Dark & Disorderly

by Bernita Harris

  He nodded. “Ms. St. Claire. Glad you could make it,” and gave me another look that said wait.

  He strode past, conferred briefly with Officer Nervous and went on to hunker down at the foot of the pit. The white letters that spelled Police spread stark and clear on the back of his windbreaker. The other detective put down his case and moved about shooting pictures. Maybe they could find some shoe prints.

  I found a seat on a crumbling bit of retaining wall just outside the tape, brushed off a collection of acorn husks from a squirrel feast and hunched there like a pale toadstool, hugging myself.

  In a few minutes Johnny came straight back and straight to the point.

  “A relative of yours?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Your assessment?”

  He didn’t want much. Only instant behavioral science analysis.

  “Digging up a bloody grave’s a lot of trouble just for a prank, but if you find a cache of beer bottles nearby, it would reinforce that possibility. On the other hand, those types usually content their tiny minds with spray painting symbols and slogans and knocking over a few headstones, and I didn’t notice any obvious vandalism of that nature in this section of the cemetery.”

  The wind blessed my forehead and sighed in agreement.

  I continued. “Could be an amateur animation gone wrong, but I didn’t see or smell any spilled blood and there’s the stake. The stake is common. Looks like the sticks they use sometimes for real estate signs and political campaigns. Non-ritual and not a necromancer’s likely ceremonial choice anyway. From what I could see, the skull is gone. It’s as if…”

  I wanted to think more about that. A stake, beheading, a rite to dispose of the dangerous dead. It was an old tradition. Celts collected the skulls of their enemies. If someone had taken it, either as an obscene trophy or for some amateur arcana, I hoped the skull screamed at them.

  I began collecting the white petals that had showered down and stuck to my rain cape from the flowering thorn behind me. One rarely saw them in graveyards now—too much of a pain in the ass for the caretakers—but they had once been planted by graves as a protective, a holy ward against the dark.

  If there had ever been a ward thorn planted next to the tombstone by the grave above, no trace of it remained. All I had seen as a survival of a vegetative form of grave guardian were lily rhizomes, a tangled mass of roots flung beyond the pile of dirt. But lilies were more signature than a defense. Like the ones by my front gate.

  His feet shifted closer. Hard-core boots below black field gear. Very SWAT, and not new. Johnny Thresher, quite apart from his psi-specialty, might be much more than he seemed. He loomed like another mystery.

  “The corpse appears to have been posed as a deliberate diorama,” I said reluctantly. “As a warning—or a promise.”

  “Were you able to read anything?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing to see. It’s like a dead zone. Empty…as if all have been exorcized long ago—or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or have never been.”

  “What’s the significance of Aibhinn carved on the stone? Do you know what it means?”

  “It’s a Gaelic word…a title of sorts,” I temporized. I didn’t want to give him the direct translation: Aibhinn—the lovely one. Not when connected with a name exactly the same as mine. He would laugh.

  “Lillie,” he said. His tone reproved my reticence.

  My behind was getting cold from the damp cement and I had things to do. The pedophile ghost business for one. I dumped the bruised and fragile petals on the gravel and stood.

  “At one time it signified a tutelary spirit, a woman of power. One such by that designation was connected with the clan O’Dea. You may have noticed that name on adjoining headstones. To avoid offense, family guardians…protectors of that sort, were often described by such epithets. The sidhe, for example, acquired the sobriquet, ‘the Good People’ or ‘the Gentry.’ It’s likely that here, generations if not centuries later, the word devolved into an endearment.”

  Johnny stopped scanning the terraced hillside behind me and looked down, his eyes hard and cold as sapphires.

  “I don’t think so,” he said abruptly. He reached out, picked a petal off my hair and examined it in the bowl of his broad palm. “Coincidences are suspect.”

  I thought so too, in the context of yesterday. Nevertheless, the ambiguity of his statement made me uneasy. So did his proximity. When he reached out again I flinched and slid a step sideways.

