“Tell the police.” Beth started angrily fussing with the pepper shaker.
“I’d wanted to. Paul read my thoughts and got frantic, insisted I was being paranoid. How could Sasha be harmed by anyone if I saw her running in the street? Why damage the world-shaking important work they were doing?” Liddy shook her head. “I really would have called Kerri Blasco this morning if I hadn’t seen - correction, sleepwalked and seen - Sasha swinging from a rope in our living room. So that confirms my paranoia, right?”
“Bullshit.” Beth’s cell phone buzzed. She slammed the pepper shaker down and checked her screen; ignored it; muttered about letting it go to voice mail.
“A client?”
“Just some annoying hedge funder confirming a five-thirty.” She pocketed her phone and started pacing angrily. “If you call the cops you’ll be Anonymous. No one needs to know where it came from.”
“Yes they will. Right after my hearing it last night?” Liddy took an unhappy breath and looked out the window. It had clouded over; was an early dusk with the air looking almost dark. “Last night’s argument…Paul actually cried, insisted any connection between Carl and Sasha was off the wall craziness, told me don’t don’t don’t.”
“Sure, even a whiff of this would threaten their whole grant, right?”
“You know how the media would jump on it - that’s their nightmare, every story outdoing the competition in salaciousness.” Liddy’s brow furrowed. “What kills me is, Paul’s just as brilliant as Carl and could carry on alone – maybe not get the thing done in time - but they’re way past the halfway point; have shown that they’ve really got something there, and Big Pharma’s excited. Aren’t they bottom line guys anyway, these corporations? If they smell a profit, do they care if half the team gets embroiled in a scandal?”
“Maybe they do.”
“That’s what Paul thinks.” Liddy shook her head. “I don’t understand why he feels so beholden, why he clings to his cherished idea that he and Carl have been such friends for decades. Carl’s just used him – at points in his life where it suited him.”
“Paul doesn’t want to see it, who can argue with denial – who cares?” Beth stopped pacing, drew together all her concern and outrage, and, pointing back over her shoulder to the studio, said, “That face in the painting is the worst, Lids.” She wheeled her arm around and pointed toward the front. “Ditto me finding you sprawled in a dead faint in the open doorway. This thing hurting you has gotten way more serious than the nightmares. You gotta take action. Didn’t we talk about saving yourself?”
Liddy was blinking; staring at nothing, looking startled, almost. “It just hit,” she breathed slowly, “that I’ve had the feeling all along, deep down, that Carl was somehow involved with Sasha - and my nightmares, all of it.” She searched Beth’s eyes, almost excited. “The feeling’s been there since before last night - it just hit,” she repeated.
“Oh Lids, your memory’s returning.”
“Did I mention I took Carl’s date’s number? She said she knew the person who saw Sasha in Carl’s class, and would vouch for it.”
“This gets better and better.”
“They’ll still know the tip-off came from me. Think this will lead to divorce?”
“No.” Beth looked around. “Where’s your phone?”
39
They looked in the front where Liddy fainted, then through the living room and finally found it under a chair. The time was 5:05. Liddy took the couch again and Beth hunched on the ottoman, watching her turn up the sound and call Kerri Blasco.
“Liddy, hello!” Kerri’s voice was welcoming. It sounded as if she was in a street somewhere, moving fast. Traffic blared and other cop voices sounded, blunt and hurried.
Liddy told her. “Carl Finn’s date, Nicki something. Claims to know someone who remembers Sasha auditing Carl Finn’s class. Auditing leaves no record. Here’s Nicki’s number.” She dictated it.
“This is huge, big thanks,” Kerri told her over the shout of someone clamoring for EMTs. Then, in spite of what was going on at her end Kerri said, “How are you, Liddy? How are you feeling?”
A quick glance traded with Beth, and Liddy said, “Horrible. Seeing ghosts. Definitely losing my mind.”
Not a beat missed at the other end. “I’m near,” Kerri said. “Would you like me to come over?”
