Delia's Shadow

by Moyer, Jaime Lee

  I wasn’t sure I could watch. Ethan’s threat to kill people during the display took the luster off the fireworks for me. I hurried back to the kitchen to help Annie with supper and making sure the men guarding the house were fed.

  At first, I thought the sensation of ghosts leaving the house idle fancy as well. The constant itch on the back of my neck and the pressure in my chest eased, sliding away so gradually that their absence took me by surprise. I guessed what their leaving meant. Relief would come later, once I was sure. Keeping Sadie company while she fed Esther came first.

  Supper with Esther hadn’t been easy since my return home and grew more difficult daily. Her mind frequently wandered and she lost the thread of conversation, or she relived events from her past, speaking to Sadie and I as if we were people from that long ago time. Sadie’s distress grew apace with each incident, harsh evidence of her mother’s decline she couldn’t deny.

  Sadie needed me. Best friends didn’t abandon each other in times of need or they were poor friends indeed. And even if none of that were true, I owed Esther Larkin for giving me a home and a good life. I struggled to hide my distraction with vanishing ghosts and steer around the shoals of Esther’s fading mind. Each moment we had left was precious, no matter how difficult.

  Esther spoke little, taking each bite Sadie offered without comment or complaint. She rarely looked away from my face, her eyes bright. I couldn’t interpret the expression on her face, but I knew Esther heard ghosts clearly and suspected that she saw more than I imagined.

  Little surprised me anymore when it came to spirits and hauntings. That Esther would know when ghosts began to fill her house least of all.

  “That’s enough.” Esther waved away the fork in Sadie’s hand, suddenly grumpy and out of sorts. “They’re making too much noise and I’m tired. How can I sleep when they all carry on so loudly?”

  “Who’s making noise, Mama Esther?” Fearing I already knew the answer didn’t stop me from asking. I took her cold hand, holding it lightly. She bruised so easily. “I can’t hear anyone.”

  She scowled and shook her head, becoming loud and agitated. “You’re not trying, Delia Ann. That girl who follows you, she brought the strangers here. Tell her to make them stay quiet.”

  “Mama, don’t shout at Dee.” Sadie’s voice was firm, but her eyes glistened with tears. More and more, she became the parent and Esther the child. “There’s nothing she can do about the ghosts. Dora explained that to you.”

  Esther yanked her hand away. “Piffle. She can talk to that girl and make her take all these people away again. I shouldn’t have to listen to them wailing over what to do.”

  The pulse inside that told me Aileen was near strengthened. My heart sped up to match, but the ghost hid from me and didn’t appear. Aileen’s ghost was afraid. Not the fear of being sent away by Annie or Isadora, that I knew and recognized. This was new, different. Aileen’s terror churned inside my chest, scrabbled over my skin like a nest of spiders. I shut her out as best I could and fought not to drown.

  “Esther, the girl who follows me isn’t here. I can’t ask her to help.” I smoothed her hair back with a shaking hand. She glared at me, angry for reasons I couldn’t understand. “And I can’t hear the ghosts. I need you to tell me what they’re saying.”

  She pressed her lips into a thin, tight line and peered over my shoulder for what seemed like an eternity. I thought she’d forgotten to answer. “Your girl’s distracted, watching over her boy. She won’t come out and talk to Teddy. He tried to ask the strangers to go, but all they can talk about is the jackal. He hid their bones.”

  The jackal; she meant Ethan. I understood now, Aileen’s ghost was afraid for Jack. Sadie knew as well. She sucked in a sharp breath and turned her back, staying close but unable to watch.

  Questioning Esther bothered me, but I’d no one else to ask. “And the strangers are lost and don’t know where they are. Is that why they’re upset, Mama Esther?”

  “No, no, not because they’re lost. They’d learned to rest until your girl stirred them up.” She screwed her eyes tight shut and shook her head. “But the jackal came back. He’s hunting tonight and now they don’t know what to do.”

  Sadie knelt by the bed and took her mother’s other hand. As hard as this was for me, listening to her mother convey messages from ghosts was infinitely worse for her. The rest of the world saw Sadie as a curly-haired gossip without an ounce of real character. They didn’t know her or the courage lurking behind the flighty facade. “Mama, ask Teddy if he knows who the jackal is hunting.”

