“Not much of a crowd. Maybe more will show up later,” Johnny commented. “I don’t like those bandannas, and I don’t care for the presence of that TV news van we just passed. Expected but regrettable. The attack on your friend Vanderveen made the news. Protests tend to escalate if they’re assured of a wider audience via media attention.”
I nodded glumly. The protest today would make a nice addition to the story, and the SOS would happily and publicly interpret the attack on Ric as proof the supernatural was on their side.
“How many do they usually muster for these events?”
“I’ve never seen more than twenty-five or thirty. Very often less than that.” I folded the requisition and stuffed it in a pocket of my shoulder bag. My clipboard could stay on the seat. No need to advertise.
“Hop now, Lillie, so you won’t step in the puddle of water climbing out. Wait for me.”
I hopped and waited while he backed the SUV into a space that provided a clear run to the street. On our way to the front I scanned the overcast sky for darker rain clouds. A good downpour might dampen any collective ardor for confrontation, even among the most devout.
Before we turned the corner of the building, Johnny shoved a hand in the pocket of his windbreaker and crooked his elbow. “Take my arm, Lillie, and snuggle close. We’ll be a strolling couple.” After a moment of hesitation, I took it. The practical purpose of his suggestion, as well as the tone of his voice, removed any suggestion of intimacy. It was worth a try.
“Closer, Lillie. Don’t be stiff.”
I snuggled, awkwardly, uncomfortably aware of the muscles under the leather jacket, his maleness. We strolled.
It worked, but not for long.
The women nailed me when we turned up the walk to the courthouse. One of the pair guarding the way cupped her mouth and yelled, “It’s her! She’s here!”
The women crossed their pickets like halberds to bar my passage. One sign read Keep Our Spirits Up, the other Down with Corpse Dowsers.
So clever, so cute.
I released my grip on Johnny’s arm, stepped forward and snapped, “Get those signs out of my face and get out of my way. His family has requested this.”
“Ladies,” said Johnny beside me, flashing a badge. “You’re blocking access to a public place and obstructing official business. Move along to the sidewalk, please.”
They moved. Reluctantly, but they lowered their placards and moved, eyeing me as they made to sidle past. The second one, the one with the spiked hair and black lipstick, muttered, “Soul-sucking bitch,” and speared the butt end of her placard toward my ribs like a stake at a vampire.
I cranked it aside like a lever and tripped her into the flower bed that edged the walk.
I thought I might have just met one of the parties involved in vandalizing and violating the other Lily’s grave.
“Lillie!”
“I never laid a hand on her,” I said righteously, and marched up the steps into the building, ignoring the stream of boring obscenities hurled at my back.
Inside, I brushed off my coat and waited for Johnny to express disapproval or provide a short lecture on Protests: Proper Conduct At.
Instead, he looked me up and down again and grinned. A grin that chipped flint from his face. Maybe the creases at the corners of his eyes weren’t entirely from squinting suspiciously at suspects, after all. “You don’t think the way you look, do you? All big eyes and not say boo. I guess your wrists are not so delicate as they look”
I snorted. “Bah! At five foot six and 125 pounds, Sergeant, I’m not some delicate little flower.”
“You are to me,” he said, his gaze suddenly intent.
In the long silence that followed I was be-spelled again by useless, ephemeral and entirely inappropriate longings. Johnny Thresher radiated strength and security. I imagined what it would be like just to have what the ancient war texts called a “shield-brother,” and even beyond that to a relationship where one was protected, guarded as something precious.
This will never do, I thought, and broke eye contact. Yearning for the impossible had brought me nothing but Nathan and trouble. I glanced wildly around the bare, impersonal vestibule, afraid my yearning might have showed in my face. His words had been nothing more than a comment about our respective sizes. Another catcall from outside provided my out.
