by T. L. Ingham
Chapter Sixteen
My parents left on Sunday night, my mother insisting that if anything else was to occur I should call her right away. My father, more comfortable with the fact that I could indeed take care of myself, left no remonstrations, only hugged me and headed out to the car.
The last words out of my mother's mouth before they drove away were, "Now, don't you forget Sigreid! You call me if anything, and I do mean anything, happens. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, Mom. I hear and obey."
"Well, if that isn't just the camel that broke the straw's back-" but my father had already applied his foot to the gas pedal. I was going to have to send that man a gift.
On Monday we returned to the gallery, but all thoughts of any plans we may have that evening regarding Cecilia, were quickly wiped away by Giorgio's panic upon greeting us.
"Honestly," Pia said. "One of these days I'd love to come in here without facing some kind of crisis. What’s going on now?"
"We have to talk," he said. "In your office." He eyed me suspiciously.
"Contrary to whatever you may have heard," Pia said noting his look, "although Reid may have stumbled upon another dead body, she was in no way responsible for what happened."
"What?"
"The night of her party. Mike Holbeck was murdered. I assumed you'd heard?"
"Mike?!" Simone shrieked from across the gallery. "What do you mean he was murdered? We had a date planned for tonight!"
"Gee, Simone. It looks like all your boyfriends are dropping like flies." I couldn't resist.
"That's not funny!"
Pia cast me a reproachful look. "No, it is not. Simone, dear, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. I thought by now everyone knew. It seems someone trespassed onto the construction site late that night and did him in. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."
Not that Simone looked particularly hurt. If anything, she looked annoyed. Evidently she hadn't known him long enough to be overly concerned. Of course, she was going to have to find some new plans for tonight…
Pia looked back to Giorgio. "Well, if it wasn't that, what was it then?"
"In your office, please," he said, heading in that direction.
Pia followed him leaving Simone and I standing in the showroom by ourselves. She stared at me for a minute, then turned on her heel and stalked away. Presumably to her office.
I was busy updating my appointments on the computer in my own office when Pia joined me. She looked pale.
"What is it?" I asked standing up from my desk and coming around to meet her.
She sunk into a chair. "Someone has been robbing me."
"Yeee-aaahhh. We already knew that, remember? His name begins with a Professor and ends with a Stanley. Murderer extraordinaire? You know- the guy that was counterfeiting your artwork?"
"No," she shook her head. "It's not just him. Giorgio says it's still going on. That's why he didn't want to talk about it in front of you."
"He thinks I did it?!" I was outraged. How many times could I shout my innocence from the rooftops before people started listening to me?
"No, not you necessarily. Someone. He just didn't want them to know he was on to them. Whoever they are. From the looks of things, it has to be someone that's been here at least a few months."
"How does he know that?"
"He conducted his first inventory as soon as he took over the position. At that time, he discovered many more pieces of art were missing than we had at first presumed."
I nodded. "Yeah, we knew that. But I thought we attributed it to the professor?"
"We did. Or at least, I did. But Giorgio didn't believe it. He thought that the professor might be a convenient fall guy for whoever the real thief was."
"And he based his assumptions on?"
"The fact that none of the artwork has been found. See, while I do have photographical records of every piece of art in the warehouse, since so much moves in and out and some of it stays there for a great deal of time, often the photographs get misplaced. So Giorgio has been having a hard time finding out precisely which pieces are missing. He only has empty crates to go by. And all those filing cabinets in Maya's office? They're filled with thousands of photos. Needless to say, it could take him a lifetime to compare what has sold with what should be left and cross-reference that with the photographs."
"Not terribly functional."
"Exactly. So, figuring the gallery would just have to take the loss, Giorgio had planned to start from square one. From where we are now. So he decided to start developing his own system. And he's proven it works quite nicely. He has rearranged the warehouse and begun new catalogs, taking his own pictures, dating them and marking them with the location of each and every item in the warehouse. Further, when he brings something forward, onto the showroom floor, he removes the picture and adds it to a new catalog. He calls this his 'active' file. Then, when an item sells, he puts the picture into a sold book. This way he can track the movement of everything in the gallery. Quite clever, really."
