Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1)

by Gavin Masters

  I nodded. “Probably better that I stand outside your window and wax eloquent like Romeo to Juliet on her balcony.”

  She snorted a laugh. “Okay. All right. Fair enough. But you're not climbing through my window. Come around to the front.”

  “That's what—”

  No! Gavin, this is not an appropriate time for a that's-what-she-said joke!

  Vikki raised an eyebrow.

  “That's what…I was going to suggest.”

  Whew! Saved it!

  Vikki nodded and closed the window.

  I went around the house to her front door.

  She opened the door and smiled with a slight bow.

  “Well! A gentleman caller! Won't you please come in, sir?”

  I didn't know what to make of that. So I stepped inside and got the answer to my question as to what sort of home Vikki maintains.

  As I'd hitherto suspected—judging by the state of the living room she'd been singing and playing piano in—the place was immaculate, as if she had her own personal maid. Except I knew she had no maid and lived alone. The front hallway, and every adjoining room was filled with photographs. It seemed as though she'd had a whole family at some point, though somehow, they were all gone now.

  You can tell a lot, from a glance at a home, about the person who lives there. Vikki's house didn't even look lived in; it looked like a shrine to all its framed and arranged photographs.

  The entryway contained numerous photographs of people—kids and adults, many of them blondes. I realized the girl in a lot of these photos was Vikki, at age 4, age 7, age 12, and so on, through the years. Some photos with an older blonde—the same blonde from the photograph at Doc's house. That had to be Vikki's mother.

  There were a number of photographs of the blond-haired girl with a dark-haired girl as well. She appeared to be the same age as little Vikki in each photo. As the two girls progressively got older, I realized I recognized the dark-haired girl as Vikki's friend Stephanie. The one from the wallet photo. The one from the song she'd just been singing.

  Another photo showed a teenaged Vikki Valliant and a handsome, stocky, black guy with his arm around her, while the dark-haired Stephanie looked on. There was so much going on in the tableau of that one photograph. The dark haired girl wore a look of jealousy on her face. Maybe that was just my own perception. Vikki, perhaps 17 or 18 at the time, looking at the camera, looked so happy—but in a simple way I didn't quite recognize. The smile she gives people now looks different. Almost matronly. Like she's a totally different person now, perhaps only four or five years later.

  I noticed there were no photographs of Vikki in her home beyond the age of about 18. There was a story here. I could feel it.

  Above the fireplace loomed a large, imposing photographic portrait of a pretty, blond-haired policewoman in a formal uniform, complete with a number of achievement medals, and a sword for some reason. The policewoman was a dead ringer for Vikki. There was no question of relation. She was older in the photo. Maybe in her late thirties or early forties. It was the sort of oversized photograph you always see at those police or army funerals. Or one you might see at a wake or in an obituary.

  “That's right…” I said. “Your mom was a cop.”

  “My mom was a great cop,” she said. “Tough shoes to fill.”

  I nodded, thinking about my own dad. The father I could never impress.

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said.

  “It's weird…we weren't that close. Towards the end. It was like…it was like I could never do anything right, you know? We were always fighting back then. About the stupidest things. But then…then she was gone. And then she was all I could think about. I've spent such a long time thinking about her…wondering…”

  Vikki sighed. “In a way,” she continued. “I guess she's the reason I became a cop. Like I just…I don't know. I guess somehow I thought it'd get me into her head. Like if I followed the steps she did, I'd understand her somehow. I guess that sounds pretty stupid, huh?”

  “I don't think that's stupid at all,” I said.

  When I think about it—when I really think about it—I guess I have a smoking habit for the exact same reason. At least Vikki's habit wasn't killing her slowly. Although, to be fair, I suppose being a cop can potentially get you killed quickly.

  “Probably healthier than smoking,” I said.

  We both laughed, but I got the impression the only person really laughing was me.

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “She…um…she k…” Vikki gulped. “She killed herself.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking—”

  “It's all right. Really. How could you know, right?”

  I nodded.

  Vikki sighed. “I spent so long trying to figure out why she left me that way. I used to make myself sick wondering…wondering what went through her head that final day. But I'll never know why. All she left me was this house, and a note saying she was sorry.”

  At least you got a note, I thought.

  I almost said it, too. Almost. But I knew that would sound bitter and mean-spirited. I was bitter. But not with Vikki. Never with Vikki. But I too wondered…Why had my own mother not even bothered to drop by? Even just to say good-bye. All three of us—dad, Raven and I—could have seen her. Could have heard her out. But Vikki was hurting, and throwing my own woes in her face like it's some kind of tragedy competition wouldn't do either of us any good.

  Pictures are such curious things. As a concept, I mean. Looking around Vikki's home now, I felt like I was looking at a veritable graveyard. A memorial made somehow all the more real by the likenesses of the people these photographs represent. They still look so hauntingly lifelike. It's difficult to realize they're not here any more. You could watch Bogart in Casablanca, or David Bowie in Labyrinth. They still seem so real. But they're just ghosts now, in their own way. Shadows cast through time.