“Sometimes I feel like dragging them in and making them watch. Watching a recorder ghost repeating death agonies a few times might make them realize that you can’t mouth blanket all-or-nothing rules about apparitions. It’s cruel to the families and it’s cruel to the disembodied intelligences they claim they want to protect. I didn’t notice any of the disembodied hovering around out there gratefully cheering them on. And if there were, they’d be types like the pedophile ghost from this morning.”
A bailiff with a belly greeted me with a kind of nervous relief when I presented my paperwork at the desk. He grumbled that I should have seen to the case sooner, for he was tired of gawkers trying to sneak in. I took that to mean there had been a parade of morbid voyeurs. He signed my form in advance.
“You’ll be all right by yourself? Not need another witness, I hope?”
He chewed his moustache and glanced at Johnny, busy examining a floor plan schematic mounted on the opposite wall.
“If you do you’ll have to get somebody else. I’m not available. Court’s in recess as a precaution because of that bunch outside, but the afternoon cases will have to be re-scheduled and people informed and we’ve a backlog as long as my arm as it is.”
He led us down several corridors to the rear of the building, moved a barricade still looped with crime scene tape and pointed to the stairs.
“Down there. The middle one on the left—though I suppose I don’t have to tell you that. You’ll hear him soon enough. They say there used to be another one down there years ago, who always showed up on the anniversary of his execution, but no one’s seen him for a while as far as I’ve heard. Your work?”
I shrugged by way of answer. I’d researched that ancient case prior to conducting an exorcism for and at the museum. The fellow had stalked into the courtroom, grabbed the axe presented as evidence and took out the accused like he was felling a tree. Subsequently the axe had the messy habit of dripping blood.
“The prisoner wasn’t my responsibility, you know.”
I didn’t know. Prisoners were supposed to be monitored.
“They do tend to fade over time,” I said in neutral tones, “but not usually in a week and a half.” Some of them went on strong for centuries, but I didn’t mention that. I didn’t like this building with its confusion of trapped energies and emotions and its exposed electrical conduits.
Over the quiet echoes set up by our footsteps on the bare concrete steps, the sound of heavy, rasping breathing was clearly audible, even before we reached the bottom.
I paused at the foot of the stairs. Six cells, three to a side, narrow as cattle stalls. One narrow barred window at the end of the block. The fluorescent strip lighting in the ceiling above flickered continuously and the air was winter dry and chill with the thin teethy smell of disinfectant.
“What a cramped hole. No exit, except the stairs.”
“That’s why they named this set of old cells the Crypt.”
“No surveillance cameras,” Johnny observed, strolling the length and back again, “that partly explains it. What did he use? Something concealed? Didn’t they take his belt and shoelaces?”
“According to my report, which was pretty sketchy on those details, naturally, he ripped off the decorative stripe from the pant legs of his jogging suit and used that to hang himself. Tied it to the crossbars above the lock mechanism and let gravity do the dirty work.”
We arrived near the end. It wasn’t pretty. It was holographic slow death. After a quick glance I turned my back on the sagging apparition for a moment to compose my mind. I would have to wait until the scene repeated. I wanted to abort the re-play at the ea
rliest, not the latest, possible moment, not interject at the bulging eyes and the convulsing limbs segment. Otherwise, with repeaters there was always the chance of the cut film effect, of a residual record. And I would have to avoid the steel bars of the cell door.
“I have to make something clear,” I said, dropping my shoulder bag and pulling off my gloves. “You’re here to observe. Do that. Whatever you do, don’t touch me during the operation. Is that clear?”
Johnny nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. He strolled over and leaned against the bars, presumably to get a good view of my technique.
“He hasn’t faded much, if anything he’s sharper than they usually are, so this might be tricky. Don’t jab, grab or jostle me for a minute or two after either. Even if I fall down.”
I pushed back my sleeves, adjusted my bracelets and braced myself.
And froze. Just as Johnny straightened and said sharply, “Lillie, wait. Something’s not right.”
The face stopped me first, not the command. I knew him. Sort of. But only by his first name. This was why the name in the report hadn’t registered. I remembered the embroidered name “Jason” on the breast of his overall, below the surly, acne-scarred face and the curly brown hair, the hate in his eyes.
