“Not exactly,” she said under her breath.
“I want to be surprised, but somehow I can’t work it up,” said Roger, looking at them both. “Sophie, want to tell me what has you here, at a burial site?”
Sophie shifted uncomfortably. “You’re not going to like it.”
“That’s a given.”
Sophie figured this was a test of the fragile truce between them. Roger had known she was going to pursue the ghost angle with Gabe, so she met him eye-to-eye and spoke straight.
“Fine. Gabe and I went back to see if we could make contact with the ghost I’d seen here the first time, the young woman who was killed by her stepfather. To test out what I can do. We assumed the destruction in the basement was the young girl’s ghost trying to find her--” Sophie paused, taking a breath and taking in Roger’s expression as she told the story, “--her mother. But when I read her cards, I finally realized she was telling me something literal. She did want to find her mother, or more specifically, she wanted someone to find her mother. She wanted someone to find where the body was hidden.”
“So a ghost told you where the body of her murdered mother, who was killed over one hundred years ago, was hidden?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And from there we called the owner of the property and the police. They came out, and they found the other spots with the scanner. They weren’t noticeable to us, but one of your officers, um, Martinelli, found the other three with the GRP.”
“GPR,” Roger corrected. “You remember a guy named Willard Dawson?”
Sophie shook her head, the name ringing a bell, but only a faint one. Gabe perked up, though. “Yes. He’s in prison now, right?”
“Lifer, yeah. While we found enough evidence to convict in his apartment, but he’s taken particular pleasure in never telling anyone where he buried the bodies of three women he killed.”
Horror washed over Sophie as she remembered. The women had come up missing all within a month, leaving Boston in a panic as police and FBI swarmed to find who’d taken them. It had stopped at three when a neighbor turned in Dawson.
“But he didn’t live here. . .he just buried them here.”
“The place was unoccupied then, before they renovated it. I guess he saw it as an opportunity. Anyway, we won’t know that it’s those three women until they can be retrieved and confirmed through dental or DNA, but if it is. . .Sophie, I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
“What do you mean?” Gabe asked. “You know who the killer is. At least, you think you do, so it’s clear we haven’t done anything wrong. This find was a coincidence. Or rather, someone finally listened to what Eliza’s ghost has been trying to tell everyone for years.”
“This is going to be a mess,” Roger said more to himself than anyone.
“You’re already in enough hot water, and now you knew where the bodies of three murdered girls were located. I’m not going to have an easy time explaining this, and neither are you.”
“I can explain it,” Gabe said again.
“What? Your ghost led you to them?”
Gabe studied Roger calmly. “You don’t believe in any hocus-pocus. That’s what it is to you, right? But you know as well as anyone that police departments, and even the FBI, employ psychics all the time who do exactly what Sophie did tonight.”
“Listen,” Roger started, but Gabe wasn’t about to be steamrolled, intent on sharing his view on things.
“In Sophie’s case, I think there is a link between ghost murders and current ones. Murder victims might be attracted to Sophie’s energy, seeking her help, but there also seems to be a link to crimes in the current moment. It’s what drew your ghost to you when your friend Patrice was killed,” he said, switching his focus to Sophie for a moment, gaining excitement as he spun out his theory. “By finding Eliza’s mother’s body, you found the other victims as well. I’d be willing to bet that the methods of murder were somewhat similar, even if distant in time.” Gabe was pacing, thinking and talking aloud, but caught up in his own head. Sophie watched and listened, fascinated. “Perhaps there’s even a link to Patrice? Another male? Another serial killer?”
“So they come when there’s a similar kind of crime to theirs?” Sophie asked. That might explain why she had never seen her family.
“Yes. They are attracted to the similar energy around the current crime, using the opportunity to get someone to notice their own, to help them solve the problem that haunts them.”
“Ghosts are haunted? That’s ironic,” Roger said sarcastically, and Gabe waved him off.
“Don’t you see? If this is true, it stands to reason that if you can solve the murder of your ghost, you might be able to find who killed your friend, as well,” Gabe said to Sophie, ignoring Roger. “It makes perfect sense,” he said.
Sophie and Roger both looked at Gabe in amazement now. For Sophie, it was like a light going on, though she wasn’t so sure Roger felt the same way. When he opened his mouth to speak, in fact, she was sure of it.
“That does clear things up. Thanks. So the report you expect me to write up is that my fiancé is a psychic conduit for ghosts who are attracted to the scenes of present crimes. A ghost of a little girl looking for her mother led her to the bodies in the basement, and another ghost is trying to help her solve the mystery of her murdered friend,” Roger said again, too calmly. “Obviously, Pereski will have to drop the case against you now.”
Gabe, sucked completely into his own thoughts, dismissed Roger’s sarcasm. “Well, technically I don’t think the ghosts are trying to help, they are simply responding to a situation similar to their own. They have no investment in the living, but they see an opportunity to have their own suffering alleviated,” Gabe explained, fully into lecture mode. Sophie had to hide a smile, even under the circumstances, as he went on completely oblivious to Roger’s confounded expression.
