Hungry Ghosts

by Peggy Blair

  “Adam Neville, our pathologist, is still in town. He can maybe process the vehicle, look for prints. I know he has his kit here. He took prints at the crime scene.” Pike gave Bissonnette Neville’s phone number.

  “I’ll get hold of him, see if he can help us out. Where are you going to be?”

  “I’m going to see our lawyer, Celia Jones, to let her know what we’ve got. Media will be all over this as soon as they find out. My cell phone doesn’t always work that close to the rez. If you want to reach me, here’s her number.” Pike recited it from memory. “Adam’s got it too. Keep me in the loop, will you?”

  43

  “Maylene Kesler? That’s the Jane Doe?” Celia Jones said to Pike as she made them a pot of tea. “Shit, she’s the doctor who was supposed to get hold of my mom. She was up here running some kind of clinic a month or two ago. The university told me she was back doing the follow-up. No wonder she never called. I still don’t know what kind of tests she was running. They told me she specialized in indigenous people’s health. Environmental genetics.”

  “She was testing people from the reserve for mercury poisoning,” said Pike. He told her about his conversation with Bill Wabigoon.

  “Mercury? I’ve been watching the news reports, Charlie. They said the mill had closed down before, but not why. There must be millions of dollars tied up in that operation—government grants, jobs. What if she found out something that could close it down? What if her murder wasn’t random at all? You know, it could be entirely unrelated to the Highway Strangler.”

  “Maybe,” said Pike. “There are a few things about this one that are different from the others. But there’s an awful lot about it that looks the same.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Celia. I don’t much like coincidences.”

  “We need to find out,” said Jones. She stood up and paced around the kitchen table. “You need to get hold of her research. Maybe she kept copies at the health clinic. She was using it to run her tests. She must have had an office there. Was there anything in the SUV?”

  “No idea yet. Adam or the OPP will call me once they have a chance to go over it. But the nurse at the clinic told me they have a temporary office for visiting doctors. It’s the one Adam’s been using.”

  “Well, let’s find out.” Jones picked up the phone and called the health clinic.

  “My name is Celia Jones,” she said to the woman who answered. “I’m with the Rideau Regional Police. I’m working on an investigation.” She made a face at Charlie, knowing she was stretching the truth, letting the woman at reception think she was a police officer too. “I need to know if Dr. Maylene Kesler has an office in your building.”

  “Well,” the receptionist said, hesitantly. “Dr. Kesler does use an office here sometimes. May I ask what this is about?”

  Jones ignored her question. “Does she keep her patient files there?”

  “She has a filing cabinet, but it’s locked. She’s the only one with a key.”

  “We need to see those files in relation to a homicide investigation.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to let you into it even if I had a key. You could ask her, I suppose, although I doubt very much Dr. Kesler would share that information with you. She’s very careful about doctor-patient privilege.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t do that,” said Jones. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Dr. Kesler is dead.”

  “Dead? How can she be dead? I just saw her a few days ago.”

  Jones looked at Pike and raised her eyebrows. “When?”

  “On Thursday. She called me from the airport. She wanted to know if she could use the office to set up some appointments. She asked me to leave her a key; said she wanted to get to work right away. She’d made arrangements to see one of her patients.”

  “What time was that?” asked Jones. “Do you know which patient?”

  “She didn’t say. The Thursday afternoon flights always come in at the same time. It was four thirty, maybe five, when she phoned. I know it wasn’t after five; I didn’t stay late, because of the storm that was coming. Funny, though, now that you mention it, I didn’t see her on Friday, but she’d left her rental car in the lot. I assumed she’d gone to visit one of the First Nation communities she was working with and got a ride up with one of the band members rather than drive alone on the bad roads. My God. She’s dead? How? What happened? Some kind of car accident?”

  “She was murdered,” said Jones. “You may have been one of the last people to see her alive.”

  Jones sat down at the kitchen table. “She’s right about one thing, Charlie. You can’t get into that office without a warrant. Doctor-­patient privilege applies to those files. There’s no court that’s going to let you go on a fishing expedition, not even in a murder investigation. Damn it. Those files could be the key.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Celia. I’ll figure something out.”

  The phone rang and Jones got up to get it. She listened for a moment, then covered the receiver with her hands. “Maybe you won’t need to,” she said. “It’s Adam. He says he’s found fingerprints in the SUV that aren’t Maylene Kesler’s or the Esso station owner’s. And he’s got a match.” She handed the phone to Pike.

  “Hey, Adam, what do you have?”

  “Bad news. I’m sorry to tell you this, Charlie, but the prints I found are your friend’s. The thumbprint is nice and clear. No doubt about it.”

  “Bill Wabigoon?”

  “No,” said Neville. “Sheldon Waubasking. I pulled a match off the elimination prints I took from him at the crime scene. I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Positive. There was an index finger and a thumbprint on the dash. Ten-point match. This is going to be messy, isn’t it, with him being from the reserve and the blockade going on.”

  “I’ll sort it out with Bill,” said Pike. He hung up the phone, stunned. Sheldon? Why would Sheldon kill Maylene Kesler? He relayed to Jones what Adam Neville had said.

