by Sharon Pape
“Thanks for the suggestion,” she said. “I’ll keep it in mind. But right now I need some sleep.” She saved what she’d written, logged off the computer and pushed back from the desk.
“I’ll be leavin’ you to your privacy then,” Zeke said reluctantly.
Rory didn’t wait for him to vanish. He could watch her regardless of whether or not she could see him anyway. She said good night and went into the guest room where the sheets were still tangled in the center of the bed from the previous night’s insomnia. She made a halfhearted attempt to straighten them out before falling onto the bed without bothering to undress or brush her teeth. It felt like a week since she’d last slept. Her eyes were closed before her head came to rest on the pillow. But just before her thoughts unraveled into the disjointed fabric of dreams, she realized who could populate her makeshift crowd.
Chapter 12
The next morning Rory awakened more rested than she’d felt in weeks. If she’d dreamed, she wasn’t aware of it. The epiphany she’d had before falling asleep popped into her mind as her feet hit the floor. She jotted a memo to herself on a sticky note and stuck it on her computer screen. It was too early to call anyone.
She showered and dressed, ate a multigrain cereal bar that promised to give her half a day’s worth of fiber and energy and went off to work without seeing Zeke. Except for the fact that she kept expecting him to appear after every little noise she heard, life seemed almost normal. The next time she saw him, they’d have to work out exactly what signal he intended to use. She couldn’t be looking over her shoulder every time a bird chirped, a dog barked or the beams and joists in the old house groaned.
At work, the day plodded along as if everything were happening in slow motion. She arranged a lineup for a witness to a robbery, helped a young mother go through mug shots to see if she could pick out the man who’d tried to lure her little boy away at the playground, then tried to catch up on the inevitable pile of paperwork. If computers were supposed to help cut down on the use of paper, they sure weren’t holding up their half of the bargain.
As the day wore on, Rory had a hard time concentrating. Apparently her subconscious found the circumstances surrounding Gail’s death more interesting than the work she was being paid to do, and it took every opportunity to hijack her attention.
“No, no, no! That’s not what I said!” The middle-aged man who was seated beside her was losing his patience. He was the only witness to a hit-and-run that had sent a woman to the hospital in critical condition. “The guy had a little goatee; he wasn’t friggin’ Santa Claus.”
“You said he had a beard. I’m sorry if I misinterpreted that,” Rory replied tightly as she corrected the picture.
“Fine, let’s just get on with it. I gotta get back to work; no one else is gonna finish up my deliveries.”
Five minutes later he declared the computerized sketch to be a reasonable likeness of the suspect and Rory thanked him for his help.
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered as he hauled himself out of the chair. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“You okay there?” Leah Russell asked a moment later as she sank into the empty chair beside Rory. “You usually don’t let the assholes get to you.”
Rory shrugged and produced a smile that fell somewhere short of genuine. “I guess I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately.”
She could tell from the way Leah’s left eyebrow arched that she didn’t entirely buy the excuse. For a moment Rory considered telling her about the investigation she’d taken on. She was pretty sure that her friend wouldn’t betray the confidence, but it didn’t seem fair to make her a party to the rule bending. For that matter she would have loved to tell someone, anyone, about Zeke. But there were no words that didn’t sound ten shades of crazy, even to her.
When the workday finally ended, Rory slid gratefully into her car, feeling a bit like a bird whose cage had been left open. Although she had a few stops to make before heading home, she felt glad just to be away from her desk. The first stop was an Italian provisions store fifteen minutes north of the expressway on local streets. She was in the mood for fresh pasta and theirs was the best she’d ever had. She’d pair it up with a container of their homemade pomodoro sauce and a loaf of crusty semolina bread. Mac would approve, she thought. And the thought was accompanied by a twinge of guilt. How many times had she thought of him today? Not more than once or twice. Life was already beginning to seal him off from her. The open wound caused by his death was beginning to heal. She knew this was normal, even imperative, if people were to survive loss and carry on. But it seemed fickle and disloyal just the same.
The provisions store was in a strip mall coming up on her right. Although she signaled well before the entrance, when she slowed to turn into the lot, there was an ugly squeal of brakes from somewhere behind her. She glanced into the rearview mirror. The silver Ford two cars back had stopped inches from the car in front of it. Given how little attention people paid to their driving these days, Rory considered it something of a miracle that there weren’t more accidents.
Inside the store, she waited behind half a dozen other customers who had also stopped to pick up dinner. The men behind the counter were used to the rush-hour madness and had her on her way less than ten minutes later. She followed Route 454 down to the Northern State Parkway where the traffic was heavy but moving. At one point when she glanced in the rearview mirror, she saw a silver Ford a couple of cars behind her again. Of course there were probably dozens, if not hundreds, of silver Fords on the road at rush hour, and a good percentage of them would be heading west with her. Between the intervening car, the tinted windows and the glare of the lowering sun, she couldn’t see more than a shadowy form behind the wheel. In any case, since she hadn’t seen the driver of the squealing brakes, she wouldn’t have had any means for comparison. And since the car wasn’t directly behind her, she still couldn’t see the license plate.
