This isn't about you. It's about him. Tell him one way or another, we're going to find out the answers."
When the call ended, Jack said, "I didn't know you and Detective Young had decided to exhume the bodies, or that I was filing a big lawsuit."
"The lawsuit’s a bluff. And about the graves, I asked, but he flatly refused. He said even if there were murders, it all happened nearly two hundred years ago. Nobody's left — no victims' families, no perpetrators and no witnesses except people who see visions when they're being hypnotized. If there was a crime, there's no one to charge. And he's right."
"Then tell me what you’re doing.”
"Setting that trap I told you about. I'm going to catch a big rat."
_____
Jack worked late, and the next morning he reported that he'd reached a dead end on trying to decipher what Caprice had shouted as she went over the rail.
The receptionist buzzed Landry at nine. "You have —"
"Put him in the conference room. I'll be there in a minute."
"I didn't tell you —"
"I know who it is. Just do as I ask."
Landry stopped by Phil's desk before he and Jack walked in the room. When he saw Jack, Empyrion's plastered smile couldn't conceal his surprise and irritation.
"You remember Jack Blair, I'm sure. You nailed his hand to a wall."
The smile and fixed stare never wavered. "I can’t imagine what you're talking about."
"Oh, pardon me. It wasn't you. Charles is the culprit. You had nothing to do with it."
"Mr. Drake, what is it you want from me?"
"I want answers. The police are looking for you because you threw Jack and me out the window. Then you drove an iron spike through his hand. But they'll never be able to charge you, will they? You don't exist in this world. You appear and disappear somehow, and therefore they could never lock you in a jail cell.
"What I intend to do is dig up the bodies Prosperine LaPiere murdered — Elberta, Lucas and James. What I want from you is answers, or I’ll tell the world the LaPiere story. Every atrocity committed behind
