Nearly Departed

by Max Patrick Schlienger

  Chapter Nine

  Although it was only mid-afternoon, it had been agreed that the next attempt at interrogating Evy would take place the following day. Both Bobo and Elspeth had insisted that if Dennis was to go on a date with the ghost, as he had suggested, then he should be clad more formally. Despite his own assurances that his current attire would suffice, neither Bobo nor Elspeth would relent on the matter. As such, Dennis had been given little choice but to postpone his romantic endeavor until such time as he was dressed more appropriately for the occasion. After bidding Elspeth a polite – and in Bobo’s case, an apologetic – farewell, the pair of would-be exorcists climbed into Dennis’ car for the journey back to the city.

  As soon as Dennis turned the ignition, Bobo began speaking. “Are all your jobs this interesting?” he asked. Dennis snorted.

  “I suppose.” He watched Elspeth’s house as they pulled away, almost expecting to see a ghostly figure watching them from one of the windows. “I mean, none of them have been this real, but all of them are fairly entertaining.”

  “Most blokes just visit the cinema when they’re bored,” joked Bobo.

  “Oh, right, like you’re one to talk, Draadtrekker.” That got a laugh, and for a moment, Dennis was not seated next to an oversized immigrant from England, but rather a charismatic shaman with the spirit of a storyteller.

  “Yeah,” Bobo agreed with a gleam in his eye. “This one time, right? This lady comes in and asks me for something she can slip her husband.”

  “What, like, poison?” asked Dennis.

  “That’s what I thought, too!” Bobo exclaimed. “She meant an aphrodisiac, though. So, I told her to come back in an hour, and I whipped up a little potion for her.”

  “What was in it?”

  Bobo shrugged. “Water, mostly. With a bit of purple food dye. I wish more people would buy it, actually. She spent thirty bucks.”

  “I’m glad to hear that customer satisfaction is your biggest concern, especially considering that I shop there,” Dennis said. “Is that all, or did you get caught?”

  “Nah, nobody ever catches me,” replied Bobo. “Present company excluded. She weren’t too happy with me, though.”

  “Didn’t you just say that you didn’t get caught?” Dennis asked. He turned his head and squinted at a road sign. “I think we missed our exit.”

  “I didn’t get caught,” affirmed Bobo. “No, she was mad because she caught her husband. With another woman, I mean. So, naturally, she blamed it on the contents of the bottle I’d given her, and demanded the antidote.”

  “Water and some other color of dye, I assume.”

  “Coffee, actually. I bought decaffeinated stuff by mistake, and figured I’d get some use out of it.” He looked off into the distance. “She hasn’t been back in awhile, come to think of it.” His brow furrowed, and he glanced out each of the windows. “September, where the hell are we?”

  “I told you,” Dennis said, “we missed our exit somewhere back there. I think there’s another one up a bit further.”

  “Can’t we just turn around?”

  “That would be too easy.” A few seconds of silence passed before Dennis rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh, fine, have it your way. We’ll head back towards Elspeth’s house and figure it out from there.”

  “I’m sure you know best. You’re the doctor, after all.”

  “You know, I actually am,” Dennis replied. Bobo looked incredulous. “Really, I mean it. I bought a PhD online.”

  “Seems like a waste of money, if you ask me,” Bobo said. “You should buy my love potions instead.”

  “I prefer Earl Grey, thank you. Besides, every other paranormal investigator out there is a doctor or a reverend or something. At least I have the paperwork to back mine up.”

  “Why’s that, then?” asked Bobo.

  “Which part?”

  “All them doctors and priests. What’s the point?”

  “Well, really, it’s a question of credibility,” Dennis explained. “Although, to be honest, a lot of the guys I’ve met are still pretty lacking in it.” He shifted in his seat and chuckled quietly. “Actually, that’s a great story. Back when I was first getting started, I went to this UFO convention in the city.”

  “What, you hunt aliens, too?” interrupted Bobo.

  “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of distinction,” Dennis answered. “Not at those gatherings, anyway. Everyone has their own little booth with whatever junk they’re trying to sell, and there’s all these seminars that are hosted by so-called experts on one thing or another. They all claim to have been abducted or haunted or talked to by the devil or something, so it’s a pretty bizarre experience.”

  “I should look into it,” Bobo murmured. “I bet I could sell a ton of merchandise. A proper ton.”

  “And then some,” agreed Dennis. “I was there for research, though, and trying to get my character right. That was when I met this guy named... I don’t know. Francois something. He said he was an exorcist. I think he had me pegged as a mark, because he kept asking me all of these leading questions.”

  “What’s the punch line, here?”

  “The guy was a con artist,” Dennis replied. “A damned sleazy one, too. He’d find people whose relatives had recently died, and then feed them this bullshit about how there were still ghosts hanging around. For a fee, he’d offer to send them on their way.”

  “Sleazy, sure,” said Bobo. “Pot calling the kettle black, September?”

  “Hey,” Dennis protested. “It’s completely different. I never took anyone’s money, for one.”

  “Yeah, you left that to the shrink, so you’re sleazy and stupid.” He smiled to show he was joking. “Still, I guess you never used the obituaries as a help wanted section.”

