Possession: The Sharon Hayes Detective Series, #4

By Jude LaHaye

Sharon Hayes is back with a vengeance...and she's not alone. The voice in her head has given her some dire information: when Sharon killed her father, only his body died. His spirit has taken up residence in her head, and it's already crowded enough. Dewayne Doyle, Sharon's birth father, has always been an evil man, but now he is a malevolent spirit. Sharon turns to her partner at the NYPD Bronx Central Homicide squad: Archie Chong. She confides her terrible secret to Archie, who doesn't blink an eye. "I will call on my fangxiangshi spirit," he says. "We will have an exorcism." Archie has learned the skills of ancient China from his father; it's his side gig after work as a homicide detective, after all. Dewey Doyle is not their only problem. His very much alive cohorts in crime are still afoot, and they've each captured some innocent souls during their years as brutisha and vicious serial killers. They have picked up some not-so-innocent passengers, too, and as the story climaxes, Sharon, and her allies discover the source of their power to possess the souls of those they kill: some very old gods are still in the world, turning evil men to their wills. Will Archie's ancient magic be a match for their power?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jude LaHaye
• Release date: Dec 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223146162

Jude LaHaye

Jude LaHaye is a Buddhist. Buddhists believe that the highest form of sentience is the human being. They also believe that the meaning of life is...Life. LaHaye struggles with his belief system and the evidence of his own human interactions and observations. His books are born of this struggle.

Book preview

Possession

The Sharon Hayes Detective Series, Volume 4

Jude LaHaye

Published by Jude LaHaye, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

POSSESSION

First edition. December 31, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Jude LaHaye.

ISBN: 979-8223146162

Written by Jude LaHaye.

Also by Jude LaHaye

Stoned

Stoned, Too

The Sharon Hayes Detective Series

True Self

Regression

Obsession

Possession

The Ten Worlds

Hell

Rapture

The War Against Time

Timescape

Wakou

Wakou

Standalone

A Life

Ceres

Product:Person

Watch for more at Jude LaHaye’s site.

To my friend, Patty. I have no fear of her discovering this dedication: she will never read any of the stories I spin.

Dedication: for all of our inner voices

Contents

Chapter One. Company

Chapter Two. But Wait – There’s More

Chapter Three. Just Be Yourself

Chapter Four. Not Now – I’m At Work

Chapter Five. A Meeting of The Minds

Chapter Six. Forensics

Chapter Seven. Murdered!

Chapter Eight. Cleansing

Chapter Nine. I Swear I Am Not Nuts

Chapter Ten. Progress Derailed

Chapter Eleven. A Nice Day for Ride   to...Anywhere But Here

Chapter Twelve. The Sheriff’s Son

Chapter Thirteen. Exorcism

Chapter Fourteen. The Truth About Arly

Chapter Fifteen. The Truth About Teddy

Chapter Sixteen. The Truth About Daddy

Chapter Seventeen. Brain Surgery

Chapter Eighteen. Privilege

Chapter Nineteen. The Truth About The Sheriff – Sort of

Chapter Twenty. Those Pictures...

Chapter Twenty-one. Explaining Those Clowns

Chapter Twenty-two. Henry’s Mesmer

Chapter Twenty-three. Arlene

Chapter Twenty-four. When Can I Go Home?

Chapter Twenty-five. Untruths About Jake

Chapter Twenty-six. Mesmer

Chapter Twenty-seven. The Anti-Mesmer

Chapter Twenty-eight. The Fanged Deity

Chapter Twenty-nine. Monomaniacal...

Chapter Thirty. The Old River God

Chapter Thirty-one. The Golden Land

Chapter Thirty-two. Reincarnate

Chapter One. Company

W here are you? I call out – well, in my head I do – for like the thousandth time today.

I am trying to contact my passenger, the former incarnation of myself who rides around in my head mocking me and making snarky comments – oh and helping me solve crimes occasionally.

Valerie Smyth-Coleson is her name. I just call her Val. Someone with a nice name like Valerie would be, well, nicer. Val works.

