Night of the Loving Dead

by Casey Daniels

  “But not Madeline. Never Madeline.” His shoulders slumped. “You know what, Pepper? I always thought that when I finally met someone who could actually communicate with the Other Side...I thought I’d be thrilled. I thought I’d see this whole new world of research and scientific breakthroughs opening up in front of me. But now it’s happened, and I’m not feeling anything. Anything at all. And I don’t even care.” He turned and walked away from me. “You lied to me, Pepper. You said you know Maddy, but truth is, you don’t know anything.”

  “Oh yeah?” As comebacks went, it was pretty lame, but not to worry, I had more ammunition and I wasn’t shy about using it. I raised my voice so Dan couldn’t fail to hear me. “I know the patients who are admitted into that study of yours don’t come out again.”

  Big points for me, I knew how to deliver a parting shot; Dan stopped dead in his snowy tracks. When he turned back around, his eyes were narrowed.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the people Doctor Gerard and you recruit for your study. They go in, Dan, but they don’t come out again. Where are you keeping them? What are you doing to them?”

  He wasn’t the sputtering type, so while it would have been satisfying to see him scramble for an explanation, I shouldn’t have been surprised that his words were well measured. “What makes you think that? How do you . . . ? Where did you get that idea?”

  Like I was going to bring up Madeline’s name and get him all hot and bothered again? I thought not. “What I know and how I know it is my business.” Dan and I were just about the same height, and I used that to my advantage. I closed in on him and looked him in the eye. “I’ll tell you one thing for certain, though. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And you—” Yeah, it was childish of me to point a finger at his nose the way he had done to me. That didn’t stop me from doing it. “You better hope that whatever’s going on, you’re clear of it. Because if there’s something fishy happening at this place, somebody’s going down for it.”

  Since this was a great closing line, I was glad when a cab rolled by as if on cue. I flagged it down, but before I climbed inside, I decided an encore was in order. “If that happens to be you, Dan, so be it. Then maybe you’ll believe me when I tell you I talk to the dead. All the dead. Even Madeline.”

  When I closed the door, I saw that the cab driver was staring.

  That was fine with me. Snow or no snow, he got me back to my hotel in no time flat.

  9

  Ghosts have a way of disappearing. People don’t. Not permanently and not without leaving some trace of themselves, anyway. I knew this in my heart and in my head, just as I knew (both in my heart and in my head) that as much as I didn’t want to, I was going to have to prove it.

  It was the only way I could get Dan to see that I was telling the truth.

  I know, I know . . . I couldn’t believe it, either. I’d spent so much time trying to hide my Gift from Dan and everybody else in the known universe, and now I was going to go out of my way—and in the cold, too—to investigate, just so I could dig up all the right evidence to convince him I was the genuine article and that I did talk to Madeline. Hell, the whole I see dead people schtick was exactly what he wanted to hear from me since the day we met, wasn’t it? And now that I’d finally confessed...

  It was the next morning, and too irritated to keep still, I got up from the standard-issue hotel room settee where I’d been sitting and thinking (OK, obsessing) and walked to the room’s single window and back again. My room wasn’t much bigger than my office back at Garden View, and it didn’t take long to walk its length. Too bad. By the time I was done, I was no less aggravated.

  Did I send signals that I was that desperate?

  Did I come across as truly pitiful?

  Was it possible—I mean really possible—for Dan to think I’d made up the whole thing about how I was able to talk to Madeline and how she told me that she wanted him to be happy just because I was jonesing for a date?

  It was embarrassing. Not to mention annoying. It was unfair, too, and for a couple crazed moments, I was actually tempted to call the Cleveland Police Department and conference Dan in, just so Quinn could vouch for the fact that I had a healthy sex life, thank you very much. Without any help from Dan Callahan at all.

  Cooler heads prevailed, and I decided sticking to my original plan was a better option. Follow my logic here. It is—as always—impeccable.

  Dan didn’t believe I could see and talk to Madeline.

  Madeline was the one who told me about the shady dealings at the clinic.

  Since I had no other connection there and since somebody besides Dan and Doctor Gerard must have known about the missing patients but no one was talking, I could only have heard it from Madeline.

  So if I proved that patients really were missing, I could therefore prove that I talked to Madeline.

  Then Dan would know, once and for all, that I wasn’t just some desperate-for-a-date chickie with hope in her heart and sex on her mind.

  This was all good, yes? But wait—as they say in those commercials—there really was more.

  If everything panned out the way I hoped, I’d also help Dan see that as Hilton Gerard’s sidekick, he was headed nowhere fast. Except maybe toward being my dad’s roomie in the federal pen.

  Was I being magnanimous?

  Well, yes. And no.

