A Question of Ghosts

by Cate Culpepper

  Or she was, until she saw the body of the bloody, mutilated child slumped beside the front door.

  *

  The first indication Jo had of anything amiss was Becca’s sharp gasp, then her body slamming into her own with an impact powerful enough to send them both hurtling backward down the stone steps.

  Jo twisted instinctively and managed to save her spine the first smashing blow of the step, but the swell of her shoulder took a painful crack. Her body helped cushion Becca’s landing, but they both tumbled helplessly because she was thrashing like a banshee. The bone of Jo’s ankle smacked against another stair before she could bring them to a halt.

  “Becca, hold still!” It was all Jo could yell, mindlessly and several times, while she tried to pin Becca’s wrists to the cement walk. She was afraid she would hurt herself, and she kept trying to cushion the back of Becca’s head with a hand she needed to restrain her.

  Becca was trying to talk. Jo could hear words mixed in with her terrible gasping, but she made no coherent sense. Her eyes were filled with horror and then they fluttered shut, and her body sagged abruptly beneath Jo’s hands.

  “Becca? Christ.” Jo looked around wildly. Where was a medically knowledgeable pedestrian when she needed one? Her hands hovered over Becca’s still figure. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Air was still whistling in and out of her chest, so at least she was breathing.

  Jo crouched beside her, tapping her clammy hand ineffectually. Then she cursed and lifted Becca into her arms. Her dead weight made Jo stagger as she lunged to her feet, and her ankle and shoulder protested painfully, but she managed to wrestle them both up the wide stairs. If getting Becca out of this sun and a wet compress didn’t bring her around quickly, she was calling medics.

  Jo was dimly grateful she’d gotten the door unlocked before Becca smacked her. One good kick would widen the opening enough to carry her in. She clenched her teeth, wincing as she maneuvered her head around the doorjamb, and then she saw the bloody doll on the cement step. Jo stared at it until Becca stirred sluggishly in her arms.

  “Hey. Let’s get you inside.” Jo felt Becca’s small nod against her shoulder. Her body remained slack, but she lifted one hand to grip the back of Jo’s neck.

  Jo back-heeled the door curtly, then waited until she heard it latch behind them before carrying Becca down the two stairs to the sofa. She lowered her into it carefully, then sat at its edge. “Becca?”

  “T-trigger.”

  “Yes, I saw it.” Jo rested her hand on Becca’s forehead. “I’ll call Pam Emerson. You’ll never see it again.”

  Becca nodded again.

  “You look awful,” Jo said. “Can you talk to me?”

  Becca wrapped her arms around her waist, holding herself tightly, trembling so hard Jo imagined the couch vibrated.

  “Becca, you’re safe, I promise you.” Jo fought a wave of helplessness. “Tell me what you need from me.”

  Becca fumbled with the front pocket of her jeans, pulled out her cell, and handed it to Jo. “Rachel.” Her voice was slurred, as if she were drunk, and Jo was getting scared.

  “Right away.” Jo flipped open the cell and found the number quickly. After an interminable few moments, during which Becca lay motionless except for the tremor, Rachel Perry answered.

  “Becca, thank goodness.” Her tone was warm, and Jo could hear light classical music and the tinkling of cutlery in the background. “I’m at the benefit dinner for your aunt’s shelter. Please have some emergency that—”

  “Rachel, it’s Joanne Call,” Jo broke in. “Becca needs you.”

  “Joanne?” Rachel sounded startled, but then spoke calmly. “Is Becca all right?”

  “No. She’s had a bad shock.” Jo tried to mirror Rachel’s control. “We’re at the house on Fifteenth.”

  “Do you need to get her to a hospital?”

  “She’s all right physically, but she’s…there was a nasty trigger.”

  “Joanne, I’m on my way.” The music was fading even as Rachel spoke. “Tell her I’ll be there soon. Just keep her quiet and sit tight.”

  “She’s coming, Becca.” Jo folded the cell. “Can I get you some water?”

  Becca shook her head.

  Jo watched her silently for a few miserable moments.

  “I’ll b-be okay, Jo.” Becca covered her eyes with her hand, and her mouth twisted before she turned her face into the sofa’s cushion. “Just give me a few minutes alone, okay?”

