Death's Doorway

by Crin Claxton

  Tony thought for a second. “Well, I still don’t care. Now go into the next room.”

  Deirdre started walking to the door. “As if that will make any difference.”

  “What do you mean?” Tony shouted after her.

  “Like we can’t see you anyway.”

  “What? You can’t, can you?” Tony was horrified.

  Deirdre fell about laughing. The old prison guard had a good laugh as well.

  “Of course not. We’re not God,” Deirdre said, when she could stand up again.

  “Is there a god?” Tony asked.

  “Classified,” Deirdre said between pinched lips.

  Still laughing, both ghosts walked straight through the bedroom door, the prison guard standing back to let Deirdre go first.

  Tony threw on some jogging bottoms and a fleece and then walked along the hallway to her living room. She walked past the ghosts and into her kitchen, where she put the kettle on.

  Deirdre followed her in. “Tony, this is John Smith.”

  “Is that your real name?” Tony asked.

  “Yes. I know it’s a common name, but someone’s got to be called it.” Smith extended a hand toward her.

  “I’d like to shake your hand, but I don’t think it’s going to work, is it?”

  “Oh yeah. I suppose not. I’m not used to being around the living.” Smith pulled his hand back.

  “John was a guard at Holloway Prison. He knew Frankie White,” Deirdre said, leaning against the doorjamb.

  Tony sat up.

  “Ah, Frankie White. Bad business.” Smith shook his head. “Bad business.”

  They looked at him.

  “A very bad business,” he repeated.

  “You can say more than that. In fact, you have to say more than that. That’s why we’ve come to see Tony,” Deirdre said.

  John Smith looked around as if someone might be listening. “I don’t know. He’s a bad man. A very bad man.”

  “He can’t hurt you. He’s not dead.” Deirdre patted the back of her wig.

  Tony poured milk into her tea. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a nasty kettle of fish. And he will be dead one day.” Smith clenched his hands together.

  “You Brits and your expressions,” Deirdre said. “Look, stop worrying about him. He can’t do anything to you now. And by the time he dies you’ll have moved on.”

  “Where?” Tony asked.

  Deirdre looked round sharply. “I’d forgotten you were there. Now, Tony, because you hang around the dead, you will hear things you shouldn’t. So, a lot like gays in the military, don’t ask and I won’t tell.”

  Tony stared at her. “It’s the other way round, isn’t it? And anyway, that policy’s been revoked.”

  “Oh, I’m so pleased for those sea queens. You couldn’t move for queer seamen in the New York of my day. Yes, I’m aware of how that sounds. Anyhoo, there was more action on the Staten Island Ferry than at The Saint on a Saturday night,” Deirdre said.

  Tony and John Smith stared at her blankly.

  She sighed. “Staten Island was where the Navy base was. The Saint was the New York gay club of the time.” She rolled her eyes. “See what I have to work with,” she muttered to nobody in particular. “Anyway, let’s get back to why we’re here. Spill the beans, Smith. Spit out his name.”

  “Ron Somers,” John Smith said quickly, half under his breath.

  The name sounded familiar. Tony remembered Frankie’s girlfriend Rose speaking about him. “Was he the officer that was harassing Frankie?” Tony asked.

  “Yeah, he had it in for White. She was a royal pain in the backside; I’ll give you that. But he went too far. He made her life hell. It isn’t hard to make a prisoner’s life hell, if you want to.”

  “How?” Tony asked.

  “They’re criminals, so no one’s going to take an inmate’s word over an officer’s. He got on her case night and day. He was a piece of work. Most of the other officers were intimidated by him. He liked me for some reason. That made me more scared of him. I didn’t want him turning on me.”

  “So what did he do to Frankie? Did he kill her?”

  Smith took a long suck of breath in. “He pushed White around all the time. Called her names. That wasn’t unusual; half the women in there were dykes, like Deirdre said. Obviously, you lesbians are a bad lot. Prison’s full of your kind.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Tony said crossly. “Yes, there are a lot of lesbians in prison. That’s because lesbians are criminalized. You’re more likely to be sent down if you’re a lesbian. And you’re more likely to commit a crime if you’re having a hard time.”

