The Chick and the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  Of course! I should have figured it out the moment I realized that Howell and Didi were connected by more than just the path to the steno pool.

  Howell didn't give a damn about So Far the Dawn or who wrote it. He was worried that I was trying to cash in on a family connection.

  That's why he asked how old I was.

  Howell thought I'd shown up out of nowhere to claim him as my long-lost grandfather.

  Because Judge Thomas Ross Howell was the father of Didi's baby.

  And that meant…

  Another blast of a car horn got me moving. I scurried over to the sidewalk and followed my train of thought to its logical conclusion.

  It wasn't pretty.

  Because I was convinced that Howell wasn't just Judy's father.

  Thomas Ross Howell was the reason Didi jumped.

  Chapter 14

  I was all set to run this new theory by Didi—and dare her to prove me wrong—but it looked as if she'd learned a few handy-dandy ghostly tricks from the dearly departed don. As Gus had done so many times when I needed to talk to him most, Didi had vanished.

  Pun intended.

  I got back to the Bowman house and she was nowhere around.

  The rest of the world, though, was.

  I had to fight my way through the crowd in the entryway, and when I did, I saw what was happening. One group of workers was moving the last of the display cases into their permanent positions in what used to be the dining room. With a whole lot of pomp and ceremony, a second group was setting the first bits of memorabilia in place in the glass cases in the once-upon-a-time living room.

  Members of the press captured the moment for posterity, their cameras trained on the one and only Merilee, who, resplendent in peacock blue, stuck around long enough to primp and smile, then disappeared into her study with the promise (or was it a threat?) of the sequel that was awaiting her attention.

  No big surprise that Ella was there to watch it all.

  Unknown to anyone but little ol' Gifted me, so were Elizabeth and Kurt.

  I waved to the dynamic dueling duo, but we didn't have a chance to chat, and call me cynical, but I knew it was just as well. The two stars were standing near a poster that, according to the plaque next to it, had once hung in the Ziegfeld to advertise the opening of the movie.

  "You look embalmed, darling. And stuffed," Elizabeth told Kurt, her top lip curled as she studied him in his blue uniform.

  "And you, my dear…" Kurt's smile glinted in the light of the cameras that flashed all around. He eyed the cleavage that peeked out from the top of the famous blue velvet dress. "Whoever thought they could pass off New Jersey trash as Ohio blue blood must have been as crazy as a loon and nearsighted to boot."

  I left them at it.

  Good thing, too. As soon as she saw me, Ella latched on to my arm. "Can you believe it?" She tugged me over to a glass case that featured the (fake) diamond and sapphire necklace Opal wore in the scene where she connived a naive banker into loaning her the money to save the family's shipbuilding business. At the same time I wondered what she'd say if she knew Elizabeth was standing right behind her in the same green outfit Opal wore to call on the bank, I made the right clucking noises.

  "This is the most exciting day of my life," Ella said, and I didn't contradict her, even though it was what she'd said the day Merilee arrived at Garden View. What was the point in arguing? And what difference would it have made?

  Ella was beyond thinking logically.

  Her cheeks aglow, and the same shade as the flamingo pink dress she wore with a snappy little matching sweater, Ella drifted from display case to display case, grinning from ear to ear and taking me along for the ride.

  "Look! The Opal doll!" She clutched her hands to her heart, and while she beamed at the eighteen-inch doll inside the nearest case, I shook out my arm to get the circulation going again. The doll was dressed as Elizabeth had been the night she'd first popped up in Merilee's study, in the ubiquitous blue gown. She had the same tumble of golden curls, the same sapphire eyes. "I wanted one of these dolls so bad when I was a kid, I got on a bus and went downtown to ask Santa for one." Ella gave me a wink. "Considering that we're Jewish, my mother wasn't exactly thrilled. I did get the doll, though. For Hanukkah that year. You think maybe Santa's interdenominational?"

  She didn't wait for me to answer, and that was okay. There wasn't much I could say, and she probably wouldn't have heard me, anyway. Ella looked toward the next case and practically melted in a puddle of aficionado mush. "The So Far the Dawn lunch box! Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?"

