Chapter 11 – The Bitter Truth
After four tortuous hours of classes and one whole hour of gym class, Chavi hurried back to her hostel room and her sprint to the stairs was followed by Ms. Sadhana Talapatra’s eyes.
“God oh God! What is this girl going to do now?” Chavi was equally scared and curious of what Peeya had to tell her, if at all she had something to say.
Chavi knocked on the door expecting a response. Peeya had left Gym class early and it was natural for her to assume that she was in the room.
She knocked the door again the second time and a third time and still there was no response. Finally, she opened the door herself with her spare key.
“Just perfect, she was just diverting our attention away from her, she acted nice, God we were so gullible” Chavi cursed herself.
“Guess I will go down to Praneethi’s room and talk to her.” Chavi locked the door behind and went down to the second floor to room no 210 after getting fresh for a couple of minutes.
“Praneethi!” called out Chavi and the door was opened by her roommate, Rupa another ninth grader.
“Hi Chavi, what brings you here? Praneethi is not inside, she went to see Disha” Rupa told Chavi.
“Oh, thanks Rupa, see you again sometime, bye” Chavi took leave of Rupa and proceeded to Disha’s floor which was on the ground floor. The seniors usually had the best rooms since they were saved of the effort of climbing up four floors. The eighth graders were the most unlucky ones.
“Disha Di, Disha Di” Chavi knocked on her door only to be answered by another twelfth grader Adithi Shetty.
“She is not here; Praneethi and she went out towards the school just 10 minutes back I guess”
“Thanks Adi Di” Chavi smiled at Adithi who returned the favor.
“I wonder where they would go without taking me along. What’s going on?” Chavi could not find the two and Peeya anywhere in the assembly area or the restrooms on the ground floor.
“Hey Rishi! Did you see Disha Di or Praneethi or Peeya, like just now?” Chavi asked her Ucchashrava housemate Rishimukh Srivatsa, a tenth grader.
“I guess I saw Peeya running towards the auditorium, no idea about the other two”
“Thanks a lot!” Chavi had springs in her shoes as she seemed to be sprinting rather than walking.
“There are you guys are! You all had me worried! Why couldn’t you wait?” Chavi yelled at Praneethi, Disha and Peeya who had huddled themselves at the far corner of the dark auditorium.
“Shhh”, Disha signaled at Chavi to keep it low.
Chavi ran up the stairs towards the girls and saw that Peeya’s face was red. She was crying.
“Chavi, we saw her running towards the auditorium and it looked like she was going to cry, we followed her here and we saw her sitting at the corner, sobbing uncontrollably” explained Praneethi.
“I think you should take her back to your room” said Disha.
That evening, Peeya slept so deep that she did not even wake up for dinner. Chavi and Disha explained to the warden that Peeya was running a fever and she was not feeling like coming over for dinner. Ms. Sadhana Talapatra seemed to understand.
“I guess I will just have to finish off the rest of the book; now that I have bought it” Chavi said to herself as she picked up Lasting Fondness.
“News of the ghastly multiple murders of Augustine, Rudolph, Alice, Stephen and Guss in that order had spread like wild fire across the tinsel town. The Los Angeles Chronicle ran an investigative report a few weeks later of the deadly affiliations Guss Schneider had with a rogue syndicate within the armed forces and a detailed narration of what went wrong between the partners, though the piece looked more like a theory or a hypothesis to the readers since it seemed too surreal.
Priscilla, Benjamin & Edna Schneider had flown in from Tel Aviv for the funeral of their brother and sister in law. Since the funeral was organized immediately after the autopsy reports were generated by the police and sometime before the Chronicle released its expose, the Hollywood fraternity was in full attendance in fashionable blacks to mourn the demise of their beloved filmmaker and feared producer.
The funeral service had brought the bodies of the Hollywood couple in richly veneered rosewood coffins mounted on horse drawn hearse carriages.
The ‘wake’ was avoided since the murders were so ghastly that it could have horrified the mourners and therefore an open cast was ruled out.
The family accountant Teddy Birmingham was seen chatting with the family advocates and others and little Priscilla stared at the one familiar face among a sea of famous faces.
Eulogies were read out and a Jewish Rabbi chanted out hymns in Hebrew and in Yiddish, and the coffins were ready to be lowered into the trenches.
The media, both print and reel were present at the cemetery in full strength to capture the celebrities in their mourning gowns. This was reason enough for many of the ladies present to display their most effective enactments of pain, sadness of departure.
When the huge crowd was engulfed in a mask of grief, something was going wrong in the background. A malevolent force was at play and it was all set to put little Priscilla in harm’s way.
