Fog of Dead Souls

by Jill Kelly

  “Joel? Hell, no. Joel was as straight as they come. He wasn’t looking for that kind of buddy.”

  “You sure?”

  “Am I sure? Yes, I’m sure. Look, we went clubbing together. Joel was a good-looking guy and good-looking women were interested in him. He had no trouble getting the women.”

  “What kind of clubs?”

  Gerstead shrugged but Hansen could see that he was uneasy.

  “Oh you know,” he said finally, “the kind that men go to. Clubs with girls … women who dance mostly naked, and let you buy them drinks and where you can … you know.”

  “Sex clubs?” Capriano said. Again Hansen was impressed by how cool Capriano stayed—he made it sound like no big deal.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Aren’t they expensive? To be honest, I can’t imagine you make that kind of money.”

  “Well, I, I don’t. I … I paid for drinks a few times but Joel paid for the rest.”

  Hansen leaned in and spoke. “Joel paid for the sex.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Well, uh, yeah, I guess you could say so.”

  “Tell us about it.” Capriano moved his chair to the right so he and Hansen were more clearly aligned against Gerstead. Hansen wondered if this was a conscious thing on Capriano’s part.

  Gerstead looked stricken and guilty, like a small boy caught playing doctor. “Come on, guys. I don’t usually talk about this stuff.”

  “Look, Arlen, we’re not interested in the details of your performance. We just want to know about the clubs and what went on there and if anything unusual happened. I don’t need to remind you that your good friend Ellie was the victim of a violent sex crime that we’re trying to solve and you owe it to her to give us any information that can help us,” said Hansen.

  “Well, of course I want to help.”

  “We know you do,” Capriano said more softly. “Just tell us about it.”

  Over the next hour, Gerstead described half a dozen visits he and Richardson had made to three sex clubs in the city. Capriano was familiar with two of them but he let Gerstead describe them.

  One was a strip joint in what had been the lobby/restaurant of an old hotel. There were two levels of cover charge: One included drinks and lap dances, and the other included a room upstairs above the club. Richardson had paid the higher cover charge for both of them, and Gerstead had spent a couple of hours in a room upstairs—“a really nice room, like the best hotels”—with a redhead named Tiffany, though he didn’t think that was her real name.

  Had Richardson gone upstairs, too? Hansen wanted to know.

  Gerstead thought so. “We were sitting with a whole group of people. Two guys in their thirties maybe. They said they were law students. And there were four dancers. When I came back down, Joel was there with two of the dancers. I assumed he’d gone upstairs with the girl he had been paying the most attention to. She was Asian and Joel told me she reminded him of his ex-wife.”

  They’d gone back to that club twice more. Once the law students were there again. Several weeks later, Richardson had taken Gerstead to a private club somewhere on the edge of town. They’d driven there late at night. “We’d been drinking and I didn’t know that part of town. Pretty poor from what I remember of the streets. Like a ghetto. The club was in a big old house, a boarding house type like from a movie. It was clean, but boy, it needed a lot of work.”

  The girls there were mostly black, though again there was an Asian girl, but not the same one. “Joel wanted me to go with the Asian girl, but I figured he was just being polite, that he really wanted her for himself. So I chose another girl. She was pretty in that way that black girls are who are mostly white.”

  “Anything unusual happen there?” Capriano had brought them all fresh coffee and he took a sip from his mug.

  “Not much happened at all, as I remember. I was too drunk and I couldn’t, well, you know. Funny thing is, Joel knew I couldn’t do it. He found that pretty funny. Said he’d been watching us and it was pretty comical.”

  “How did that make you feel? His watching you,” said Capriano.

  “Oh, he wasn’t watching. He was just kidding. I think he just guessed by how drunk I was and how sheepish I must have looked staggering out of the girl’s room. I don’t even remember getting home.”

  “Were the law students there?”

  Gerstead shook his head, then suddenly looked up. “Whoa, do you think one of them was the guy in the hotel in Gettysburg?”

