by Tim McGregor
“Do you think we could stop in to see Kaitlin tomorrow?” Maggie asked. “Before I go home?”
“That would be nice.” Billie chewed her lip for a moment. “If Kyle isn’t there, that is.”
“Why would he mind?”
Billie shrugged. “He doesn’t like anyone else there.”
Her aunt shook her head slowly as she grated the carrots. “I’ve prayed for her every night. I don’t suppose you have, have you?”
Maggie was a devout Catholic and had raised Billie the same way. Once she had left home, she’d drifted away from it all. In fact, if pressed on the subject, Billie didn’t know what she believed anymore. “I’m kind of rusty on that.”
“Such a terrible thing to happen. And someone so young too.”
Billie nodded in agreement but didn’t add to it. She hadn’t told her aunt exactly how Kaitlin had been injured, telling a white lie to cover the frightening details. She didn’t need to worry the woman with the gruesome parts.
Maggie wiped her hands on the towel and looked at the dishes. “What are we going to do with all this food? Are you sure the ladies can’t make it?”
“They had other plans,” she said curtly.
“Oh?” Her aunt looked at her. “You sound doubtful.”
“Things are weird. Have been for a while.”
Maggie looked at her niece. “You mean since…”
“Yeah.”
The unsaid matter. Aunt Maggie knew of her abilities but they didn’t discuss it. Billie could see how uncomfortable she was with it, so they did what families everywhere did. They pretended it didn’t exist.
“I guess I can’t judge them for it,” Maggie said. “I’m not exactly blameless on that matter too.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Her aunt draped the dishtowel on the hook. “Yes it does. But it’s a hard thing to accept. I think it’s like grief. Everyone reacts to it differently.”
“I guess.” Billie fetched the wine from the counter. “Do you want some?”
“Please. You know you can talk to me about it. I don’t mind.”
“I appreciate that.” Billie dug the corkscrew into the bottle. “There is something we need to talk about.”
“And what’s that?”
“My dad.”
The knife in Maggie’s hand clattered to the floor, narrowly missing her foot. She snapped out of her shock and bent to get it. “Look at me, being clumsy.”
“Maybe we should sit down,” Billie said.
“I’m not liking the sound of this, Billie. What is it?”
They sat down at the small table. Billie handed her aunt a glass and hesitated over where to start. “When Kaitlin and Tammy and I were in that house I mentioned, the one where Kaitlin got hurt, we found a body. Well, I found a body.”
Her aunt’s hands covered her mouth. “What?”
“It had been there for a long time. The police found a few pieces of I.D. with it. Frank Riddel.”
The shock splayed in her aunt’s eyes went wider. It was quickly followed up by confusion and disbelief. “But how?”
“They don’t know. But they’re looking into it. The cop I mentioned before? Mockler? He’s the one handling it.” Billie sipped the wine and set the glass down slowly. “But there’s more to it. He wants to open up the case about mom.”
Maggie took in the news like she was catching her breath. Then she nodded, as if in agreement. “Of course. I could see why he would.”
“If he does, he’ll have lots of questions. For both of us.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Couldn’t he do without that part?”
Billie shook her head. “You and I are the only people involved in it. Who else would he talk to?”
“I know but, still. Opening old wounds like that.” Maggie folded her hands together. “Do you think he could find answers now, after such a long time?”
“I doubt it. I don’t know if I even care anymore.”
Maggie set her glass down, watching her niece closely. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“Would it make a difference? Now, after all this time?” Billie fussed with the napkin before her, folding it again and again. “It would open a lot of wounds and bring on a lot of tears but in the end, what would it change? Would knowing the details help in any way?”
The kitchen faucet leaked, a slow drip that often faded into background noise. At this moment, as they pondered the question, it sounded like bombs.
Maggie leaned in and patted her niece’s hand. “Sleep on it. We’ll talk it over in the morning. For now, let’s check the bird and figure out what we’re going to do with all this food.”
“Fair enough.” Billie rose and pulled on the oven mitts. “I wonder if Bruce is around. He could join us.”
“The man downstairs who lets you borrow his cars?”
“You’ve never met him, have you?”
“No. Is he nice?”
“He’s a grumpy Gus who curses like a sailor,” Billie said. “You’ll like him.”
Trying to sleep was uncomfortable. Not because she was sharing the bed with her aunt but because of the amount of food she had put away. It just wasn’t Thanksgiving unless you had to loosen your belt.
There was also the sound coming from outside her bedroom. A dull clink of plates, the creak of the floor. Something falling from a shelf and rolling into a corner. She knew it was only Half-Boy, stirring as the night deepened. She was grateful that he had behaved himself by staying hidden until Maggie had gone to bed. It wouldn’t do to have her aunt come across a legless ghost scuttling over the ceiling like some enormous cockroach.
The racket grew louder, as if the little ghost was picking up steam. Sighing, she rolled out of bed and padded out to the living room to shush him before he woke up Maggie.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. The room was dark and she couldn’t tell where he was. “Keep it down out here.”