"Sounds like his is the best promotion you've ever made. Sounds like he might also need a raise." Hey, anyone who goes to that kind of trouble not for their own personal gain, but for the betterment of their workplace- they deserve a raise in my book. Just saying.
"You may be right," Pia agreed. "The problem is, because Giorgio is so attuned to every piece in the gallery now, he notices the instant one goes missing. He said a week ago two pieces disappeared out of the warehouse, but he assumed that since he had just undertaken such a monumental task that he might be mistaken and decided not to panic. Then another piece went missing a day or two after that. And then, just last week, as late as Friday, he said that two more pieces were gone and he was convinced that someone was actively stealing them."
"Again, how does that prove that it's someone who’s been here a long time? I mean, all these thefts have occurred in the last few weeks, it could just as well be one of the new hires."
Although I could live with the idea that it was Simone, I found it very hard to believe Maya had anything to do with it, and if Giorgio was the thief he would hardly bring it to Pia's attention. In my mind that left either Pia's new assistant Zoe, or the new salesperson, Francesca Preziosi, a woman I'd only met in passing. And then again there was the maid and the two warehouse workers, Gary Carter, a long time employee, and the new guy, Jake something.
Okay, so the suspect list was growing astronomically by the second.
"It really doesn't, I suppose. It's just Giorgio's suspicion that not all the thefts can be blamed on the professor."
"There's only one way to verify anything. The security footage. Why not review the footage for the last few weeks at least and see what it shows? If someone is stealing from the warehouse, you should be able to find them on the footage."
"I'm in the process of doing that right now. I've already called the security company and they're going through it themselves. They'll also send me a copy so I can review it. But this could take days!"
"I may have something faster." With that, I headed to the warehouse, Pia hot on my heels.
Upon entering the warehouse I immediately noticed it was empty. "Where are the guys?"
"On deliveries, I would assume," Pia said.
"All right. Keep everyone out of here for now, will you?"
Pia stood guard at the door- literally. She was honestly doing her best impression of the Queen's Royal Guard.
"Could you make it more obvious?"
"What, dear?"
"Be more relaxed, will you? Try to look natural. I don't know- act like you're reviewing the shipping list or something."
"Got it!" She snatched up the nearest clipboard and began flipping through pages, all the while keeping one eye on the door.
I moved into the staging room, a room used to photograph new pieces of artwork for security purposes- fat lot of good that had done. It was also the room Raphael, the gallery's ghost, liked to hang out in.
"Raphael!" I called up to the ceiling. "Ra
phael? Are you here?"
Sure enough, the Jamaican ghost in the bright orange tropical shirt came floating down through the ceiling. "Reid!" He greeted. "Me hasn't been seein' you in a long time now!"
"Yeah, I kinda had an accident, so I've been away for awhile."
"An acc-ee-dent? Wot kind o' acc-ee-dent?"
"Nothing major. Think car, me, building, squish. Anyway, I'm fine. But I needed to ask you something."
"Ask away. Me answer wot I cahn."
"Have you seen anyone acting suspiciously in the warehouse? I mean, have you seen anyone, say, rifling through the artwork or anything? Or take anything that they looked like they might be trying to hide?"
"No, I cahn't say as me have. But you know me. Dis duppy don' pay no mind ta de livin'. Me's only interested in findin' me art." Raphael had spent his entire existence as a duppy-er, ghost- trying to find one of his old paintings he had done when he was alive. So far he'd had no success in the endeavor.
"All right. Well, if you do see something, will you let me know?"
"Sure t'ing, gal. But, did ya ask ta other duppy?"
"The other duppy?"
"Ya. Ricky. He got himself ta stickin' now, ya know."
"No, I didn't know. Where can I find him?"
"He usually wanders 'round da warehouse, but I t'ink he went off walkin' agin. He does dat sometimes. He gets ta bein' bored ya know."
