* * *
The women began work early each day and read until late in the evening, taking short breaks to eat the take-out food delivered to the shop. During meals in the small kitchen on the third floor just above the office, they discussed the material they had read most recently.
They had struggled to get through the first of the texts, but they were making much better progress now. Whether this was due to reinforcement of memories by the spirits, the continual racking of their brains to dredge up long dormant memories of the languages, or a combination of both, they'd never know. But the difficulty of getting through the material seemed to lessen with each completed book. So far they had found little that discussed the specific topics they were seeking, but there were frequent referrals to demons and the Underworld. In each instance, the text and the translation was dutifully entered into the computer index.
By Saturday afternoon, the girls were feeling the strain from almost four days of seemingly constant reading.
"I think we need a break," Arlene said as the dinner hour approached. 'What say we mingle with the other tourists tonight?"
"I don't feel much like a tourist," Erin said. "Aren't tourists supposed to be on vacation?"
"You don't want to go?"
"I didn't say that. I just said I haven't felt much like a tourist."
"I think it's a great idea," Renee said. "I saw an interesting-looking night spot when we first hit town. We can have dinner and then head over there to see if there really is life after nine p.m. in this burg."
"I'd bet they go to at least ten on weekends," Erin said, smiling.
"This may not be Las Vegas or even Atlantic City," Arlene said, "but I'm sure they go to the wee hours on Saturday night in the summer, so let's set a time limit of one a.m. before we even head out. We have to be back here again tomorrow, and I won't be able to concentrate with either a hangover or insufficient sleep."
Having eaten at Gianni's twice, the girls opted to have dinner at Adam's Rib Room on the main street this time. The wait to be seated at the glitzy franchise restaurant was long, the waitresses impatient, and the food only fair. Fortunately there were two dozen other restaurants in town. If they had to be there all summer, they would easily have an opportunity to rate them all.
The Gopher Hole advertised live entertainment, but the band had failed to show, so the girls were sitting at their table listening to a local DJ who was filling in as a last minute replacement when Lt. Bolger approached them.
"Good evening, ladies," he said. "It's nice to see you again, Miss Watson."
"Hello, Lieutenant. Don't worry; we're all old enough to drink legally."
Lt. Bolger smiled. "I'm not here checking ID's. I'm off duty anyway."
"Introduce us, Ar," Renee said, smiling up at the detective.
"Lieutenant, this extremely shy beauty on my left is future chemical engineer Renee Dennis. On her left is future pediatrician Erin McDonald. To my right is Mrs. Keith Heston, wife of a local dentist. That's local to us, not you. She's Megan to her friends. Ladies, this is Lt. Richard Bolger of the County Sheriff's Office. He's heading up the investigation into Simona's murder."
"The investigation?" Megan said. "Why is there an investigation?"
"Murder cases are never closed until the murder is solved," Lt. Bolger said. "It doesn't matter that she was killed eleven years ago."
"But I thought— OW!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Meg," Arlene said. "I was just crossing my legs. I didn't realize your leg was so close." Looking at the detective, Arlene asked, "How is your investigation going, Lieutenant? Any leads?"
"A few. We're trying to reconstruct her final weeks to see if anyone had reason to kill her or would benefit from her death. It's difficult, though. People's memories dim considerably in eleven years."
"Would you like to join us, Lieutenant?" Renee asked.
"Thank you, I would, if you'll call me Richard instead of Lieutenant."
"Deal," Renee said. "Here, sit next to me, Richard," she said, sliding her chair over to make room for another.
Lt. Bolger looked around and found an unused chair at a nearby table. After sliding it partly into the opened space, he eased himself down, being careful not to spill his mug of beer. "This is my lucky day," he said. "I rarely get invited to sit with four such lovely ladies, and never as the only guy."
"This is our first week in town," Renee said. "We haven't had much of a chance to make friends yet."
"Then I'm indeed fortunate to be among the first. Welcome to Lake Georgina."
"Thank you, Richard," Renee said first, the acknowledgement seconded quickly by Erin and Megan.
"With such great beaches out your way, I'm surprised you've chosen Lake Georgina for your vacation. You'll be staying all summer then?"
"Our plans are uncertain," Arlene said.
"Oh, I thought you had already made the decision. I ran into Betty Cuzen yesterday, and she mentioned that you had paid the rent on the house for the entire summer."
"A three-month lease was the only option open to me," Arlene said. "But she did apply part of the one-month deposit the previous renter had paid. It covered the three weeks before I arrived in Lake Georgina."
"That's Betty. Generous to a fault. Imagine not charging a tenant for the time before they agreed to lease the property. Scandalous."
"We were lucky to get it," Arlene said. "Our only other option was to commute twenty miles or rent a travel trailer for the summer and have it brought here."
"And yet you haven't spent any time enjoying the lake or our recreational facilities. I've heard you spend all your time in Madam Elana's antique shop."
"You've seen my house, Lieutenant," Arlene said. "I'm sure you realize antiques are a passion of mine. Madam Elana has a wonderful store. It could take me all summer to see everything in there."