A scuttling noise behind her made her turn. More darkness.
“Where are you?”
She heard him scrabble across the floor before leaping onto the back of the couch like a cat. He looked at her but his face was shadowed under the brim of the threadbare cap.
“I don’t care what you’re doing,” she hissed. “Just be quiet or you’ll wake my aunt.”
He raised his hand and waved at her to come closer.
She didn’t move. “What is it?”
His hand flopped around with more urgency. She crossed the floor and stood before him. “Are you all right?”
The Half-Boy held up the other hand, balled into a fist like it held a surprise. He motioned for her to catch what was clutched in it. Placing her palm under his, she felt something cool and metallic snake into her hand.
It was an old locket on a chain. A simple pewter heart. She looked at it without opening the clasp. She already knew what was contained within it. It had belonged to her mother.
It had been lost under a floor board in the house where she had lived with her mother. Billie had visited the house during the summer, meeting the woman who lived there now. The locket had been found while renovating.
She looked at the Half-Boy. “Why are you giving me this?”
He said nothing. He never did, since his tongue had been cut out long ago. He reached out and folded her fingers over the locket in her palm. His hands were icy and when the tears from her eyes hit his knuckles, the little droplets crackled into ice and fell to the floor like tiny shards of hail.
~
The hole in the wall was roughly the size of a fist. The old plaster had broken away and lay in dusty chunks on the floor, the wood lathe behind it snapped through leaving a dark void.
Mockler looked down at his right hand. The knuckles were red and swollen and they throbbed with pain. He blinked at it stupidly for a moment before doing the basic math. Sore knuckles plus one fist-shaped hole in the wall equals one drunken, stupid, self-pitying moron.
; The moron in question was paying the price now, his head throbbing in an evil pulse and his throat parched with a powerful thirst. The knuckles aching and stiff. He didn’t even remember punching the wall.
Turning away from the damaged wall, he staggered into the kitchen and fumbled through the ritual of making coffee. Listening to the coffee-maker gurgle and steam, he felt the wave of shame that accompanies the morning after. He had gotten drunk, gotten maudlin and then morose. Had he shot himself in the foot by breaking up with Christina? They had been together a long time, a lot of it rough going. And for what? Because he had feelings for someone else? The half-empty house around him seemed to echo that, as if foreshadowing his future. Hollowed out and barren.
Few things were as desirable as the thing that is gone. He had been seized by the idea that he had blown up his own life and the booze had simply thrown gasoline on the fire. The cold light of morning brought a new clarity, burning away the maudlin nostalgia. Their relationship had soured a long time ago and both of them had carried on in denial, going down with the sinking ship. It was for the best, even if it was painful. He just had to watch out for the backslide.
The hole in the wall was troubling. He wasn’t a violent man by nature. He didn’t express his anger with his fist. At least, he thought, he never used to. Then why last night? He couldn’t even remember what had triggered the need to hammer his fist into the wall. How cliched. His father used to do such things and he remembered how it used to scare him back then, how it terrified his mother. He had sworn that he would never grow up to be like that, terrifying everyone around him through brute force. What had happened to that vow? The broken patch of wall turned his stomach but he decided to leave it like that, unrepaired and ugly, as a reminder.
He froze when he heard the sound of the latch turning at the front door. Then a voice calling hello. Her voice.
Christina appeared in the entrance to the kitchen. “Hi,” she said.
“Hey,” he mumbled back, too surprised to speak. She looked stunning, as always. Dressed up like she was off to some fancy event. He hadn’t even looked in the mirror and wondered how wretched he looked.
“Did I wake you?” Christina looked over the room like she didn’t recognize the place.
“No,” he said. “Did you forget something?”
“Just a box. Work stuff I’ll need for tomorrow.”
He looked over the kitchen. “I don’t remember seeing it.”
“I left it in the dining room. I’ll get it.”
Her heels rapped against the hardwood floor as she crossed into the other room. Mockler ran the cold water in the sink and splashed his face, needing to shock the cobwebs out of his head. Why was she here?
Christina returned with a box tucked under one arm. “So. How have you been?”
The casualness of it was jarring. As if they were two acquaintances bumping into each other. “Fine,” he said. There was simply no other answer to that question. “You?”
“Good.” She nodded quickly, as if in a hurry. “Busy. You know, moving and settling in.”
“You found a place already?”
“No.” She looked at the box in her hand. “I’m staying with a friend.”
“Right.”
Neither moved, like it was a game of brinkmanship and the awkwardness spread across the room like a foul smell. He wondered if she had seen the hole in the wall.
“Did you see your Dad yesterday?” she asked.
“Nah. I didn’t want to have explain anything.”
She looked surprised. “You haven’t told him yet?”
“I haven’t told anyone.” He put the mug on the counter. “Did you see your parents for Thanksgiving?”
“No,” she said, eyes dropping to the floor. “Well. I should go.”
He followed her to the door. Her steps were quick, as if ready to run.