“Ghosts don’t appear to everyone, or to just anyone, Detective Paris. Sophie’s ability to see them, to help them integrate and communicate with them through the cards, it’s meaningful.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s clearly a way to find out who killed Patrice, hence clearing Sophie’s name.”
Sophie counted three beats of absolute silence.
“Are you out of your mind?” Roger finally said softly, staring at Gabe incredulously. “You’re supposed to be a university professor, a psychologist, and this is what you come up with? You’re going to bury her with this bullshit,” he said, his voice getting louder.
“This is all Pereski needs to come up with some claim of mental instability. In fact, he might wonder if you two are in it together, in some kind of psychic scam where murdered women keep turning up,” Roger said, yelling now.
“That’s insane, and you know it,” Gabe countered heatedly. “There is more than enough evidence of psychics helping the police. Sophie’s own father did, according to her memories. Wouldn’t that help support her claims, if there are some records of her father’s help? How else can anyone explain what she did here tonight?”
Roger shook his head. “That’s what I’m afraid of. How someone else might try to explain it. You just don’t get it, do you, Professor? But then again, it’s not your ass on the line.”
“I don’t know how you can explain it aside of the truth, Roger,” Sophie said dispiritedly. “And I’m tired of hiding and being defensive about my family and who I am. My dad did help the police, and who knows, my aunt might have, too.”
“Sophie, you were just a kid. You may be remembering how you want to remember.”
Sophie shook her head. “You have our statements. Pereski is just going to have to take it at face value, as you are, since this is exactly what happened.”
“What about your life in the meantime, Sophie? What about our life? This just keeps getting worse.”
Gabe cleared his throat and looked at Sophie. “I should probably let you two talk, unless you want me to stay
?” He was asking her, not Roger, and she saw her guy’s eyes flare.
Too bad.
She smiled at Gabe. He’d done nothing but help her. He believed in her, which was something she needed right now, and frankly, she believed what he was telling her, about Patrice, about everything. She knew the truth of it in her soul.
“I need you to come by and sign the statement as soon as possible,” Roger said to him. “Or offer a new one.”
“I’ll be there, and I’ll sign the one given as long as it reports what we’ve told you tonight,” he said, meeting Roger’s eye before he turned and walked to his car.
“How about you? Feel like giving one of the other officers a statement that won’t have the media on your doorstep and Pereski inviting you in for psych testing?”
“He can’t do that. I’m not guilty of anything, especially here. You know and I know at this point that he doesn’t have anything he can formally charge me with, and being a psychic isn’t a criminal offense.”
“Doesn’t mean he won’t try to use it against you.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s something I’ll just have to get used to,” Sophie said, sounding so much more confident than she felt. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to any of this.
Chapter Twelve
The story about the bodies in Charlestown garnered front page coverage two days later. Sophie read it with a feeling of everything being too little, too late. Sure, she’d helped find those poor women, several years after they had been killed. She’d learned about her family, and about her gifts, too late to help Patrice. Would it always be too late?
Sophie’s life seemed to run a track in and out of the police station these days. Thankfully, Gabe was fielding all of the press from the Charlestown incident. Though police reports were public record, they’d blacked out any reference to her by name because of the other ongoing investigation. Sophie was relieved. She didn’t care about getting credit. She only wanted her life back to some kind of normal.
Still, she’d confronted her past, and she’d confronted two ghosts. She’d discovered some of what she could do, even if she didn’t understand it all. She certainly didn’t control it. Gabe had mentioned learning some techniques to control the headaches and nausea. For now, though, she was simply helping Mags with the store—again, after the fact—but Sophie welcomed the break.
Margaret seemed utterly convinced that Sophie had had no choice in the matter. When faced with a choice, mass murder burial site trumped store vandalism. Except that she was Margaret’s friend, and hadn’t been there for her.
Things were more or less put back together, broken inventory dealt with, the mess cleaned up. The investigation was stalled, and they opened the store again. They couldn’t afford to be closed for one more day. After rescheduling all of their reading appointments and dealing with apprehensive customers, things were starting to settle down a bit. Still, Sophie was worried. Very.
“It almost seems like whoever did this was looking for something. Not all of the shelves are disturbed, only some. I can’t figure out why, but there seems to be a pattern. The door on my apartment had been jostled, too. You must have interrupted him and he went out the back way.”
“Him?”
“I think it was the same guy in the car who followed me and who was here that night. So it makes sense he would come back when no one was here. He obviously wants something.”
“But what?”
“I can’t even imagine,” Sophie admitted. “But you need to be very careful. I don’t know why, but he aimed for you that day.”
“Maybe he’s some kind of stalker? Or a religious freak? There are a lot of people who think the things we do are evil. Then they do this and call it righteous,” Margaret said bitterly. Sophie looked over at her, concerned.
“Mags, are you okay?”
“Yeah. It just stirs up memories for me. When I was little, my mom worked a regular job in a button factory. But then people around our town, the surrounding areas, noticed that poor as we were, we never were sick. Never. We never really even knew why until we were older. I saw her once, laying her hands on someone. They were so ill they could barely walk on the way in, and when they left, well. . .they were much better.”
