Dying to Know

by TJ O'Connor

  She nodded. “You do believe me about Ernie’s house, don’t you? I mean, I’m not imagining things.”

  “What matters is that you believe it.”

  “And what about this? Do you know who went through my things—my computer?”

  He shrugged. “Let it go, Angela. It’s all part of the investigation.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  No, it wasn’t. And when Bear shrugged and headed for the stairs, it was all she was going to get.

  The question was “why?”

  ten

  After Bear left for the office, Angel began straightening the house. She cleaned fingerprint powder from the stair railings and doorways, bits of tape from the floor, and other crime scene remnants littered everywhere. Captain Sutter’s team tried to straighten things up, unlike most crime scenes, but Angel knew every out-of-place nuance of the house.

  She went into my den, stood in the middle of the floor, and closed her eyes. I thought she was going to cry again, but instead, she inhaled long and deep. She did that several times, then turned around the room in a slow-motion pirouette.

  I stood beside her, watching a smile emerge in the corners of her mouth.

  “Angel?”

  “Oh, Tuck,” she said, dropping into my leather recliner beside Hercule. “I cannot believe this had to happen.”

  Hercule groaned his disapproval and sank onto the floor.

  “I can still smell you, Tuck. You’re here.”

  She was talking to me, but the question was, did she know I was listening?

  “Yeah, babe. I’m right here. Close your eyes. Listen for me. I’m right here.”

  She did but her patience didn’t last. “No, dammit. You weren’t supposed to die.” She stood and headed for the door.

  “No. Angel, wait.” Frantic, I tried to find a lure. “Wait.”

  Hercule did. He jumped up on the recliner and barked, standing like Rin Tin Tin and commanding her attention. He barked again and Angel turned around.

  “What, boy? Do you smell him, too?”

  Woof. Wag. Woof. Hercule looked right at me standing in front of the bookshelves and moaned. He barked again and glanced back and forth between Angel and me. He moaned that low, grumbling moan that meant he was frustrated with our failure to understand. He saw me. He knew I was right there. He didn’t understand why she didn’t, too.

  She looked at him. “Herc?”

  “Angel, listen to me …” Wait, I had it. “Look in the books; behind the leather law books.”

  Herc barked at me again. Angel took a step toward the bookshelf, hesitated, and looked at Hercule. “What is it boy?”

  Hercule pointed his nose at me and moaned.

  “Angel, behind the books. Bear hid a file. Get it for me. Please.”

  Woof. Groan. Wag.

  “Herc?” Then Angel startled me—perhaps both of us. She came to the bookshelf beside me and ran her fingers across my collection of mysteries and old collectables, then reached out and touched one of the leather law journals. Her eyes welled up as she slid one of them forward, taking it from the shelf and fanned it in a slow, deliberate motion.

  “I gave these to you years ago, Tuck. Did you ever read them?”

  Did she know I was right here, within arm’s reach? Did she know I was listening? No, she didn’t.

  She sighed and started to slide the book back into its place. She stopped and reached behind it, withdrawing the thick manila file Bear hid there. “What’s this, Herc?”

  Holy Agatha Christie.

  “Bear put it there. He hid it before the crime scene guys got in here. Technically, that’s obstructing justice, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  She went to my desk and fanned the file. Pages fell out onto the desktop. When she looked down at them, she cried, “Oh, Tuck,” and burst into tears. She ran from the room and a second later our bedroom door slammed.

  Hercule leapt from the chair and jogged after her. At the door, he turned and barked at me. He wanted me to follow.

  I looked after them but the scattered pages on my desk called me like whiskey to a drunkard. I was torn. The file pulled at me but when I looked down at the collage of pages, all I could see was Angel lying on her bed, sobbing and shaking. No, the file would have to wait.

  At our bedroom door, I could hear her anguish inside. When I tried to go in, I couldn’t. Doors were starting to irritate me. I could poof around golf courses and spirit from here to there, but one closed bedroom door and I was powerless.

  Hercule stood beside me. He sat wagging his tail and shifting his eyes side to side. He stuck his big black nose against the door as if to say, “Go in dummy, she needs us.”

  “I know, Hercule. I know.”

  Inside, Angel was gushing with pain. I needed to hold her and stop her sorrow. If I could let her know that I was all right, that I was close. Just a few seconds of comfort. I ached to reach her—ached to make it stop for her—ached to touch her. There had to be a way … please.

  I focused my every thought on turning the knob, moving it, grasping it. Nothing. Then I concentrated on moving through the door. Nothing. I tried again. Again. Again.

  Nothing. Not even a creak from the stubborn latch.

  Closing my eyes, I could see her curled up on the bed with tears streaming down her face. Please … please … something … Why was I here? Why was I held back from wherever? The only reason had to be Angel. Just let me inside, please.

  Warmth.

  A shiver of warm, rising emotion trickled in and began to fill me. The silky heat rippled inside as my thoughts exploded rhythmically like tiny lightning bolts one after the other. The hall light dimmed and for an instant, everything around me vanished—or perhaps I did—and darkness enveloped me. A strange, soothing tingle enveloped me, drawing me in.

