by E. C. Bell
Marie:
Researching Farley’s Death
Farley did as I asked, and left me alone. So, for the next couple of days, I did what I could to find out if there really was anything odd about his death. I started by interviewing people who had offices in the Palais. I hoped that something I found would jog his memory. Luckily, Mr. Latterson went out every morning with Raymond, so I had time.
Too much time, if I was going to be honest about it. I was definitely not working hard for all the money he was paying me. Hey, whatever. It’s his money. He could give me as much as he wanted.
Everyone I chatted with from the building seemed to have an opinion about Farley’s death, but all I really learned was, none of them—except the miserable blonde from 310 who called him a lech and was certain he drank at work—remembered anything else about him at all. Pretty sad.
Mr. Latterson finally gave me the password to my computer, warning me that the computer was just for business. Nothing personal. Ever.
Bosses always say that, so I decided that I just wouldn’t let him catch me. After I’d talked to most of the people from the building, I tried a little online research the next time he left with Raymond.
I actually Googled “ghost trapped in a building.” Of course I found nothing but hours of mind numbing garbage. After I read as much as I could stand, I shut my computer down and stepped out for a breath of fresh air.
I was only gone five minutes, I swear. When I came back, Mr. Latterson was sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen.
“You don’t actually believe in this crap, do you, Jenner?” he asked. I recognized one of the websites I’d checked out earlier that day.
“No sir.” Why hadn’t I cleared the computer’s history cache? Why why why?
“I catch you wasting my time again and you’re gone,” he said, conversationally. He closed the offending website and pulled himself out of my chair.
“I understand,” I whispered.
“Clear this off. Now.”
“Yes sir.”
I kept my head down for the rest of the day, promising myself I’d never do anything that stupid again.
I would have to continue to do research at work, because I don’t own a computer. The way my finances were, I didn’t think I’d ever get one. However, I’d make darn sure that I remembered to clear the history, after I researched. Every time.
As I was leaving the Palais that evening, I realized I hadn’t seen James, the cute caretaker. I decided I’d find him and talk to him the next day. For research, of course.
After all, he had taken over Farley’s position, so maybe he’d seen something when he was cleaning up the furnace room where Farley had died.
All right, so maybe that’s not the only reason I wanted to see him.
Mostly, I wanted to share another sandwich with him. He was funny, and had given me the bigger half of his chocolate bar, which quite possibly meant he was a nice guy. There was nothing wrong with wanting to hang around with a nice guy, was there?
Of course there was. I knew that better than anyone. But, I could dream.
The next day, after Mr. Latterson left, I found James cleaning some gunk off the third floor stairs. He was whistling tunelessly as he scraped the goop into a dustpan and tapped it into a garbage bin.
“What is that?” I asked.
“No clue,” he said, attacking whatever it was with vigour. “I try not to think about it.”
“Probably your best bet,” I said. And then I stood there like an idiot while he continued to clean.
“Is everything all right?” he finally asked.
“All right?” I stammered, confused and then embarrassed. Here I was, standing and staring like a love struck teenager. “Oh yeah, everything’s fine. I wanted to ask you about Farley Hewitt.”
“Farley who?”
“Hewitt. The guy who did this job before you. You know, the one who—died.”
“Oh. Oh. Yeah.” He wiped up the last of the mess with a cloth, and dumped everything into the dust bin. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“What about the way he died? Do you know anything about that?”
He stared at me. “Why do you want to know about that?” he finally asked.
“I heard he might have been murdered,” I said. “Just wondered if you saw anything—I don’t know—suspicious down in the furnace room. That’s where it happened, you know. In the furnace room.” I realized I was babbling and snapped my mouth shut.
James didn’t look amused. “I heard it was an accident,” he said shortly. “I didn’t find anything ‘suspicious’ down there.” He frowned. “Who told you he was murdered?”
There was no way in the world I was telling him a ghost told me.
“Just the talk around the building,” I said. “You know.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to it,” he said. His smile returned. “If you want to come down and check it out, be my guest.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will.” I smiled back, feeling way too much relief. I turned, ready to head up the stairs to my office, when he spoke again.
“Maybe after, we can have lunch.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
And then, I escaped. Yes, that’s exactly the way it felt. Like I was escaping.
I can have dreams, and I can pretend that I can eat lunch and laugh and do all that normal stuff, but I knew I couldn’t. There were no dates in my future, no matter how nice James was. Not until Farley moved on.
Even though James hadn’t given me anything to work with, I hoped the rumours I’d gathered from the other Palais renters would be enough to jog Farley’s memory and give him the push he needed to move on. I quickly typed up everything everyone had said to me—except for the “lech” comment from the blonde in 310—and after I saved it on a small flash drive, I headed out to see if I could find Farley.
