4 Angel Among Us

by Chaz McGee

  As I stood there, thinking of her, wondering if she was still alive, the wind shifted and I realized that I felt her – I felt Arcelia Gallagher as surely as if she had been standing right beside me. I was certain of it. It was her essence, her unique combination of joy at being alive tinged with sorrow at the past. It was her smell, her being, her smile and her beauty all wrapped up into one feeling, a feeling that washed over me as surely as the sunshine spilling through the trees from above.

  She was near and she was alive. I knew it with every fiber of my being.

  I looked around and saw no one, not even the gardener, tending to the lawn. Behind me, Maggie and Calvano were trudging to the front door, preparing to get what they could out of the elderly butler. I moved over the lawn and the flower beds, searching to see if she was there somewhere. Nothing. I searched some more. Nothing still. Eventually, I turned back to the house, ready to follow Maggie and Calvano inside, my confidence starting to erode. Perhaps I had just imagined it? Perhaps the statue had triggered a memory of her so acute that I felt as if I were in her presence? Perhaps I only hoped that she was still alive.

  The butler had opened the door with resignation and ungraciously welcomed Maggie and Calvano inside. Their politeness did not soften him, but he gestured for them to follow and tromped resolutely toward the kitchen. We formed a curious parade through the halls. The old butler, once king of a long-lost era and now an old man, Maggie and Calvano, burdened with their failure to find any leads, and me, an aimless ghost who lived neither here nor there and who glanced around fearfully, afraid of another ghost I could not see.

  The house seemed particularly empty that morning. Their footsteps echoed in the hall and the air smelled dusty and dry. It was in the stillness that I felt someone watching us. I looked around but saw no one. But the heat of that gaze was almost palpable and I knew that someone – or something – was spying on our parade.

  As we neared the end of the long hallway, the bright lights of the kitchen called to us. I could smell fruit cooking on the stove and felt something, perhaps happiness, perhaps contentment, sending out tendrils of welcome. The old butler quickened his step and seemed almost to flee to its warm embrace.

  There was someone behind me. I felt it.

  I whirled around and found nothing there.

  I turned back toward the kitchen and there it was again: a brush against my back, a breath down my neck, the barest of touches from another being.

  I turned around again and, this time, heard laughter. I looked at the others. Maggie and Calvano did not seem to have noticed. With a glance over my shoulder, I caught up with them. Whatever lived in this house, it was trying to make contact with me.

  The kitchen was warm and steamy. Pots bubbled and boiled on the stove, sending fragrant wisps into the air. Sunlight poured through the French windows, transforming it into a whole different room compared to how it felt at night. Every countertop was scrupulously clean and gleamed in the sunlight. The floor was immaculate white tile. An old oak table took up a corner of the kitchen and the butler’s wife sat at one end of it, green beans spread out in front of her. She methodically snapped one in half, pulled off the string and deposited what was left into a bowl. She was humming and her eyes sparkled as she looked up at the newcomers, smiling.

  I realized with a start that she was looking at me. Her eyes were dark and intense. I did not remember them looking like that before. Could she really see me? I raised my right arm. She raised hers, mimicking me. I cocked an eyebrow. She cocked hers. I smiled and she smiled back.

  No one else had noticed our exchange. Maggie and Calvano were telling the butler about their lack of progress in the case and the old man’s wife had been forgotten.

  The old woman was staring at me even more intensely. I felt myself drawn to her dark eyes. As I stared into them, I could feel the light around me shrink, as if I stood at the center of an aperture closing on me. It felt as if all the air left the room and that its very walls were shrinking in around me. For just a few seconds, I looked about and saw nothing but clay walls pressing in on me. I was trapped in the darkness. I smelled sweat and felt terror.

  I felt Arcelia Gallagher.

  Abruptly, I was back in the kitchen with the others.