  I wasn't so sure. I looked at the twelve-by-twelve metal box with the picture of a smiling Palmer and a pouting Opal on it. Even before I could comment, I heard them behind us.

  "Oh, Kurt! A lunch box. The perfect item for a ham like you."

  "And for you, Elizabeth. But only if one of the things packed inside is a tart."

  "A lunch box like this is as rare as hen's teeth." Ella's comment cut across the sniping. Her sigh fogged the glass case. "It's the one piece of memorabilia I've never been able to get my hands on, and it would be the crowning glory of my collection."

  "You're not thinking of a smash and grab, are you?"

  I was kidding.

  The look of lunch box lust in Ella's eyes told me that maybe I shouldn't have been. Fortunately for her criminal record and for my bank account (because of course I would have bailed her out of jail), her better self took control. Ella pulled her gaze from the lunch box to me. "I'm glad you showed up," she said. "Since I was coming over here anyway, I brought your gown. I hope you don't mind. Bob showed me which room was yours, and I put it up there."

  I wasn't sure which comment worried me more. The one about Bob being in my bedroom. Or the one about the gown.

  Because the one was too icky to consider, I glommed on to the other.

  "What gown?"

  Ella patted my arm. "It's gorgeous. I promise. It had to be retailored completely, of course. I mean, you and Trish Kingston… " She laughed. "Well, she had such a stick of a figure. And you're so gorgeous and curvy. But not to worry. When I stopped by your apartment to pick up your mail last week, I took the liberty of checking your closet and taking one of your dressier dresses. You know, to the seamstress. She used it for sizing, but of course, you'll still need to try on the gown before—"

  "What gown?"

  I guess the second time was the charm. Or maybe Ella finally heard me because I spoke so loud. The confusion in her eyes cleared. "The gown? Oh, you forgot, didn't you? Your gown. The one you'll be wearing to the gala."

  As it happened, I had not forgotten. I had never been told. I didn't bother to point this out to Ella because just as I was about to (along with the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to wear a hoop skirt or a corset), she spotted something in the next case, and if I'd stopped to talk, I wouldn't have been able to put an arm around her when I thought she was going to collapse on the floor.

  "Oh, Pepper!" Tears welled in Ella's eyes. Her shoulders heaved beneath my ministering hands. I don't imagine the folks who designed the museum displays wanted people touching the glass cases, but Ella did anyway. With one finger. Like what was inside was so precious, she didn't dare do any more.

  What was inside, according the sign above it, was the original handwritten copy of So Far the Dawn.

  Merilee's original handwritten copy.

  "To be this close to greatness!" Ella was sighing again, and I had to wipe the condensation off the glass before I could get a good look at the looseleaf pages inside the display. There in front of me was the whole, entire manuscript. It was opened to the scene where Opal heads off to Baltimore.

  I scanned the pages, and I'll say this much: There was nothing like seeing Merilee's work to take a girl aback.

  I stood there staring. At the pages and the neat, careful writing. At the smudge-free margins and the words that were, by now, familiar. I'd seen them in print only a c
ouple of nights before when I sat in my room and read the book.

  Right then and there, every question I'd ever had about Didi and her claims to the authorship of the book washed over me like the cold slap of a Lake Erie wave.

  There was So Far the Dawn.

  Every word of it in Merilee's cramped handwriting.

  Could there be any doubt she was the author?

  Could I deny the fact that she'd had fifty years to copy the manuscript, word for word, and in her own hand?

  The question hurled me firmly back to reality and the mystery I found myself embroiled in.

  I actually might have had a chance to think about it further if a camera hadn't flashed from over Ella's left shoulder. Automatically, I glanced that way.

  Imagine my surprise (or maybe irritation was a better word?) when I caught sight of the photographer just as he finished up and ducked into the hallway.

  A photographer who looked a whole bunch like Dan Callahan.

  "Excuse me," I told Ella, and honestly, I don't know if she heard me or not. Because I was already on my way to the door when I said it.