But she hasn’t spoken to me in many, many hours. I try to reconstruct our last conversation: was it just last night before Jimmy arrived? Yes, I believe that was it. She said she would leave me alone with Jimmy James for the night. Said she would sit in a corner and read.

I am still in my brownstone, but I need to get to work. Jimmy left earlier and is probably already working a crime scene. A Forensics Specialist in the Homicide Division of a major New York City Police Department is always in demand – and Jimmy wasn’t just a specialist, he was the team chief.

We work in the Bronx Central Precinct, do Jimmy and I. Homicide is the Central Bronx’s most popular pastime – or that’s how it seems sometimes. We’re busy. Very.

Not too busy for me to spend another second thinking about last night, though.

It was everything I had been dreaming of for the last two years.

Two years. That’s how long I have been an eligible woman. That’s how long my husband, Jim, has been gone.

He’s dead. Murdered. By my own birth-father – the man I just stabbed to death two days ago.

Hey – it was an accident, and he started it by breaking his restraints and going for my throat.

DeWayne NMI Doyle. Daddy. As vicious and crazy a serial rapist and murderer as can be found – and that includes all of human history if you ask me.

And even if you don’t.

But Daddy was no dummy. He and his murdering buddies had made a major discovery: they found the means to capture a human being’s energies at the moment of  physical death. They absorbed lives into their own bodies.

They didn’t call them lives, though. They were harvesting life force from their victims. They discovered, though, that the life force could not be shared – it maintained its cohesion. And so, each of them ended up absorbing entire entities into themselves. And those entities remained intact even while captive in their murderer’s heads.

It’s just matter, my father had bragged, insincerely downplaying the awesomeness of his discovery. Matter and energy. We merely developed a collection tool, that’s all.

Right before I killed him, I had witnessed several different people take charge of his body – his physical self. They surfaced, one after one, to talk to me.

It was extremely unpleasant.

The one in charge claimed to be a god – a big black god with blood on its horns and fangs.

One of them was my father – he thought he was second-in-command, but I disabused him of this notion. His god had told me how he despised my father for his weakness – he called him pathetic, actually.

I made sure I repeated this to my father when it was his turn to drive the car – you know, use the body – and I had an audio recording of the god making the statements. I played this recording for my father who was unwilling to take my word for it – just as I knew he would.

Two of the other people inside my father were his rape and murder victims. They were women who did not speak, but just screamed and screamed in terror and horror.

Killing my father freed these two women to make their way to Eagle Peak – that Golden Land between incarnations. We saw them. Val and I were allowed to travel to Eagle Peak to see them and to receive their thanks.

Val.

Where are you? I ask once again.

Crickets.

No wait – did I hear a sob? I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a sound that usually signals deep angst – sorrow.

Val? I ask again, this time softly, whispering inside my head.

Shhhhhh! I hear clearly.

What’s wrong? I am still whispering.

He’s here, her answer, also a whisper, comes.

Who is here?

Your father. He’s here, Styx.

Where?

In here, with me. I think he is trying to hide from you.

The horror of what Val has just told me is starting to sink in. My father, a man who knew how to capture a human being’s energy, had thrown his own energy into me before his body died.

That had to be how he came to take up residence.

Possessed.

That’s what I am. Possessed.

Val, I say once more.

Yes?

Is he alone?

What do you mean?

Is that bloody god with him? Is Jim with him?

"I can’t be sure. I mean, I am spending all of my time trying to hide from him, after all. I cannot imagine what he might be capable of doing to me – and to you, Styx." I heard another sob.

Oh, that was me. I had made the sound.

No, I am not sad. I am horrified. I feel that my whole existence is threatened by a force that I am in no way prepared to confront.

What am I going to do?

Chapter Two. But Wait – There’s More

Just a few moments later Val is speaking again, still in whispers. I am alone for now. I am talking out loud.

There’s more, she says.

Oh, god, no, I moan aloud. What else?

I found a booby trap in here, a suggestion that either your father or one of his goons planted in your brain.

A booby trap? I repeat. What is it going to do? I ask. Aghast. I am aghast. And I’m still talking out loud.