"But you're never in the shop. Where do you spend all your time? In the office?"
"Richard, have you been checking up on us?" Arlene asked.
"It's my job to know what's going on," he said casually. "So uh— what's going on?"
Arlene smiled. "Madam Elana has an incredible library of books on the occult. We're doing research."
"Oh, you're all spiritualists?"
"No," Erin said. "Only Arlene has the power. But we're all linguists, and many of the books are written in foreign languages."
"And you think it might take you all summer to complete your research?"
"I thought you said you were off duty," Renee said.
"Well, a cop is never really off-duty. We just go off the clock."
"How depressing," Renee said.
"It's like the army," he said. "It's not just a job."
"Yeah," Renee said facetiously. "It's an adventure, right?"
"Seldom. It's more like a lifestyle. I suppose I'm like a business executive who is always on the prowl for another 'big deal' and just can't turn it off at will, except that I frequently see the seamier side of life. That last part is what's kept me from moving to a big city where the pay and opportunities for promotion are greater. The crime in Lake Georgina and the county as a whole doesn't come even remotely close to what the guys in the big cities have to face on a daily basis."
*
Seated across the room in a darkened corner, Bruce Macrone watched the four young women flirt with the big guy who had discretely followed them into the nightclub and then joined them after picking up a beer at the bar. Of course, Macrone was too far away and the music too loud for him to pick up a single word of their conversation, but he recognized the signals the blonde sitting next to the big guy was sending, and he definitely knew a cop when he saw one. And if appearance wasn't enough, the gun he'd spotted when the guy pushed his lightweight jacket aside and reached for his wallet would be. Macrone had just arrived in Lake Georgina that morning, and he certainly didn't want any legal entanglements that would require the pigs to run his fingerprints. He just wanted to do the job he'd been hired for and then head back to A
lbany as soon as possible. Small towns left so little opportunity for anonymity.
* * *
Chapter Six
The evening's respite from their reading was wonderful, but morning found the young women back at their studies. The seemingly impossible task before them required maximum effort if they were to have a chance of accomplishing it before school began again, but no one could work during all their waking hours without burning out.
Reading speeds continued to improve with the completion of each tome, and the women were confident the spirits were reinforcing long dormant memories from their previous lives. Without their assistance, they wouldn't have a chance of scanning the library of work in the time allotted. It would be a daunting task even if every book were written in English.
The next couple of days passed without incident. On Wednesday, Arlene finished the text she was reading about a half-hour before noon. It had been a particularly difficult Greek book, and it felt like her eyes were crossed when she finally reached the end. Just to get a short break from the intense study, she decided to pick up lunch rather than having it delivered.
The lunch crowd hadn't yet flooded into Gianni's when she arrived. After ordering, Arlene took a seat to wait for her food. As she sat there, the waitress who had taken her order reappeared from the kitchen and informed her that Maria Gianni would like to speak with her. She asked that Arlene follow her to the office at the back of the kitchen.
Several chefs were busy in the kitchen, but not so busy that they didn't watch Arlene's passage through their domain as she was escorted to the office. The waitress knocked once, then opened the door and stood back to allow Arlene to enter. A dark-haired woman, dressed in kitchen whites splattered with tiny dots of red, stood up behind her desk. She was several inches shorter than Arlene and appeared to be in her late thirties. Although she had the olive skin typically associated with descendents of people from Eastern Mediterranean countries, her face had the pasty complexion of someone who spent little time in the sun. The waitress pulled the door closed from outside the office as soon as Arlene was fully inside the small space.
"Are you the one they call Madam Arlene?" the woman asked with an intense stare and a hint of rancor in her voice.
"My name is Arlene Watson, but some refer to me that way," Arlene replied evenly.
"You're welcome in my establishment, but I must ask you to stop this pretense of talking to my father when you leave. It's upsetting my customers. Some are beginning to say the building is haunted. If this continues, I'm afraid my business will suffer. Will you stop, or must I bar you from coming in?"
"There's no pretense. I merely exchange greetings with your father when I leave."
"Miss Watson, my father is dead, not sitting next to the cash register out front."
"He's left his mortal body, but his soul hasn't crossed over to the immortal world. He's remained behind for some reason."
"I don't believe in such nonsense. When you die, your soul is immediately carried either to heaven or hell."
"Travel to the immortal world is voluntary for those not pulled into the Underworld. Many spirits forego the trip initially. There can be any number of reasons why they decide to remain here."
"I don't believe that. My father is not here. Will you agree to halt this spectacle, or must I bar you from the restaurant?"
"I'll stop speaking to your father, if you wish." Turning slightly to her left, Arlene said, "Papa, your daughter doesn't want me to address you anymore, so I won't. Please don't think ill of me when I appear to ignore you."
Maria Gianni looked on skeptically when Arlene turned to her and said, "He understands. He says he won't be offended, but it's been nice to have somebody acknowledge his presence again. He's felt very alone without anyone to speak to."
"Why doesn't he just speak with my mother?" Maria said derisively.
