by E. C. Bell
“Can you wait one moment before we talk?” she asked. “I want to move to another room. For a little privacy.”
“Okay.” I could hear Rhonda’s outraged voice fade as Mom walked to her bedroom. It disappeared when she closed the door.
“That’s better.”
I laughed. “That’s going to piss her off, you know.”
“Ah probably,” Mom replied. “She’ll get over it. She doesn’t like to hear me talk about the other side, and I’m assuming that’s why you’re calling. Right?”
“Right.”
“I thought you moved on the gentleman you were working with.”
I laughed. “Farley wasn’t really a gentleman, Mom. And yes, I moved him on. But I’ve met someone else.”
“Another spirit?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah.” Interesting was never good. I knew enough to know that. “He’s a drug addict.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry! They’re so hard to work with!” Meaning, I knew, it usually took them forever to realize they were even dead. How I wished that was my problem.
“No. He knows he’s dead. It’s just that—”
“What? Most of the hard work is done. You just have to help him understand what’s holding him here and—”
“I know that, Mom. But he told me he doesn’t want to move on.”
That, at least, was the truth, but I could hear her frown in her voice. “Then what are you doing with him?”
“I’m—trying to solve his murder.”
“You know that doesn’t matter . . .” Her voice faded, and I wished I could tell her something, anything, that she’d actually want to hear from me.
“I met a clairvoyant, Mom,” I said, hoping that meeting an urban legend might put her off the whole “solving the murder doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things” issue.
“Really,” she said. She didn’t sound impressed. “Does she have anything to do with this case you’re working on?”
“Yes. She’s a person of interest in Eddie’s murder.”
“Eddie’s the spirit?”
“Yes.”
There was silence for a growing number of increasingly uncomfortable moments. Finally she asked, “Why did you call me?”
“I need to know how to get him to cooperate with me.”
“To figure out who killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Even though it doesn’t matter.”
That one stung. “Yes.”
“Are you planning on helping this spirit?”
“Helping? You mean move him on? Mom, he said he didn’t want to. I should respect his wishes, shouldn’t I?”
“Girl, they all must move on. Eventually. You know that as well as I do.” She shuffled, and I heard the springs of her old-fashioned bed ping as she sat down. “What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything, Mom.”
I was lying to my mother. This made me feel even sicker.
“I’m working for James now—I told you about that—and the clairvoyant came to us so we could help her prove she wasn’t involved in Eddie’s death. So, Eddie isn’t our client, Honoria is.” I shuffled my feet, feeling increasingly terrible. “I just want to know what to do next. To get him to help me figure this all out.”
“Huh,” Mom said. “That is a bit of a pickle.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I hated hearing that tone in her voice. That tone let me know that I was letting the side down. “I just—”
“I know!” Mom’s voice turned sharp, angry. “You want a normal life. You’ve told me that a number of times.”
I felt a spike of anger and knew if I didn’t calm myself, I’d end up fighting with her, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“So what should I do?” I asked.
“Perhaps get another job?” she said, sarcasm dripping through her words. “Something that doesn’t put you in touch with the dead quite so often. I mean, if you aren’t going to help them—”
“I’m trying to help someone living, Mom!” I cried. “Isn’t that good? I thought that was a good thing.”
“Yes. Helping the living is fine. But you have the capacity to help the dead.” She sighed, and then coughed, and I flinched. Waited for the coughing to continue, even as I hoped it wouldn’t. I hated hearing her like that. Absolutely hated it. After a moment, the coughing stopped.
“All right. If you’re determined to follow this course of action, then I would advise you to forget the spirit. Focus on the clairvoyant’s dreams. I believe everything you need to know will be found there.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered the words, wishing I didn’t sound like I didn’t believe her—but I knew she’d never met one before. “Are you absolutely sure she’ll have everything I need? After all, I have the dead guy—”
“He’s a spirit. The least you can do is call him by the proper name,” she said, sharply. “And it would be best if you left him alone, if you aren’t going to help him. You are leading him on—and that is just cruel.”
She was right. Absolutely right. I was being cruel.
“I gotta go,” I muttered. “Thanks for the info.”
“Tell me one thing before you go.”
“What?”
“How is James? He seemed very nice on the phone, and I thought—”
“You thought what, Mom?”
“I hoped that maybe—”
“Maybe what?” Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“I hoped that maybe you two would date,” she said. “You could do worse.”
“I have done worse,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said. “Not now.”
I heard a noise behind me and whirled. James was standing in the doorway, looking tousled and suspicious.
“Who’s that?” he mouthed.
“My mother,” I mouthed back, then turned away from him.
“Gotta go,” I said, hoping Mom would let me off the hook quickly. “James is here, and we have work to do.”
I put down the receiver and tried to compose myself before facing James. I felt like he’d be able to read the whole conversation on my face, and I didn’t want that.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“She’s good,” I said. “Coffee? It’s fresh.”
