The Sense of Death: An Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel (The Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels Book 1)

by Matty Dalrymple

  After dinner they walked down the boardwalk to one of the casinos. It was a warm evening for May and Ann walked with her arm hooked under Mike’s elbow. Passersby might have thought they were a couple because they looked very little like each other—Ann being slender and fair skinned with reddish blonde hair like their mother and Mike, like their father, being stockier with dark hair and a darker complexion.

  Mike enjoyed playing blackjack when he had the opportunity—he had learned the rules about when to split and double down and was reasonably good at remembering what cards had been played so he rarely lost much money and occasionally won some. They found a table and Mike took a seat, Ann standing behind him with a gin and tonic. She watched the cards being dealt out and the bets being placed but didn’t pay much attention to the game itself except to note in general how Mike was doing.

  After twenty minutes or so she leaned over his shoulder and said, “I’m going to get another drink. Do you want one?”

  “They’ll bring you one,” said Mike, looking around for a waitress.

  “No, that’s OK, I’ll get it,” said Ann. “Want anything?”

  Mike glanced at his drink. “I’m OK for now.”

  Ann wandered over to the bar and ordered another G&T and a glass of Perrier for Mike. She was on her way back to the table when she saw a young man approaching her whom she had noticed earlier as another observer at Mike’s table. He blocked her path.

  “I know you,” he said squinting at her.

  “I don’t think so,” said Ann. She tried to pass him but he stepped to block her.

  “I saw you on a show about people who speak with the dead.”

  Shit, thought Ann. “No, that must have been someone else.”

  “No, it was you,” the man said, becoming excited. “And you found that hiker in Montana.”

  “It wasn’t me and it was Wyoming,” said Ann irritably.

  He laughed. “I knew it! This is perfect! I was looking at your web site not …” he thought “… three weeks ago.”

  Ann smiled grimly at him and tried again to get past him but he stepped in front of her again. Over his shoulder she saw that Mike had noticed the dance they were conducting.

  “Listen, here’s why it’s perfect,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning toward her conspiratorially. “My brother died earlier this year. Right after the holidays.” He looked down into the drink he was holding and spun the ice cubes, then looked back up at her, any trace of excitement gone from his face. “He killed himself. And no one knows why. No note, no nothing. One day he seems fine and the next,” he put his index finger to his temple and cocked his trigger thumb, “bang!”

  Over the young man’s shoulder Ann could see Mike gathering up his chips.

  “You could find out why he did it!” the young man said, his face regaining its excitement. “It would mean so much to my parents to know.” He bent down to put his drink on the floor and Ann tried again to pass him but he lurched back up and blocked her again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. “Look, I’ve been really lucky, and it’s all so I can hire you to find out why he killed himself!” He held the roll out to Ann. Ann saw Mike heading toward them.

  She shook her head. “I don’t do what you want me to do. I’m sorry.”

  Mike reached the two of them. “Everything OK?” he asked, eyeing the young man.

  “I’m talking to this lady,” the young man said. “Bug off.”

  “I’m thinking this lady would like you to bug off,” said Mike.

  “Get lost,” said the young man and reached out for Ann’s arm as if to lead her away from this man intruding on their discussion.

  Mike’s hand flashed out and grabbed the young man’s wrist. “Leave her alone,” he said quietly.

  The young man jerked his hand out of Mike’s grasp and stepped back, whether to improve his angle for taking a swing or to retreat was unclear since he tripped on his glass and fell backwards. Beneath the Musak, the area round them had gotten quiet as people turned to watch the commotion. Ann saw a security guard, a beefy older man with a placid face, approaching.

  “Everything all right here?” he asked, looking down at the young man who was still sitting on the floor.

  “This gentleman was bothering my sister,” said Mike. “He tripped on his drink.”

  “You OK there, buddy?” the guard said to the young man.

  “I was just talking to her,” the young man said truculently.

  “Well, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you,” said the guard. “You OK to stand up?”

  “Yeah,” said the young man, watching Ann but making no move to rise.

  The guard hooked his hand under the young man’s arm. “Up we go,” he said, hoisting him to his feet. The man swayed for a second and then regained his balance. The security guard picked up the overturned glass and turned to Ann. “You OK, ma’am?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Is it OK if we go?” asked Mike, his hand on Ann’s elbow.

  “Yup, we’re just going to go have a little sit-down,” he said, turning the young man away.

  “Here, can I give this to him?” said Ann, who had removed a fragment of paper and a pen from her purse and had written something on it.

  “You’re giving him your number?” said the guard disapprovingly.

  “No, he had me confused with another person, this is who he needs to talk to.” She passed the piece of paper to the young man. “He might be able to help you,” she said to him.

  The young man looked at the slip of paper, looked back at Ann, and then let the guard lead him away. The people near them began turning back to their own pursuits.

  “What did you give him?” said Mike.

  “Garrick’s web site.”

  Mike snorted. “That fraud?”

  “How do you know?” said Ann sharply.

  Mike shrugged. “Want to go back?”

  Ann nodded.