  Angel, I’m trying. Reach for me, babe, reach.

  The journey lasted an eyeblink.

  I was beside Angel, standing next to the bed where she lay.

  “Angel, I’m here.” I reached down and touched her hand. Her skin’s softness and her scent flooded me with memories. I could feel her as though life was still between us. I dropped onto the bed beside her and fought back my own tears. My finger closed around hers.

  Shazzam.

  An emotional tsunami swept over me, through me … into me. My fingers quivered and my face felt like July sunburn. My body shimmered with sorrow and pain—Angel’s pain. I felt her loss—my loss—and began drawing it, commanding it to leave her and fill me instead. Waves of grief washed through me and for an instant consumed me. Tears flowed from me and my body weakened from despair. I was in a whirling, dizzying swell of misery that weakened my knees and scattered my resolve. The emptiness swallowed me and I was helpless to defend myself.

  Then something new rose. The waves of grief receded and my longing ebbed from me into her. Something extraordinary drew us together and melded our emotions, one by one. The cold void of pain simmered into a brew of memories and love.

  Angel sat up on the bed and looked around the room, settling her gaze on the bed where I sat. For an instant, she reached out and touched the comforter beside me but shook her head and withdrew. She stood up, walked to the bedroom door, and let Hercule in. He bounded past her and to the bed, standing in front of me and barking. He turned to her, barking again.

  He knew. He wanted her to know, too.

  “No, Herc,” she said. “It’s just me.”

  Woof. He stood in front of me and lifted his paw to shake. The gesture made Angel gasp and choke back tears.

  “Angel, it’s me.”

  “No, Herc.” She went to her dresser and gazed for a long time at the pictures there. They were of our honeymoon—pictures we’d both stopped noticing long ago.

  Hercule bounded to her, barked at her, and then bounded
back to the bed. He scooped up his ball from the floor and jumped up, landing just inches from me.

  Hercule’s ball stole her heart.

  He flipped his head and the ball popped from his mouth to my lap—or the bedcovers from her view. He barked and pawed at me, jabbing his snout at the ball demanding I take it and give it a toss. He’d done this a million times and demanded one more.

  “Oh, Herc. Stop.”

  “I’m here. Think, Angel, think about me. I’m right here. Herc, tell her.”

  Moan—he grabbed the ball, flipped it again, and resumed his demand for a catch.

  Angel’s face flushed with that devilish smile that often emerged just before our bedroom light turned off. She laughed and tears glistened.

  “Tuck, you jerk. You weren’t supposed to die. What am I to do—talk to myself the rest of my life?”

  I leaned close, gently touching her cheek with a long, slow, fingertip. Her eyes closed and she smiled. She reached for her cheek, but her cell phone rang and wrenched her back to reality.

  I withdrew my hand and slid from the bed.

  “No. Don’t go. Come back!”

  eleven

  Angel lay on the bed, alternating between tears and laughter as she spoke with some family friend on the phone. They’d been chatting for ten minutes before I became bored and headed downstairs. It was time to start investigating the most important homicide ever—my own. It would begin with one of the first unusual things I could remember since rejoining the living.

  The file.

  Whatever it held, it was important enough for Bear to break the law by tampering with my crime scene. That was going to be a problem, though, because when I looked at the pages scattered across my desk, nothing made sense. Pages of scribbled handwriting—mine—were as unintelligible as chicken chow mein, without the fortune cookie. If this were a case file, there should be crime scene photographs and investigative notes. Instead, I found a macramé of jumbled words and foggy images. It was all unintelligent blurs as though my brain had Dyslexia and Alzheimer’s all at once. Words were a clutter of meaningless smudges and I couldn’t read anything or see the slightest coherent image in the photographs. Nothing. My autofocus was busted.

  “So,” a familiar voice said, “are you figuring things out?”

  A man was watching me from my doorway. He was dressed in old, green surgical scrubs with a stethoscope wrapped around his neck. He looked to be in his sixties with gray hair and deep blue eyes. His face was dark with stubble as though he’d just completed a double shift of weary surgery.

  “Are you getting settled, Oliver?”

  Oliver again? His voice was … yes. He had called me earlier—summoned me to go and help Angel. I didn’t know the voice then, but it felt familiar now. His presence didn’t startle me or concern me at all. He was no more physical than I was. That is to say, he was dead, too. It was as though he’d been with me all along and yet I’d never seen him before.

  “Call me Doc—Doc Gilley.”

  When he said “Doc,” the name flirted with memories too distant and unclear to retrieve. It was like déjà vu but without the trepidation that often comes with it. I was nodding and wasn’t sure if it was because of the ease with which I accepted him, or the strange feeling that I knew him.

  “Okay, Doc. You sent me to Angel, right?”

  “Yes, of course.” He came in and stood across the desk from me. “I know you’re not sure of what to do or how to do it. You have to come to terms and fast. There’s a lot at stake.”

  “Terrific.” I leaned back in the chair. “I’ve got a million questions. Let’s start with what happened to Angel. Then let’s talk about the two guys digging holes in my foyer and why it wasn’t a foyer at the time. Then …”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Doc shook his head. “I cannot give you those answers. It’s better to learn for yourself.”