One of the horses pulling the hearse carriage suddenly got extremely distressed, it began clicking it’s hooves on the cobble stoned pavements and started neighing and bellowing in absolute terror and pain. It started mounting the small hillock at the funeral site and galloped along with it’s tethered partner towards the crowd.
A chaos and commotion ensued and the crowd ran hither and tither leaving behind rows of chairs empty and at the mercy of the runaway carriage. The horse came with a constant braying noise and some could see blood oozing out of its nostrils. The horse was no doubt in pain, but it seemed like it had other intentions.
The confusion in the air made Benjamin and Edna unknowingly take shelter away from the rolling carriage and in their action, they had completely forgotten about little Priscilla who stood by her parents’ coffins.
The maddened horse ran straight towards the motionless little girl and in an action as swift as it began, the horse collapsed inches away from the coffin. Since the carriage was downhill and the other horse was still galloping, the carriage hit the coffins that lay on the ground and smashed open Guss’s casket, before the healthy horse could stop.
A lady let out a scream and another just fainted at the bile churning sight of Guss’s skin peeled face and eyelids that looked like they could fall off moment. Augustine was spared the humiliation.
Little Priscilla, certainly had not deserved to see her dead father in this manner and this would certainly leave her scarred for life.
“Oh my God! I am so Sorry dear! Forgive me Lord!” Edna came running towards the little girl and embraced her covering her face from the horrible sight. A few brave men managed to shut the casket and it was immediately lowered into the trench.
Priscilla again watched the familiar face among the sea of famous faces, watching her from a distance. It looked very familiar, but it definitely did not look friendly.
“Mr. Schneider, I would like to have a private word with you. I am Rory Medvev, the Schessman family advocate. Could you please join me at the mansion after the ceremony” Rory minced no words and he meant business with one of Augustine’s only surviving relative, her husband’s brother.
“I am extremely sorry at your loss Sir; I have no words to express how sad I feel for your family and Priscilla” Rory spoke to Benjamin in a slow & pacifying manner.
“He left us all a very long time ago, he must have gotten himself into some kind of trouble, he didn’t even join Priscilla to Tel Aviv” Benjamin told Rory something that he already knew.
“I represented Augustine before and both Guss and Augustine after they got married” explained Rory who had been Augustine’s advocate ever since she had begun making a name for herself.
“She was dedicated to her art and she hadn’t quite thought about any family, until Guss came into her life. The couple had made quite a huge fortune. Augustine has three bank accounts; she has $15 million in the Federal Bank, $3 million in the Bank of America and another $3 million in the Bank of Zurich, while Guss has 5 accounts. He had evacuated all of his four American accounts a few days before his death and transferred the total to his one account in Liechtenstein. Apart from the money, the couple owned this mansion we are sitting in, a ranch in Idaho and a stud farm in Kentucky.” Rory read out the figures while a numbed Benjamin listened.
“How much did Guss transfer you say?” queried Benjamin.
“Ahem” Rory cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie and straightened his round metal rimmed glasses and wiped off what seemed like tiny droplets of sweat accumulating on his brow.
“Well, it’s a big figure for sure!” said Rory.
“How big?”
“$125 Million big!” exclaimed Rory to a bewildered Benjamin who looked like he could fall off his chair any moment.
“What! That’s ridiculous! Hollywood gives you so much?!” Benjamin was out of his elements and he had not heard before of such astronomical sums of money.
“I am afraid it is the truth Sir”
“And what happens to the money now?” asked Benjamin who looked like he could faint anytime now.
“Well, here’s the thing, both Augustine and Guss had not prepared a will. Priscilla is the natural heir and she will inherit the entire property. But since she is a minor now, she will have to wait until she is 18 till she gets to enjoy the fortune.” Explained Rory
“No will! Just great! You still haven’t answered my question, what happens to the property now?” a restless Benjamin asked.
“As the family’s lawyer, I have decided it would be in the best interest for the child that our firm manages her money on her behalf. My company shall be forming a trust and the entire sum of money would be deposited with a bank of our choice who will then invest part of the money in ventures that will yield maximum returns. As Priscilla’s guardians you Sir, will be sanctioned a sum of $15,000 per month with which you shall fund her education in a good school and take care of all her needs. And on her 18th birthday, the trust will decide upon handing over the property to Priscilla depending upon the prevailing conditions then”
“This is insane! My brother and his wife have in excess of a $120 million and their daughter gets a measly $15,000 per month as maintenance. You must be out of your mind!” retorted Benjamin.