  Sure, Dan had pissed me off. Majorly. He’d wounded my ego in a big way. But as much fun as it was to think that he deserved every nasty form of revenge I could concoct (and believe me, after what Joel had pulled on me, I was an expert at fantasizing about revenge), I knew better. Dan didn’t belong in prison. This, too, I knew in my heart and in my head. Deep down inside, I firmly believed that Dan was one of the good guys. And besides, he was way too cute; he’d look terrible in an orange jumpsuit.

  Then, of course, there were those missing patients to consider. Whether Dan was part of the equation or not, that was something I couldn’t forget.

  There were folks out there who might be in trouble. Homeless, mentally ill folks.

  And, damn it, it looked like I was the only one who could help them.

  Reasonable person that I am, I started my investigation in the most reasonable place—the Gerard Clinic.

  The moment the front door swished closed behind me, I realized that reasonable or not, I was a fish out of water. I glanced around the waiting room with its institutional beige walls brightened only by the framed posters that offered advice like Every Day is a Gift and Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.

  Call me cynical, but I did not think this was necessarily good news to the weather-beaten, ragtag clientele who sat around, stoop-shouldered with blank expressions, on plastic chairs. Though it went against the grain (not to mention every piece of advice I’d ever gotten from the experts over at Cosmo), I knew this was one instance when being conspicuous was not a virtue.

  I stripped off my cashmere gloves and stuffed them in my pockets, but even sans luxury fiber, I stuck out like a sore thumb. If I needed the reminder, it came from the looks I got as I made my way to the reception desk.

  I was almost there when a woman wearing a pink parka that was too small for her hopped up and stepped into my path. She put a hand on my arm before I could establish personal space boundaries, and let me go on the record here as saying this was not a good thing. If ever there was a time for firm limits, this was it. Especially considering that the woman’s hands were grimy and she smelled like old socks.

  “Are you my attorney?” She was so glassy-eyed that even if I had been so inclined, it would have been hard to take the question seriously. “I’m waiting for my attorney.”

  “Sorry. I’m not an attorney.” I did not want to continue contact in any way, shape, or form, so rather than pluck her fingers from my sleeve, I backed up and out of her reach.

  Silly me to think that would deter her. She closed in on me and grabbed my sleeve again. “Are you my
probation officer?”

  “Nope.” I tried for a smile. I doubt she noticed. She was too busy looking confused.

  “Then, are you—”

  “Not that, either.” I got a move on. “Can’t help you.”

  I covered the distance to the reception desk in record time.

  The heavyset gray-haired woman behind the desk didn’t look convinced that I belonged there, either. I didn’t get it. I’d gone out of my way to dress like a social worker in black pants and a black turtleneck. Maybe it was the gold hoop earrings that gave me away. Or my boots with their stiletto heels.

  What, a social worker can’t be fashionable?

  Whatever the reasons, the receptionist slid open the glass that separated the staff from the patients they were supposed to be there to serve, and looked me up and down—twice—before she said, “Can I help you?”

  On the way over to the clinic on the L, I’d carefully practiced everything I was going to do and say, and I reminded myself to take it slow. I had a pseudo-leather portfolio under one arm and, carefully keeping it turned over so that the receptionist couldn’t see the flowing script on the other side that clearly branded it as a freebie from the cemetery conference, I set it down on the ledge so there was no way the receptionist could close the glass. My smile was bright, but not too sunshiny. I had no proof, but I suspected social workers weren’t sunshiny.

  “Health Department,” I said, a little hurriedly and under my breath so I could deny it if push came to shove. “I’m checking on two of your patients. A man named Oscar and a woman named . . .” I opened the portfolio and ran my finger down a list of names as phony as the leather. “Becka, I think it is.” I snapped the portfolio shut. “I presume her name is really Rebecca. Sad case, that one.” I leaned in close and lowered my voice, keeping in mind what I’d learned from Ernie about the only two people he’d ever named who, he said, had gone into Doctor Gerard’s program and never come out again. “Drugs, you know.”

  “Uh huh.” The woman gave me another careful look, one so long and probing, I was all set to mumble something about how I must have been mistaken and hightail it out of there. Until she touched one hand to a nearby computer keyboard. “Last names?” she asked.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Last names? Their last names?” I wasn’t a complete moron, I knew she’d ask, and being prepared, I was ready to equivocate with the best of them. “That’s the problem. I’m filling in for somebody, you see. The woman who usually takes care of this sort of thing. She left me the information, of course, but she’s not very organized.” I lifted the portfolio and thumbed through the pages of a legal pad I’d tucked in it. “She forgot to leave me that information, and it’s exactly what I’m looking for. Oscar and Becka’s last names.”

  “Uh huh.”

  It was exactly what the receptionist said the first time, right before she caved. Encouraged, I leaned forward. It was a good thing I didn’t lean too far or I might have sustained a permanent injury when she slid the glass window shut.

  I tapped on it.

  She ignored me.

  I waved my hands.

  She turned her back.

