“John. . . .” he began again.
“You gave me a week to clean this up, Wally. Hold the brass back for that week and I’ll do just that. Have I ever let you down before?”
“No. But you’ve never gone off the deep end before, either.”
“Do you really believe that?” Tucker asked softly.
He held Madison’s gaze until the Superintendant looked away.
“No,” Madison said slowly. “I don’t believe it. Only . . .”
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Tucker said. “You don’t think it haunts me? You don’t think I feel like I’m setting myself up for a nice long stay in the san’?”
“Okay,” Madison said. “But the brass . . .”
“Stall them. You find out how Hogue got his job. Can you do that?”
“It’s not in his file?”
Tucker shook his head. “Just his credentials and some background data. Nothing on how he was contacted, who sponsored him—that sort of thing.”
“I’ll find out. And in the meantime, what’ll you be doing?”
“Me? First off, I’m going to have a talk with whoever’s replacing Hogue. You got a name for me?”
Madison pushed aside some files and came up with a sheet that he handed to Tucker.
“Three of them,” he said. “Two more researchers—one retired—and an ex-Air Force man who’s been specializing in debunking UFO sightings.”
“Are you serious?”
Madison smiled. “What’s the matter? Don’t UFOs fit in with your wizards?”
“Spare me.”
“All right. Colonel Chambers isn’t even being seriously considered. His name’s there to keep the military brass happy.”
“That leaves us with the two doctors—Gordon and Traupman. Traupman’s retired, so—”
“Not so fast, John. If it was up to me, I’d take Traupman. He’s unorthodox—which is what you need right about now. Someone a little twisted. Like yourself.” The last was said with a grin. “He had somewhat of a reputation as a ghost hunter in his time. He’s written three books—two treatises and one best-seller.”
“What was that called?”
“The Last Mistress—shlock horror.”
“Guy sounds perfect. Seriously, Wally. . . .”
“I am being serious. From his file, Richard Traupman’s our man. Gordon’s a recent McGill graduate—a lot of talk, no experience.”
“How come you’ve got his name then?”
“Williams has been priming him,” Madison said.
“And you want Traupman. You think the Solicitor General’s going to go for him when he’s got his own boy?”
Madison shrugged. “He’s leaning for Gordon, but I think I can convince him to go with Traupman.”
Tucker thought about it for a moment. Which of them did he want to work with? Hard to say. All he really wanted was to be done with this project and get away for awhile. He glanced at his watch. Getting on to three. He wondered if Maggie was finished in court yet, then shook his head. First things first.
“Have you got addresses for them?” he asked.
“Dr. Gordon still lives in Montreal,” Madison replied. “Dr. Traupman has a house in Alta Vista.”
Tucker sighed. “So much for a late lunch with Maggie.”
“Hey! Are you and Maggie getting back together?”
“Not exactly. But we’re working on it.” He frowned. “This guy Traupman. Does he know he’s being considered for this position?”
“He was aware of the possibility when we were setting up the PRB.”
“Okay. Guess I’ll drop in on him and see what he’s got to say about spooks and stiffs that turn into garbage. How’s it going with the reporters?”
Madison shrugged. “We dummied up some witnesses for them—real talkers. It’s keeping them busy.”
“Well, that’s something.” Tucker got up and headed for the door. “You know, Wally,” he added, pausing at the doorway to look back. “Sometimes it feels like we’re living in the middle of a comic book. You know what I mean?”
“All too well.”
“Thing I always ask,” Tucker said, “is where’s Superman when you need him?”
He let the door swing shut before Madison could reply.
In the Postman’s Room, Jamie sat at Memoria’s terminal, the screen blank as he rearranged for the hundredth time the artifacts that Sara had found. The bone disc and ring were gone, but everything else was still here. The painting was propped up on one side of his desk. On his blotter, laid out in a neat row, were the pouch and its contents. Fox’s claw. Bundle of feathers. Threaded corn kernels. A rounded pebble. In a pile beside them were computer printouts detailing each Weirdin bone and the information that Tom had entered with them.
Closing his eyes, he leaned forward on the desk. In the hall outside his study, he could hear Blue explaining the workings of his rifle to Sally. “You might need to know,” Blue was saying.
“I know how to shoot a rifle,” Sally protested. “My dad taught me when I was seventeen. It’s just that if I tried to fire that thing, it’d probably take my shoulder off. What’re you doing with it anyway? I thought you told me you’d given up this kind of thing.”
“Well, I did. Only you don’t throw out something like this. I just keep it in the closet, you know. In case.”
Neither of them needed to say in case of what.
Sighing, Jamie gathered up the artifacts and replaced them in their pouch. He picked up the painting and stared at it for a long moment. Looking at the incredible detailing of the brushstrokes, it was easier to believe that it was magicked into existence as Tom said it had been than that someone had actually sat down and painted it. Harper and shaman. Taliesin and . . . it took him a moment to remember the Indian’s name. A’wa’rathe.
Taliesin didn’t look like a threat—not in the painting. And he certainly didn’t resemble that creature at the door this morning. Tom’s words came back to him. “Every rose hides a thorn . . .”