I can’t figure out how to unlock it, she confesses. I tried all of the passwords we used before and about a million others. I cannot open it. I cannot disarm it...and I don’t know what will happen once it is triggered.

"I don’t even want to think about what that trap is designed to do," I tell her. That is not quite true. I may not want to know, but I know I need to know.

I haven’t yet discovered who you’re talking to, a familiar and hated voice booms in my head.

Daddy.

He continues. "But I will find him. Her. Whoever. Now that you have discovered my little trap, I want you to understand that I know exactly how to activate the suggestion – and when. He is laughing now, a low, evil, menacing sound. Relax, Sharon. It is not yet time...."

Get out of my head, you son of a bitch! I shout.

Well, where would I go? the voice of Dewayne Doyle whines. He is being cute. This is the only home I have now. And he laughs his disgusting laugh – you know, the evil one that makes all the hair on your arms stand straight up.

The one that makes you nauseous.

Sharon? It’s Doyle.

Hmmm, I grunt, unable or unwilling – or both – to enter into a conversation with this animal.

You will do as you are told. You will do as I tell you, or your little friend in here will experience a hell way beyond anything he or she has ever dreamed of.

I hear Val gasp. Don’t believe him, she says. He doesn’t even know where I am.

You don’t even know where she is, I say, appalled when I hear the words spring from my mouth. I’ve just given him information I don’t want him to have.

That is true – for now, Doyle responds. "But I haven’t really even looked for her yet – how hard do you think it’s going to be to find her? Another nasty cackle follows this question. And yes, he emphasizes the her" to let me know that he has registered the information. The other occupant in my head is female.

Sharon – go to work, he tells me. It is important that everything appear normal. I know you can’t tell anyone what is happening with you – they would section you right out of the squad. He pauses to laugh again. If he had a nose I’d punch him in it. Hard. "Behave as normally as is possible for you. Now go. You’re late."

I’m going. But I have one question for you.

Shoot.

Where have you been for the last two days?

Right here. Why?

You haven’t surfaced until just now, I say.

I have been enjoying the show – you know, the entertainment, he says insinuatingly.

So when Jimmy was over? I began, afraid to finish the question.

Oh, yes. I was here. Now that is what I call entertainment! I have a couple of suggestions for you for the next time he’s over....

Shut up, shut up! I scream. I slap both hands over my ears as if that could shut up a voice that originates inside my own head.

He is laughing, laughing, laughing. I have never heard a more joyless laugh. It’s more like the cawing of a crow – or a whole herd of them.

A murder, I suddenly remember. A group of crows is called a murder of crows. Not a herd.

Seems fitting.

I am suddenly cheered – not much, but it’s a start. You see, I consider the crow to be my spirit animal.

And I’m going to need all of the help I can get.

Val? I reach out tentatively, now only speaking in my mind.

I’m here, she responds quietly.

Is there any way you can keep him from knowing what I’m thinking?

She doesn’t respond. I remain silent. Doyle says nothing.

It’s possible that he cannot hear you like I can, she says. He might just be a hitch-hiker. I mean, I am you – you and I are the same person. But him? He is foreign to you. An outsider.

So you think he doesn’t know my thoughts – the unspoken thoughts – like you do?

It’s our only hope, she says dejectedly. It’s clear that he can’t hear me, so I think he may not be able to hear you, either. As long as you don’t speak out loud, that is.

Sharon. Get to work! Doyle shouts.

I’m going, I’m going, I respond, again out loud. But then I add, only in my head, and quietly: Fuck you, Daddy.

He does not reply.

Good.

For now.

Chapter Three. Just Be Yourself

Easier said than done when you have just discovered that your mind has been possessed by a serial killer. Worse yet when that killer is kin.

At least we’re still in charge, I tell Val.

Her sigh is jagged. It is fraught with terror.

Hey, Sharon, Archie says. "Sharon? Styx?!?"

I finally hear him as his pitch rises to a near- shout – and he switches to my nickname.

Hey, Archie, I say. Even I hear it. I am dispirited. I try to pep up the next part. How are you today? I manage to say, trying to sound upbeat.

