5 The Ghosts in the Audience

by SUE FINEMAN

  A car beeped behind them, so she kissed him again, got out, pulled her suitcase off the backseat, and waved goodbye. He drove off, leaving her standing on the sidewalk in front of the terminal building. She didn’t need radar to know she’d hurt his feelings. He loved her and wanted her to stay with him.

  She loved him, too, but her life was in River Valley, not Chicago.

  <>

  Dad met her at the airport in Columbus, and they talked about Steffen’s visions on the way home. “He said the man with the pictures is the same man who shot him. He’s big, with meaty hands and hairy fingers. The room with the pictures is paneled, and the pictures are taped to the wall. Low ceiling and bare bulb that glares off the pictures.”

  “Basement?” Dad asked.

  “Steffen wasn’t sure.”

  “Everybody and his uncle has a basement, so we won’t find it that way. He said the man is big? Did he see his face?”

  “No. He probably wouldn’t recognize him if he did see his face. But I might.”

  “Who do you know with meaty hands and hairy fingers?”

  She threw up her hands, then dropped them in her lap. “I don’t know, Dad. The only man I can think of that fits that description is Captain Pierson, but he wouldn’t have pictures of me in his basement. The man hates me.”

  “And me,” Dad muttered.

  Ginny twisted a little to face her father. “I know he hates being compared with you and how you did the job when you were captain, but did something else happen between you two?”

  “The police chief asked me to be on the interview team when they hired Pierson. There was something about him that seemed off, and I thought they’d be better off promoting from within, so my vote on Bob Pierson was a definite no.”

  “Yet they hired him anyway.”

  “Yes, they hired him anyway. They didn’t have anyone in the department they thought could handle the job. Now they do. Karen Milburn has been named interim captain, and I hope they decide to give her the job permanently.”

  “So do I,” said Ginny. “She’s the best qualified, the least sexist, and has the most patience. She’d make a great captain.”

  “Mark Montgomery has applied for the position, and the chief is considering him.”

  Ginny shook her head. “I’d hate working for Mark.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “That’s why it’s never a good idea to date the people you work with.”

  “When I dated him, I didn’t know I’d end up working with him. He keeps pushing me to go out with him again, jokes about sex, and is a general pain in the ass.”

  They rode quietly for several minutes before Dad asked, “What about Steffen?”

  “What about him? He lives in a fancy condo in Chicago. I can’t live in Chicago, Dad. I’d be miserable there. Besides, I could never marry a psychic. I don’t like people messing around in my head.”

  A little smile pulled at Dad’s mouth, and she knew she’d said what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want her to move away any more than she wanted to go.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes,” she said on a sigh. Of course she loved him, but she didn’t want to marry him and have babies. And he wouldn’t be happy without a family.

  She’d be better off alone and lonesome.

  Her job would have to fill the empty hours.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After dinner with her parents that evening, Dad went into the study while Ginny stayed in the kitchen with her mother. She took advantage of the private time to ask her mother about the choices she’d made in her life.

  “Mom, did you choose to stay home and take care of us, or did you intend to go to work at some point?”

  They sat at the table together, sipping their after-dinner tea. “When I inherited this house, it was a mess, filled with dust, wallpaper faded and peeling off the walls, and you could hear the upstairs toilet flush all over the house. The furnace didn’t work either, and the house was cold. I wanted to stay home and fix up the house, restore it to the way it looked when I was a little girl. When your father found the stock certificates under the attic steps, I had the money to do the work, and there was a lot of work to do.”

  “What about later?”

  “Billy was nine when he moved in. He had Dad and Pop, but he’d had such a hard life. He needed a mother, and someone had to take care of Pop. A few months later, we were still working on the house when I discovered I was pregnant with the twins. That gave me four reasons to stay home. Then you came along, and I had five reasons. And the work on the house never seemed to end.”

  Mom put her hand over Ginny’s. “Are you having second thoughts about your career?”

  “No second thoughts. I’m where I want to be, but Steffen wants… He wants me to move to Chicago to live with him. He wants a family, Mom. I love it that you were always here for us, but I don’t want to stay home and stir the gravy. I need to work, and I’m good at police work. I want a career like Dad’s. Nobody would expect him to stay home and take care of the family while you worked.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Before we were married, your father got fired and I started looking at ads for jobs. But he got his job back and I still had so much work to do on the house. I guess you could say the house was my job. And taking care of my family. Daycare is frightfully expensive, and I couldn’t put Pop in daycare. So I stayed home. I worked at home.”

  “No regrets?”

  “None. By the time you kids were grown, Pop was gone, Dad was mayor, and I had volunteer work and social obligations to keep me busy. Honey, I never really had a career like you. What I had before I moved here was a job I hated but couldn’t quit because I had bills to pay. I didn’t want another job like that. I still have my volunteer work, as much or as little as I want to do, and we don’t need the money. Dad has his retirement, and we have our investment accounts. I’m happy with my role as wife, mother, grandmother, and keeper of the house.”

