by Tim McGregor
“He did?” Billie had never known the man.
“He was a hard man. Violent. And something about Mary always set him off. Her woolgathering, her imaginary friends. I think he was trying to knock it out of her.”
“God. That’s awful.”
“It was,” Maggie agreed. “Every family has its secrets, honey. Ours seemed to have more than its share.”
Another snap of the puzzle. “Who were these imaginary friends mom used to see?”
“Oh, I don’t remember. They all had names. Or specific things, like what they were wearing. She’d tell me they were right there in the room with us but and only showed them to her. It used to scare the hay out of me when she did that.”
“Is that why you took me to so many doctors?” Billie asked. “Did you think I’d get it too.”
Another long pause. “I thought that, if you did have it, it could be treated. Before it became a problem. God, I tried so many different therapies. Do you remember all of those? Some were a bit kooky.”
Billie remembered. Exercises that Maggie would put her through, to focus her mind or keep her in the present instead of drifting off into a fog as she was wont to do. “I remember the fights we had.”
“So do I,” Maggie sighed. “It was hard. But it was necessary. I thought I would lose you.”
“What do you mean?”
“After the incident,” Maggie said, her voice catching. “When I brought you home after Mary disappeared. You were practically catatonic. Didn’t speak a word for almost three weeks. You came back, slowly, but you’d get those awful spells where you would just go blank. Or you’d talk to someone who wasn’t there. Like your mother did when she was a child. It scared me.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I was scared that the illness in our family, the kind your mother and our aunts had, would take you too. So I did what I could. Took you to doctors. And church.”
It was Billie’s turn to go silent. Was this how her ability was suppressed? Maggie had tried to treat it clinically with doctors and therapy. Spiritually, with church-going. Maggie had quashed it early on.
“Aunt Maggie,” she ventured, “did you ever wonder if mom really did see people that weren’t there?”
“What do you mean? Like spirits or something.”
“Yeah.”
“No,” her aunt retorted, firmly and without hesitation. A conviction of iron behind it. “Never.”
“I wish I remembered more about her.”
“Honey, what’s this all about? Did something happen?”
Exhaustion crept over Billie’s shoulders. The exertion needed to stay on the phone seemed too much. “No. I’ve just been in a weird mood since the hospital. Reflective, you know?”
“Of course. It happens, after a scare like that. Why don’t you come home for a bit? Get out of that awful city.”
“Maybe,” Billie said. “Listen, I should go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sure. Love you, honey. Please try and come down.”
Billie said she would try and told her aunt that she loved her and hung up the phone. She hung motionless for a moment, the phone still in her hand as she tried to fit it all together. The trauma of her mother’s death, the catatonic state and Maggie’s efforts to cure her of the family ‘illness’. Somehow it had all contributed to suppressing her ability to see the dead. An ability passed down on her mother’s side, like a history of near-sightedness or scoliosis.
It had driven her mother insane. Was that to be her fate too?
She looked up. Even with the sunlight streaming through the windows, the apartment looked grim. Too quiet. Most of the time, Billie liked living alone but not now. She dialled another number. She needed to talk to Jen.
When a man’s voice answered Jen’s cell, she thought she had hit the wrong number. It was Adam, Jen’s beau. He told her that Jen didn’t want to talk right now.
“Is she all right?” Billie asked. “How’s the lump on her head?”
“She’s fine,” adam answered. “Well, physically. She’s pretty torn up about the fire. She won’t get out of bed.”
“She does that sometimes. When it’s really bad. Are you taking care of her?”
“Yes.” He sounded annoyed.
“Maybe I should come by. I can usually get her out of a funk.”
“That’s not a good idea, Billie. I’ll tell her you called, okay?”
Why was he being so short with her? A horrid thought bubbled up. “Adam, does she blame me for what happened? The fire?”
“I dunno, Billie. Just give her some space right now.”
Jen did blame her. It hurt but what stung more was the fact that she couldn’t tell Jen what really happened. Billie felt her cheeks burn at the frustration. “Okay. Make sure she eats something, Adam.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
The clock ticked on in the kitchen and the apartment remained too still and too empty. She needed to talk to someone but Tammy was never good in a crisis unless it was her own. Kaitlin had nothing but attitude for her lately, so she was out. Her circle of friends had never been big but it seemed cruelly small now. How had she let that happen?
There had to be someone.
Among the clutter on the table lay the plain-looking business card. She picked it up and read the imprint. How crazy would it be to call Mockler? She didn’t understand what it was about him but she liked talking to the police detective. He had a quiet but accepting air about him that made him easy to be around. Like he would listen without judgement, no matter what she said. She looked at his name printed on the white cardstock and then laid it back onto the table. A silly notion, easily dismissed.
The phone rang, rattling along the tabletop as it vibrated. She picked it up, hoping it was Jen, calling back to talk it through.
“Billie?” A man’s voice said when she answered it. “It’s Ray. Detective Mockler. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I need to talk to you about something.”
Billie pulled the phone away and looked at it. She had just been thinking about him and here he was. Maybe she was psychic after all.
