A Question of Ghosts

by Cate Culpepper

  Marty shifted on the floor, snoring with a soft, contented buzz, Khadijah’s arm sprawled across her throat. The long shadows in the room began to lighten and grow blue, and Jo heard the faint piping of birds outside. At first, their gentle trilling disguised the sound at her elbow, Becca’s deep sigh as she stirred in her sleep.

  A dozen expressions shifted over Becca’s dreaming face, rendering her a strong woman and frightened girl in swift turns. Jo reached out and almost touched her hair, her fingers inches from its lush softness. Becca murmured again, and her eyes flew open.

  Jo made herself lower her hand to the arm of the sofa. “It’s all right, Becca. You’re safe.”

  Becca closed her eyes and sighed again, in apparent relief this time. She lifted her head and blinked at Jo.

  “Have you been awake all night?” Becca cleared her throat and peered at her through her tumbled bangs, managing to sound maternal and disapproving at the same time.

  “I’ll lie down for a while later.” Jo kept her voice low, as much to soothe Becca as to preserve sleep for the others. She still looked shaken. “A nightmare?”

  “An old one.” Becca lifted herself on one elbow and drifted her fingers through her hair. “Nothing I haven’t dissected with Rachel, ad nauseam.”

  Becca’s expression cleared, and Jo knew the topic was closed. Jo was beginning to understand every nuance of Becca’s mercurial features, an honor the best psychiatrists in Seattle predicted she would never have.

  Becca nodded at her sleeping friends and chuckled. “I don’t know if you planned on a group sleep-in, tonight. I hope you’re not too uncomfortable with all this company.”

  “If they don’t eat my rations, I’ll let them live.” Jo was pleased with herself. That had sounded rather Xenic. “I don’t mind them. Do you think you can sleep a little longer? Today might prove pretty busy.”

  Becca nodded and rested her head back on the cushioned arm. “I think Rachel has privileges at Western State.”

  It took Jo a moment to track her train of thought. “Really? At the hospital where Voakes is held? I wonder if there’s any chance she’s interviewed him.”

  “I doubt it.” Becca yawned into the pillow. “Rachel doesn’t specialize in criminal behavior; I don’t see why she’d know him. But she might be able to talk to his doctors for us.”

  Rachel Perry might be able to get Jo into the most notorious psychiatric hospital in the state to meet with Voakes before he was released. She didn’t find it necessary to clarify her intent to go solo at the moment; Becca’s body was relaxing into the deep couch.

  Becca blinked sleepily at the television, and a smile touched her lips. “Ah, Jo. This is probably my favorite scene ever.”

  Jo looked at the stilled image of the warrior and the bard, the scroll containing Sappho’s poem between them. “Yes. Mine, too.”

  Becca’s eyes were closing again. “Awed by her splendor,” she murmured. “Stars near the lovely moon cover their own bright faces…” Her voice trailed off as she drifted into sleep.

  After a moment, Jo reached out and let her fingers brush gently through Becca’s hair.

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t suppose you could—”

  “Absolutely not.” Becca said this as firmly as possible around a mouthful of chocolate croissant. “I’m not calling Rachel again at eight in the morning, Jo. One voice mail is enough. She hasn’t been well, and this isn’t a big crisis.”

  “Time is a factor, however.” Jo was in her relentless mode this sunny morning. Becca stepped aside and let a bare-chested, studded-nippled young man zig between them on his unicycle. He tipped them a friendly wave. Ah, Capitol Hill in summer.

  “Khadijah said the article indicated Voakes might be released from Western soon,” Jo added.

  “Are we in training to chase him? Slow down a bit, Batman.” Becca touched Jo’s forearm briefly. Her calves were beginning to ache with this long downhill hike. By unspoken agreement, they had avoided the street with the large window featuring mannequins. “You’re really thinking we should go see this crazy serial killer? First, that Rachel can get us in, and second, that you’ll be able to tell anything about what happened to my parents just by watching his face?”

  “First, I’ll be going to Western alone. I see no reason to expose you to a psych ward.” Jo must be in butch protective mode, as well as relentless. She was also a bit deluded if she thought she could make sweeping decisions about Becca’s welfare without her input. “Second, Voakes is a psychopath. I have no idea how revealing his expressions will be. I’m not sure what I can learn from him, but it’s worth a try.”