  Ginny played with her cup, needing to say the words, but not sure how Mom would take the news. Finally, she said, “Steffen wants a family, and I…” She shook her head. “I worry about my job, about getting shot like your father and leaving my kids without a mother.”

  Mom’s chin came up. “Your father spent most of his life doing police work. Ginny, he never had a serious injury.”

  “Didn’t you worry about him?”

  “Of course I did, but if he’d had another job, he could have gotten in a car accident on the way home from work or cut his hand off on a piece of machinery. When it’s your time, it’s your time. If you’re well-trained, careful, and work with good people, your chances of getting hurt on the job go way down. Don’t let that stop you from having a family, if that’s what you want. And if you still don’t want children, don’t have them.”

  Ginny stared at her mother. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “Everyone isn’t cut out to be a parent. I know you’d be a good one, but if it isn’t what you want, that’s okay. I just want you to be happy.”

  After a long, warm hug, Ginny went upstairs to unpack. As she hung up her clothes, the box of tampons stared up at her from the suitcase as if to say, Did you forget about me?

  “Shut up,” she whispered. “Just shut the hell up.”

  <>

  After dinner, Steffen stood alone in the window, staring out at the darkening lake. His first real vacation was wonderful, but it was over. Time to get to work. He wanted to meet with Joseph’s property manager and the accountant. He needed to know how much money he’d have left after he paid estate taxes on his inheritance. He also wanted to inspect the three office buildings that provided an income and talk with Joseph’s investment counselor about the investments. If there wasn’t enough money in the accounts to pay the taxes, he might have to sell one of the office buildings. Although the estate was still in probate, he needed to know where he stood financially.

  “It’s quiet here without Ginny,” Jerry said.

 
Steffen turned to face him. “Yes, it is. I asked her to stay, but she has a life in Ohio.”

  “Is she worth leaving this?” Jerry waved his hand at the condo and the view.

  “She’s worth everything.”

  Ginny thought their relationship was over, but he knew better. He didn’t know how to accomplish his goal, but he knew they were meant to be together. If she wouldn’t come here, he’d sell the condo and move to River Valley. Jerry was right. She was worth more than the condo, more than the house on the beach, more than everything.

  Somehow, he’d figure out a way for them to be together.

  “I took some of Joseph’s clothes to the rehab center, like you suggested. They said Phillip was having a hard time.”

  “Yes, I suppose he is.” Steffen’s father had a hard time at the sanitarium at first, but he grew accustomed to the place and the people who ran it. He felt safe there. Phillip had a long way to go before he’d feel safe anywhere.

  Steffen spent the rest of the evening going through his mail, picking out some letters to answer and others to call to see if he could get a reading over the phone. One woman wrote about her thirteen-year-old daughter, and she included a picture of the girl and a locket she used to wear. The letter said Brooke had disappeared one night and the police called her a runaway. Holding the locket in his left hand, Steffen had a vision of the girl meeting a man at a motel. She’d met a sexual predator over the Internet, only he told her he was a nineteen-year-old college student. Brooke had been raped repeatedly, but she was still alive.

  Steffen called the girl’s mother and identified himself. “I have your letter here in front of me. Do you have any news about Brooke?”

  “No. Do you know where she is?”

  “I believe she’s alive and being held against her will. Did the police look at her computer?”

  “Yes, but they said there was nothing there they could use to find her.”

  “Have them look again. Take it to a computer expert if necessary. You’ll find the answers you seek on her computer.”

  “Yes, all right. Thank you so much for your help.”

  Steffen made two more phone calls to parents looking for missing children. By the time he finished, he knew two of those kids would be home with their families within days. The other one would take more time to find. He was living on the streets, afraid to go home, thinking his family didn’t want him.

  There were other letters from worried parents, letters he was reluctant to answer, because their kids were dead. One letter triggered a vision of a little girl, a ghost with bouncing blond curls. He reluctantly made the phone call to the little girl’s father.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “There’s a little girl calling to me from the other side. It could be her, and it could be someone else’s child. Why don’t you have the detective in charge of the case call me? Maybe together, we can find some answers.”

  “He doesn’t believe in psychics.”

  “Many people don’t. Ask him to call me anyway.”

  “I will,” the father said. “But I won’t tell my wife until we know something for sure. She’s been through hell the past two months.”

  “Of course she has. Tell her the little girl I see is at peace now.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “She has blond curls and a sweet smile. She died quickly, and she’s happy now.”

  Steffen ended the call with a heavy heart. Talking with the parents of dead kids drained him, but they needed to know the truth. If the police called him, he could tell them where to find the body of the little girl, and her parents could grieve instead of living in limbo.

  After one more call to the parents of a runaway boy who’d been killed on the streets of Los Angeles, he pushed the remaining letters aside. He couldn’t handle any more tonight.

  <>

  “Well, look at that tan,” Mark said. “Have a good time wherever you went?”

  “Florida, and yes, I did.” Better than a good time. It was heaven. Billy and his family were taking the kids – their three kids and Charlie’s daughter – to Steffen’s beach house next week for spring break. They were all excited about going.

  “What’s happening with the Marcus Wilson case?”

