“George? Oh, right. Mr. Yenkow. I met him earlier today.”
“It would break his heart to see me wearing this. He might figure out about me and Ted.”
“Ted?”
“He’s our neighbor.”
“Ahh.” Sadie nodded in understanding. “That’s why the lingerie?”
“Yes. Please pardon my appearance.”
First Trudy and now Mrs. Yenkow. Was nobody on this planet faithful anymore?
“I don’t understand it,” Mrs. Yenkow murmured. “People have been coming and going, but nobody seems to be able to see me. At least, not until you showed up.” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “By the way, who are you?”
“George hired me to clean your house.”
“Really? That’s quite the getup you have on.” She smirked and waved her manicured hand at Sadie’s blue Tyvek jumpsuit. “I usually just wear a sweat suit when I clean. You must use some pretty powerful cleansers.”
“You might say that.”
“Oh, I get it!” Mrs. Yenkow clapped her hands together excitedly. “This is my anniversary gift, right? George did that before—you know, hired Molly Maid to come in and tidy up for my birthday. So sweet of him, really.” She was wringing her hands again and began pacing.
“Mrs. Yenkow, I think we both know that’s not why he hired me,” Sadie said softly.
“Of course it is,” she protested. “The place is an absolute mess and I’ve been working such long hours at the hotel it’s been hard to find the time to get everything done. When I retire next year it’ll be different, though. Why, just look at the dust that’s collected on the furniture—and what’s that sticky, disgusting goop all over the floor?”
“That would be you, Mrs. Yenkow,” Sadie said evenly.
“What?!”
The woman had finally stopped pacing, but now she looked as though she’d been slapped.
“You had a stroke and died alone here in your house while George was out of town. It was probably shortly after Ted left you that first evening, because nobody noticed you’d passed until George returned. For some reason, your spirit has held on to this place.”
“No,” Mrs. Yenkow whispered. Then she shook her head violently and her voice rose to a shout. “You’re insane! You’re a crazy person! How can I be dead? That’s just not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“If I’m dead, then how come we’re standing here talking?” she demanded triumphantly, placing her hands on her hips and thrusting out her chest, making her look even more ridiculous in her tight lace teddy.
“When I clean death scenes, the spirit of the deceased can sometimes communicate with me. I don’t know why it happens, but it usually means they’re in denial about their passing, or sometimes they have a message that they want me to relay to those they’ve left behind.”
“Noooo!” she screamed, and the shrill sound was a siren in Sadie’s head that caused the fillings in her teeth to vibrate. Then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, Mrs. Yenkow was gone.
“She’ll be back,” Sadie grimly said to herself.
There’d been no shimmer or gradual fading to indicate that the spirit had made the transition to go beyond this world.
With her ears still ringing, Sadie began her search for the insurance documents. She looked in all the usual places, like drawers and cabinets, and finally located them in a shoe box on the top shelf of the bedroom closet. She took the paperwork out to the van.
Then she made a few more trips back and forth to bring in supplies and waste bins. She needed emulsifiers to soften the dried tissue, cleansers, and scrub brushes.
Sadie worked hard and sweat soon ran down her back and pooled under her breasts. She’d wanted to clean this job alone, to work through her day’s frustrations, but after she and Zack had talked on the phone he had insisted on showing up.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off on you,” he said.
“I’m okay.”
“Okay, huh? Is that why you’ve been scrubbing the same square inch for ten minutes?”
“I hate that Sylvia Toth accused me of stealing.” Sadie was surprised at how calm her voice was, since her heart was thumping so hard.
“Nobody who knows you would call you a thief,” Zack said.
“The cops found it in my coat, Zack. If word gets out, Scene-2-Clean could be ruined.”
Zack’s face grew serious. His dark eyes were hard and slitted, and Sadie could see the cop he used to be written all over his face.
“Let’s start again—and this time tell me everything.”
She told him about the tires then, using the same detached, calm voice that was contrary to the way her blood was boiling beneath the surface of her skin.
“I’m going to kill him,” Zack snarled when she’d concluded her tale. “I’m going to rip his arms right out of their sockets and stuff them up his—”
“First you’d have to find him,” Sadie interrupted. “And I want first crack at killing him.”
They worked together then, ripping out the carpet and scrubbing the floor beneath.
“I can do what’s left on my own,” Sadie announced.
“Okay. I’ll carry the bins out to the van and then be on my way,” Zack said.
Once he’d left, Sadie was revisited by Mrs. Yenkow.
“I bought a card for George for our anniversary. I didn’t get to give it to him,” she said.
Sadness colored the woman’s tone, and Sadie felt a surge of emotion. She knew it all boiled down to moments like these.
“I can help you, Mrs. Yenkow,” Sadie said, suddenly eager to do just that. “You’re still here because you wanted George to have that card. Do you remember where you left it?”
Sadie found the card in the dresser, where Mrs. Yenkow had said it would be, and at her insistence Sadie read it to the woman out loud.
“You’ll always be my knight in shining armor,” she read. The words were printed in glittery silver letters over a comical Adonis riding an equally funny stallion. Inside Mrs. Yenkow had signed it, “Forever, your Pooky-Bear.”