Great. Just what I needed. Chasing down yet another ghost.
"Well, if you see him, will you tell him I need to talk to him?"
"Sure t'ing gal." With that, he floated back into the ceiling.
Pia rushed up to me as soon as I exited the staging room. "Well?"
"Raphael hasn't seen anything. But he said to ask Ricky. The only problem is, Ricky's not around to ask right now."
"J.D.'s a ghost too?" Pia always called Ricky J.D., short for James Dean since she was convinced Ricky resembled the actor. And truth be told, he kinda did. Had. Whatever.
"Yeah. But I have to wait for him to return before I can ask him."
She sighed. "I hate delays."
"So you keep saying."
Pia spent the rest of the day sequestered in her office, perusing the security footage I assumed, while I passed the time in my office, running to the warehouse every half hour or so hoping to find Ricky. If Giorgio had seen me, I'm pretty sure he would have been convinced that my suspicious behavior marked me not only as the thief, but also a crazy person. Thankfully, he spent the entire day on the showroom floor, too busy working with customers to do anything else.
By the end of the day, Pia was cross-eyed from staring at hours of security footage and not surprisingly finding nothing, and my feet hurt from too many trips to the warehouse in heels. We drove home in silence, each lost in our own, though probably similar, thoughts.
Bernard had left on yet another of his many business trips, so Pia and I had the whole house to ourselves, which was convenient given what we were planning to do.
Olivia arrived just after six, as was the arrangement. She spent an hour or so lighting candles and lining the floor of the room we were using with salt. Before this though, I had to move in an easel and some of my painting supplies (enough to make it look plausible anyway). Olivia felt the fewer people 'breaking the line of salt,' the better. Apparently, this would make the circle stronger. I wasn't sure how much of this I believed, but since Pia seemed to be along for the ride, I had no choice but to follow.
Olivia also made Gloria remain inside the circle until all the preparations were made, at which time, she allowed Gloria to leave in order to retrieve Alex.
According to Olivia, the circle was such that anyone entering could not leave until given permission by the creator- a.k.a. Olivia. I couldn't help but to wonder, if she was right, how safe would this be for her? I mean, if Cecilia really wanted to leave, how hard would it be for her to extricate the permission required from Olivia?
Before I had time to put much thought into the theory, Gloria had returned, with Alex.
"You want to do another portrait of me?" Alex crowed his chest puffed up with pride.
"Yes," I told him, carefully sticking with the story we had concocted earlier. "I thought it would be make more sense to actually paint the 'Ghost of the Manor,' in the manor."
"Of course! That’s fine!" he enthused. Then, casting me a suspicious glance, "But, you're not going to paint me as menacing as you did the last time, are you?"
"I hadn't planned on it."
"Okay. Go for rakish."
"Rakish it is."
If Alex was the least bit suspicious about my being so agreeable, he didn't say anything, he just quickly posed himself where I pointed and watched as I began to sketch. "What's Olivia doing here?"
I shrugged. "She was over for a visit and since she already knows about me, I figured, why put off the project? I've got nothing to hide from her."
"Good point."
I noticed Jean-Luc rapidly translating everything Alex was saying to Olivia and was relieved that Alex hadn't referred to her as 'the fat lady,' as he so often did.
I had been sketching only about fifteen minutes- long enough to force me to start breaking out paints in order to keep up the ruse- when Cecilia finally appeared. Just outside the circle, I couldn’t help but notice.
Damn!
I had to do something to get her inside the circle. But from her position she could take in everything that was going on, including my sketch.
Snatching up the canvas, I moved over to Alex pretending to show it to him. "What do you think? Rakish enough? I'm not sure that I'm doing your rugged good-looks justice." Gag.
Alex seemed surprised by my statement, but also proud, and thankfully, conceit won out. It usually did where Alex was concerned.
"My jaw, don’t you think it needs to be squared more? And my shoulders, I think they're a little wider, aren’t they?"