  It's weird, this instinct we have. When we see a large photograph of someone smiling in the newspaper—probably taken when they were happy, and looking their best—we know this person has just died. It takes their happiest moment, and somehow makes it our saddest. You see enough pictures like that, and you start to see it in every smile. The smile becomes a two-faced grimace. A memento mori. A remembrance of—or perhaps a promise of—death. Someday, this image you're capturing will haunt you, as sure as an ectoplasmic emanation will.

  There's a specter of death hanging over this whole town. That's what I kept thinking to myself. That's what I kept seeing. It's not just in the graveyard or in Vikki's pictures. Or even because of the fact that I see actual ghosts everywhere. I was coming to realize the specter of death has been following me around my whole life.

  Then, as though she'd been broadcast my depressing thoughts, Vikki began to cry.

  “What?” I said. “Sorry I'm…I didn't mean to…”

  “It's okay,” she said. “It's stupid.”

  “Vikki…nothing you've ever said to me has been stupid. And if it bothers you this much, it can't be stupid.”

  She looked pensively for a moment.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Gavin, do you believe in fate?”

  “Um…”

  This wasn't the question I'd expected from her. Not at that moment, anyway. I had no ready answer for it. It was just so…open-ended, metaphysically. Even though it's a simple yes or no question, just about everyone has a complicated answer to it. Even if the answer is no. Especially if the answer is no.

  “Not really,” I said.

  Vikki looked taken aback.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Why?” I said. “Do I look like the spiritual type to you?”

  “I don't know, Gavin,” she said. “But…haven't you literally been seeing spirits for five years?”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “So…you don't think there's a reason for all that?”

  “Well…I mean…yeah, I thin
k there's a reason. Like…everything literally does happen for a reason. But that reason is usually still something unpredictable. Something random. I mean…people go on about god and the afterlife or whatever, and things having some kind of deep meaning…but when I look around this town, Vikki, you know what I see? It's not what I would expect. Like, I mean…if you'd told me about this town a month ago, I wouldn't even have believed it. I wouldn't have believed there was a whole town out there where monsters could live together in harmony. And I see dead people! But if I'd been given time, I still might come around to the idea that all this happens for a reason, and that maybe there is some kind of benevolent god up there looking out for us, but…Where's my mom? Where's your friend Stephanie? Why is almost everyone in this town trying to hide some supposedly horrible truth about themselves from everyone else? Even from themselves? Why is…”

  I lowered my voice a little. “Why is the Oversoul a totally fucking terrifying creature? I mean…what did that fat ghost we arrested, or any of the others for that matter, do to deserve being sucked into a literal hell-hole? I just…I don't know…If anything, things seem more chaotic and random than ever.”

  Vikki nodded. Neither of us seemed to know what to say next, so we stood there in silence for a while.

  I looked around at Vikki's photographs, trying to grasp at the mystery that lay before me—the mystery of Vikki Valliant. What makes her tick? What haunts her dreams? What regrets lurk in her past? What kind of future does Vikki hope for? And how do I manage to somehow become a part of that future?

  “He told me I'd meet someone like you,” Vikki said finally.

  For a moment I thought I was dreaming. This declaration was just so surreal.

  'Someone like me?' What does that mean?

  “Who told you that?” I asked.

  “The Oracle.”

  'The Oracle?' 'The Oversoul?' 'Intersoul?'…'The Samhain Festival'…People kept throwing out these weird terms like I was supposed to know them!

  “Who the hell is the Oracle?” I asked.

  Vikki shook her head. “He lives in the woods outside of town. You'll meet him eventually. He um…he promised that too.”

  Vikki paused a moment.

  I racked my brain for something comforting—or at least coherent—to say. But the truth was, I was a bit lost. As a general state of being.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I'm just depressed. Up until now, almost everyone I loved was dead. But there was always this one person left…one person I hoped I'd see again someday.”

  “Your friend Stephanie?”

  Vikki nodded, wiping a tear away. “And I just…” she tapered off, as another tear dropped down her face. “I f-feel like that's all about to end. That final piece of hope. He t-told me that w-would happen too.”

  “Who did? The Oracle?”

  Vikki nodded.

  “This oracle,” I continued, “is starting to sound like a real asshole.”

  Vikki laughed, and then wiped a tear away as it escaped from her blue eye.

  As I regarded Vikki, I realized something about her. At first, I'd assessed her as this bubbly, happy-go-lucky, totally got-it-together girl. But more and more, I was coming to realize that she—like me, or like my dad, or Raven, or the Doc, or anyone else in this town—was barely holding it together. And I think the real reason she smiled all the time was not so much because she genuinely was happy, but because she felt she needed to be. Because she knew she was just one frown away from bursting into tears.

  “He told me another thing,” she said.

  “The Oracle.”

  Vikki nodded.

  “And what's that?” I asked.

  “He said…he said this is the year I die.”

  I was dumbstruck.

  “He…he threatened you?”

  “No. Gavin, you don't understand. The Oracle is…he's…he's not a nice creature. But he never lies. He literally can't lie.”

  “And who told you that? Him? Vikki, I don't know if you noticed this, but you're a cop. Basically mother nature's most perfect bullshit detector. When a person announces he never lies, rule one is it's probably a lie.”