  His mouth tightened and he dropped his hand.

  “Are there other St. Claires buried around here?” He took up scanning the surroundings again. “Or O’Deas?”

  “I really don’t know,” I said. But I planned to find out when I had the time. “I’m from ‘away,’ remember?”

  “You did say that. I meant here in this cemetery?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never walked through it. I don’t troll cemeteries as a usual rule, Sergeant. I find them disturbing. The sexton should have a lot plan though.”

  “I’ll put someone on it. By the way, you gave the constable a rise back there.”

  “Really? I thought he was going to arrest me for contaminating his crime scene.”

  “Lillie, you’ve got that transparent, billowy plastic thing on over a long black coat. Think what it looked like to him for a moment.”

  “So that’s why his hand kept hovering over his sidearm. I thought he just didn’t like Freaks. It was only the hag and harpy factor. I should have realized. My apologies, but my presence was requested and I assumed he knew.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant in view of the attack on Sergeant Secord. Especially since Secord’s sidearm was taken. Everyone’s tight.”

  Including me. I doubted if Johnny would have a later update on Bobby’s condition than Ted’s grim report, so I didn’t ask. The blame game had begun. Since Nathan’s zombie was responsible for the attack on one of their own, I too was culpable. They might suspect I was responsible for raising him.

  “Look, if you’ve no other questions, I have to go. I’ve some municipal cases to catch up on. At least one of them is fairly urgent.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said as I turned and marched downhill. He adjusted his pace to match mine. “By the way, Lillie, do you know a Kevin Cornett?”

  “Not really. I noticed this morning that I have a request for exorcism pending that involves a property of his. He was a friend of Nathan’s. We didn’t socialize. At least, I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever been within a ten-foot pole of him. He attended the visitation at the funeral home anyway. Or so the guest book says. Why?” I vaguely remembered him. A little pudgy, brown hair, smooth face. Soft voice, soft hands, inquisitive eyes. He’d kept his distance, for which I was glad. He gave me serious creeps but I had never bothered to explore exactly why.

  “Patrol stopped him last night at the end of your street, after he’d cruised past your house several times.”

  “It’s a public thoroughfare.”

  “Lillie…” His voice held exasperation. “Was he a good enough friend of your husband’s that he’d feel free to call after twelve o’clock?”

  “Sergeant, you have no idea about the number of people who believe a widow will be grateful for their attentions, regardless of the hour. And that’s in addition to the bogus bill collectors and entrepreneurial real estate agents. Some men—”

  The sound of hooves and carriages on the avenue alerted me. I automatically veered to the verge of the drive, groped in my sleeve for a length of gold chain and waited for the pale cortege to pass. I could have let it pass through me, or me through it, I suppose, but contact meant a psychic drain and I needed all my energy. The quivery crawl along my skin produced by its proximity was bad enough. So was my sudden, foreboding fear.

  12.

  A fancy affair with silver harness and sable plumes on a horse-drawn hearse. A shadowy driver hunched on the forward box. In the next c
arriage a male mourner riding in somber, solitary state. Misty, weedy females in the third. The suggestion of fluttering crepe. No wailing though; only the grate of rolling wheels and measured clop-clop of shod hooves. A restrained, impersonal apparition.

  A gust of cold wind splattered raindrops from the trees above. The moisture collected, ran down and dripped off the wide sleeves of my plastic poncho, like tears.

  Fortunately, where the drive divided to wind around the hill, the ghostly cavalcade took the right-hand path that curved up the eastern slope—or else PC Nervous, on guard by the gravesite, might have received another unpleasant shock.

  I dropped my head and then glanced up at Johnny Thresher who, unsurprisingly, had also moved aside. He stood in front of me, feet braced, staring after the procession and muttering under his breath.

  “Was that part of the normal entertainment at this place?”

  “I wouldn’t know. As I said, I really don’t go trolling graveyards, Sergeant.” I resumed walking, faster this time. I needed to get away and hide. One learns early in this business to control one’s facial expressions, but I was shivering inside.

