Hologram

by James Conroyd Martin

  On Saturday morning he tried again, from the condo and then upon arriving at work. Still no answer. And the phone machine was not operating. The frustration worked on his blood pressure. He knew no one on Springfield Street whom he could call—and even if he did, what would he say to them?

  He would have to wait until he was able to get away early in the week.

  At 10 a.m. Monday morning, Kurt dialed Wenonah Smythe from his office. He knew she worked three to elevens and hoped she would be awake by now.

  She was having her coffee, she said.

  “Wenonah, would it be all right if I come over for a short visit. I’d like to talk to you.”

  There was a pause, long enough for him to wonder if he hadn’t been cut off.

  “About Meg?” she asked at last. Her voice was oddly tentative, so unlike her.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “In half an hour, if that’s all right.”

  “Well—I guess so— ”

  He had taken her off guard, that was obvious. “Good. See you then.”

  After the goodbyes, he called Enterprise Rent-a-Car and set up a rental for 5:30 p.m. He wasn’t about to screw around with the train today, and he needed a full size car to bring personal belongings back to Chicago. If Meg could be convinced to come back, her car would not be big enough.

  Had he taken the train, he had to wonder if Meg would pick him up at the station. He had never seen her so angry. Would she agree to come back?

  Kurt now put in a call to Doctor Krista Peterhof.

  Yes, the doctor was in, he was told, but she was with a patient and could not be disturbed. The secretary took his name, saying the doctor would return the call later in the day.

  Kurt asked that she call back after 11:30, expecting that he would be back from Wenonah’s by then. The doctor would be given the message, he was told.

  He slammed down the phone. Disturbed, my ass! She should try my shoes.

  More frustration. He wanted to know what went on in their session, what frame of mind Meg was in, what advice the good doctor had given her.

  Reaching for Wenonah’s bell, he realized he was nervous and this surprised him. He had never been completely at ease with Wenonah, and he didn’t know quite why. It wasn’t her brash humor—he rather liked that. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  Wenonah buzzed him in.

  Kurt had never been in The Pattington, and he scarcely noticed the vintage ambiance now: the tiled vestibule, the wide stairway, the huge windows on each half landing, the scent of varnish and age.

  Climbing the fourth flight, he thought maybe it was Wenonah’s attitude toward him that put distance between them. And now, of course, he was on the defensive, and that was an unsettling thing.

  “Hi,” Wenonah said, her tone serious. She was dressed, but he could tell she had not been out of the shower long.

  “Sorry for the short notice, Win.”

  “That’s okay. I need to get up and take care of business. Morning TV is downright addictive, you know?”

  “Can we sit?”

  “Oh, sure. Sorry. Come on in. Want some coffee? It’s still hot.”

  “No, thanks.” Kurt sat on the sofa. The TV was on, but set on mute.

  Wenonah settled into a lounge chair to the side and a bit removed. Her face was a mask that revealed little. She was nervous, too, he realized. She waited for him to speak.

  Kurt drew in a long breath, then spoke. “Wenonah, Meg seems to think I’ve had an affair or am having one—or some damned thing.”

  He paused, assessing her. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t register surprise—only what?—a subtle discomfort? She was waiting for him to continue.

  Kurt fully described Meg’s accusation.

  Wenonah simply took it in. And when he finished, she said bluntly: “And you think I’m that witness?”

  He nodded. “I think it’s a strong possibility. I know I used to see you at the White Hen, now and then. Hell—yes, I do think it.”

  Wenonah fastened her dark eyes on Kurt. “Look, I want your marriage to succeed. Meg is my best friend. She’s very, very special, and I want to see her happy.”

  “Did you tell her those things?”

  “I told her what I had seen and—believe me—it killed me to do so. I put it off as long as I could, but my conscience finally won out.”

  “Your conscience?” Kurt turned sarcastic.

  “I gave her the information, just what I had seen, without any editorial commentary. In fact, I cautioned her that what I had seen was merely circumstantial, that it may, after all, have been innocent.”

