"No good, huh?" she said glumly.
He shrugged. "It's fine, as far as it goes. But here's your competition." He threw a copy of USA Today across her desk.
It made the front page: MASS. SENATOR DESPERATELY SEEKING NICOLE.
Pop-eyed with disbelief, Emily read through the piece. "Senator Lee Alden, who is said to have considered resigning his seat after the death of his wife, Nicole, attended a séance in Westford last month in an attempt to establish contact with her. Lois Lividus, a Hungarian psychic who manages a channeler known only as Kimberly, invited the senator to the sitting. Several scholars and at least one member of the area press were also present. It is not known whether Senator Alden made contact 'across the veil.'
"Oh, God. I'm dead." She held her head down with both hands, as if it were going to fall off her shoulders. "What do I do now? My glowing interview just became a joke. I look like Lee Alden's speech writer."
"Worse come to worst, it's a living," Stan said dryly.
She ignored his sarcasm. "Who could've leaked this?
Stan's lids were half lowered, his thin, long lips curled in an ironic smile. "Maybe it was that member of the area press.
She shook her head. "No way." She stared at the paper in front of her, still incredulous. "Phil will have my head on a platter for sidestepping this issue. Or worse," she moaned, remembering his threat. "I'll lose my job."
"I doubt it."
Suddenly it dawned on her: "Lee Alden will lose his job!"
"That all depends on the voters," Stan said grimly. And he'll blame me, Emily realized, aghast. It was unbelievable. Through no fault of her own she -- and Lee -- were going to go down in flames. She sat at her desk, barely acknowledging Stan's amused good night, trying to come up with a way out of the impasse.
At seven o'clock she walked into Phil Sparke's office with a copy of her interview and the USA Today. "I'm going to make it easy on you, chief," she said, sighing. "I'm requesting a leave of absence."
Phil yanked the cigar butt from between his teeth. "What the hell you talkin' about?"
"Stan was right; I'm in over my head on the business with Lee Alden. Politics is a big boy's game. My interview reads like something from a high school paper," she said with brutal honesty.
She watched him give his collar a hard yank, always a bad sign. "But that's not the reason I'm asking for some time off. I have some truly pressing, truly urgent personal business to take care of. It's affecting the quality of my work. I simply can't do both anymore. It's a matter, literally, of life and death."
Phil leaned back in his chair and deliberately, slowly read the USA Today piece, then skimmed through her interview. It was obvious that he was glancing at her questions, not the senator's answers. Fina11y he looked up. "'Life and death' won't cut it. Be specific, Bowditch. Why do you want the time off?".
"I can't, Phil. You know that I would never ask for a leave if there were another way. I've never cut out from an assignment, much less from a job, in my life. Begging for this is taking everything I've got," she added with a desperate look at him.
He stuck the two-inch butt in his mouth, then struck a match on the underside of his desk. After two or three deep drags he got the end of the cigar to glow again and, with a deft roll, had it anchored in its usual position on the left side of his mouth. "How long we talkin'?"
She took a deep breath. "A month, more or less. Effective at once."
"Like hell. You'll finish out the week. And you'll check in once a week after that. And what about the historical piece you were doing on that mill family in Newarth?"
"Oh, I'll definitely finish that in the next month," she promised without a trace of irony. "And I have a couple of smaller things I can crank out. One of them is that piece on dangerous summer toys."
He clamped his jaw and ground at the end of his cigar, then pushed her interview and the hated USA Today across his desk. "Shitcan this interview. And the paper, too."
Red-faced, she gathered up the papers. "I'm sorry about this, Phil."
"I can't guarantee things will be the same when you come back," he said calmly. "You're good, I won't deny that. But I can't guarantee."
"I accept that, chief."
She fled feeling empty, frightened, and broke.
****
The week passed uneventfully. Fergus did one of his disappearing acts, leaving Emily to wonder why. He might have heard her conversation with Phil and was biding his time, or he might have gone into angry hiding after their confrontation in the rain. The only excitement in the week came from a brief statement read by Jim Whitewood, Senator Alden's aide, to the press. The statement confirmed that in accordance with Senator Alden's ongoing interest in the paranormal he had, indeed, attended a channeling the month before. The senator saw nothing to convince him that anything got channeled.