“Thanks.” He grabbed a cup and poured. “So where’d you go?” he asked. “I woke up, and you were gone.”
I felt my face heat. “When did you wake up?”
“Oh, about five minutes ago,” he said, and I felt a thrill of relief. I didn’t have to mention my visit to Honoria. “But I missed you. It was nice, sleeping with you. You know?”
“I know.” I was blushing so hard, I was pretty sure my head was going to start sweating. “But I had work to do.”
“Work?” He sipped his coffee. “What couldn’t have waited?”
Now we were dangerously close to me telling him a lie about going to see Honoria, and I didn’t want to do that.
Oh yeah, the file. The file on Honoria.
“I started Honoria’s file. And a contract for her to sign, if you decide she can be our client.”
“Ah,” he said. “Bet that makes interesting reading, but I can’t do it now. I gotta head out. We need a computer, so I’m going to buy one.” He smiled. “Maybe two. Want to come?”
“Shopping?” I grinned. Shopping therapy. The best kind. “Do I ever!”
I put on my sweater and grabbed my purse, and then we headed out the door.
I didn’t care what either Honoria the Clairvoyant or my mother said. I loved doing normal. I really really did.
Eddie:
Getting the Cold Shoulder Is a Real Bitch
I ENDED UP by the tree, again. Thinking about Luke had done it, I was pretty sure of that. Luke and his asshole father, Angus Stewart.
I guess that was the ultimate joke in all of this
. My best friend’s dad was a cop. He was also a terrible father. He made Luke feel like he never measured up, because his old man always did the, “98 percent, huh? What happened to that other 2 percent?” kind of a guy. The kind you wanted to crotch-kick, when you got tall enough.
I often wondered if Luke hung around with me just to get back at his old man. Even asked him a couple of times, but he just gave me the smile that told me everything was A-okay, and said no. He liked me because he liked me. Didn’t have anything to do with his old man. And I believed him, right up until the end.
He’d found me in the park, hanging with Crank. I’d come into some cash—thanks, Mom—and looked all right. New clothes, and I’d eaten some. I was also just at the good part of my high. I could carry on a conversation, act like a human being, shit like that. So, it was nice to see him. I was pretty sure we were going to eventually have a “why don’t you get out of this life” talk. Most everybody I knew in my other life tried to have this talk with me, if they ran into me. And we did, but it didn’t go the way I thought it would. Not at all.
We talked about the good old days, and then I blew it by asking him how his old man was.
“That son of a bitch is killing me,” he’d said, rubbing his hands together as though he was suddenly all-over cold. “I don’t think I can take it much more.”
“You still at home?” I asked. “Maybe you need to move out. You know, be on your own.”
“He won’t let me do that,” Luke said, shaking his head like he’d never spoken a truer word in his life. “I’m never going to get out of there.”
“Hell, he can’t make you stay.” I laughed. “Just move out. What’s he going to do, arrest you?”
“Huh. Like I don’t think about that every day,” he muttered, and sat down at the end of Crank’s bench.
Crank gave him a glare, but I told him to lighten up, we’d be done in a bit.
“So why don’t you just do it?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s got friends everywhere. He’d find me and bring me back. I’ll never get away from him.” Luke closed his eyes, and I shuddered. He was so pale, he almost looked dead.
Then he opened his eyes and stared at me, and the pleading look on his face screamed junkie. “I just need something,” he said. “Something to take the edge off.”
“Something?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant. I didn’t want to hear it, though. He was the good one.
“Yeah.”
The need was so naked in his eyes that I looked away from him, out over the park and the rest of the junkies, all with that look. You get that look, and you’re never getting out.
“I can’t help you, man.”
“Why not?” He sounded devastated. As though I’d just stabbed him in the back or something.
I stood up. I had to walk away from him, because I wanted to hit him as hard as I could—and I was afraid it wouldn’t be hard enough. Nothing stops you, once you start down that road. “Just go home.”
“I can’t,” he whined. “He’s out of his mind! I can’t take it anymore!”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “It’s just terrible, your old man giving you everything you want, so you can have a great life. That’s real shitty of him.” I felt a piece of a cracked tooth fall onto my tongue, and I spat. As I watched the decayed bit fly off and roll in the dusty grey grass of the park, I felt more anger at him than I ever had in my whole life. He was the good one!
“I got something for you, man,” Crank said, obviously thinking he could at least make some money as a reward for giving up part of his bench for so long.
“Fuck off, Crank,” I growled, pushing him away from Luke.
“Then get off my bench,” Crank growled back, glaring hard at me. “And take your friend with you.”
He said “friend” like it was a curse, and for a moment, it felt like it.
I grabbed Luke’s arm to pull him to the street, but he wrenched away from me. “I thought you were my friend, Eddie.”
“I am,” I said. “Just go home.”
