Elatsoe

by Darcie Little Badger

  “It’s two-fifteen in the afternoon,” Ellie continued narrating. “Before our psychic does a reading, I will look for evidence around the apparent point of impact.” She crouched and inspected the trunk. There were red flecks clinging to its bark and trapped in beads of sap. “Aha! Paint residue.”

  “What’s that?” Jay called. “Did you say something?” He and Bell were halfway down the valley slope; Jay steadied his aunt by the elbow.

  “Paint!” Ellie shouted. “Oh! Also glass!” She turned the camera to the ground and nudged aside a dead leaf with her tennis shoe. The move fully exposed a jagged fragment of clear material. It glinted in the sun, lovely as a quartz shard. Ellie poked it with a twig because she didn’t want to leave a fingerprint on its flat surface. It was a sturdy, transparent breed of plastic, the kind used in vehicle head lamps. She wondered if a forensic expert could identify a vehicle make and model based on the physical and chemical properties of its head lamp cover.

  “Whoo,” Jay said. “What a miserable climb.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned over, as if fighting a side stitch. Beside him, Aunt Bell brushed off her skirt, barely fazed.

  “Better than a bridge trestle, though,” Ellie said. “Less dangerous, too.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Jay looked pointedly at his aunt. “I’ve never climbed anything higher than a jungle gym.”

  “Aaaaanyway,” Ellie said. “This is what police need. Physical evidence!” She swept her phone camera side-to-side, capturing details for later scrutiny. She was hesitant to walk around too much, afraid that her footsteps might destroy something that linked Dr. Allerton to the accident site. A strand of hair, a drop of blood. A fiber from his designer slacks.

  Ellie was pulled from her thoughts by fingers on her upper arm. Aunt Bell grasped her tightly. The older woman swayed.

  “Auntie, are you alright?” Ellie asked.

  “Pain …” Aunt Bell drew her eyebrows closer together and pursed her lips, an expression of intense discomfort. “Two people suffered here.”

  “Wha—oh!” Ellie made eye contact with Jay. He seemed torn between fascination and worry.

  “What else do you sense?” he asked.

  Aunt Bell cocked her head, thoughtful. For a moment, the valley was silent, except for the twittering of summer birds. Jay started filming, too, as if aware that he had a better view of the psychic reading.

  “I hear …” Aunt Bell trailed off.

  When she spoke again, her cadence was deeper and more youthful. “Damn! Are you alright? Don’t move. Help is coming. I’ll call … What are … No! Stop!”

  Aunt Bell screamed, a quick burst of anguish.

  “That’s my cousin’s voice,” Ellie said.

  THIRTEEN

  AS ELLIE RETURNED TO Lenore’s house, she tried to glean Trevor’s last moments by mulling over each sentence.

  Are you alright? Don’t move. (Was Trevor speaking to Dr. Allerton, or somebody else? A witness? An accomplice?)

  Help is coming. I’ll call … (Who did Trevor want to call?)

  No! Stop! (Why did he sound so frightened? What did Dr. Allerton do to him?)

  The final scream of pain seemed self-explanatory.

  By the time she pulled into Lenore’s short driveway, Ellie had come to one conclusion: she needed to see the call record on Trevor’s old phone. She hoped that it was still accessible. Few things were more personal than a smartphone, so it was probably interred with Trevor during his traditional burial. Sure, their ancient ancestors hadn’t owned pocket-sized computers, but tradition accommodated the adaptable nature of humankind. Trevor had carried the images, names, and conversations of his loved ones on that phone. It was linked to his social media accounts, his favorite music and podcasts, his high scores in Tetris and Pac Man, and myriad other stuff. It deserved to be with him.

  Inside the house, Lenore, Baby Gregory, and Ellie’s mother were lounging in the living room. An episode of Sesame Street played on the wall-mounted television. Gregory seemed more interested in his plastic geometry toys. He stacked spheres on pyramids on cubes and laughed as the ramshackle tower collapsed.

  “You’ve been gone a long time,” Ellie’s mother said.

  “I had to return Jay and his aunt to the Ring Transport Center.” Ellie sat beside Gregory and kissed his fuzzy head. Her dark braid dangled in front of his face like a fishing lure. He kneaded it between his tiny hands, puzzled by its woven texture. Ellie finally pulled away when Gregory tried to eat the paintbrush-puffy tip of her braid.