  “Isn’t a funeral procession considered a standard forewarning? A sign?”

  “In the past, yes. These days, with apparitions frolicking about with abandon, not necessarily. Unless…” I flicked a glance at him and paused. His face seemed more taut and chiseled than before. Maybe it wasn’t just me who’d felt a foreboding rise like the acid smell of crushed lichen.

  “Unless what?”

  “Formerly, if you recognized the ghost and the specter made eye contact, called you by name, things like that, it was considered a personal forewarning of your own death or that of someone near, dear or familiar. True of prophetic dreams as well as visitations. Today, it’s just apt to be another apparition of the sort we’ve come to expect. Did you?”

  “No.” The same abrupt denial as last night when I accused him of having Talent.

  “But you obviously did see it, an antique horse-drawn hearse and carriages?”

  “I saw something.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and deliberately changed the subject. I was glad he did.

  “About Cornett, about men. You were saying?”

  Interruption by apparition had saved me from an inclusive and rude observation about men—the sort who believed a widow needed “comfort” of the sexual kind. Were avid for it. My being a Freak hadn’t deterred some of Nathan’s “friends.” Thrill seekers, I suppose. Probably enhanced their expectations, considering the sexual reputation associated with clairvoyants. However, I always had the impression that Cornett’s interest centered more around Nathan than on me.

  But Johnny Thresher was merely pursuing an investigation. Hardly fair—and certainly obnoxious, even indelicate—for me to even remotely suggest any other interest.

  “Nothing, really. Just that there are predators who gather around a widow, I’ve learned. I believe he’s a member of Nathan’s organization, Against Spirit Pollution, I told you about earlier. There are files to be turned over, I suppose. I haven’t sorted through all the papers yet. Maybe that was on his mind.”

  I saw no reason to expand further on Cornett, everything I knew was all in the original interview and report about the circumstances on the night Nathan died and the fight we’d had over Cornett’s exorcism request. Thresher could read it.

  “If you don’t object, I’d like to have a look at those papers before they’re turned over to the society. And maybe some others.”

  “Certainly, Sergeant. As long as you have the usual warrant if you plan on taking anything away. Just to keep things proper for probate.”

  “I’ll do that. This urgent case you’re going to—what is it? Where is it? Just come in?”

  “The Prichard housing project, west end of town. Pedophile ghost skulking about a unit and the playground behind it. I consider that urgent, even if others might not. It’s part of the backlog that built up while I was off.”

  Two police cruisers and a black SUV blocked the cemetery entrance. Since I was a shockingly bad driver, I’d parked my innocuous blue compact a good fifty yards farther back, not trusting my maneuvering ability.

  Oh, geesus! A black SUV.

  I stutter-stepped when it registered, stopped and reached again for the gold links—which was stupid. Rick’s run-in with a possible dullahan notwithstanding, black SUVs weren’t uncommon and this one sat decently in repose.

  The midmorning sun bullied its way through the cloud cover and provided an excuse for my hesitation. I shucked my cheap rain cape.

  He noticed. One stride and he was in front of me, his hands out of his pockets, blocking the way.

  “What? What did you see?”

  “Nothing. Just an intimation of mortality. Who’s the SUV belong to?”

  “Me. You have to be more forthcoming than that, Lillie. Something startled you.”

  “It’s nothing—as I said, just a coincidence. A colleague of mine who does street ’n’ roads had an unpleasant experience with one the other night.”

  “I haven’t run anyone off the road recently. What kind of experience?”

  “A paranormal one. With a dullahan. Gave him fits, as you can imagine. If you have time, you might ask him about it.”

  “Hunh. I might do that. And where are you going after the housing project?”

  “The little museum on Park Street, I expect.”

  “And then where?”

