by Tim McGregor
Mockler stretched his legs out, crossing one ankle over the other. “There was one thing. The case file listed your mother’s occupation as psychic. She had her own shop and stuff.”
“She read tarot. What about it?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Psychic stuff, tarot cards. That’s up Gantry’s alley. Just wondering if there was something there. Do you read tarot?”
“Me?” Not on your life, she thought. “Nah. Never been into that stuff.”
“Nothing like that? Astrology or palm readings? Ouija boards?” When she shook her head, he turned his palms up. “So there’s nothing there to bring his attention to you. The physical resemblance, his ‘type’, makes more sense then.”
“I suppose. Wouldn’t want to blow that precious theory of yours, would we?”
He smiled at the jab. “I thought my little theory was quite brilliant, thank you very much.” The smile faded a little. “Hey, are you okay talking about this stuff? Your mom?”
“Yeah.” She was too. Which was unusual. Why was it okay now? “It’s a relief to not have to fake anything.”
“Fake what?”
“Faking to meet other people’s reactions. The concern or pity or shock. It all happened so long ago, I don’t feel anything anymore. But I feel the need to fake something, for the other person’s benefit.” She let out a laugh. “I fake being normal. It’s a joke.”
He grunted an approval. “Sometimes faking it is just easier.”
“Oh? What do you fake?”
“You called me on it earlier. Acting world-weary. I fake being jaded. Or that I’ve seen it all and nothing phases me. But it’s all bullshit.”
“Then why do it?”
“Part of the job,” he shrugged. “A defence, maybe. But it’s not working anymore. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this job anymore.” He twitched as he said this, as if surprised at uttering aloud something he rarely acknowledged within himself. A stopper had been uncorked, stuff was bubbling out.
“I have to fake that it doesn’t bother me at work. Then fake being normal after work so I don’t bring the shit home with me. But I do anyway and I think it’s slowly killing my fiancee and I don’t have a clue what to do about it.”
Like a hammer stroke on piano chords. Duuummmm. Fiancee.
Her eyes shot down to his left hand but there was no ring there. Of course there was no ring, the ring comes after. He said ‘fiancee’, not wife. The butterflies lolling around inside her belly dropped dead as the warm, almost drunk feeling that enveloped her popped. She felt immediately foolish and exposed and wanted to leave. How stupid could she be? How could she have misinterpreted this easy banter as anything but plain old conversation?
The clammy sensation quashing her warm glow continued to plummet until she shivered.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”
Billie didn’t answer. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of the dead man rising up out of the earth behind Mockler.
21
THE DEAD MAN hung motionless, a few paces behind the detective, his horrid face looking down at the earth as if transfixed by something in the grass. His clothes were dark and old-fashioned, a strange tie coming loose under a wilted collar. He looked like an undertaker to Billie. She had never met an undertaker before, all she had to go on was a cartoon image of one. But this individual fit the bill.
Flesh so pale it looked blue against the dark clothes. His features were hard to see, muddied by what she thought was dirt or soot but then she saw the soot move. It was a mass of flies. Common bluebottles and everyday houseflies, wriggling out of his mangled ear and crawling over his face. They crawled and swarmed and settled again over his mouth and crawled over his eyes. Like the newshour image of a starving child in a faraway country, too weak to wave off the flies picking over its eyes. It made her cringe, like she could feel those filthy insects on her own flesh.
Mockler didn’t see the dead man. Of course, she reminded herself. Only she could see him but something came over Mockler, as if he could feel its presence. He sunk down, shoulders drooping like a weight was lowering on him. His voice trailed off as if he’d forgotten what he was talking about. It reminded her of her own foggy spells, the way it dampened everything around.
“What was I saying?” Mockler looked up sharply, as if caught falling asleep.
Billie kept her eyes on the undertaker man and spoke quietly to the detective. “We should go.”
“Sure,” Mockler said. He rubbed his eyes. “Jesus, I’m tired.”
The dead man’s head tilted, rotating slowly, almost mechanically, on its thin neck until its gaze locked on the man sitting on the bench. The flies swarmed up at the movement and resettled quickly, determined and single-minded. The only sign of life throbbed from its eyes but it was difficult to discern the emotion. Hatred or anger or hunger. Whatever it was, it blazed hot and steady at the detective sitting on the park bench.
Then it moved, its hand stretching out and Billie could almost hear the click of bone as it moved. It reached out for Mockler.
Billie shot up. “Let’s go now.”
The dead man turned its gaze on her and this time the eyes were crystal in their intent. Pure murder.
Mockler mumbled an answer but remained sluggish on the bench. The undertaker man stretched his thin fingers out to the detective, brushing his hair in a disturbingly intimate way that made Billie feel sick to her stomach.
Mockler flinched, rubbing his temple as if overcome.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a headache,” he grumbled. “They come on fast sometimes.”
The dead man clicked his neck a few degrees to leer up at Billie and she could have sworn the fly-bedecked man was grinning.
“Let’s just go, okay?” She took Mockler’s arm and tried to haul him up but he was all dead weight.
“Gimme a second. I feel dizzy it.”
“You can walk it off.”
