A Question of Ghosts

by Cate Culpepper

  “Becca, you look terrible. What’s the matter with you?”

  Becca wanted to offer a coherent reply, but she looked up into those mirrored sunglasses and saw the distorted reflections of her own face, inches away. She felt the strength drain out of her legs in a rush and her head filled with static. She had a fleeting impression of Dr. Call lunging to catch her as her knees buckled.

  Becca had never fainted in her life, so she didn’t realize she had until she came to. She was lying in the grass, cradled in a pair of strong arms, one supporting her back, the other clasped across her waist. She could see the lower legs of a few people standing around them. She heard a voice ask if they should call 911.

  She rested her head on Dr. Call’s crisp white sleeve. Dr. Call had removed her sunglasses, and Becca stared up into those blazing dark eyes.

  “I think,” Dr. Call said, “you should call me Jo.”

  “Okay,” Becca said. She turned her head and threw up.

  *

  “It’s called pediophobia.” Becca pulled deeply on the straw immersed in her thick milkshake.

  Jo watched her in amazement. A half-hour after regurgitation, Becca’s yearning for chocolate was fully restored. The woman required regular chocolate infusions like others needed water to live. “Pediophobia? A fear of children?”

  “No. Pediaphobia is a fear of children. Pediophobia is a fear of dolls.” Becca looked at her watch. She sighed and slipped a cell phone out of the pocket of her shorts. “Excuse me just a minute.”

  Jo sipped her green tea and suppressed a flood of questions as Becca clicked keys. They were sitting in wrought iron chairs before a very small wrought iron table, typical of the never-quite-comfortable outdoor furnishings fronting Capitol Hill cafes. But the fresh air seemed to be helping Becca. Her face was losing that unnerving, distant cast, and she was no longer as pale.

  “Hi. We’re not coming. I’m so sorry I made you drive over for nothing.” Becca kept her voice low, cupping her hand over her cell. Her tone was warm. “A hard trigger, a bad one. I’ll fill you in later.”

  Becca smiled at the table as she listened. “Yes, I’m okay now. No, I’m not alone. I’ll be fine.” She darted a shy glance at Jo. “I’ll call you tonight, I promise. Love you, too.” She folded her phone and returned it to her pocket. “That was Rachel, the friend with keys to my uncle’s house. She’s been waiting there for us.” She touched the table. “I’m sorry, Jo. I just can’t go there today. I don’t think my nerves could take it.”

  Jo was mightily tempted to offer Becca a box of Hershey bars if she’d change her mind. She was chafing to get inside that house. She managed to mask her disappointment. “We can go another time. A fear of dolls?”

  Becca stirred her milkshake, her eyes downcast. “Yeah. It’s more common than you might think. It’s not just dolls. Pediophobia is a fear of any false representation of a human being. Anything that looks like it should be human, alive, but isn’t.” She smiled wryly. “Which covers a lot of territory. I can’t go into the Quest Bookstore because they have these little lifelike figures in the window, carvings of various gods. I can’t go into toy stores, of course, or clothing stores, because of the—ˮ

  “Mannequins.” Jo remembered the posed figures in the shop window.

  Becca nodded. “To me, those mannequins looked like living corpses.” Her lip trembled, and Jo steeled herself, afraid tears would follow. “It wouldn’t have been as bad if they were stylized, with half-arms or faceless. They were pretty realistic.”

  “Do you see these false representations as physical threats?” Jo’s chest still ached with the power of Becca’s blow, her desperation to run from the window. “That the dolls or the mannequins might come to life and hurt you in some way?”

  “I don’t even get that far.” Becca sat back in her chair, a weary wonder in her voice. “They don’t have to come to life, they don’t have to chase me, they just have to exist. I can’t explain it. But I’m sorry you had to witness it. I’m embarrassed. I’ve never, ever been triggered so hard as today.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Jo couldn’t imagine enduring fear like that on a regular basis.

  “Normally, all I have to do is turn my head and walk away. I’ve done that in the middle of a sentence before, which can be awkward, but it’s always worked.”

  “And you say this isn’t a rare phobia?”