  “Oh, don’t give me no hard luck stories. Prison’s full of the dregs of society—lesbians, colored people—and you’ve all got hard luck stories.”

  “We don’t use that term anymore. It’s considered racist. I’m not happy about you coming into my home spouting your homophobia, but no way will I tolerate racism.” Tony folded her arms. What was Deirdre thinking of? Bringing this guy into her house.

  “Why don’t you just stick to the story, John?” Deirdre laid a hand on John’s arm. “Spare us your opinions.”

  “But I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought colored was the polite word.”

  “Not anymore, mate. We say black now. And there are loads of black people in prison for the same reason there are lots of lesbians there, because the criminal justice system is stacked against us.”

  Smith’s eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to say something. Deirdre’s grip tightened on his arm. “Anyway, whatever White had done it didn’t justify how he treated her. She beat up two blokes in a bar fight, by the way. Broke one guy’s nose. Smashed a bottle over the other one’s head.”

  Tony opened her mouth to protest.

  “She admitted it,” Smith said quickly. “It still didn’t justify how he treated her. He called her all kinds of ugly names for dyke.”

  Tony wasn’t enamored of Smith using the word “dyke” so casually, but she forced herself to keep quiet. She wanted to hear what had happened to Frankie.

  “He stood at the shower door, staring at her body. That freaked her out. Women officers were supposed to be in the shower block, but that never stopped him. And he roughed her up. Nothing too serious but enough to intimidate her. He took against her. I think it was because she wouldn’t be cowed. She had too much spunk. That was her problem.”

  “So did he beat her up? Is that how she died?”

  “Yes and no. He got another prisoner to beat her up, well, to start a fight with her. White was a scrapper. She could hold her own, so the other prisoner must have had to jump her. She wasn’t big, you know, White, but she was like one of those little dogs. They don’t quit. No one would have started a fight with White unless there was something in it for them, because White would have got her own back. The other inmates left her alone, so this fight was unusual. I was on duty that day, so was Ron. She’d been hit a lot around the face and head. I wanted to send her to the hospital block, but Ron wouldn’t have it. He sent the other prisoner there and insisted White was faking it. I tried to persuade him different, but he wouldn’t listen, and I didn’t stand against him.” Smith glanced at Tony guiltily. “She was in a single cell. We put her in there to lie down. We locked her in for her own safety. My shift was about to end. I checked her before I went home, and she spoke to me. She was coherent; she hadn’t been sick. I had no reason to worry. Ron said he would look in on her through the night. I believed him.”

  Smith went quiet. He looked down and shifted from one foot to the other.

  “So he let her die. Is that what you’re saying?” Tony asked.

  Smith looked up. “’Fraid it’s worse than that. Ron Somers beat her up again. That same night. He knocked her out and left her on the floor of her cell.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He confessed it. He boasted about it in fact, round my house, two weeks after her death.”


  “What a shame you’re dead. I can’t go to the police with hearsay from a dead prison guard.” Tony was frustrated. She needed evidence if she wanted to get justice for Frankie.

  “Ah, but there’s more,” Deirdre said mysteriously.

  Smith sidled up to her. “You’re sure he can’t do nothing to me?”

  “I’m sure,” Deirdre said.

  “Okay then, I’ve got the confession on tape. And it’s still in my old attic. My nephew’s a lazy bugger. He’s never cleared nothing out. I’ve been dead nearly forty years.”

  “How did you tape it?” Tony was intrigued.

  “Something didn’t add up. When Frankie White was found dead, at first I felt really guilty, like it was my fault. But Ron Somers was too cock of the hoop for my liking.”

  “Cock of the whoisitnow?” Deirdre spluttered.

  “Full of himself,” Tony explained.

  “I got Ron round my house, got him drunk, and he spilled the beans. He thought I would approve. I pretended to. I taped the whole conversation. I was going to go to the governor.”

  “Did you?”

  Smith shook his head. “I wasn’t brave enough. I kept the tape as insurance.” Smith glanced over at Tony. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know Ron Somers. You don’t know what it’s like to rat out a fellow officer. My life would have been hell. I would have been finished. And for what? White was dead, and she was a criminal, and no one cared.”

