by Bartlett, LL
“That’s movies. We’re talking real life.”
“Not if he’s dead,” Sophie pointed out. She reached for a cookie, placed it on her plate, and then broke it in half, nibbling on one of the pieces. “Are you afraid of meeting a ghost?”
I’d seen some pretty weird stuff since I’d been bonked on the head with a baseball bat and became . . . different. “I don’t think I’m afraid as much as . . . worried.”
“Why?”
“What if this guy is depending on me to discover what happened to him?”
“Is that what you hope to accomplish by going back to see this fraud of a fortuneteller? Figuring out why he died?”
“That’s just it. I’m not sure. But if this guy died because someone helped him to the afterlife or . . . whatever . . . shouldn’t somebody try to help him move on?”
“Has he asked you for help?”
I shook my head. “He hasn’t said a word.”
“Then how do you know he even needs help?”
I grabbed a cookie from the plate, broke it into about six pieces and shoved one of them into my mouth, chewing fast. It tasted pretty good, but I didn’t care. I was wondering why I cared about some dead guy I’d never known in life.
But for some reason I did care. Shouldn’t that be enough?
I voiced the question.
Sophie shrugged. “I guess if somebody did me in, I’d hope that somebody cared enough to find out why. But why does it always have to be you?”
“Maybe nobody else knows the guy is dead.”
Sophie sipped her coffee, and then picked up the other half of her cookie. “Then I guess you’d better do something to find that out.”
#
And so it was two days after my first visit that I returned to the decrepit old house, which looked no better on my second visit than it had on my first. The weather had deteriorated and a gentle rain had been falling for most of the day. When I knocked at the old screen door I could see a number of plastic pails and bowls had been placed in strategic places around the entryway to catch drips. Still, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the dark stains on the floor might not be due to a leaky bathroom after all.
“I knew you’d be back,” called the woman fortune-teller from within. I then realized that I hadn’t thought to ask her name the last time I’d been there, and she hadn’t introduced herself, either. “Come in,” she encouraged.
Sure she was friendly. She knew if I walked through the door she would be able to order a small cheese-and-pepperoni pizza for dinner. If she’d already had one other customer that day, she could upgrade to a medium with enough leftover for lunch the next day and give the delivery guy a tip, too.
“Sit down, Mr. Resnick,” she said, waving a hand to encourage me to take the seat opposite her. Today she wore a sleeveless blue shell top, but the black shawl was still draped over her shoulders—no doubt for effect. The oppressive humidity in that room wasn’t improved by the presence of a large white oscillating fan that moved listlessly from left to right.
I sat down and, without a word, she held out her hand to receive her fee upfront. I counted out ten one dollar bills. I’d had good tips that day while tending bar at the Whole Nine Yards—a job I’d held for a little over two months.
“And why have you returned so soon?” the woman asked.
“What you told me the other day intrigued me,” I lied. “I wanted to know more.”
It had been the right thing to say. The corners of her mouth quirked into a smile. She reached for her crystal ball and pulled it closer.
Again movement in the shadows drew my attention. Once again the guy with the bad haircut stood in the corner, wearing the same plaid shirt—a garment much too heavy for such a hot, humid day—and I swear he hadn’t been there when I’d entered the room. He smiled, waggled his eyebrows a la Groucho Marx and gave me a four-fingered wave with his right hand. He looked pretty substantial to me.
I turned my attention back to the woman. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”
“You may call me Madam Zahara.”
Madam Zahara? O-kay.
“Madam Zahara, do you live here alone?”
She hesitated before answering. “Most of the time. My son comes and goes. He’s a long-distance truck driver. He’ll probably return tonight.”
Had she added the last to warn me off should I be some kind of robber or rapist?
If she was in her fifties, her son was probably in his twenties or thirties. The guy in the corner had to be at least forty. He turned to look out the nearest window to the weed-strewn yard beyond. I got the feeling that before I headed for home I should probably take a walk around that yard. For some reason I wasn’t quite sure I understood, I was supposed to look around that yard before I headed home. And I had a feeling I might find something I would definitely not like finding.
Once again Madam Zahara held her hands over her crystal ball as she gazed within its depths. “Ahh, today I see—”
“Death?” I supplied.
Her brow wrinkled and she frowned. “No. Why would you say that?” she asked, sounding frightened.
“Because there’s a darkness that hovers over this house. Surely you’ve felt it.”
Her blue eyes widened in suspicion. “Why do you say that?”
My gaze traveled up to the ceiling and ran back to the stained floor in the entryway. I had originally assumed the wood had been marred by dripping water over a long period of time. But now I thought I knew better. That knowledge made the humidity suddenly seem ten times as oppressive.
“You told me on Tuesday that an encounter with the police would be in my future. I think you were right.”
“Is there something you’re guilty of that you’ve been hiding?” she asked with a bit of a smirk.
“Not me. I think it’s you.”
She sat back, taking umbrage. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” I asked, unsure why I’d taken the offensive.
“No,” she said quite firmly.
