by Lotta Smith
“Why not?” Rowling shrugged. “Considering living humans lie all the time, I can’t find plausible reasons for dead people to always tell truth.”
“I see. You have a point.” I tilted my head to the side, thinking about Jackie. Not that she had been lying really, but she did tend to misdirect our conversation every time I asked her for tips on skiing. I decided to prepare for the snowy slope since I had agreed to go on the trip with my boss, but she cleverly dodged my questions. I was beginning to think Jackie wanted to go on the trip just for the sake of leaving town for the scheduled dates. I used to believe ghosts had more freedom with migration, since they don’t need to pay for transportation or admission fees to museums/sports events/amusement parks, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Some ghosts were bound to the site of their death. Those like Jackie, the ones tagging along with living humans, could travel when their companion humans did. Maybe the scheduled travel dates were something significant to her. I made a mental note to ask her questions from that angle. “Humans lie, living or dead.”
“I’m always honest!” The ghost of a drag queen popped out of nowhere.
“Yow!” I gasped.
“What?” Rowling raised an eyebrow.
“It’s Jackie,” I explained. To Jackie, I said, “You scared me.” I was working out a question for her, but I wasn’t expecting her to pop out so suddenly.
“Hello? Will you stop talking about me like I’m some kind of a monster?” She made tsk-tsk sounds.
“Um… sorry. By the way, did you see the ghost of Ellie Hochman?” I asked.
“That pale girl? Yes, I saw her, though she didn’t seem to notice me.” Jackie nodded, bouncing in the backseat. “She seemed so calm considering it’s been just days since she was killed. Perhaps she was depressed, you know. Poor thing. Getting murdered is totally traumatizing. When I was killed, I couldn’t stop screaming for a month. What a shame no one could hear me.”
“Hey, Jackie, did you think she was lying about her killer?” Rowling interjected, while I made some sympathetic noise.
“Hmm… she didn’t seem to be trying to con Mandy,” Jackie replied, knitting her eyebrows.
As I conveyed Jackie’s words to Rowling, he tapped on the steering wheel as if he were thinking. “Then maybe accusing Micelli was her way of paying him back for stalking her,” he mumbled almost to himself.
“Ow, stalkers suck!” Jackie made a face. “Those creeps should get lives. Take yoga lessons, travel, learn to cook something yummy. There are so many wonderful things in life, but noooo. The bunch of losers.”
“You sound like you’ve been stalked, Jackie,” I commented.
“Oh yes. I was stalked by some loser in the past. But, well, that’s in the past.”
“When?” Rowling asked, following my interpretation.
“About a year before I was stabbed, I guess. I was getting a ton of junk e-mails, but they weren’t about low-interest loans, online sex, or Viagra. Suppose I changed my hairstyle, this creep would go on and on about it. I snapped and got back to him, threatening him that I knew who he was and was gonna report him to the police.”
After I relayed Jackie’s words to Rowling, he asked, “What did you do about him?”
“Nothing. I didn’t even know who he was. I was just bluffing that I knew him.” Jackie shrugged. “Still, the creepy e-mails stopped coming.”
“What? Why didn’t you track him down and kick him really hard in the nuts? That would have taught him a lesson.” Rowling frowned.
“You know, Jackie, it sounds like this guy could have something to do with your murder. Don’t you think so?” I asked. It had been three years, but her killer still hadn’t been caught.
“I don’t think so. I told you I was killed by some random creep.” She shook her head, as if to throw off a bad memory. “Come on, Mandy. Let’s ditch such a depressing topic. Why don’t we talk about something fun, like the upcoming trip to Switzerland? I’ve never stepped foot in the European glaciers, and I’m totally looking forward to going!”
Conveying the ghost’s words to Rowling, we discussed if I should purchase ski gear—he said no, that all I would need was myself and some clothes—but I couldn’t help wondering about Jackie’s reluctance to talk about her murder.
* * *
The next morning, Agent Woo called us at the office, asking me to interview Ellie Hochman again. After parting from us, he reviewed Adrian Micelli’s story over and over, only to solidify the alleged killer’s alibi. The agent admitted to feeling “a little uncertain” about my words. Still, he decided to give it a shot by collaborating with us. Perhaps he had no other course of action.
