Goodlow's Ghosts

by Wright, T. M.

  "I wasn't going to call you, Mr. Biergarten. I really don't believe in any of this supernatural mumbo jumbo. But I'm desperate, and desperate people—"

  "Where are you calling from?" Ryerson cut in; he wanted to get Lutz back to the point.

  "Where am I calling from?" Lutz seemed surprised. "I'm calling from home. Is that important?"

  "Did your wife disappear there? Was she at home when you last saw her?

  "Not exactly." He paused. "Listen, why are you asking these questions? Have you decided to help us?"

  "I've decided nothing, Mr. Lutz." Ryerson received phone calls about missing people at least once a week. "You say you've contacted the police?"

  "That's right. They don't know where to begin. I told you that. I mean, there's someone out there at this very moment, but he's simply going over the same ground again and again—"

  "The place where your wife disappeared, you mean?"

  "Of course." Lutz paused. "Mr. Biergarten, I have to tell you that you're not filling me with optimism. You seem to be picking up nothing at all from me. I was hoping that you had at least read about Stevie's disappearance in the newspaper."

  "No, Mr. Lutz."

  "Don't you read the newspaper, Mr. Biergarten?"

  The man was trying Ryerson's patience; Ryerson could hear the desperation in the man's voice, but he—Ryersonhad found that working with someone he disliked was a barrier to his psychic abilities. Ryerson said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Lutz, but you may have expected too much from me. Perhaps it's in your best interests, and in the best interests of your wife, to trust the police in this matter."

  "That's probably good advice," Lutz said, and hung up.

  ~ * ~

  Sam Goodlow thought, Yes. It's true. It must be. I'm dead. Gone. Deceased Departed. Stiff Kaput.

  But if that were really true, it wasn't so bad. He was comfortable. He was in familiar surroundings. He felt as if he had found exactly the right position for sleep, had eaten well and was sated, had no needs. What better way was there to be? No heaven, no hell. Only comfort and satiation for all that was left of time.

  He wondered why he still had a body. Weren't bodies designed simply for the use of the spirit? And wasn't he simply spirit, now? So what was he doing with a body attached?

  He wondered if it were someone else's body and he was possessing it. The idea frightened him. Someone else's consciousness, soul, and psyche could be lurking behind his. It was creepy. He shuddered.

  Who was he, he wondered, and why was he dead?

  Was he dead?

  Was he alive? If there were any real way of knowing, shouldn't he know? Was his name really Sam Goodlow, and, if so, what did it mean?

  Was his hair really as red as it looked reflected in the window, or was that some trick of the light?

  Could he be Irish?

  What talents did he have that he might make use of now?

  Now?

  And if he had talents, had he always used them?

  Did he dream?

  Was he sleeping? Was he alive and sleeping? Dead and sleeping?

  Why did he feel wet?

  Were his eyes as green as they looked reflected in the window? Did he need to blink? If so, why? Was there a biological reason for it? Did he have a biology? Were there guts inside him? Could he bleed? Sneeze? Fall down and break something?

  Was there anything to break?

  Could he experience pain?

  Pain?

  Suddenly, he felt exhausted.

  ~ * ~

  "I'm sorry I hung up like that," Jack Lutz said over the phone. "I . . . lose myself sometimes. I'm sure you understand, Mr. Biergarten."

  Ryerson thought he heard the hint of an apology in Lutz's tone, but it was clear that the man was not accustomed to apologizing.

  Ryerson said, "Is someone from the police department with you now, Mr. Lutz?"

  "You mean right now? No. They've gone."

  "Could you tell me the name of the officer assigned to you, then?"

  There was a moment's pause, then Lutz said, "It's a woman. She's a lieutenant, I think. Tall woman, dresses well, attractive, but I'm afraid I don't remember—"

  "Her name's Lenore Wilson," Ryerson cut in.

  "Yes," Lutz said. "That's right."

  "She's very capable, Mr. Lutz. I've worked with her on number of occasions—"

  "She thinks that Stevie's been murdered, Mr. Biergarten. I think she even believes that I had something to do with it."