  Something about that sentence struck a chord with Dennis, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. “Well, anyway, I learned something important that day.”

  “How to kill demons?”

  “Yes, Bobo, exactly,” Dennis replied sarcastically. “I learned to keep quiet. Most of these guys, or at least the ones that I met, have a bit of a self-aggrandizing streak. They like to brag about the things that they’ve seen, and it comes across as being kind of unbelievable. The ones who are most successful are always the folks who don’t say anything until someone asks. Then they start bragging.” A familiar street loomed into view, and Dennis turned to head back towards the highway. Bobo made a noise like he was considering something, and then turned to face Dennis.

  “So, does that mean that I should ask you what happened earlier?”

  Dennis arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” he asked. The car let out an irritated growl as the gears shifted, and the sound soon mirrored his own mood as Bobo continued to question.

  “I mean you come back from the petrol station with a look like someone killed your mum. Plus, you were gone for bloody ages.”

  “Uh huh,” Dennis responded. Bobo paused, presumably waiting for a more descriptive answer.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “Well what?” asked Dennis. It suddenly occurred to him that they might be under surveillance, and his eyes scanned the road for any sign of Spinner’s blue sedan. Although the thoughts had been mercifully absent from his mind since leaving Elspeth’s house – until now, at least – he had been increasingly worried about how the investigator had found him in the first place.

  “Is someone following us?” Bobo asked.

  “Where?” Dennis yelped. He jerked his gaze up to the rearview mirror, and then out each of the windows. “Where?” he asked again.

  “That’s a yes, then,” said Bobo, nodding. “Stop messing about, you’re liable to hit something.”

  “Who’s following us?” Dennis demanded.

  “Nobody, far as I can tell,” replied Bobo. He turned around in his seat and stared out the car’s rear window. “Not now, anyway. I take it someone was before, though?”

  Dennis hesitated for several seconds. Final
ly, he replied with an almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah, something like that,” he admitted. “A private investigator named Malcolm Spinner.”

  “What’s he want, then?” If Bobo was at all concerned, it didn’t show in either his voice or mannerisms. “Look, there’s the petrol station,” he said, pointing. “I knew it wasn’t too far off.”

  “It wasn’t,” Dennis sighed. “Look, remember all that stuff I told you about my September character?”

  “You mean the nutter convention, or telling old ladies to go and see a shrink?”

  “The latter, I guess,” replied Dennis. “Well, the guy who pays me is in some kind of trouble. I don’t really know what it is, but I get the idea that he must be in pretty deep.” He briefly described his earlier encounter with Spinner, and then recounted his experience with meeting the man at Harding’s office. Bobo listened with a thoughtful expression until the story was done.

  “Inappropriate, eh?” he asked. “What could a shrink be doing that an ex-copper would see as inappropriate?”

  “I’m not sure that Spinner actually is an ‘ex-copper,’” Dennis replied. He shifted in his seat to pull out the wrinkled business card, which he passed to Bobo. “See? According to that, he’s a private investigator.”

  “Actually, I’ve heard that most PIs start out in the Old Bill,” said Bobo. He peered at the card. “What’d he give you this for, then?”

  “In case I changed my mind and decided to talk to him.”

  Bobo turned the card over a few times in his hands. “What about?”

  “I –” Dennis began. He considered the question. “Actually, I don’t know.” He tried to remember Spinner’s exact words in the car. “He said that my buddy and I were just small-time crooks, and that if I really wanted to help Elspeth, I would stay away from her.”

  “That’s me, right?” asked Bobo. “Your buddy?”

  “I don’t see who else it could be,” Dennis answered. “Unless he meant Sam. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing,” Dennis said, gesturing with a finger, “I haven’t told Sam about Elspeth yet.”

  “Or Evy,” added Bobo.

  “Especially not about Evy,” said Dennis with a mirthless laugh. “God, can you imagine how that would go over? This guy is a shrink who specializes in dealing with people who think that they see ghosts. What do you think would happen if I told him that I was planning to go on a date with one?”

  “He’d congratulate you on finally getting some?” Bobo guessed.

  “I’m married.”

  Bobo shrugged. “Like I said.”

  “Anyway,” Dennis said, ignoring the shot, “I don’t see how Spinner could have been referring to Sam.”

  “Bloody great coincidence for him to show up, then, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of,” Dennis conceded. He thought it over again. As far as he could tell, his only connection to Spinner was through Harding, but that didn’t explain how the investigator had known about Elspeth. Maybe he hadn’t, come to think of it. After all, he had never actually mentioned any names. What if he had been referring to a different person entirely, like the niece that Harding had allegedly wronged? Dennis voiced his thoughts to Bobo, who nodded in agreement.

  “Sounds to me like you’re on the wrong side of a detective story,” he said.

  “Well, one way or another,” muttered Dennis, “I think I need some answers.” He glanced at his watch, and then pointed at the car’s glove compartment. “Get my phone out of there,” he said.

  “Making plans?” Bobo asked.

  Dennis shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m making an appointment.”