  “I see.” Kurt’s eyes moved from Wenonah to the TV. Some soap opera played silently.

  “Was it, Kurt? Innocent?”

  Kurt was taken aback by her boldness. Her initial nervousness had made him forget for the moment how direct she could be. He looked at her squarely in the face. Her gaze was as direct as her question. “Yes,” he said, finally, “nothing happened that night, or ever.”

  Wenonah nodded, but the hint of skepticism lay like a delicate scrim over her eyes. “I hope you understand it was something I had to do.”

  “Point taken. And I’ll defend myself. Nothing happened! I love Meg. And this could not have happened at a worse time! You have no idea, Win.”

  Wenonah’s face folded into an expression of concern. “Has anything happened—since that worker fell?”

  Kurt went into the details as he knew them. He brought Wenonah up to date on the construction worker’s mishap and the child-ghost the man said he had seen, the visit to the nursing home and the death of the Clinton woman. The longer the litany became, the more he felt he was doing the right thing in insisting Meg move back to Chicago.

  “How terrible,” Wenonah whispered. She had paled.

  “I feel she’s in some kind of danger, Win. She’s got to stop pursuing this—whatever the hell it is. If there’s anything you can do, any way you can influence her, I’d appreciate it.”

  Wenonah sat forward in her chair. “Kurt, she needs to move back!”

  “Don’t I know it? I’m going to do everything I can to get her back tonight.”

  “I’ll call her.”

  “Would you? Today? That’d be great.”

  “Yes.”

  “And maybe put in a good word for me?”

  Wenonah smiled.

  “I don’t know if you believe me, Win— ”

  “I believe you love Meg, Kurt, or you wouldn’t be here. I’ll let her know that.”

  Kurt wanted to stay, wanted to shake Wenonah’s doubts free, but he was at a loss as to how. Instead, he smiled, stood, thanked her, and left.

  Kurt swore aloud when his secretary told him he had missed Doctor Peterhof’s call by five minutes.

  He called her office immediately. Too late, she was already in conference with another patient.

  “Yes,” he was told, the doctor would return his call at her earliest convenience. He hung up and cursed again.

  At one o’clock, he was on the third floor of the hospital when he was paged to the phone. He rushed to pick it up at the nurses’ station.

  “Mr. Rockwell?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Doctor Peterhof? Yes.”

  “Who? No this is Mrs. Shaw. Is that you, Mr. Rockwell?”

  Damn! Of course, the voice came across now as familiar. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Shaw. I was expecting someone else.”

  “Listen, Mr. Rockwell, we’ve got a real problem out here. Do you know the sign has been removed again?”

  “Has it? Well, not to worry—I’ll be out this evening.”

  “Well, that’s not the most important thing right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your wife doesn’t answer the phone or the door. I’ve been out to the house twice today, once last night.”

  Kurt could feel the heat of his blood pumping up through his neck and to his temples. “You’ll have cooperation once I get there,
Mrs. Shaw, I promise.”

  “It’s more immediate than that, Mr. Rockwell, or I wouldn’t have called you at work. The Robbins are still very much interested in the place. But we need to do business this afternoon.”

  “Oh, come on— ”

  “No, really. They’ve got a six o’clock plane out of O’Hare to Orlando. It’s the start of a three-week vacation. They’re not about to change their plans.”

  “And?”

  “And they’ll write a check out for a deposit and sign a proposal on the spot if they can see the house again—and talk to you or your wife.”

  “About?”

  “I suspect they want to know why you’re giving it up so soon.”

  “I see. Okay, Mrs. Shaw, I’m renting a car today. I’ll get the time moved up and come out as soon as possible. I’ll meet you at the house, say at three?”

  “Fine. You know, your wife could assure them instead if I could only get a hold of her.”

  “No, no, Mrs. Shaw.” Good God, no! “That’s okay, Mrs. Shaw. See you at three.”