We were revisiting her apartment, only this time my task was to interrogate the ghost.
Just like the day before, I went into her bedroom while Agent Woo and Rowling observed in the doorway. I looked around the bedroom. There was a drawing desk across from her bed. Unlike my desk, a red desktop computer and a black tablet were the only items on it. Next to the desk stood a tall bookcase with glass doors, storing books and CDs. Every item was neatly lined up and organized in alphabetical order, as if one of the bookcases from a library or bookstore had wandered into Ellie’s bedroom.
“Hello, Ms. Hochman,” I greeted the ghost, who was sitting on the edge of her bed in the same manner she had on the previous day.
“Oh, hi,” Ellie whispered, looking up to face me. “Did you arrest Adrian?” She seemed to have lost strength since the previous day and appeared to be thinning out. She looked almost transparent, like she was about to disappear. Still, her dark, hollow eyes glinted as she asked the question.
“Um… actually, he has an alibi. He was in Maui during the past few weeks, and—”
“Excuse me?” she snapped. “How could he afford a trip to Maui when he’s practically unemployed? Don’t tell me he finally got a good job after splitting from me!” As she became angry, her form grew thicker. Perhaps her extreme emotions made her appear stronger.
“No, he didn’t get a high-paying job. He won a trip by entering a sweepstakes hosted by a detergent company.”
“What?” Ellie was now hyperventilating. “But he was stalking me, harassing me! He couldn’t have moved on… could he?” The latter part of her words sounded more like a demand than a question. Considering that she had been accusing her ex-boyfriend like a total nuisance, she was acting as if she was the one obsessed with her former relationship, not Micelli.
Without answering her, I suggested, “Perhaps you’re somewhat confused about the killer?” Assuming from the way she was acting, the odds of her blaming her ex-boyfriend out of spite were high. Still, I couldn’t go and tell her, “Fess up, idiot! Don’t even imagine you can make me believe your false accusation!” mostly because I wasn’t Rick Rowling. So, displaying a neutral smile, I said, “You know, Ms. Hochman, it would be very helpful if you could recall what happened on the night of your death.”
“I was here… in my unflattering garments,” she mumbled, closing her eyes and holding her chest with both hands.
“Okay. And what happened next?”
“Something… something happened.” She moved her hands upward toward her neck. “But I can’t recall.”
“Can you remember how you felt about it?” I asked encouragingly.
“I felt… I… I felt choked.” She gasped, clawing at her throat. As her hands moved upward, the vein in her neck visibly pulsated.
“Who choked you?” I pressed on. She was having a flashback, and I hoped she could recall who the real killer was.
Wrinkling her brow, she gasped over and over. “My killer should be Adrian. He has to be the killer… But no! It’s not Adrian… Why? Why…? I loved him. No, I still love him, and he said he loved me, too. But why? Why? Why? Aaaargh!” Holding her throat and shutting her eyes, she screamed.
“Ms. Hochman? Are you all right? Ms. Hochman?” I called her name, almost yelling. I heard the entrance door to the apartment unit open and shut. When I
looked at the doorway to the bedroom, Rowling was still there, but Agent Woo wasn’t.
“How’s the interview?” Rowling asked me.
“She’s upset,” I whispered. “She’s talking about a man she loved, and she’s acting rather erratic.”
When Ellie reopened her eyes, she glared at me, eyes filled with loathing. “I was happy to believe Adrian was my killer, but now you have ruined everything, and I mean everything! How could you do that to me?”
“Well… because making a false accusation isn’t good?” As I said that, I had to wonder if answering her question like that was a smart move. The ghost’s eyes were bulging and her hair started to grow superfast—like a vicious, possessed, dark-haired version of Rapunzel was starring in a scary movie.
When she spat, “I hate you! She was right! You’re an evil witch!” I felt like retorting, “I’m not a huge fan of you, either! By the way, I’m not a witch! And who’s she?” But at that time, even I knew talking back to the angry dead woman wasn’t a good idea, mostly because the floors and furniture were shaking as if the area were hit by a major earthquake.