  Jo nudged her subtly and nodded down a side street. Becca realized she remembered the necessity of avoiding the windows of the Quest Bookshop as well. She felt oddly touched by this and wished she could make up her mind whether Jo’s protectiveness comforted her or chapped her butt.

  They walked down the tree-shaded sidewalk toward Jo’s office. Becca felt more awake and alert than the single tall latte she had consumed could account for. Nightmare aside, she had slept several hours surprisingly well on that sofa, in the company of her best friends, with Jo sitting nearby. She remembered the low music of Jo’s voice, telling her she was safe. She thought of a question, wanting to hear that music again.

  “Why wouldn’t you let me drive us down here? All my car would have had to do was creak to a stop at intersections. It can still do that.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s almost fifty miles to Western State.” Jo fished a set of keys out of her back pocket. “We’re picking up my car. I’m hoping to drive to the hospital later today, if Rachel Perry ever answers her—”

  Jo broke off abruptly and touched Becca’s arm. She was staring at the locked gate of her building with a fierce intensity, and Becca followed her gaze. The stinging smell hit her the next moment, a light but acrid chemical stink.

  Becca claimed no great understanding of criminal trespass, but she could quote entire Law & Order: SVU episodes by heart, and she recognized acid poured over a lock when she gaped at it. Not some half-assed acid, either. The thick steel plate of the barred gate was gouged, not just scratched.

  Jo nudged Becca back gently and grasped a high steel bar on the gate. One tug opened it a few inches, the lock rattling and useless.

  “Jo, we need to call the police.” Becca reached in her pocket for her cell. “Whoever broke in might still be in there.”

  “By all means, call them.” Jo guided Becca farther back. She pulled open the barred gate and slipped through it. “Wait for them out here.”

  “Joanne!” Becca was exasperated. “Would you wait one macha minute? This will take all of two—”

  “I doubt there’s any danger, but I’ll be careful.” Jo’s shoes cracked on the broken glass of the entry. The inner door swung open with ease, and she went through it.

  Becca’s cell crackled in her ear as the 911 dispatcher answered, and she snapped out information tersely, stepping back to the curb to read the house number. “Great. Thank you.” She snapped her phone shut, muttering to herself. “All right. Capitol Hill cop response time, without reports of bazookas going off, at least fifteen minutes. If we had driven my car, Dr. Call, at least I would have the chobos in my trunk!”

  She decided her nerves couldn’t take this. Becca was reasonably certain no one was going to shoot Joanne Call with a bazooka in the next fifteen minutes, but she wasn’t willing to risk it. She blew out a disgusted breath and stepped gingerly past the iron gate and into Jo’s inner room.

  “It’s all right.” Jo’s distant voice was lifeless. “Whoever it was is long gone.”

  The room was utter destruction. Becca came to a dead halt and looked around in appalled silence. Every single radio that had sat on high shelves on the walls was now shattered on the hardwood floor in a jumble of broken pieces and wiring. Every tape recorder and record player had suffered the same violent fate. Half the shelves were torn down, wrenched out of their brackets by
what seemed a titanic rage.

  “Jo.” Becca felt like she had the breath punched out of her. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Try not to touch anything.” Jo stood across the room with her back to Becca, her hands clasped behind her, studying a smashed case on the wall. She glanced over her shoulder as Becca came toward her. “And watch the glass. It’s everywhere.”

  Becca picked her way carefully across the floor. She glanced at Jo’s large desk in the corner and wished she hadn’t. The expensive computer was a shattered ruin across its oak surface. “Police are on their way.”

  Jo stood very still, her gaze diamond-sharp on the devices that lay in mangled pieces in the broken case. The muscles in her jaw stood out in stark relief.

  “These were special to you.” Becca touched her wrist tentatively. “Were they communicators—Spiricoms, like the one at the house?”

  Jo nodded. “Later versions, yes. It doesn’t matter. They were just…machines. Toys.” She looked down at the keys in her hand. “But I have to check my quarters.”