  “All right, then.”

  Kurt arranged for the car and was just about to leave work to pick it up when Doctor Krista Peterhof called back.

  The strange voice and accent threw him for a moment—he had actually forgotten about the call.

  “I wanted to know about Meg, Doctor Peterhof,” he explained.

  “She is a fine young woman, Mr. Rockwell.”

  “That I know, Doctor. Can—can you tell me what went on in your session, what your assessment is?”

  There was a pause at the other end before the doctor spoke. “Meg is stable, if that’s what you mean. I can say that much.”

  “Yes, but— ”

  “As for what went on in the session, it is not my policy to speak to others—even husbands, Mr. Rockwell—about a patient’s session.”

  “But this is rather unusual, wouldn’t you say, Doctor Peterhof? I mean, she’s not really a patient even, is she? She went to you for information about the holographic thing.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “She told you about the spirits? The dreams?”

  “She did.”

  “Did you advise her?”

  “I think she should tell you what went on. This is a case in which I would neither try to persuade nor dissuade. Why aren’t you asking her, Mr. Rockwell?”

  Too embarrassed to admit he and Meg were at odds, he avoided her question. “Don’t you think that she may be putting herself and the baby in danger?”

  “I doubt that, Mr. Rockwell. And if that is what you think, what are you doing in Chicago?”

  Kurt was stunned by the question. And angry. “Because I have a job to maintain, Doctor.”

  “I see. So do I, Mr. Rockwell, and I am even now keeping a patient waiting, so you must excuse me. Let me just tell you that Meg is empowered to study her options and make the right decisions for herself. Goodbye, Mr. Rockwell.”

  “What do you mean— ” he blurted loudly.

  But the woman had already hung up.

  The Chevy Caprice was comfortable. At ten miles over the limit, Kurt sped off the Dan Ryan onto the Bishop Ford Expressway. He wished he could call Meg. The hospital had issued him a cell phone, but he seldom took it from his desk drawer. He had little use for it, and besides, it would do little good because Meg had turned hers in when she quit the hospital. He vowed now to start using his as a matter of course, and he would get one for her, as well.

  His blood pressure had come down a bit. What had that pompous doctor meant, he wondered, about Meg’s being empowered to make decisions for herself? She claimed she hadn’t advised her, yet somehow she seemed to imply that she had empowered Meg. What the hell did it mean?

  Something, too, about his meeting with Wenonah was eating away at him. Okay, so he didn’t convince her, so what? It didn’t matter. She would at least urge Meg to leave the house.

  But it did matter. He knew what was wrong—he hadn’t convinced her he was truthful because he hadn’t felt truthful. And Wenonah, whatever her faults, was as perceptive as radar.

  His thoughts went back to that night at the White Hen.

  Valerie Miller had always been flirtatious toward him, and with Meg’s living out in Hammond and his staying in the city during the week, she took the first opportunity that came along.

  In the White Hen it had been her move, he assured himself. She was downright pushy. Gee, it’s so sad that, well, here we are buying our own little deli dinners, and we have nothing but TV for company, not even pets, and here we are living on the same floor, for goodness sakes and, well, wouldn’t it be enjoyable and perfectly innocent if we shared a bite to make up for the loneliness of the night?

  Kurt wouldn’t lie to himself. He was no more innocent than she. He had played the game, too, dropping off his briefcase at the condo and changing into dockers and a polo shirt before knocking on the door across the hall.

  He knew exactly what Valerie had in mind. However, as the evening went on, he began to feel differently.

  It wasn’t that Valerie became annoying or unattractive in any way. She was vibrant and sexy.

  But she wasn’t Meg. He loved Meg, more now than before they were married. Being with Valerie—it was like, what was the point? What was he doing there? How would he feel afterwards? Would it be worth it? He knew the answer.

  Fortunately, the woman wasn’t quite pushy enough and gave him time for second thoughts, time to formulate and execute a retreat. He played the wide-eyed innocent, going on with their share-a-meal game ad nauseum—until he could make a hasty exit.