  “Of course,” Jo whispered. On the rare occasions she cried, she preferred privacy, too. But Becca’s request was the only thing that could have wedged her from the couch, in that moment. She rose and made her way to the front door. She checked to make sure Becca hadn’t moved, then slipped out onto the porch.

  The mutilated doll drew Jo like a macabre and malodorous flytrap. She crouched in front of it, as dispassionate as it was possible to be, given her still-racing heart.

  Jo didn’t know what kind of doll five-year-old Becca had been clutching the night her parents died. Voakes had referred to a rag doll, and that didn’t describe the ugly little present someone had set on this porch in the few hours they had been gone. It was roughly as big as a human toddler, an unusual size for a doll but without the realistic features of a mannequin. It was pink plastic and naked, stripped of whatever clothing it had come packaged in. The chubby cheeks were generic, its single eye was the classic desirable Caucasian blue. Fine blond hair, chopped brutally by unskilled hands, stood out from the scalp in chunks.

  The doll’s pink chest was splashed with red, possibly fingernail polish, but an entire bottle of it. The “blood” began at the shattered socket of the left eye, which had obviously been shot out with a gun. Jo tweezed the white hair in two fingers and pulled the doll forward. Most of the back of its head was gone.

  She heard a single sob from inside the house, soft and quickly suppressed. Rage shot through Jo, fury that anyone would dare frighten Becca like this. Before she could stop herself, she clenched her fingers powerfully over the doll’s ruined head. She wrenched it off the plastic neck and hurled it from the porch, then heard it bounce into the bushes below.

  “Jo?” Becca’s voice was faint, but it drew Jo to her feet and back into the house like a clarion summons.

  They would wait together for Rachel Perry. If Becca wanted Jo couchside while she spoke to Rachel, the wrath of hell itself would not move her.

  *

  And Jo was banished to the porch again.

  The wrath of hell hadn’t dismissed her; that had been Becca. Apparently, she wanted private time with Rachel. That was fine with Jo. Her shoulder throbbed from its smack against the step. There was aspirin in the medicine chest in the upstairs bathroom, but she had nothing better to do than sit sentinel out here on the stairs and guard Becca from Patricia Healy.

  “I’m afraid she’s right behind me,” Rachel had said as Jo helped her up these same steps. “Patricia’s still saying her good-byes at her fundraiser, but she insisted on joining us here soon. It’s possible my racing to the exit, squawking in alarm, tipped her off somehow.”

  Jo had seen Rachel safely settled beside Becca, then let herself out quietly to prevent any pending aunt-ambush. She used the time to wrap that monstrosity of a doll in a tarp and lock it securely in the trunk of her Bentley. She would turn it over to Pam Emerson in the morning. She considered parking the Bentley around the corner, to better distance Becca from its malicious cargo, but didn’t want to leave the porch unguarded.

  The sun was taking its seasonally sweet time setting, its last gold rays bathing the cemetery across the street. Jo rubbed her shoulder pensively, wishing she could see the Lady of the Rock from here. Imagining this benevolent light kissing the Lady’s face, illuminating the young girl resting her head in her lap. Jo had seen a reflection of this image of the cemetery’s Pietá in Becca and Rachel, just now. The maternity of the older woman’s hand, resting on Becca’s hair. They touched each other so easily, Becca and her peopl
e.

  It was full dark before a classic Rolls with Patricia Healy behind the wheel glided to a halt in front of the house. Wasp-waisted in a jade gown befitting a formal dinner, Becca’s aunt hurried up the stone steps, her head lowered. She almost stepped on Jo, and stumbled in surprise.

  “Joanne, I didn’t see you.” Patricia righted herself, looking flustered. “Is Becca inside?”

  “Yes. Rachel is with her. They’ve asked for some time alone.” Jo could read the indecision in Patricia’s face, so she simply stood up. With psychiatric aides like Peter and nosy aunts like Patricia, her height could prove an advantage. “I’m sure they won’t be much longer.”

  Patricia blinked up at her. “Oh. That’s fine. We’ll wait out here, then.” She turned carefully on the wide step and managed to arrange herself gracefully to sit on it, gown and all.