But I can’t manage it and he can tell.

Good old Archie. He is on his feet and closing in, threading his way through close-set workstations to get to mine.

What’s wrong? he asks, putting a warm hand on my left shoulder. Talk to me, Styx. Tell me. He looks into my eyes. "Please."

Is it Jimmy? he asks, his eyes growing wide as if the thought has just crossed his mind – which I am sure it did. Has Jimmy done anything to upset you?

This gets a short bark of a laugh out of me. No, Archie, I reassure him. We had a wonderful time. I pause. Well, I did, at least. Why, did Jimmy say anything to you?

No, no, Styx, Archie reassures me. "I haven’t spoken to him today. He went straight out to a scene this morning. He’s still there for all I know.

So what is it then? You’ve had a rough couple of days, what with your father trying to kill you and all.

He waits. His ebony, almond-shaped eyes are so expressive. He really cares. It’s touching. I feel tears – red hot tears – spring to my eyes.

I can’t let them fall. That would kill him. I do everything in my power to stem the tide.

And I fail. I am crying. Archie’s face blanches and he rushes to the nearest tissue box and pulls out about twenty tissues. He wads them up and hands them to me.

Now he looks like he is going to cry, and this makes me laugh. When he sees me laughing, he starts to laugh.

This makes me laugh harder. I realize I am about to go hysterical on him.

Then Art Banks enters the squad room. Art Banks is the Homicide Division Captain – and our boss.

Styx, Archie, he calls out from the doorway. My office. Now.

I clean up my face as much as I can and throw the sodden wad of tissues into my waste bin. It dissolves almost immediately – definitely before hitting the bottom of the can – and a little hiss of steam escapes over the bin’s rim.

My tears. Dissipating into the air. I like that imagery and decide to hold on to it as we walk the fifty feet or so it takes us to reach Art’s office.

Are you all right? Art asks. He is looking from one to the other of us as if he can’t decide who looks the most disturbed.

We’re fine, Archie and I say at the same time. We turn and give each other a tight smile, then face Art again.

He gives us a sit down hand gesture and walks around his desk to seat himself behind it.

What have you heard about the Walker case? he asks me without preamble.

Nothing, I say.

Art, I haven’t had time to brief Sharon on the case yet, Archie says, obviously flustered. She... he hesitates, looking at me as if he needs my permission to go on.

I got here late today, Art, I said. I apologize. No excuse, sir. I just let time get away from me this morning. It won’t happen again.

See that it doesn’t, Art says quietly. He isn’t looking at me when he speaks. He is looking at Archie. I dare not. Look at Archie, that is.

They are communicating without words. They have been a team for a long time so they can do this.

Archie breaks it off. Art is not satisfied, but he lets it go for now.

Let me recap the Walker case now, if that’s okay, Art? Archie asks.

Art nods. That’s a go-ahead.

Sharon, Archie begins. The crime scene that Jimmy is at as we speak involves the murder of one each Theodore Aaron Walker, age 37, of 121 Hughes Avenue.

Near Fordham? I ask. I try to put some expression into my voice, but it’s still sounding hollow to my own ears.

Yeah. The corner of Hughes and Fordham Road, actually.

OK – got it. So we already know it’s a murder?

Yeah. Mr. Walker was stabbed a number of times. The scene is very wet and wild. It’s a little pocket park just across the street from his residence – an apartment building.

Wet and wild That’s a statement we use instead of Blood and Guts Everywhere.

Any wildlife? I ask. That means suspects. Likely perpetrators. Or fauna? Witnesses. Fauna means witnesses.

Nary a soul, Archie says. The scene was deserted – cold – when Mr. Walker was discovered.

What time of day?

Just going 6AM.

Who found him?

Jogger.

Time of death?

Don’t have the forensics or coroner’s data yet, Archie says, looking at his ‘corder. Says here that the body was cold, so we’re guessing for now that the murder took place in the wee hours of the morning.

Robbery? I ask next. I am getting into it now, and it’s a welcome distraction from my hitchhiker from hell.