  ‘Hello,’ Maggie was saying cheerfully to the butler’s wife. Maggie pulled out a chair and reached for a handful of beans. She automatically joined the old woman in her task, as she had no doubt done many times with her own mother. The butler’s wife smiled at Maggie with calm, green eyes. Though it was clear that she did not remember Maggie or, perhaps, even remember her husband, she knew that she was safe, and that when she was in her kitchen, she was home. She was happy. The old woman who had stared at me was gone.

  My friend, I thought. My fellow traveler. He was able to use her somehow.

  The butler moved protectively to his wife and put a hand on her shoulder, patting it gently. It was a small gesture but so at odds with his formal demeanor that it made me like him just a little bit more.

  ‘I’m not sure there is anything I can tell you,’ the butler said as he finished polishing a coffee urn and began to fuss with the settings. Calvano hurried to help him. It was a cozy sight – the two women sitting at the sunlit kitchen table and the two men making coffee. I knew that Maggie and Calvano had planned to approach the butler gently. But I also think that their actions were genuine. They had been seduced by the kitchen’s embrace and were basking in its warmth. It was impossible to resist. This had been a refuge for the butler and his wife for over forty years, I realized; the one place that was theirs, where whatever troubles occurring in the rest of the house could be left behind at the kitchen door. It was filled with their memories. I felt a peace settle over me and I fell into a deeper state of being, the buzzing and the sudden movements of the living fading from my world.

  That was when I saw it. There, beside the refrigerator, I saw the figure of a man.

  He was like me. He was there, but not quite there. I could see his figure clearly, though it was faded along the edges. I did not think that any of the others could see him. I did not recognize him. He was black, very black, as dark as the coffee now brewing in the urn. He was a stocky man, who must have been as strong as a bull when he was alive. He had broad shoulders and hands like catcher’s mitts. His head was shaved and his features oddly friendly given his intimidating frame. He was staring at me as if he wanted something from me. I did not know what he was trying to say. His mouth moved, but I could not hear him. I stepped closer, wanting to understand. His eyes were filled with such pain that I knew at once that he was the spirit that would not leave this house, that he was the source of the cold air and sudden pains that had plagued me on my earlier visit.

  I could not understand what he wanted. A veil blocked communication between us. The air around me cooled as I grew closer to the man. He stood stock still, staring at me, trying to send me a message. When I grew near enough, he mouthed a single phrase: ‘Help me.’

  With that, he faded. Calvano walked right through him, heading for the kitchen sink to wash his hands, and gave no indication he knew he was there.

  The spirit was gone. The air solidified again and I was drawn back to the world of the living, where the old man butler started to loosen up. He told them that the maid was gone. Frightened by the disappearance of a second woman in town, Lupe had fled the mansion and no one knew where she had gone.

  ‘Are you sure she’s OK?’ Calvano asked.

  The butler nodded. ‘She came to see me first to say that she was leaving and would not be back.’ He hesitated and then decided to say more. ‘She said the house was just too sad to stay here. She had a new job waiting in another town and she was going to take it.’

  Maggie and Calvano looked discouraged. They would never find her now. ‘Who will take care of Ms Wylie?’ Maggie asked.

  The old man shook his head. ‘I do not know. She interviewed seven different women before she agreed to hire Lupe.’ He turned his
back on Maggie and Calvano, as if to shield the resentment in his voice as he added, ‘Perhaps her manager can take care of her. He ought to do something to earn his money.’

  ‘Yeah, what’s with that guy?’ Calvano asked casually as he brought coffee cups to the table and set them out. ‘He seems a little below her pay grade, if you know what I mean.’

  The butler was fussing with the sugar bowl. ‘If you mean he seems a little sleazy, then yes, I would have to agree. Ms Wylie is better than that.’

  ‘Then what’s the deal? Does he have her locked up with contracts? What’s the power he has over her?’

  The butler shrugged. ‘The power he has is that he is the only one in her life who truly seems to care about her.’ It was clear the old man would say no more about it.

  ‘So you heard about the second woman who went missing?’ Maggie asked him. ‘Did you know she was married to Aldo, Rodrigo’s brother? We know that Aldo worked here, helping his brother with the gardens.’