“Mandy, the interview’s over. We have to get out of here!” Rowling barked, and I had never been so glad to have him telling me what to do.
“I’m coming!” I responded with the enthusiasm of Garfield jumping for lasagna, but when I attempted to back away from the ghost, I realized I was in trouble. Ellie Hochman’s hair had grown all over the place, and it captured my lower body like a monster boa constrictor! “Eeeeeeek! Stop it!” I shrieked, or at least I tried to. I wasn’t sure if my voice was audible. Soon, the monster hair covered my upper body, choking me.
Trying to breathe and possibly get away from the menacing ghost, I wondered why she was able to touch me, even going as far as restraining me. I’d had more encounters with dead people than I cared to. Sometimes, dead people were capable of throwing furniture while having a temper tantrum, but no one was able to touch me.
“Come on, Mandy, move!” Rowling darted across the bedroom, trying to pull me, but I couldn’t move even an inch.
“Rick!” I gasped. The ghost’s hair that had been constricting my torso expanded to strangle my neck. I felt lightheaded and weak. “Perhaps… you should… leave… me.”
“Shut up. Don’t forget that I’m the one who gets to tell you what to do, not the other way around. Now, upsy-daisy.” He hurried to my side, tried to lift me up, but my body wouldn’t budge. “Mandy, you’d want to seriously consider shedding off a few extra pounds.” He cracked a joke, taking a full advantage of my temporary muteness.
Meanwhile, the place was shaking as if a giant bulldozer were attempting to pull the whole building down.
A flicker of a moment before I passed out, Jackie, my self-appointed guardian angel, appeared. Shouting, “Stop it, you nasty head case of a bitch!” she bitch-slapped the ghost of Ellie Hochman five times.
“How dare you call me a bitch!” Ellie shot back. “You’re not even a woman!” Trying to avoid Jackie’s attack, she shook her head, suffocating me even tighter.
I felt my eyeballs roll back in my head.
“So what? I’m not a woman, but at least I don’t take it out on a total stranger who’s trying to help me. Why? Because I’m better than that!” Jackie declared, head-butting Ellie’s face.
“Ow!” Ellie let out a cry, and then she started sobbing. The haunted Rapunzel hair disappeared like smoke, and the building stopped rattling.
Then the ghost of Ellie Hochman disappeared altogether.
Finally able to breathe, I inhaled until I felt numb.
“Are you all right?” Rowling looked into my eyes.
“I think so…. You know, I was restrained with the monster hair, and that’s why I was heavier than my actual weight.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s get out of here.” Rowling pulled my arm, but I was busy waving at Jackie.
“Thank you, girlfriend! You saved my life!”
“No problem!” Jackie waved back, smiling. Suddenly, she gasped. “Mandy, run!”
Puzzled, I looked behind me. Perhaps it was backlash, but the tall bookcase containing books and CDs was wobbling, threatening to fall… toward me.
Normally I would be able to run like hell, but at that time, my lungs and legs hadn’t recovered from the previous oxygen deprivation. As if the panic I should have felt earlier was on a delayed reaction, my brain and peripheral nervous system stopped working altogether. I knew I had to move, but when I tried to run, my legs failed and I stumbled.
“Come on! Quick!” Catching me before I hit the floor, Rowling tried to drag me out of the place, but it was too late.
The bookcase was buckling toward us. I prepared myself to be crushed like a rotten grapefruit. Then again, considering the shelf was spewing its content out of its now-open glass doors, the damage might not be so bad. Sometimes, not being skinny helps, like the time I was squashed by elevator doors—at that time, except for my scratched pride, I was completely unscathed.
Before I finished assessing the potential damage, I was flying. Technically, I wasn’t the one who did the required moves to fly, like kicking the floor and jumping, but as I was clutched by Rick like an oversized teddy bear, I was flying with him.
The moment I felt gravity kicking in and the impact of hitting the floor with my full weight, I heard the menacing noise of the bookcase banging onto the floor. I stopped breathing for three seconds; then I took a deep breath. Not feeling any pain anywhere in my body, I assumed I wasn’t hurt. Lucky me. I smiled as I realized this wasn’t the first time Rick Rowling had covered my back. He’d definitely make a sarcastic remark or two about my weight or the extra fat cells in my body, but it was better than being squashed.
