by J. M. Barlog
“What? It sounds like what?”
“Nothing. I just think it wouldn't hurt for you to talk to someone else who was in that operating room.”
Holding her arms out like stabilizing rails, the nurse assisted Jenny off the table, then left the examining room. When Jenny emerged from the examination room, Morrison stuck his head out of the next office.
“I still want to see you at your regular appointment, Jenny. And leave the burn exposed to air as much as possible over the next few days.”
Jenny nodded and smiled weakly. Not even Morrison was going to help her understand what was happening inside her head.
Dr. Morrison closed the door and walked over to his desk, where he tapped a business card on the surface while he listened to a ringing phone in his ear.
“Yes, Detective Walker, this is Doctor Morrison. You wanted to be contacted if anything unusual occurred regarding Jenny Garrett....”
In the reception area, the nurse suspended her activity at the desk and slid the glass window open as Jenny walked by. She held out a small card.
“Mrs. Garrett, your next appointment.”
Jenny clutched the card in one hand, Warren's waiting arm in the other. When she turned the card over, a name had been hastily written across the back.
19
A sleepy-eyed Dwight Mackenzie arrived with the next sunrise. It took three trips to move all the equipment from his van into Jenny's bedroom. Each trip only angered Warren that much more.
Warren refused to help, remaining sequestered in his den after admitting Dwight into the house without so much as a good morning greeting. He wanted none of what Dwight had planned for his house and for his wife. Yet there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t devastate Jenny.
While Jenny watched with a child’s fascination, Dwight set up a menagerie of monitors and instruments, each designed to track one particular aspect of Dwight's intended investigation. One by one, Dwight removed them from steel-case cocoons, all marked DELICATE INSTRUMENTS, where they were kept safe from jostling in transport. Each instrument would detect the minutest changes in the surroundings, and in so doing, provide empirical proof that a ghost was, indeed, presenting itself before Jenny. Or so that was the theory behind the planned paranormal investigation.
The empty cases now cluttered the floor of Jenny's walk-in closet. Her forty-five pairs of shoes had to be piled into an out-of-the-way corner for the time being. How long would all these contraptions be here? If Warren had his way, they’d be out by sundown. Dwight wanted to stay wired until he had what he came for.
By three that afternoon, Dwight had single-handedly wired the entire upper floor of the house for video, sound, infrared, and magnetic field detection. Usually, Dwight found his clients willing participants, but not so in the Garrett house. Jenny would have loved to help, but couldn't. Warren wanted to know if Dwight intended to refill the holes he was making in the walls to hold the wires.
Dwight would have liked to wire the entire house. He was concerned he might miss something significant if he didn't, but limited funds kept him from having enough sensors on hand for a completely thorough investigation. And he didn’t dare ask the Garretts for money right now. That would be a sure way of getting bounced out on his ear.
Having festooned the wires overhead along the hall to prevent inadvertent breakage, Dwight checked them once more before connecting the sensors to the instruments. He knew he might very well only get one shot at this, and he needed to minimize the possibility of equipment failure or human error as a cause for his failure.
With instruments set up, tested, and calibrated, Dwight set about the task of collecting signatures. Voice, infrared and magnetic signatures needed to be recorded for himself, Jenny, Chips, and lastly, Warren. Only if Dwight secured a reading that did not match any of the inhabitants of the house could he gain evidence of another’s existence here.
Warren, however, made the task even more difficult by acting as if it were a game that required him to beat the machine. If one of the machines did detect something—and no one knew the staggering consequence of that more than Dwight—but if something were recorded, Dwight would have to present incontrovertible proof that the image was neither Jenny, Warren, the dog nor himself.
Warren’s callous attitude, however, did much to spark Dwight's suspicions. If Warren were the one tormenting Jenny through the use of some sick perverted trickery, the last thing he would want in the house was a means of exposing his deeds.
After taking a baseline set of readings on all the instruments, Dwight switched them to the monitor mode and left to return to the university, promising he would be back before nightfall.
“I'm not feeding him,” Warren scowled, setting a dinner tray hard onto the bed before Jenny. Then he caught himself, took Jenny’s hand and kissed her gently on the forehead.
She seemed worn-out and depressed, despite the presence of Dwight, who seemed to be the only one taking her seriously.
“It's only for a few days,” she apologized.
“I still can't believe I'm allowing this whole...”
“Warren, please.”
“Jenny, I can't believe you're going to allow him to sleep in this room with you. This whole thing is crazy. There's no such thing as ghosts!”
Warren finally abandoned all reasonable discourse and stormed out of the room, stomping down the hall like an angry child. In doing so, he left Jenny no opportunity to respond. Something she needed desperately to be able to do. She needed to vocalize her feelings. Above all else, she need someone to listen.
Jenny's cries found their way into the den, where Warren sat staring at a computer screen of scrolling green numbers. And every number that slid by was bad. He had lost sixteen thousand dollars today because Dwight had innumerable times diverted his attention away from what he had to monitor.
“Fuck,” Warren muttered, slamming his hands down on the keyboard in frustration. If he didn’t get a grip on things soon—very soon—everything around him would come crashing down. He snatched up the telephone and dialed.