  “Depends. If they’re active entities, likely home. I’ll probably be wiped if I have to do double exorcisms. Otherwise, the old courthouse.” More than wiped, I’d be dangerous—and not just to myself. So much depended on the type. “But if they turn out to be just recorder ghosts or the product of someone’s hyper imagination, maybe not. I’ll have to see on-site. Sometimes a simple case produces unpleasant surprises. Why is my itinerary of interest, Sergeant?”

  A muscle along his jaw twitched. “Don’t be stupid, Lillie. Give me your keys.”

  I stood there, shifting from foot to foot, while he unlocked the car, checked the interior and popped the trunk. He even dropped his long body to the dirty, damp pavement to inspect the car’s tailpipe and underside, while I huffed with impatience.

  Nathan never used a self-serve gas station. He might get his hands smudgy.

  Clearly, Johnny was looking for some kind of mischief, though I had no clue what. I focused on arcane possibilities and forgot the physical.

  Still, I considered his care a little extravagant and the prospect of tampering slight, since my car, acquired this morning, was in clear sight of the police cruisers by the gate. It would mean someone was following my every move, some tidy little device in hand, waiting for an opportunity to attach it. An unlikely scenario as far as I could see. I figured Johnny Thresher intended an object lesson of the heavy-handed kind. Maybe he’d taken the trap on my front porch more seriously than he’d appeared to at the time.

  But then—perhaps he had read the purpose of the apparition differently than I had. Or knew something I didn’t. Not a good thing for his reputation if I turned up dead.

  “All clear.”

  “My car is in plain sight of the cruisers up ahead,” I said mildly. “Aren’t you being a little excessive?”

  “Lillie. If a vehicle parked in front of yours, it would block their view.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I snatched the keys from his hand, scrambled into the driver’s seat and, of course, stalled the engine.

  “Put on your seat belt,” he said as he closed the car door.

  As I pulled away, I saw in my rearview mirror another cruiser slide up beside the parked police cars and a uniform get slowly out.

  I knew. Not a message for the radio.

  I had managed to get away before he could see me cry. I didn’t know what the ghostly carriage had foretold to Johnny Thresher, but I knew what it meant to me. The sober funeral procession had indeed been a forerunner. Bobby, Chief Bob Secord—a good and decent man�
��had died from his injuries.

  And likely it was my fault.

  The assisted-housing complex was nice enough. An open-ended courtyard opened into a park at the rear. No one answered the door at the address on the complaint, but I found the pedophile ghost without much trouble. He wore a fawn sports jacket and gray pants and an aura like an unemptied ashtray. He skulked, zipper down and hands busy, under a tree at the edge of the little park at the end of the court, intent on a couple of little boys playing in the sandbox.

  One of them, I recognized. The infant Cúchulainn from the laundromat. He still carried his sword, using it to ditch and dike the damp sand at one end of the pit, glancing every few seconds in the direction of the tree. The older boy revved the imaginary engine of racing car on an imaginary Daytona at the other end of the sandbox in single-minded concentration.

  That sort of concentration might be a deliberate defense. One of the few defenses children have. I’d been doing it myself for years. Nearby, a girl about eight in lollipop pink was engaged in twisting the chains of one of the swings round and round, in preparation to spinning like a top.

  A pair of women sat on a park bench about twenty feet away. One was the strawberry blonde from the laundromat, knitting and gossiping with another young woman who pushed a baby stroller back and forth with one foot. I noticed that the mother’s gaze constantly checked the children’s whereabouts, and I wondered if she was aware of the entity but couldn’t see it.

  As soon as I moved off the interlocking brick path in the direction of the children, she slung down her knitting and made to rise. My dark suit said official presence, I suppose. I didn’t want to waste time with formal introductions, the usual assurances and time-wasting paper protocols, so I waved and kept going. My ghost matched the photograph from the newspaper morgue.

  The entity surged closer to the two boys, going for them. I ripped off my gloves and ran to get between him and his prey. Judgment call. This was an excessively mobile and interactive ghost and I didn’t think it wise to spend the time in explanation. Nor did I want to wait for her to hustle the children to a safer distance.