by E. C. Bell
He looked scared and tried to break free, but the strings didn’t snap away from him the way they had from Rosalie. They just clung, tighter and tighter. Everywhere. Until he looked more like a mummy than a man.
“Let me go!” he cried. “You’re hurting me!”
“Tough shit,” I said. “I tried to do this the nice way, and you wouldn’t go along.” I tugged on the strings, and he lurched a few steps. I tugged again, and he lurched forward, taking me with him.
Holy crap, this was going to work.
“You are going to walk me to the trailer,” I said, giving the light strings another tug, “and then you’re going to leave. If you don’t, I’m going to hurt your wife. Understand?”
Now, I didn’t know if I actually could hurt his wife or not, but the threat seemed to work. He was sobbing uncontrollably by the time we got to the river, so I wrapped his head with even more light strings, so I didn’t have to listen to him.
As I felt the water close over my head, I felt like maybe things were starting to swing my way.
Once I saw Marie, I’d be able to explain everything to her. And she’d take me back. Or I’d make her take me back.
One way or the other, this was going to work out.
Marie:
I so Need a Shower
I DROPPED ROSALIE off at her apartment and headed home. She tried to talk me into staying with her, just for a bit, to see what was in the boxes, but I said no. I had to find out if Officer Tyler had released James yet, and go pick him up. Plus I had to get over to the Blue Ox Inn to talk to the bartender about Arnie’s last night on earth.
Busy, busy, busy.
But first I needed that shower. I wasn’t kidding. I felt like I was covered in a coat of dirty slime that open windows and fresh air would never eliminate.
I walked into the silent trailer and nearly crapped when I saw Arnie sitting on the couch like he owned the place.
“How the hell did you get here?” I gasped.
Arnie stared at the black eye of the unpowered television and didn’t answer.
“Where’s my mom?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he mumbled. “The place was empty when I got here. Except for the old ghost. She’s hiding in the bedroom.” He smiled, coldly. “I think I scare her as much as I scared her husband.”
Delightful. We were alone. I started my “wings of steel” mantra and decided to turn this into one of those teachable moments my mother always talked about. Even though I did not want to deal with him any more than I had to, I felt much more confident about being able to make him keep a psychic distance from me. It was time for me to find out what was holding Arnie to this realm, so he could finally move on.
Please don’t let it be me.
“Meeting your mother was—interesting,” I said. Arnie shrugged, but didn’t answer. “And your dad—”
“I don’t want to talk about them,” Arnie said.
“And Rosalie—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Not her either! I just want to talk about you and me. Why can’t you figure that out?”
Wings of steel, wings of steel, wings of steel.
“Doesn’t matter what you want,” I said, curtly. “You gotta talk about this stuff. Especially if it upsets you. Sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry,” he said.
“I’m not, actually. But you do have to talk about your parents. And Rosalie. Just to make sure they aren’t the reason you’re stuck in this realm.”
He sat silent for a moment longer, and I was beginning to think that the whole session was going to be a bust, when he finally spoke.
“Look,” he said. “About Rosalie—”
“What about her?”
“She meant nothing to me. I was just having a few laughs with her. You understand that, don’t you?”
I smiled, breezily, I hoped. “I don’t care about Rosalie.”
Arnie looked seriously shocked.
“But—but you have to care,” he said. “She wasn’t lying, you know. Even though she meant nothing, technically, I was cheating on you.”
“What you did with Rosalie doesn’t matter to me, Arnie. Not at all.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then smiled and shook his head and laughed. He sounded relieved. “You’re being really great about all this. Really. I’ll make sure to make it up to you. Soon.”
Good grief.
He put his hand out to me, as though he was going to try to touch me. Thinking my mantra for all I was worth, I glared at him until he finally dropped his hand into his lap.
“Arnie,” I said, “You have to understand this, right now. You’re dead. You’re not making anything up to anybody, including me. You’re going to move on to the next plane of existence, soon, and if you need it, I’ll help you. That’s all we’re going to do together. You get that, don’t you?”
“I don’t care about any of that,” he said. “Moving on, or whatever. Not if I can’t be with you.”
“That’s not the way it works, Arnie.”
“What about Roy and Laurel?”
Dammit.
“Laurel ran away from Roy,” I said. “She doesn’t want to be with him, anymore.”
“No,” Arnie said. “He wants her with him. And she’ll go. She will.”
“Arnie, she’d rather sit in this dump and watch old movies,” I said. “She’s not going with him. Just like I’m not going with you.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. I guess Arnie was having as much trouble thinking of something to say as I was.
“Why do you think she wanted to go there?” he finally asked.
“Who?”
“Rosalie.” He snorted laughter. “Sure as shit wasn’t you who wanted to meet my parents, now was it?”
“Nope,” I said. “It sure wasn’t.”
“So, why do you think she wanted to?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she figures this a way to—I don’t know—stay close to you. Through your parents.”
“She’s stupider than I thought,” he muttered. I noticed he looked fuzzy. When I’d walked in, he’d looked sharp, in focus. But now he looked, well, fuzzy.
I suspected he was losing his grip on the place and decided to push just a bit more, to see what happened.