  She hadn’t spoken to him since.

  So he could shout his innocence. And he was innocent. But not completely. Wenonah had read the guilt that morning; he was sure of it.

  Meg must have read it, too.

  Kurt concluded that he would have to let out the whole story, sparing nothing.

  The house, Mrs. Shaw, the Robbins were second in priority. His main concerns now were Meg, her safety, her view of him, and their child.

  Things will turn out okay, he told himself as he turned off the expressway.

  Kurt Rockwell was not one for premonitions, but something deep within gnawed at him, telling him things would not turn out okay at all. Not at all.

  TWENTY

  It rained on Monday in Hammond. The funeral for Bernadine Clinton was pitifully small. And sad. Few relations, fewer friends.

  Meg sat with Miss Millicent. It was all she could do to stay to the end. Despite Doctor Peterhof’s reassurance, she still felt a sense of personal responsibility for the woman’s death.

  In the afternoon Meg arrived at the Calumet Room, having completed the last two health care visits. Allowing for the possibility that she would be returning to Chicago, she had purposely taken no others this week or the next. And then there was the more immediate need to solve the riddle of the house and the Reichart family.

  The pressure from Kurt to move would be great. She had not written off the marriage even though she had seen in his denial—felt it, too—something phony. What was it? And the phone message he had left about the weekend meetings—was there any truth in that?

  Meg knew one thing for sure: they had a child on the way. Somehow, they would survive the crisis. They must.

  She attempted to clear her mind, settling into her usual spot, thinking only how much she needed results. Today. The first order of business was to find out about Alicia’s demise, then retrace her steps through her research, looking for more specifics on Claude’s death. There had to be more than a simple obit.

  A little after two o’clock, she found the obituary of Alicia Reichart. She had died November 12, 1934, at the age of fifty-four. Her death notice merited several lines, and was included in the section that noted the passing of city and national figures. No picture.

  After detailing her marriage into the prestigious Reichart family, the account saved the shocker for the end of the single paragraph. Mrs. Reic
hart died at the LaPorte County Asylum, after a stay of eleven years.

  Meg’s stomach tightened. Sweet Jesus! She felt suddenly sick to her stomach. And in her mind’s eye, she pictured the woman hanging from knotted bed sheets strung over pipes that ran along the ceiling of her tiny cell. She didn’t know why this vision came to her, didn’t know whether it could actually reflect the woman’s end. How could it?

  And yet, Meg believed it.

  She was overcome with the sense of tragedy, wrongs done, opportunities lost. After so much tragedy, she thought, to spend the final decade of one’s life in an insane asylum! Meg struggled to take in breath.

  Then the thought: What kind of a spirit or soul evolves from such a life, such losses, and such an end? Not a spirit, Meg thought, remembering her talk with Krista Peterhof. A ghost.

  What was she to expect from the ghost of Alicia Reichart?

  Kurt arrived at the house with fifteen minutes to spare before Mrs. Shaw and the Robbins were due.

  The sign was missing again.

  Meg wasn’t home. No surprise there. Probably at the library.

  He was glad for her absence. The proposal would be written, signed, and the sale in the proverbial bag by the time she got home. No catches, thank you.

  The house was cool and quiet. Rex strutted by toward the kitchen and his food, ignoring Kurt, almost making a point of it. “Little beggar,” Kurt mumbled.

  Of course, Meg had to sign the proposal, too. But that would be done only in his company, with no chance of the deal being scuttled.

  Smooth as good bourbon, this wretched experience would be over.

  Kurt walked the length of the house now—past Rex, crunching at his bowl—to the enclosed rear stairwell that ran from the basement to an outside door off the drive, to the kitchen door, and then to the second floor. He went down and opened the basement door, red as a fire hydrant. He didn’t bother to close it behind him—he had closed the kitchen door, preventing Rex from wandering down into the labyrinthine basement.