  “It’s common enough.” Becca rested one sneaker on the table and brushed grass from her lightly skinned knee. “The makers of the Shrek films had to change the Fiona character, the princess, because she was drawn too well. Too lifelike. They actually had to make her more cartoonish, because she made so many people uneasy.”

  Jo had never seen the Shrek films. What an interesting morass of contradictions Becca Hawkins was. Obviously intelligent, warm, prickly, funny, confident. And haunted by this bizarre terror. She felt the silence grow between them and struggled to think of something to say. “Have you never looked into the origin of this fear? Hypnosis, therapy?”

  Becca’s face changed subtly, and Jo knew she was going to lie before she spoke. “Rachel Perry, the friend I just called, was my therapist a long time ago. We worked on this for years. I still have no idea why I freak out so badly.”

  “I see.” Jo pondered this for a moment. This study held little promise if she kept running into these random deceits. If learning the truth meant picking delicately through Becca’s psyche with sensitivity and restraint, Jo didn’t know how to do that. She slid out her wallet and laid a few bills on the table. “Are you sure you’re all right physically, now?”

  “Yes, I am.” Becca looked disconcerted as Jo pushed back her chair, the metal grating over the concrete. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. Please call me when you’re prepared to enter the house again. And when you’re prepared to be honest with me about what happened there.” Jo extended her hand, and after a moment Becca accepted it. Jo shook her hand twice, firmly, and turned to go. The Broadway Market Video was a few blocks away. She would rent the Shrek films on her way home.

  “Joanne? Jo?”

  There was a pleading note in Becca’s voice, and she turned back reluctantly. Becca came to her, and studied her so closely Jo wished for her sunglasses.

  “My name isn’t Hawkins,” Becca said finally. “It’s Healy. I’m the daughter of Scott and Madelyn Healy.”

  Jo waited. Becca seemed to want to say more. She struggled for words and then lifted her hand helplessly.

  “You’re the scientist.” Becca walked away. “Google us.”

  Chapter Three

  Becca phoned Joanne Call three nights later. She could tell Jo wasn’t crazy about the proposed location of their meeting, but she agreed to join her at the Wildrose. She could tell she was even less crazed about seeing Marty and Khadijah waiting at their table.

  “Becca, I’m not particularly interested in a coffee klatch tonight.”

  “I know. I should have told you.” Becca wanted to touch Jo’s arm, but didn’t. She realized she was subjecting her to considerable discomfort, and she didn’t do so lightly. “I just need to have my friends with me if we have to talk about this.”

  At least the Rose was dark enough that Jo couldn’t wear her damned mirrored shades, and her eyes reflected her internal struggle. She finally nodded brusquely and allowed Becca to lead her to the long table in the back.

  The Rose was Capitol Hill’s iconic lesbian bar, but business had yet to kick up for the night. It had been two years or more since Becca had been here, and the place seemed smaller every time she saw it. The wood plank floors were still scuffed and uneven, the ceiling still strung with limp strings of electric stars. But shabby nostalgia aside, to Becca the Rose was well-loved faces and laughter—good times here with friends, over many years.

  Becca had tipped the barkeep to let her slide a couple of tables together for her small group, to allow Jo as much physical space as possible. She saved a spindly chair with its back to the wall
for her, allowing her to survey the blood-red walls of the room.

  “Hello. We’re the chicks you didn’t meet the other night.” Unsmiling, Marty extended her hand across the table, and Jo shook it briefly.

  Becca threw Marty a chiding look. “Marty Coleman, Khadijah Berry, this is Joanne Call. I’ve known these strange girls since middle school.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” Khadijah’s smile was warm. The many bracelets encircling her wrist clicked pleasantly as she clasped Jo’s fingers. “Thanks for trying to help our friend.”

  Jo seemed as uncomfortable with Khadijah’s friendliness as Marty’s hostility. “I haven’t helped her much, yet.”

  “Through no fault of your own. Sit, sit.” Becca knew her voice was overly bright. She needed food, now. She may not have slept much the last few nights, she might be distracted and irritable, but her appetite, as always, sailed along full titty to the wind. She waved down a server with multiple lip rings.