  “Your what?” Jo moved toward her desk and pressed a button in the far wall. To Becca’s astonishment, a recessed door slid open, so shadowed she hadn’t realized it was there.

  “I live on the upper level. It’s doubtful they could have broken in there.” Jo stepped into a small elevator. “But I need to see something.”

  “May I come?” Her own quivering nerves aside, Becca didn’t want Jo to be alone just now. She was concerned about her eyes, which seemed eerily remote. “I’m coming,” she decided, and followed Jo into a small elevator. An elevator, for heaven’s sake, thoroughly sleek and modern; a twist of Jo’s key sent it gliding soundlessly upward. Becca had sensations of both swift travel and an inordinately long distance. “Do you live on the roof of this thing?”

  “The top floor. It’s six stories up.”

  Becca hoped a mundane topic might coax that alien distance out of Jo. “You rent the entire upper floor of a building this size, right off Broadway, on Capitol Hill? In this economy? How rich are you?”

  “I own the building. I’m quite rich.” Jo glanced down at her impassively and stepped out as the elevator door slid open.

  Becca followed, not trying to close her mouth. It was the most subtly opulent space she had ever seen, and she thought she’d seen opulent. Her uncle and aunt were pretty wealthy. Jo’s “quarters” were a large, sunny expanse of blond wood floor and glass walls entirely windowing two sides. Becca was knocked dead by the view—the rolling green hills of Volunteer Park looking north, the distant crags of the Olympic range to the west—before the rest of the room registered.

  The lack of technology struck Becca at once. For a woman so professionally immersed in electronic gadgetry, Jo’s home seemed remarkably free of digital connections to the world. Except for one wide plasma TV, the better to watch Xena upon, her floor-to-ceiling oak shelves held books, print books, rather than smartphones or laptops. There was art on the walls, sparely but beautifully framed oils and watercolors, mostly unique landscapes. The impersonal aura of Jo’s office was completely reversed by the understated, tasteful comfort she had created here.

  Jo had walked directly to a large and lushly cushioned bed, neatly made with satin sheets, that rested in one corner. Becca shifted her eyes from it quickly. “It looks like they didn’t make it this far. Jo, this place is beautiful.”

  Jo didn’t reply. She picked up a small box from a table beside the bed. She cradled it in her hands, and only then did the rigid lines of her body begin to relax. It was a small oblong shape, the size of a book, and looked covered in velvet. Jo lifted the lid, and Becca heard a faint, tinkling music issue from the box. It played no song she recognized, a pleasing, antique melody with a Spanish lilt. This music box was what Jo had wanted to check. Its safety was important to her.

  Jo drew a deep breath, closed the lid, and slid the box into her shirt. She walked past Becca toward a partitioned kitchen area. “My family made their fortune in the meat and railroad industries, dating back to the Civil War.”

  Becca heard the formality in her tone, a note absent in Jo’s voice since their earliest meetings. She figured the shock of the break-in and destruction below merited a little shielding.

  “As you’ve probably gathered, my work is largely self-funded.” The sound of liquid splashing into a glass came from the kitchen. “At least the dead of the world appreciate how I’m investing my trust.”

  “Has it made it harder for you to connect with people, being wealthy?” Becca felt a pang of sympathy at Jo’s defensiveness; she seemed almost ashamed to have Becca learn of her wealth. Prosperity might have erected as many barriers in this solitary scientist’s life as it had opened doors. “Money can do that. Folks can be weird about it. I wonder if that made things even more lonely for you sometimes, while you were growing up.”

  Jo stepped around the partition, holding a shot glass filled with bourbon. Her stance was uncertain now. “With one exception, the few friends I had were more like paid staff. It was impossible to tell if their liking for me was genuine.”

  Jo had just revealed immensely personal information, and it mattered to Becca a great deal, but she couldn’t lift her gaze from the drink in Jo’s hand. She felt her stomach roil with renewed tension, remembering the scene of violent destruction below them. She was suddenly terribly thirsty.

