by E. C. Bell
He frowned. “Do you really think you’re the only one with secrets?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m sure others do too. Just not so many.” I pointed at him. “You, for example. Do you have any secrets?”
I honestly expected him to say no. Not one. My life is an open book.
“Of course I do,” he said.
“Stuff you haven’t told me about?” I asked, rather stupidly, but I was beginning to feel pretty stupid, I must admit.
“Yes.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, his face looked strained. Holy crap, he wasn’t kidding. He’d actually been keeping things from me.
“You mean to tell me you’ve been harassing me—”
“Well, I wouldn’t say harassing,” he mumbled. I held up my hand for quiet, and he shut his mouth.
“Harassing me,” I continued, “and here you are, with secrets of your own?”
“Yes,” he said, and had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“So, are you going to tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you my secrets?” he replied. I nodded my head. “No,” he said. “I can’t. Not now.”
“Oh,” I said. “Interesting.”
“You’re right. We’re both keeping secrets.” James stared at the far wall of the office. I could see sunlight beginning to crawl up that wall. It was almost morning. “How about this? When you’re ready, you will talk to me, right?”
“Right. And when you’re ready, you’ll tell me.”
He grunted something that could have been a yes, and pulled the blanket further up around him, closing his eyes.
I put down my glass, and did the same. The last thing I saw, before sleep finally took me, was Farley’s eyes, glowing in the early morning sun.
Farley:
Paying a Visit to the Good Sergeant
I decided to let the living sleep, because the dead had things to do. I was going to see what good old Sergeant Worth was doing with her day. That woman knew something about Marie that she wasn’t letting on, and I thought maybe I could figure it out.
The good thing was, the cop shop was only five blocks from James’ office, so I could actually get there. The bad thing? The cop shop first thing in the morning is not the most pleasant place to be.
They’re letting the drunks out—mostly young, mostly male, what is it with young men and drinking until you make a complete ass of yourself and get arrested for drunk and disorderly? Did it myself a time or two, and I still don’t know. I hope to God it’s not our version of a rite of passage.
Anyhow, I hustled through the maze of corridors and rabbit cage offices, finally finding Worth.
She was sitting hunched over her desk and talking urgently on the phone.
“What’s your big news, Lamont? I’ve had a couple of really shitty days, don’t even think about toying with me.”
She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling as she listened to Lamont, whoever he was, spouting on. I was ready to leave, because it didn’t look like I was going to get anything good, past a quick glance at the framed photograph on her desk. A good looking guy in a uniform, probably the husband, isn’t that nice, crime fighting is the family business, with a couple of kids’ school pictures tucked into the edges, a boy and a girl, both at the gawky, awkward, just stepping into junior high stage. I realized Sergeant Worth—tough as nails Sergeant Worth—was silently crying. Whoever Lamont was, he wasn’t giving her good news.
“Really. That’s nice. Good for you. On with your life.” She threw open a desk drawer and brought out tissue, grabbing one and pressing it to her face. “Wish Sherrie good luck for me, will you? She’s going to need it.”
She glanced up at the ceiling again, probably to keep the tears from coming back, and nodded as Lamont—the ex-husband, see it doesn’t take me long—kept talking.
“We can talk about this tomorrow. Tomorrow. Come on, Lamont, keep the days straight, will you? It’s my weekend with the kids. I’ll pick them up around four. Four. Well, change the plans. I haven’t seen them in a month. I know the last time it was my fault . . . we can’t keep going over this pile of shit. Have the kids ready. Yeah. I mean it this time.”
She hung up the phone, then picked up the picture sitting on her desk. She carefully plucked the two kids’ pictures from the frame, then flung the picture at the wall as hard as she could. Way to go, Lamont. You pissed the woman off.
“Rory, you bastard, what have you done to my life?” she cried as the picture shattered, thin glass and cheap frame spraying all over the wall next to the door.
Rory? Who the hell was Rory?
The door opened slowly, as the bits of glass still rained down to the industrial type carpet on the floor. A fat, red-faced cop stepped into the room, nervously crunching shards of the glass with his well-polished boots.
“Bit of a mess there, Boss. Want me to pick that up for you?”
Worth stared at him wordlessly until he did an anxious little dance, crunching more of the glass as he did so. “Yeah, we got something on the DB in the tree. Want to look it over?”
“Leave it on my desk.” Worth’s eyes, which had gone flat and dead, never left the fat cop’s face.
“Yeah, sure, right boss.”
The cop barely took another step into the office, glass crunching under his feet, before he tossed the file at her. I was surprised he hadn’t tried an overhand throw, he was far enough away. The file splayed open in front of her, and I got to see the dead guy the cop had been talking about.
He hadn’t been hung in the tree, or set by the tree, or shot under the tree, or anything like that. He’d been crucified. The tree had been his fucking cross. Who the hell would do something like that to another human being? I felt myself go thin, first time in a while, and I turned away as the fat cop made good his escape, slamming the door so hard he almost knocked a commendation award Worth had hung on the wall down to the carpet, too. Then Worth’s phone rang behind me, and I jumped about a foot, thinning a little more. Wow, the photo of the dead guy had really spooked me.