****
Rick decided the time had arrived for him to become acquainted with Warren's living habits. Morrison's surprise phone call put an edge on Rick's suspicions about the Garrett household. It was very difficult to buy that Jenny had become suddenly accident prone. An accidental fire could be yet another way for Warren to eliminate Jenny without finding himself indicted for murder.
Rick had to hope his surveillance would turn over some physical evidence that could be linked to a motive for why Warren might want to murder his wife. There was little doubt in Rick's mind that Warren had opportunity.
Captain Rawlings's memory lasted only so long; as did his good graces. He was again pushing Rick to either make his case or close it out once and for all. Given a few days to mull over Dugan's demonstration, Rawlings was drifting away from the analyst's theory of attempted murder. If it remained beyond proof, why pursue it?
Heat was coming down on the captain from the police commissioner to get the department's statistics up. And the best way to lift the numbers was to shift manpower onto cases that could be solved quickly and leave the ringers to collect dust. For Rick, it may very well boil down to a numbers game. The higher the percentage of solved cases, the better the section looked to the top brass. Wasting time on a long shot like the Garrett attempted murder case would hurt the section's numbers and, possibly, Rawling's chances for promotion.
The argument that the killer might try again had been the only reason Walker remained on the Garrett case. Now an 'accidental fire' could indicate that Rick needed to continue his investigation. However, that implied that the killer was such a klutz that he failed in a second attempt. Would there then be a third attempt or would Rick’s continued interest in the case send the killer into self-isolation? If Warren suddenly took to the highway, that would be proof enough in Rick’s mind that he had focused in on the right suspect.
Right now, Walker cared about one t
hing: making certain Jenny Garrett's accidents did not turn out to be the cause of her death.
Walker requested Vicki Chandler be reassigned to the case. Rawlings laughed him out of the office and told Rick he had to go it alone. Chandler was tied up working a child abuse case that had far-reaching political ramifications. No one could be spared. No one.
A recent rain left the grassy fields surrounding the Garrett house glistening in the moonlight. The brightness, however, afforded Rick precious little opportunity to blend in with the neighborhood. As a result, Rick parked down the road from the Garrett house, and as he sat there, he drank tepid coffee while waiting and hoping for something to happen. He went into this surveillance having little or no expectations.
Within two hours of his arrival, activity perked him up in his seat.
A plain blue van pulled into the Garrett drive, parking off to the side as if to remain out of the way. The overhead porch lamp shed sufficient light for Rick to discern the driver as a scruffy-looking male, in his late twenties with sandy-brown hair.
Rick noted the visitor's arrival time and license number, but paid it no more attention until Warren departed fifteen minutes later.
The late hour left little traffic on the road, so Rick delayed his start until Warren safely turned the corner. Then Rick followed at a safe distance, hoping this was more than a trip to the market. He’d almost forgotten how mundane surveillance could be. A partner to talk to would have been nice.
Warren stopped at the market.
While he waited, Rick rummaged through his pockets for change. Before he could leave his vehicle and get to the soda machine, Warren came through the automatic doors with a half-full bag in hand. Warren then continued down the road to the pharmacy, and afterward, pulled back onto the main drag. But he headed toward the city in the direction away from his house. Okay, so this was a trip to the market, but Junior wasn’t ready to head back home just yet.
Rick lagged further back when he thought he might be getting too close. Traffic was sparse and even a yutz like Warren might sooner or later realize the same car had been behind him for a dozen blocks.
Rick's top priority was to shadow Warren without being detected, collect data on the guy’s habits and see if anything fit into his puzzle. If Warren was up to anything criminal in nature, he would no doubt back off as soon as he saw the eyes of authority watching over him. And then Rick might never uncover the truth. If there even was truth to be discovered in this case.
The blaring neon of retail outlets reflected off the puddles on the road as Rick watched Warren's silver Saab take a hard right corner.
Had he spotted Rick? Warren's quick turn seemed to indicate that possibility.
A black Jeep Cherokee roared out of nowhere, cutting in front of Rick and forcing him to brake hard and swerve into the curb to avoid the collision. He waited until the driver completed his turn into a Seven-Eleven parking lot. Part of Rick wanted to follow the Cherokee and shove his badge down the driver's throat.
But when Rick made the right turn to fall back in behind the Saab, a freight train rambled and clanked across the road a block ahead. All Rick saw were flashing red lights on the lowered gate as he listened to the regular clanking of mostly empty boxcars.
Warren had beat the train to the crossing and, by now, was long gone. Was it just coincidence or had Warren suspected the tail and raced beneath the lowering gates to shake Rick’s presence?
Minutes seemed to last forever while Rick waited for the train to pass. The moment the gates lifted, he roared over the tracks and sped on for another mile— hoping to catch up to Warren—before abandoning the surveillance. Luck was against him. He would gain nothing this night and decided to pack it in.
Part of him wanted to go on the six or eight miles to see Bridget. He pulled into the next gas station he came to and dialed her number. No answer. The other, more rational part, told him to call it a night and get some sleep. Rick decided to listen to his rational side.