Wallet and keys were still on him.

Next of kin?

That’s what I wanted you two for, Art interjects. I need you to notify his next of kin. I need you to interview her as soon as possible.

Her? I ask.

His mother, Art says, looking at his computer screen. He reads from it: "Arlene Andresen, age 56. Same address – his address. They live – lived – together."

I rise and I feel rather than see Archie doing the same. I’ll go, I tell Art and Archie. Archie doesn’t need to waste his time on a simple notification. I can handle it.

If you’re sure, Art responds.

I am sure, Art. Archie is busy. I am not at the moment. I will leave immediately.

Thanks – file your report soonest, yes?

Yes, sir. Will do.

Mrs. Arlene Andresen can hardly get the door to her apartment open. When she finally does, I see that she is doubled over in pain.

What can I do for you? she says, her voice strained. She is squinting in an effort to see me.

She’s only 56 years old? Val asks, stunned out of her silence.

Yeah. Really, I respond. I, too, am shocked at the woman’s appearance.

Mrs. Andresen? I ask. Mrs. Arlene Andresen?

Yes, she says, her voice quavering.

I am Detective Sergeant Sharon Hayes from the Central Bronx Homicide Division, I say, flashing my badge – another piece of that opaque material we insist on calling plastic.

Her eyes go wide – she gasps. Is this about Teddy? she asks, the quavering of her voice becoming even more pronounced.

May we – I mean – may I come in? I ask her. These things are not handled well from hallways or stairwells.

Yes, of course. Come in, she invites, opening the door wide enough to admit me.

I have to find my glasses, she mutters, scuttling off into another room. When she returns a moment later, she is sporting some thick spectacles.

They are powder blue with silver pinstripes, and are the style we used to call Cadillac Rims – you know, with fins?

Wild, I say internally for Val’s enjoyment.

She titters a bit in response, does Val.

Please sit down, Arlene Andresen says. She leads me to a small tidy living room with a settee, side chair and television set in it.

We sit.

Is this about Teddy? she repeats. Now there is less quaver and more anxiety in her voice. She has also lost the look of pain she had earlier. Now she sits comfortably, despite her obvious worry.

Mrs. Andresen, I regret to inform you that Mr. Theodore Aaron Walker was found dead this morning at approximately 6 AM. His body was discovered by a neighbor out for a jog. I pause to allow her to absorb what I’ve just told her. She is just looking at me, a range of conflicting expressions on her face.

Your son’s body was found in the little park just across the street from your apartment building, I continue. It’s murder, Mrs. Andresen, I say, holding her gaze in my own. Your son was murdered.

I knew it, she whispers. "I knew his life force was gone. I could feel it."

She had dropped her head to deliver this utterance, but now picks it back up again to look me directly in the eyes.

I knew it, I tell you, she says with force. "Just like I can tell about you. I can feel that you have other life forces inside of you. Three of them." She pauses and closes her eyes, appearing to lapse into a trance of some kind.

Yes, she says, opening her eyes and smiling a little satisfied smile. Three.

I am too stunned to reply. I sit there with my jaw agape, just staring at her. I can hear Val hyperventilating – or that’s how it sounds.

My father is apparently laying low. I can’t hear him at all.

Three, she said. That must mean that my father has his other self still with him That god. The one with horns and bloody fangs.

Horrors.

I feel the other lady’s hands on mine. She is cooing something comforting. There, there, she is saying. I am sorry to shock you, dear. I can’t help it. She releases my hands and takes three steps back to the chair she had been using. It’s a curse – or a gift. I’ve had it since I was a young girl.

She sits back in her chair. Our physical contact is broken. I can still feel the warmth of her soft old hands on my skin.

I can tell you one other thing, she says, all signs of weakness now banished. Two out of the three of your passengers are evil sons of bitches.

She settles further into her chair, her arms crossed in her lap.

Tea? she asks.

What? I grunt. I really didn’t hear her.

Would you like some tea, dear?

Uh, no, thank you, Mrs. Andresen, I manage to choke out. "I am afraid I need to