I tried to centre my chi, or some such meditation shit, so I could listen to the telephone conversation Worth was having. I didn’t need to be blinking out, now that I was finally striking pay dirt. This one was about Marie.
Marie:
Looks Like Business Is Picking Up
The phone started ringing at 7:30. Just two hours after James and I had finally managed to go to sleep.
I lurched to wakefulness—well, more or less to wakefulness—my latest and greatest nightmare trudging back to my subconscious while I flailed around, trying to get up with a body that felt even older than the day before. Man, would I never feel good again?
My flailing woke James. He blinked awake, frowning when the phone rang again.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It’s the phone,” I said. “Get it.”
I could have kicked him when he leaped up, looking completely awake and completely without any aches or pains of any kind. I didn’t kick him, though. I was still fighting with the blanket.
He answered the phone cheerfully. Then all cheer fell from him.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“What’s going on?” I felt a flutter of fear. “Is it about Arnie?”
He shook his head, still concentrating on the call.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Yes. He died two weeks ago. He was on holiday.”
Oh. Someone was calling about James’ uncle. He’d need coffee to handle this phone call. I finally kicked free of the blanket, and set to work.
As I poured water into the coffee maker, I glanced around, but didn’t see Farley anywhere. Went to the inner office. It was empty, too. He appeared to be gone. I wasn’t going to worry about him, though, because James was starting to sound a little panicky.
“What’s the problem?” I asked as I hobbled back into the reception area.
James slapped his hand over the receiver, looking distraught. “He wants to know wh
en we’re having the memorial service.”
“For your uncle?” I asked. “Hasn’t he been buried?”
“Well, yes,” he replied. “But there was no service.”
I shrugged. “Tell them that, then.”
He spoke quietly into the phone as I poured coffee for both of us, and then hung up. “That was unnerving,” he said.
“I guess your uncle had at least one friend,” I said, handing him the coffee. “That’s nice.”
The phone started ringing again. We both stared at it as though it had suddenly been possessed. That phone had only rung once since Jimmy the Dead had died.
“What the heck is going on?” James asked.
“I’ll get it,” I sighed, and picked up the receiver. “Jimmy Lavall’s Detective Agency,” I said. “How can I help you?”
Three hours later, the phone was still ringing off the hook. James had hidden in his dead uncle’s inner office while I answered the phone, trying to put off all the people who were calling to find out what had happened to his uncle.
“Yes, I know, it came as a shock to all of us,” I said. My coffee cup was empty, and I stared wistfully at the coffee machine just out of reach. “No, I’m sorry, I’ll have to get back to you about that. Thank you. You’re very kind.”
Farley stepped through the closed outer door as I hung up the phone.
“Where have you been?” I whispered.
“Cop shop,” he said. “I told you I’d check the good sergeant out, so I did.”
I was going to drill him about what he’d learned, but James wandered in, carrying one of the old books from his uncle’s bookcase.
“Another one?” he asked.
I nodded.
“So, how many is that?”
“That makes fifteen.”
“He had a lot of friends.”
“What’s going on?” Farley asked. I glanced at him, half-shrugged, and turned back to James.
“All these old friends of your uncle. They want to know when the service is. Where they can send flowers, donations, stuff like that.”
“Huh,” Farley said. “People checking up on the old fart. Too late, I’d say.”
“What are we going to do?” James asked. He held the book like it was a shield. “He’s buried.”
“I know that, and you know that, but his friends don’t,” I replied. “Obviously.”
“Yeah,” James said. “Maybe we should have a memorial service. What do you think?”
“‘We.’ That sounds a bit domestic, doesn’t it?” Farley said. Then he shook his head. “Forget that. I have information. Come out into the hallway. We have to talk.”
I didn’t bat an eye, though my blood pressure rose with the “domestic” comment. He wasn’t funny.
I pushed my chair back from the desk, and stretched.
“We can talk about what to do for your uncle later. I have to freshen up. Can you hold the fort for a minute?”
“Yeah, yeah.” James barely glanced up from the book he was devouring. I opened the door, and the phone rang again. James didn’t move, so I headed back in to take the call.
“He can get it,” Farley said shortly. “We need to talk.”
“Answer the phone, James,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Righteo!”
I watched him set the book aside, and approach the phone like it was some kind of WMD or something. “Just answer it,” I hissed. “It won’t bite you.”
He trudged to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Jimmy Lavall Detective Agency,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“Get out here!” Farley cried. I quickly stepped into the hallway and closed the door.
“You were actually listening to his telephone reception skills, weren’t you?” Farley asked incredulously. “Are they up to snuff?”
“Oh, leave me alone.” I laughed, that embarrassed “you caught me at stupid shit” laugh people always try when they get caught at something stupid. “What news do you have for me?”
“Like I said, I was over at the cop shop. Looks like they picked up your old boyfriend.”
“They what?” I must have heard him wrong.
“Arnie was arrested.” Farley sniggered. “Sounds like they put him in the hospital. He deserved that, at the very least.”