  Capriano shrugged. “We don’t have a clue as to who that guy is, so yeah maybe. Did you catch any names? Was one of them Jerry?”

  Gerstead thought for a moment. “No, nothing I remember.”

  “And the third club?” asked Hansen, who was tired and ready to be done.

  “Now that was something special.” Richardson had insisted that Arlen wear a tuxedo. “Hell, I don’t own a tuxedo. Why would I?” So Richardson rented him one for a month.

  “We got dressed to the nines and drove to this house, well, really a mansion, in Squirrel Hill. A big iron fence and gate, a guy at the gate to check our invitation. Man, I felt like I was in a movie.”

  Hansen sat back, squelching his impatience. He didn’t like this guy and couldn’t understand how Gerstead and Ellie could be friends.

  There were two dozen people in the house. Men in tuxedos, women in evening gowns. Everyone drinking champagne. At first, Gerstead thought it was just a party for rich people. But Richardson encouraged him to select a woman who interested him. Just as in the other clubs.

  “And he encouraged me to ask for whatever I wanted. That the woman would do anything, anything I could imagine.”

  “And did you?” asked Capriano.

  “Did I what?”

  “Ask for what you wanted?”

  Gerstead blushed and nodded. “This is going to sound so dumb but I’d always wanted to make it with a nurse. I wanted to be the patient and have the nurse come and have sex with me. And that’s what happened. There was a room upstairs that was just like a hospital room and she put on a white uniform and everything. It was so cool.”

  “Did Joel pay for this?” Hansen spoke from the corner.

  “You know, I never saw any money change hands. Like I said, it was like going to a party. And Joel had the invitation.”

  “Did Richardson tell you what he did that night?”

  Gerstead shook his head. “No, I just figured he asked for what he wanted too.”

  “Any idea what that was?” Capriano asked.

  “No, Joel was a pretty private guy.”

  “Did you go there again?” Hansen asked.

  “Once more, about a month later. Joel seemed disappointed when I wanted to have the nurse again. He said I had no imagination. That seemed really unkind. I’ve got plenty of imagination. But I did get the nurse again.”

  “Anything else you can tell us?” Capriano said. “We appreciate your being willing to spend so much time with us this afternoon.” He looked at his watch. “This evening.”

  “No problem. Anything I can do to help.”

  “So, anything else you can tell us? Anything out of the ordinary that might help explain what happened to Ellie?” It was Hansen asking now.

  Again Gerstead looked guilty, found out. “A couple of weeks after the second time at the mansion, Joel sent me a DVD in the mail. It was me and the nurse. Both times. At first I felt kind of creeped out, but then I figured it was a service that the party people provided and Joel had forgotten to tell me about it. Gotta tell you, fellas, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that DVD.”

  After Gerstead had left the station, Capriano and Hansen talked for a few more minutes. Hansen wanted to pursue the sex clubs the next day, but Capriano told him that he didn’t work weekends when he didn’t have to and that it would keep until Monday. “Go home, get laid, watch a ballgame. I’ll pursue the clubs and let you know what happens.”

  So Hansen found himself on the turnpike headed east. He was half
way home before he realized he hadn’t told Capriano about meeting the Gerstead boy at Ellie’s apartment or that Ellie was gone.

  30

  At first Ellie found herself indecisive about going to see the shaman Mona suggested. She was open to such ideas but she didn’t place much faith in what might happen. She couldn’t see how there was any kind of a cure for her fear, her nightmares, her mistrust. Then she began to feel even more paranoid. She couldn’t get over the feeling that someone was watching her. But when she looked around, there was no one, or only someone benign. An old woman, a banker type, a homeless guy.

  Then she began to think that someone was going through her things when she left her motel room. Hand lotion that had been on the nightstand was in the bathroom. Her pajamas were on the bed, not on the hook on the bathroom door where she left them after she had showered. There was maid service and it was possible that the friendly young woman was moving things around, but it seemed so unlikely. One morning when she came back from breakfast, her computer was on and she knew she hadn’t touched it since the day before.