  Ryerson gave a moment to silence. Then he asked, "Did you?"

  "No." Lutz's answer was quick, without hesitation. "Stevie and I were on a walk, she went into a little . . . hunter's cabin, I guess you'd call it, and then she was gone. I told them that—the police—and they didn't believe me."

  "Are you being charged?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so. Wouldn't they tell me if they were going to charge me, Mr. Biergarten?"

  "How long has your wife been missing?"

  A short pause. "Two days. She disappeared Wednesday morning. I called the police almost immediately."

  "You looked for her?"

  "Of course I looked for her. I tore that damned place part, Mr. Biergarten. I looked outside. I looked everywhere. Then I called the police and they came over right way."

  "They didn't tell you that you had to wait forty-eight hours before filing a missing persons report?"

  "Mr. Biergarten"—he sounded exasperated—"it wasn't s if she went out to the store and didn't come back. I was with her, for God's sake. She went into that hunter's cabin and she didn't come out. The cops thought that was pretty unusual. In retrospect, I suppose they thought I was lying—"

  "Could you give me your address, Mr. Lutz."

  Another short pause. "You're going to help me?"

  "I'd like to have a look at this hunter's cabin myself, if that's all right."

  Lutz said, "Of course it is," and gave Ryerson his address.

  ~ * ~

  This, thought Stevie Lutz, was a very good place to be, this place of her childhood, and she did not stop to wonder how she had gotten here.

  Being here was gift enough.

  Here was her mother and father, her little dog, her house in the country—a sad gray mist surrounded it—the pond she swam in, the clear blue sky, and the smells—hay newly mown, pine tar, and, underlying, the tangy smell of the earth itself, the odor of clay.

  And there she was—twelve years old, cocky and swaggering in jeans and flannel shirt, looking tough and rural and able to take care of herself as well as anyone.

  She frowned. Jack had come into her life during her twelfth year.

  A woman appeared from the gray mist that surrounded the house. The woman walked quickly, purposefully, and as she approached, Stevie could see that her eyes were large, brown, and beguiling, and Stevie remembered the other woman who had also appeared from the mist, and had left her light-headed—that woman had been tall, black haired, large breasted.

  This woman carried a book in her hand.

  "Who are you?" Stevie said.

  The woman did not answer. Her beguiling smile tightened. She still walked quickly, with purpose.

  "Stay away from me!" Stevie shouted.

  "It's so good you've come here to us," the woman said. She was within arm's reach, and the sad gray mist that surrounded the house had advanced with her so that now the house, the pond, the little dog, the twelve-year-old in jeans and flannel shirt, were gone.

  "Stay away!" Stevie shouted.

  But the woman walked into her. Through her.

  NINE

  “Nobody's going to go up there?" said the woman whom some knew as Violet McCartle to the big man standing in the archway between the living room and foyer. "Of course someone's going to go up there. When they inspect a house, they inspect everything."

  The big man frowned. "So what you're saying is, I have to go up there, right?"

  "Precisely."

  He sighed. "I'd rather not do that. I mean,
you know what's up there."

  "Yes, I do. And I understand your reticence. But you put it there, against my wishes, so you have to bring it down and put it somewhere else."

  "Like where?"

  "That's not my decision, is it? I must say, however, that it was abominably stupid of you to bring it here in the first place."

  "I figured this was the best place," protested the big man. "You wanted it to look like a disappearance."

  "We've had this discussion before. I'm simply telling you that I want that thing moved before the week is out, is that clear?"

  The big man looked miserable. "Sure. It's clear."

  ~ * ~

  It took Jack Lutz and Ryerson twenty minutes to hike to the area of the hunter's cabin, where Stevie had last been seen. Lutz pointed at the roof, visible above the weeds. "There it is, Mr. Biergarten. It's not locked; at least I don't believe it is. It's possible that the police put some kind of lock on it, I don't know. If they did, then there's no way in." He paused. "I can't go over there. I'm sure you understand."

  "I do," Ryerson said.