  When I got there, I had to sidestep through the crowd, and after that, I had to elbow my way through the press of people in the entryway, and when I made my way through that bunch, I was forced to sidle around the gawkers, the reenactors, and the neighborhood busybodies who hadn't been invited to the event and were milling around on the front porch.

  Is it any surprise that by the time I clumped down the stairs and into the front yard, the Dan who might not be Dan (but maybe he was) was nowhere to be seen?

  There's only so much any woman can take and still hold on to her sanity and her rationality. Believe me when I say this: I had reached that point. Okay, so it took me a while. But hey, I'd been preoccupied.

  I was still preoccupied, what with talk of me wearing a ball gown and thoughts of Weird Bob the camera thief in my bedroom, and, oh yes, the mystery I was supposed to be solving.

  But all that aside, I was also now officially and completely pissed.

  It was a good thing I'd never had a chance to set down my purse when I walked into the house. My car keys were handy, and I didn't hesitate. I jumped into the Mustang, turned the key, and gunned the engine.

  I wanted answers and I wanted them now. Bound and determined to find them, I headed to the other side of town and to the hospital where I'd first bumped into Dan the Brain Man.

  "Dan, did you say? Dan Callahan?"

  Dr. Cecilia Cho had changed little since the day I smacked my head on Gus Scarpetti's mausoleum and woke up in the ER to find her peering down at me, stethoscope in hand. She was still dressed in scrubs decorated with little pastel butterflies. She was still wearing glasses, and her dark hair, of course, was still shot through with gray.

  But the day of the accident that had spelled the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it, and the end of the beginning of my Gift, Dr. Cho had struck me as professional, take charge, and competent.

  Now as I sat across her desk from her, all she did was look confused.

  "I'm not sure who you're talking about," she said.

  I blubbered for a moment, and who could blame me? Of all people, I had expected Dr. Cho to provide me with clear and logical answers. Faced with her uncertainty, I found it hard to put together a coherent thought, much less a lucid sentence. "But you've got to… You must know Dan," I stammered. "This is where I met him. In the ER. He came into the examining room to check my head X-rays and my CAT scans. Not that first day I was here. Not the day of the accident. It was a few days later. When I came back to see you. You must have a record of the fact that I came back to see you."

  Dr. Cho checked the notes in the file folder that was open on the desk in front of her. "You were having trouble sleeping," she said. "And you were exhibiting some strange behaviors. You talked about hallucinations."

  It was the day after I'd first met Gus, and at the time, I was desperate to prove to myself that he was nothing more than a brain blip.

  These days, I knew better.

  "I did," I told the doctor. "Talk about hallucinations, that is. But I didn't. Hallucinate, I mean. And I know I didn't hallucinate Dan. Dan Callahan, PhD. That's what his hospital ID tag said. Cute guy. Really." Thinking about the last time I saw Dan and the way he had appeared out of nowhere, saved my life, and kissed me goodbye, my cheeks shot through with heat. "I wasn't imagining things."

  "If you say so." Dr. Cho grabbed a pen and made another note in my file.

  From where I was sitting, I couldn't see what she'd written.

  "So tell me, Pepper…" She tapped her pen against the paper. "When this…" She consulted the file again. "When this Dan Callahan stepped into the examining room to talk to you, was I here, too?"

  I thought back to that afternoon. "You'd just walked out," I told her. "You must have passed right by him in the hallway. You couldn't have missed him. Shaggy hair. Wire-rimmed glasses." I thought about Dan's fashion sense. Or more accurately, lack of it.

  "He always looked like he got dressed with his eyes closed. You know, navy pants, brown shirt. That sort of thing. And he was smart. Really smart. There are more diplomas hanging on the wall of his office than I've ever seen anywhere and—" In the middle of this logical recounting of the whole mystery that was Dan, my stomach flipped. I took a good, hard look at Dr. Cho.

  "Do you think I'm crazy?"

  She laughed. It wasn't exactly a silvery sound, but then I wasn't exactly in the mood to be humored. "Of course that's not what I'm saying. We can't possibly know that. Not with any certainty. Not from just what you've told me here today."