“It’s not a pulled muscle.”
The undertaker man rotated his eyes back to the detective and reached out again. Its pale blue hand sunk into Mockler’s side as if trying to pickpocket him.
Mockler instantly clutched his stomach. “Whoa. Too much coffee today.”
She couldn’t take the awful look of perverted glee in the dead man’s eyes. Billie yanked Mockler’s arm. “On your feet. Start walking, you’ll feel better.” She had no idea if that was true but she needed to get him away from the dark man.
“Okay, okay.” He let himself be pulled away, marching across the grass. He glanced back at the bench. “What about your bike?”
“I’ll come back for it. Are you parked in the lot?”
“Yeah. The blue Crown Vic.”
She could see it, an unmarked police car that screamed ‘unmarked police car’. “The grampa car?”
“Yes.”
She was practically pulling him along now. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the fly stricken man. Following them.
“Wait.” He stopped and looked back at the bench. “I forgot the folder.”
“I’ll get it, drop it off at the station.” Just keep moving, damn it. “Maybe you should go home. Lie down or something.”
“That’s the last place I want to go. It’s worse there.”
Puzzling over that, she pulled him along to the driver’s side door. “Maybe the station then. Or take a drive along the ridge. Get some air.”
“Maybe.” He fumbled the door open and dropped under the wheel looking green around the gills. “Hang on to that folder for me. I can’t lose it. But don’t look at it, okay. Please.”
“Sure.” She looked back. Undertaker man was just hitting the gravel too, lurching in faltering steps. “See ya.”
His hand shot out and gripped hers. “I mean it, Billie. Don’t look at it. You don’t want that stuff in your head. Promise me.”
The urgency of it was startling. “Okay. I promise.”
She swung the door closed and listened to the en
gine turn over. The dark undertaker drifted up and bared his teeth at Billie like an angry dog. The teeth were grey and more flies crawled out when his mouth opened. His hand appeared, one accusatory finger levelled right at her like some scolding school teacher.
Then he melted into the car and appeared through the glass of the windshield, hunkered down in the passenger bucket like he was Mockler’s phantom cop partner.
The long car backed out and rolled away through the parking lot and Billie felt her jaw drop. The dead man on the passenger side swivelled his head around to look at her, a mass of flies already boiling up against the rear window.
~
The dead man with the flies dripping from his ears wanted nothing to do with her. Unlike the others Billie had encountered, this one had no tragic tale to moan at her, no burning grievance that needed avenging. If anything, it had warned her away. It was Mockler it wanted. Following him home like some stray puppy. It had physically hurt him. Worse still was the look of glee in its narrow eyes as it inflicted pain on him. Why? What did it want and why had it latched onto Mockler?
The questions scrambled around as she slipped the key into the crusty lock of her door. The buzzing questions scattered when she saw the threshold of her front entrance.
The heavy line of salt she had laid down had been disturbed. Claw marks raked through it, the crystaline salt burned black in places. Like something had tried to claw away at it only to have its hand burned. The half-boy. He must have tried to scratch his way in. Testing boundaries. The charcoaled strands meant that he must have gotten scorched in the process. Good, she thought and slammed the door shut again.
Sweeping the apartment for the creepy amputee-boy was routine by now. With that established, she tossed the folder on the coffee table and flopped onto the couch. Her next thought wasn’t about the undertaker man nor Mockler. It had to with the state of her home and the mess piled everywhere. She had become a shut-in. One of those agoraphobic people who lock themselves inside. The only thing missing was an overabundance of cats.
Clean tomorrow, she resolved by way of procrastination. Back to Mockler and that disturbing thing trailing after him. What did it want with the detective? What was it capable of? Did it follow him home? Was that why Mockler didn’t want to go home when she suggested it? The undertaker man was tormenting him. Mockler had intimidated that he was morose, depressed even. The job getting to him. Was it just the dead man?
He had also mentioned his fiancee. Hinting that all was not well there.
The thought of it still stung. Fiance. What had she been thinking? Getting all moony over this guy she barely knew. Like he was different somehow. Why? Because he listened to her? Because he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say? That he didn’t require constant ego-stroking and coddling attention like all the other men she had encountered in her life? How could she have developed feelings for someone so quickly? A cop no less. One who was planning to get married.
It was as humiliating as it was confounding. She blamed the near-death incident and subsequent ability to see the dead. It had fried her brains, making it impossible to think clearly. And if it had knocked her brains atumble, then it made sense that it had tilted the equilibrium inside her heart too. An organ not to be trusted now, not after leading her so far astray.
Jesus, she griped under her breath. How did I get here?
Pushing it all away, Billie clicked on the TV and immersed herself in its passive glow. The news report from the local Hamilton station. Gunshots off Beach Road, a charity event at Dundurn Castle. Sixty percent chance of rain overnight. The stream of information became a meaningless drone no matter how hard she concentrated on it and forced herself not to think about the police detective. He crept back in like water seeping into a leaky boat, impossible to plug up.
The folder lay on the table in front of her. Photographs of dead women hidden inside. He needed it back. Fine. She’d drop it off at the station tomorrow. She wouldn’t ask if he was in, just leave the folder with the person at the front desk. Calling him would be an absolutely stupid thing to do.