  Lutz looked surprised. "Do you?" He squinted up at Ryerson because the sun was in his eyes. "I've got to get back to the house," he continued. He seemed very agitated. "I'm sorry, Mr. Biergarten. I can't stay here with you. You'll be able to find your way back, won't you?"

  Ryerson said, "I'll be all right, Mr. Lutz. I'll be able to find my way."

  "Of course you will," Lutz said vaguely. He glanced at the cabin's roof again, then, without another word, started back to his house.

  ~ * ~

  Ryerson found that there was no lock, only a yellow ribbon marked CRIME SCENE—DO NOT ENTER across the cabin's only door. He pushed the door open and stepped under the ribbon, into the cabin. The door swung shut behind him. He reached, pulled it open again, looked for a light switch. There was none. He pulled the door open all the way, so it stood against the front wall.

  He noticed the smell, here. The smell of the ocean. Salt air. Fish. And, beneath it, a tangy, earthy smell that he couldn't place. The mixture of smells wasn't cloying or off-putting. It was unusual, out-of-place, and he thought it might not be a part of the atmosphere of the little structure at all. Perhaps it was wafting in from outside, although the ocean was several dozen miles east.

  There were no windows here and Ryerson found this not only odd but discomforting. Perhaps this wasn't a hunter's cabin after all. Perhaps it was merely a storage shed.

  Except for a chair, it was unfurnished and empty. The floor was made of dirt. He looked at it. The dirt—in what sunlight filtered in from outside—was very dark. He bent over, touched it, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. The dirt was smooth and soft, like pudding. There was no graininess to it. Odd, he thought.

  A long rectangular patch of bright sunlight illuminated it and, ironically, made it difficult to see, because of the near total darkness in the rest of the place.

  He got down on one knee and saw that there were no footprints in the dirt, not even his own.

  He swept his hand lightly over it. Marks appeared in it from his fingers, but then, in moments, were gone, as if he were sweeping his hand over the surface of a pond.

  He straightened. He felt dizzy; his footing was suddenly uncertain, as if he were on an invisible tightrope.

  He needed to leave this place. He felt unsafe in it.

  He lurched forward, toward the door, toward the daylight, but got nowhere. As he approached the open doorway—as he put one foot in front of the other—he got no closer to it. The doorway was nearly close enough to touch; he thought that he could leap through it. But he was stuck. His feet moved, he had forward motion, but he thought that he might as well be trying to move closer to a mirage.

  He stopped moving. He was still dizzy, and he knew its source, now. Uncertainty. This place was an illusion—the walls, the doorway, the dirt. It existed only because he thought that it existed, because it insinuated itself on him.

  It was a mirage, an illusion, and he was stuck in it. And whatever the reality was here, he was stuck in it, too.

  Or it was holding him.

  ~ * ~

  Sam Goodlow woke on his little green cot in his office on the south side of Boston and knew that he was dead.

  There were no two ways about it. He was dead, and he was still on the earth, and regardless of the fact that things were not supposed to be this way, it was the way that things had turned out, and he knew—without knowing why he knew—that there was nothing he could do about it.

  He was on the earth. He was stuck here, something was keeping him here. He could feel it. It was like a physical weight, a strong hand on the top of his head holding him down.

  He sat up on his green cot and swung his feet around to the floor. They hit with a satisfying whump. He smiled.

  He opened his hands and brought them sharply together. They made a clapping noise.

  He smiled again. "Good," he whispered.

  He had things to do. And sooner or later he thought he would find out what those things were.

  ~ * ~

  "Mr. Biergarten?" Ryerson heard from outside the cabin.

  Ryerson called back, "Stay away. Don't come in here, Mr. Lutz."

  "What's wrong?" Lutz called.

  Ryerson stared hard into the tall sunlit grasses beyond the doorway. He hoped to see Jack Lutz. The man would be an anchor for him, a real part of the real world that he—Ryerson—usually inhabited and so badly needed now. But the sound of Lutz's voice indicated that he was not close by.

  "Mr. Biergarten?" Lutz called.

  Ryerson leaped toward the doorway. He went through it, through the yellow police ribbon.

  "Jesus Christ!" Lutz shouted.