The second thing that made me drop my arms and step back was the odd position of the body. He was on his knees, leaning forward, eyes closed, his pants and boxers pulled down, a hand grasping his penis. For a moment I wondered: accident or suicide? I wondered too, in a kind of weary distaste, about my fortune to face two jerk-off ghosts in a single day.
What I saw next made me retreat another step. The cord around the victim’s neck jerked sharply upward. The body convulsed.
Someone had made sure Jason didn’t change his mind.
“It looked first more like an auto-erotic incident,” I said. “It definitely doesn’t look like a normal suicide.”
“If it is, we could call it an assisted suicide,” said Johnny. “I think we have a murder.”
“I knew him.” My voice came out faint, but level. I squared my shoulders and stepped forward again, ready for the cycle to repeat.
“Wait, Lillie. You can’t exorcize him now. He’s evidence.”
“Sergeant,” I said, making it formal, “he’s no such thing. I see him. You see him, obviously. Two witnesses ought to be enough, surely. To almost everyone else he’s just a grisly auditory entity. He’s not something we can record, except in deposition at the inquest. He’s not portable or tangible. We don’t have a damn physical thing to challenge the coroner’s COD verdict. That hasn’t changed, really, only the means by which it was effected. Evidence of foul play you have to find elsewhere. That’s your job, not mine. Clairvoyance is merely a tool, to tell you where to look. It’s never a clincher in an investigation. Meanwhile, his family is suffering, knowing this re-play goes on. At least, when and if they find out that he died bare assed with his hands in his pants massaging his member, they’ll know the visual has been wiped.”
I could have added more, that I had authority to exorcize at my discretion—which he could probably challenge as a federal—but I didn’t need to.
He didn’t like it. Johnny rubbed the back of his neck, and then nodded reluctantly.
“Your call.”
“Thank you. There’s one thing,” I said. “Sometimes I get an image in the process, sometimes—other things. However, in that position his field of vision is limited. I don’t think he saw the face of the person who strangled him at all. Or knew.”
When it was over, I staggered sideways and braced myself against the brick wall dividing the cells. It’s one thing to decide to off yourself; it’s another thing entirely to have deliberate help. That might account for the strength of the apparition, the reflexive energy. He had not been an interactive. No intelligence here, just excitement followed by a final, split-second burst of surprise and fear, more at being discovered than any sense of impending death. And a single image.
“I hate the fresh ones,” I mumbled and faced about. Except for his eyes, Johnny’s rock-cut features were as impassive as always. He held my bag and gloves. The fluorescent bars overhead no longer flickered. The air felt warmer.
“Lillie,” said Johnny. “You glowed.”
I tottered to the steps, collapsed on them and stuck my head between my knees. After a minute his words registered. I rubbed my palms over my eyes and looked up.
“So you can read auras too,” I said.
“I wouldn’t call it an aura, it’s gone now,” he said carefully. “Did you catch anything?”
“No face. Black dress pants, black Gucci loafers. Small feet. Male. Surprise.” I shivered. “No help. I’m sorry.”
“You recognized Gucci loafers?”
“Nathan favored them.”
“You said you knew him?” He handed me my gloves and bag. I looped the bag around my neck like a bandolier and worked on my gloves.
“He was an apprentice mechanic at the dealership that serviced Nathan’s car. The mileage checks, tire changes, that sort of thing. Saw him when I picked up the car a few times.”
“Interesting connection.”
“It certainly is an interesting connection, particularly since Nathan had the car serviced the day of the accident and since both Nathan and Jason are dead within a few days of each other, and you tell me his car was sabotaged,” I said tartly. “But he wasn’t the only mechanic who worked there.”
“You’re not suggesting a ghost strangled him in retribution.”
After reviewing the image from the exorcism, I shook my head. “No. Anything’s possible with an interactive ghost, of course, but I have no sense the image belonged to a paranormal.” Or to Nathan. I would recognize him in spirit form, I thought. I got to my feet. “I never knew his last name. He didn’t like me.”
