by Terri Reid
“Isn’t it interesting that some of our harshest critics are those within our own community?” Kathi mused. “Well, what else would you like to speak about?”
Ian thought about it for a moment. “Well, I’ve recently completed a paper that speaks to Professor Robert Jahn’s “The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective” that was initially published in 1982 through the PEARS group at Princeton. I’ve been able to take some of the new technology we have available today and apply it to some of his theories back then. It’s incredibly interesting. I could talk about that.”
Kathi looked at Mary and shook his head. “He doesn’t look like a nerd,” she whispered.
Mary laughed. “I know, right? But he is one,” she said.
Ian shrugged. “Aye, it’s true. I am,” he laughed. “But, really, the tests I performed were really enlightening, especially the RSPK tests.” He looked at both of the women. “You know, recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.”
Mary nodded at first and then shook her head. “Nope, you lost me there,” she admitted.
Kathi chuckled and turned to Ian. “Actually, it sounds really interesting,” she said. “Do you need a projector? Do you have a PowerPoint presentation?”
“Aye, I just happen to have a thumb drive with a PowerPoint with me,” he replied.
Kathi and Mary smiled at each other. “Of course you do,” Kathi said. “I’ll get everything set up for you.” She checked her watch. “You have about forty-five minutes before we officially open the conference and do our welcome. So, if you need anything, just ask.”
“Thanks,” Mary said. “We’ll just set up and get to know some of our neighbors.”
“Good,” Kathi replied. “They’re all really great people.”
Ian and Mary walked back toward their table. “Well, we’ll see about that,” Ian whispered to Mary. “We’ll just see about that.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Mary looked at the forlorn table with their borrowed equipment and shook her head. “We have a really sad display,” she remarked as she looked around at the tables filled with posters, books for sale and electronic displays.
Rosie nodded. “I agree,” she said. “I knew I should have brought some things from home. Stanley, I told you we should have brought some things from home.”
“I don’t think electric jack-o-lanterns and motion detecting candy dishes that scream at you when you walk by are what Mary had in mind,” Stanley argued.
“Well, they’re Halloween decorations, and this is just like a big Halloween party, right?” Rosie asked.
“Um, not really,” Dee inserted. “We actually try to portray ourselves as a little more serious than that.”
Rosie turned to Dee. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend…”
He smiled at her. “You didn’t offend me at all,” he said. “During my first convention, my mother bought me a Ghostbuster’s poster to hang up behind the table.”
Gwen appeared next to Mary. “And it wasn’t cheap either,” she murmured.
“Did you use it?” Rosie asked.
Dee shook his head. “I never told her…” he began.
“He just did now,” Gwen commented. “Why, I can’t believe…”
“But I hung it up in my apartment,” he continued. “It’s right in the living room, so I can remind myself of how much my mom was always supporting me.”
Gwen folded her arms over her chest. “Well, now, that was sweet,” she said, and then she turned to Mary. “Do you think he knows I’m here and is just trying to pull the wool over my eyes?”
Mary shook her head. “No, I think he has that poster hung up in his apartment,” she whispered. “He’s seems a little emotional about it, and I don’t think he’s that good of an actor.”
Gwen smiled at her son. “No. No, he’s not,” she said. “In fact, he’s a terrible actor.”
Dee walked over to his table and picked up a plastic tub. “I’ve got some extra stuff we couldn’t fit on our table,” he said. “Want to put it on yours?”
“Do we have to know what it does?” Rosie asked, looking tentatively at the electronic equipment.
Dee shook his head. “No, most people here will know what it’s for,” he said. “So, it’s just for show. And, if you want, I can put my camera equipment over on this side of the table to give you the right effect.”
“That will look great,” Mary said. “Thanks, Dee.”
Then she looked around. “Where are Bradley and Sven?” she asked.
“Sven is afraid to come out into the open,” Dee said, disgust in his voice. “So Bradley had to take him back to the hotel.”
“Well, he certainly wasn’t as adamant about safety when he thought Dee was the only one in danger,” Gwen said.
“Okay, then we should spread out and get to know as many of the groups as we can,” Mary said. “Dee, do you have the list of the groups who were at the asylum with you?”
Dee nodded and handed Mary a sheet of paper with the names of six groups. She tore the paper into three pieces and handed one to Rosie and Stanley, one to Ian and kept one for herself.
“We’ve got about forty minutes before things get started,” she said. “Why don’t we try and make contact with these groups and see if we can discover anything.”
“Good idea,” Ian said. “Dee, why don’t you come with me?”
“Okay, that’ll be good,” Dee said. “Then I can introduce you around like I know you.”
Ian grinned. “You do know me,” he said.
Dee’s smile widened. “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”
The other groups walked away from the table, and Mary turned to Gwen. “Well, that leaves me and you,” she said.
“That’s fine with me,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Stanley looked down at the names of the groups he and Rosie were supposed to contact. “Lookie here,” he said pointing to the names on the page. “They both got highfalutin names with initials. We’ve gotta have a name, too.”