20
“YOU’RE IN DANGER.”
The first words out of his mouth. No greeting, no idle chitchat. Just boom, bad news. Detective Mockler sighed as if he’d been holding his breath.
Billie crinkled her nose. She had taken this all wrong, thinking it was a social call but it clearly wasn’t that and she felt foolish for thinking otherwise. She had actually fussed over what to wear before heading out the door. Why, she scolded herself silently, had she assumed this was anything more than business for him? Stupid girl.
Mockler had suggested meeting somewhere close like Mulberry’s but Billie begged off that idea. Too busy, too great a chance of running into ghosts there. Anywhere busy or public was a bad idea so she suggested meeting in Gage Park, near the bandshell. It would be quiet and more than likely deserted of people, both living and dead. He agreed, then asked how she took her coffee.
There was an urgency to his voice that she mistook for something else. Dashing into the bedroom, she had fussed over what to wear and deplored her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t left the house in more than a day but there was no time to shower. She found the pencil skirt Jen had given her from the shop, decided that it didn’t look absolutely terrible and checked the hallway before leaving. The mess of salt over the threshold had scattered but the hallway appeared empty. Unlocking her bike from the fence in the alley, she sensed that she was being watched and looked up to see the half-boy in a third floor window. Pressed up against the glass, his narrow little eyes following her.
Walking her bike across the wide lawn of the park, she spotted Mockler in the shade of the tall elm trees to the left of the bandshell. She waved hello and he hit her with the bad news.
“Nice to see you too,” she replied, leaning her bike against the tree trunk.
“Sorry. Hi.” He handed her a tall of cup of coffee. “You look
nice.”
A grin bloomed over her face and would not recede no matter how hard she tried to stifle it. He motioned for her to sit. Laid across the bench was a folder weighed down by another coffee cup. He slid it out of the way as she sat and Billie wondered what was in it.
Mockler smiled back at her. He seemed thrown off after his poor greeting. He nodded at her skirt. “Did your friend make that?”
That took her by surprise. He recognized one of Jen’s designs? “Yeah. Cute, huh? How’d you know?”
“I saw inside the shop the night of the fire. How is she, by the way?”
“Not great. Still in shock, I guess.” Billie straightened the hem of the skirt. She didn’t want to think about Jen right now. “So. What’s all this about being in danger?”
He sought out her eyes and held them. “I think Gantry wants to kill you.”
“Oh,” she said. He seemed dead serious and Billie paused to mull it over. Then, trying to keep things light, she said “I didn’t get that vibe from him.”
“Don’t laugh it off, Billie. I think he means to hurt you.”
From deep in her belly, a tiny zap of electricity crackled at hearing him say her name. Her brain scoffed but the frisson in her gut argued otherwise. “Okay. Why do you think that?”
Mockler hushed his voice, the way one does in church. “The women that he murdered were eerily similar in appearance. And they look like you.”
Her eyes went immediately to the folder under his untouched coffee. “You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Let’s see ‘em.” She held out her hand. He leaned back, about to protest but she waved her hand impatiently. “You brought pictures. Hand them over.”
He slid the folder out and balanced the cup back on the spar of bench seat but kept the plain file folder closed. “You could just take my word for it. These aren’t pleasant.”
“Your word is no good with me,” she said with a playful tilt of her shoulders. Where did this easy banter come from, she wondered. This wasn’t like her. Don’t over-think it, just run with it.
“You think I’m lying?”
“No. I just need to know you better before I can take you at your word.”
“Fair enough.” He opened the folder and removed two large photographs and laid them side by side on the bench between them.
She had expected to see crime scene photos. Gory, blood and guts stuff but neither image showed that. Instead, Billie looked down at head-and-shoulder shots of two dead women. Their eyes were closed and something about the sag at their cheeks suggested neither subject was quite right. Their hair, dark on both women, was wet and draped thick across a stainless steel table. Whatever state these poor women had been found in, it was clear from their appearance that they had been cleaned up before the photos were snapped.
“I don’t see it,” she said.
“Look again.”
Maybe she didn’t want to see it but the closer she examined the two faces, the more of herself she recognized. It was chilling; looking at a picture of herself already dead. The face in the nearest photo had a split upper lip. Her dull teeth protruding through the slit flesh.
Billie leaned back, pulling her eyes from the awful images and settled her gaze on the bandshell with its pretty aquamarine shade. Mockler gathered up the pictures and slid them back into the folder.
“Do you see it now?” he asked.
“Sort of. A coincidence?”
“Not with this guy.”
“Which is the woman you found?”
Opening the folder again, he held up one of the pictures. “This is her. The other one is Ellen Gantry. His late wife.”
She tried to suppress a shudder. Seeing the image a second time, the dead woman looked even more like a grim reflection.
“I’m worried about you.” He leaned in, propped his elbows on his knees and looked at her.
“I appreciate that.” She honestly did. “But I just don’t think it’s true. I mean, if that’s what he was going to do, he’s had plenty of opportunity.”