  After Mike had cashed in his chips, they walked back along the boardwalk to their hotel but Ann didn’t hook her arm into Mike’s; she walked a little apart, her arms crossed against the evening chill, and this time passersby might not have even realized that the two of them knew each other.

  *****

  Back at their hotel they saw Walt in the nearly empty bar indulging in another one of his favorite pastimes—getting the bartender to tell him stories.

  “I’m going to get a nightcap,” said Ann.

  Mike opened his mouth to say something and thought better of it but not before Ann had noticed.

  “What?” she said belligerently.

  “Nothing,” he said, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. “What do you want?”

  They crossed to the bar and Mike ordered a martini for Ann and a glass of ginger ale for himself and they chatted with Walt while the bartender got their drinks.

  “Gino here was just telling me about the Atlantic City mafia,” said Walt. “I figured with a name like Gino he must have the inside scoop.”

  Gino rolled his eyes.

  When they had their drinks, plus a bowl of nuts from Gino, Mike and Ann retired to a table in the corner.

  “So what did that guy want?” asked Mike.

  “He wanted me to ask his dead brother why he had killed himself.”

  “Jesus,” said Mike, shaking his head.

  “How come people always want more from me than I can give them?” burst out Ann, causing Gino and Walt, in addition to another couple at the bar, to turn and look. “Or they want less from me than I have,” she added, taking a hefty drink from her martini.

  Mike had heard the first complaint before; for those who believed Ann’s claim to be able to sense spirits, many assumed she could also communicate with them and were disappointed—or, in some cases, disbelieving—when she said she could not. The young man at the casino was not the first person Ann had directed to Garrick Masser and Mike sensed that to do so was both a relief for Ann—a way to disengage herse
lf from a fruitless conversation—but also in some way an admission of failure.

  Mike and Ann had met Masser at a screening party for The Sense of Death and for all Mike had never doubted Ann’s abilities for a moment, he never for a moment believed Masser’s. Masser was extremely tall and painfully thin, with deep set black eyes and bushy eyebrows set over prominently jutting cheekbones; he tended to stand with his hands clasped together at chest height. Mike had had too much to drink and suggested to Masser that he should wear a cape and Ann had had to smooth things over.

  In fact, Ann was deferential to Masser in a way Mike could not remember her being to anyone else, not even their parents—the novice deferring to the expert. For his part, Masser was patronizing to Ann—as he was to everyone—but in Ann’s case it was tempered by something else. Masser’s attitude conveyed that he felt everyone in the room to be unworthy of his attention but Ann to be the least unworthy. There was some unspoken acknowledgement from Masser of their common area of expertise if not of a common level of expertise.

  The second complaint Mike had heard Ann voice only once before, many years ago. She was twenty-four and he was twenty-three and she had sat in his kitchen, drinking beer, crying silently while he stroked her hair or patted her back, the only things he could think to do.

  *****

  Ann had met Dan Kaminsky when he took over her retiring vet’s practice and she brought her black lab, Kali, in to have a cut on her paw seen to. Kali padded happily around the exam room, leaving a trail of bloody paw prints in her wake.

  “If I could just keep her off it for a few days, I’m sure it would heal on its own,” said Ann, exasperated.

  “Not a likely scenario—right, darlin’?” Ann was momentarily taken aback until she realized he was talking to the dog. “They gotta run and play. Lots of playing—am I right, punkin?” Dan talked to the dog in the same conversational tone he would have used if he had been talking with Ann. Kali leaned adoringly into his leg. “I’ll bet you do that to all the guys,” said Dan as he wrote out care instructions on a prescription pad.

  Ann ran into Dan again a few weeks later at a wine tasting fundraiser for the local animal shelter, which they followed up with an impromptu meatloaf-and-mashed potatoes dinner at a West Chester diner. Ann found that Dan had the same patient, low key approach to his interactions with people as he did with animals, although without the corny terms of endearment ... until the first time he called her “darlin’,” which gave her a school girl flutter and which brought a smile to her face when she thought about it days later.

  When Dan’s parents visited from Washington state a few months later, Dan took the three of them out to dinner. His father was a research chemist and his mother taught high school physics and they were charming and funny and Dan obviously enjoyed spending time with them. Ann felt a pang as memories bubbled up of her own parents who had died just a few years before, but by the end of their visit Ann felt she had found a wonderful surrogate in the Kaminskys. Dan had even received the seal of approval from Mike, especially when they discovered a mutual interest in biking.

  In fact, the only thing that cast a shadow over their relationship was that Ann had not told Dan about her sensing abilities. It was something that seemed ill-advised to share early in the relationship and then as time went on Ann tried to convince herself it was immaterial. She had spent a couple of distracted hours over dinner with Dan at an old Chester County inn trying to ignore a spirit that hung—playfully, she sensed—behind Dan’s chair.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked curiously, turning in his chair, his nose inches from where the spirit shimmered.

  “Nothing. Just admiring the decor,” she said brightly. “Do you want a piece of my popover?”

  “He’s going to find out some day,” Mike counseled her, “it’s better to tell him sooner than later.”

  “Why should he have to find out?” said Ann.

  But of course he did find out.