  To ease her mind, she decided to go to the Rio Chama Valley. The drive took her about three hours, out of the desert and ranch country into a much greener landscape of winter snow melt. The air was still dry and clear—it was still New Mexico—but the valley had a lushness that she missed from the East. She had taken a route that drove her through Taos—but she didn’t stop. She’d do that on the way back, for Al thought she had gone to do some shopping for art for the house. She thought about the few days she had spent there before Farmington. That now seemed a lifetime ago, not just a few weeks.

  She had reserved a cabin at the Elkhorn Lodge. Mona told her that in the off-season she could get a cabin for little money—especially if she paid cash—and have the kind of privacy that she might need before and after her sessions with the shaman.

  “Houston, wow! You’ve come a long way. I see you’re staying with us all week.” Tom Willis, the owner of the Elkhorn, was a thin, wiry cowboy with a waxed handlebar mustache that dwarfed his already small mouth. “Business or pleasure?”

  Ellie pulled out her politeness. “I’ve been traveling quite a bit and need a good rest.”

  “You couldn’t have picked a better place or time for some R&R. This is what Shirleen and I call the ‘off-off-season.’ Mostly just us here so nobody will bother you. Café’s open, of course, for the traveling trade, but you’re also welcome to cook in your room.”

  Willis was friendly in that country way that still surprised her. Years of living in Eastern cities had made her wary and closed, and her experiences of the last year had sealed off any natural friendliness. Ellie nodded and filled out the card with her new name and the New Mexico license plate, which still looked odd on the Honda. “Is there a phone in the room?”

  “Yup, though you’ll need a prepaid card to call long distance. We sell them right here. Get good cell service on the property, too.”

  She looked at him and shook her head. “No cell phone.”

  “Don’t blame you. I don’t much think we need all that technology they keep trying to sell us. You expecting calls?”

  “No. Just want to be able to call my kids. You know how it is.”

  “Sure do. Got pictures?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Of your kids. Those are mine up there on the wall.” Willis pointed to a Sears portrait of himself: a tiny blonde woman with her hair in a French twist and two boys who looked unfortunately like their dad.

  “No,” said Ellie, wishing she’d never started this lie. “Mine are grown.”

  Willis nodded but looked disappointed somehow. He passed the key over the desk, the old-fashioned kind on a plastic handle with the room number. “I’ve given you Cabin 3. It’s the coziest and you’ll be able to hear the river.”

  She thanked him and went back out and drove her car to the cabin with the 3 emblazoned on the door. She got her bags out and the groceries she’d brought with her and put everything away. She fixed herself a sandwich and took it and her tea mug down to the river where she sat for a long time, thinking about as little as possible.

  About two-thirty, she roused herself and went back to the cabin. She had a four o’clock meeting with Brown Bear Woman and she’d have to find the house. She went into the lodge office and pushed the bell on the desk. The woman from the Sears portrait came out from a room in the back. She beamed at Ellie. “Hi, you must be Ellie Robison. Hope you’re settling in okay.”

  “I am. Thanks, the river is lovely.”

  The woman beamed again. “Do you need something?”

  “I have an appointment and I need to find this address.” She handed her the paper that Mona had given her.

  The woman read the paper and the beaming smile dissolved. “This isn’t a good idea,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “This woman Sofia is crazy, she’s an old Indian witch. You look like a God-fearing woman, Mrs. Robison. You don’t want to have anything to do with her.”

  Ellie took a deep breath, then said as patiently as she could, “I just need to know how to get there.”

  The woman harrumphed, then pulled out a tourist map, the kind with sketches of local attractions in little circles around the edge. She took a big marker and put an X on the Elkhorn and then traced a route out of town heading north. “Turn right on El Norte Road about a half mile past the high school. I don’t know if she has a sign or the address on the mailbox. I’ve never been there.”

  Ellie thanked her and hurried to her car. She was glad to be away from the fear wafting off the woman.