"Ha! Easy for you to say," Emily murmured, watching Whitewood on the Friday evening news.
She was now officially on leave and spent the evening clearing the decks for action: tossing every unread magazine, book, and catalog in her condo. Emptying the top drawer of her file cabinet. Clearing two shelves of her bookcase. Moving her desk to face the wall instead of the view. Formatting a computer disk to hold the mounting volume of information on Hessiah Talbot's murder. Laying in a supply of junk food and index cards.
I'm ready, she decided at midnight. I'm ready, and I feel good about it. She really did believe she was the best person to track down Hessiah's murderer. Lee won't, and Fergus can't. It's as simple as that, she told herself. She hoped that Fergus would accept her leave of absence as a kind of token of good faith. The look in his eyes, the sound of his voice during their last meeting were still very much with her. He had stirred her soul, and she knew things would never be the same between them again.
"Not that I have a clue what they were in the first place," she mumbled, filling a tea immerser with leaves of Darjeeling.
And then there was Lee Alden, her slightly eccentric, madly handsome, but all too rational ... ex-lover, would he be? She supposed so. One time -- that was all they'd had together. Tears welled in her eyes; she blotted them with her wrists. Next time fall in love with someone who has a humbler career, she told herself, sliding the kettle off the burner. Like an astronaut or a brain surgeon.
She poured boiling water over the metal perforated egg and watched it brew. Suddenly she seemed to have time for things like this: for watching the water turn from clear to gold to deep brown. Since she was sixteen, she'd never gone a whole month without working, without a paycheck. It didn't seem possible that she'd be doing it now. What luxury.
It'd be just my luck to solve the crime tomorrow and have to be back in the office on Monday. And here was another first: She didn't want to. She, the tireless one, was tired of having to be somewhere on Monday. From waiting on tables to selling shoes to investigative reporting, she'd had it with Mondays. "Is that all there is to life?" she whispered. "An endless series of Mondays?
"It's time to get a cat," she said, disgusted by her self-pitying mood. "At least then I won't be talking to myself all the time."
Outside, it was raining -- the fourth soaker that week -- and inside, it seemed damp and chill, even for late June. Emily pulled her ratty chenille robe around her more tightly and sipped her tea, trying not to think about either Lee or Fergus. She had the Newarth phone book open to the white pages. It was time to think about Kyle Edwards.
Chapter 19
There were thirteen Edwardses, none of them a Kyle, in the Newarth phone directory, and on Saturday afternoon Emily called them all. The responses ranged from "No Kyle here" to "Who wants to know?" But when she reached Timothy Edwards, she reached pay dirt. Timothy Edwards had a nephew named Kyle who was living in Cambridge—the last anyone heard anyway.
An operator gave Emily a number, and she called it, fingers dancing over the phone with excitement. At the other end a laid-back voice answered. "Yeah, this is Kyle Edwards," he said in a not unfriendly way.
"Mr. Edwards, this is Emily Bowditch. I'm writing a feature story for the Boston Journal about Talbot Manor in Newarth. I understand from my research that you had some connection with the place?"
"Hey, no kidding? The manor, huh? I lived there for a couple of years."
Yes, she thought ecstatically, punching a victory fist into thin air. "That's what I thought," she said in a carefully calm voice. "I came across some old term papers of yours there."
"So what's up?" he asked. "Has someone made me their heir? If so, thanks but no thanks. No one needs a white elephant like the manor in their life."
"Well, you can sleep easy, then," she said, laughing. "No one's left it to you. No, I'm just doing profiles of people who've lived there, from the original owners up to the present. I wonder if I could meet with you and get some of your thoughts. It wouldn't take long."
"Sure. What about this afternoon? You in town?"
"I live in Charlestown—"
"Close enough. Can you be in Cambridge tomorrow?"