“But Stanley,” Rosie argued, “we’ve got a name. The Mary O’Reilly Investigations Group.”
Shaking his head, Stanley leaned closer to his wife. “That ain’t a group name,” he whispered. “That’s a girly name, and I ain’t gonna be classified as some girlie man.”
Rosie sighed. “I guess it won’t hurt for us to come up with a name,” she agreed. “What name would you like?”
Stanley thought about it for a moment. “Well, it’s gotta be scientific sounding,” he said. “Real scientific.”
“So, let’s use the word scientific,” Rosie said.
“No,” Stanley argued, shaking his head. “Iffen you use the word scientific, folks know you’re not scientific. You’re just using the word to look good. We need a word like scientific that ain’t scientific.”
“Well, you have that fancy smart phone,” Rosie said. “Doesn’t it have anything like a thesaurus on it?”
Stanley pulled out his phone and studied it. “Well, it does indeed,” he said. “Let me just type in scientific.”
“What’s it say?” Rosie asked.
“Technical. No that ain’t right. Systematic. No that don’t sound good either,” Stanley commented as he read through the list. “Hey, what do we have here? Forensic. Now that’s a fine word.”
“Oh, forensic,” Rosie replied, nodding. “That does have a nice ring to it. So we’re the Forensic Paranormal Research Group.”
“Team. Let’s be a team,” Stanley said. “Group sounds too musical.”
Rosie pondered that for a moment and then shrugged. “Okay, Forensic Paranormal Research Team. That does sound impressive.”
“Yeah, close, but we ain’t got no cigar yet,” he said, resting his chin in his hand. “We need something more. I mean everyone has paranormal in their name. We should be different.”
“Well, use that thesaurus again and see what it comes up with,” Rosie urged.
Stanley opened the app one more time and entered “paranormal.”
“Well?” Rosie asked.
“Okay, we got ghostly,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, it makes the team sounds like we’re ghosts.”
“Weird?” he replied.
She just looked at him and shook her head.
“Mystical?” he offered.
“I don’t think so,” she replied.
“Oh, I have it,” he said. “Anomalous.”
“Oh, that does sound professional,” she replied. “Anomalous.”
“Let’s go start introducing ourselves to the other groups,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll pay attention when they hear our team’s name.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Bunch of darn-fool idiots,” Stanley grumbled as they met the others back at the table thirty minutes later. “Not a brain among them.”
“What happened?” Mary asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mary,” Rosie said. “We just introduced ourselves and told them the name of our team, and they started laughing.”
“The name of our team?” Bradley asked, coming up to the table.
Rosie turned and smiled at him. “Oh, Bradley, you would be so proud of Stanley,” she said. “He knew that we’d need a real, paranormal research team name in order to, you know, be taken seriously.”
“All them other groups have names,” Stanley muttered. “Darn-fool idiots.”
“Well, that sounds like a great idea, Stanley,” Mary said.
“And Stanley used his smart phone’s thesaurus to find scientific sounding words,” Rosie added. “So we would sound professional.”
“What professionally sounding words did you use?” Ian asked. “I’m going to have to go up on stage in a moment, and it would be nice to know who I’m representing.”
“You tell them, Stanley,” Rosie insisted, beaming with pride.
“Forensic Anomalous Research Team,” Stanley said with a proud nod. “That’s what we’re called.”
“FART?” Ian asked, shaking his head. “You named us FART?”
Mary clapped a hand over her mouth but couldn’t stop the laughter.
“Oh, my,” Rosie stammered, placing her hands over her mouth. “I guess we should have written it down to see what the initials spelled.” She turned to Bradley. “It sounded so good when we came up with it.”
Bradley nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Mary sat down, her sides aching, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped, wiping at her face. “But don’t worry Ian. I’m sure when you say it with a Scottish accent it will sound much, much better.”
Ian glared at her. “Why, thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much, darling. And you won’t be in the least upset when I introduce you as the lead and founding member of FART, now will you?”
Mary collapsed back against her chair, her laughter spilling out again. “Only if you then announce that our annual fundraiser is a chili supper,” she gasped out.
Ian’s lips twisted. He smirked and finally laughed out loud. “Aye, and I’ll let them know that your American chili has nothing on a good, Scottish haggis,” he said.
“Besides,” Mary said, panting to catch her breath, “we’re all about catching the faint remains and often cloudy specters of the past.”
“You could suggest that we’re going to have a television series called Ghostly Anomalous Specters,” Bradley inserted.
“Well, iffen you’re all done making fun of me,” Stanley grumbled.
Instantly contrite, Mary reached over and put her hand on Stanley’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And, actually, your name is brilliant. No one is ever going to forget who we are, and no one is even going to consider that we are doing our own investigation.”
Ian nodded. “Yeah, great cover, Stanley,” he agreed. “Cunning plan.”
Stanley smiled and nodded. “Well, you know, I have done some undercover work in my past,” he replied.