“You may approach the courts Sir if you may please, but I suggest you against it as it will do you more harm than good. The investigations on the murder are underway and any hasty decisions that you might undertake can be construed against you by the investigating team. Moreover, the trust will have some of the most distinguished personalities including some magistrates and federal judges in the directorate”
“This is blackmail!” Benjamin stood up to storm out of the discussion.
“No Sir! It is not! You still have the option of going your own way, but I once again suggest that you sign these papers for the trust to take care of the property until Priscilla’s 18th birthday”
“Well what if something happens to her before that?” Benjamin asked
“I thought you might ask that and my company has made arrangements in that case too, in case Priscilla dies naturally or otherwise, the decision to whether liquidate the property, a majority of which will be converted to bonds and equities will be taken by the trust board. As her natural guardians you also stand to inherit a small portion of her fortune, provided that you would have no hand in such eventualities. The trust board has already been formed and they have made a decision to start a school somewhere near Cincinnati in Augustine & Guss’s name and all the funds of the school will be managed bu the trust and will add to Priscilla’s property” Rory had given an exhaustive explanation of the board’s plans.
“Alright! You leave me with very little choice, you leeches, now where do I sign?” yelled a disgruntled Benjamin and signed on the papers where Rory had marked with ‘x’s.
“Congratulations Sir and do take care of yourselves and our little Priscilla” Rory remarked in what seemed like a sarcastic manner to Benjamin who walked out without responding even with a stare.
Benjamin and Edna had loved Priscilla ever since she was brought home and he never felt bad that he would not get a part of his brother’s fortune. He only did not trust the lawyers.
Soon enough the board sanctioned the construction of a school in Cincinnati, Ohio on the East Coast. The board’s decision of setting up a boarding school in a city over 2000 miles from Los Angeles had Benjamin boggle over theories and counter theories. He was afraid that a larger conspiracy was behind the killings of his brother and sister in law and not everything was as black and white as it seemed.
The trust board had been formed swiftly and it’s conception, it seemed like was planned in parallel to the Schessman – Schneider family massacre.
Benjamin thought that he would never be able to find out the truth if he was in faraway Tel Aviv and the injustice being meted out to Priscilla was becoming greatly intolerable for him day by day.
“Edna dear, I think some evil force is at play here, I am not convinced that my brother and his wife were killed by his business rivals” confided Benjamin with his wife.
“What’s wrong dear? I have never seen you so tense” Edna was worried for her husband.
“I have a feeling that our lives and that of Priscilla’s in in danger, I did not want to scare you so I didn’t speak about this before, but now I had to, It was driving me nuts” Benjamin put his head on Edna’s laps as she sat beside him on their bed.
“You are overreacting honey, nothing’s wrong, we are here in Israel, no one can harm us here. We are among brothers” Edna tried to calm her husband but she was not totally aware of the powers of the Syndicate.
“There is far too much money at stake Edna, they are afraid more than I am, If I go to the courts, they will have no choice but to hand over the money to us, but I am afraid they expect me to change my mind soon and they will not be sitting ducks” Benjamin trembled with the consequences.
“You know what they say, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. I think we must move immediately to New York to your father’s. We will be safe there.” Benjamin had a plan.
“What do you intend to do my love, tell me, you are scaring me” Edna had no clue what was going on but she would support her husband all the way.
“Trust me on this one Edna, I will bring them to justice” Benjamin took an oath.
After a few meetings with his friends in the Israeli Intelligence, he was all set to start a new life with Edna and Priscilla in New York. The Schneider family landed in America exactly 3 months after the horrendous murders of their kin.
Benjamin avoided informing Rory about their immigration and the board continued to mail the cheques to their Tel Aviv address which was promptly deposited in Benjamin’s account by a trusted friend.
Meanwhile, the school construction had started in full swing. The site was located a distant 50 miles from the downtown area; Cincinnati was the Original boom town of America and a lot of businesses had flourished in that part of the great nation. The Boarding school would house about 300 children most of whom were expected to come from the city.
Back in the Ordinance depot, Lt. Sam Perez, Sgt. Frank and James, Privates Cooke and Guerrero had just heard about something that had shook the ground below them.
Police had found the dismembered bodies of Ricky and Ray near the old abandoned railway yard. They had apparently been dumped there and were killed elsewhere.
“Those men deserved it, bloody mercenaries” Lt. Sam Perez dismissed the twin murders as something common that happened to mercenaries who killed for money.
That night, he was proved wrong. Lt. Sam Perez stayed along with his wife Mary in the well – guarded army quarters in the Suburbs of LA. Sergeants Frank and James were bachelors and stayed in their respective homes in the quarters while Privates Cooke and Guerrero stayed along in the army barracks.