  The butler sighed. ‘I knew you would figure out that we had more people on staff than what you saw yesterday. Yes, we all heard late last night that Aldo’s wife was missing. It concerns me. She was a lovely young woman, perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the thought of being a mother, but devoted to her husband. She visited often to bring out his lunch, though my wife was always happy to make lunch for the staff.’ He smiled fondly at the old lady who was blissfully snapping beans, her mind incapable of taking in more than that simple task. He, of course, made the lunches but could not admit it, not even to himself.

  ‘Then I suppose you have also heard that Aldo was arrested?’ Calvano asked.

  ‘Rodrigo told me,’ the butler said, his voice taking on his customary clipped, guarded tone. ‘I suggested counsel and offered to help pay the fees.’

  Calvano felt compelled to defend his honor. ‘It was not our call.’

  ‘Rodrigo will certainly have his hands full now,’ the butler replied, making it plain he was not going to discuss Aldo anymore.

  Calvano folded his long frame into a chair and sipped at his coffee. ‘Holy crap, this is delicious.’

  The butler smiled despite himself. ‘That’s what forty years of practice will do for you.’

  ‘I guess you know the history of this house pretty well,’ Calvano said casually, ignoring Maggie’s warning glance.

  ‘You want to know about the murders in the orchard, don’t you,’ the butler said. He sat at the table next to Calvano and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was the first glimpse I’d had of the old man off duty. He didn’t look any more relaxed to me.

  ‘That and the rest of the house’s history,’ Calvano said. ‘You’ve got to admit, it seems a little . . .’

  ‘A little haunted?’ the butler suggested. ‘I told you it was. When you are as old as I am, you start to like the existence of ghosts. It means your time may not be over after all.’

  ‘You think this house is haunted because of the orchard murder?’ Maggie asked, trying to hide her skepticism.

  ‘No,’ the butler said. ‘Not from the murders in the orchard. That was a killing that could have happened anywhere. It was two homeless men fighting over a bottle of cheap wine and one of them had a knife. It could have happened in the park in the middle of town. It could have happened in the parking lot outside the liquor store. It just happened to occur here, in our orchard, where they had been sleeping for a week or more because of the warm weather. I’d noticed them but thought they were harmless. The grounds here take up over twenty acres. I did not see any harm in letting them stay.’

  I had a sudden vision of a steady stream of bums appearing at the back door of the mansion, where his wife dispensed what was left over of the meals she cooked while the butler looked the other way. He was not such a bad guy after all.

  ‘How can you be so sure it’s not one of them haunting you?’ Calvano asked. ‘I heard the one who did the killing died in prison not long after he was sent away.’

  ‘Being sent away was probably the only food and shelter that poor man received his entire life,’ the butler said. ‘My guess is that he was grateful for it. No, our guest is not either one of those gentlemen. Our guest is older than that. Our guest has been here a long, long time. He has, in fact, been here longer than me.’ He glanced at Calvano. ‘You seem to be accepting everything I say at face value. That’s unusual.’

  ‘I had two Italian grandmothers,’ Calvano explained. ‘What can I say? I grew up being threatened with the evil eye.’

  The old man laughed. It was a rusty sound, like a car trying to start, but it made his wife look up from her green beans with a smile.

  ‘You have no idea who the ghost is?’ Calvano asked. ‘You never actually see it?’

  The butler shook his head. ‘I don’t even know if it’s a he.’

  I did. It was a very big and very black and very unhappy he.

  The old man glanced up at the clock. ‘It is nearly eleven o’clock. Ms Wylie will be awake and wanting her fresh fruit salad.’

  ‘I’ll take it up to her,’ Calvano volunteered. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t question her. But it will save you the stairs.’

  The butler looked embarrassed at the need for this courtesy but he nodded. ‘If you see her manager, he will not be pleased.’

  ‘I think I can take that chance,’ Calvano said.

  ‘In that case, the tray is ready.’ The butler took a perfectly assembled tray holding a bowl of fruit salad from the refrigerator and arranged linen napkins around it. It was clear that he had been doing his job and his wife’s job for years, perhaps, masking her condition for who knows how long.