“Come on now, Rory,” she scolded herself, “get a grip.” When had she become so paranoid? Maybe it was the result of conducting a murder investigation and living with a ghost. She hit the button for the CD changer and found her favorite album by Brule. Although her musical taste ran the gamut from Led Zeppelin to Jeff Buckley, Dar Williams and more contemporary artists like Audioslave and Foo Fighters, she’d found that the Native American music of Brule worked best to calm her when she was tense. But it didn’t stand a chance of relaxing her today. Every time she checked her rearview mirror, the silver Ford was still there.
When she exited the parkway at Huntington, the Ford exited three cars behind her. When she reached Jericho Turnpike, she moved into the left-turn lane and waited for the light to change. The Ford was now two cars back, also in the turn lane.
What were the odds that she and the driver of the silver Ford had identical rounds to make? Well, she was going to find out right now. She pulled into the parking lot at her dry cleaners. The silver Ford didn’t follow her. She was breathing a sigh of relief and beginning to feel a bit silly when she saw it pull into the entrance of the adjacent lot. The driver parked but never got out of the car. There was only one explanation that fit the circumstances: he had no reason to be there. He was following her.
She decided to act as if she had no idea he was there. She went into the cleaners, picked up her blazer and got back into her car. When she left the lot, she noted that he waited for two other cars to follow her out before falling in line behind them. As soon as Rory found an opening, she gunned the engine and started weaving around the slower traffic until she had a good lead on the silver Ford. As she rounded a wide curve and could no longer see him in her rearview mirror, she took a sharp right onto a side street, then a quick right off of that. Thank goodness she was in an area where she knew her way around. She looked behind her. No silver Ford.
She made a third right turn and came back up to Jericho Turnpike. The Ford was somewhere up ahead. The hunter was about to become the hunted. After a minute she caught sight
of him in the right lane. He was braking to look down each cross street he came to. The cars behind him were honking and swinging into the center lane to get away from him.
Rory reached under her seat for the portable siren she’d been given when she joined the police force. She’d never used it before and had been certain she never would. So much for the certainties of life. She plugged the magnetized unit into the cigarette lighter, reached out of the window and set it on the roof of the car. With the siren wailing and the light flashing, traffic around her quickly gave way and in seconds she was behind the Ford. When it slowed to get out of her way, Rory matched its speed, signaling to the driver to pull onto the shoulder of the road.
She unsnapped the holster at her waist as she emerged from her car. She’d never conducted a traffic stop before, and since this was not an “Excuse me, sir, but your left turn signal doesn’t seem to be working” kind of encounter, she thought it would be prudent to be ready for any eventuality. Like a pitcher shaking off the catcher’s signal, she shook off the little voice in her head that was demanding to know what the hell she thought she was doing. It was too late now for second thoughts.
She was halfway to the Ford and still working on what she was going to say to the driver when he hit the accelerator and shot back onto the road, spewing dirt and pebbles in his wake.
Rory stood there for a moment, surprised and angry, and feeling a little foolish. At least she’d memorized the license plate. She got back into her car and called headquarters. Leah was still there. Rory told her that she thought the silver Ford might have been following her and gave her the plate number. When Leah pressed her for details, she admitted that her attempt to pull the driver over had been a fiasco. Although she tried to play up the humor in the incident, she could tell that Leah wasn’t amused.
When she reached the house on Brandywine Lane, she found that she wasn’t hungry after all. So she put the angel hair pasta and pomodoro sauce in the refrigerator and took out a cold Corona and a wedge of lime. College chums, police colleagues, even Mac had all tried to get her to ditch the lime and take her beer straight. But Rory wouldn’t budge. For her, it was all about the lime. When the bottle was empty, she felt calm enough to call her parents.
Her father answered the phone, but he sounded distracted. Rory could hear what sounded like an old Clark Gable movie playing in the background, so she asked to speak to her mother instead.
“You mean we’d be helping you with an investigation?” Arlene asked after Rory had explained that she wanted them to be part of her “crowd.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that.”
“How exciting! You just tell me the time and place and we’ll be there. Oh, can Helene come along?”
“I was counting on it.” Rory had already planned to include her aunt Helene, who during the past decade of her spinsterhood had become a perpetual third wheel to her parents’ marriage. The three formed a strange symbiotic union. If Arlene wanted to go shopping or antiquing or to a movie with more dialogue than action, she had her sister to accompany her, and Dan would be left in peace to enjoy whatever ballgame or movie was being televised. For Rory’s purposes, Helene was hands down the best qualified of the three to keep the real estate agent occupied with endless questions and comments.
“Just make sure she knows not to mention anything about the murder or the fact that I’m investigating it.”
“Not to worry. I’ll make sure she understands.”
They said their good-byes and Rory was about to return the phone to its base when it rang again in her hand. She glanced at the number on the screen. It was Leah’s line at headquarters.
“I hope you’re not still there because of me,” she said by way of “hello.”