Yeah right. And you should have a big red 'S' painted right in the middle of your chest. I'll get right on that.
"Yes, I think you're right." I drew a few extra lines here and there. "Like this and this? Don't you think?"
"Yes! That's much better! You know me so well!"
That's all it took. In a fury, Cecilia flew into the circle and straight at Alex and myself with a force of wind so strong it knocked the canvas clean out of my hands.
"AAAHHHHHHH!" she screamed.
A banshee's cry if I ever heard one.
"Oh, my word! What was that?" For once, Olivia was not hearing buzzing.
Pia ducked in reaction to the strong wind that was whirling in a circular motion all around the room, picking up smaller objects (mostly Olivia's candles) and flinging them around. The furniture rattled, the doors on the cabinet opened and slammed shut repeatedly, my easel joined the fray and began flying around the room, as did my art supplies, and the lights dimmed and brightened to the point I felt like I was standing under a strobe light.
Olivia quickly hunched her massive bulk behind the sofa and Jean-Luc joined her, with all but one elbow hidden. That stuck out the side of the sofa making it look as if the furniture were sprouting arms. Pia dove for safety behind the arm chair upon which Alex perched, looking for all the world like he would like nothing better than to disappear. As a matter of fact, he was either trying to disappear, or he was trying to do something that was better done on a toilet. Since he was a ghost, I assumed he was doing the first.
Maybe the salt circle wasn't so stupid after all.
Meanwhile, I stood upright in the middle of the melee. Fool that I am.
"If you are quite through!" I shouted at Cecilia.
Everything suddenly stopped on a dime, so quickly, so violently, that it was almost as if time stood still for that single moment. And then she rushed me. Or rather, rushed through me.
The same freezing assault that I had experienced when Alex accidentally walked through me at the construction site revisited me, no more pleasant than it had been the first time. If anyt
hing, it was colder.
I turned to face Cecilia who was now on the other side of the room, holding a similar stance to that of a bull preparing to charge the matador. "Feel better now?"
She rushed me again, leaving me shivering once more. Since I had no time to recuperate from the first attack, I was beginning to feel as if I were frostbitten. On the inside.
"Well?" I challenged her again. What was wrong with me?
"Bitch!" She screamed at me. "You money-grubbing, man-stealing, calculating whore!"
"What's going on?" Pia called over to Olivia.
"I'm not sure. But she's calling her a whole lot of awful names!"
"Are you done yet?" I asked Cecilia.
"What have you done to me!" Alex began yelling himself. Even now, he was flying about the room and bouncing off of invisible walls. Apparently, having realized he couldn't 'poof' himself out, he was attempting to leave the old-fashioned way. Or old-fashioned for a ghost anyway. Instead, he was bouncing off the boundaries Olivia had created.
I ignored him. "Cecilia, if you would give me just five minutes to explain-"
"I'll give you nothing! Except a lifetime of horror! I can haunt you in ways you never thought of!" She rushed me again. "I can make your life a living hell! I can make you wish you were never born!" She rushed me two more times, using each maneuver to punctuate her threats.
Finally, I could take no more and fell to the floor in little more than a huddled mass. Still I was not willing to give up. "Let me know when you're through and we can talk."
"There's nothing to talk about!" she shrieked at me. "I want you dead!"
I raised my head and then slowly pulled myself to my feet. "Well, then, get in line honey! 'Cause you're not the first, and with my luck, you won't be the last! I've already been bashed on the head, poisoned, hit by a car, knocked in a hole and then buried alive in that same hole! A lot of people before you have tried and none of them have succeeded, so what does that say for your odds?"
"None of them had the powers I have."
"What have you got? A few scary parlor tricks? So you can blow a big wind! Whoopty-do! So you can destroy my property, splash paint on my artwork, make me cold with your ethereal presence. Oooooohhhhhh, I'm friggin' scared."
"Reid, darling, I don't think you should taunt a ghost."
"Especially a poltergeist hell bent on revenge," Olivia added.