  “I’ll have your four cheese hero.” Becca pointed to Marty and Khadijah. “They’ll have the turkey rueben and the pasta asiago. Oh, and a side of your roasted potato wedges, please. And a hummus plate.” She turned to Jo, who was staring at her. “How about you?”

  “Tea. Earl Grey. I ate earlier.”

  Becca hoped Jo would survive this unwelcome socializing without bursting into flame. She also hoped Marty would be able to contain her natural pitbullish protectiveness and stop glaring at the poor woman. Khadijah’s fingers brushed lightly over Marty’s wrist, attuned as always to her partner’s bristling energy. Even through her daze, Becca noted the effortless, nurturing connection between them, and for the hundredth time she blessed and envied them for it.

  Jo would be miserable with small talk, so she girded her loins and began. “So. Do you know the truth about my parents?”

  “I know what autopsy reports and the Seattle Times considered the truth in nineteen seventy-eight, yes.”

  Becca blinked. “You sound skeptical.”

  “Not necessarily.” Jo clasped her hands on the table. “All sources state clearly that your mother committed homicide as well as suicide. That she shot your father, and then herself, the night of your fifth birthday. But I’m keeping an open mind.”

  “Okay.” Becca absorbed Jo’s bluntness. “I guess that’s good.”

  “I’m considering two factors.” Jo’s shoulders were relaxing as she warmed to her topic. “If you’re right about your mother’s message, Becca, she could be denying the official verdict on her death. I happen to consider that a credible report. Interestingly, EVP speakers rarely lie when they make factual statements.”

  “What’s your second factor?” Marty asked.

  “The autopsy report. The police believe Madelyn Healy shot her husband in the chest, and then herself in the head. But it strikes me odd that the bullet entered her eye. That’s a highly unusual way for a woman to kill herself, all but unheard of. That also lends credence to the possibility that things didn’t happen as—ˮ

  Becca stopped listening and went away in her mind. “Jo, you’ll want to understand this.” Khadijah’s voice was faint in Becca’s ears, but she sounded kind. “Becca’s in pretty rocky shape, emotionally. She has been, ever since she heard that voice last week. It would be best if we didn’t bring up real graphic images of her mom’s death.”

  There was a pause. “But…it happened so long ago.” Jo sounded honestly puzzled, and Becca opened her eyes. “And surely, Becca, you’ve always known how she—ˮ

  “Of course she knows.” Marty growled. She was turning a fork rapidly in her fingers. She caught a look from Khadijah and set it down. “She just doesn’t like to remember that shit. Jesus, who would?”

  “That’s why we’re here, though.” Braced by her friends, Becca could play brave as the image of her mother’s dead face faded. “What else do you need to know, Jo?”

  Jo stared at the table. After a moment she looked up. “All right. What about your phobia, Becca? I know you were ly—you weren’t very honest with me, about its origins.”

  “But how do you know that?” Becca was intrigued in spite of herself. Or maybe she just wanted to delay talking about the doll. Jo was right. She had lied, but she was amazed Jo had caught her at it. She seemed an unlikely interpreter of the nuances of human interaction. “You just met me, Jo. How could you tell I was—ˮ

  “Oh, girl, you suck at lying.” Khadijah shook a napkin onto her lap as their food arrived. “You’re terrible at it. Always have been.”

  “The worst.” Marty spun the hummus plate on the table. “I tried to teach you to lie in the eighth grade, Bec, when guys started asking you out. You were hopeless.”

  “Becca, I’m not prying into highly personal areas without good reason.” Jo frowned. “I know this is difficult for you. But if this phobia is connected to your parents’ deaths, it might shed some light on your mother’s message.”

  “Okay. I get it.” Becca picked up her sandwich and dug in. The ensuing chewing took up thirty seconds, allowing time to whitewash her mind. She could only talk about this if she didn’t picture it. “The night it happened, my parents were arguing. Again. We were in the living room. My mother handed me a doll and went into the kitchen. My father went after her. There were two shots. I was still holding the doll when the police broke in.”

  “So your pediophobia is rooted in the trauma of that night.” Jo slipped a small device from her pocket and began tapping its keys rapidly. “Thank you. Getting to know the receiver is a vital part of this process.”