  "But I didn't imagine him, Dr. Cho." I was whining, and I knew whining made me sound desperate. I told myself to get my shit together and raised my chin, giving Dr. Cho as sane and reasonable a look as a woman who talks to the dead could muster. "I saw Dan. I talked to him. We went out for a drink together, and he walked me home. He called me on the phone and left messages at my office more than once."

  He wasn't a ghost, either.

  I'll admit it, the possibility of Dan being from "over there" had occurred to me ever since the day he started showing up out of nowhere and vanishing again just as quickly. Then, as now, I dismissed it. Ghosts were incorporeal. They couldn't touch things. They couldn't move things. They couldn't talk to people.

  Any people except me.

  But to stick to the point… I'd seen Dan do all those things. When we went out for drinks together, he'd talked to our waitress. When we met for coffee, he'd gone up to the counter to order my latte. When a hit man had me in his sights and was all set to blow me to smithereens, it was Dan who'd knocked him out with a roundhouse kick and a couple of slick karate moves.

  And unlike the time Gus had tried to grab my arm to keep me from walking into the path of an oncoming car, I didn't freeze up like a Sno-Kone when Dan touched me. And certainly not when he kissed me.

  Oh no. When Dan kissed me, chilly had nothing to do with my reaction.

  "I know Dan is real," I told Dr. Cho, letting her think I was talking about delusions because it was better than explaining about the ghosts. "Like I told you when I walked in here, I keep seeing him around. That proves it, doesn't it?"

  "Does it?" Dr. Cho tapped a stack of papers into a neat pile. "I have no doubt you believe what you're telling me, Pepper. Yet if that's so, I've got to wonder why you're here asking about Dan. Could it be that in spite of the fact that you're trying to sound so certain, you're really doubting yourself? That you're looking for confirmation?"

  I answered without hesitation. "No. I'm sure I've seen Dan." (I wasn't, not exactly, but this wasn't the time to quibble.) "I'm sure I met him here in the hospital. I even came back a couple of weeks later so that I could participate in that study of his."

  "He's conducting research?" Dr. Cho took another note. "Here at the hospital? I don't suppose you can tell me what he's studying?"

  "Of course I can. Aberrant behavior and occipital lobe
s. My high propensity for hallucinatory imaging and—"

  I knew I'd stepped in it, but it was too late to call the words back.

  Dr. Cho nodded knowingly. "The fact that you've been here twice since your accident is a sign, Pepper," she said.

  "It is?"

  "Whether you realize it or not, it's a cry for help."

  "But I don't need any. Help, that is."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Look…" My frustration was building along with my temper. I scraped a hand through my hair. "I'm not looking to have my head shrunk or anything. So as much as I appreciate your concern, thanks but no thanks. All I need is for you to tell me where to find Dan. This little game of hide-and-seek he's playing is pissing me off and—"

  "Have you always had these anger issues?"

  "I don't have anger issues!" My protest would have been a little more convincing if I hadn't pounded my fist on the desk to emphasize my point. "The only issues I have are Dan issues."

  "And there's only one way I can help you with those." Dr. Cho opened the top drawer of her desk and took out a planning calendar. "We can't possibly know for certain what's going on with you, Pepper, without a battery of tests. They're pretty thorough, not to mention exhausting. Depending on what your health insurer will allow, I'd suggest you stay two nights, and it looks like we can fit you in next week. Let's just schedule it right now, why don't we? This way, we can get everything out of the way, and you won't have to keep coming back."

  "For—?"

  Dr. Cho reached into another drawer and took out a brochure. She slid the slick paper with its colorful pictures across the desk to me. "It's not nearly as scary as it sounds," she said. "See. Here are some pictures. You'll feel like you're on vacation. Our psychiatric facility is very homey."

  "Oh no!" I leaped out of the chair and away from her and the ridiculous (not to mention terrifying) suggestion. "I don't need to be poked and prodded and analyzed. All I need…"

  All I needed was all I needed all along: to find Dan, and it was clear that Dr. Cho wasn't going to be any help. Without bothering to finish the sentence, I raced to the door and hightailed it out of the ER.