  “Becca. I’m sorry.” Jo sounded dismayed, and she set the glass down on a bookshelf. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Will you relax, please?” Becca was glad her tone was casual, because she was astounded by a craving that had never plagued her before. Alcohol had never been her drug, damn it. But now Jo was the one needing reassurance, for once, and she found herself wanting very much to offer that. She walked to her carefully, as if not wanting to startle a wary panther. “Just being in the presence of booze isn’t going to hurt me. And all your being rich means to me is you’re buying our damn lattes in the morning from now on. I’m on a social worker’s salary, for heaven’s sake.”

  Becca had reached Jo, and she did what came naturally—she slid her arms around her waist and looked up into her eyes. “I was fond of you before I knew you were rich, amiga. I like you because you’re crazy smart and interesting and you hang out with the cool kids, like Xena and the Lady of the Rock.” She rested her head on Jo’s shoulder. “You’ve earned my liking, Jo. It’s all you.”

  The side of Becca’s face fit perfectly against the firm swell of Jo’s shoulder. There was obvious physical power in the long lines of Jo’s body, but she slid her arms around Becca carefully, as if she might break. Becca smiled into the white linen of her shirt.

  “It’s all you, too,” Jo whispered.

  Becca heard a faint, far-off whine of sirens, and she lifted her head reluctantly. “I think the cavalry is here.”

  “Yes.” Jo’s face was inches from her own.

  They stood together until the bell down at the front gate sounded a chime in Jo’s quarters.

  *

  “It doesn’t look like anything’s stolen, right? Just wrecked.” The cop’s uniform badge identified him as N. Simmons. “You’re sure you don’t know anyone who might have done this, Dr. Call? No enemies, no one with a grudge against you?”

  “No one, as I’ve said.” Jo found this interview interminable. The two officers, Simmons and a black woman about Becca’s age, were meticulous and thorough. They moved slowly around the shattered space of Jo’s office, taking copious notes.

  “It’s good you didn’t touch anything.” N. Simmons had now said this three times, as if he needed their repeated assurance. “We’ll get some techs in here to try to lift some prints. We’ll need you to come down and have yours taken, Dr. Call, for elimination purposes.”

  “My prints are on file.” Jo took her ID back from him, trying to suppress her impatience. “I’ve gone through security clearances to access government research.”

  “Very good. And we’ll need contact info from you, Miss. U
h, Becca.” Simmons turned Becca’s driver’s license over and peered at it. “Miss Healy.”

  “Becca Healy?” The other officer turned to her, her eyebrows lifting. “You’re Rebecca Healy?”

  Jo thought Becca had introduced herself quite thoroughly when the officers came into the room, but her name seemed to register with the woman—P. Emerson, by badge—for the first time. She studied Becca with keen interest, as if taking her measure all over again.

  “Right, I’m Rebecca Healy,” Becca affirmed politely.

  “You’re Madelyn Healy’s daughter?”

  “Right.” Becca looked at Jo with muted dread.

  The two cops exchanged glances.

  Jo doubted the decades-old deaths of the Healys were remembered by many in Seattle. The city was large enough to offer a history of more lurid crimes, such as the depredations of John William Voakes. These two officers would have been children when it happened, and it was curious that even police would recall this case.

  “You still hate dolls?” Emerson’s voice was friendly, but Jo stepped quietly closer to Becca.

  Emerson still carried the professional reserve of a good cop on duty, but it was easy enough to read the subtle undercurrents in her features. Jo discerned no malice in her odd question. The woman’s tone was respectful, and as she took in Becca’s startled expression, her face softened. “I’m sorry. You and me met once before, many years back. My name is Pamela Emerson. My dad is Detective Luther Emerson.”

  She waited, apparently expecting some recognition. Becca only stared at the woman blankly, but Jo made the connection.

  “Luther Emerson was the SPD detective who investigated the shootings in seventy-eight.” Jo’s impatience fled. “You said you’ve met Becca before, Officer Emerson?”

  “Pam. Yeah. We met the night your parents died.” Pam was studying Becca with compassion as she folded her notebook into her pocket. “I’d just turned ten. I didn’t need a sitter, but Dad wouldn’t leave me alone that late. He hauled me over to that house with him, across from the cemetery, and ordered me to stay in the car. I sat there a while. Then I looked out the windshield and saw this forlorn-looking little white kid sitting on the front steps, all alone.”