Recriminations gone, determination and clear headedness his companions, he lifted his gaze from the coffee and directed his attention to the bartender.
It didn’t take an aura reader to determine that his eyes invited distance. The bar man grabbed his rag, trudged to the far end of the counter, and set about scrubbing a pristine section of veneer.
“Now then, besides the shot at Blake, what else do we know?” Ham continued as though not interrupted. “For starters, there was one shot, but three shells. Beyond that, we’ve got a security guard who lied, at least by omission, about his relationship with Russ, a security guard who, regardless of his wild rants about ghosts and training and all that other bullshit, was once a Marine sniper. They don’t train dummies, so we can assume he’s plenty smart. Smart enough to be pulling the strings here, in fact.”
“He doesn’t strike me as all that sharp,” Drew protested. “I mean, the man does think he’s dead.”
“He claims to think he’s dead,” Ham smiled. “Notice he doesn’t disappear or anything truly fantastic, he just moves small objects around in space. Maybe even in time, for all I know. I don’t understand a hell of a lot about parapsychology, never been interested enough to learn, but I’ve heard of people doing those kinds of things, so it’s not out of the realm I would think.”
Drew considered that, nodded absently, but only partially agreed. “Then this Martina person must be in on it, too, if they’re playing this as if he’s her trainee. Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to actually mean.”
“Perhaps,” Ham shrugged, “though maybe not. Let’s suppose for a moment that Martina is just battier than hell. She thinks she’s psychic and she truly believes her delusion of ghost-hood. Carson shows up, plays to that, claims he’s dead, too, and he uses her to set up this whole ‘Blake is going to die’ thing.” In answer to her questioning look, Ham reminded her, “Carson has asked to be put on the payroll, a payroll that he knows could be huge by most people’s standard, given that both Blake and Russ are backing it. He says he wants to do this so he can afford a good afterlife. How about a good current life? Like a hundred-thousand dollar reward for his bravery in saving Blake from certain demise? It’s not like we haven’t run across that before.”
Drew’s eyes lit with perception. “By God, you’re right, you’re exactly on the mark here. It’s just a variation of an extortion attempt, isn’t it? Just more clever than most,” she admitted. “Maybe he is that smart after all.” Thinking it over, she added, “A friggin’ genius, perchance.”
Slowly, they both turned suspicious looks on Carson. Carson sat undisturbed, smiling enigmatically back at them.
“So what do we do with him?” Drew finally asked.
“As of right now, he’s our number one suspect. So what we do with him is, we hire him. Full time.”
“To keep him close,” she grinned. “I like it. It’s evil.”
“Well,” Ham shrugged, “I mean, after all, if we have to fight a ghost…what better way than an unannounced exorcism?”
The transformation in Drew’s demeanor amused him. She popped up from the stool, nodded with determination and ordered, “Let’s do it. Let’s exorcise this bastard.”
They were back, Ham grinned to himself, back and in charge of themselves and the situation. They were a team again. And about to have some fun with a suspected perp.
They had almost made it back to the table, had almost begun to have their fun, before all hell broke loose.
10
SHE’S NOT THERE
Hell arrived at the door in the form of a goddess. Or so it would seem from the frenzied reaction of the bartender and his two-stool crowd, who nearly swooned with adoration at the abrupt apparition of a white lighted beauty.
The bartender, all 300 plus pounds of him, literally jumped up and down with ecstasy as he squealed his glee, not at all dissimilar to a prepubescent girl suddenly confronted with a cherished idol. The two presumed sots joined his revelry as they pounded each other on the back and high-fived a victory celebration, more delirious than any football-crazed fans whose home town team had, through last minute heroics, dramatically filched the Super Bowl.
Carson’s reaction was perhaps the most telling in that he responded not at all. He just smiled that same fixed, enigmatic grin.
As the goddess swept a half dozen feet into the room, Ham’s newly reclaimed commitment to serenity in the face of amazement neatly dissolved. She was too jaw dropping, too stunning, a creature too beyond the realm of normal human design to feign indifference. Drew jabbed him with her elbow just as Charlie chided him to close his mouth. “You’re drooling again.”
He probably was, he realized. For there, just steps inside the door and silhouetted by the blinding backlight, posed their angel, the one that Drew herself had recently suggested they seek. For only an angel could she be. No mere mortal carried such a luminescent full body halo, an open aura of such perfection.
With a herculean effort, Ham snapped his mind back to now. He was a professional, a detective, a man used to the horrific and the bizarre, trained to shrug away the shocking. In the past few days he’d given in to the absurd, had denied the very device that defined him, but in the last few minutes he’d rectified that lapse. The fact that he was challenged so quickly thereafter changed not a thing.
Just stay the course, he scolded himself.
Be not amazed. Be amused.
That would be his mantra.
Ham visibly relaxed and forced himself to adopt the mien of the mildly curious bystander. He neither smirked nor scowled at the pandemonium the apparition effected, allowed not the slightest flicker of acknowledgement at the disturbance she caused. Instead, his mind focused on the reasons, the whys and wherefores, of this theatrical performance. On the clues that would emerge therefrom.
