Murder House

by Jordan Castillo Price

  The instructor was so stunned, she literally did a double-take. Bly. Me. Bly again. And me. And then her whole demeanor changed. It could’ve been Bly tinkering around in her heart, but I didn’t think so. More like she was flooded with relief that she didn’t have to protect Terri-Anne’s virtue from a stay-at-home neighbor with dubious taste in hats.

  “Welcome,” she told the two of us, and she sounded like she actually meant it. “Go ahead and place your mats together—there’s a spot right there—and we’ll get started.”

  There was an assortment of queer and hetero couples watching us set up. Most with simple curiosity, though some middle-aged guys toward the back were eyeing us to see if we might want to be more than just their yoga buddies. If I picked up on that from half a lifetime of being cruised, I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve felt like to Bly. Maybe his life was a gauntlet of strangers’ desires, and the mere act of walking down the street left him pummeled and bruised.

  Or maybe it actually felt good to be wanted like that.

  I was pondering the reason my knee-jerk assumption was so dark—and tuning out the instructor’s blah-blah-blah—when I realized she’d just told us to turn and greet your partner with a kiss.

  I successfully kept myself from rolling my eyes. It was some consolation that Bly could feel them rolling on the inside.

  It was hard to tell exactly how in-depth the other couples’ kisses were. Bly did that thing again where he cupped the back of my head and threaded his fingers through my hair. Hopefully it wouldn’t end up stuck in the hair goop.

  The yoga itself was no worse than before. Warrior Two was a little easier holding hands with a partner, with Bly’s weight tugging me in the opposite direction. The seated straddle was awkward—the two of us facing with our legs spread wide, taking turns tugging one another down into the stretch. Bly was pretty limber. I did my best to keep from pulling too hard, since he wouldn’t appreciate me yanking his face down into my groin. Mostly, though, I kept my focus on getting through the poses so we could move on to the chakra work.

  Finally, we sat and closed our eyes. The instructor’s voice washed over the crowd. “Focus on your posture, and then go deeper, to your inner stillness.”

  I didn’t necessarily buy the notion that inner stillness lived inside each and every one of us, but I was phenomenally motivated to light myself up like the last time I yoga’d. Dead people can’t be trusted. And I was hell bent on figuring out if there was a ghost stinking up the townhouse after all.

  “Now turn your attention to your base chakra—deep within your pelvic region.” I had the feeling Yoga Lady didn’t have to spell out the location for her regulars. She really didn’t need to point out where the chakras lived on our account either, but we couldn’t just announce ourselves as a pair of well-trained, high-level Psychs and tell her to get on with it. On the bright side, the dumbing down must’ve meant our disguises were working.

  She made her way up the rainbow one color at a time, but when she got to the heart chakra—a spinning ball of green light in the chest—she started waxing eloquent about unconditional love. Breathe in, breathe out…peace and joy and kittens and puppies and unicorn farts. I’d heard the whole rigmarole a million times. Love was fine and dandy. But I was dealing with a potential ghost.

  She finished the rainbow, then said, “Now open your eyes, re-greet your partner, and carry your unconditional love throughout the day.”

  I opened my eyes. The room didn’t look any different, but I did feel that slight edge of loopiness I got when I was especially hopped up on white light. Everyone else was kissing and canoodling and murmuring little somethings to their partners, so Bly bent his head to mine and pressed our foreheads together. “Sorry about the face-in-the-crotch move,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were that flexible.”

  “Let’s not speak of it again.” He unfolded from the mat gracefully. I floundered as one of my hamstrings cramped, but he gave me a hand up, smooth as you please, while people from the next class started to filter in. All women. I noticed one of them doing that distinctive waddle, then realized, all pregnant.

  One of the women shouldered past us—mid-thirties Latina in slouchy designer streetwear (that would no doubt leave me reeling with sticker shock) hugging a moderate baby bump. Bly went still. And possibly pale, though under his bronzer, it’s hard to tell. He said, “I gotta get out of here. I’ll meet you outside.”