  “But that’s so hard to believe,” said Jones.

  Pike nodded, although the more he thought about it, the less he felt like he should be surprised.

  He thought back to the way the nuns used to beat him and Sheldon at day school. The worst part was the food, they’d agreed later. Cabbage soup, hamburger pie with rotten meat, sour milk. It disgusted them, but even if they threw up in their bowls, they had to eat it. Sheldon could handle the beatings, but after he had to eat a bowl of his own puke for the third time, he told Charlie he’d had enough.

  Pike didn’t want to think how many times he and Sheldon got kicked in the butt or slapped around the ears for kidding around.

  “I don’t know, Celia. Maybe it’s just been a matter of time.”

  The first time he and Sheldon ran away from the school, they’d headed for the railway tracks. The principal found them and dragged them back. He made them strip naked and whipped them with a big leather belt until they cried. Then he tied their long grey wool socks around their necks and pulled them back to the classroom as if they were dogs.

  “It could be him, Celia. O’Malley found us a foster home in Winnipeg. He was worried about us getting beaten up, with all the gangs after us. He took us to his gym and taught us to box.”

  “Now, Charlie, you’re a counterpuncher,” O’Malley had said. “You know how to spot your opponent’s mistakes. A good counterpuncher never lets anyone know exactly where he’s going, and he never telegraphs a punch. He dekes people out. That’s you. You’re smart. Accurate with your hands, and fast. You see, Sheldon? Someone like Charlie could take you down and you’d never quite know what hit you.”

  Charlie had brightened. “And what about Sheldon? What’s he good at?

  “Sheldon?” O’Malley smiled. “He slips out of the way so the other guys miss him. That keeps them off-balance. He likes to
keep his hands free so he can use them. He’s more defensive than you are, Charlie, but that’s a good strategy. He’s cautious. Flies under the radar.”

  Charlie had nodded. That was Sheldon to a tee.

  Pike shook his head. He pushed the teacup away and got to his feet.

  “Two nights a week, we took martial arts at O’Malley’s gym. He made sure we learned all the basic moves in kickboxing and Wendo. And how to do chokeholds.”

  44

  Shortly after Inspector Ramirez entered his office, Manuel Flores knocked on his door. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Ramirez. I thought I’d check on your welfare. I know these are particularly difficult cases. Detective Espinoza mentioned your family is out of town. I thought it might help if you had someone to talk to.” Flores put his hand on the door frame to steady himself. “If that’s what you want, of course. Are you going to invite me to sit down?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Flores,” Ramirez said, taking to his feet until the older man had lowered himself onto one of the hard wooden chairs. Ramirez thought he looked even more tired and drawn, his breathing laboured. “It’s nice of you to be concerned about my welfare when you’re . . .”

  “When I’m what, Inspector? Dying?” Flores smiled. “I’m not dead yet. The Americans have some amazing new treatments for cancer, ways of targeting tumours without killing the healthy cells around them. Once my work is done here, I’ll be heading right back to New York to start an experimental therapy. But let’s talk about you. I thought you seemed stressed the other day. How can I help?”

  Ramirez sat back in his chair. He did feel burdened by his secrets. He had never found a way to tell Francesca about his ghosts; he was afraid she would think he was losing his mind. And he had never been able to broach the topic with Apiro either. He didn’t want it to affect their friendship.

  Adding to his unease was the fact that the attractive female ghost who had showed up this week had him thinking about what it would be like to sleep with another woman. After twelve years, his relationship with Francesca was not as passionate as it once was, although she was always responsive. He loved his wife, but his marriage was showing cracks. Francesca knew something was wrong, but not what, and he didn’t know how to tell her. The ghosts were bad enough, but that he had blackmailed the Minister of the Interior? She’d be frightened that he’d put their family at risk. And he worried that he had.

  “Things are a little complicated at home,” Ramirez said.

  Flores nodded. “They often are for policemen. Divorce rates have always been high in our business. With the shift work and the terrible things we see, it’s amazing that any of us manage to have healthy relationships. I worry about you in particular, because I know you try to see things from the perspective of the murderers you’re investigating. That makes you vulnerable to all kinds of psychological reactions. Post-traumatic stress is one, but there are others. Are you managing?”

  Ramirez took a deep breath and exhaled. He had to tell someone; his secrets were making him crazy. “Sometimes I think I can see the murder victims from my investigations. My grandmother was Yoruba. She believed the dead come to life in our dreams.”

  “Ah, yes, the Yoruba. Fascinating, their belief systems. Okan, they call it. Okan re ti lo. Buried in thought.” The psychiatrist shrugged. “I’ve become far more tolerant of other people’s beliefs as I deal with my own mortality. The world is far too complex to ever fully comprehend. I still find it incredible that light travels faster than sound. How vivid are these visions?”

  “Very vivid,” Ramirez said. “I see them when I’m awake and sometimes when I’m falling asleep. Or waking up.”

  “Ah,” said Flores. “We call those lucid dreams. They’re quite common. So, what is it that you see, exactly?”