“I really loved him.” Mrs. Yenkow sniffed.
“And yet you were sleeping with the neighbor,” Sadie couldn’t resist adding. She immediately regretted her tone when she saw the injured look on the woman’s face. “Sorry. That’s really none of my business.”
“Our sex life may have been lacking, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t love each other deeply,” Mrs. Yenkow said haughtily.
Although it was difficult to take a sixty-year-old woman in a fuchsia teddy seriously, Sadie got her point.
“Right. Again, I’m sorry.”
“We were married for over forty years. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish. Sure we had some rough times, but I assure you that most of it was perfectly fine.”
God save me from forty years of “fine,” Sadie thought.
“I’ll make sure that George gets the card, Mrs. Yenkow. Is there anything else? I’m here to help you.”
“It must be hard for you to be a sort of middleman,” Mrs. Yenkow said.
“I sure fought it in the beginning,” Sadie admitted. “I thought I’d been cursed.” She chuckled. “But you know what? It’s given me a purpose on this planet that I never had before.”
“Don’t tell me you actually enjoy this?” Mrs. Yenkow asked incredulously.
“When I can help, yeah, I love it.” Sadie grinned. “Is there a message you want me to give to George with the card?”
“Can you just make sure that he knows that I loved him very much?”
“I’ll tell him,” Sadie said, her tone softening.
“Good.” Mrs. Yenkow sighed. “I feel kind of funny.”
Sadie watched as Mrs. Yenkow’s edges faded and a soft flicker began at her fingertips and toes and worked its way inward.
“You’re ready,” Sadie said breathlessly. Sometimes the wonder of it all still amazed her. “Good-bye, Mrs. Yenkow.”
Sadie broke into a laugh and fisted the air.
“Yes!” she cried. “I’ve still got it!”
She stripped off her gear in the garage and dumped it into one of the remaining bins before climbing into her van. She turned up the radio on the drive home and loudly sang along. She realized that this was what had been missing lately. The adrenaline rush of pure joy she got from helping someone go over.
At home, she did a triple rinse and repeat to wash away the stench of decay. Then she brushed her teeth and gargled to remove the taste of it from her mouth. It never totally worked. At least not as well as a few shots of sambuca.
With the tall dark bottle and a shot glass in hand, Sadie made her way to the couch and used the remote to flip on the TV. She was channel-surfing and on her second shot of the licorice-flavored liqueur when Dawn called, wanting to chat.
“You’ll never believe the strange day I’ve had,” she said.
“Did it involve the police or conversing with a ghost wearing nothing but a lace teddy?”
Pause.
“Never mind,” Sadie said. “I’ve had a weird day myself but you go first.”
“Well, our office received some letters that were to go to a company on the floor above us, so on my break I walked them up. I like to take the stairs as often as possible because it’s good cardio.”
“Hmmm.” Sadie downed her second shot and poured herself a third.
“Anyway, to make a long story short, I got a new job.”
“What?”
“Dr. John Irwin, who runs the office upstairs, offered me a job. Turns out his office manager quit on him this morning because of a family emergency, and he was pulling his hair out when I showed up.”
“So you’re going to walk out on your current job, just like that?”
“Of course not. I’d never get a good reference that way, right?”
“I’m not a good one to ask. When employees quit Scene-2-Clean it’s usually sudden and they run away screaming or crying.”
“Riiiight. Well, in the real world we give two weeks notice,” Dawn said. “Anyway, he’s hiring a temp from an agency until I can finish off my two weeks, and I’m going to go up at the end of each day to train for an hour or two. And get this—he’s going to pay me almost double what I’m making now! That’s not even the best part. He seems like a really nice guy. Not like the ass I’m working for now. Dr. Irwin is kind and considerate. I’m going to love working for him. Don’t you see? It’s just like Madame Maeva predicted.”
“Hmm,” Sadie said, flipping channels once again, trying to find a show that wasn’t about cops or crime scenes.
“You know, if Madame Maeva can help me find a new job, I bet she could find you a man.”
Before Sadie could respond to that comment, Dawn put her on hold to take an incoming call from Noel and then left her in limbo so long that Sadie realized she’d been forgotten and hung up.
Half an hour later it occurred to her that she had the television tuned to a bad cooking show and still had no idea what they were making. Thanks to Dawn, her brain had been tuned instead to Madame Maeva of the Psychic Café. The more she thought about the woman and her so-called knack, the more an interesting idea percolated in her mind.
With another shot of sambuca for courage, Sadie found Madam Maeva’s Psychic Café listing in the phone book and dialed quickly before she could change her mind. Since it was just after eleven, she was mentally preparing the message she’d leave on the company’s machine.
“Hello?”
Unfortunately, Madame Maeva herself answered the phone. Sadie was tempted just to hang up but Sambuca was a powerful persuader.
“Hello?” Madame Maeva said again.
“This is Sadie Novak.”
“Yes, I know.”