“What?”
“Arnie Stillwell’s in jail.”
To be honest, it didn’t feel real. I kept waiting for Farley to say, “Just kidding” or something, but he didn’t.
I was free.
“And catch this,” Farley said, grinning. “The idiot is trying to convince anyone who will listen that our boy Jimmy is the big mastermind behind everything,” He snickered again. “Imagine that. Jimmy as a mastermind.”
I felt a spike of fear jolt through my heart. “They don’t believe him, do they?”
“No,” Farley said. “The good sergeant is convinced Jimmy is clean as new fallen snow. Right now, the sergeant is checking to see if Arnie has any connection to Carruthers.”
Huh. Well, stranger things have happened. “Have they picked up Carruthers yet?”
“No, but it’s just a matter of time, I think. All they need is proof that he would profit if the Palais disappeared. Then he’ll be gone, too.”
I thought of the information on James’ dead uncle’s computer. That just might do it. After I removed all evidence of Farley moving through the Three Phases of Acceptance, of course.
My stomach loosened, for the first time in what felt like forever.
“Good,” I whispered. “Maybe this will all be done soon.”
Farley looked taken aback. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess it will. Too bad. It was fun.”
“Fun?” I asked. “Getting blown up and threatened and being homeless is fun?”
“Well, maybe not so much fun for you,” he said. “But when this is all over, you get to go back to your life. Me? I just go back to being dead.”
He was right. I felt like the pressure was off, and I could actually start to live again. James and I were still going to split Helen Latterson’s fee when it came in, so money wasn’t even going to be a problem anymore. I could look around, figure out what I wanted to do. Heck, maybe I’d go back to school or something. It felt like, for once in my life, all options were open.
Once Farley moved on.
The last time I’d spoken to my mother, she’d suggested that Farley’s daughter, Rose, could be the key. And since Farley had actually had a dream about her, maybe he was ready to listen to reason.
“I’ve been ignoring you, Farley, and I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’ve figured out how to help you, if you’re willing.”
“Oh?” He didn’t look as excited as I thought he would. Hoped he would.
“I think the reason you haven’t moved on yet has to do with your daughter,” I said.
“I told you to leave her alone,” he growled.
“But she was in your dream,” I said, as gently as I could.
“Yeah,” he said. “So?”
“There’s a reason you’re thinking about her, Farley. You have unfinished business, even if you don’t think you have. Let me call her. Talk to her. Maybe then—”
He held up his hand, stopping my words. “I said no.”
“All right,” I replied, trying not to grind my teeth. “But Farley, this could be your last chance to move on. You have to move on. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I know!” he cried, and for the first time, he sounded afraid. “Let me think about it, all right?”
“All right.”
I hoped he wouldn’t take too long deciding, because I was certain all I had to do was get him to reconcile with her, and he’d be able to move on.
“Was there anything else?” I asked, pointing at the closed door. “We’re waiting for a call from Helen Latterson. James left her a message about her information, asked her to call back.” I touched the door knob, then turned back to him. “Don’t worry, Farley. You wo
n’t be stuck here much longer.”
As he opened his mouth to say something, I heard the phone ring.
“I gotta go,” I said. I left him standing by himself in the hallway, as I went to help James take the phone call that was going to change both our lives for the better.
Farley:
Unwanted and Unloved
I was going to say more to Marie, but the door slammed shut in my face. Yeah, I know, I can ooze through doors like nobody’s business, but it hurt, you know? She didn’t ask me if I wanted to come in. Like I was finished business, too.
All right, I admit it, I was whining. But I didn’t know if I could do what she was asking me to do. I didn’t want to face my daughter, because I didn’t think it would make a difference, no matter how much it hurt. My daughter was the wrong track. I was sure of it.
However, something was holding me here. I had the sneaking suspicion that I was responsible. I was afraid I was clinging to the land of the living through my connection to Marie, and yeah, even to Jimmy. I was watching them live their lives, and I was content to do so. Like this was enough. My own personal soap opera, live 24/7.
Except—and this was a big except, the biggest except—Marie didn’t want me around. I knew that.
If I wasn’t here, hanging on to her coat tails, then she could go to school or date Jimmy or get married and have kids, or whatever the hell she wanted. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, if I was still around. Still stuck here. I was her responsibility. Still a big “unfinished” on her to-do list.
I don’t know how much longer I would’ve hung out in the hallway feeling unwanted and unloved if I hadn’t heard Jimmy boy yelling at someone in the office. So, I had to go find out what was going on. Hey, my soap’s on.
Marie:
Things Go from Decent to—What a Surprise—Worse
“You can’t do this, Helen! All right, Mrs. Latterson! We had a deal. We shook on it and everything!”
James was sitting bolt upright in the big comfy executive chair behind the desk in his dead uncle’s office, and I was doing nothing more than dancing ineffectively from one foot to the other beside him. I wanted so desperately to tear the phone from him and handle the rest of the conversation, but I couldn’t do anything that he wasn’t already doing. So all I could do was listen in horror as she reneged on our deal.