"Nothing to it; I have to go to the Coop anyway," she lied. They agreed to meet at the Tangiers coffeehouse in Harvard Square at two in the afternoon. Emily hung up.
That was when she saw Fergus appear alongside her desk. At least, trying to. But his image was indistinct, blurry at the edges. Emily rubbed her eyes; it was as if a film were covering them. She blinked and tried again, but the image remained dim and unfocused. The only thing she could see well were his eyes, which seemed to burn with more indignation than ever. He looked hurt and angry and -- something new -- anxious.
"Fergus!" she cried, panicky herself now. "You're not coming in clearly!" She jumped up in alarm.
"Mother o' God," he snapped, "I ain't a TV!"
She wanted to run and get him a glass of water, or help him to her bed so that he could lie down, or fan his face with a magazine. Or give him ammonia salts. Or CPR. But there was nothing she could do, nothing. She could only stand by helplessly while he closed his eyes and took on a look of intense concentration that left her feeling weak-kneed.
Whatever it was that Fergus did, it brought him back into sharp focus. The brown of his vest became distinct from the gray of his pants, and the little details, like the four flaps on his vest, became visible once more. But the effort seemed to cost him; he looked exhausted.
"What's happening?" Emily asked faintly, feeling wan and exhausted herself. It was as if they were bound by a common blood supply.
He shook his head. "I don't know; this is new." He made a dismissive gesture, as if he didn't want to talk about it. "Who is this Kyle Edwards?" he asked in a still-unsteady voice.
Emily told him about the bound packet of airmail letters from France that she'd noticed in the drawer of the desk in the tower. "They were written in a young girl's hand, postmarked Paris, and the penmanship was distinctly European. Okay, it's a wild hunch, but I think Maria Salva wrote them to Kyle when she was a teenager."
A tired smile softened the strained features of Fergus's face. "Wild hunch? A flying leap into the great unknown, I'd call it."
"You've got to have more faith in me," she insisted, hurt. A surge of deep emotion for him rippled through her, sending color into her cheeks; she was remembering every word of his impassioned protest of the week before. Obviously, if anyone had faith in her, Fergus did.
"Sorry. That was a dumb thing for me to say," she admitted.
Fergus was off his feet now, sitting on the floor next to her desk, his head leaning into the wall behind him, his legs stretched out in front of him. The light from her desk lamp was shining on the top of his head, highlighting the shafts of auburn in his hair. His fair skin seemed even more pale than usual. Once again she had an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him, but she knew, now more than ever, that she'd be crossing the line between two different dimensions. She had to respect that line.
"Are you all right?" she asked, wanting reassurance.
He shrugged. "Time will tell." He meant to sound offhand, but his green eyes were blazing at her from under his brows.
Whenever he'd looked at her that way before, she'd felt either frightened or uncomfortable. But something was different now. This time she didn't look away or try to return the look defiantly. This time she drank it in the way a thirsty child drinks water on a summer day.
"We don't have much more of it -- time, I mean," she whispered. "Do we?"
In a voice surprised by its own sadness he said, "Every day I borrow a little more of it." He added with an ironic smile, "Trouble is, no one's told me my credit limit."
"Welcome to the American banking system," she said with an attempt at lightness. But her heart was beginning to crack.
"Emily--"
"Yes?"
"I know this is taking a toll on ye -- with yer senator, I mean," he said, his eyes burning with emotion. "I cannot stand to hurt ye."
She leaned her elbows on the desk and propped her chin on her open palms. Emotion was welling up; she was trying very hard not to cry. "That's what friends are for, Fergus," she said with a melancholy smile.
"So it's true. Somewhere along the line we've become friends, ye and me. Real friends." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. "Oh, brother. This was not part of the plan."
Emily studied him thoughtfully. "Did you actually have a plan?"
"I did, and ye don't want to know it," he said with a grim twist upward of his mouth. "It might strain the friendship."
She lifted her chin from her hands; her eyes became wary. The old tingle rippled down her spine. "You really intended to harm me? Once you got what you needed ...?"