  Ramirez sighed. “It’s as if I can see their ghosts. But they’re not transparent; they’re solid and real. They never speak; they just gesture. And I feel helpless, because I can’t understand what it is they’re trying to tell me.”

  “Interesting,” said Flores. “It sounds as if you’re having what psychiatrists call an apparitional experience. It’s not a mental illness. It simply refers to a situation where someone who’s perfectly sane sees someone who isn’t really there, and most often a stranger.”

  “That’s what it’s like with me,” Ramirez exclaimed.

  “Well, it’s not paranormal or even supernatural, if that makes you feel better, unless of course you believe in ghosts.” Flores smiled.

  “I’m not even sure I believe in God, Dr. Flores.”

  “Well, I don’t think you have to believe in God to believe in ghosts, or in ghosts to believe in God, but this condition, for lack of a better word, is nothing to be worried about. In the 1970s, two American scientists—I think one was named McCreery—examined hundreds of reported cases. They weren’t able to determine a cause, but they did find certain commonalities. The people who saw the apparitions weren’t frightened by them but usually found them reassuring and supportive. They tended to see the visions at rather ordinary places, as opposed to somewhere that might typically be considered haunted, like a graveyard. And the visions could often be so real, so substantial, that patients realized only later that they weren’t.”

  “Did they ever speak to them? The ghosts?”

  “The researchers don’t like to call them ghosts, because that implies something paranormal, and that’s not what this is. No, the patients rarely communicated with these visions; verbal interaction would be considered unusual. And scientifically, the researchers couldn’t find any difference between their perceptions and normal ones. The people who had an apparitional experience were lucid and not drugged. They were completely, utterly, sane.”

  “Why does it happen?” Ramirez asked.

  “I think probably some portion of your brain is processing symbolic information, subconsciously trying to help you with your investigations. It’s a way we have of adapting to stressful conditions, making it easier to cope without being overwhelmed.”

  “So I’m not crazy?”

  “Not at all.” Manuel Flores smiled. He took to his feet. “It’s been a long day; I need to get back to work. I wish my problems were as easy to solve as yours. But I hope that helps you feel better.”

  “It does,” Ramirez said gratefully. He felt an enormous weight lift from his shoulders. “Gracias. It really does.”

  As soon as Manuel Flores left Ramirez’s office, the inspector’s telephone rang. His sense of being unburdened was short-lived. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” said Dominique Gatti, the Italian curator’s assistant, impatiently. “Our government intends to file a formal complaint if our paintings are not released tomorrow. We have a small window of opportunity to make the necessary repairs, and we’re running out of time. We are far more concerned with that than with you making an arrest. I sincerely hope you are close to completing your investigation.”

  “We’re making progress,” Ramirez lied.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Gatti said. “Because if we don’t have those paintings back tomorrow, this will become an international incident. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I have some information. Please be patient, Señora.”

  As soon as Ramirez hung up, the phone rang again. He picked it up and immediately recognized the voice of the minister’s clerk.

  “The minister is being harassed by an Italian curator named Lorenzo Testa,” she said crisply. She sounded confident, her authority restored. “He said to tell you, he wants no more calls. The paintings will be released to the Italians tomorrow. You have until tomorrow noon to close this file, or else.”

  Ramirez wasn’t sure what the “or else” might be. But the fact that it was the minister’s clerk and not the minister issuing the threat was not a good sign.

  “Tell him I’m working on it,” he said.


  He sighed, not knowing where to start, and put the phone down.

  45

  Ramirez found Detective Espinoza seated at his desk, flipping through a sheaf of papers. He told Espinoza about the impending deadline.

  “I’ve been working on it,” said Espinoza. “I checked with Customs yesterday. They said they stopped several extranjeros with aerosol paint cans in their suitcases, as well as microphones. But they didn’t seize them.”

  In Cuba, a microphone was a dangerous weapon, capable of inciting dissent. The penalties for possessing one were harsh. But rules were relaxed during the hip-hop festival. Fidel Castro had even ordered that microphones and sound systems be supplied to the rappers. It allowed the security forces to shut down any performer whose message was counter-revolutionary simply by shutting down the feed.

  Castro’s approach to capitalist technology reminded Ramirez of the Ayatollah Khomeini. He too had used a microphone to denounce Western science on television.

  “I really have no idea how to track down a political dissident,” said Ramirez. Most of them were in jail already. “But I’m going to head over to la Moña. I know someone who might.”

  La Moña, the site of the hip-hop festival, was east of Alamar. The roads in the area were choked with parked taxis, coco-taxis, scooters, bicycles, and tourist buses, but Ramirez finally found a spot for his small car.

  He got out and slammed the door. His shirt was wet and sticky because of the humidity. When he reached the venue, he could see thousands of people clustered around a dozen or more plywood stages. A reggae band played on one. The sound of guaguancó—Afro-­Cuban percussion music—drifted from another.

  Ramirez pushed his way through the throngs, looking for Nassara Nobiko. Another policeman might call her his chivato—his snitch—but she preferred to think of herself as an elder stateswoman. She had brought the first African-American rappers to the island, and it was mostly because of her that the government created the Agencia Cubana de Rap, as well as a rap record label.