  Ellie followed the map the woman at the Elkhorn had given her. She had no trouble finding the high school or finding El Norte Road, but she missed the second driveway somehow, going on a long way with nothing to the right or the left. Finally she came to a row of mailboxes and a gravel road. That didn’t seem right, so she retraced her steps to the highway and found the second driveway and its mailbox just past the first one. It was a few minutes after four.

  The trailer was not what she expected. It was a manufactured home of some kind, but it sat neatly painted and tidy on the lot surrounded by a wide deck lined with pots of flowers in a riot of pinks and reds and oranges. The porch was guarded by two well-fed dogs, a black Lab and a bigger, white dog that looked part wolf. They got up and stretched and ambled over as she got out of her car.

  The door opened and a small woman came out. From a distance, she seemed glittery somehow, and then Ellie saw that she was dressed in black and gold batik harem pants and a long golden tunic. Her straight black hair was streaked with silver and hung down her back, and she had a dozen shiny bracelets on one arm. When she made eye contact with Ellie, her face opened into a warm smile and Ellie felt a tiny bit of her anxiety dissolve.

  After the sunshine of the driveway, the room she entered was dark. Candles lit two corners of the room. Sofia showed her to an overstuffed sofa in a pink and gray pattern that had been ubiquitous a decade before. As her eyes adjusted, Ellie saw the walls held handsomely framed wildlife photos: a timber wolf, a black bear, an eagle perched on a snag. When Sofia came back with two cups of tea, Ellie asked about the photos.

  “My husband takes them,” she said. “He spends a lot of time in the wild.”

  She took a seat on the sofa right next to Ellie. The proximity felt disconcerting. Ellie was even more uncomfortable when the woman took her hand and said, “Let us just be together for a few moments.”

  So they sat. After a few minutes, the silence seemed endless. Ellie glanced at the woman next to her. Her eyes were closed and there was an expression of utter peace on her face. Ellie closed her eyes and tried to feel the same, to match the woman’s slow, deep breathing. But panic crept in anyway. It wasn’t the unknown, what the healing might involve or what the woman might do to her. The opposite was true. Ellie’s fear was that the woman couldn’t help her, wouldn’t know how to help her find a way to live in her body a
gain—that she was a charlatan who would just take her money, give her a harmless potion, and send her on her way.

  “Breathe,” Sofia said, the pressure of her hand on Ellie’s firm and warm.

  Another few minutes went by. Sofia hummed softly to herself. Then she released Ellie’s hand, stood up, and moved across the coffee table to a small straight-back chair.

  She smiled at Ellie, the same warm smile, and shook her head. “The guides say that the time is not right to journey on your behalf.”

  Ellie felt something drop in the middle of her body. “Why not? What does this mean? Can’t you help me?”

  “Yes, I can help you. But not now. What you want now I cannot seek for you.”

  “I don’t understand.” Ellie felt close to tears.

  Sofia smiled again. “I can’t really explain it to you. The timing is just not right. Perhaps you need more clarity about what you are seeking to learn, what part of yourself you wish to reconnect with. Sometimes we wish to reconnect with an old self that is not useful anymore.” She paused. “I sense you are in a new life.”

  Ellie nodded.

  “Something in your old life is incomplete, something deeply restricting.”

  “Yes, of course it is. That’s why I came to you.” Ellie could hear the impatience in her own voice. She took a deep breath. “I was … I was badly hurt and I want to start over and forget all about that.”

  Sofia nodded and Ellie saw a great look of kindness come over the woman’s face. She took another deep breath and willed herself to relax.

  “That is not what is standing in your way,” Sofia said quietly. “You do not know what you want. You know only what you don’t want.”

  The truth of the words stung, and Ellie couldn’t deny that that was true.

  “To move forward in life,” said Sofia after a moment, “we have to want life. We have to want to live.” She stood up. “When you know what you want, when you are ready to choose, come back and we will see if we can put the past to rest.”

  For a moment Ellie stayed where she was. Then she, too, stood and went toward the door. The sunlight was blinding. She turned back to Sofia and said, “How do I do that? I don’t know anymore how to do that.”