The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told Read Online Free Page A

No reprieves, and no time off for good behaviour.”
    â€œHow did you get this job?” said Ms. Fate.
    â€œI think I must have done something really bad in a previous existence,” the Governor said grandly. “Cosmic payback can be such a bitch.”
    â€œYou got this job because you got caught,” I said.
    The Governor scowled. “Yes, well . . . It’s not that I did anything really bad . . .”
    â€œMs. Fate,” I said, “Allow me to introduce to you Charles Peace, villain from a long line of villains. Burglar, thief, and snapper up of anything valuable not actually nailed down. Safes opened while you wait.”
    â€œThat was my downfall,” the Governor admitted. “I opened Walker’s safe, you see; just for the challenge of it. And I saw something I really shouldn’t have seen. Something no one was ever supposed to see. I ran, of course, but the Detective tracked me down and brought me back, and Walker gave me a choice. On the spot execution, or serve here as Governor until what I know becomes obsolete, and doesn’t matter any more. That was seventeen years ago, and there isn’t a day goes by where I don’t wonder whether I made the right decision.”
    â€œSeventeen years?” said Ms. Fate. She always did have a soft spot for a hard-luck story.
    â€œSeventeen years, four months, and three days,” said the Governor. “Not that I obsess about it, you understand.”
    â€œIs Shock-Headed Peter still here?” I said bluntly. “There’s no chance he could have got out?”
    â€œOf course not! I did the rounds only an hour ago, and his cell is still sealed. Come on, Detective; if Shock-Headed Peter was on the loose in the Nightside again, we’d all know about it.”
    â€œWho else have you got down here?” said Ms. Fate. “Anyone . . . famous?”
    â€œOh, quite a few; certainly some names you’d recognise. Let’s see; we have the Murder Masques, Sweet Annie Abattoir, Max Maxwell the Voodoo Apostate, Maggie Malign . . . But they’re all quite secure, too, I can assure you.”
    â€œI just needed to be sure this place is as secure as it’s supposed to be,” said Ms. Fate. “You’d better prepare a new cell, Governor; because I’ve brought you a new prisoner.”
    And she looked at me.
    I rose to my feet, and so did she. We stood looking at each other for a long moment.
    â€œI’m sorry, Sam,” she said. “But it’s you. You’re the murderer.”
    â€œHave you gone mad?” I said.
    â€œYou gave yourself away, Sam,” she said, meeting my gaze squarely with her own. “That’s why I had you bring me here to Shadow Deep, where you belong. Where even you can’t get away.”
    â€œWhat makes you think it was me?” I said.
    â€œYou knew things you shouldn’t have known. Things only the killer could have known. First, at the Library. That anthropology text was a dry, stuffy and very academic text. Very difficult for a layman to read and understand. But you just skimmed through it and then neatly summed up the whole concept. The only way you could have done that was if you’d known it in advance. That raised my suspicions, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to be wrong about you.
    â€œBut you did it again, at the autopsy. First, you knew that the heart had been removed before the liver. Dr. West hadn’t worked that out yet, because the body’s insides were such a mess. Second; when I asked you to name the victims in order, you named them all, including the werewolf. Who hasn’t been identified yet. Dr West still had him down as a John Doe.
    â€œSo; it had to be you. Why, Sam? Why?”
    â€œBecause they were going to make me retire,” I said. It was actually a relief, to be able to tell it to someone. “Take away my job, my reason for living, just because I’m not as young as I