  Esther sighed and sank back on the pillows, limp and exhausted, all the fire she’d shown reduced to embers. “Teddy says the strangers fight and argue, but don’t really say anything. I don’t think they know.”

  I gathered the dirty dishes and cups, and carried the tray down to the kitchen. Sadie’s voice followed me down the stairs, a child trying to soothe her mother to sleep and ease Esther’s fear of the unknown.

  Fear of what Esther didn’t know grew as she lost more of who she was, who she’d been. She spent more and more time talking to Teddy’s ghost, reliving a life with him I still wasn’t certain was real. Forgetting everything would be kinder than this half existence, but there were certain kinds of mercy I couldn’t bring myself to pray for. Not now, not yet.

  The muffled snap and crackle of firecrackers came from the street, a first salvo from young boys in the neighborhood. Soon, too soon, the staged displays at the fairgrounds would start. Gabe would run out of time then.

  Time enough to catch a killer; that I could pray for.

  CHAPTER 18

  Gabe

  Strings of colored bulbs looped over teeming walkways, lighting up the faces of the crowd in blues, golds, and reds. Gabe studied the face of each man on his right, old and young, short and tall, confident that Jack did the same to his left. They’d both memorized the photographs of Ethan and the description given by his wife. Neither of them was willing to dismiss anyone they encountered out of hand based on either of those things.

  Ethan was too smart, too confident in his ability to outsmart the police, for Gabe to take anything for granted. Assuming they knew what he looked like was a mistake.

  Full darkness and the start of the fireworks display were only minutes away. Families, young couples, and lone men and women strolled the walkways, crowded the lawns and benches. Fourth of July was the highlight of the summer season and the sheer number of people in attendance at the Pan Pacific staggered Gabe.

  He tried not to despair and hold on to faith in his men. Finding Ethan was difficult, he’d known that while making his plans, but Gabe refused to think of the task as impossible. He wasn’t ready to admit defeat.

  And he’d had misgivings and argued against the idea, but allowing his father to join the men patrolling the fairgrounds felt like the right decision. Partnered up with Captain Parker, the two older men stood the best chance of recognizing Ethan, even after thirty years. They’d known Ethan at seventeen and while age certainly altered faces, Gabe would take what advantages fate handed out.

  Jack tugged off his cloth cap and raked fingers through his unruly mass of curls. He left the cap off, slapping the hat against his thigh with each step. “Ethan’s laughing at us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was watching us right now.”

  “Let him laugh.” Gabe angled his way through the crowd, sidestepping excited children and their slow-moving parents. The main promenade was well lit, but the more night and darkness settled in, the more difficult it became to search for Ethan and avoid stepping on a child. “I want him cocky and making mistakes.”

  “He hasn’t made any yet.” Jack’s mouth twisted and he stuffed his cap into a coat pocket. “How much longer?”

  The clock tower ahead was bathed in spotlights, a landmark for people trying to find their way around the grounds. He’d avoided watching the hands slide around, counting down the hours and minutes until the first skyrocket was launched. How little ti
me they had left was a surprise. He smothered a flicker of panic. Ethan wouldn’t win. “About fifteen minutes. Try and remember we’re not the only ones looking. Dad and Parker, or one of the other patrols may have Ethan right now. We wouldn’t hear immediately.”

  “Always the optimist, Lieutenant.” Jack’s shoulders were hunched, but he flashed a grin. “Do they issue that cheery outlook with the badge and promotion certificate?”

  Gabe relaxed, the knot in his stomach untying a fraction. If Jack was joking life wasn’t totally dire. “I’m not allowed to reveal that information to the lower ranks, Sergeant. Work hard and you’ll find out for yourself.”

  They continued down the Avenue of the Nations toward the Marina and around to the livestock exhibits. Once the sun went down, crowds thinned and eventually vanished in this section of the grounds. Interest in farm animals waned as families with young children went home. Activities in the Fun Zone were a bigger draw most nights, but this wasn’t most nights. People still milled about along the Marina, biding their time until the fireworks started. Not until they got to the farm exhibit buildings did Gabe and Jack find themselves almost alone.