"No, you've got a point, Reid." Gloria had returned, although I noticed she was careful to stay outside the circle. "What can you do, Cecilia? I mean, I for one have been a ghost for a long time and I don't have any secret powers. And Alex, he's been a ghost as long as you have and from what I can see right now, he doesn't even have the ability to leave the room. So what makes you so special that you can do what others can't?"
Cecilia glared at her. "My grandmother was a voodoo priestess."
"Which might frighten me, if she was here." Gloria looked around pointedly. "But I don't see her. Come out, come out, wherever you are! Grandma? Grandma? Ollie, ollie, oxen free. Nope. No sign of Grandma. My guess is she's resting quite comfortably in her grave somewhere. Unless she was practicing bad voodoo, in which case…" Gloria looked down at the floor.
Cecilia flew at Gloria then, but just like Alex, she bounced off an invisible wall. Turning to me she said, "What have you done?"
"The doctor advised me to cut back on my sodium level. He didn't say anything about yours." I waved the now empty container of salt at her tauntingly.
"Do you honestly think that can hold me?" she sneered.
"You tell me. It seems to be working well enough."
"Maybe now, but not for long."
"With any luck, long enough to talk some sense into you. Don't you get it? I don't want your man! I have my own! And honestly, what did you think I could do with a ghost? A lying ghost at that!"
Cecilia glared at Alex. "That's not what he said."
A flashed him a glare of my own. "Regardless of whatever he may have said- what did you say, Alex?!"
"Nothing. I said nothing!"
"What he said was, I may be stuck with him for the rest of my unnatural existence, but he didn't have to be stuck with me. He had found my replacement."
"Your replace- Alex!"
He put his hands in the air in surrender. "That's not exactly what I said. What I said was, you could be replaced. Could be. Operative word there."
"Same difference."
"NO, it's not," I objected. "I am NO one's replacement. Let alone a ghost's!"
"If you didn't act like such a harridan all the time! Honestly, Cecilia, you were much more fun when you were alive. It's like The Taming of the Shrew without the kissing part."
"When I was alive I had LSD to make you more palatable. What have I got now?"
He floated up to her. "You've got me, Cece. Me. Isn't that enough?"
If at first his gentle tone seemed to placate her, the final words did quite the opposite. Cecilia flew into a rage once more, the winds flying along with her. "DON'T YOU CECE, ME!" she shrieked.
This time I was smart enough to duck for cover along with Olivia and Pia.
"How DARE you say that to me! Isn't that enough?! YOU! Of all people, you say that! I certainly wasn't enough was I? And who's fault is it that I'm dead?" She was pushing him in her rage now, and not unlike the last time she did this, it was like solid form hitting solid form. Alex was being slammed back with each push, until he finally was backed into the invisible wall.
"I wasn't enough for you! And because of that, I'm dead. I'm a ghost! And there's no one to blame but you! You're the cause of both of our downfalls! And for that, I'll never forgive you! And I will always make your existence a miserable hell! Just as you've done mine!"
"What in the hell is going on in here?" my mother's voice suddenly rent through the air. Before I could even begin to make sense of what she was doing here, whatever hell that was left that hadn't broken loose, proceeded to do so.
My mother inadvertently broke the line of salt with her foot as she entered the room. Simultaneously Alex fell backwards through the invisible wall. Cecilia, who had been in the midst of another violent shove went with him. As soon as Alex realized what had happened, he disappeared leaving Cecilia staring at nothing. She flew up into the air, let out another of her glass-shattering screams and spun herself into a circle disappearing far more dramatically than Alex had done.
"Well, that didn't work worth a hoot, did it?" Gloria commented to no one in particular.
"Judy, dear, whatever are you doing here?" Pia asked from her crouched position behind the chair.
Olivia, having already been given the 'all clear' sign by Jean-Luc hoisted herself up from behind the sofa. "So nice to see you, Judy."
While I remained sitting on the floor in the middle of the room wondering how on earth I was going to explain all of this to my mother.