“I think that’s the last of it,” she said, stepping out onto the porch.
“Almost.”
Christina looked back to the kitchen. “No, I got everything.”
“There’s the stuff in the garage.”
Her face fell, remembering the skis and old art projects, the antique furniture she had been meaning to restore but never got around to. “I completely forgot about all of that.”
“Me too.”
“Can it stay for now? I’m living out of boxes as it is and there’s no room at Carlos’ place. Maybe I can organize a yard sale and just sell it all. God knows I’ll never have the time to refinish any of that stuff. You could sell your old stuff too—”
He held up a hand to slow her down. “Carlos?”
“I’m late. I should go.” She ran out the door and down the porch steps to her car.
He closed the door, made a mental note to change the lock and went back into the kitchen. Something dark and foul began rumbling in his gut and he tried to push it back down. He was too hungover and too tired to let that particular chaos run amok.
Carlos? The gallery owner?
His phone dinged. Picking it up, he saw a text from Billie. A single word:
Coffee?
Chapter 10
“WHAT DO YOU NEED?” Billie asked. “From me?”
Mockler blew the steam from his coffee. “Not much really. Just tell me what you remember about her.”
They had decided on a coffee shop on John Street, one of the newer places that took their java seriously, and settled into a table near the window. Little was said in way of greeting when Billie walked through the door to find him waiting. She wanted him to re-open the cold case into her mother’s disappearance and said she would help in any way she could.
“What changed your mind?” he asked.
She dug into a pocket and laid something on the table. “This. It was my mom’s.”
Mockler picked up the locket and let the chain dangle between his fingers. “Can I open it?”
“Yes.”
He thumbed open the tiny clasp and halved the locket like a clamshell. “It’s empty.”
“Look closer,” she said.
Squinting, he saw the tiny strands of hair coiled up inside. “Is that hair?”
Billie nodded. “Baby hair.”
Mockler’s face lit up in a wide smile at the woman across the table. “Yours? Aww.”
The smile was infectious and she felt oddly self-conscious.
“Look at that. Gosh, it’s so fine. I bet you were a cute baby.”
“All babies are cute,” she said.
“I suppose.” He closed the locket and set it back down onto the table. “Did your mom give this to you when you were a kid?”
“No. I wish she had.” Billie pulled the delicate chain into a straight line across the table. “Somebody found it.”
“Billie.” Mockler squared her up, eyes on hers. “Are you sure about this? It might be painful.”
“Yes. I want to know what happened to her.”
“Do you mind if we start right now?” He produced a small notebook from his pocket and turned to a fresh page. “I’m sorry to make this look official and everything.”
“The notebook’s almost cute,” she said. “Just like on TV.”
“It’s just for the details. Spelling and whatnot.” He scrounged his pockets for a pen. “Tell me about your mom. What was she like?”
Outside the window, leaves tumbled in the breeze and Billie watched them blow down the street. She took a breath. “I used to be ashamed of her when I was a kid.”
“Ashamed?”
“Mom was the town crazy woman,” Billie said. “She could be a bit manic, outspoken. People talked about her behind her back. She’d call them on it. In the bank or the grocery store. I’d die of embarrassment and wished I was invisible. Kids would tease me about my crazy mom.”
Mockler laid the pen flat on the table. “Do you think she was crazy?”
“She was angry a lot. A single mom in a small town, the butt of people’s jokes. Mom was also the town psychic. After that, people
would come to the house for readings. When they thought no one would see them.”
Mockler scribbled into his notebook. One word. Psychic. “What kind of psychic was she?”
“Her main thing was the Tarot, but she did palmistry and tea leaves. Auras and past lives and stuff. She was even a haruspex.”
“Hair what?”
“Reading animal guts. Mostly birds. She claimed she was the only one in Ontario who did it the old way. The way the Romans used to do it.”
He asked her to spell it for him. “Did you ever see her do it? Kill an animal?”
“She wouldn’t kill it. The client would. Mom just divined from the way the entrails fell.” Her eyes took on a slight sheen, lost in memory recall. “No wonder people thought she was crazy.”
“I’ve never even heard of that.”
“That was mom. The thing is, all those people who dissed her were such hypocrites because they all came to see her. Even the rich snobs in town, they all came to mom in secret to find out if their spouse was cheating or why they got screwed out of an inheritance or how to get back at someone who betrayed them. They shunned her during the day but when the sun went down, they all came to her, hat in hand.”
“Back up a second,” he said. “People came to see your mom to get back at someone? Like a voodoo spell or something?”
“Yeah. Black magic. Mom never did it though. She said it was too dangerous, using it for hateful reasons. She said it would come back at you three times as hard. Like a boomerang.”
She watched him scribble it all down. “Do you think that’s important?”
“Everything is important at this stage. Go on.”
Billie sipped her coffee then shrugged. “I’m not sure what else to say.”
“Did your mom know about your abilities?”
“She used to make me run the Tarot for her. I hated that.”
“What do you mean ‘run the Tarot’? Tell her fortune for her?”