Delayed Departures

by Terri Reid

  “I understand,” Mike said. “How about if we do this. I’ll walk with you a ways, close enough so you should be able to hear Ginny call for you. If at any time you decide to return, I’ll walk you back here myself. Deal?”

  “You won’t double cross me?” Charlie asked.

  Mike grinned at him. “I think there’s a rule about angels lying to people,” Mike said. “But I promise. There will be no double crossing going on.”

  “Okay then,” he said. “I’ll go.” He turned to Mary and nodded. “Thank you for helping me find my Ginny.”

  “It was my pleasure,” she said. “Give her a hug from me.”

  Mary watched as Mike walked with Charlie through the kitchen, past Dee, Ian and Bradley, and into the living room.

  “Ginny? Ginny? Are you there?” Charlie called.

  “Charles!” the sweet voice answered. “Oh, Charles, I thought you’d never come.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  “Oh, Charles, I thought you’d never come.”

  Dee turned the recorder button to off and wiped the moisture from his eyes. “That is the sweetest and the clearest EVP I’ve ever recorded,” he said, lifting the recorder from the kitchen counter and storing it in its case. “And I swear a couple of times I could hear his voice, too, without the equipment.”

  “They were certainly present when they were here,” Ian said. “They both had strong links to this place.”

  “They were the sweetest couple,” Mary said. She turned to Mike. “Thank you for helping them.”

  He smiled at her. “Hey, it’s part of the job,” he said. “And I really do know Ginny. She’s been waiting for Charlie for a long time. I’m glad they’re finally together.”

  “Me, too,” Mary said.

  “If it’s okay with you,” Mike said, “I’m going to leave you to figure out what’s going on here, and I’m going to check on Clarissa.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Bradley said. “We’ll see you at home.”

  Dee shook his head. “Hanging out with you folks is one heck of a trip,” he said. “I’m actually getting used to watching you carry on conversations with invisible people.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Bradley replied with a grin.

  Mary, caught up in thought, slowly walked out of the kitchen into the living room. The space was open and bare, except for a few shelves and the curtains over the windows. She slowly scanned the room.

  Bradley followed her into the living room, leaned back against one of the walls and watched his wife study the room. Finally, when she seemed to have come to a decision, he decided he could ask. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t get it,” Mary answered. “Betty and Nick had all of their equipment set up in here. They were actually similar in age to Charles and Ginny, so you’d think there might be some sympathetic connection there. But they got nothing.”

  Ian walked throughout the room, too, mirroring Mary’s examination. “Aye, and then we have Ollie who comes in the next night, sets things up and gets a photo of a full-bodied apparition,” he added, slowly nodding his head. “Seems a little odd, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, we know that ghosts aren’t like Old Faithful,” Dee inserted. “They don’t always show up when we want them to.”

  “But I think Charles was always here,” Mary said, “always waiting for the chance to see Ginny. I don’t think it would have taken very much to get him to respond.”

  “And the readings they got in the barn, the dead chicken readings, they were spot on,” Ian said. “So there was nothing wrong with their equipment.”

  Still leaning against the living room wall listening to the discussion, Bradley finally had some thoughts of his own. He pushed himself away from the wall and moved to the center of the room. “So if I’ve taken the time to track the whereabouts of an investigation group with the sole purpose of proving that my equipment is better than their equipment at a fairly sizable conference,” Bradley mused, “would I be willing to just hope they didn’t get any good readings, or would I try to somehow mask or inhibit any readings they might get?”

  “Can you do that?” Dee asked.

  Bradley turned to Ian. “Professor?”

  Ian thought about it for a moment. “Well, aye, I mean in theory I suppose you can,” he said. “I mean, you can’t inhibit the spirits, but you can inhibit the readings.”

  “How?” Dee asked. “Don’t the readings come along with the spirits? Isn’t that what an EMF meter does, read the electromagnetic fluctuations caused by a spirit? How can you manipulate that?”