  Reluctantly, Jo resumed her seat one step above her.

  “Can you explain what happened? Rachel didn’t share many details.”

  “I’ll let Becca tell you about it.” Jo heard the genuine worry in her voice, but she didn’t feel up to cozy conversation right now.

  “That girl has certainly been through the wringer.” Patricia sighed and slipped off her shoes and placed them neatly side by side on the step. “Funny. I still think of Becca as a girl, but I was her age when she came to us. And I felt as old and decrepit as a redwood then, suddenly dealing with this traumatized little child.”

  “Hm.”

  “Becca’s becoming a lesbian was never an issue for us, by the way.” Patricia smiled up at Jo. “Both Mitch and I think you all should have every civil right on the books. We support your community entirely.”

  “Hm.” Jo remembered Mitchell’s fondness for search engines, but she doubted anything in her online presence revealed her sexual orientation. She wondered at Patricia’s presumption.

  “When Becca first came out to us, we thought she might just be lining up with her friends, Marty and Khadijah. They’re a lesbian couple, and they’re both terrific women. I hope you get to meet them someday.”

  “Hm.” Jo found she was actually missing Uncle Mitch’s interruptions. At least they provided some respite from Patricia’s incessant chatter. Was Rachel transplanting Becca’s liver in there? What could be taking so long?

  “Thank God Marty and Khadijah knew to come to us, back when Becca was in so much trouble years ago.” Patricia sighed again and plucked at the folds in her gown. “Becca went through a period of serious drug use, Joanne, when she was sixteen. Mitch and I were quite alarmed. She managed to beat it, but we’ve thought of her as rather fragile ever since. The violent loss of her parents, heroin addiction. And now this, tonight—whatever this is. You can understand why we’re worried.”

  Jo wondered if Becca had had any nasty STDs in her adolescence that her aunt might want to disclose out of her hearing, but she managed not to ask. This felt like some clumsy effort to discredit Becca, to make Jo doubt her judgment, and she resented it. The front door opened and Rachel emerged, alone, on the porch. Jo left Patricia to flounder to her feet unassisted to join them.

  “She’s more comfortable, now.” Rachel spoke quietly, as if still in tending mode. “I ended up giving her a Seconal.” She made a clicking sound of regret. “Becca stays away from meds when she can, but we both agreed it was a good idea tonight. That doll must have been a horror, Joanne.”

  “A doll?” Patricia looked from Rachel to Jo and back. “Oh dear, that doesn’t sound good. May I see her?”

  “Becca’s finally sleepy. It isn’t a good time for more visitors.” Rachel slid her arm through Patricia’s. “Why don’t you give her a call tomorrow, Patricia? She promised to join me for breakfast in the morning, just to check in. I’ll want to see how she’s doing then.”

  Jo released a small breath of relief. “Is there anything I should know for tonight?”

  “Just stay in close proximity, in case she dreams. I made her go upstairs to lie down in a real bed, by the way. The woman needs sleep.” Rachel peered up at Jo and patted her wrist gruffly. “You could do with some rest, too, Joanne. You have to take better care of yourself.”

  “Oh, look who’s talking.” Patricia pursed her lips. “Rachel, you’re out on your feet.”

  Nothing about Rachel had registered for Jo, except her welcome presence, while Becca needed her help. Now she realized how right Patricia was. Rachel seemed shrunken in on herself, hunched and old in the finery of her silk dress. Jo remembered the bird-like thinness of her arm as she helped her up the steps.

  “Let me drive you home,” Patricia said. “Or you can sleep at our place, Rachel. That might be best.”

  “Don’t be silly, Patricia, I live six blocks away. Just help me down these infernal steps, and I’ll be fine. Good night, Joanne.”

  “Good night, Joanne,” Patricia repeated, guiding Rachel solicitously down the stairs. “Please call if Becca needs anything.”

  “Where are your shoes?” Rachel asked.

  Jo hitched her thumbs in her pockets and watched the two women thoughtfully as they made their way to the street. Their expressions had revealed two things in the last thirty seconds, more clearly than any message whispered from beyond the grave.