Billie dug up her phone and dialled the number on the card. He picked up after the first ring, stating his surname by way of greeting.
“Hi. It’s Billie. I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”
“Sorry I had to bail on you like that” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Does that happen to you a lot? Those headaches that come out of nowhere?”
“Sometimes.”
“Have you ever seen a doctor about it?”
“I did,” he said. “He said it was stress. Told me get more sleep, more exercise.”
“Oh.” The doctor was wrong. She could feel it humming down the line over the phone. A sickly sense of dread and gloom that surrounded him. The undertaker man infesting Mockler’s life. Did her abilities extend that far, that she could sense the presence of the dead over a phone line?
“Did you call just to check up on me?” An uptick of hope hitched his voice.
“You seemed surprised.”
“It’s nice. Thank you.”
He seemed genuinely grateful and it baffled her. Why had she called? This wasn’t helping. “I have your photos too. I was going to just drop them at the station but I thought that might get you in trouble.”
“It would. Hang on to them. I’ll pick them up.”
An idea flitted across her eyes. A silly idea. “Are you downtown? I’ll be running errands on the bike later. I could drop it off.”
“Well. Do you know where Bristol is?”
“Yup. You home now?”
“In an hour,” he said, giving her the street number. “Are you sure? You don’t have to, you know.”
“I know. See ya then.”
She clicked off, letting the phone drop onto the sofa cushion. Was that a completely daft thing to do? Of course it was.
Too late now. She put her feet up on the table, flattening the folder she would return and wondered what his house looked like.
22
THE HOUSE WAS nice. An old redbrick with green trim that was peeling off. There was a rose bush under the front window that needed to be tied back, the long branches bending forward under the weight of the blooms. Fallen petals dotted the grass, the colour bleaching out from them.
She rang the bell and waited under the porch light for a long moment. When the door opened, Mockler stepped out onto the veranda looking no better than he had at the park.
“Thanks,” he said as he took the folder from her. “I appreciate this. You didn’t look at them again, did you?”
“Nope. I promised.” Billie looked over his shoulder to the open door but she didn’t make out much beyond the front hall. “You look tired.”
“Long day.” Mockler nodded at the open door. “You want to come in? I got a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge.”
“I can’t stay.” She wondered what his home looked like but no force on earth could have made her step inside that house. Evil rolled out the open door like a wall of heat coming off a blast furnace.
She had wanted to know if the horrific man with the flies had followed Mockler home. Turning her bike into his driveway, she hadn’t sensed anything and her hope lifted a little, thinking that the detective had gotten shed of the dead man. When the door opened, a sickening feeling washed over her. Her heart dropped instantly as a mournful gloom poisoned her thoughts. It was like a death had occurred, the grief of it.
How could he stand it, living in that house? She’d go crazy. He looked halfway there, his eyes sullen and shoulders drooped.
There was also the small detail of the fiancee. Billie wondered what she was like. She was probably beautiful and charming and funny and would wonder why a street urchin was standing on her front porch.
“I’ll get out of your hair,” she said. “Try and get some sleep, huh.”
“Have you given any thought to getting out of town?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
She lingered and she wanted to run at the same time. This push and pull made her seasick. Wanting to talk to him but feeling repulsed by the darkness rumbling out of the open door.
He took a step forward, in no rush to let the conversation end. “If you do, give me a call and let me know where you are.”
“You want to keep tabs on me?”
“Yup. Where does your aunt live?”
“Place called Long Point. Near Port Dover. You know it?”
“I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Never been.”
“It’s a beautiful spot. Beach town, very laid back, very peaceful. You’d like it.”
“I could use some peaceful.”
She smiled. “You can come visit me. Bring your swim trunks.”
Jesus, stop it already. She was flirting with him right on his porch but she couldn’t stop. It just came spilling out. Get out of here, she scolded. Before his fiancee shows up because then you are going to feel like a real shitheel.
A housefly buzzed around her face and settled on her arm. She brushed it away, bristling at its touch. Flies revolted her. She associated them with filth and rot and disgusting things. It buzzed around them. Mockler took a swat at it.
“Damn flies,” he said. “There’s a lot of them around here.”
“Ray?” called a voice from inside the house. A woman’s voice.
Billie made for the steps. “I should go. See ya.”
She took up her bike from where she had leaned it against the fence and hustled away. The damn fly kept zipping past her ear, more than one now. Glancing back, she dreaded seeing the woman step out onto the porch but she hadn’t. Mockler stood alone on the stoop. He waved.
She had meant to wave back but movement in the second story window caught her eye. The curtain pushed aside and a face leered up behind the dusty glass. The hollowed-out face of the undertaker man glared at her. His jaw opened and a countless horde of flies swarmed out and buzzed against the window pane.
~
Where was Gantry when she needed him? She had no way of contacting him; no phone number or address or even an email. Mockler was in trouble and she didn’t know what to do about it and the only person who could possibly help was AWOL. There was Marta Ostensky but Billie doubted that that the psychic would be any mood to help after she had led a ghost into her home.