“Why?” I asked. “Is she stupid because she loved you? Or because she wants to hang around with your parents?”
“Both,” he said, his voice sounding muffled. “Neither. I don’t know.”
“Well, think about it,” I said. “Think hard.”
“I don’t want to,” he mumbled. He groped with his hands, as though trying to hang on to something—the air maybe—and I knew he could feel himself slipping. So I pushed a little harder.
“You have to,” I said. “Because you have to move on. You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” That oh-so-familiar whine, when Arnie wasn’t going to get what he wanted.
“Because nobody wants you here,” I said.
“Not even you?”
“Especially not me.”
He looked at me, and I was surprised to see sadness in his luminescent eyes. “I can’t believe that,” he whispered. And then, he was gone.
He’d more than likely gone to Rosalie’s place, but I suspected he would make his way back to the trailer, probably double-quick.
It wasn’t his parents or Rosalie holding him here. I didn’t even think he was hanging around to find out who really killed him. Mostly, it looked like it was me holding him to this spot.
Darn it anyhow. I was holding Arnie here. Me.
LAUREL WANDERED OUT of Mom’s bedroom and dropped down on the couch.
“Thank goodness he’s gone,” she said. “Now I can watch television in peace.” She glanced at me. “If you turn it on.”
I clicked the TV on for her. The screen flickered and settled on another black and white movie. I didn’t recognize it. “Good enough?”
“Looks just fine,” she said.
“Wher
e’s Mom?”
“What?” Laurel glared at me. “I’m trying to watch—”
“I don’t care!” I snapped. “Tell me where Mom is. Right now!”
“She went out with the other one,” Laurel said. “You know. The snippy one.”
“Rhonda?”
“That’s her,” Laurel said. “She doesn’t like us much, does she?”
“Not much,” I said. “Do you know where they went?”
“They were going to check on the good-looking lad. The one who spends most of his time there.” She pointed at the door to my bedroom. “They didn’t say when they’d return.” She sniffed in disdain. “As if I don’t count.”
Wishing with all my heart that Mom had figured out a way to move this aggravating ghost anywhere but here, I shrugged.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said.
“Hard not to,” she said.
“Your show’s on.”
That stopped the conversation, dead in its tracks. Thank goodness.
I went into Mom’s room and called her cell phone. I closed the door so Laurel wouldn’t listen to my conversation with my mother, but I also did it so she wouldn’t yell at me for interrupting her show.
Looked like I could be trained, too.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, when she finally answered. “You spring James?”
“No,” Mom said. She sounded exhausted. “But I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In the driveway.”
I leapt out of her bedroom and to the front door, ignoring Laurel’s snarling, and watched as Rhonda parked her big gas guzzler beside James’s car.
“I guess I can hang up,” I said, and waved.
“Seems so,” Mom called, through the open passenger window. “Now help me into the house, that’s a good girl.”
MOM LEANED ON me, hard, as I helped her up into the trailer. She dropped to her chair at the kitchen table. Rhonda brought up the rear, fighting with Mom’s little dog. She dragged her inside, slammed the door shut, and dropped the leash. Millie rushed to Mom and jumped into her lap as though she hadn’t seen her for hours.
“Now now, girl,” Mom said, patting the little dog to quiet. “Everything’s fine.”
“You took the dog?” I asked Rhonda.
“The stupid thing kicked up such a stink, I had to bring her,” Rhonda replied. “But I swear, I find any doggie deposits in my SUV, someone’s going to pay for the cleaning. Really.”
“Maybe Dad’ll help you out,” I said. “Sounds like you two are pretty tight.” Then I glared. “Why did you talk to him about me?”
“Because he asked,” Rhonda said. “Lighten up, Marie. Not everything is a conspiracy against you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but kept my mouth shut anyhow. I didn’t need to wind her up. I needed to know what had happened with James. I turned to Mom.
“They didn’t let James out?”
“No.”
“Damn that Tyler!” I spat. “He drives me crazy.”
“Me too,” Mom said.
“He picked Dad up and talked to him, too, you know,” Rhonda said. “Didn’t keep him long, but . . .”
“Oh good grief,” I cried. “When did that happen?”
“Earlier today,” Rhonda said. “Looks like they’re going to ‘interview’ everybody associated with you.” She smiled, but it looked nasty on her angry face.
“Glad you’re back in town,” she said. “Things were a little too quiet around here without you, weren’t they, Mom?”
“That’s enough,” Mom said.
“But—” Rhonda started. Mom shook her head imperiously.
“That’s enough,” she said. “You make us some tea, and we’ll have a discussion about this situation like grown adults. Think we can all handle that?”
“I suppose,” Rhonda said.
“I’ll try if she does,” I said.
“Good,” Mom said. “Now, tea for everyone. Rhonda?”
Rhonda sniffed once, to show her displeasure, but set to making the tea. I sat opposite Mom and quizzed her about James.
“Any idea at all when they’re going to let him go?”
“No,” Mom said. She shook her head. “I’m beginning to wonder if they think they actually have something on him.”
“No!” I said, much too forcefully.