“But, Stanley, we didn’t know…” Rosie began.
“Well, o’ course I couldn’t let you know,” Stanley interrupted his wife. “‘Cause if it didn’t work, I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.”
Rosie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “You are my hero, Stanley Wagner,” she said.
They all stopped talking when Kathi walked across stage. “Hello everyone,” she said. “And welcome to the Illinois Annual Paranormal Conference.”
Ian looked over at the group. “Well, I guess that’s my cue,” he said and started walking toward the stage.
“I’m pleased to introduce as our first speaker, world-renown paranormal researcher, Professor Ian MacDougal,” she said, clapping and stepping aside to offer him the lecturn.
Ian stepped up and smiled at the crowd. “Good morning, everyone,” he started. “My name’s Ian MacDougal, and I’m from FART.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Well, people are going to have a lot more respect for FART after that presentation,” Mary said to Ian when he walked down from the stage. “That was very impressive.”
“You said the name funny,” Stanley said. “It sounded more like fort.”
Ian shrugged. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’ve always had this funny accent thing going on for as long as I can remember.”
“Well, fort or fart,” Bradley said. “Now that we’ve done our presentation, we can start looking into which of the groups, if any, is after Dee.”
“Well, I didn’t have any luck talking to my three,” Mary said. “Kathi wanted to introduce me to a number of people, and I couldn’t get away.”
“Dee and I weren’t as welcomed as we’d wished,” Ian said. “There was kind of a hands-off attitude.”
“Which could totally be caused by the asylum research,” Dee said. “Everyone’s keeping their cards close.”
“Okay, well, how about we try again?” Mary suggested.
Stanley shook his head. “I ain’t cut out to talk to these paranormal types,” he said. “How ‘bout me and Rosie stay here at the table and keep an eye out for things?”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked. “You had that fancy phone app.”
“Yeah, well, I can show it off when folks come over to the table,” he said. “But fer now, I’m thinking we’d be best watching folks watch you.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bradley said. “You’d have a better perspective than we would on how folks react. Thanks, Stanley.”
Mary, Bradley, Ian and Dee walked away from the table.
“I hope I didn’t bruise his ego too much when I laughed,” Mary said.
“His ego?” Ian asked.
Mary looked over at him. “Oh, I’m sure your ego can handle whatever’s thrown in its direction,” she teased.
“He’ll be fine,” Bradley said. “Besides, he’s right. It is a good idea to have them at the table watching people watch us.”
“So, are we splitting up again?” Dee asked.
Mary shook her head. “No, let’s stop by each group together,” she said. “More perspective.”
Rosie watched the others walk across the room, and when they were far enough away, she turned to Stanley. “I wish I were doing more,” she said.
“You’re staying with me,” Stanley replied. “That’s something.”
She smiled at her husband and shook her head. “You know as well as I do that you don’t need my help here at the table,” she said.
He studied her for a moment, this woman who supported him and encouraged him even when he made silly mistakes as he had with the team name. How often did he show her his confidence in her? How often did he let her shine?
“You know,” he said slowly, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck as he spoke. “I’m thinking you could probably do some undercover work. Listen a little. Absorb comments from the other teams at the conference.”
Rosie stood a little straighter. “How could I do that?” she
asked.
“Well, where is the best place to hear gossip?” he asked.
A smile slowly spread across her face. She reached over to the chair next to Stanley, picked up her purse and slid the strap over her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Stanley asked her, a twinkle in his eyes.
“Where all the good gossip happens,” she replied with a little sass in her voice. “To the ladies’ room.”
Chapter Thirty
“Hey, you’re the FART group, right?” the young man asked Ian, Mary, Dee and Bradley as they came up to his table. “Great name!”
Dee shook his head, a wide smile on his face. “Oh, no, that’s not me,” he denied quickly. “I’m part of Ghost Discoverers.”
“Oh, yeah, I think I saw you out at the asylum, right?” the young man asked, standing up and extending his hand. “I’m Dean. Rockford Area Paranormal Squad.”
“RAPS?” Mary asked.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, we wanted a, you know, younger and hipper name, and we thought RAPS was cool.”
“It is cool,” Ian said. Then he lowered his voice and whispered to Bradley. “Much cooler than FARTS.”
“But maybe not as musical,” Bradley whispered back.
Ian choked back his laughter and turned away from the table for a moment to steady himself.
“So, you went to the asylum,” Bradley said. “I’m Bradley by the way. What did you think of it?”
Dean shrugged. “Well, you know, it’s just me and my sister, Jan,” he began.
“Wait,” Mary interrupted. “You two are Jan and Dean?”
Sighing wearily, he nodded. “Yeah, and we get a lot of that, too,” he admitted. “Blame our parents.”
“Sorry,” she replied with a sympathetic smile. “Couldn’t help it. So, how was the asylum?”
“So, Jan generally does the camera work, and I am the lead investigator with all the bells and whistles,” he said. “We do all of our investigations in the dark using night vision through the camera, so it can get pretty intense.”