  “Great.” I waved a hand over the file. “And this? How am I supposed to learn for myself if I can’t read?”

  “You can’t read?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hmmmm, interesting.” He grinned. “Give it time. You’ve done okay so far. Be patient.”

  “How am I going to find my killer if I can’t read or get through doors? Aren’t I …”

  “Maybe you’re not supposed to. Maybe this is about something else; something more important.”

  “More important? Like what?”

  “How do I know? This is your death, not mine. You figure it out.”

  Great. I get a guardian angel and he’s a smartass. “Come on, Doc. Help me out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  He sighed. “Oliver, I didn’t just simply appear. You just now noticed me. You have to focus.”

  “I’m trying to …”

  “No. By focus, I don’t mean thinking. I mean doing. Being there. It’s connecting to where you need to be and what you want. Just be there.”

  Connecting? “I don’t get it, Doc.”

  He shook his head like Angel’s done millions of times. Okay, like everyone does. “Oliver, listen, you’re dead. You don’t have thoughts. You have emotions, what you used to call your gut. You have being.”

  I thought about that and wasted my time doing that. “Yeah, being there. Got it. And hey, who are you? How do you know me?

  I think I should know, but I don’t.”

  “In time.” He went to Hercule and the big Lab moaned and went twenty-toes up. “I like Hercule. He looks like my old Jed. He’s seen me for a while now.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. Hercule moaned.

  I went on. “None of this dead stuff is right. Like the whole light thing. When I first got back here, right here, I didn’t see any light or anything.”

  “A light?”

  “Don’t I get a light?”

  He laughed. “I never got one. Be happy you’re here. There are worse places. Well, at least I think so. And if there are, you certainly would be a candidate.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  Yup, a smartass guardian angel. I watched Doc milling around as though he were a guest admiring my etchings. He was a strange, yet familiar man. All I knew was that he belonged somewhere in my life, years before. Where and when, I had no clue. At the moment, however, it was comforting having him to talk with.

  “Are you an angel? You don’t act like one. And you sure as hell don’t talk like one.”

  “How does one talk?”

  “Well, you should be giving me sage advice and showing me the way to my maker and all that. You know, be worldly or heavenly or something. For Christ’s sake, show me a light. At least I’d know I wasn’t going to hell.”

  “Ah, I see.” Doc scratched Hercule’s neck. Herc wagged up a storm. Obviously, they were old pals. “I’d love to help you out. But it doesn’t work like that. I’m no angel—at least not that I know of. And you’re not going to hell.”

  “If you’re not an angel, how do you know?”

  “Because you’d be there by now.”

  Well, that was good news. “Okay, that works for me. So, why are you here?”

  “To help you get settled. There’s so much you have to do.”

  “Like solving my murder?”

  “Yes, that too.”

  “No light?”

  Doc laughed again. “Will you forget the light? This isn’t television or the drive-in flicks. You’re still here, so there has to be a reason.”

  Yeah, that’s right. I remembered a ghost movie I saw—actually, every ghost movie I ever saw—about spirits hanging around because they had unfinished business.

  “Yeah, Doc. I have to find my killer. Then I’m gonna kill him. So
make them a reservation.”

  “No, no killing.” He went over to my bookshelf and admired my collections. “Not bad, Oliver. Nice collection—I approve. Spillane was my favorite. You remind me of Hammer.”

  “Thanks, some were my grandfather’s—a few first editions. It’s the only stuff from my family I got.”

  “Yes, yes.” He turned and threw a lecturing finger at me. “Killing is not in the playbook. You don’t have the power to kill or hurt or anything of the sort. You are a bystander, a witness, not a participant. In time maybe a little more. No killing. That I know.”

  He put down a volume of Agatha Christie as his demeanor changed from kindly spirit to divorce lawyer. “Are you sure about Angela?”

  What did he say? “No way, Doc. Not Angel. She loves me.”

  “Good for you.” A thin smile etched his lips. “If you’re sure.”

  “She didn’t kill me, right?”

  “What about Bear?”

  “What about him?”

  He rolled his eyes—people do that a lot with me. “Do you trust him?”

  “He’s acting strange, I’ll give you that. But he saved my life three years ago. He took a bullet for me.”

  “Yes, that was a mistake.”

  “Are you saying …”

  “No.” He turned around as his face began losing clarity. I watched him become little more than a wisp of himself. “All I’m saying is this is entirely wrong. Nothing is as it should be. It started with Bear. And it’s not over yet.”

  “Wait, dammit.” I watched Doc vanish. “Did he change things? Should I have died before?”

  He was just a voice. “You have a lot to do. Remember … just be there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll just be there.”

  “And you’ll have to come to terms with everyone you thought you knew. You may find you don’t know them at all.”

  “How am I gonna figure all this out?”

  “I don’t know, Oliver, but things are going to get crazy.”

  twelve

  “Going to get crazy?” I turned to Hercule. “So, Herc, you’ve been holding out on me. Doc and you are old pals.”