He stared at me for a long time, his eyes pleading until I thought I’d scream. Then he left. That was the last time I saw him.
I STARED AT the tree where I’d died and wondered. Really wondered, for the first time, if Luke’s dad had done this to me. Thinking about it made me tired. What difference did it make if he killed me or not? Knowing might bring closure or some such shit for my mother, and that would be a good thing, but for me—not so much.
I’d lived badly and died worse. It didn’t really matter who had done the final deed to me. That was beside the point. I was starting to understand that.
For a moment, I thought about going and getting high, but realized that getting high wasn’t what I needed. I needed something else. It wasn’t at the park. It was with Marie. She had the answers, no matter how bad she made me feel.
But when I got to the corner where I had to turn right to get to her office, I turned left instead and walked to the park.
Old habits die extremely hard. Being dead won’t stop them. I didn’t know what could.
Marie:
Connected with the Wonderful Web, Again
SHOPPING WAS SO nice, I can’t begin to explain just how nice it all was. We went to not one, but three different computer stores, and ended up with two nice little portables with all the bells and whistles. Then James took me out for lunch, and that was wonderful too.
Normal. All wonderfully normal. Exactly what I needed.
He dropped me off at the office. When I asked him where he was going, he mumbled something about paying bills.
“I thought you paid them already,” I replied.
“Not this one,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He pointed at the computer boxes in my arms. “Are you going to need help setting those up?”
“Are you kidding?” I laughed. “I can do this in my sleep.”
He drove away, and I spent the next couple of hours hooking everything up and reveling in the sound the computer made as it reconnected me with the outside world.
The first thing I did was check my email, to see if there was anything from Leary Millworks Inc., and felt a thrill of relief run down my back when I saw a big fat zero in the inbox.
That proved they hadn’t taken my resume seriously. Right?
And Honoria had not been in contact with either James or me since my late night visit, so I was almost certain she was going to keep her word about not saying anything to James about me. If I could just figure out who had really killed Eddie, she’d be off the hook, and then, so would I.
Then I called Jasmine. I hadn’t been home—if you can call couch surfing at a friend’s place home—in a couple of days, and I wanted to touch base. My life had been fairly exciting of late, and I didn’t want her afraid that I’d ended up back at the hospital or something. She had three kids and her own life. She didn’t need to worry about me, too.
She was happy to hear from me, which was nice, too.
“Glad you’ll be home,” she said. “I’ll make popcorn, and we can watch my show tonight. Does that sound good, or what?”
More normal. A quick painful lump formed in my throat. “Want me to bring anything?”
“Maybe some chocolate? To offset the saltiness of the popcorn?”
“Sounds great.” The lump was still there, making it hard to speak.
“Are you all right?” Her voice went a teeny bit hard. “You sound strange.”
“Oh, it’s just the idea of having a nice quiet night. I haven’t done that in a while.”
“Oh. James keeping you jumping?”
“Well, we have a new case—”
“Is this one going to pay?”
“I hope so!”
“Got it down in writing?”
“Just about.”
She chuckled. “You two need
a secretary to keep you straight about that kind of stuff.”
I felt my face heat. Our first official case, which should have paid a whole pile of money, had fallen through because we hadn’t gotten the paperwork signed. Jasmine was right. James needed a real secretary. Not someone with as much baggage as me. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am. Now, tell me about James. Still as dreamy as always?”
“There’s nothing much to tell,” I muttered, hoping she’d let it go. “Both of us, just working. You know. Working on the case.”
“Yeah. Sure. I believe you.” She laughed, and after a second, I joined her, hoping it sounded real. “You can tell me all the juicy details tonight.”
“There aren’t any.”
“Sure. Like I said, I believe you.” She laughed again, harder this time. I did not join in. “I’ll see you tonight,” she finally said. “Remember the chocolate.”
She hung up, and I went to double-check the paperwork on our only case, just to make sure I hadn’t screwed it up. I felt relief when I pulled out the contract. All legal, no loopholes. James just had to get Honoria to sign it, and he would be paid for this one.
But that was if we could pull some actual evidence together. I turned to the computer with a small sigh of satisfaction. This was something I could do. I could check out the people that we knew were involved. That might give us a lead.
I stared at the screen, then punched in the name “Angus Stewart.”
“I’ll start with him,” I muttered. “Just to eliminate him.”
No matter what I said, I had the feeling he would not be so easily eliminated. He creeped me out. And as I plowed through all the information I found on him, I realized there was a reason I was creeped out. He was one creepy guy.
Elimination was not an option. He was in this. Up to his neck.
JAMES CAME BACK two hours later, just as I was printing out the last of my research on Angus Stewart, the drug cop who scared the heck out of Dead Eddie.
“Find anything interesting?” he asked. “I’m assuming you jumped on the research wagon as soon as you had the computer set up.”
“You know me too well,” I said. “Give me a second, and I’ll print it out for you.”