  Ryerson found himself in sunlight, in the tall grasses outside the cabin. He heard Lutz coming toward him. "Mr. Biergarten, are you all right?"

  Ryerson was on his stomach. He glanced behind at the cabin doorway, then at Lutz, who was above him now. "Don't go in there, Mr. Lutz."

  "You're bleeding," Lutz said.

  "I am?"

  "Yes. Your forehead."

  Ryerson touched his forehead, looked at his fingers, saw — blood, remembered hitting the doorjamb. "It's okay," he said.

  Lutz produced a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Ryerson, who took it and dabbed at the blood with it.

  "You'll need stitches," Lutz said.

  Ryerson looked at the cabin doorway again. He said nothing.

  TEN

  Midmorning, the following day, Ryerson answered the door-bell but found no one at his door.

  He stepped out onto the little wedge-shaped open porch and looked right and left down the street. There was an old couple walking not far away; their backs were to him and the man's gray head was bobbing animatedly beneath his red umbrella as he talked to the woman. No one else was on the rain-soaked street.

  Creosote appeared beside Ryerson on the porch and whimpered his confusion. The dog often read the man as well as the man read the dog. Ryerson glanced at him. "Someone's come into the house, pup."

  Creosote snorted, sneezed. Ryerson got down on his haunches and scratched the dog's ears; Creosote tilted his head into Ryerson's hand to ask for more.

  Ryerson was uneasy. He believed in ghosts because he'd spoken with them. He knew something of the world they existed in because he had been a part of it, if briefly. And he was uneasy now because what little he knew about the world of the dead told him only how very ignorant he was.

  ~ * ~

  Rebecca Meechum said to Jenny Goodlow, over the telephone, "So he knows nothing? He's not going to help you?"

  Jenny Goodlow answered, "As I said, I didn't ask him to help. I think he's a fraud. And I don't think it's any of your business anyway."

  "You're being very uncivil, Jenny," Rebecca said. "My God, we were almost . . . sisters." Rebecca chuckled shortly.

  Jenny hung up.

  ~ * ~

  The beguiling dark-eyed brunette
sat alone on the train. She was reading a paperback book, and Guy Squires thought it would be all right to sit with her because most of the other seats were taken.

  He sat beside her, glanced at her luxurious shoulder-length hair, and said "Hello" in the stiff but polite way that he imagined strangers seated next to one another on trains were supposed to say hello. She looked up from her book, smiled vaguely at him, then looked away.

  "Good book?" Guy Squires asked.

  She glanced at him again. "Sorry?"

  He nodded at the book. "Good book?"

  She shook her head. "Not very. It's about a vampire who ages, and that's something vampires simply don't do, isn't it." She shrugged. "So I don't believe a word of it."

  "Then why read it?"

  "Because it amuses me to read." She paused. "Do you read?"

  "Only timetables," Guy Squires answered. "And the stock market report, of course." He was letting her know, in his subtle way, that he was a man accustomed to dealing with money.

  The brunette looked appraisingly at him a moment, then sighed. "Too bad. I like men who really read."

  "I used to read," Guy Squires told her hurriedly. "Hell, I read all the time. I read whatever I could get hold of. You couldn't tear me away from anything with words on it." He grinned nervously because he was lying and was sure that she could tell. "I once read War and Peace and The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire in one sitting, if you can believe it." He paused a half second, then hurried on, "And ... and I even wrote a book once. It wasn't a long book. It was pretty short. Six hundred pages, I guess. Not so long that you would have to set aside a great deal of time to read it ..."

  The brunette cut in, "Then you're a writer. How excitng." She seemed suddenly animated. "What was it about?—this book of yours."

  "What was it about?" He grinned nervously again. `Well, it was about a group of people, I guess. And they were ... they had a kind of conflict—"

  "Conflict? I love conflict. It's what life is all about, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Of course," Guy Squires said. "Conflict. Where would we be without conflict?" He thought that he was on a roll, now, that he had gotten onto her wavelength. Lord only knew what would follow. He hurried on, "Conflict makes us all ... human, doesn't it? I ... I read about it all the me—"