  “You want to know Becca Healy?” Marty eyed Jo over the rim of her glass. “She works with kids in foster care. She remembers every one of their birthdays, and she brings them cakes she makes herself. She’s kept every friend she’s ever made, and kept Kaddy and me close for twenty-five years. She knows our favorite orders in every restaurant on the Hill.”

  Jo’s fingers stilled on the small keyboard. “I’m sure Becca is—ˮ

  “I was out of town when Kaddy found a lump in her breast last year. Becca stayed with her every night until the biopsy came back clean.” Marty swirled the soda in her glass and downed it. “If you need to ‘get to know your receiver,’ Doc, you could focus in a little smarter.”

  “She went with us when we had to put our Angel to sleep, too. Our sweet little beagle. This girl is the kindest, most thoughtful creature I know.” Khadijah’s brown eyes were warm behind her small granny glasses. “Go ahead and blush. It’s all true.”

  Becca cursed her feeble tears. Lord, she had no more emotional stamina than a Pop-Tart these days. “Well, that was nice. Thanks. I just don’t know if Jo needs sterling character references right now.”

  She smiled weakly at Jo, who was watching them with an odd combination of muted wonder and sadness. Jo’s eyes lingered on Khadijah’s hand clasping Becca’s, and for a moment she looked as vulnerable as a child.

  “Of course, all information about a receiver is useful.” Jo slid the screen of her device shut slowly. “It would be helpful to learn something about your mother as well, Becca. Her personality, her habits. I’d like to see how closely she fits the profile of the typical EVP reporter.”

  “Ooh, there’s a typical reporter?” Khadijah brightened. “This stuff fascinates the hell out of me, by the way. You mean all the dead folks able to send messages have things in common?”

  “Well, no, that’s a little misleading.” Jo nodded stiffly at the young pink-coiffed woman in a fedora offering to replenish her tea. “Messages have been recorded from voices that could hail from any demographic. We hear more often from men than from women. From older voices rather than young, which stands to reason, as the dead tend to skew older.”

  “And what do they say, all these noisy dead people?” Khadijah asked.

  “Gibberish mostly.” Jo lifted one shoulder, as if apologizing for a child’s clumsy performance. “Snatches of words. Coherent, the best of them, but odd tangles of meaning. One recording is of an older man
shouting, ‘Tab the bathroot!’ over and over. Another is a woman saying quite clearly, ‘Scallops, my best gender. Steal tomatoes.’”

  “So no one tells where the family treasure is buried?” Marty looked faintly disappointed. “Or says anything personal, that makes sense?”

  “Some do make sense.”

  Becca was studying the dynamics of the women around her; an automatic inner shift to safer ground. She noted Jo’s body was changing, softening as she leaned into the table. Her transformation was subtle but striking. That guarded glaze was lifting from Jo’s eyes as the warmth of Khadijah’s interest drew her in. She glanced at Becca. “I have some recordings with me. Would you like to hear?”

  “Are you serious?” Khadijah scraped her chair closer over the rugged floor. “Bring it on, girlfriend.”

  Jo smiled with a note of shyness that touched Becca. She flipped open her device again, swept her finger across several screens, tapped keys. She rested it on the table and turned the small screen so they could see it. “This has strong little speakers.”

  The screen was an oblong of eerie green light, vivid in the dim lamps of the bar. Its glassy smoothness was featureless for a moment, then a multi-digit number appeared in the upper left of the screen, along with the notation 07.14.76/1400hrs.

  Becca heard a soft hiss from the speakers, and a faint white line darted across the green rectangle. The hiss deepened and more lines followed, tracing the electric contours of the sound in jagged spikes and valleys. The voice spoke abruptly and quite clearly.

  “And the merriest of Christmases to you all!”

  Becca sat back hard in her seat, astonished at the bright cheerfulness of the woman’s voice, its distinct southern accent. Marty’s eyebrows shot up, and Khadijah laughed in delight.

  “So who is that?” Khadijah asked. “She sounded so normal!”

  “No one knows.” Jo stroked the screen with one finger. “These are all unidentified, or unclaimed messages, collected during lab experiments over the years.”