Obviously, he was in the building somewhere, but where? On the roof, enjoying the sunshine? I doubted that. Spying on people in their offices? Maybe. I headed down to the basement, deciding I would start with the furnace room. Farley had spent a lot of time in that room while he was alive. With any luck, he’d continued the habit.
I tried the door to the furnace room, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t, and I slowly turned the handle, feeling like I was breaking and entering, which I guess I was.
A reddish light from somewhere below let me see the stairs. I grabbed the handrail and tiptoed down into the furnace room proper.
I was right. Farley was there, staring at the furnace as though mesmerized by the gun metal grey of it all.
“Farley?” I called. “Whatcha doing?”
“Jesus!” He grabbed his chest, feigning a heart attack. Well, maybe not really feigning. He wrapped his arms around his chest, as though he was trying to hold himself together.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I said, then laughed, nervously, when all he did was stare at me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
His eyebrows raised. “I’d half-expected you to take off. I mean, dealing with Macho Don and me. Doesn’t make for the best work environment in the world.”
“The pay’s good,” I said. “What can I say? Besides, you’re beginning to intrigue me.”
He smiled at that. “How do you find me intriguing?”
“Well, the fact that you can’t remember much about your death intrigues me,” I said. That was more or less the truth. “And the fact that you got miffed with me—”
“Miffed? What kind of word is . . .”
“Don’t get pissy, let me finish.”
“PISSY! What are you trying to do, girl, cut the heart right out of my chest?”
“Good grief, relax!” I said. “I’ll try to use better words to describe your moods. More manly words. Would that help?”
“I was mad,” he sniffed. “Not miffed or pissy. I was mad. Differen
t thing entirely.”
“Yes, of course it is. Now, do you want to hear why I came looking for you?”
“Okay.” He tried to act like I hadn’t stung him with the “miffed” thing, but couldn’t pull it off. “Tell me.”
“Well, I’ve been talking to people in the building. Just to see if anyone had heard anything about your death. You know?”
“And?”
“Everybody has a theory,” I said. “Some of them think the cops got it right and it was an accident.” He snorted derisively. I ignored him. “And there was an old lady who was convinced you were a spy.”
“Matilda Jamison, from the second floor.” Farley shook his head. “She’s on her computer all the time, checking out conspiracy theory sites. She told me once it was for research. She said she was going to write a book. I don’t think she ever will. Personally, I think she believes everything she reads.”
“So we’re agreed,” I said. “Seemed kind of far-fetched. Besides, you don’t look like a spy.”
“Oh?” He laughed. “Not Double O Seven enough for you?”
“Not really.”
There was something wrong with the way he looked, and it had nothing to do with him not looking like a spy. He seemed thinner, somehow. Like if I tried hard enough, I’d be able to see through him. And his colour wasn’t good—meaning he didn’t have as much of it. He looked faded, like an old photograph left too long in the sun.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“What do you mean, how do I feel?” he snapped. “I’m dead, for Christ’s sake. How should I feel?”
He regained some colour and density as he spoke. Maybe I was seeing things.
“Never mind,” I said. “I also talked to a woman from 310—”
“Blonde?”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s Andrea,” he said, and smiled. “She’s sure a looker.”
“Yes, she is,” I said. Men.
“And that boss of hers treats her like dirt,” he continued. “I feel real sorry for her.”
Why do they always feel sorry for the beautiful blondes?
“She said she thought you were a drunk,” I said, nastily, then wished I could take back my words at the look on his face.
“I never drank at work,” he said, softly. “Ever.”
“I’m sorry, Farley.”
“She’s entitled to her opinion, of course, but why—”
“I don’t know.” I stared down at my shoes for a moment, then looked back at him. He’d faded again. I could definitely see a difference this time. “Don’t let it get to you.”
“But there’s nothing I can do about it now,” he whispered. “No way to tell her she was wrong about me.”
“I know,” I said.
He wiped at his face, and then sighed. “Was that all?”
“No, there was one more. A guy, creepy salesman type. He said he heard that there was something wrong with the electrical panel.”
“What?”
“The electrical panel—Farley! What’s wrong?”
He had wrapped his arms around himself, quaking with cold, or maybe fear. He closed his eyes, and then jerked them open, looking terrified.
“Oh,” he said. It sounded more like wind through tree boughs in winter than an actual word. He sank to the floor beside the furnace. “Thanks for the information.”
“Are you all right?” It was a stupid thing for me to say. He wasn’t. But I couldn’t think of anything else.
“No.” He stared down at his hands and legs, and I gasped. He was translucent, nearly transparent. I could see the furnace through him, but there was no light. That was bad.
“I saw something,” he whispered. “Only a flash. My hand on something that didn’t belong . . .”
His voice faded, and then he reached over and touched his sandaled foot.
“Look at that,” he muttered. “The toe of my sock is gone. Must have been the current going to ground. I’m glad I can’t feel that. It should hurt like hell.”
I looked at his foot, gasped and turned away. It looked like half-cooked hamburger.