“Hey, Rick, thanks for helping me again.” Still slumped over the hardwood, I tried to calm my racing heart.
“No problem,” he said, and it was all he said. He sounded odd, like he was biting his lip. Under normal circumstances, he should’ve been cracking a joke or two, but he was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Are you okay?” I asked, still compressed under his body.
“I hope so,” he growled.
“What’s wrong? Can you stand up?”
“I’m afraid not.”
At that point, I had a hunch that something went awry. “Let me see.” As I attempted to squeeze out, he grabbed my arm.
“Mandy, please… don’t move,” he said through gritted teeth. “The problem is the bookcase is on me, pinning me to the floor right now. And a change in equilibrium might break my leg.”
CHAPTER 6
An hour later, I was at Mount Sinai Hospital. Sitting on the bench chair outside the radiation department, I fretted, sighed, and occasionally wept. Unlike emergency rooms at tawdry community hospitals, the waiting room at this hospital was quiet for hospital standards. No one was swearing or arguing, and several people in the waiting area sat quietly, reading a magazine, swiping their phones, or doing nothing. The place even had décor—colorful abstract paintings on the walls, and the futuristic-designed chairs came in calming earth-toned colors. Still, the place smelled just like any other hospital I used to rotate at as a student—disinfectant, frustration, and fear.
Checking the time over and over, I sighed. In front of me was an automatic metal door, behind which Rick was undergoing an X-ray and MRI to see the extent of his leg injury. I wished for his injury to be nothing major, but at the same time, I knew it had to be serious. Self-help books insist that being an optimist is the key to happiness, but….
When the bookcase in Ellie’s bedroom crashed, Agent Woo, still on the phone, came back inside to see what happened, but at that point, the damage was already done. The rack made of heavy wood had hit Rick’s leg at the ankle, pinning him to the hardwood floor. Agent Woo was able to rescue both of us by removing the offending object, but at that point, Rick’s right ankle was swollen, with a bump the size of an orange. He blanched yet tried to shrug it off, muttering, “Shit, it looks lik
e I’m getting a monster bruise. Still, this shouldn’t be as bad as it looks,” but he couldn’t even stand.
Slightly hyperventilating, I wondered why I could talk to dead people but couldn’t rewind time or reverse gravity. If I was able to go to the past or cancel gravity, I would definitely do something, anything to keep Rick from getting hurt.
Having felt someone sitting by my side, I looked up. “Jackie…,” I muttered as fat tears trickled down my cheeks.
“It’s okay, Mandy. Everything’s going to be fine.” Clad in her regular getup of revealing clothes in neon colors, she moved her hands as if patting my head. “I caught the doctors chattering. He doesn’t need surgery, and his injury is highly unlikely to leave permanent damage.”
“Are you sure?” My voice quivered. I was worried sick about the prognosis of Rick’s injury. “Oh good, I was fearing for the worst—nerve damage, paralysis, and amputation.” Good thing I was at the hospital, one of the few places where you could talk to yourself and cry and people didn’t label you as crazy.
“Hello, Mandy? Did you really go to medical school? Your concerns sound totally over the top to me. You’re a little quack, aren’t you?” Jackie teased me.
“I went to med school to master the art of being a pessimist. I aced it, but I was never good at making a correct diagnosis.” I chuckled a little, but soon furrowed my brow. “Look, Jackie, about the ski trip you were so looking forward to….”
“We’re not likely to make it to the trip, I know.” Jackie shrugged. “Still, Mandy, don’t feel bad. It’s not like I was desperate to ski. To tell the truth, I never liked skiing.”
“What?”
“The reason I urged you to tag along with Rick on the trip was because I wanted to be anywhere but this town on July 18th. That happens to be my birthday,” Jackie said nonchalantly.
“Ooh, your birthday plan is ruined. I’m so sorry,” I apologized, and I meant it.
“Don’t be sorry.” Jackie shook her head. “I urged you to accept Rick’s invitation because I want you to be happy. Obviously, you have feelings toward him.”