“He wouldn’t do anything like that,” Rhonda said, from over by the stove. “Would he?”
“No,” I said. “He wouldn’t.”
“But Arnie believes he did,” Mom said.
“Who?” Rhonda whirled around, knocking the sugar pot to the floor with a swirl of white. Millie leapt from Mom’s lap and snuffled though the granules, coming up with a white face. She sneezed twice and set to work on the sugar until I grabbed her leash and pulled her away.
“Arnie Stillwell,” Mom said to Rhonda, not very helpfully. “The one who was murdered.”
“For heaven’s sake!” Rhonda cried. “Are you telling me—”
“Can you make her keep quiet,” Laurel said. “Her caterwauling is disturbing me—”
“Relax,” Mom said at the same time. I wasn’t certain at first if she was talking to Rhonda or Laurel. “I’ll tell her to be quieter, Laurel. Don’t get upset.”
Laurel. Of course. It had always been that way. Ghosts first.
I thought Rhonda was going to lose her mind.
“I refuse to be a part of any of this!” she said. “I’m leaving!”
She glared at me as though it was all my fault and pointed at the kettle. “You make the tea,” she said. “I’m going home.”
I couldn’t really blame her for being upset. The place was kind of overrun.
“Will do,” I said.
“And don’t forget the family get-together,” she snipped. “Tomorrow at seven.” She stomped out, slamming the door and revving the heck out of her overpriced gas-guzzling SUV as she left.
“Do you do that stuff on purpose?” I asked Mom. “You know it makes her crazy.”
“Maybe a little bit.” Mom shrugged. “We’ll have to make sure James is out of the hoosegow before tomorrow. Rhonda really wants him there.”
“Oh, God,” I muttered. The kettle whistled, so I poured the boiling water into the teapot and carefully carried it to the table with two tea cups. “Do I have to go?”
“You’re the reason she’s doing it,” Mom said. “Of course you have to go.”
She poured herself a cup of tea, with some difficulty.
“Do you want some?” she asked. I could see the teapot wavering in her hand, and wished she’d just put it down.
“I do,” I said. She managed to get most of the tea into the cup, but when she set it down, she was gasping for breath like she’d run a mile. But all I said was, “Thank you.”
I sipped, and set the cup down. “Arnie was waiting here.”
“Heavens,” Mom said. “Did he make it on his own?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We talked, and when I tried to convince him that he had to move on, he disappeared.”
“Did he try to—attach?”
“Yes. But I used your trick, and it seemed to work.”
Mom stared at me for a long moment, and then sighed. “Maybe I should be working with him,” she said. “You two have such a volatile relationship, I don’t know if you’ll be able to work through it. It might be better if I move him on.”
She looked exhausted. I shook my head.
“No, Mom,” I said. “I’ll work with him. It’ll be all right.” I took another sip of the sickly sweet tea and smiled. “And I promise I’ll be careful. Now, what about James?”
“I think it’s time for him to have a lawyer,” Mom said. She set her cup aside and picked up her voluminous handbag from where she’d dropped it next to her chair. She pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “This guy’s good.”
I took the card and frowned at the name. Vincent Van Kleif. I re
membered seeing that name on a huge billboard on Franklin Avenue.
“When did you need a lawyer?” I asked, without thinking.
“Oh, you know,” Mom said. “It’s good to have a lawyer. For things.”
“Oh.”
I suddenly didn’t want to pry. Even though Mom and Dad had never officially divorced, I imagine Mom would have spoken to a lawyer about her options. That made her seem cold and calculating, and I didn’t want to think of her that way.
And if she needed a lawyer for something worse than that—well, I didn’t want to know that either. So, I just said, “Thanks,” and tucked the card into my pocket.
“Aren’t you going to call?” she asked.
“James said he wasn’t ready for a lawyer. Yet.”
“All right,” Mom replied. “But don’t leave it too long. You do want him out, don’t you?”
“Definitely.”
Mom nodded once, then grabbed her cup of tea and walked into the living room. “Mind if I join you?” she asked Laurel.
“I’d be happy if you would,” Laurel said. She scooched over a tad, to give Mom more room, then they both settled on the couch.
“Ah, I love this one,” Mom said after a moment or two.
“So do I,” Laurel said. “Reminds me of the good old days.”
“It’s a bit too early for me, but I do love the costumes,” Mom replied.
I didn’t bother even checking what they were watching. I could tell by the music that it was another of those black and white musicals Laurel seemed addicted to.
I looked at the little clock above the kitchen counter. I had two hours before I was supposed to go to the Blue Ox Inn to talk to the bartender about Arnie’s last night on earth. I wandered to my old bedroom to check out the PI course James was taking.
Even though it wasn’t my fault that the cops kept picking him up and questioning him, I felt guilty. He needed all the time he could get so he could finish the course, but there he was, being interrogated about my stalkery ex-boyfriend’s murder instead.
Besides, since I’d decided to take him up on the job offer, it was probably a good idea for me to check this stuff out, too. It wouldn’t hurt me to know it, and who knows, maybe someday I’d want to take the course. After all, a girl couldn’t be a receptionist-slash-secretary forever, now could she?