  Fine by me, but now Yoga Lady had him in her sights. She was pretty quick on her feet, too, so I did what any doting husband would do…and ran interference. With a mat in each hand, I ambled over to her and started talking.

  “Say, that was really something. The chakras—how can you tell which way they’re spinning? I mean, I know which way clockwise runs, but which way is the clock supposed to be facing?”

  I probably could’ve stood to actually listen to her answer, but mostly I was busy angling myself so the mats blocked her from pursuing Bly. The more preggos wandered in, the easier it got. Add them to the folks busy chatting and the gay couple who clearly wanted to be our new best friends, and the studio was getting downright crowded.

  “…and what really matters is that you focus on the resonance. Is your husband okay?”

  “Oh, you know how it is.” Would he be pissed at me for implying he had diarrhea? “Lactose intolerant.”

  We could sort that out later.

  But rather than the typical disengagement I’d expected over the mention of bodily functions, Yoga Lady showed deep concern. “Lots of people develop lactose intolerance later in life. Our ancestors didn’t nurse past childhood, so there was no evolutionary advantage to being able to digest milk. Have you tried cashew milk?”

  Since Bly was now well out of range, I slung the mats on the pile and said, “Yeah, that sounds right up our alley—I’ll give it a shot. So, anyways, thanks for the yoga and I’ll see you ’round.”

  Smooth. But I managed to jam on my bright white sneakers and get the heck out of there before anyone invited me to an orgy…or a potluck. On my way out through the sea of treadmills and spin bikes, raised voices caught my attention. A couple of mom-types were getting into it over by the kettlebells.

  “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “I was nowhere near you—and maybe you need to start looking where you’re going instead of talking on the phone.”

  The argument was like a batch of popcorn. Just one kernel exploding at first. But then a series of percussions as more and more steam came to a head. Little shouting matches popped up all around the gym. But their vibe wasn’t the type of ’roid rage I might expect. It smacked of defensiveness and fear—and, in fact, more than one gym rat was in tears.

  No wonder Bly high-tailed it out of yoga. Whatever just went down, I couldn’t imagine being an empath in the middle of it, and soaking up the wigginess of all those freaked out people. Though as I plowed through the upheavals and skirmishes, it occurred to me that they followed a certain path, from the yoga studio to the front door. And also that if Bly was as strong an empath as, say, Stefan, he could do a lot more than just soak up vibes.

  He could project them.

  I spotted him nearly half a block away and jogged to catch up. “Hold up! Bly!” A charley horse chose that particular moment to rear up, and I staggered to a painful stop. “Jack—wait.”

  At the sound of his given name, he stopped. He didn’t turn to face me. But he did allow me to hobble up to him. And even though I had a suspicion that he was leaking—not due to lactose intolerance, thankfully, but a metaphysical leak—I was shocked how much the vibes he put out felt like they’d originated in my very own neuroses. Of course they did. They were just raw emotions. It was my own brain supplying the narration.

  I’d fuck things up. Just like I always did.

  And this time, I’d turn up dead.

  Cripes.

  I’d always figured the reason Detective John Wembly disappeared was that he made a big bust and got himself on the ra
dar of too many bad people. But would the simple threat of being recognized really keep a cop awake at night? Or had something more gone down—something where his talent was more of a hindrance than a help?

  “Hey,” I said. “No one’s gonna die. We got this.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and forced out a laugh. “Fuckin’ yoga. Who’da thought? Am I right?”

  I mimicked the laugh…even though it was pretty darn obvious that no one was finding anything even remotely funny.

  We walked the rest of the way home in silence—not companionable, either, but awkward. I wondered if the fetuses freaked him out, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to ask. Besides, how would fetus emotion be any worse than people emotion? They had it made, floating around in a dark, warm environment where nobody made them read nonsensical intellectual think-pieces full of words that made their heads hurt.

  No, it had to be something deeper. Something to do with whatever had him running in his sleep.