Beth was waving her arms and nodding furiously, but Liddy hesitated. “Yes, but I don’t want my husband to know.”
Just the thing to catch a cop’s attention. Beth almost smirked at the slip. Her own phone rang and she rose and walked away, answering.
“What time does he get home?” Kerri asked.
“Late. He usually works late. I don’t know why I said that.”
“No worries, I look like anyone anyway. I’ll give this Nicki’s number to my partner and be there in five minutes, sound good?”
In that moment, a weight like a boulder lifted from Liddy’s chest. Having Beth there was comfort; having Kerri Blasco coming felt – hopefully not irrationally – like being rescued.
“Sounds very good,” Liddy said. “Yes, please come.”
She disconnected to the sound of Beth arguing on her phone. “Yes, I know when the Asian markets open. Sorry, I’ve been delayed, I’ll be there ASAP.”
Liddy felt bad.
“I’ve made you late,” she said when Beth hung up.
“Tough, this guy’s a jerk. I’ve got the exclusive and he’ll just damn wait.” Beth was pacing near Charlie’s plants, stopping to finger some leaves, then touch the telescope. She took a quick look through it, lost interest and turned. “Besides, I’d like to meet this Kerri Blasco. She sounds amazing.”
“She is.”
Beth glanced back to the foliage. “Been spraying ‘em?”
“Yup, no apparitions.” Liddy came to stand with her friend while they waited. They stared down at the darkening street, busy with people heading for home and the bars. Liddy sighed, “Something else happened - before last night at the restaurant I saw the same mournful girl’s face in the shower stall, in the steam on the glass. The mist turned into her tears.”
Beth turned to her, strained. “Jesus, Lids. You didn’t say.”
“Brains fried. Still recovering from the watercolor.”
The front bell sounded, and they opened to smiling Kerri Blasco in black cargo pants and a black, low-scooped T-shirt under a gray blazer. Shoulder-length dark blond hair fell to her shoulders.
Her grip was strong, and she cracked a joke about just seeing a man and his poodle with matching pink-dyed hair. “I swear that dog’s fur was blow-dried.” Her laugh was infectious, confident, and after introductions and taking a seat on the couch and punching something ping ping ping into her phone, she crossed her legs and got down to it. Her gun was clearly visible in her ankle holster.
“That Nicki? Grade A intel,” she told Liddy, noting the deep, sleep-deprived shadows under her eyes. “And surprise - ESP or something, because minutes after you called, Nicki did too, drunk and crying. She’d probably spent the whole day working up to it, is mad at her now ex who she says dumped her after a fight, so she spewed the same thing you said about Sasha. Gave us a name to contact.”
Liddy’s lips parted. The detective smiled and read her thoughts. “Nicki will probably even taunt Carl Finn about what she did. In any case, there’ll be no one guessing this came from you.”
“Relief,” Liddy said faintly, beyond excited. “He’s my husband’s partner.”
“I know. Relax, you’re out of the loop.” Kerri got out her notebook.
Liddy quickly described Carl in the restaurant: his unusual drinking, refusal to look at the Sasha sketch, tension when his date tried to push it at him. Kerri scribbled. Liddy next described Paul’s upset two nights ago over Kerri’s surprise visit to Carl – “…sounded like you really shook him and he took it out on Paul.” Just then Beth’s phone rang. She checked it, muttered “jerk again,” and got up to answer.
Then she stepped back to the couch to pick up her purse and a tote full of manila folders. Some of the folders had slid out. Kerri nodded approvingly. “Very good. You lie like a cop.”
“Real estate.” Beth made a face, suddenly hurried and pushing the folders back in. “They give special classes in lying. Okay, I gotta go. Will you be needing my number?” she asked Kerri.
The detective held up her phone. “Already have it. ‘Find your dream home with BethanyHarms.com, real estate professional,’” she said from memory, then read off digits. “That your private cell number?”