  That the area was isolated and not as well lit made this the perfect place for Ethan to make his play and carry out his threat. It was also the reason he and Jack had walked through the barns and down the pathways between livestock pens multiple times that day. He’d come through the area so often, Gabe was on speaking terms with the longhorn bull.

  Twice he caught sight of his men, both uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolling in pairs as ordered. The same unrelenting tension that lodged between his shoulders, refusing to budge, showed on their faces. Holding to optimism grew more difficult. Time was running short.

  With the first burst of fireworks, Gabe’s spirits plummeted. He and Jack pushed on, both grimly determined not to give up until they knew they’d lost. His mind wouldn’t accept that Ethan had slipped away again, but he winced with each awestruck noise from the crowd and explosion overhead. If they’d failed, he’d find out soon enough and be able to berate himself at leisure.

  The fireworks were being detonated from an area inside the polo fields, cordoned off for the safety of tourists and San Franciscans attending the fair. Gabe’s ears rang with the concussion of gunpowder explosions and the delighted squeals of the huge crowd. They’d passed the pens of dairy cows, horses, and Texas longhorns. The blank fence of the polo field lay ahead and the path was empty of people. Gabe saw little sense in going farther than the padlocked gate.

  He was about to say so when Jack grabbed his arm. “Did you hear that?”

  Another rocket burst almost overhead. “My ears are ringing. What am I supposed to hear?”

  “A scream.” Jack pointed down a side path between the barns they’d passed. “I’d swear it came from that direction. Come on.”

  They moved back the way they’d come, listening hard and straining to hear anything out of place between the rolling boom of the fireworks. A few young couples, courting and craving privacy, stood in the darkness watching the overhead display. The couples paid no attention to the two detectives, absorbed in each other and the spectacle. Gabe was beginning to doubt Jack had really heard anything.

  The sobbing woman tucked under the sheltering arm of her beau and rushing away from the hog barn convinced Gabe otherwise. He exchanged looks with Jack and broke into a run, muttering under his breath, no, no, please, God, no.

  Blood smeared on rail fences, the bleachers around a tiny show ring, the back wall of the barn—that was all Gabe saw at first. The raw, meaty smell combined with the stench of pigs and manure gagged him. A pen of squealing hogs squabbled at the back of the open room, the din they made deafening.

  On a platform behind and slightly to the left of the pen sat a stock scale. Captain Sam Parker’s blood-streaked hand dangled over the side, fingers splayed and just out of reach of the milling hogs below. Matt Ryan sprawled facedown on the ramp used to herd animals onto the scale. His open eyes stared dull and lifeless.

  Running the length of the barn happened to someone Gabe didn’t know; a grief-stricken and guilty man who forgot everything he knew about being a cop, everything his father ever taught him about evidence and investigations. He didn’t know the person kneeling in blood, clutching a body already growing cool, rocking and sobbing, making desperate bargains with God.

  No … no, please, God, no! Please … don’t take him, too. The litany echoed in Gabe’s head, drowning out bursting fireworks, the hogs fighting and the hammering of his heart. His fervent prayer became a small boy’s sobbing plea for protection from monsters under the bed.

  But these monsters were real and God wouldn’t answer.

  Delia

  I came awake suddenly, heart pounding and not knowing why. Annie called out and rapped sharply on the door. “Delia! Wake up and unlock the door. Do you hear me? Unlock this door.”

  “Oh, God … Esther.” I tossed off the blankets and bolted across the room. Fumbling at the lock with shaking, sleep-dulled hands took an eternity, but the latch finally clicked open. Annie didn’t wait. She was inside before I stepped back.

  “Get your dressing gown and house slippers on. Hurry up now.” Annie switched on the lamp. I blinked away the dazzle and did as she asked, shivering with more than cold. She tore open the wardrobe, sifting through my things until she came up with one of my heavy shawls. “Wrap this around you, too. It’s cold down in the kitchen. I lit the stove, but that takes awhile to heat.”