  “But Gavin…everything he ever says comes true. Everything.”

  “Maybe you should let me talk to this asshole,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “You don't…you don't want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he's evil,” she cried. “Because he knows everything that will ever happen. And when he tells you…it…it hurts so much to know all of it, you know? To see the end. To know the end is coming? Even though it hasn't happened yet. And you can't do anything to stop it.”

  “No,” I said. “Vikki, you were right. When you said the thing worrying you was stupid. It is stupid. I think this whole Oracle-spiel about fate sounds like a big old pile of meshuganah schmeckle-mucus.”

  Vikki nodded. She wiped away more tears. She didn't look at me, but looked at something downwards and far away. She looked like she was searching for something with her eyes, trying to reach something she couldn't quite yet grasp.

  I had to take my eyes off her because I didn't just want to keep helplessly staring. There had to be something I could say to make it all better. I didn't believe our fates could be dictated like that.

  Then again, Doc did mention the tempora fey had time traveling properties.

  “Hey Vikki,” I said. “You remember…when you and I were…on my bed, and you told me you were magic. And you gave me an hour-long—”

  Vikki sighed. “Gavin, can we maybe not talk about that right now?”

  “You said you were magic.”

  Vikki crossed her arms over herself. She looked away sadly, and gave no reply.

  “You said they don't let non-humans on the force,” I added.

  “That's right,” she said.

  “But Doc says all people who can see ghosts are fey. All of them.”

  “O…kay.”

  “I don't know. I was just thinking if you could slow down time like that…maybe you're a tempora. And maybe so is this oracle.”

  Vikki laughed. “The oracle isn't a fairy, Gavin.”

  “But you admit you are though. And if you're a tempora, like Doc says…I don't know. Maybe you have more control over the flow of time than you realize. And maybe if you could see what the oracle sees, I don't know…maybe you could change the future.”

  I shrugged, and then added. “Who knows? Maybe even the past.”

  Vikki sighed. “I can create small pockets of slowness around me. That's literally all I can do.”

  “Oh, is that all? Vikki, you gave me an orgasm that felt like it lasted an—”

  “All right, all right! Yeah, I know. But I'm not powerful, Gavin. If I could do the opposite? Make time go faster, I could outspeed other people. But all I can really do is be slower. So it's not very useful.”

  I looked around at the photographs of Vikki's deceased loved ones. They seemed to be taunting us with their simplistic smiles. But the most haunting of them all were the photos of Vikki. Because I realized now that all the smiles I'd seen Vikki make since we'd first met had contained a deep sadness I hadn't noticed before. I had to get to know her first, and then see the contrast against the photos in her home. Vikki was a good-hearted woman, beaten down by just a little too much tragedy in her life.

  That's when I spotted a photograph of a tell, lanky and somewhat oafish B.T.P.D. officer standing with Vikki's mother. Both were in uniform. The photo looked to be from the mid 1990s. The male officer in the photo was a dead ringer for Darius Danko! But that couldn't be, could it? He wasn't with the B.T.P.D., after all. Danko had been a sergeant with the R.C.M.P. in Moose Jaw.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “That,” I said, rushing over to the picture and taking it from the wall. “Who is the man in this photograph?”

  “You don't recognize him?” Vikki said. “Well, no I guess he's gained like a hundred
and fifty pounds since then. And he's changed his facial hair I guess.”

  “Who is it?”

  “That's the sheriff. That's Perry Porter.”

  Goose bumps prickled on the back of my neck. A whole bunch of seemingly unconnected dots began to assemble in my mind.

  “Vikki…” I began.

  I stopped, and she looked at me intently.

  “What?”

  “Vikki, this…”

  I didn't know what to say. The man was the spitting image of Darius Danko, back when his photos were all over the papers. And based on my research, that implied he was the missing link. The missing twin.

  “Gavin, what?”

  “Vikki, how well do you know Perry Porter?”

  “I've known him all my life,” she said. “Why?”

  “Vikki…I don't…I don't know how to say this, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Vikki, I think we might be looking at our prime suspect.”

  “W-What?” stammered Vikki, on the verge of tears. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come over,” I said. “Back to my house. I need to show you something. You and dad.”

  Chapter 42

  I didn't wait for Vikki to respond. I just took her by the hand. As though hypnotized, she followed.

  We walked back to my house together without a word.

  My dad was watching T.V. in a recliner with a beer when we walked in.

  He gave us a snarky smile.

  “You kids kiss and make up?”

  I promptly walked to the T.V. and turned it off.

  “Hey, I was watching that!”

  “Sorry, dad. We need to talk. The three of us.”

  My dad looked us both back and forth, noting our grave expressions.

  “What's going on?” he asked, losing the smirk.

  “Dad, I have to show you something. Vikki, maybe you'd like to sit too.”

  Vikki nodded without making eye contact. She sat on the couch looking pensive.

  I took one last look at all the notes I’d compiled, and the photographs I’d saved to a file on my laptop. I looked at the photograph of Sheriff Perry Porter, and then back at the mug shot of Danko. These two men could have been the same person. They looked so damn similar…