“Yes.” Beth looked too hurried to be surprised. “Call if anything. No, sit, Lids, I’ll let myself out.” She shook again with Kerri, moved to go, then at the door turned back to Liddy. “Tell everything, Lids. Including that couple fighting across the street.”
She set the slide bolt to snap shut behind her, and left.
Liddy stared at the door after it closed. Kerri studied her features; watched her confused gaze move from the door to one of the arched windows fronting a small forest and a high-powered telescope.
“That’s odd,” Liddy said. “I don’t remember telling Beth that.”
“What?”
It seemed so long ago; now it came rushing back.
“When we first moved in, Paul started to spend a lot of time staring through that telescope. I’m not sure if it bothered me, but soon after I couldn’t sleep, and went to look through it around two in the morning, and saw a couple fighting. First they were having wild, crazy sex, then half an hour later they were arguing furiously.”
Kerri frowned, nodded.
“He hit her, hit her bad. I told Paul the next morning and he said it wasn’t our business.”
“Shut you down, huh?”
“He just said couples fight, happens all the time. He was rushing to work. I should have…God, what could I have done?” Liddy hated how lame that sounded; looked guiltily toward the telescope. “The girl was blond. Looked for a second like that sketch I’d made of Sasha, I wasn’t sure.”
Kerri was on her feet. “Show me which apartment?”
Liddy did. Adjusted the telescope, looked through it, found the fighting couple’s window and stepped back. “The shade’s been pulled since that night,” she said as Kerri fiddled with the eyepiece and looked in. Liddy watched her, then peered left down the street; breathed in, plunged. “Yesterday evening I saw or thought I saw the same girl. Her face was bruised and up close I was sure she was Sasha Perry - she even wore a Winnie the Pooh stud in her right ear. I called to her, and she ran.”
Kerri looked at Liddy as if she hadn’t heard right. The features she saw were clearly embarrassed, unsure.
“Where was this?” Kerri said evenly, going back to the ‘scope, squinting into it.
“On Mercer, heading south toward me. Actually brushed my shoulder as she passed – which is when I called to her, said her name out loud. She got scared, ran back to Prince and disappeared in the crowd in front of that building you’re looking at.”
Kerry straightened; scribbled in her notebook. Liddy turned from her, sent her gaze back across the long room to the closed front door.
“It’s the damnedest thing,” she said almost painfully, sounding as if she were talking to herself. “I have no memory of telling Beth about that fighting couple. How could she know?”
Again Kerri looked at her, eyebrows raised, her silence prodding.
Liddy threw up both hands. “Well, my memory’s been in the crapper. It’ll probably come back at some odd moment, like all the rest of the horrible stuff that’s been happening.”
“Like what? Tell me from the beginning. Your sketch of Sasha.”
“You’ll call the men in the white coats.”
“No way. From the beginning, please. If you’ve already told me, tell me again. Show me.”
Out came the plastic bottle to spray the plants. Liddy showed how the mist formed – only now it was just mist against a darkening sky, not the weeping, begging young woman’s face of that first apparition. “Imagination, right? Cruel tricks of a damaged mind?” she said, leading the way to the bathroom and the shower stall, describing how the same tearful, begging face had appeared on the steamed-up glass. “That was half an hour before I saw, or thought I saw, Sasha running from me.”
Liddy leaned back out to the living room and pointed. “Then she appeared to me last night at three in the morning, hanging dead from that column. I screamed. Paul came running and said nothing was there. I guess I was sleepwalking. That’s why I didn’t call you. I woke up convinced I’d really lost my mind.”
40
Oh boy.
Kerri remembered Hank Kubic going on about Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Ask her if she’s been sleepwalking. Seeing dead people.
She stepped out of the bathroom and stared at the white, cast iron column. The light outside had grown darker. She asked, “Your husband was sleeping when you saw this?”
“Yes.” Liddy eased past her, went around turning on lamps. “And the place was locked tight with the security system on. Paul always checks.”