  Rachel’s concern for Jo’s personal well-being had rung entirely false. Jo supposed she found this understandable. But so had Patricia Healy’s concern for Rachel.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “It’s all right. I’m awake.” Becca heard the bedroom’s hardwood floor creak beneath Jo’s foot. She assumed it was Jo, and not some creeping, doll-planting interloper. It had better be, since she’d left her chobos downstairs. She was too drowsy to turn over on the wide bed and actually look.

  “I’m sorry,” Jo said, apparently apologizing for her mere presence in the darkened room. “I felt it was necessary to bring this up.”

  Ah. Jo moved around the bed, and Becca could see her shadowed form set the Spiricom on the low table beside it. She seemed surprised to find the small globe radio already there.

  “That yellow ball seems to tune in on my mom the best.” Becca yawned. “If she speaks up tonight, she’d better mind her manners and whisper.”

  She felt Jo settle gradually onto the side of the bed, and her silence finally prompted Becca to turn over. Her limbs moved with a drugged languor, and she blinked sleepily.

  “It’s not the same bed,” Becca said.

  “What?”

  “The furniture in this house has been turned over several times over the years. I made Rachel reassure me about that, more than once. My parents slept in this room, but it wasn’t in this bed.”

  “I never assumed it was.” Jo sounded puzzled and troubled. “Becca, you scared the hell out of me tonight.”

  “I know.” Becca felt genuine sorrow about this. She knew how she would have felt if Jo were suddenly, frighteningly unconscious. “Thank you for looking after me so well.”

  “It didn’t seem there was much I could do. How are you now?”

  Becca thought about it and decided to tell the truth. “I’m better. Rachel pumped me full of drugs, and I’m calm now, and sleepy. But I’m afraid I’m going crazy, Jo.”

  It came out so casually, it sounded so reasonable, and Becca’s eyes filled again with helpless tears. As if she could see them, Jo wrapped her hand in hers.

  “Tell me,” Jo said. That’s all she said, and Becca found she could.

  “Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. You know that. I’m beginning to think I’ve caught my mother’s bug. These fugue states I go into. They feel psychotic. I may be losing my grip here.”

  Jo waited, but that’s all Becca could get out right now. The tears ran down either side of her face, trickling through her hair to the pillow.

  “You’re not having manic episodes, Becca, not as I understand mania. And if you’re having intense reactions to this phobia, that just seems good common sense to me. In the past, the danger has always been in your mind. These days your subcons
cious is reacting to what has become a very real threat.”

  Jo’s logic wasn’t reaching Becca, but her voice was. That low, rich alto, the thoughtfulness of her speech. Unfortunately, it wasn’t calming Becca; it was just making it possible to open the floodgates further. She managed to keep her own voice level. “That’s basically what Rachel told me.”

  “Rachel knows you very well. You have a therapist you trust, and loving friends to see you through this. You’ll be fine.”

  “My mother had those things, and she wasn’t fine.”

  That did it. Becca was undone. Even as sobs convulsed her, she knew Jo and Rachel were right. She knew she wasn’t going to end up on a back ward of Western State, but it was so dark outside and Rachel had only given her one Seconal, and it wasn’t enough.

  Whatever unlikely wisdom had told Jo when to be silent must have told her now that more than words were needed. Becca felt her long body ease down onto the bed, stretching out beside hers. Jo’s arm draped lightly across her waist, and Becca curled into her shoulder.

  They held each other while Becca wept, and for a long time after her tears finally stopped. Then Jo’s hand brushed beneath her chin, and Becca lifted her face to meet her kiss. Their lips blended with a sweet softness, melding with a natural ease, a perfect fit. Becca’s body filled slowly with a different kind of languor, a liquid, trickling warmth.

  “Becca.” Jo lifted her head, and Becca wondered at the honest regret in her voice. “I’ve never made love to anyone. I don’t know how. And I don’t want to learn tonight. I just want to hold you.”

  And Becca was saddened all over again that Jo was afraid this would be considered heresy; both that she was inexperienced, and that a moment of such loving physical intimacy had to lead inevitably to sex.

  “Don’t you know this is enough?” she whispered. “Becca School is back in session, dear Dr. Call. You’re giving me exactly what I need.”