Return to the Afterlife Bar & Grille - No Exit/Usual Suspects
Well folks... you know how I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like there's been a celebrity termination up north. I'm afraid to say that one of our own - Dr. H.H. Holmes - has been confined, encased really, in a secluded section of the sewer system in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The doctor, born Herman Webster Mudgett, was born on May 16, 1861 - that's A.D. He began his illustrious career at an early age, beginning with lying and cheating, some stealing. He worked his way up to bigamy, fraud, kidnapping, torture, and murder.
Because he was quite creative and an expert beguiler, no one truly knows how many people fell victim to Holmes and his slaughterhouse known as “The Castle”. The death toll has been estimated anywhere from 20 to 100 fatalities; there are a few who credit him with up to 230 kills. However, the man only confessed to 27 murders (plus six more attempts), and of those only nine were confirmed.
Holmes was sent to Moyamensing prison after his trial and then hanged on May 7, 1896 in Philadelphia. He left behind one daughter, three wives, and a deceased mistress (who was allegedly one of his victims).
Of course, as you all know, Holmes decided to stick around after his death. Then, when the prison was torn down in 1963, he began his spree again - though much slower this time around. In fact, there were only six known deaths in 80 years, and two more attempts at the end.
One of those attempts happened to be the daughter of a hunter, and had with her the Winchester boys as backup. They managed to trap Holmes inside a circle of salt and then filled in the area with cement - making sure the spirit was good and stuck.
Bit of a shame, too - I was hoping to get an autograph.
oo0oo
Now that the unpleasantness has been taken care of... how about another story? #7083.
A cheekier cab leers on my mill. Her beau ices me...
I... I'm sorry, honey. We can't understand you. The translator must be off. There's a switch on the right side of the microphone there, Dana.
Sit flatter home! Is my mane - not Dana! Ah, that's better. Sorry, I thought the anagrams thing would have worn off by now.
Anyway, what I said was: Hello, my name is Claire Becker. And, I'm really only here to make sure that he (nods head to her left) gets here. Apparently, my crimes weren't bad enough to warrant a stay here - but I was assigned to some community service. First, I was a death omen. Now, I guess I'm a chauffeur.
Is that necessary?
Well, with this one (nods to her left again) it is. He's a bit slippery. Tried once already to sneak on the north-bound train. But, now that he's here, my community service is complete.
(walks away from microphone)
Tunk ahoy. Ego body.
Well, you're certainly welcome - and thank you. Bye bye.
Ah, so you must be Pete. Not to worry there, sport. I hear a cop going to jail doesn't have much of a chance top-side, but we're all equals here. Well, all of you once-humans are, anyway. Demons, like myself, are definitely a higher rank.
OK, OK, yeah, contrary to what you people might think, cops don't exactly start out with the intension of going bad. In fact, I know a lot of good cops up there. Hell, used to be one myself.
Going into the academy, you know that there are dangers involved in the job. Really, everyone knows there're dangers. But, the chance to do some real good in the world over-shadows that. At least in the beginning.
See, I used to work Narcotics. Every bust left me with a great feeling - I was a part of the team that kept that crap off the streets, out of the hands of children, or people who had children in their care. I just felt like I was making a difference. But, all the good feelings were slowly getting... not as good as the last.
See, I started feeling more like this was a job instead of a calling or a mission or whatever. There I was, working my butt off, and it seemed like no one really cared. I mean, even my family was more proud of my brother - the construction worker - than of me. All ever I heard was what a good thing he was doing, building houses for the less fortunate. And, of course, making good money while doing it.
And me? Well, I was living in a one-room apartment and still barely making ends meet.
Then, one day I'm in on a heroin bust and, as I'm cuffing the guy, he starts trying to bribe me - right in front of my partner, no less. He's telling me how we could split the money he'd make from the product, he'd even give me of the drugs free-of-charge. I lost it. I started to rough the guy up a bit - would have been worse if my partner, Diana, hadn't been there to stop me.
But, as we were leading the guy out, I couldn't help but look around at his place. For such a scumbag, he really had a lot of nice stuff. And top of the line, too. His home? It was big and so nice...
When I found myself sitting in my apartment a week later with some of the heroin from lock-up, I only had the vaguest memory of taking it.
I might have been a little overwhelmed, but I'm not stupid. I made myself a plan. First, I got out of Narcotics - I didn't want to do this again and working around all that money-waiting-to-be-made, I knew it would be too much of a temptation. And I'm not greedy.
After I put in my transfer request (and before I was transfered), I looked into some of my old cases to find the perfect fence. There were a couple of possibilities, but Claire was definitely a winner. And Tony, well, he was a friend and a defense attorney - knew I could trust him and I knew that he'd know the right kind of people to handle scrubbing the money.
I had started getting my strategy together when I got the transfer notice. And, to my surprise, Diana had asked for a transfer as well and we were partners once more. It was a good and bad thing - good because we worked well together and were friends, bad because Diana knew me better than anyone and I couldn't afford any complications at this point of the game.
But, everything was working out great. The heroin was going fast and the money was rolling in. Diana and I became... more than partners at work. My life finally felt... good.
Then, when I went to Ashland Street to pick up the last of the dirty money from Claire, the little punk tried to double cross me. Of course, she wasn't very good at it. She had sold the last of the drugs - showed me the money even - and then threatened to go to the police if I didn't give her a bigger cut. Stupid, very stupid.
She wasn't too hard to get rid of. No one would have even noticed - except for Tony. Tony started getting anxious when Claire couldn't be found. I side-stepped his questions for as long as I could, but the man's a damn good lawyer. When I finally told him I had taken care of Claire, he got down-right panicked.
When he told me that he wanted to come clean - and, if effect, turn me in as well - I had no choice but to get rid of him.
It wasn't long after that that I started to get phone calls from Karen, Tony's wife. At first I tried to be a supportive and caring friend, but then she started insisting we talk in person - that she wanted to discuss something Tony had been rambling on about just before he died. I had no choice but to get rid of her, too.
Then, as luck would have it, I hear over my scanner that there is a big to-do going on at the Giles' house and that they have caught the killer red-handed. Well, I was on my way to the station anyway, so I made sure to get there first and get put on the case.
I ran the name and found the perfect scapegoat. Seemed that the guy was wanted in St. Louis, though he was presumed dead. His kink was torturing and killing young women - and he was just found over the body of Karen Giles, weapon in hand.
But even a case that seems open and shut couldn't be so easy. This guy starts spouting off about ghosts and shape-shifters and all that kind of nonsense. Then, he mentioned Ashland Street.
I was too close to lose everything - I had to do something drastic. There was only one way out. The guy couldn't point the finger at someone else if he was dead. The only decision I had left was to make it look like he got away from me or to make it look like he tried to get away and I was forced to shoot him. Yeah, probably the latter - wraps things up nice and neat.
I was about to shoot him when Diana showed up with the guy's brother. Somehow she knew about Claire, Tony, Karen, the drugs - she knew it all and was pointing a gun at me. I thought I had talked her down, explained how everything could work out if we just followed my plan, but she shot me (in the leg) while I was taking my aim at the guy.
I got the drop on her again, had the gun and pointed it at her - but Diana didn't look at me. She was looking past me with wide open eyes. I didn't look at first, thought it was another trick, but then I heard the breathy gurgling. I turned around and came face to face with Claire. She was pale and the blood looked to still be flowing from her neck. She reached out to me...
Well, I'm told (by Claire) that I was shot in the back by Diana. I guess its what you girls would call poetic or something - though I suppose a knife in my back would have been a little more appropriate.