I heaved a heavy sigh and looked back at the guy who stood silent in the darkened corner of the room. He nodded and then raised a hand to make a slashing motion across his throat.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Ten years. And why the hell would you care?” She was definitely on the defensive. “Look, I think you’d better leave.” She pushed the stack of ones back toward me, but I shook my head.
“I have a feeling you’re going to need them. In fact, I think you’re going to need a lot more than ten dollars to hire someone to tackle your defense.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“The shallow grave out in the side yard. There’s a body buried there—or what’s left of a body. The big stain in the entryway isn’t from water damage. It’s blood.”
She rose to stand, much shorter than she’d appeared sitting behind the table. “I think you’d better leave. Now.”
“I agree. But if you don’t call the cops about this, I will.”
For a moment—just a moment—I was suddenly afraid. I’d made a baseless accusation. I had nothing more than a gut feeling to go with and she had called my bluff. Momentarily. But then a gush of remorse and sorrow threatened to engulf me. It wasn’t my own . . . it belonged to her.
“Call the police,” I said. “This has been a heavy burden on your soul for a long time.”
Her lower lip trembled for a few seconds before she burst into tears.
“I think I should go now,” I said and rose from my seat. “But I’m not going very far—and if I don’t see a police cruiser park in your drive within the next half hour, I’m going to call them and that would complicate my life. You don’t want to complicate my life,” I told her in a tone I’d never used when talking with a woman.
Suddenly her fear shifted from whatever she’d done to whatever she thought I might be capable of doing. It wasn’t a pleasant state of mind for me to accept
.
She took a ragged breath and pulled a clunky old cell phone from her skirt pocket and hit three buttons—911. She lifted the phone to her ear and cleared her throat. “I’d like to report a murder.”
I looked across to the corner of the room. The man who stood there smiled, lifted his right hand to give me a thumbs up, and then slowly dissolved into thin air.
#
True to my word, I’d pulled out of her driveway and drove a quarter of a mile down the road to turn around. Then I’d doubled back and parked in the used car lot directly across the road from the creepy old house to wait for the police cruiser to arrive.
I waited and waited. After more than an hour it was apparent that no cop car would arrive. She’d stiffed me. She’d pressed the correct buttons on her phone, said the words I’d expected her to say, and scammed me good. And obviously my best Clint Eastwood threat had not been believed for—sure enough—it was a pizza deliveryman who arrived, not a cop.
I started my car, pulled out of the dealership, and headed for home.
Once there, I hit the button on the remote, the garage door opened, and I parked my car. Before I could close the door and head upstairs to my own place, I saw Brenda hanging out the back door of the big house, waving me to come over and join them for dinner. Since I’d guzzled the last of my twelve-pack and had nothing but a blue box of mac and cheese in the cupboard, I figured why not?
“You’re late again,” Brenda accused as I entered their kitchen. This time she was cooking pasta. A bag of shrimp sat on the counter, accompanied by a small dish of freshly chopped garlic. Scampi was on the menu that night.
“You went back to that psychic, didn’t you?” Richard accused from his seat at the kitchen table.
I sat down opposite him. “Guilty as charged.”
He shook his head and took a sip of the scotch and soda that had been sitting before him.
“Want a beer?” Brenda offered me.
I shook my head. “I think something stronger might be called for.”
She sighed, but stepped over to the cabinet that held the kitchen liquor, hauling out a bottle of Makers Mark. She poured me a couple of fingers worth, tossed in some ice and soda, and handed it to me. Ahh—that hit the spot.
“And?” Richard prompted.
“The so-called psychic is hiding something. I’m pretty sure there’s a body buried in the yard.”
“Oh, God,” Richard groused and downed what was left in his glass with one gulp.
“I was going to search the yard before I left, but the bitch called my bluff. I’d told her to call the cops and she produced a cell phone and pretended to do it. Only they never showed.”
“So what happens next?” Richard asked.
“Like I said, I think there’s a body buried in the yard. No one’s going to believe me unless I can come up with some kind of proof.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Richard said, and why would he? Thanks to my escapades he’d been shot, and now had the death threat of HIV hanging over his head.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not asking you to come with me—in fact, I don’t want you to come. But if I can bring back some kind of evidence that you can identify as being human—say a bone—maybe you could go with me to the Clarence Police Department when I report it.”
“Do you honestly think I’m going to let you go digging for evidence alone?” Richard asked.
“Why are either of you even considering going to that house?” Brenda cried.
I gave her what I hoped was a patient look. “Brenda, if a murder has taken place, then justice needs to be served.” Geeze, I sounded like some kind of sanctimonious asshole right off a TV drama.
“And why is it always you that needs to be the catalyst for justice? Why can’t somebody else play Superman?” Now she sounded like Sophie.
“No red cape and blue tights?” I suggested.
She glared at me.
“What made you suspicious of this woman in the first place?”
“I got weird vibes going into that house. When I asked her about it, she blew me off.”
Richard frowned and shook the ice in his glass, as though hoping Brenda would take the hint and make him another drink. She didn’t. Finally he got up and poured his own Scotch. “Okay, say the woman killed that guy. What are the odds she’ll be armed if you show up?” he asked as he slopped Lagavulin over ice.