The goddess—stop thinking that way, Ham sharply rebuked himself—floated toward the table. As much as he didn’t want to think in those terms, ‘float’ was the only way to describe it, for she effortlessly glided across the short expanse, the antithesis of his own plodding entry across that dismal floor—the same one that appeared to bask in her reflection—just a few short exasperations before.
This spoke to nothing more than one additional staged occurrence, he reminded himself. One scene in one act of an extended play, a scene that piqued his suspicion. She was involved. She may be the ring leader, she may be a willing accomplice, but she was mixed up in it right up to her pretty neck.
Carson supplied the obvious. “Here’s Martina now.”
Ham nodded hello while he studied her up close. Her entrance had not been overblown, he decided. She was indeed as striking as that backlighting had indicated, was as regal as she had first appeared. With her long flaming red hair flowing down her back and across her shoulders, she could be fire itself were it not softened by an ageless grace, a delicate set of her face that offered only kindness—a benevolence belied by those impish hazel eyes.
“I see you’re known here,” Drew observed dryly. “Quite a reception.”
Martina tipped her head in acknowledgement. “My acolytes,” she replied. “They hope to become my trainees one day.”
Drew rolled her eyes, though she sounded sincere when she replied, “Oh sure. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
Ham stepped forward before Drew could derail the equanimity he was determined to impose. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Martina. I’ve heard a lot about you and I’ve been wanting to talk to you. I’m more than a little surprised to see you, though. Blake didn’t tell me you were here, or even that you were expected.”
“I come. I go. Blake knows. He doesn’t know.”
Ham put a calming hand on Drew’s shoulder. She eyed him questioningly before she nodded. Apparently taking to heart their determination to ignore the man behind the curtain, she politely asked Martina to sit down and join them for a coffee. “I’m so interested in what you do,” she claimed. “Although I’ve never been to a psychic, I’ve always
been fascinated with the concept. Can you really see the future? That must be so cool.”
“Honey, I’m old enough to be your great-great-great-grandmother.” She smiled tenderly, so sincerely that it took the sting out of her rebuke.
“Wow. You age really well. I hope I got your genes.”
“We’re not related,” Martina chuckled. “And I fully expect you know that’s not the point. What I mean is, don’t patronize me. I’ve been around the block a few times. Not to mention the world. I’m a little too old, a little too experienced, a little to jaded to be flattered like that. Ask me what you want, straight out. No need to pull polite punches.”
Drew stared at her as if seeking her own source of psychic knowledge before she spoke. Finally, with gentle voice, like a parent to an uncomprehending child, she inquired, “All right, straight to the point. Do you really believe that you’re psychic? And do you really and truly believe that you’re a ghost?”
“Do you believe you’re alive?” Martina responded. “And do you really and truly believe that you breathe, hate, hope, love, despair, feel hunger, feel pain, feel joy? In other words, do you really, truly believe you’re human?”
Ham held up a calming hand when Drew glanced at him, questioning, irritated. She turned back to Martina and forced a grin. “Yeah, I do. But see, I know this because it’s a fact. It simply is. There’s no fantasy involved, no…”
“Insanity,” Martina prompted. “And how, really, do you know this? Are you sure you’re not an incorporeal being whose dreams produce the rest of us, the rest of the world? Prove that this is not the case. Prove it now.”
“Oh, come on,” Drew snapped. “That old sophistry is older than you claim to be.”
“That it is, dear. But that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. You can’t debunk a canard with mere assertion, now can you?”
“If I had any idea what that means, maybe I’d agree,” Drew sighed. “But probably not. I hope not.”
She turned to Ham and slowly, in exaggerated fashion, rolled her eyes. She placed her finger between her lips and burbled the universal sign for a babbling idiot, until…her lips began to slow, her finger dropped away and she rolled her eyes back into Ham’s. She looked down, back up, then slowly closed her eyes in exasperation and belated comprehension.
Ham almost laughed out loud as he watched awareness dawn on Drew’s face. Martina had neatly sidestepped the inevitable, challenging Drew to make a proof positive her own humanity before Drew could demand the ghostly equivalent of her death. Were Drew to follow up on that now, Martina could, and no doubt would, smash the ball across the net. “No dear,” he could hear her reply, “this is your chance to prove that you’re alive and that we’re not all just figments of your imagination. Make me not disappear. Go ahead, I dare you.”
The big barman seized the opportunity provided by the momentary silence to nervously approach the table. When Martina chanced to notice him, he nearly stuttered in his eagerness to please. “May I get you anything, mistress? Anything you’d like, anything at all, it’s on the house. Please just tell me what I can provide.”
“Thank you, George. Do you still have any more of that Earl Grey tea that you stashed for me last time I was in town?”
“I shall steep some now, mistress. It won’t be but a moment.” Bowing as he backpedaled away, he repeated, “Not but a moment.”
Ham watched with amusement as George hurried through his chore, all the while ignoring the men on the stools whose empties cried out for attention. The men, he noted, seemed not to mind at all. On the contrary, they appeared fascinated, if not openly desirous, of George’s task, intently watching each movement, eyes lighted with envy at his service to The One.