  It was right before the holidays and Dan, Ann, Mike, and Scott were at a party at the house of one of Mike’s friends from high school. Mike and Scott were mingling and Dan was trying to talk Ann into joining them.

  “I thought these were your high school buddies?” he said, scanning the convivial crowd.

  “More Mike’s friends than mine,” she said, settling into the couch.

  “I know—you’re afraid I’m going to run into your childhood sweetheart!”

  Ann snorted. “Not likely.”

  “Why not? Did you break his heart and he ran off and joined the Foreign Legion?”

  “Let’s just say I wasn’t much of a social butterfly.”

  “Well, the loss of all those non-discerning boys at West Chester High is my gain,” he said, and leaned over and kissed her on the nose.

  They sat companionably on the couch, Dan’s arm draped around Ann’s shoulders, Ann snuggled into his side, watching the party swirl around them, Dan poking gentle fun at the other party-goers—he was a wonderful mimic and entertained her by providing cartoon-character dialog for some of the conversations taking place around the room.

  After a bit he jiggled his empty beer cup. “Need a refill. Want to come?”

  “No, that’s OK, I don’t want to lose our seats.”

  “Suit yourself, Miss Garbo,” he said cheerfully. “Do you need a top-off?”

  She swallowed the last bit of wine in her glass and handed it to him. “Sure. Whatever the red is.”

  Dan made his way through the crowd to the makeshift bar, meeting up with Mike and Scott and a third person to whom Mike introduced Dan. Ann was idly trying to place him when she realized who it was and sat up in alarm—Rob Barboza, Beth’s brother.

  Why had she thought she could keep Dan from finding out about her ability? She glanced around the room—practically everyone at the party knew the Barboza family ... the man standing near the television had been the boy Mike punched on the playground in her defense ... Melanie of the brownie-baking episode was in the basement smoking a joint.

  Maybe Beth Barboza wouldn’t come up—she knew Mike wouldn’t mention it—but the casualness of the introductions of the four men had given way to some more serious conversation and she felt sure Rob had brought up Beth. When they turned to glance at her, she knew for sure. She tried to read Dan’s expression but she could only catch glimpses of his face through the crowd.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the group broke up and Dan made his way back to the couch. He handed her her refilled glass. “I got to meet someone from your past after all,” he said, his tone carefully neutral.

  “Yes, I saw,” she said, sipping her wine and avoiding his gaze.

  “Quite a story.” Ann didn’t reply. “He said you found his sister after she died. He was grateful. Wanted to tell me how much my girlfriend had helped out his family.”

  Ann glanced at him, saw the confusion and, under that, hurt on his face and turned away.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?” asked Dan.

  “It was a long time ago. Who knows what really happened. Mike was there too. We really just stumbled on the cave she was in.”

  “That’s not how her brother tells it, he says they would never have found her if it weren’t for you.”

  Ann shrugged and looked around the room. She caught Mike’s eye from across the room. He made a motion—“Should I come over?”—and she shook her head and turned back to Dan.

  “I don’t know how it happened, if it helped them then I’m glad. That’s all.”

  “You could sense her ... spirit?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this sensing—you still feel you can do it?”

  “What do you mean, ‘feel I can do it’?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

  “I just mean ...” Dan paused, considering. “It’s just that it’s an unusual thing.”

  “You’re right about that,” said Ann tightly.

  There followed a period of time when each thought the other
would have more to say, but when it became apparent that neither would, they eventually, by unspoken mutual consent, left the party. If Ann had looked back she would have seen Mike standing at the door looking after them, but she didn’t look back.

  Dan drove to Ann’s house in uncharacteristic silence. When they got there he pulled up to the curb and killed the engine.

  “So, do you still see spirits?”

  “Sense them.”

  “OK, sorry—sense them.”

  “Yes.”

  Dan nodded. “That’s ... very ... unexpected,” he finished with a wan smile.

  Over the following weeks, Dan continued to ask her questions—how often the sensings happened, what the experiences were like, what the spirits themselves were like. Ann had never had someone demonstrate such an intellectual interest in her sensings and as time went on she began to enjoy these discussions, to enjoy sharing this odd part of her life in such depth with someone other than Mike.

  Then one evening over a pizza at Dan’s place, when Ann was describing the sensation of Beth Barboza’s bat coming alive in her hand at exactly the time Ann knew Beth had died, Dan said, “Did your parents ever have you talk with anyone about your sensing?”

  “Talk with anyone?” said Ann, a little miffed that the rhythm of her story had been interrupted.

  “Yes, you know, like a ... psychiatrist. Or a psychologist.”

  Ann stopped with a slice of pizza half way to her mouth. After a moment she put it carefully back on her plate. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m just saying that, if a child has an imaginary friend, and the parents don’t make it a point to help the child distinguish the real friends from the imaginary ones ... and then if that child grows up and has experiences that seem to confirm a supernatural ability—”

  Ann stood abruptly. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t blame you, everything around you was encouraging you to—”

  “You’ve never believed me!” said Ann, her voice rising. “You weren’t asking me all those questions so you could understand what a sensing is like, you were asking questions because you were building a case against me. You were building a case against my parents for not breaking me of a ‘bad habit’ when I was young!”