  “Someone did care.” Tony stood up straight. “Someone loved her and cared about her very much. Her name is Rose.”

  John Smith met her eyes. “Well, you can do something about it now, can’t you.”

  *

  Maya had tossed and turned thinking about what Tony had been going through. At least she’d been able to talk about it. Tony had slept like an angel beside her.

  As she’d tried to sleep, Maya’s thoughts had turned to Jade’s voice on the intercom. And the other voice, supposedly Suni. Maya had only talked to Suni a handful of times, but there was something odd about the cold voice she’d heard the day before.

  She’d fallen asleep in the end, but woke at the crack of dawn and decided to go to the clinic early. She intended to get through the batch of postal prescriptions before her first client arrived.

  In her practice room, Maya stood with a bunch of prescriptions in her hand. She couldn’t get Jade off her mind. Tony had had a breakthrough, thank God, but there was definitely something wrong with Jade. She had said herself that she didn’t have family in the country. Jade had other friends. But when Maya thought about it, apart from work, Jade spent most of her time hanging out with Tony. Tony had said that Jade went off the radar when she got with a new woman. Maybe that was all it was.

  But Maya kept coming back to Suni. Maya hadn’t liked her on first meeting. When Jade had started dating her, Maya had hoped to get to know her better. Sometimes people grew on you. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the chance.

  Maya thought that was a bit odd. Why wouldn’t Jade want her best friend to meet her new lover? Suni worked different days from Maya, so Maya never saw her at the clinic. Suni had just turned up. None of them had any connections to her.

  Oh God. Was Maya doing exactly what Tony accused her of? Was Maya paranoid about everyone and seeing danger everywhere?

  Maya hadn’t seen how disturbed her own uncle was. He had spent months plotting to kill her. Maya was consumed with anguish as she remembered. It was a pain she had pushed down. There was a chance it was surfacing in her fears about Jade.

  Maya didn’t know what to think. She was second and triple guessing herself. She was also analyzing herself, something that was notoriously hard to do.

  Okay. Maya was not going to leave the situation alone. She was too anxious about Jade. She would never forgive herself if Jade was getting ill and needed help. Or if there was something sinister about Suni.

  She had a couple of choices. One was to go and see Jade again. Maya didn’t relish the thought of that, especially as it had only been the day before that Jade had pretty much told her to go away. The other thing she could do was to dig into Suni’s past. It was a shame Maya didn’t have any links to the ghost of Suni’s ex. Maya caught herself for a moment. She couldn’t believe she was thinking like that. This is what happens when you hang around with ghost whispering detectives. Well, Maya couldn’t talk to ghosts, but she could do detective work. Unless Suni was using a false identity, there must be something she could find out about her.

  Maya went to the practice kitchen and boiled the kettle. Squeezing lemon juice into a mug, she stared out the window, turning everything she knew about Suni over in her mind.

  Maya fired up the computer and brought up a page of multiple search engines. She typed Sunita Ghosh into the search box and pressed Enter.

  Maya read through entries about Suni as an alternative health practitioner. She clicked on the links and read each website carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary. She was hoping to find a malpractice claim. Perhaps a complaint from a former client, or a report that she had been fired from a clinic for having inappropriate liaisons on the premises. Maya was still fixated on Suni having sex during a healing session. She Googled all the health centers that Suni had worked at. There were several across the States. Unfortunately for Maya, none of the health centers had any dirt on Suni.

  She hit all the links, weeding out other Sunita Ghoshes, and broadened the search to include all of Suni’s previous workplaces. It took most of her free time to get through all the pages.

  Feeling disappointed, Maya scanned down the last page.

  An entry near the bottom caught her eye. It was about a poetry competition in Iowa. The winning poet had dated a Sunita Ghosh. Hopeful that there weren’t that many lesbian Suni Ghoshes in the US, Maya clicked on the link.

  Under the heading Iowa Literature Prize Awards Ceremony, local poet wins poetry prize, there was a photo of a tall African-American woman holding a trophy. Standing next to her in a tuxedo was Suni. In the article, the poet, Telitha Franklin, assigned the inspiration for her poem “SHE Steals the Pain from Me” to her partner Sunita Ghosh.