  “Good question,” Ian said, and then he smiled wryly. “And how do I explain it without my whiteboard?”

  He walked over and placed his hands on Mary’s shoulders and guided her into the middle of the room. “Now, darling, I want you to whisper something to me,” he said with a wink.

  She smiled. “Ian, I love…chocolate,” she said softly, grinning back.

  “Perfect,” he replied. “Now say it again. Over and over.”

  She repeated herself.

  Ian turned to Dee and Bradley. “Can you hear her?” he asked.

  The both nodded.

  “Yeah, she’s quiet, but I can hear her,” Dee said.

  Ian walked over to Bradley. “And how’s your singing voice?” he asked him.

  “Good for in the shower, but not much else,” Bradley replied.

  “Ah, well, today I need it to be strong and loud,” Ian said. “And I’m not asking for good.”

  Bradley nodded and started singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” but changed the words to “a ghost chicken.” Mary giggled for a moment and stopped whispering, which earned a sharp look from Ian.

  “Sorry,” she whispered and then kept repeating her phrase.

  Bradley continued singing at the top of his voice.

  “Okay, now can you hear Mary?” Ian asked.

  Dee listened and shook his head. “I think I can catch a little, but Bradley’s voice is overpowering her.”

  “Exactly,” Ian said. “Okay, you two can stop now.”

  “So, are you going to explain this all?” Bradley asked.

  “EMF readings are actually readings of the fluctuations of electromagnetic energy,” Ian said. “The theory behind it is that spirits carry energy, and when they’re around the electromagnetic energy, which is all around us, it changes. We’re not reading the energy. We’re reading the change, the fluctuation. Now, most researchers believe that the spiritual energy is fairly low on the energy scale, and most meters go up to about 40 megahertz. So, if you were to push out an electromagnetic pulse of, say, 100 megahertz, you could cover any fluctuations under that.”

  “Kind of lack jamming a signal,” Dee said.

  Ian grinned. “Aye, exactly,” he said. “So, your meters wouldn’t tell you that there’s a lot of energy around. They would just not pick anything up because the energy changes they were trying to read were being drowned by the higher output.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Mary said slowly. Then she turned to Dee. “How were the EMF readings at the asylum?”

  Dee shrugged. “They were non-existent,” he said. “Totally flat. But, really, we can’t blame Ollie for that. It could be that there were just no spirits in the building.”

  Mary shook her head. “Dee, your mom was there with you,” she said. “She told me about the dust motes. You should have been able to, at the very least, pick up her readings.”

  Ian nodded. “Well, this is getting curiouser and curiouser.”

  Bradley sighed. “So, what I think I hear you saying is that we have another field trip to plan,” he said to Mary.

  She grinned and nodded. “I think tomorrow night, after the conference, we’re going to visit an asylum.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  They locked up the empty farmhouse, and Mary put the keys in her pocket. She glanced around the farmyard, scanning the nearly naked trees and the other objects that were taller than the house. “Where do
you think they put the jammer?” she asked.

  Ian and Bradley both scanned the horizon. The sun was low in the sky, shining through the forest on the west side of property. “I can’t see any easy access,” Bradley finally said.

  Dee came walking back from the car where he’d finished stowing his gear. “What are you looking for?”

  “Where someone would have placed a jammer,” Mary replied.

  Dee quickly glanced around. “Well, if it were me, I’d just drive up on that road there,” he pointed to a gravel road on a hill behind the house. “I’d get one of those satellite vans, or something like that, and park it there and just beam down on the house.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Mary said. “And then you drive away, and no one is the wiser.”

  They started walking toward the car when Ian made a slight detour and ran back to the barn.

  “Searching for invisible eggs?” Bradley called after him.

  They heard Ian chuckle, followed by the sound of things being moved. In a few moments Ian appeared at the door of the barn with a roll of chicken wire in his hands. “We might need this later,” he said.