"Emily, I've told ye before," he interrupted gently, "earthly notions of right and wrong do not carry over to the state of nothingness."
"But it was an earthly wrong that put you there in the first place," she argued, distressed. "Are you saying that if there are other astral beings trapped as you are in that state, they'll do whatever they have to do to break out of it? Whether it's right or wrong? They don't have to go by any rules of conduct?"
"I know only about myself," he said wearily.
"But there must be other beings like you. What about Talbot Manor, in fact? If there is a power of some kind there, it could be trapped the same way you are." He shrugged, and she said, "It could be trying to break out of its nothingness the same way you are. And it could be prepared to do whatever it takes, the same way you were. Of course!"
She jumped up, jittery with nervous energy and resolve, and trekked over to the Mr. Coffee machine to set up the last thing she needed, a pot of caffeine. "I've been assuming that the only thing haunting Talbot Manor was Maria Salva. Or, at worst, some poltergeist that she was creating –- that's Lee's fault; he's the one who got me going on poltergeists as projections of psychic disturbances. I do believe that Maria is disturbed. But now I see a simpler explanation."
She dumped a good part of a bag of ground A&P coffee into the pleated filter and slid the drip tray back into the machine. Instantly it began to glub and hiss, an evil, manipulative sound to her ears. She turned around to Fergus, gripping the counter's edge behind her.
"It's my belief that the manor is possessed by Hessiah Talbot's murderer," she said with almost lurid intensity.
Fergus was seated sideways on the sofa, his legs folded in front of him like a Buddha's. "Ye sound like them Basil Rathbone Sherlocks I been watchin'," he said, chuckling despite himself. "Let me see if I have this correct. Ye think that the murderer is itching to break out of his entrapped state --"
"Yes!"
"So that he -- or she -- can rush headlong into his -- or her -- punishment."
"Oh." She chewed on the inside of her cheek while she stared at the thin brown stream of liquid filling the glass decanter. "I suppose it's true; he doesn't have as much to gain as you do. But" she said, pulling out a mug from the rack, "you said yourself you'd rather exist in someplace like hell than not exist at all. Why couldn't the murderer feel that way, too?"
"I
f it is the murderer we're even talking about," Fergus added, slipping back into melancholy. "This is too damn fanciful for me. I need some facts."
"Then tag along with me to Cambridge tomorrow," Emily answered, filled with confidence enough for both of them. "I'll give you facts enough to fill a barn.
****
That night Emily slept poorly, probably because she'd overdosed on caffeine. Sometime before dawn she was troubled by a tremendous awareness that she was not alone in the room. Fretful and anxious but still half asleep, she opened one eye slightly and was able to make out Fergus standing at the foot of her bed, arms folded across his chest. The sense that it was the last time she'd ever see him cut through her like a bolt of lightning.
"Fergus!" she cried, her voice ripping through the night's stillness.
He was absolutely silent: unwilling, or unable, to answer her.
"Don't leave me," she moaned in sleep-shattered confusion. "You always do that ... so don't ... anymore ... please ... I don't want you to go ...."
He remained there silently, a look of intense emotion on his face, and eventually Emily, confused and disoriented, fell back asleep. In the morning she couldn't remember the incident with any clarity at all.
****
The Tangiers coffeehouse, tucked in a small alley behind the Harvard Coop, was one of many intimate gathering spots that make up the lifeblood of Harvard Square. Subterranean and dimly lit, it had a reputation for attracting aging hippies and unorthodox intellectuals. Emily asked for and left her name with a waitress named Laura and was led to a small round table in the corner. The brick floor, bentwood chairs, and Bob Dylan sound track lent a certain earnest ambience to the place. Kyle Edwards, seated at the corner table, fitted right in.
He was a big man, gray-bearded and balding and gone a little to seed. Emily introduced herself, and he put out his cigarette at once, shuffling to his feet with a bulky man's awkwardness. The hand he extended was surprisingly soft.
Emily's Ghost Page 22