  “We arrested more of the Dogs gang. Nobody’s talking about which one killed the kid, and the DA says if nobody talks, he’s sending them all to prison.”

  Ginny locked her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk and sat down. “I wish it was that easy.”

  “Yeah, me, too. We have two new detectives, Molly Wilson and David Tennison. They’re in with Karen right now. The chief made her interim captain.”

  “Dad told me. He and the chief are good friends.”

  “Figures,” he muttered. “Do I even have a shot at the job?”

  She shrugged. “I have nothing to do with the decision.” She hoped her noncommittal answer would satisfy him, but they both knew she’d support Karen. They’d been friends since Ginny was promoted to detective.

  “Another woman detective, huh?” Mark would either hate her or hit on her.

  “Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “Another worthless woman detective.”

  “Talking about me?” the beefy, dark-skinned woman said as she walked out of Karen’s office.

  Ginny grinned. “You must be Molly Wilson. I’m Ginny Kane.”

  “The one the guys call Princess?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  While David worked with Al and Karen, Ginny worked with Mark and Molly on the Sandra Morrison/Jonas Judd murders, reviewing the case and the usual suspects.

  “The woman’s husband killed them,” said Mark.

  “What about Judd?” Ginny asked. “Was he married?”

  “No, but he was in a committed relationship. She was pissed, but Sam Morrison is a better suspect.”

  “Why? Because he’s a man?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What planet do you live on?” Molly muttered. “If my man cheated on me, I’d be after his black ass. And he knows it. Did anyone interview this woman?”

  Mark shrugged. “I talked with her, but I didn’t sense that kind of anger.”

  “Women are good at hiding their feelings,” said Ginny. “Why don’t Molly and I pay a visit on her? I’d like to talk with Sam Morrison, too.”

  “You’re wasting your time. He all but admitted he killed her.”

  Ginny cocked her head. “He said he shot her?”

  “No, he said when your psychic friend told him about her being with another man, he was pissed as hell.”

  “That doesn’t mean he killed her and her lover. Steffen didn’t tell Sam Morrison his wife and this other man were lovers, and he didn’t tell him Judd’s name or where to find him.” Steffen didn’t think he was guilty. She believed in Steffen’s visions more than Mark’s haphazard police work.

  Karen came out of her private office. “Ginny, could I speak with you for a minute?”

  Ginny went into her office and closed the door.

  “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks, and congratulations on your new job.”

  “It’s temporary.”

  “I hope not.”

  Karen waved her to a chair, then sat behind the desk. “Me, too, but that’s not why I called you in. As you asked, I didn’t talk with anyone else about Steffen’s vision of the basement wall, but you can’t keep it secret forever. We’re going to need help figuring out who this man is before he does something else.”

  “Like shoot another man or lock me in the basement with the pictures?”

  “This is serious, Ginny. Your life could be in danger.”

  “I know. I’m staying with my parents for now and Steffen is in Chicago, so we should be all right. I hope Steffen will be able to get more visions, maybe see the creep’s face or get a description of the house. Numbers or something. We don’t have anything else to go on, and even if we found the house, we couldn’t go in without a search warrant. I doub
t a judge would give us one based on Steffen’s psychic visions.”

  “That depends on the judge.”

  Changing the subject, Ginny said, “I like Molly. I don’t know David yet, but I like her. She’s not likely to let Mark or anyone else walk all over her.”

  Karen laughed softly. “I know. She’s exactly what we need right now. If Mark gets the captain’s job—”

  “He won’t. The job is yours.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear.”

  <>

  Steffen spent most of his days touring office buildings and talking with people about his investments and taxes. He kept his cell phone handy, thinking Ginny might call, but she didn’t. He knew she’d gone back to work this week, and he was concerned about the guy with the wall of pictures, afraid of what he might do to Ginny if he got her alone.

  In the evenings, he pared away at the pile of letters. At some point he had to stop worrying about all these desperate people and start working on the book. But something kept calling to him from the stack of letters. So he kept reading and calling people until he opened one letter and dropped it on the desk. Without touching it, he read:

  Our daughter is missing and my wife thought you might be able to help us find her. Sarah is sixteen, a shy girl who normally keeps to herself. I’m enclosing her picture and one of her hair ribbons.

  If any man touches her, God knows I’ll kill him.

  Steffen read on, but the rest of the letter was about the father and his religious beliefs, not about the missing girl. Evil surrounded the page, but it came from the father, not the missing girl. What had this man done to his daughter?

  The yellow ribbon in the envelope was wrinkled and had several strands of light brown hair attached, as if it had been tied in the girl’s hair at one time. Careful not to touch the letter, Steffen picked up the ribbon and immediately got a vision of a pregnant young girl sitting on a bench, alone and scared. But she was more afraid of going home than staying on the street. In that instant, he knew the girl had been raped by her father.

  He looked at the postmark on the letter. Chicago. Was the girl still in the city, or had she gone somewhere else? He tried to pull up a vision of the street, but it didn’t look familiar. No snow, but the snow in the city had melted while he and Ginny were in Florida.