“I wouldn’t put it past her. The entry was stained with what looked like a lot of blood.”
“You two are not seriously thinking of going out there tonight to investigate, are you?” Brenda asked.
“She knows I know something,” I pointed out. “She knows she’s got to hide the evidence.”
“And what if she’s digging up the evidence when you arrive?” Brenda insisted.
“That would be the perfect time to call the cops and have them catch her in the act.”
“And if she doesn’t dig up the evidence?” she demanded.
“Then we can call the cops.” I paused. Hadn’t I already decided Richard shouldn’t participate, and yet here I was including him in my plans. “It’s a win-win situation.”
Brenda shook her head. “Oh, no-no-no. Things never work out that neatly.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But we’ve got to give it a try,” Richard agreed.
“No, you don’t. Call the police!”
“But I’ve got no tangible proof. They don’t treat gut feelings as real evidence.”
The pasta threatened to boil over and Brenda turned to tend to it.
I sipped my bourbon and looked at my physician brother. He already had a potential death threat hanging over his head, thanks to being exposed to a bloodied, high-risk patient and no latex protection between his hands and the dying man. Still, there was no denying the longing in his eyes, begging to be involved—to feel alive—especially at a time when he might be looking at his own mortality.
I wanted to protect my brother, but could I deny him the chance to live at a time when he wasn’t sure what his future might bring?
“What’s the plan?” Richard asked.
Brenda glared at him, but I sensed that she understood that it was up to Richard to decide his own fate.
“For now, we assess the situation. There’s no reason we have to hurry on this.” And yet as soon as I said that I knew that time was running out for finding the remains … and that guy in the plaid shirt. I was sure it was him buried in a shallow grave alongside the house. Had I really seen a ghost? Had whatever was left of the man been hanging around the place in hopes that someone would uncover his fate—find him—and finally see that he was properly laid to rest? Had Madam Zahara killed him or had her seldom-home son done the deed? And what was the dead man’s relationship with the two of them? Lover? Husband? Father? Hapless mark?
Richard raised his glass, gazing at the amber liquid within it. “There’s no time like the present. Let’s have dinner and then go find your evidence,” he said to me. He lowered his glass, took a sip, and then shifted his gaze toward Brenda. “You could come with us.”
She shook her head. “Not on your life. I’ll be here, keeping the home fires burning. And if you aren’t home at a reasonable hour, I’ll call the cops and report you as missing persons.”
“You’re overreacting,” I told her.
“Oh yeah? We’ll see,” she said, glowering at me.
Since Brenda was a kindred spirit, and I meant that literally—she had a limited sixth sense about such things—I took her warning seriously and wished to God I hadn’t mentioned anything about this mess to them. Richard felt some kind of misplaced guilt about my teenaged years spent in his home, and the lack of understanding and concern his grandparents felt on my behalf. In retrospect, I didn’t blame them. I reminded them of our mother, a woman they’d disapproved of—despised, actually. That they’d allowed me to live in their home after our mother’s death, and for the better part of four years, had to gall them. They had loved Richard
enough to put up with me.
No one had loved me.
I shook my head to dislodge all the crap from so long ago, but somehow it always seemed to come back to haunt me at the worst moments.
Brenda got up and put a big skillet on the stove before she took a stick of butter out of the fridge to sauté the shrimp. She’d make sure her troops were well fed before they marched off to . . . battle? No, we weren’t looking for a fight. But what we found might be a casualty of a domestic war. I was pretty sure if we dug in just the right spot, we’d find bones—and maybe the remnants of a plaid flannel shirt.
I drained my Makers Mark and got up to make another. I had a feeling I’d better fortify myself. What lay ahead could be pretty gruesome. Or was I being overly melodramatic? After all, I had no evidence—nothing but a gut feeling to go by. Still, gut feelings had served me well in the recent past.
I poured that fine bourbon and took a sip. This would be my last drink before we hit the road, but I had a feeling that bottle might run dry upon our return.
#
The clouds had dissipated, but thanks to Buffalo’s light-polluted sky, no stars broke through the artificial haze. Richard had had a glass or two of wine with his scampi, so I elected to drive us to the psychic’s neighborhood.
I parked my car on a side street four blocks from the house and took out a shovel from the trunk of my car. I carried it while Richard hefted the large orange flashlight that usually lived under his kitchen sink.
“So how did the guy die?” Richard asked as we headed west on the cracked and weed-studded sidewalk.
“Blunt trauma to the skull,” I said and realized that the phrase perfectly described my own injury five months before. Was that the common denominator that connected me with the flannel-clad victim?
The streetlamps cast bluish shadows. We walked the rest of the way—side-by-side—in silence. If anyone saw me with that shovel, what would they think? Would they call 911 or just assume I was a nutcase on the loose? Luckily traffic was light and none of the cars that passed seemed to notice us as we trekked down the concrete path.
Finally I grabbed Richard’s arm, pulling him to a stop, and we took in the psychic’s residence. Except for a flickering blue light in one of the upstairs rooms—a rerun of Survivor?—the big old house was dark. I couldn’t even see the sign that advertised the medium’s services.