“I had some paperwork to finish up anyway. But listen, Rory, that car you thought was following you? It was reported stolen five minutes ago.”
Chapter 13
“Okay,” Rory said, inching forward on the edge of the couch as if that would bring her the news more quickly. “What do you have?”
“Unfortunately, not much. The owner parked her car at the mall to do some shopping and when she came out two hours later, it was gone.” Leah paused for a moment. When Rory didn’t comment, she went on. “Can you think of anyone who would risk a felony conviction in order to follow you around?”
Rory had been pondering that possibility since she’d called in the plate. As a sketch artist she was generally below the radar when it came to aggrieved criminals seeking revenge. So either she had a garden variety stalker on her hands, which she doubted, or she’d stirred up a hornet’s nest by reopening the investigation into Gail Oberlin’s death.
“Not off the top of my head,” she said, hoping she sounded more innocent than she felt. If they’d been having this conversation in person, she wouldn’t have stood a chance of fooling Leah; the woman had an uncanny knack for spotting a “tell” when someone was dancing a little sidestep around the truth.
There was a long pause before Leah said, “I’ve known. you long enough, my friend, to know there’s something you’re not telling me and I’m dead serious when I say that you cannot do the Lone Ranger bit. You’re a sketch artist; you have zero street experience.”
“Understood, Mom.”
“Cut the ‘Mom’ crap,” Leah grumbled. “Hell, I’m not even old enough to be your mother.”
“And yet sometimes you can be irritatingly maternal,” Rory said wryly, hoping to tease her into a lighter mood. She knew that everything Leah said was true, but she couldn’t have someone watching over her 24/7. That would be the end of her investigation. And she had a feeling that the conversation was heading precisely in that direction.
Leah refused to be derailed from her crusade. “I’d like to assign a detail to keep an eye on you until we sort this thing out.”
“No. No way.”
“Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”
“Sure. You can get me a date with George Clooney.” Rory laughed.
“If I could arrange a date with Clooney, what makes you think I’d be willing to share?”
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”
Leah sighed. “At least promise me that you won’t take any more chances like you did today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rory replied. “Now you get out of there and go on home before your husband puts your picture on a milk carton.”
After Rory clicked off the phone, she remained on the couch for a while longer trying to objectively assess the danger she was courting by continuing the investigation. In the end she found that she wasn’t any more successful in talking herself out of it than Leah had been. By way of a compromise, she vowed to be more vigilant. “Caution” would become her watch word.
Having settled that question, Rory realized she was finally hungry. The fresh angel hair needed only a few minutes in boiling water, while the sauce heated in the microwave. She cut a thick chunk off the Italian bread, grabbed the Romano cheese from the refrigerator and was settled at the sleek glass and chrome kitchen table in under ten minutes.
She was still savoring her first mouthful when the overhead lights flickered. Strange, she thought, there was no wind to tug at the wires and the temperature wasn’t hot enough to cause a brownout. Of course, there might be a short in the wiring.
Just as Rory was deciding that it would be prudent to have an electrician check things out, Zeke materialized in the chair across the table from her.
“How’s that?” he asked, leaning back in the chair and hefting his boots onto the edge of the table. “Attention getting, yet quiet.” Beneath the heavy fringe of his moustache, his mouth was curved up in a self-satisfied smile.
How on earth had she managed to forget the Zeke factor?
“Not bad,” she said, reminding herself that Zeke’s dirty old boots weren’t actually on the table, any more than his physical body was actually in that chair. “I think I can live with that.”
“What’ve y
ou got there?” Zeke asked. He set his feet back on the floor and leaned forward for a better look. “That’s that Italian stuff Mac liked so much.”
Rory smiled. “It’s just pasta with tomato sauce. Mac and I could pretty much eat Italian every night. Didn’t you like it?”
Zeke shook his head. “Can’t rightly say as how I’ve ever tasted it.”
“I don’t suppose you could try it in your present state.”
He laughed. “That would be like tryin’ to feed it to one of your fancy ’lectrical lights.”
Rory laughed along with him. Who would ever believe that she was sitting at the kitchen table having dinner conversation with a ghost? It was a moot point, of course. If she told anyone, she’d wind up in a straitjacket with a standing appointment for electroshock therapy.
She broke off a piece of the bread and chewed it thoughtfully. “Do you ever miss things like eating?”
“In the beginnin’ I did. Eatin’, among other things.” Zeke grinned and a roguish twinkle danced in his brown eyes. Then as if a switch had been flipped somewhere inside him, he fell silent. His smile faded and deep shadows hollowed the plains beneath his cheekbones. When he spoke again, his tone was matter-of-fact.
“But that was mostly ’cause I hadn’t owned up to bein’ dead and all.”
Rory was immediately sorry that she’d broached the subject. She was definitely more comfortable around an amiable Zeke than a morose or angry one. She should stick to things of a less personal nature, like her investigation.
Zeke perked up with interest as she filled him in about the silver Ford.
“Sounds like you rattled someone’s cage,” he said. “But I’m thinkin’ they just wanted to scare you off. If they’d really intended to harm you, they would’ve.”