Wherever Sara was, he hoped it was a million miles from the harper. Sara. Not knowing what was happening to her was what tore him up the most. With the shape Tom was in. . . . He’d been going to find her and . . .
“Any improvement?” he called to Blue.
“Nothing yet, Jamie.”
The biker and Sally were sitting in the hall. From where they sat they had a clear view of both the Postman’s Room and Gramarye’s Clover beside it where they’d laid Tom out on the big four-poster bed. Jamie stood up from his desk and, stretching his shoulder muscles, walked to the other room to have a look for himself. The wound on Tom’s face was mostly white scar tissue now. With the blood swabbed away, he appeared to be merely sleeping, not mortally hurt as he’d seemed when Jamie first found him. His breathing was steady, but there was still no color in his face. It was a dead man’s face, Jamie thought uncomfortably—a mask of white skin stretched taut over his brow and cheekbones.
Jamie looked down at Tom for a long time, then slowly turned and left the room. At his desk again, he activated Memoria’s viewscreen and punched in a request for new data. The computer hummed as it gathered the requested information, spitting it out in neat lines on the screen. He had the key now, Jamie thought. Tom had told him that much. It was there in the weirdin. Now all he had to do was find the right combination of symbols that would unlock his understanding of it all. Shouldn’t be hard. He’d already been at it for thirty-odd years. He had a head start, hadn’t he?
Frowning, Jamie returned his concentration to the matter at hand. He felt the walls of the room, the entire bulk of Tamson House, lean closer to study it with him. It was a queer, but comforting sensation.
Traupman’s house was a plain red brick bungalow, long and rambling. The front yard was cut off from Chomley Crescent by a neatly trimmed cedar hedge, and the lawn between it and the house would have put a golf course to shame. Tucker pulled his Buick into the lane, parked it behind an ‘81 VW Rabb
it, and admired the yard. The flowerbeds alongside the house were bare now in preparation for the winter. Leaning up against the wall of the house were wooden covers for the shrubberies that stood guard on either side of the front door.
Whatever else might be said of him, Tucker decided, Traupman was an organized man.
He met Tucker at the door and his appearance strengthened the Inspector’s earlier thought. At sixty-six, Richard Traupman still had a full head of hair and a thick walrus moustache that hung over his mouth. The perfect fit of his tweed jacket and trousers made Tucker feel like a cheap hood.
“Good of you to see me on such short notice, Dr. Traupman,” he said. “I hope I haven’t disturbed you?”
“Not at all, Inspector. Come in. And please, call me Dick.”
Tucker nodded and stuck out his hand. “John Tucker,” he said.
Traupman’s handshake was firm.
They went through a short hall into a living room that was more a combination library/study than a place to receive guests. Floor to ceiling bookcases lined one wall. Beside them was a broad government-styled oak desk, beside it a battery of file drawers. A worktable cut the room in two. Spread across it were what looked like the pages from a book, dozens of neat stacks of them.
“A book of verse,” Traupman said. “I decided to cut down costs and collate it myself. Do you read poetry, John?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Thank you. Please have a seat. Can I get you a drink? Or some coffee?”
“Coffee’d be fine.”
While he was out of the room, Tucker sauntered over to the worktable and had a look at the poetry. He read a line here and there, but couldn’t make a lot of sense out of any of it. That was the trouble with poems. It seemed you had to have a doctorate just to understand the references. Still. Some of it had a nice ring to it.
. . . like Manjushri, I have met death,
and bear my own victory,
though not a sword . . .
Nice. Yeah. If you knew what the hell it meant.
“Been doing this long?” he asked, when Traupman returned.
“The poetry? Yes. But mostly for myself and what friends I have left. This is my first published effort, self-published at that, as the editor who bought The Last Mistress wouldn’t touch it. He wants the new novel that’s been overdue since September. I realize I’ve been lax about it, but at my age one learns to take things as they come. It seemed more important to see these poems in print. They, unlike a novel, seem a more fitting epitaph.”
Tucker nodded and pointed to the line he’d just read. “What’s this mean?”
“Manjushri was one of the Bodhisattvas,” Traupman explained. “A Buddha-to-be, as it were. He was reputed to have conquered Yama, the god of death, and bore a sword in his hand as a memory of his victory. In the context of the poem, I am using him as an analogy to myself. Presumptuous, but it seemed fitting at the time.”
“You mean you’ve conquered death by living to the age you are now?”
Traupman smiled. “That’s one way of looking at it. But no. I’m referring to the fact that so many of my friends and colleagues have passed on. So I have met death, but not conquered him. For I’ll die too, when my time comes. Hence I bear no sword.”
“I never would have got that out of it,” Tucker said.
“It takes work. But enough of my versifications. How can I help you?”
Tucker thought about that for a moment. “It’s almost as complex as what you’ve just explained to me. Are you familiar with the PRB—the Paranormal Research Branch?”
“Vaguely. I was approached by a Superintendent Madison a year or so ago and asked if I would be willing to help out from time to time if my particular expertise was called for. Since then I’ve heard nothing.”