  “Don’t you think ghost chickens could get through the wire?” Dee asked.

  “The dead chicken jokes are getting a wee old here, folks,” Ian said, shaking his head. “No, we might need this for a Faraday cage.”

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “A Faraday cage is a device that shields electronic devices from electromagnetic impulses by creating an electromagnetic shield,” he explained. “It’s a fairly common principle. Airplanes use it, which is why when a plane is hit by lightning everyone inside doesn’t get fried. Faraday box.”

  “Well, my hat’s off to Faraday,” Bradley said. “But why chicken wire?”

  “I figure if they’re not using a moveable device, as Dee suggested, but have something fixed in the area,” Ian explained, “we’ll be able to use this chicken wire and the rebar in the walls along with a battery to shield a portion of the asylum from the interference. Then we should be able to get some good readings.”

  Mary smiled at Ian. “You really don’t look like a nerd,” she teased.

  “Ach, I’m not but a nerd at heart,” he laughed back.

  They walked back to the car, and Ian placed the dusty chicken wire in the back of the SUV. As they all climbed in the car, Bradley turned to Dee. “About how much money is involved in ghost hunting equipment?” he asked.

  Dee sat back against the car seat to think about his response for a moment. “You know, it’s hard to say because a lot of these meters we buy are created for a different purpose, not paranormal research,” he replied. “But the stuff’s not cheap. I would guess you’d be looking at millions, maybe tens of millions.”

  “And if you had the latest and greatest camera or meter that picked up readings no other device could get, how much would that be worth?” Bradley asked.

  “I have to admit. As soon as I saw that presentation, I wanted one of those cameras,” Dee said. “So, groups who’d already invested in equipment would be willing to trash their old stuff for the newest technology. And the groups who are fighting for network time, they’d be willing to shell out a lot to be on the cutting edge.”

  “And if it’s a scam?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah, I can’t see that going down in a court of law,” Dee said. “My new EMF meter didn’t really pick up paranormal entities, your honor. I think this company jammed my old equipment so I couldn’t see the spirits that were actually all around me.”

  He shook his head. “They’d either kick you out of court or call the guys with the white jackets. No way can they be prosecuted.”

  “Maybe not for that,” Bradley mused as he put the car in reverse and backed out of the farm yard. “But we sure as hell can get them for attempted murder.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  “What are you talking about?” Dee asked Bradley.

  “I’m just thinking out loud right now,” Bradley said as he drove down the country road. “But there’s a lot of things here that seem to be falling into place. First, we have this group who wants to sell high-end equipment and aren’t above cheating to do it. Next, we have at least circumstantial proof that someone was messing with the asylum so that the readings for all the groups were off. Then, we have Sven trying to steal the asylum footage because someone has offered him big bucks for it.” He took a deep breath. “And finally, someone was trying to either scare off or murder Dee, who is the only one who does the editing and looks at the footage. Seems to me it all kind of melds together.”

  “So Ollie’s a murderer?” Mary asked.

  “Well, maybe Ollie, maybe someone who works for Ollie,” Bradley said. “I just have a feeling we’re getting closer.”

  “Isn’t that generally a bad thing?” Dee asked.

  “Why?” Mary asked.

  “Because the closer you get, the more nervous they become,” Dee said. “And the faster they want to tie up their loose ends.”

  “Well, at this point, no one knows that we’ve figured this out,” Mary said. “And I think we can keep a lid on the trip to the asylum tomorrow. But, you’re right Dee. We all need to be more diligent as we get to the close of this conference.”

  Bradley’s phone rang and silenced the conversation. He looked down at the screen. “It’s Rosie,” he said, pressing the onboard phone button.

  “Hi, Rosie,” he said.

  “Oh, Bradley, is everyone there with you?” she asked.

  “Yes, we’re all in the car,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “The most awful thing happened,” Rosie replied. “We were packing everything up for the end of the day when we realized that Dee’s laptop isn’t here anymore.”