****
Jenny's fatigue the following day forced her to cancel her appointment with Rosenstein. Just knowing those machines were there in her room prevented her from sleeping. Something inside her kept tugging away like a persistent child saying, look, look here, see this.
Warren suspected Rosenstein was relieved by the cancellation, since this was pro bono and not a billable patient for him anyway. Though Rosenstein, at the time, never put it into words, Warren was certain Rosenstein had made the offer believing, like Warren, that it was a favor destined never be called upon. Most seek professional help only as a last recourse. And the stigma attached to psychiatric help would more than stave off most.
Dwight did nothing other than sit and stare for hours at the instruments cluttering a third of the Garrett master bedroom. At regular intervals, he checked each of the machines to verify that they were continuing to function in their prescribed manner; similar to the way someone checks for a dial tone when they're expecting an important call.
Jenny slept off and on in the morning and seemed to be adapting quite well to Dwight's unobtrusive presence. Even though he was there, it was more like he was invisible.
“All quiet?” she asked upon awakening.
“Except for your husband in the den.”
“Your machines are picking that up?”
“Sure,” Dwight said. He angled an oscilloscope screen so Jenny could see it from her bed.
“What is that?”
“Your husband's breathing.”
“You're kidding? That machine can pick of the sound of his breathing in the den?”
“Actually, there’s a sensor in the den sending the signal back to the instrument. He should give up smoking.”
“Pretty sensitive.”
“I wired three sensors just inside the door. If you like, I can tell you when he leaves his chair.”
“Can you see him, too?”
“No. I only wired the hall and this bedroom for video. I left the den alone. I didn't think your husband would appreciate Big Brother watching over his shoulder.”
“He's not very supportive in this.”
“I know. All we can do now is wait and hope. How are you feeling today?”
“Better. The pain in my arm is finally going away.”
“That's great. And by the way, I believe what you said... about what really happened.”
“Thank God. For a while I thought I was losing my mind. I mean the spirit seems too real to be a hallucination.”
“For what it's worth, animals don't react to hallucinations. No matter what the learned community says.”
Warren popped his head into the bedroom, glared at Dwight, then turned his attention to Jenny, his face softening into a smile.
“I'm going to the market for dinner stuff. Grilled swordfish on the Jenn-air sound okay?”
Dwight made certain to be checking his instruments during Warren's question. The more Dwight avoided eye contact, the better for them both.
“Just great. Dwight, do you like fish?”
“Ah... I'll be leaving for awhile this evening. I’m having dinner with a college friend who lives not far from here. But I'll have the instruments set to trigger on anything that happens, and I'll make sure I’m back before you retire.”
Ninety minutes later, Warren returned from the market surprised to find Bridget's car in the drive beside Dwight’s van. Through the window he spied her sitting on the sofa in the living room with Jenny. Jenny never mentioned that she had talked to Bridget nor that Bridget would be coming over. Progress, Warren thought as he climbed the stairs.
Warren spent a few minutes catching-up with Bridget, then excused himself to put the groceries away and return to his work in the den. Jenny never mentioned if Bridget was staying for dinner, but Warren assumed she wasn’t, especially since he had only purchased enough fish for two.
Bridget repeatedly told Jenny how great she looked despite the accident, and that she would be back to normal in no time. Bridget, however
, did have a difficult time avoiding the scar on Jenny's face. Her obvious attempts to avoid looking at the scar made Jenny even more conscious of her appearance.
“You seem to be getting around good. When do you think you'll be back to work?”
“I don't want to rush it. I know it must be difficult for Kate right now, but I just need more time.”
“I didn't mean to make you feel under pressure...”
As Dwight came down the stairs and crossed the opening to the living room, Bridget’s eyes followed him; she suspended her conversation in mid-word.
“Who is that?” she whispered with a girlish grin across her face.
Jenny stumbled to line up something plausible.
“Just a workman. He's wiring a new alarm. We've been having problems with the other one. They think it's faulty wiring.”
“Are you going to introduce me?”
“To our workman?”
“A girl has to try.”
As they laughed together, Jenny covered her mouth suddenly, uncertain of her scar's appearance in such a situation. Part of her wanted to reach across the sofa and throw her arms around her friend. Another part of her cautioned the wisdom of such an action. Though Jenny was baffled at why. Bridget had been her best friend since college. They leaned on each other through the hard times and laughed together through the good times. So why did it all of a sudden seem wrong to feel that way?
“I should be back in a few hours,” Dwight said, bidding his leave without imposing on Jenny. His eyes never left Bridget and he lingered a moment longer than appropriate before disappearing.
“That guy even works nights. My kind of man,” Bridget said with a wink.
“Bridget, you need to find yourself a husband.”
“He might do.”
Jenny made no further comment, and she was glad Bridget prodded no further for information about Dwight. Some things she knew she had to keep buried. She didn't think she'd ever be able to tell Bridget the truth about her life right now. Besides, how do you tell someone that the person they just saw is a paranormal investigator looking for a ghost? Bridget was her best friend, yet Jenny knew there was no way she could confide in her about something as bizarre as that.