“It’s not that straightforward. He’s not some impulse killer. He’s a schemer. I think he’s grooming you first, the way he did these other two women. He pulls them into his bizarro world with his voodoo schtick, then wham.”
She considered telling Mockler what Gantry had said about the dead woman, how it had been an exorcism gone wrong. It would sound insane, uttering it aloud like that. And why did she feel the need to defend Gantry? For all she knew, Mockler was right and the English weirdo really was a psychopath.
“Have you seen him again?”
Yes, she thought. Right in my apartment, not two seconds after you dropped me home. “No.”
He seemed relieved upon hearing that. “I’m worried about you,” he said a second time. “This guy is dangerous and he seems fixated on you. I think you should get out of town for a while. Is there somewhere you can go? A friend or relative?”
“My aunt’s place. I can go there in a pinch if I need to.” She sipped her coffee. It was lukewarm. “But I honestly don’t think I’m in danger.” At least not from him, she left out. The violent spirits of the dead, yes, but not Gantry.
“Your aunt,” he nodded. “The one who took you in?”
“Yeah.” She turned sharply to him. “How did you know?”
His smile was brief and sheepish. “I ran your name. Looking for something that would tell me why Gantry picked you. Then I read what happened to your mom.”
As always, Billie stiffened up at the mention of it. Her history usually elicited two responses; smothering pity or a stony silence upon learning of her mother’s death. The net effect of either was always the same, the conversation flat-lined. Which reaction would Mockler take?
His eyes stayed on hers. “That’s awfully young to have gone through something like that. Is that where you get the tough exterior?”
“Tough? I don’t have a tough anything.” The response threw her off.
“Maybe tough is the wrong word. Wary? Watching everything around you, putting up a wall. Like an invisible force field. If someone wants to get through, they have to earn it.”
Billie actually turned around to see if he was talking to someone else. The park remained deserted. “I don’t do that.”
He had finally brought the coffee to his lips when he laughed at her reply. A tiny spit-take. He wiped it away. “I can’t be the first person to tell you that.”
“You are,” she said. “And I don’t think I believe you.” Doubt crept in. Aunt Maggie used to always tell her she needed to warm up to people. If she wanted to make friends, that is.
“You don’t have to believe me. But I’m right. It’s just how people deal with trauma at a young age. They either toughen up or shut down. Develop a tic or stutter or something. You don’t stutter. Unless I missed it.”
She almost bristled at that. His smug conclusion. And yet there was a tiny zap behind it. “You a psychology minor?”
“Just what I’ve observed,” he shrugged. “Anecdotal evidence only. Nothing empirical.”
“You’re a funny guy, detective,” she said.
“I am?”
“Yeah. In a weird way.”
“I’m not actually. I can’t tell a joke to save my life. I always get the punch line wrong.”
“Being funny has nothing to do with telling jokes.”
He nodded, mockingly serious. “So you’re just laughing at me.”
“Your arrogance is kinda laughable. Feels fake, like you’re trying to come off as world-weary.”
“No one’s told me that either.” He raised his cup in a goofy salute. “This is turning out to be a red letter day for uncomfortable truths. Cheers.”
The paper cups made no sound as they tapped and she sipped hers while he put his back down. “It’s bad luck,” she said, remembering something she had been told once. “Not to drink after a toast.”
“It is?” He snatched it up and sipped then tapped his cup ag
ainst hers again. “Do it again. I don’t need any bad luck.”
The banter came easy. With him anyway. She kept reminding herself that he was a cop. “Do you believe in bad luck?”
He tilted his head slightly, thinking it over. “No, not exactly. But I think you get back what you put out into the world.”
“Yeah. Like karma?”
“Close enough.”
Out on the wide field of grass, lushly green from an unusually wet summer, a dog bounded past the bandshell to the stand of oaks and back to the lawn again. Apparently running wild, no dog-owner following after it with a plastic bag stuffed into a backpocket. They both watched the pooch nose the ground then sprint off to sniff some other patch of grass. It seemed to be in a hurry to smell everything and run everywhere, the way dogs get when they’re cooped up in the house too long.
“So,” she turned back to him when the dog disappeared into the trees again. “You dug up my awful past, huh?”
“It’s not awful. Tragic yeah. You don’t like talking about it, do you?”
Billie brushed a mosquito from her bare knee. “I don’t bring it up. People get weird when they find out. Act differently, like I’m suddenly made of glass or something.”
“I guess they would.” He scratched his chin, stalling over something. “Can I ask you about it?”
“Sure.” Please not the sympathy card.
“Did they ever find her?”
“No.”
“Nothing? No remains or possessions?”
“Not even a stray shoe.”
“The file’s a bit spotty on the details. You know they suspected your father, right?” She nodded, he went on. “Do you think he did it?”
“The husband’s the usual suspect, isn’t he? I never knew the man.”
“He wasn’t around?”
“He’d parachute in when I was little. Like day-tripping with a family he’d forget he had. He smelled like diesel fuel and Dial soap.”
“Do you ever see him?”
“Nope,” she said. “Not since the incident. Hardly saw him before that either but afterwards, no. He disappeared the same time she did.”