“Farley,” I said. “Tell me what you saw.”
My voice was shaking, and it wasn’t just because of his foot. I’d never seen a ghost fade away like Farley was doing. Something was very, very wrong.
“I don’t know what it was. I can’t remember,” he said.
“Do you know where you were?” I asked.
He pointed. “The electrical panel,” he muttered.
“So, you saw something in the electrical panel that didn’t belong?”
“Yeah.” His eyes wandered back to his blown out toe, until I snapped my fingers in his face, bringing his attention back to me. “At least I think so.”
“Show me,” I said, leaping up and running to the burnt, blackened panel. “What shouldn’t be here?”
He squinted. “I don’t see anything,” he finally said.
Dammit. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Maybe the frigging cops took it with them.”
That made sense.
“Or maybe I imagined it.”
Damn. So did that.
‘Let’s say for a moment that there was something rammed in there,” I said. “Why would someone do that? Seems kind of dangerous. Doesn’t it?”
“And stupid,” he replied. “Unless you were trying to short out the electricity to the whole building—or kill somebody.”
That got my attention.
“Who else comes down here?” I asked.
“No-one but me,” he said.
My God, maybe somebody had killed him. “Who would want you dead?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He slipped down the side of the furnace until he was almost lying flat on the cement.
“Please focus, Farley,” I said, desperately. I could barely see him. Just a smudge on the cement at the base of the furnace. When I realized he was lying almost where he died, I freaked.
“You have to stay with me, Farley!” I yelled. “You’re remembering what happened, but you have to remember it all. Don’t go!”
He sighed, dead tree limbs rattling. “Why not?”
“Because maybe you were murdered.”
He chuckled, and came back a bit. Just a teeny bit, no doubt, but at least it was something.
“I told you it wasn’t an accident,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done anything that stupid.”
“Just promise me you’ll hang on while I dig around some more. I’ll see if I can find out if the cops took anything. And I’ll keep talking to the people in the offices. There has to be something, some reason—”
“Start with this place.” He tried to pull himself up to sitting. I wished I could help him, because it was like watching a bug on its back. Of course I couldn’t. “It hasn’t been brought up to code since it was built.”
“Okay, sounds good, I’ll check that out,” I said. “And while I’m doing that, what are you going to do?”
I was going to suggest that he check offices, to see if there were big piles of drugs, or weapons of mass destruction or something. After all, he was the spook. The words dried up when Farley finally pulled himself to sitting and all the colour drained from him. Every bit.
“I’m going to lie down for a while,” he whispered. “I don’t feel that good.”
I opened my mouth to say something, anything that could keep him with me, but I was too late.
Blink, and he was gone.
Marie:
Why Would a Ghost Feel Sick?
I stared at the spot where Farley had been, and knew that my mouth was hanging open, but couldn’t pull myself together enough to shut it. I’d never, ever, seen a ghost disappear like that. Ever.
What was going on?
I searched around as though he’d stepped outside my field of vision, stopping before I looked behind the furnace.
“Maybe he moved on.”
Even a
s I said the words, I knew they were not the truth. Spirits that move on are bright. Imbued with light. Farley looked like a smudge of shadow before he disappeared.
Sometimes spirits fade, losing so much inner essence that they aren’t visible anymore, even to people like me. He hadn’t done that, either. He’d just—blinked out.
“He said he felt unwell. They never feel unwell.” I tried to think, feeling a little unwell myself. Why would a ghost feel sick?
I glanced at my watch, and gasped. Mr. Latterson was going to be back any moment. I had to go.
I skittered up the stairs and carefully opened the door, checking to see if anyone was in the lobby. Luckily, it was empty, and I ran to the stairs that led to the upper floors, and managed to get into the office and to my desk before Mr. Latterson showed up.
“Did you get that paperwork done?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but he didn’t give me time to actually answer.
“It absolutely has to be in the mail before the end of business today. You know that.”
“Yes, and—” I said.
“Get it done. I’ll be back at 3:30.” He turned on his heel and marched back out of the office, slamming the door shut before I could tell him everything was complete and waiting for his signature in the “out” box, just like he’d ordered.
It looked like I had the afternoon to myself, too.
I stared down at the computer, wishing that Googling “ghosts, moving on to the next plane of existence,” would help me. I didn’t waste my time. There was no help out there for me online. I knew that.
The only one I could really count on for information was my mom, and I wasn’t ready to talk to her, yet. It didn’t have to do with the fight I’d had with her. Well, not really.
The truth was, I did not want to let her know I had another ghost problem. I’d made the mistake of telling her about Sally. The only good advice she gave me was to get noise canceling headphones for the screaming. The rest of the time, all she would was say, “I told you so,” and “You should have listened to me.” She was convinced that because I could see ghosts, they were somehow drawn to me.
They weren’t drawn to me. I was just having a string of bad luck.