Kerri got out her phone and approached the column. To Liddy’s surprise she photographed it from all angles, high, low, and then the ceiling. It was white smoothness up there. “Did you notice what the rope was hanging from?” she asked, looking up. Most of the cases in Hank’s report were very specific describing their hallucinations, down to the merest invisible detail.
Liddy came; pointed to where Charlie Bass’s hanging beam was now plastered over, and shrugged. “So she was hanging from nothing, a beam that isn’t there any more. See? Time to call the funny farm.”
Kerri had made a mental list of Liddy’s responses. Imagination, right? Cruel tricks of a damaged mind. I saw, or thought I saw Sasha. Time to call the funny farm, the men in white coats. I woke up convinced I’d lost my mind.
Then Hank Kubic waving his steak knife flashed. “’Is this a dagger I see before me?’ Poor Mac really thought he saw it! Both he and his missus saw terror that wasn’t there and couldn’t be persuaded otherwise.”
Kerri thought while she moved and took pictures; asked questions whose answers seemed to follow the same pattern.
Liddy made sad jokes about her state. She was just beaten down, there was no aggression or defensiveness to her. Kerri had plowed through Hank’s case files and more similar stuff. Lots of clinical gibberish but she did see the big picture…and still listened to her gut. She was kneeling at the base of the white column, holding her phone and looking up, when something occurred. “How did you know where Charlie’s hanging beam was?”
“Saw it,” Liddy said, watching her. “When Beth first showed us the loft.”
“Oh right, she was your agent?”
“Yes.”
“When did you first see the apartment?”
“August ninth. It was a Sunday.”
That prompted a smile as Kerri rose. “See that? Nothing wrong with your memory.” She turned back to peer at the line of tall plants. “That window faces south. The summer sun must have really fried those greens. Who took care of them before you came along?”
“Beth did, every day. She said they made the place look nicer, especially since Charlie left the rest such a mess.”
Kerri’s eyes were quick; she’d heard hardened, experienced cops say there was so much behind them, recording, connecting, moving like benign lasers around the toughest crime scenes. Now she scanned again, from the window to the white column, then back toward the bathroom.
“The shower stall mist. Did you see the face in there again? A second time?”
“No. Just one sold-out appearance.”
“Were you able to make it go away or did it stay?”
“I wiped it away.” Liddy gave a shudder. “It stayed gone, but now seems to have
moved to my studio – the face just appeared in a painting. When you see it, you’ll really want to call the booby hatch.”
Kerri shook her head. “No, show me.”
Lady Macbeth and nearly every case in Hank’s file were defensive and irrationally vain, always seeing themselves as victims - never sad sacks attempting humor, poking fun at themselves suggesting you call the funny farm. In fact, without exception they were devoid of humor.
“This isn’t a waste of police time?” Liddy asked as they crossed the living room. “Spending time with a crazy person who sees ghosts?”
“You’re not crazy,” Kerri said. “Let’s see that painting.”
41
The eyes were heartbreaking, and the young woman’s lips were parted in anguish, as if crying out the words Help me still dripping beneath. Liddy herself was surprised at how lurid she’d made the colors, the hysterical flailing of figures terrified and terrorizing in mortal struggle. Kerri, after staring at the painting for long moments, commented on that: hysterical or not, the work was a clear depiction of good battling evil.
“I must have been in a trance,” Liddy said, slumped on the window seat clutching a throw pillow.
Kerry looked at her. “Subconscious art is the most honest.” She went back to the painting and frowned. Odd: much of it was still wet, colors had slid, but the tearful, begging face and the cry for help beneath it stayed suspended. From the letter p in Help a drop of red had slid down and become a small ruby, hanging, growing.
Whew. This was something.
Kerri took Liddy’s chair at her draftsman’s table; studied the drooping figure across from her. “Have you ever believed in ghosts? Like, as a kid?”
“No.” Faint head shake. “Used to laugh at Scooby Doo and his ghosts.”
“That’s a cartoon.”
“That’s where ghosts belong. In cartoons. Scare novels.”
Fear Dreams Page 16