Arlene looked to her left for a few seconds before saying, "He says she crossed over when she passed away. Since they're on different planes of existence, communication is difficult. A spirit who has remained in the mortal world doesn't offer a fixed mind that the immortal can lock onto. As with contacting those of us who still have corporeal bodies in the mortal world, an immortal tires quickly and must rest for months before they're strong enough to attempt to talk with spirits here again."
"Miss Watson, do you actually believe this foolishness?" Maria asked with an incredulous look. She didn't expect an honest answer.
"Ms. Gianni, have you ever seen an electron?"
"An electron?"
"Physicists define them as elementary particles with a negative charge. I'm sure you've heard the term. You must have heard of electron microscopes."
"I'm hardly a physicist. Of course I haven't seen an electron."
"Yet you believe they exist?"
"What's your point? That spirits exist even though I haven't seen any?"
"Exactly. Your inability to see them doesn't mean they're figments of my imagination. You're wearing a gold cross on your necklace, so you must believe in a Christian God. And so you must also believe in an afterlife."
"Yes, I believe in God, and I believe in an afterlife in His kingdom."
"Then is it such a stretch to believe that this is part of His kingdom?"
Maria stared at her for a couple of seconds. "You're twisting my words."
"Only enough to open your mind a little. Your father is here with us now, even though his mortal remains have been interred."
"Then ask him why he's still here instead of going to be with my mother."
"Perhaps you should ask him such a personal question. He's standing right next to you now, on your right."
Maria turned her head and looked to her right. "I don't see a thing."
"I can see him just as clearly as I see you, but spirits have a sort of glow around them which helps me distinguish them from the living."
Maria scowled slightly to show that she wasn't convinced, but she turned and asked flippantly, "Papa, why are you still here? Why haven't you gone to heaven to be with Momma?" After a few seconds she turned back to Arlene. "I don't hear a response."
Arlene held up her hand to silence her. She finally broke the silence with, "He says that when your mother died, you cried all night."
"Naturally. Anyone could guess that."
"He says you were only six years old at the time. He cradled you in his arms throughout the night until the sun rose in the morning while sitting in the green vinyl recliner in the living room. He says he doesn't like the brown twill fabric you selected when reupholstering the chair after he passed away. He wishes you had picked the tan corduroy you were seriously considering."
Maria looked at Arlene with her mouth slightly open and felt around for the arms of the office chair behind her, plopping down when she found them. Her breathing was a little irregular, and she asked in a shaky voice, "How do you know about that chair?"
"Papa just told me."
The look on Maria's face indicated that her implacable position on the existence of spirits had begun to crumble. "Why is he still here? Why hasn't he joined my mother?"
Arlene turned towards the spirit, nodding as she listened attentively for a few seconds. "He says you spoke that night of your fear that he would die and leave you all alone."
Maria nodded. "I remember saying that. I was so scared of losing him also."
"He says he made a solemn promise that he would never leave you alone. So after his mortal body gave out, his spirit remained here to watch over you."
Tears began to trickle down Maria's face. She sniffled and said, "That's so like him, to stay with me even though he couldn't do anything to help."
"Spirits aren't entirely powerless. You can't hug them while you remain mortal, and it takes a great deal of energy for them to manifest in a form that those of us who don't have strong links to the immortal world can see, but they can do other things. Their usual goal here is to provide comfort to the bereaved. They can interact with our drea
ms and ease the loss. Sometimes their mere presence nearby comforts because some people can sense them even though they can't see them. At other times, the spirits can blur the memories of a death or tragedy to help us get past a painful time. They normally refrain from kinetic activity because it frightens most mortals."
"It doesn't frighten you though."
"It did at first. But now I can always see the spirit, and that takes away all the fear. For example, you might be afraid if you saw a tissue floating through the air, but certainly not if you saw a person carrying one."
With that, a tissue rose up from the box on Maria's desk and floated towards her. Her jaw dropped and her eyes grew as wide as teacup saucers.
"Take it," Arlene said softly. "Papa says you should dry your eyes."
Tears began to flow faster, and her chin quivered, but Maria sniffled and smiled as she plucked the tissue out of the air. "Thank you, Papa," she said. To Arlene she said, "He can do this all the time?"
"It takes an incredible amount of energy for a spirit to move things on this plane, but they can affect such lightweight things on a fairly frequent basis."
"Can Papa— how did you say it?— manifest here now?"
Arlene took a deep breath, looked at Papa and said, "Papa, can you manifest briefly?" Looking at Maria, she said," He'll do it just this once. It tires him incredibly, and he'll barely be able to pass you a tissue afterwards. Watch closely on your right side. Remember, you won't be able to touch him, and if you try, you'll only disrupt the apparition."
Maria focused all of her attention on the area on her right. A few seconds later she said in awe, "Oh my God! I can see him! I really can! Papa, you're really here. Oh, he's fading now." A second later she said, "He's gone."
"He's still with us. He just can't manifest for you any longer than that, and he may not be able to manifest again for months now."
"Oh no. Did I hurt him by asking him to do that?"
When the Spirit Calls (When the Spirit... series - Book 2) Page 10