“It’s pretty incredible.”
“Yes, she definitely had a gift. Mama didn’t know how to say no, which is why she ended up with two kids from two different fathers and no husband, by the way.”
“It’s a hard life,” Sophie said, unsure of what else to say.
“Anyway, things got bad money-wise when she lost her job, and I started noticing her change. She got darker, more angry. People were coming to her, but I don’t think she was healing them. She started drinking. She hit me once,” Mags said, sucking in a breath. “Someone who came to her for healing, well. . .he went home and killed his family the next day. Everyone said it was because mama had done something evil, planted something inside of him.”
“How awful,” Sophie gasped, not having heard this account of Margaret’s life. She’d known she had a tough time, but this was beyond the pale. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Who knows? But I know how easy it was to believe it, because I had my own doubts. People started talking. Talk turned to gossip, and it started turning ugly, things started happening. My brother was beat up by kids at school, hurt pretty bad, and once our house was almost set on fire. Some kids at school said it was because my mother was evil. That she could spread disease as well as cure it. When I asked mama, she just yelled at me. She said none of them understood, and that they wanted to ‘burn the evil out,’ but that they were the evil,” Margaret said.
“There’s no way it could have been her fault, what that man did! They took something wonderful that she could do, and turned it into something ugly. Why?”
“I think she felt like she was a killer, too. That on some level she believed what they said. That she had something evil in her that had transferred itself to that man, and that’s what made him do what he did. She started saying we had it, too, her children. I didn’t know what she’d do, what would happen, but I knew we had to get out, so we did. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that someone would do this,” she gestured to the nearly empty shelves on one wall where almost everything had been damaged. “The rumors about the store being cursed; your involvement in the murders. People say they don’t believe it, but they really do, and they fear it, Sophie. And they usually try to destroy it.”
Sophie knew that what Mags was saying was true, in part, but she didn’t share her friend’s bitterness. “I’m not even sure I know how to deal with it, Mags, but I get your point. Still, I know you have these terrible memories, but obviously your mother passed her healing abilities on to you – look what wonderful work you do through your Reiki. You help so many people.”
Mags turned away, lifting her hand to swipe away tears she didn’t want Sophie to see, and Sophie realized she wasn’t really alone in the world, as she’d always believed. Other people had pain, tragedy and gifts. Margaret needed to believe that what she had inherited from her mother was good, just as Sophie needed to believe that her ability to attract the dead was also a good, helpful thing, and she told Margaret as much.
“Maybe you’re right. I know it, most of the time, but then something like this reminds me of how ugly people can be.”
“But you can let it color what you do,” Sophie reassured. “What happened to your brother?”
“I lost track of him. He was in trouble, did some jail time, and eventually, we just went our separate paths.”
“That’s so hard. To have lost everyone.” Sophie said, crossing to hug her friend, who shared more with her than she realized. They’d both lost everything, and had rebuilt.
“Thanks, Sophie. It’s hard for me to talk about. But you. . .I know it’s only been a year, but you’re more like my sister,” Margaret said emotionally, hugging her back.
“I feel the same,” Sophie said, realizing that she
did.
“But you need to be careful. For all of us, these gifts are dangerous. This is all new to you yet. If Gabe is right, a real life crime, with real life criminals, comes with your ability. That puts you in danger. It already has. The car that tried to run us down, and now this. Who knows what these people are capable of?”
“You told me, Mags, that we don’t necessarily get a choice. I can’t hide from it. I’m working it through. The ghosts who are attracted to me are all murder victims, but they need my help like anyone else who walks through that door, right? And if it works the way Gabe says, maybe I can get to the bottom of this mess with Patrice, and settle things once and for all.”
They both jumped as the door flew open and hit the back of the wall.
“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to do that,” Gabe said, pushing back a lock of dark hair that fell down over his glasses. He was obviously in a hurry, or excited about something. Sophie offered a tenuous smile as she watched him compose himself and set his glasses straight.
“Hi. Where’s the fire?” she asked.
They hadn’t had a chance to talk since the night they’d seen Eliza, and she figured that was for the best, until things settled down. But he looked almost panicked at the moment. Handsome, disheveled and panicked.
“Sophie, we have a problem. I obviously over-estimated the academic ethics of the library staff, and believed they would be able to keep my research in confidence-”
“Whoa, Gabe, hold on. Slow down. Can I get you a glass of water?”
He took a deep breath, but was visibly agitated, not excited, she realized. But he nodded. “That would be good. I ran here from the train stop.”
Sophie went to the small fridge in the back to grab a bottled water and re-emerged. “I’m sorry, Margaret, this is Gabe Mason. Gabe, this is Margaret Dalton, the soon-to-be owner of Talismans.”
Gabe smiled at Margaret, taking her hand for a quick shake. “Nice to meet you,” he said, but then quickly diverted his gaze back to Sophie, taking the water. “I have some good news and some bad.”
Past Tense Page 18