  “Did the psychic detect anything useful?” Lenore asked.

  Ellie hesitated. She had planned to tell her parents everything, but what about Lenore? Was it really a good idea to spill the beans about the accident site, the physical evidence, and Trevor’s chilling last words? What if Lenore did something rash? She had already begged Ellie to wake the dead.

  Perhaps, deep down, that’s what Ellie wanted. “We need to check Cuz’s phone, but first, I have a video you need to see,” she said. “It’s disturbing. Should I move Gregory to his playroom?”

  “Yes,” Lenore said. “I don’t know how much babies understand, really, but his life will be hard enough without extra trauma.”

  Ellie passed her phone to her mother. “Press play and the video will start.”

  “Thank you,” Vivian said.

  In Gregory’s room, there was a rocking chair near the crib; Ellie sat on it and cradled the baby in her lap. He wiggled and kicked until she started to rock. The motion seemed to calm him.

  “Kirby, appear,” Ellie said. “Appear, boy.” Kirby blinked into visibility near the doorway. He trotted closer, his tail wagging sedately, and tried to rest his head on her knees. With every backward swing, Ellie’s legs passed through his head. She felt slight resistance, as if pressing against a gust of wind.

  “See the dog?” Ellie asked. Gregory uttered a curious shriek and reached for Kirby’s ear. At the same time, Kirby tried to lick his hand. Neither was successful.

  “I’m never lonely,” Ellie said. “That’s my favorite part of the ghost secret. My best friend is always nearby. I just have to reach for him. Right, Kirby? Is that right? Is it? Are you here? Yes, you are!” His ears perked up, and his tail wagged more quickly. “I do miss his fur,” she said. “Good for hugs and pets. He used to like it when I scratched his forehead.”

  Gregory rolled onto his stomach and tried to crawl onto Kirby. “You don’t want to fall,” Ellie said, pulling him back from the edge of her knees. “Someday, I’ll tell you about Icarus. He was Greek.”

  She heard raised voices in the living room. Angry voices.

  “I think they finished the video, Greg. Should we play with Kirby a little longer?”

  “Eeee-eeeh!” Gregory squealed.

  “Honey, can you come here?” Ellie’s mother shouted.

  “We’ve been overruled.” Ellie stood. “Let’s go.”

  In the living room, Lenore paced between the sofa and the dark television. “Ellie,” Lenore said, “Trevor’s phone is in the basement. I boxed it with his teaching materials.”

  “You didn’t bury the phone with him?” Ellie asked, surprised.

  “No. Like I said. It’s in the basement. Out of sight. Why? Can’t I keep some things to remember him by?” The tense, I’m-in-no-mood-for-this edge in her tone discouraged Ellie from explaining.

  “Sorry. I was just surprised. Be right back.” She put Gregory next to his geometry blocks and speed-walked to the basement. The wooden stairs creaked as Ellie descended into a dim, cool room. Plastic storage bins stacked three high lined the cement walls. Most of the containers had labels like “Old Clothes,” “College Books,” and “Kitchen.” It did not take Ellie long to notice the seven twenty-gallon bins, all labeled “Trevor,” piled in the middle of the basement. They resembled a monolithic island. The labels were written in Lenore’s unique style, each letter tilted forty-five degrees to the right, as if toppling over.

  Ellie hefted a “Trevo
r” bin from the stack and lowered it to the ground with a grunt. It must have weighed forty pounds. When she cracked the lid and peeked inside, Ellie saw stacks of papers. She riffled through them, looking for the phone. Most were old lesson plans, grade books, and notes. A packet of brightly colored tessellations was buried at the bottom.

  Ellie found the phone in the second bin. It was tucked alongside Trevor’s laptop, a vinyl record player, and dozens of Sharpie-labeled CDs. Out of curiosity, she peeked into a third bin. It was filled to the brim with binders.

  Mysterious, black, unmarked binders.

  Ellie glanced behind her shoulder. She was alone, except for Kirby. “The binders might have clues,” she said. Kirby sniffed a cobweb in the corner, noncommittal. Taking that as encouragement, Ellie pulled out a binder; it was four inches thick and heavier than a dictionary. She opened it.

