We expected to see a trashed apartment when we arrived at Mary’s, but we never expected to see Mary herself in such horrific condition. Her clothes were drenched in sweat, her hair was completely disheveled and her eyes were teary and bloodshot. The place stank as though old gym clothes were left in piles for days gathering mold and mildew. Mary too smelled of perspiration and could barely speak when we entered the apartment. She said that this was the worst event yet. After her home had been violently tossed by the bizarre eruptions, the entity appeared. “I saw terrible faces in the mirrors…they were sickly pale and looked at me with dreadful eyes. The cold stares were unbearable, I was paralyzed by the stares but I couldn’t move,” Mary said. Then she said that the thing actually spoke to her in full sentences. In an eerie moan that rang of despair and hatred it demanded that she pay for “the heinous heartache and damages of the whoremongers.” “It yelled at me. It said that I was the ‘caretaker of sorrow’ and that it was the Montrose’s who killed its family. It said it was a slave of the house, but did not deserve to lose its loved ones because of a greedy landholder,” Mary told us.
Silvana and I were extremely troubled and rendered speechless by what we heard. But at least now we had some clues. We left Mary’s assuring her that we would be able to help, and in fact as we left it occurred to me that whatever spooked Mary – even if it was her own imagination – it sounded as though there was a link between the café and Mary’s family that we could use to make sense out of this case. The use of the word “landholder,” stuck in my mind. I remember reading it used as New York slang in the late 18th century to describe what we more commonly know as a “landlord,” or real estate owner. When I mentioned this to Silvana she suggested that we check the city records to see if the building that housed the Velvet Room café had any link to Mary’s family.
Sure enough, at the New York Building Department’s Bureau of Records in Manhattan we discovered the connection. Mary’s family, the Montroses, owned quite a bit of real estate on the east side of Manhattan and from what we could discern from the old records, one of her ancestors owned the very building plot that housed the café. After searching microfiche newspaper pages from that era we discovered that the Montrose House, as it was called, originally a refuge for the destitute, became a “bawdy house,” or brothel after its owner Murdoch Montrose evicted the shelter’s operator. It was reported that Montrose tossed the former tenants into the street who included a caretaker, his wife and six children. After some more digging we found newspaper accounts about the caretaker being arrested after he assaulted Murdoch Montrose in a street brawl. Apparently some of his children died as a result of their homelessness and the caretaker went berserk. We also discovered that the caretaker was later released from jail and returned to the brothel, violently confronted Murdoch once again and was ultimately shot dead by one of Murdoch’s henchmen. It was evident to us by the newspaper clippings that Murdoch’s motivation was obviously greed as the ghost had said to Mary. It was also evident that Mary Montrose was now suffering a curse levied on her ancestors over 200 years ago.
Now we knew that when Mary entered the Velvet Room café she set the spirit off. Somehow it knew she was a blood relative and it was determined to wreak revenge. We phoned Mary immediately and told her what we uncovered about her family’s involvement with the café and that if we could perform a ceremony, perhaps a séance or exorcism using Silvana as a medium, we could offer some kind of help to mend the Montrose curse and release the spirit. We thought it best to conduct the séance in the café itself and that we’d call Langley the next morning to set up an appointment for us to visit.
The cafe normally opened early to cater to the breakfast crowd but oddly enough no one answered the telephone when we called. When we tried three times later after 10AM and there was still no answer, Silvana and I decided to ride down to see Langley for ourselves. “It will be better to talk first to him directly about matters so strange,” Silvana said to me in her “AmeriCzech” accent.
But about three blocks away from the café we were trapped in traffic, not atypical for midtown Manhattan. But I didn’t like the look in Silvana’s eyes as we came to a dead stop. She turned her head toward me, and before she could utter a word I said, “Let’s get out and walk.” We started down the block and we could see the problem up ahead - fire trucks and emergency vehicles blocked the entire street. At first I thought, I hoped, that it wasn’t what I suspected. But Silvana’s walk, now turned into a trot, confirmed the worst. She was ahead of me yelling, “Robert, the café, it has burned down!”
We managed to find Langley, seriously distraught, and called him over to us outside of the fire lines. He said that his store mysteriously caught fire last evening and it was destroyed and that the building would probably have to be demolished. He rambled on about his losses and his business woes and then added, “And oh yeah, that crazy woman was by here this morning too. She just stared and smiled…nuts!”
Later we visited Mary and we were surprised to see her in good spirits. Actually, she was better than we had ever seen her. She of course knew that the café had burned down and said that she felt “relieved.” “You both made me realize the heartache my ancestors were responsible for and I am truly sorry. I believe that family’s past regressions were somehow purged in the flames of the fire last night. The ghost was obviously happy that the place burned down and I feel it will never bother me again. I sincerely thank you both for your compassion and help. And of course…please bill me whatever the cost.”
As Silvana and I turned to leave the apartment we were happy to know that at least Mary was now satisfied that the curse was lifted. But we couldn’t explain the coincidental burning of the store just when we were about to perform the exorcism and séance. We also couldn’t explain the sudden calm in Mary’s demeanor. Silvana, more than I, was particularly observant about Mary’s attitude and she told me that she was shocked to see that Mary wasn’t wearing the priceless initial “M” diamond brooch she wore constantly. She politely asked Mary where the brooch was because she was so fond of seeing it on her. Mary answered Silvana quite matter-of-factly; “Oh I think I may have lost it…perhaps at the café during one of my episodes. It was much too ostentatious anyway. It’s probably burned and lost in the fire now. I won’t miss it much. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. Wouldn’t you agree?” Mary asked smiling.
EPILOGUE
The cause of the Velvet Room café fire was never discovered, although according to New York Fire Department records, arson was not ruled out. Langley was not a suspect and insurance fraud was ruled out because there was no obvious motive – the business was doing well.
We phoned Mary Montrose some months later and asked if her paranormal experiences were truly over. She said everything was fine and she was completely free of any odd occurrences. She mentioned that she had contacted Langley about rebuilding on his now burned out lot. “Oddly enough,” she said, “Each time he planned to rebuild his business on the land something inevitably queered the operation. It didn’t surprise me however. So I’m investing and we agreed to build a community center. Langley’s happy with that. He told me that he could sleep nights again. Seems he was having some difficulty,” Mary said.
CHAPTER 2 – NORMA VASQUEZ’S AFTERLIFE DETECTIVE
Paul Vasquez was cheating on his wife Norma for nearly two years and like most low lives he thought he’d never be caught – especially not by his father-in-law who had died four years before the couple was ever married.
The young Bronx mother of three knew that Paul was having a torrid affair with another woman, ruining her marital relations and causing her family great distress. The problem was that each time Norma confronted her husband he flatly denied any wrongdoing, and when pressed on the issue either completely ignored Norma or became so agitated that she became fearful that he might become violent. In fact, the situation got so out of hand that she could no longer