“And you know that how?”
“When someone spits on the ground where you’ve been, I don’t think it indicates affection. A lot of people don’t like Talents, Sergeant. They feel we’re just one step removed from demons of the dark. “
“So do you often get visual images in the process of exorcism?”
“Sometimes.”
“Bad?” He’d read my expression.
“A recent one was a rape-murder,” I said and left it at that.
“The dead can be a burden,” he said, and I wondered how he knew.
16.
I made good use of the railing going back up the steep, narrow stairs. Near the top, pain felled me like a stone in the forehead. I tripped at the second last step, tried to recover and failed, sprawling forward in an inelegant heap on the worn hardwood flooring of the hall.
An instant later hands rolled my body, lifted my head to rest on a hard thigh. Fingers touched my face. A light golden touch that flowed like balm and eased the agony.
His voice echoed in iridescence. “Dammit, Lillie. What happened?”
I continued my perusal of the peeling paint on the figured ceiling, waiting for the halo effect to fade and the rosettes and curlicues to stay in one place, avoiding the face that bent above me. This was the second bloody time I’d fallen in front of him like an idiot. I imagined a Nathan-style supercilious twist to his mouth over stupid women who trip over their own feet. The slightest sample of physical awkwardness had always provided Nathan with an excuse for biting sarcasm
“Sorry. I tripped,” I said, and made to sit up. “Clumsy.”
A hand on my back supported and steadied me. I pressed both palms against my temples, feeling blanched as a vegetable, if a vegetable could have a blinding headache.
“Clumsy? I don’t think so. I’ve watched you move, you’re graceful, like a dancer. Either you’ve tried to do too much today or there’s another cause. Do you usually feel wasted after an exorcism?”
I didn’t dare shake my head. “No. Sometimes. Today, yes.”
He laid his hand on my forehead and the stabbing pain dropped another notch as I leaned into it.
“Interesting. I wonder about a form of psychic trauma. We have to get you away from here. Don’t try to get up.”
“I don’t think I could,” I said, and scooted on my ass over to the wall. Dignity be damned.
“Would you see if there’s a coffeepot or a soft-drink machine somewhere, maybe in a lunchroom? Or just water?” I asked, pawing blindly through my bag for a bottle of aspirin. “I’m sorry to ask but my head is killing me. Blunt object killing me. Like I’ve been whapped with one.”
A little headache, sometimes, sure, but nothing like this. Psychic assault sounded attractive, but I didn’t see how. Instead, I wondered if my Talent was dying, if there was such a thing as Talent burnout. More likely my problem resulted from a failure of proper focus, from emotional turmoil causing a kind of blowback. Psychic whiplash. Not a job where one should let one’s mind wander, after all. The electrical confusion in this building might contribute as well.
“I’ll find something. I’ll be right back.” I watched him go, his aura again constrained by dark blue.
I choked down three aspirins, dry. I was tempted to make it four. My elbow hurt. So did my shin. I peeled up my pant leg. An oozing scrape just above my boot top where my leg caught the lip of the riser. Hoping it might help, I took down my hair from its knot, tying it back with an elastic band. I leaned back and closed my eyes, adjusting my bracelets; one had driven into the burn on my arm when I landed. Minor stuff. Minor smarts. My headache outdid them by a mile. I couldn’t face down even the raucous few waiting outside in this condition, cross-eyed as I was.
What was not at all minor was the energy that had flowed through Johnny’s hands like a pain-relieving golden flood. He might well be an animator. Maybe a powerful one. A Talent, after all.
That conclusion piled another stone on the cairn of my problems. I had thought silver hair was a sure sign of Talent. I didn’t understand why his hair was dark. Maybe he was just an extraordinarily gifted psychic. He didn’t act like an adept. But if he were a true Talent as well as a cop, I would be in double shit if he discovered the exact circumstances around Nathan’s dying moments.
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