  I’m not a quitter, but even I could see I was getting nowhere fast.

  It was time to try Plan B. As soon as I thought of one. I’d already gotten back to the door and was heading outside to regroup when I felt a tug on my sleeve.

  I turned to find Pink Parka Woman shuffling her tattered sneakers against the pitted linoleum. “I know Oscar,” she said. “He’s my friend. Do you want to talk about Oscar?”

  I had barely gotten out my “I do,” though, when she wrinkled her nose, narrowed her eyes, and looked at me like she’d never seen me before.

  “Are you my attorney?” she asked.

  I put a hand on her arm and ushered her to the door. I might have sounded a little eager, but she was so out of it, I don’t think she noticed when I told her, “Your attorney ? You bet I am, sweetie.”

  I offered to buy Pink Parka Woman a cup of coffee, but once we were outside, that didn’t look like it was going to happen. There were no bistros—charming or otherwise—in the area. No dingy diners, either. Pink Parka Woman didn’t let that stop her. Like a limpet on a rock, she took my arm and led the way, and before another ten minutes had passed, we found ourselves in the basement of St. Katherine’s Church, where a long line of people as shabby looking as the ones I’d seen at the Gerard Clinic were waiting patiently for lunch to be put out on the buffet tables.

  Pink Parka Woman (I’ll just call her PPW, it’s easier) had obviously been there before; she knew the lay of the land. She skirted the line and went right for the coffee carafes set up on a table against the far wall. She filled a cup, added about a half a pound of sugar, and sat down at the nearest table where plastic cutlery had already been set out on paper place mats.

  I, of course, was not about to take any chances with the food or the coffee. There was no point in beating around the bush, and I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. I sat down across the table from her and launched into my investigation. “Oscar,” I said, because I had a funny feeling she might need the reminder. “We’re here to talk about Oscar. You said he was a friend of yours.”

  PPW nodded. She took a long drink of coffee and nodded some more. When she finally spoke, it was so quietly, I had to strain to hear, so it’s no wonder I responded with, “Huh?”

  “That’s right.” Her nodding made my head hurt. She finished her coffee and got up to refill her cup. When she came back to the table, she pulled the chair next to mine way too close and sat down. “They came and whoosh! Just like that, he was gone.” She emphasized the speed of whatever she was talking about by touching her palms together then throwing out her hands in opposite directions. When she did, she knocked into her coffee cup. It went spinning and coffee splattered the table and the tile floor.

  I told myself I’d worry about the mess after I got the rest of the story out of her and before she went off on the attorney tangent again. “Oscar’s gone?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. I just didn’t want her to forget what we were talking about. “Who took him? Was it after he went to see Doctor Gerard?”

  “Came in the middle of the night. They always do.”

  “And you saw him go?”

  She looked me in the eye, and one corner of her mouth pulled into what was almost a smile. “For an attorney,” she said, “you’re not very bright.”

  “They don’t teach us everything in law school.”

  “I’ll say.” She chewed her lower lip. It was dry and cracked, and when it split, a drop of blood oozed out and stained the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t stand to watch, and I couldn’t afford to walk away, so I reached into my purse, found my Trish McEvoy lip gloss, and passed it to her.

  PPW slathered her lips, but when she handed the tube back to me, I kept my hands firmly on my lap.

  “It’s cold out. You’ll need it later,” I told her. Better than not on your life, which, of course, was exactly what I was thinking.

  “Need it later.” She gave me a toothless grin and added another coat.

  The beauty regimen taken care of, I got back to the matter at hand. “So you were saying...about Oscar. What did you say his last name was?”

  “Oscar’s my friend.” PPW smacked her lips together. She used so much gloss, it oozed, spread, and stuck, like stalagmites (or was it tites?). “He’s gone.”

  “That’s right.” I flipped open my portfolio and got ready to write. “And you said his last name is . . . ?”

  PPW rubbed her lips together. By this time, they were nice and slippery, and enjoying the sensation, she smiled and did it again. “Don’t know his last name.”

  I stifled a groan, but before I could lose heart, I reminded myself that all was not as lost as the twenty-five bucks I’d spent for my lip gloss. PPW was the closest I’d gotten to corroboration of the story I’d heard only from Madeline. If she stayed lucid long enough, she might b
e able to tell me even more. “So you don’t know Oscar’s last name. But you do know that he left. Did you see him leave?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like I said, for an attorney—”

  “I’m not very bright. Yeah, I know. Because when I asked about you seeing Oscar leave—”

  “They always come at night. How am I supposed to see when the lights are off?”

  “Exactly.” My smile might have been smoother if I had any gloss on my own lips. “So you didn’t see him leave, but you know he’s gone. Is that because he hasn’t come back? Or has he? Did Oscar come back and talk about where he’s been?”

  Apparently, even the gift of my lip gloss wasn’t enough to endear me to her; not when I asked questions that dumb.