  “What?” Dee exclaimed.

  “I feel so badly,” Rosie said. “We’ve been sitting here the whole time. I don’t know how it happened.”

  “Rosie, this is Ian. Did you see it when you got back from lunch?”

  “Oh, Ian, that’s the problem,” she said. “Since the room was supposed to be locked up, we didn’t even check. The displays were still up on Dee’s table, and everything looked fine. It wasn’t until just now…”

  “That’s okay, Rosie,” Dee said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Should I file a police report?” Rosie asked.

  Bradley chuckled. “You just did,” he said.

  “Oh. Yes. That’s right,” she replied. “Well, we packed everything else up, and we’re taking it all over to Mary’s. I just don’t trust the locks on this room anymore.”

  “Thank you, Rosie,” Bradley said. “We’ll meet you at the house.”

  He disconnected the call. “So, what does that mean?” he asked Dee.

  “Well, everything on the laptop is backed up,” Dee said. “But I think we all know who took it, and they got what they were looking for.”

  “They were looking for a copy of my lecture on ‘The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective?’” Ian asked. “I mean, I knew it was brilliant. I just didn’t think people would be willing to steal for it.”

  “No,” Dee said, shaking his head. “They were looking for the footage from the asylum.”

  “Oh, well,” Ian said, pulling a thumb drive out of his pocket. “Unfortunately for them, I swapped the two thumb drives before lunch, just in case someone decided to borrow your footage without permission.” He paused and looked around the car. “But we’re pretty sure they weren’t after my lecture, are we?”

  Mary nodded. “Pretty sure.”

  “Ah, well, then,” Ian said. “Add one more check mark to that list you’ve made, Bradley. It had to have been either a presenter or vendor to have access when the room was shut down for lunch.”

  “I’m getting worried,” Dee said. “Once they look at the drive…”

  “Dee, how do you feel about spending the night on our couch tonight?” Mary asked.

  Dee smiled. “I feel good. I feel r
eal good about that.”

  “Yeah,” Bradley said. “Me, too.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Rosie and Stanley were waiting at Mary’s house when the rest of the group got back. Rosie immediately hurried to the door to meet Dee. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I feel so responsible.”

  Shaking his head, he quickly reassured her. “I was at lunch, too,” he said. “And that’s when it probably happened. So, you have nothing to apologize for.”

  Ian came in behind Dee and gave Rosie a quick hug. “Well, you do have some apologizing to do to me,” he said with a smile. “Here I am, watching my girlish figure, and I walk into the house and it smells like heaven. How did you get food made so quickly?”

  “Well, that’s not my fault at all,” she explained with a giggle. “Stanley and I decided that Cimino’s pizza would be the best choice for an early dinner after the day we all had. So, we picked it up on the way home.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Mary said. “We can eat pizza and then hook the asylum footage up to the big screen and spend a fun-filled night watching it.”

  “You’re not going to be impressed,” Dee said. “But, you know, maybe if we pop popcorn…”

  Mary smiled. “Done,” she said. “Done deal.”

  “Where’s Bradley?” Stanley asked.

  “He dropped us off and then drove over to the hotel,” Mary explained. “He’s picking up Dee’s things so he can spend the night here. We figure he’ll be safer.”

  Mary glanced at the clock. “Is Clarissa home yet?” she asked.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Rosie said. “You’re supposed to give Katie a call now that you’re home. She’s got Clarissa.”

  Mary nodded. “Why don’t I just walk down the street and chat with her? I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said. “Why don’t you all start on the pizza while it’s warm.”

  Mary walked down the street to the Brennans’ house. The Christmas decorations were already up, and Mary could hear the joyful noises coming out of the house. She climbed the stairs, grinned at the friendly snowman standing next to the door and rang the bell. A moment later, a slightly flour-caked Katie Brennan answered the door.