  “Oh, Cuz,” Ellie said, smiling sadly. “You nerd.”

  The binder was filled with plastic-protected, alphabetized comic books. As she browsed the titles, Ellie recognized several issues that she had borrowed years ago: Down Underworld #1-5, Fade to Jack #9-10, Jupiter Jumper (as many as she could manage), and the complete run of Sous-chef PI.

  “Did you find the phone?” her mother called, at the head of the basement stairs.

  “Yes,” Ellie shouted back. “I’m on my way. Just need to repack some stuff.”

  As Ellie put the binders back into their plastic crypt, her chest tightened with regret. Perhaps someday Gregory would wander downstairs and find them.

  If he didn’t, she’d introduce him to comic books on Trevor’s behalf.

  Upstairs, because the cell phone had run out of power, Lenore plugged it into the wall. “I checked outgoing calls last week,” she said. “There was nothing. Did I miss something?”

  “All we know,” Ellie said, “is that he wanted to call for help.”

  A red light on the phone indicated that it had enough battery life to function. The three women gathered around its bright screen, and Lenore clicked on a phone-shaped icon that loaded a “history” page. The final recorded call was a five-minute conversation with Lenore at 6:00 P.M.

  “I remember that,” Lenore said. “It’s the last time we spoke.”

  “Did he sound upset?” Ellie asked. “Or say anything unusual?”

  “Not really. Just annoyed about working overtime. They don’t pay teachers enough.”

  “If we believe that Aunt Bell is legit,” Ellie said, “and I do—”

  “I believe her too,” Vivian interrupted. “Unlike Chloe Alamor, Aunt Bell has no reason to lie.”

  “That’s right,” Ellie said. “Based on her psychic reading, Cuz was attacked before he could dial nine-one-one. The attack happened fast.”

  “He was so close,” Lenore said. “Three numbers away from survival.”

  “Maybe not,” Ellie said. “I suspect that Dr. Abe Allerton has friends in high places. Nine-one-one might be a direct line to the murderer’s allies.”

  “EMTs? Police?” Lenore laughed. It was a hollow, mirthless sound. “Who can we trust?”

  “Can’t trust anybody near Willowbee, that’s for sure,” Ellie said.

  “Willowbee isn’t the only town in Texas,” Vivian said. “I’m going to contact Bruce and Mathilda. Family friends. They work for Dallas PD.” She looked at Ellie. “Nobody jump the gun until they respond. We agreed that you wouldn’t go vigilante, honey. This Aunt Bell business is borderline.”

  “Mom, I told you about her yesterday.”

  “I didn’t know that you’d poke around a car-crash site at the bottom of a gully.”

  “At least she found something,” Lenore said. “At least she’s trying.”

  A pause. Ellie looked from Lenore to her mother, unsure who’d break the silence first.

  “It’s time for supper, isn’t it?” Vivian asked. “I made casserole.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Lenore said. “Maybe later.”

  “Give me double portions,” Ellie said, hoping to make peace. Plus, she loved that casserole.

  After scarfing down two helpings of elbow noodles in cream-of-mushroom sauce, Ellie returned to the basement to rummage through Trevor’s teaching materials. Four of the seven bins were school-related. They contained a variety of art projects, papers, and attendance books. As Ellie worked, Kirby curled at her feet, blinking in and out of visibility, an anxious habit. Ellie wondered if he could sense the unhappiness around him. Anger. Grief. Helpless despair. What did the poor dog think? Was he concerned about his humans?

  She pulled the trilobite fossil from her pocket and sent its ghost scuttling across the cement basement floor. Kirby looked up, intrigued. “You can’t play with it,” Ellie said. “Sorry, boy.”

  He was a friendly, social dog, eager to play with any species that moved. Unfortunately, Ellie didn’t know how destructive a startled trilobite ghost could be.

  “If I go to Herotonic University,” she told Kirby, “I’ll find a sibling for you. A Chihuahua from the pound.” Most university dorms had strict no-pet policies. However, since Herotonic was local, Ellie could continue living at home.