  My social skills might suck, but even I could sense it wasn’t the right time to ask. I could still taste the overspill of his emotions. Funny, how it had never occurred to me a big, buff federal agent would feel like such a loser.

  Or…what if everyone felt that way sometimes—okay, everyone but Jacob—and I was nowhere near as messed up inside as I thought?

  22

  Intellectually, I’d known Bly was a high-level empath, but it only hit home once he lost his grip on the talent. I guess it’s more disarming to see someone so vulnerable when they’re normally in total control.

  If I was jonesing to ditch the murder house and get back home, I can only imagine how he must have felt, stuck in a potentially haunted house next to a frustrated skin suit just waiting for a ghost to slip inside. I decided to let the whole gym fiasco drop and focus on doing what we’d come to do. “If you’re all hopped up, then I must be, too. Let’s go assess the third floor once and for all, and then we’ll force those questions down Hale’s throat and wrap up this assignment.”

  Maybe the fact that he could read the emotion—hell, I’m sure he felt the feels so hard he could barely hear me speaking—meant that my sincere attempt to motivate myself rang true enough to calm him down, too. Bly paused and looked up Belmont as if he only just now realized where he was. “Right,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

  I’d never been the one people turned to when they’re looking for words of encouragement, but I decided to give it a shot. “If you want to talk about anything….”

  “It’s ancient history.”

  Maybe so. But it was obvious enough, even to a non-empathic stump like me, that the history had really left a mark.

  According to the tradecraft, though…pressing too hard would only make him clam up harder.

  Still, I wondered. What was empathy like on psyactives?

  While I can extrapolate, I can’t exactly imagine how psychic empathy would feel. I’d asked Stefan, back when we could stand one another, and he’d answered with a catty raised eyebrow and a smug, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” which I suspected was not only to maintain his mystique, but because he didn’t have anything non-empathic to compare it to. Not back before they started testing antipsyactives on us all.

  I must’ve been quiet for several long moments, thinking my own thoughts. Just like the tradecraft promised…once I backed off, Bly tangoed forward. “It’s like everything’s about coupledom,” he blurted out. “Couples yoga. Couples massage. Couples vacation packages.”

  I’d been expecting him to open up about something involving gangs and drugs and bullet wounds. Not his love life.

  Me, I’d never been one to make a big deal about whether or not I was half a couple. How could I, being a gay cop on a force that only pretended to tolerate the gays while the city lawyers gave their mandatory non-discrimination talk? “It’s just that time of year. You know how people get around Valentine’s Day.”

  Bly grunted, but didn’t expound any further. And I didn’t press him.

  Neither of us said anything as we turned down our block. I focused on my crown chakra, a violet ball of spinning light somewhere in the vicinity of my forehead, and did my best to keep the yoga channel open. Bad enough my partner was spooked at the gym. He shouldn’t have to come home to a ghost.

  I was so focused on my new exorcism plan (which basically involved the same old exorcism, only harder) when I realized we were being summoned.

  “Boys? Boys! Pause your brooding introspection and spare but a moment for your long-suffering neighbor.”

  Sylvester Hale stood on his little concrete stoop in the burgundy satin smoking jacket, to which he’d added a pair of fuzzy rainbow slippers and a paisley turban.

  Bly and I both stopped at the end of his walkway and stared, baffled, for a long moment. I recovered first. “What’s up?” I said, almost naturally.

  “I’d like a word.” Hale whisked out a crazy shawl made of orange yarn with lots of tassels, wrapped it around himself like an ermine stole, then brandished his cane and came tapping down the salted pavement. While we kept on staring, he rounded the snowbank and headed for our front door. “Don’t just stand there. Let us all in before our delicate nether regions develop frostbite.”

  Bly unlocked the door and ushered us inside. The first floor was still a warren of moving boxes with a massive bouquet crapping wilted flower petals all over the mantle, but Hale didn’t seem to notice my utter lack of organizational skills. He navigated our place with confidence. I’m sure it helped that his own townhouse had the exact same layout. “I hate to come across as a dreary old hag, but you must understand, the craftsmanship in these condominiums is dreadful, and the walls are paper thin.”