  “What’s wrong?” She was crying, quietly and without calling attention to herself. I hugged the dressing gown over my chest, trembling harder. She wouldn’t rush me to the kitchen if Esther had died. “Annie, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Annie bundled me in the big shawl, wrapping it around me twice and tucking the ends into the belt of my dressing gown. She sniffled and brushed the hair off my face. “Gabe’s in the kitchen, sweetheart. He’s not hurt, but you need to prepare yourself before you see him. He’s got his daddy’s blood all over him and his clothes are a frightful mess. Gabe needs you something fierce right now, Dee. He asked Jack special to bring him to be with you. Losing his daddy’s got him all tore up inside.”

  “Matt’s dead?” A witless thing to say, but all thought had deserted me. Numbness crept through me, the same feeling of watching someone from afar that I’d felt when my parent’s died. “How?”

  “Jack didn’t say and Gabe—” She wiped her face on a sleeve. “You need to be strong for him, sweetheart. You need to be real strong. Can you do that for him?”

  I nodded, unable to speak and barely able to breathe. Gabe had come to me, trusted me to help when the pain was too much to bear alone. I needed to live up to that trust.

  Ghosts began to glimmer in the corners of my room, all the spirits still in the house crowding in to fill the space behind my chair and spilling over onto the fringed carpet next to my bed. Ethan’s victims, the lost and the unburied, gathered to plead with me again to find them and lay them to rest. Aileen stood at the fore in the waiting stance I knew so well, hands folded at her waist and green eyes demanding my attention.

  In all the long months of being haunted, I’d never been angry at my ghost. Frightened and confused, yes, but the rage welling up was new. Now was not the time to demand that I do impossible things, or accomplish tasks I didn’t even have the first idea of how to start. Dora and I would find a way to lay the dead to rest, but not tonight.

  Not now. All Isadora’s warnings about the selfishness of ghosts came back. I shut awareness of Aileen out, using all the tricks Dora labored so hard to teach me.

  My concern was for the living. I needed to go to Gabe.

  I can’t remember running down the staircase. Annie maintains that I dashed from the room, taking the steps two at a time and that only the grace of angels kept me from falling. I lost a slipper sprinting across the dining room and hit the swinging door without breaking stride.

  Annie did well
to warn me.

  Gabe sat on a wooden kitchen chair, hands palm up in his lap and shoulders slumped. The chair was shoved back from the table, a lonely island in a sea of polished linoleum. His shirt and tie were blotched rusty brown, his trousers stiff with dried blood from the knees down. Splatters covered his face, plastered his hair flat and coated his fingers. He opened and closed his fists and stared at the blood caked in the creases of his palm, his expression one of confused horror. The blood flaked and cracked each time he flexed his fingers, fell into his lap, and floated to the floor.

  Jack stood at the sink in his shirtsleeves, water running. He scrubbed at the rusty stains on the front of Gabe’s overcoat with one of Annie’s flour-sack towels, staining the fabric crimson and attempting to rinse it clean again under running water. His eyes were red and swollen, skin blotchy from crying. He saw me and relief drove a small portion of the grief from his face. “Thank God, Dee, thank God … I have to go back. He shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’ll stay with him. He won’t be alone.” I took the towel and Gabe’s coat, wanting to retch. The old penny smell turning my stomach was Matt’s blood, the last, sad residue of a vital man’s life. Putting the coat on the porch got it out of my hands, but didn’t banish the scent; Gabe’s clothes were drenched in the same blood. I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t cry yet. “Annie and I will take care of him. Don’t worry.”

  “I sent Marshall and Noah Baxter to Gabe’s boardinghouse for clean clothes. If— if he can’t manage, Marshall will help him change.” Jack caught sight of his hands, the pink stains soaking his cuffs and sleeves. He turned back to the sink and the bar of lye soap Annie kept in a cracked saucer. “He hasn’t said a word since he asked for you. He just stares.”

  Annie pushed through the kitchen door, her arms full of blankets and my lost house slipper dangling from one hand. She dropped the slipper in front of me, taking charge and jolting me into action. “Put that back on and help me get some blankets around Gabriel. Best to keep him warm until we can get him into fresh clothes. I don’t want either of you coming down sick.” Annie brushed the hair off Gabe’s face and attempted to smooth down his curls. She’d washed her face, but tears still glimmered in her eyes. “Sadie’s waiting in the sitting room, Jack. She needs to see you before you go back out. Go on now and do what needs doing. We’ll take good care of Gabe.”