  “Maybe you’d prefer a pack of ghosts,” she mused. Her family line included hundreds of domesticated animals, beginning with Six-Great’s pack of thirty heroic ghost hounds. Sometimes, when Ellie called for Kirby, she sensed a friendly, exuberant presence behind him. A whisper of barks and wagging tails. As if the dogs of her ancestors heard her voice and recognized its timbre. Only fear stopped Ellie from calling them too. She worried that something else—something dangerous—might follow. Animal and human souls shared the vast underworld. Domesticated animals probably lived near their masters. If Six-Great’s dogs went missing, would her ghost try to find them?

  Ellie didn’t want to find out.

  “We’ll have a farm someday,” Ellie said, “with ten dogs from the pound. How do you feel about goats? Cats? Cows? We need chickens for fresh eggs.”

  Kirby’s tail wagged; it always wagged when she smiled at him.

  “Someday,” Ellie said.

  After the trilobite returned to the underworld, Ellie sorted the teaching materials by year. She isolated the two-year-old pile for further scrutiny. It might contain something from Dr. Allerton’s son, Brett. The kid wasn’t a murder suspect, but maybe Brett’s schoolwork hinted at illegal activities, dark magic, or anything that would tarnish his father’s reputation as an angelic, charity-funding, miracle-working doctor.

  Ellie started her search with a stack of “brainstorm webs,” interconnected bubbles with phrases that, presumably, inspired the student. Regretfully, they didn’t inspire a breakthrough in Ellie’s investigation. Brett’s web contained phrases such as “invention,” “virtual reality,” “choose-your-own-adventure,” “4-D,” and “static shocks.”

  “Clever,” she said. If nothing else, a VR game that electrocuted its players would be extremely motivational. Ellie placed the document in a special “Brett” stack and continued her research. As the stack grew, Ellie felt wearier but no wiser. Based on a job aspiration assignment (Brett wanted to be a doctor who worked with cybernetics), the kid idolized his father.

  Nearing the end of her material, she skimmed through illustrated biographies. With titles like “Harriet Tubman” and “Sarah Winnemucca,” they seemed to be about US heroes. Ellie found Brett’s booklet at the bottom of the collection. At first, she thought that Brett had glued a portrait of his father on the cover. But no. The name below the portrait was “Nathaniel Grace,” not “Abraham Allerton.” Plus, the man in the painting wore old-fashioned clothes. With his tall, wide-brimmed hat and bib-like collar, Nathaniel Grace looked like a Puritan colonist. He’d fit in a group picture of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

  Ellie wasn’t familiar with Nathaniel Grace, and that bothered her. She aced all her classes, including history. Therefore, although she held the typical US history textbook in contempt (none acknowledged her heroic six-great-grandmother or, for that m
atter, any Lipan Apache person), Ellie could regurgitate its contents by heart. Nathaniel Grace had not appeared in any of her course materials. Who was he? Some distant Allerton relative?

  She opened the ten-page booklet and saw Brett’s youthfully sloppy handwriting over a hand-drawn picture of a church. Ellie read: “My top American hero is Nathaniel Grace. In 1702 A.D. Nathaniel Grace and his wife Joan Grace came to the New World because they wanted freedom of religion. They built a church in Massachusetts. It made the other Pilgrims afraid.”

  “Who is down there?” Ellie’s mother called from the head of the staircase.

  “Just me, Mom!”

  “Have you seen Lenore? Spoken to her?”

  “No!” Ellie put down the booklet. “Not since before supper!”

  “That’s bad. Her car is gone, and she won’t answer the phone.”

  “Damn!” Ellie thundered upstairs, followed by an invisible Kirby. Her mother wore yellow pajamas and soft slippers. Judging by Vivian’s wet hair, she had been in the shower. Was that when Lenore slipped away, unheard?

  “Did you call her parents?” Ellie asked. “She might be visiting.”

  “Not yet. Gregory is in his crib, though. Why would she leave him behind?”

  “It’s late?”

  “She would have told me. Asked me to babysit. Something is wrong.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Ellie. What is it?”

  “You don’t think …”

  “She wouldn’t!”

  It dawned on them simultaneously: Lenore absolutely would confront Dr. Allerton.

  “We have to stop her,” Vivian said. “I’ll set up the car seat. You find directions to the mansion. What is she thinking?”