  Maya was starting to see a pattern, at least in Suni’s dating habits. Jade, Felicia, and Telitha were all black women. Two were poets, Jade was an actor, so all three were artists.

  Maya started a new search: Telitha Franklin, poet.

  She quickly pulled up a Facebook profile. The profile picture confirmed the page belonged to the poet that Maya wanted to make contact with.

  Maya signed into Facebook and sent a message saying that she wanted to talk to Telitha about her ex.

  As the message disappeared into the ether, Maya wondered if she was being paranoid after all.

  She might end up having some explaining to do to Jade.

  *

  Late afternoon, Maya checked her Facebook messages. She knew it was a long shot that Telitha would have replied. Iowa hadn’t been awake long. Maya, however, had been awake for eight hours, had seen three clients, and had checked in with Tony.

  Tony was off on a mission. She had been vague about where and why, but Maya hadn’t minded. She had sounded so good, so full of life. It had warmed Maya’s heart.

  Maya hadn’t mentioned that she was checking up on Suni. She didn’t want to say anything unless she had to. The comment about being paranoid had hit home. Maya wasn’t about to give Tony a reason to worry about her.

  On her Facebook page, Maya had a little red message notification. Telitha had responded.

  Hey, Maya, not sure what I can tell you about Suni. We didn’t date long. She moved on after we split up. I think she went South. Or maybe it was to the UK, if that’s where you say she is now. Things didn’t end well, so if you’re hoping for good things, I don’t know what to say to you. Are you dating her? That’s usually why people ask. If you are, there’s some things you should know. Send me a Skype, Tango, or Facetime number. Let’s talk.

  Maya couldn’t type her num
bers fast enough. Bad things about Suni were exactly what she wanted to hear. She felt a bit ashamed of herself. Was she just a terrible prude who thought Suni should keep a respectful, professional distance from clients at work, even if she was dating them? Maya reflected that it wasn’t just Suni having sex at work that had unsettled her. Maya hadn’t taken to her when they’d first met. The only prior connection to Suni that Jade had was a ghost who was tormenting her. And Jade appeared to be becoming increasingly isolated.

  The Skype notification flashed up on Maya’s laptop.

  “Hi, I’m Telitha.” A self-assured black woman smiled up at Maya from the monitor. She looked about thirty-five, curvy with broad shoulders, and strong features. “So are you dating Suni Ghosh?”

  “I’m not. My best friend is.” Jade wasn’t strictly Maya’s best friend, but she had decided her cover story needed to explain why she was digging into Suni’s past relationships.

  “I see. Are we talking about the same woman?”

  “It is the same Suni. She’s the woman standing next to you when you won that poetry prize.”

  “Ah. Is that how you found me?”

  “Sure is. It’s great that you agreed to talk to me.”

  Telitha grinned wryly. “Hmm. Maya, I don’t know if you’re going to like what you hear.”

  “Anything you can tell me would be fine.”

  Telitha looked away for a moment. “Why did you start looking for people that knew Suni?”

  Maya decided honesty was the best policy. Leaving aside mention of ghosts and her intuition. “Suni turned up here three months ago. She started working at the same health clinic that I work at. I don’t know anybody in England that knows her. My friend and her got together, and now my friend has disappeared off the radar. She’s probably all right, but I’m suspicious by nature.”

  “I get it. Okay, well, I’ll tell you my experience of Suni, and you can do what you want with it. I met her in a bar. I was reading from my new poetry collection. Suni raved about my work. You could tell me I’m beautiful, you can tell me I’m sexy, and that won’t do it for me. Tell me my words rock your world and you’ve got my attention. Suni was charming. Something about her drew me in. We started to hook up. We slept together pretty soon and, I don’t mind telling you, I was into her. She was all I could think about. It was intense. It was all good for about a month. Then I wanted her to meet some friends of mine. She flat refused. I don’t mean she politely made excuses. She said she was interested in me, not in my friends, not in my family, not in my work colleagues. That made me pull back. I think she sensed it because she was suddenly busy for a good six, seven days. She didn’t call, didn’t text, nothing. When she turned up at my apartment, I was so damn pleased to see her I forgot all about my misgivings. But that was the night we split up.