  ‘Adrian . . .’ Maggie said in a voice that held a warning.

  ‘Don’t worry, boss,’ Calvano said cheerfully. ‘I just want to bring the lady her fruit.’

  The butler handed Calvano the tray, but at the last moment, could not bring himself to let go of it without a final warning. ‘You have to knock first and then wait, sometimes for quite a while, while she gets ready to receive visitors. There are no exceptions to this rule. Otherwise, you will upset her and it could take all day to calm her down.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Calvano said. ‘I understand. I’m not going to barge in on her.’

  The butler released the tray and Calvano accepted it with a solemn nod. I followed him out the kitchen door and down the hall toward the curving grand staircase that led upstairs. I knew that he was intentionally leaving Maggie alone in the kitchen so that she could pump the butler for more information. I also know that while Calvano was intent on questioning Dakota Wylie some more, despite his promise to the butler, he also could not fight his urge to take care of her. She was a pregnant young woman abandoned by an indifferent husband and Calvano thought that she deserved better.

  EIGHTEEN

  Calvano knocked on Dakota Wylie’s bedroom door and waited, as he had been instructed to do. I felt no such sense of gallantry. I preceded Calvano into the room and watched as, still lounging in her bed, the star arranged herself to receive visitors as if she were a queen.

  Up close, her face did not seem as grotesque and misshapen as it had when viewed from afar earlier that morning. Yes, her features were swollen. She had clearly had plastic surgery, and something had gone wrong. The fundamental structure of her face had been altered and there was no way the damage could be undone. A once perfectly symmetrical face was now marred by lopsided, unnaturally broad cheeks, frozen eyes and a mouth stretched ever so slightly into a permanent grimace. How could she not see the damage?

  Dakota Wylie hurriedly wrapped a scarf over her head and around her chin, pulling it over to cover as much of her face as possible. She slid the oversized sunglasses on and called out in her breathy voice, ‘Come in, Mr Jarvis.’

  ‘It’s not Mr Jarvis. It’s Detective Calvano. We met yesterday.’ Calvano waited a moment longer, giving her time to get used to the fact that he was someone unfamiliar to her.

  ‘Oh. It’s you. Come in,’ she said in a mu
ch smaller voice. She crossed her hands over her body as if to protect herself from a blow. I realized she shrank from anything that was not completely familiar to her, that she always seemed to be expecting a blow, if not from someone, then from the world. I thought immediately of her rich and famous husband. Could he? Would he? I remembered the domestic cases I had been called out to in my early days as a cop. Money and fame was no antidote for that kind of violence.

  Calvano entered the room casually, as if he always brought Hollywood stars breakfast in bed. ‘I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,’ he said, taking care never to look directly at her. ‘But your butler seems a little bit old to be running up and down the steps. I thought I could save him the trouble.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed in a voice that was suddenly very sad. Was it real or was it acting? ‘Now that Lupe has quit, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I feel terrible imposing on Mr Jarvis like that.’

  So get your ass out of bed, lady, I thought to myself.

  ‘I don’t think he sees it as an imposition.’ Calvano placed the tray on the bedside table next to her. ‘Would you like me to put this on the pillow in front of you?’

  ‘Please,’ she said softly.

  Calvano carefully placed the tray in front of her and she looked down at it with no enthusiasm.

  ‘Can I get you something else?’ Calvano asked. ‘It’s normal to have specific cravings when you’re pregnant. Did you know that? I had a sister who only ate canned salmon and olives for weeks.’

  She looked up at him with some surprise. ‘Is it? I didn’t realize. No, this is fine. I need to eat it. It will be good for the baby.’

  Judging from how she looked, I doubt she had eaten a real meal in over a decade. She was thin in that emaciated way people who make their living on camera get, with bony arms and a head that seems too big for their bodies. I did not see how it could be healthy either for her or for her baby. Perhaps she had no other choice if she wanted to stay employed.