After dinner, the Perez couple went to bed. Though he did not seem intimidated when he heard the news of Ricky and Ray’s deaths, he was afraid from inside. Fear; had sowed its seeds. He knew that the two men were extremely cunning, vicious and strong and to kill them with such savagery would require a more superior force. Paranormal perhaps.
He tossed himself left and right on the bed and could not catch a wink of sleep. In the cold November night, Lt. Sam Perez was sweating like it was Florida on a rainy day.
“Fuck this!” Lt. Sam Perez got up in the middle of the night to splash some water on his face. His house was a duplex with a small flight of stairs leading to the bedrooms and shared toilets from the dining hall and kitchen downstairs.
Like all American homes, a small corridor on the top floor, separated the rooms from the toilets. The Perez family had decorated the walls in the corridor with family photographs and babies since Mary had been expecting a child in a period of 3 months.
While a perspiring Lt. Sam Perez closed the room door behind him, he heard water running, but it sounded like it was from a distance. He checked out the toilet on his floor and found nothing, he then realized that the sound was from the bathroom below.
Back in Sergeant Frank’s quarters, things were not all that fine either, they say fear covers a large area and it had manifested itself in the rugged Sergeant’s heart which was pounding like a runaway train.
Sergeant James was experiencing palpitations and blurred visions and was losing control over himself. He walked towards the fridge to get some water only to find the fridge cold and empty. He was a bachelor but never was the freezer cleaned out like this as if someone had broken in and emptied out the fridge, he ran to the bathroom as the burn in his heart and throat were getting severe, he turned the taps only to hear the hiss of air blowing out.
He felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder and he thought that he might be having a heart attack; he broke open the wall mounted medicine cabinet and threw it on the tiled floor breaking the mirrors on the cabinet doors into a dozen pieces. He desperately needed an aspirin and he could not find any in the cabinet. All the bottles and vials were empty. It was like he was living in a showcase house, where everything is empty and nothing is real. His eyes burnt and his nose bled, he went to the bath tub to turn the shower faucets and his request was again turned down by a loud hiss.
The only option he had was to drink the water from the toilet. He opened the lid in a desperate attempt to cool his burning body.
All he could see was a thick red paste smeared all over the ceramic internals and in a move stimulated by his brain, he sprung back and slipped on an empty bottle of aspirin that lay on the tiled floor smacking his head hard on the hard ceramic bathtub that cracked open his forehead in the center covering his face with hemoglobin rich blood.
Sergeant James let out a hard scream but there was no one that would come to his rescue.
“Good Evening” he heard a voice.
“Who is it?” screamed James in agony while his head bled and his heart burned. He had never been as scared ever in his life even on the front lines when he landed in a distant island on the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japs who had holed up there.
“I just wanted to get away from the LA traffic for a while” the voice laughed. It was repeating the small conversation that he had shared with Augustine at the Beirut University lawn.
“It can’t be, I am seeing things!” Sergeant James thought he saw an apparition. An image of his victim whose throat he had mercilessly slit in a foreign land & abandoned it, leaving it to the night creatures to feast upon the carcass.
The giggle of the woman was scary, it haunted James and his heart rate increased and his throat went dry, so dry that he could feel his skin caressing his food pipe; it was parched for a drop of water. His fear was so intense that his eyes had gone pale and his mouth was without saliva.
The voices, the conversations, the eerie giggle had all filled up the small lit bathroom and all he could see were broken shards of glasses, strewn glasses, blood smeared ceramics. Everything looked tinted in red as blood continued to pour out of his cut on the forehead.
Lack of oxygen impaired his normal senses and he could no longer think straight, he could take it no more. It was not going to end soon and he was under a lot of pain. His eyes shut for a while, but a sudden rush of adrenalin woke him up only to see Augustine, face white as snow, eyes dark as ebony, lips red as the stripes of a coral snake, dressed immaculately in an evening gown and accessorized by a deep cut on her neck line and dark red blood staining her cleavage, advance towards him in a paranormal action. His adrenalin pumped and when the heart could no longer tolerate the speed, it gave in. Sergeant James died due to cardiac arrest in a pool of his own blood.
Sergeant Franks was up even after the clock had struck 12 midnight. Something inside kept him awake. He had his army issued Beretta 9302 with him and he took it out of the closet as he feared someone was out there trying to get to him.
“What the hell?! I am positive I had closed the door” said Franks to himself as he heard the door open with a light creak typical to seasoned wood.