As promised, George returned within minutes with a steaming cup of brownish brew, gently wafting the aroma towards Martina for her approval. She thanked him by way of a tentative sip, a nod of the head, and a wide smile. “That’s very, very nice, George. Thank you so much. You’re always so kind.”
George floated back across the room, accepting the lustful looks of awe bestowed upon him by his besotted clientele. “Give her space, boys,” Ham heard him whisper. “Look away. She’s got business to attend to, and we mustn’t interfere.”
Ham sighed, disappointed at their gullibility, that widespread human trait that leads to so much tragedy for the helplessly naïve.
But it was no longer his job to save them from themselves.
“Forgetting the metaphysical for a moment,” Ham prompted, “tell me exactly how you determined that Blake will die within four days of your vision.” His statement was directed at Drew as much as at Martina, hoping it would rein her back in, focus her on the facts, not the legend being developed.
“Those are two different questions,” Martina lectured him. “What you really mean is, number one, how do I know Blake is in danger, and two, how do I know this will occur over the course of this week. Is that correct?”
“Okay.”
“As for how I know he’s in danger, in addition to my psychic sense, his aura reveals this, and in particular, his Heart Chakra. Are you familiar with Chakras?” Ham and Drew looked at each other, shrugged and in unison replied, “No,” although Drew’s sounded like it might have been “Hell no.”
“Okay, very quickly, there are seven major Chakra centers along the body that correspond to life force energy, including physical, mental and spiritual health. Without belaboring you the details about which you may not understand nor care about if you do, one of them is the Heart Chakra. In Blake, this is in an area pulsing with dark patches. This I can see. Then there’s this: in a larger sense, his aura has a bright ethereal glow, though that can’t actually be seen with aural reading, not even by me. It’s seen with clairvoyance, meaning psychic visions. That expanding ethereal glow, by the way, explains why some people ‘feel’ the presence of death shortly before they die. They have strong latent psychic abilities and can ‘feel’ that expanding aura and intuitively, though not consciously, understand what it means. I don’t feel it, though, that’s unreliable, it comes, it goes. I actually see it in my mind, I have that vision. And so,” she summed up, “that is how I know the how in the how and when.”
“Fine,” Ham agreed, “I can’t say as I really understand any of that, but I suppose it’s of no matter. More apropos is how you determined it’ll happen this soon.”
“The same as I know that there will be two more attempts on his life, making three in all, before the final reckoning. I’ve had a vision. Several, actually.”
“Can you tell me about this vision?” Ham asked. “You’re date is damn specific. I’m wondering how that works.”
Martina shrugged. “No secret to that. I saw him in the morgue. The page on the desk calendar was clearly visible. Saturday, the 24th of this month.”
Two days, Ham mused. Two days including today to find out what the hell is going on, why the hell it’s happening, and to find a way to turn it back on them with such a vengeance that they never dare to come after Blake again. Nor after Charlie, for that matter, nor with anybody having any association with the Garretts whatsoever.
“What about the other two attempts on Blake’s life? Can you give me any more details, any help at all on what I should expect, what I should look for, beware of? Any specifics at all would be useful.”
Martina’s denial, her shake of the head, was firm and brooked no question. “I’m sorry, dear, but no. It doesn’t work like that. I just see the threat, kind of a surreal gloom, clouds if you will, though with very different formations.”
“Can you tell me what that means? I mean, does that help me?”
“No. All it means is that each attempt will be different. The first one was a shot into his house. The next two will not be similar in nature. That’s all I can tell you.”
“But the final date is so specific,” he objected. “Why can’t you give me that kind of specificity with these attempts? Or at least the day and approximate hour.”
&
nbsp; Martina’s eyes grew impishly large. “Well, dear, whoever is doing this, they selfishly refused to carry a calendar or sport a watch for me to observe. Obviously, that’s intentional and it just as obviously points to their deviousness, does it not?”
Ham nearly tossed that aside, came horribly close to disregarding that statement as senseless rambling. But then it struck. The detective in him screamed attention, demanded an obscure clue be recognized for the gem it just might be.
It started with trust. Believe for just one brief moment, no matter how improbably, that her visions ring true, he commanded himself. Accept it on faith. Accept it like he should have accepted the voice in that kidnapping case, the one that still haunted him after all these years. Don’t make that same gaffe twice.
“Martina,” he slowly began, his mind churning, seeking a way to properly phrase his question, “is there any chance, any reasonable chance whatsoever, that whoever is doing this, whoever is behind this, is someone close to you? In other words, someone who is close enough that he or she would know that, in order to escape your psychic perception, they would need to keep specific visual clues obscured?”
Someone like Carson, he silently added.
“Dear, dear Ham,” she smiled, “my dear, dear sweet Ham. Everything is possible, everything, both in this world and in the next.” She paused long enough to delicately sip at the remainder of her rapidly cooling tea before she added, “But as to your specific question, isn’t finding the answer to that part of what you’re being paid for, what you’re supposed to figure out?”
Martina grinned at his discomfiture, leaned back and lit a cigarette. Trying to bring his spinning mind back to normal, he lamely joked, “You could be arrested for that, you know. Smoking in any building in Hawaii is against the law. George might turn you in.”
The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Page 14