“It doesn’t take a psychic to figure that out. Lots of people recognize my voice,” Sadie said, immediately going on the defensive.
“Actually, I have caller ID.”
“Oh.”
“But you weren’t calling to test my abilities over the phone.”
“No, I’m calling to set up an appointment. You never finished my reading.”
“I can’t give you a reading—at least not without vomiting all over you.”
“But it was a two-for-one deal,” Sadie protested. “It’s false advertising to offer two for one and then back out on the second one.”
“Tell your sister that she can bring someone else. Anyone else.”
“I’ll be honest—I’m trying to locate someone and I don’t know where else to turn.”
“I don’t do missing persons.”
“I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.” Sadie stopped short of begging. Maeva was quiet, but Sadie could sense her wavering. “Look, this guy is at the very least a thief who tried to frame me. At worst he may have murdered two people.”
“Fine.” She sighed and relented. “Come in tomorrow morning when I open at nine, but if I throw up, you pay double my regular rate.”
“Deal,” Sadie said and added silently, with the devil herself.
10
The jangle of the door chimes sounded shrill in the quiet of the Psychic Café. The store had just flipped its little sign from SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED to COME ON IN, WE’RE OPEN. The same clerk read a book behind the counter and nodded a hello to Sadie.
“I can bring you right in,” she said, getting to her feet and adjusting her peasant skirt.
The woman led the way down the short hall, past the bright red door Sadie and Dawn had gone through before. At the end of the hall, she opened a canary yellow door for Sadie.
Madame Maeva sat behind a desk in a room lined with filing cabinets and bookshelves filled with hardcovers that ranged from business to how-to topics. The entire room screamed office efficiency, not clairvoyant voodoo. It was a far cry from the dark room where they’d sat on the floor.
“No comfy pillows?” Sadie asked, taking a seat in one of the stiff-backed chairs on the other side of the desk.
“I thought it would be best if we kept a desk between us,” Maeva explained. “I was a little surprised to hear from you so soon. Usually the true skeptics take longer to come around, if they ever do.”
“You were right about Dawn’s job. She found a better position in the same building.” She held up her hand. “Don’t get me wrong—that doesn’t mean I’ve turned into an instant believer. It’s just that I’m a little desperate here.” She pulled her chair closer to the desk. “So, how do we get started? Do we hold hands again, or what?”
“No offense, but I’d rather not touch you,” Maeva said, shrinking back and wrinkling her nose with distaste.
“None taken, but for the record, I don’t dance with the dead.”
“I never said you dance with the dead. I said you walk with the dead.”
“Whatever.” Sadie waved it away. “I do bio-recovery cleaning. I cleanse the vicinities of traumatic or unattended deaths.”
She took a business card from her wallet and pushed it across the desk to Maeva, who examined the front and back.
“Who’s Zack Bowman?” she asked, regarding the name and phone number printed on the back.
“An employee. And friend. He takes the business calls if I’m not available, so I printed his number on my cards.”
“Does he also walk with the dead?”
“Look, since the deceased is long gone before I arrive on the scene, I can assure you there is no dancing or walking involved.”
“Cut the crap,” Maeva barked. She folded her arms across her chest and regarded Sadie coolly. “You know exactly what I mean. What are you? A guide? A doorkeeper?”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“I am a medium, a clairvoyant as well. I can get a reading off most people and have often been successful in making contact with those on the other side.”
“Your mother must be very prou
d.” Sadie chuckled sarcastically.
“Why do you pretend to be a disbeliever? You can’t possibly still be in denial of your own abilities?” She impatiently drummed bloodred fingernails on her desk. “Oh, I get it. You think you’re the only special person on the planet.” She drew quotes around the word “special” and laughed throatily.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like hell you don’t,” Maeva snarled. “The minute I touched you, I knew your power was as strong as my own or greater. Lay it on the line, sister. What are your talents? Do you hear them? See them? Offer them sexual favors? What exactly do you give to the souls of the dead that makes them seek you out?”
Sadie didn’t want to have this conversation. She’d fought for five years to keep her abilities secret from as many people as possible. She didn’t want to open up a Sadie’s Psychic Café and offer specials of the week for helping the dearly departed. The entire thought appalled and repulsed her.
“I should go,” she announced, getting to her feet.
“So you’re afraid—is that it?” Maeva asked, leaning back in her chair. “You think as long as you keep your little talent a secret, you’re not like me. You’re not a freak.”
Taking a deep breath, Sadie sat back down and reconsidered. Like it or not, she was running out of options for how to handle the Toth situation.
“Sometimes when I’m cleaning a scene, the spirits approach me. They talk to me. Some are quite chatty, but others not so much. It’s not something I control. I don’t call on them—they just show up.”
“Interesting. Why do you think they come to you?”
Sadie shrugged. “Probably because nobody else can see them.”
“That’s not it. They must want something from you. Can you clearly see their physical presence, or do you just get a feeling that they’re in the room?”
“I can see them as clearly as I see you. Their bodies usually appear to me as they were when they died. Sometimes that part can be a little gross.”
“And they just talk.”
The Remains of the Dead Page 12