“Hello, Sergeant Frank Simmons here, were there any visitors tonight?” queried Frank with the sentry over the intercom.
“Nothing this evening Sir” replied the Private stationed as the gate sentry.
“I’ll be damned if some thief is trying to sneak into the army quarters, tonight will be his last heist” Frank said to himself as he slowly went towards the living room with his loaded service pistol in position and the safety turned off.
“Thieves do not use doors Frank” a voice came out from the kitchen and the Sergeant turned in a reflex action and saw an image of a man standing by the kitchen sink, it was dark; he could not see clearly.
“You must be out of your friggin mind! Whoever you are, come out NOW! Or I’ll shoot ya!” yelled the powerful Frank.
His violent threat was responded in silence and now he could hear the same voice from behind him, whisper breathing into his ears, “Enjoying your stay?”
“It can’t be, I killed you myself, it’s impossible, Frank was losing his composure, he turned everywhere only to see nothing unusual and yet he had felt the warmth of a breath on his earlobes.
He could feel something trickle down his right cheek, he dismissed it as sweat and wiped it off with his arm, he felt it again and this time it was accompanied by a sharp pain in his right ear, it felt like someone had driven a bolt through his ear, only there was nothing to pull out.
“Aaargh! Oh Lord!” screamed Frank in terror and unbearable pain. He had lost a lot of blood and his breathing had become very hard and the next thing he could see was an apparition of Stephen standing, watching him with cold dead eyes with a hundred dried cuts on his body and a hanging jaw.
Sergeant Frank Simmons died of cardiac arrest with the pistol clenched hard in his right hand.
“Cooke get here fast and get Guerrero along” Lt. Sam Perez had called up the barracks and summoned the two privates.
“Cooke, check out James, Guerrero, Frank, Now, report back in 15 minutes” Lt. Sam Perez directed his men.
The two dispatches quickly made their ways to their destinations. Private Cooke was all of 24 years of age and he was yet to get married. He had fallen on the wrong path but he had very little choice. The lure of a fast buck and a life of comfort after he got out of service drew him into the path of arms smuggling.
Guerrero found the door unlatched, he was surprised and he quickly got on guard suspecting something fishy.
“Sergeant, are you in there?” Guerrero yelled inside the dark house that smelled of blood.
Private Cooke had drawn out his personal arms while he came closer towards Sergeant James’ quarters. Death always gives a warning, a chance to back off; you only have to have the instinct to read the signs.
Sgt. James’s house was silent & dark as it was supposed to be at that time of the night. The Private’s
watch showed it was almost 3 hours past midnight.
“Aint gonna do this, Aint gonna do this” Pvt Cooke chanted in a rhythm as he proceeded to check out the kitchen and later the bathroom with his pistol still drawn out.
“Oh hell! Cried out Cooke just as he saw the bloody bathroom, chipped bath tub and shattered mirror pieces everywhere and a dead for good Sergeant James lying in a pool of his own blood.
“Gotta get outta here” stammered Cooke and almost fell down after seeing the horrendous sight and quickly and yet silently ran out to Lt. Sam Perez’s house.
“You gotta be shitting me here! He is a bloody monster for God’s sake! Who could take on him at his own house?!” wondered a puzzled Guerrero who was thinking what he was doing there in the first place so late in the night.
“Sergeant, It’s Guerrero! Just checkin on ya! Holler back if you are alright!” Guerrero yelled as he frisked the wall for the switches.
“Now I’ll be damned!” Guerrero could only watch the back of Sergeant Frank Simmons lying sideways with his still open eyes trained on something or someone in the kitchen.
“Sarge, what happened here? Why you?...” Guerrero stood still as he walked nearer for a closer inspection of the scene only to find a wide mouthed staring & bleeding from one ear Sarge lying dead with his face covered in his own blood.
“Holy Crap! This can’t be happening man!” Guerrero made a hasty exit from the house & ran like the wind towards Lt. Sam Perez’s house making sure that his army boots would not alert the whole neighborhood, he ran barefooted.
“What have you got Guerrero?” the Lieutenant asked the huffing and panting Private and Pvt. Cooke, who had already delivered the news looked on with fright written large on his young face.
“Sarge, It’s Sarge Franks Sir, I..I think he is toast” Guerrero conveyed the message in his own style.
“Franks too! Huh?! Guess they have taken this too far now! We gotta get to the bottom here, men!” the corrupted officer was angry and yet somehow restrained.
“Wait! Let me get that!” Sam was invited in to his living room by the sound of the phone ringing.
“Hello?” Sam could only hear the sound of heavy breath.
“Hello? S