“Well,” Tucker said tiredly, “your expertise is damn well needed now. Let me lay out the problem for you and, if you believe even half of it, maybe you can give me an opinion on it. Okay?”
“Is this privileged information? If so, I’m not sure that—”
“You’re cleared, if that was what you were worrying about. You were cleared before you were even approached.”
“Do I have to swear some sort of oath now?” Traupman asked. He seemed amused by the idea. Tucker smiled with him, but thought of how he’d opened up to Gagnon with nothing but a handshake to keep the ADM quiet. Madison would have his balls if he heard about that.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “But if you could keep it to yourself, it’d be appreciated. You know you’re being considered to head up the project now?”
Traupman’s eyebrows lifted quizzically.
“Anyway, this is what we’ve got, Dick.”
Traupman was a good listener. He heard the story through, backtracking once or twice to have some point cleared up, saving his own commentary for the end. Tucker liked that.
“Are we nuts, or what?” Tucker asked him when he was through.
Traupman shook his head slowly. “It all sounds so . . . impossible. I was under the impression that the PRB was involved in paranormal research—hence its name. By that I assumed it would primarily be studies of telepathy, telekinetics . . . that sort of thing. But this. . . .” He said nothing for a moment, his eyes looking inward. Then he asked: “Why was the whole project centered around the one man, this Thomas Hengwr?”
“We had a lot of people in—primarily as controls. Hengwr was supposed to be the real thing.”
“Yes. But the manner in which he was handled. . . .”
“Tell me about it. But that’s past history now. What I have to know now is, where do we go from here? And are you willing to help?”
“I . . .” Traupman looked at his desk, then his worktable. “Normally I’d say no, but what you’ve told me is simply too fascinating to ignore—though heading up the project seems a trifle much to expect.”
“Whether you head it up or not, I could still use your help.” Tucker decided that he liked this old man. If only they’d had someone like him running the project from the first, instead of that hotshot Hogue. . . .
“I suppose,” Traupman said, “that the first item on the agenda would be to discover the validity of what Jamie Tams has told you—though how we might accomplish that is beyond me.”
“Well, maybe we could go out and talk to him. What do you think?”
“I think it’s an admirable suggestion. I—Lord! I must say that I’m excited. I’ve dabbled in this field for so many years. But now . . . Just imagine if it could be proved that paranormal abilities did exist!”
Tucker smiled. “Feeling like what’s-his-name again?”
“Manjushri. But yes. You’re right.” Traupman regarded the Inspector thoughtfully. “I think I will enjoy working with you, John.”
“Well, let’s go see if the feeling’s mutual.” Tucker looked at his watch and stood. “Mind if I use your phone?” he asked.
“Not at all. I’ll get my coat.”
Tucker got through to the Court House on Nicholas, but had to leave a message for Maggie as she was still closeted with her client. The case had been adjourned to the following day, which meant she’d probably be working late on it anyway. Still, there was no harm in trying. He left the number he had for Tamson House, hoping he wouldn’t have to go looking for a phone on his own if she called. Traupman was waiting for him as he cradled the receiver.
“Jamie?” Blue called from the hall.
Jamie looked up from the viewscreen and turned. “Mmm?”
“Fred says that Tucker just pulled up. He’s got some old white-haired guy in the car with him. Think it’s a shrink?”
“Lord knows we could use one.”
Jamie switched off the viewscreen, leaving Memoria to continue the program he’d entered.
“What do we do with Thomas Hengwr?” Blue asked.
Jamie’d been wondering the same thing. Make a clean breast of it? What if the I
nspector wanted another tour? Why in God’s name were they hiding Tom anyway? Because, the reply came, he was their only link to Sara.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Play it by ear?”
“And lose our heads?”
“What?”
Blue sighed. “Don’t mind me,” he said, and hummed the line about paranoia from the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth.”
Standing beside him, Jamie laid a hand on the younger man’s arm.
“It’s getting to you, too, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Damn right. When I think of Sara . . .”
“I think we should just hand him over,” Sally said, joining them in the doorway. “The police are set up to handle this sort of thing.”
Blue shook his head. “No way the cops are set up to handle anything this weird.”
“And we are?”
“There’s no clear answer,” Jamie said. “Let’s just go down and see what the Inspector wants this time. Sally, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay up here and keep an eye on Tom. And Blue?”
“Yeah?”
Jamie pointed to the rifle leaning against the wall.
“Maybe you should put that away,” he said.
“It’s already done,” Blue said and, hefting the weapon, brought it into the study. He looked around, shrugged, then propped it up between two bookcases.
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” Jamie said as he entered the kitchen. He glanced at Traupman. “And this is?”
“Dr. Richard Traupman.”
Jamie smiled, recognizing the name. “A pleasure, doctor.”
“Entirely mine, Mr. Tams. I’ve read your work on African myths in Archaeology Today.”
“Traupman?” Blue mused aloud. “Did you write that book—what was it called? The Last Mistress?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“No shit? I mean, that was a good read. I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t know you lived in Ottawa.”
Traupman spread his hands. “I’m surprised to be recognized.”
“Thing I was wondering,” Blue said, “is when Shaw has that chance to take Chanter when he’s human—”
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