  He settled himself fastidiously at our dining room table. “I’ve no issue with your taste in music, but do tone it down a few decibels. My hearing might not be what it was forty years ago—but last night, the pictures on my walls were shaking.”

  More like he was disappointed he couldn’t listen in on our private conversations with the speakers aimed at his living room wall.

  “Sorry,” Bly said. “We didn’t realize the sound carried.”

  “And it couldn’t hurt to be a little less liberal about whatever incense you’re burning. I enjoy a bit of sandalwood as much as the next world traveler. But last night it smelled like you’d accidentally chucked your dining room set on the fire.” He patted the hard wooden seat through the insufficient cushion. “Pity.”

  “You know how incense can be,” Bly said. “Such a fine line between creating ambiance and setting off smoke alarms.”

  He’d taken the good-humored tone I remembered from our PsyCop days—the “guy with the hair” who was everyone’s buddy…which I now realized was just a persona he’d adopted. Because not ten minutes ago he was stressing over yoga hard enough to leak all over the gym. And not because of lactose intolerance, either, but an overdose of white light.

  “Indeed,” Hale said, with an undertone of don’t make me ask you again. I figured there must be a way to bring up something more esoteric while we were talking about incense, but before I could figure out a good segue, he changed the subject himself. “Jack, would you be a dear and put on some hibiscus tea?”

  “I’ll see if we have any.”

  While Bly went off to check our inventory, I did a quick scan to make sure we living folks were the only ones in the room, then parked myself across the table from Hale. My own white light was still topped off, but my talent wasn’t like that of other Psychs. Mediumship was pretty dull without a ghost around. And unless I was astral projecting to the lullaby of a GhosTV, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not the old man’s subtle bodies were rattling around loose in his wrinkled skin.

  I could steer the conversation while Bly was all lit up, though. And hopefully, if we were lucky enough to determine Hale had nothing to do with ghosts, we wouldn’t even need to bother with another third-floor ritual. Just write our report and head home.

  “There�
��s more to incense than just the smell,” I opened with, figuring it was a pretty good way to shift into esoteric matters.

  “Of course, the ceremonial use of incense stretches back millennia—you’re not Buddhist, are you?” I shook my head, but Hale didn’t seem to want any sort of lengthy answer about my spiritual practice. He was too busy launching into a story about himself. “When I backpacked through Tibet in 1972, incense smoke billowed out of the temples and shrines in thick clouds. It was so resinous I can still practically taste it on the back of my tongue.”

  “There’s no hibiscus,” Bly said from the kitchen doorway. “How’s chamomile?”

  “At eleven o’clock in the morning?” Hale said, as if he’d just been offered a dead rat. He made a shooing gesture toward the front door and said, “The MiniMart on the corner has an adequate selection,” then turned away in dismissal.

  Bly looked comically puzzled, but when I met his eye and gave him a little nod, he just shrugged and pulled on his cashmere coat. “Okay, then. Anyone need anything else while I’m out?”

  “A bear claw from that particular establishment wouldn’t go unappreciated,” Hale said loftily. “But only if they’re fresh. Otherwise, you might as well use them for a doorstop. In which case, the pastry at See You Latte is replenished several times a day.”

  The cafe was also two blocks farther away, and would keep Bly occupied for more than just a ten-minute jaunt to the corner. Bly struck out for the hibiscus tea, leaving me alone with Hale. But before I could awkwardly turn the conversation to the afterlife, he said, “The two of you certainly didn’t waste any time departing last night’s reading.”

  “What do you mean? You left before we did.”

  “I? Surely not. True, I did step out to fetch a less deplorable merlot from across the street. But when I returned, you and your strappingly butch spouse were nowhere to be seen.”

  “Wait. You came back?” Damn it.

  “No doubt the rest of the Faldstool Fridays crowd was equally as crestfallen as I that you’d taken such an early leave. Fresh meat is so rare among us, especially in these days of faceless, pseudo-intellectual internet discourse.”