The Touch Of Ghosts: Writer's Cut (Alex Rourke)

by Rickards, John

  She smiled. “I’ll call you if I find anything else that might help,” she said. Then we exchanged pleasantries and she left just as neatly as she’d arrived.

  Once she was gone, Rob said, “So, what do you think?”

  “I think this is either going to be pretty straightforward, or else he’s gone for good. No middle way. It depends in the State Police found anything and if he’s got any easy-to-reach friends who know more than his mom.”

  “I figured it'd he simple for you to check out the Vermont locals next time you're up in the wilds. If Gemma’ll put up with you for an extra couple of days, that is.”

  Rob was an arch urbanite, and as far as he was concerned any place that didn't have its own international airport was a dangerously rural, alien environment. “It'll certainly be easier than doing it from here,” I said. “I’ll see if she can put me up next weekend and into the week after. Meantime, I’ll give Detective Flint a call.”

  “I suppose Gemma can say if the kid’s been brought in dead at all as well.”

  “If the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's had anything to do with it, yeah, she should he able to find out. Especially if it happened in Gemma's patch up north. There’s even a chance she’d have done the autopsy itself if it was. But it’d most likely be a John Doe job; if he was IDed, they’d have contacted his family. I’ll ask her when she gets here tonight.”

  “You taking her out to dinner?”

  I shook my head. “Cooking.”

  “I never thought I'd see the day. Microwave chicken, is it?”

  “Ho, ho.”

  I reached Detective Sergeant Karl Flint through the Vermont State Police switchboard at the third attempt; he’d apparently spent most of the morning at the scene of a hit-and-run, away from his desk. When I explained my reasons for calling, he sighed. “Look, Mr Rourke, you know how it is with these cases. When the guy's mother spoke to us, we got what we could out of her. I made a couple of phone calls, checked with Burlington PD, asked them to have a look anywhere that kind of transient might hang out. I had his photo sent to Amtrak, the airport, cab companies, just to see if anyone remembered him. We've had nothing back, no one's seen him, and I've got higher priorities than one guy who's most likely moved out of state.”

  “Yeah, I know, and I explained that to her when she came to see us. Did you run him through the system?”

  “He's got a record, but nothing other than juveniles. Nothing on his driver's license. Nothing on tax he might be paying as an employee, but he's not claiming welfare. He doesn't have any credit cards, and the last time he used an ATM was back before he was reported missing. Unless this guy gets arrested or shows his face somewhere someone knows him, my guess is he'll stay vanished.” Flint paused, then said, “I wish you the best of luck, Mr Rourke, but I don't think I can be much help.”

  “Could you send me whatever you’ve got on his movements? It might not be much, but it could help. It’ll mean I won't have to go over the same ground as you.”

  “Sure, I don't see any harm in that. You'll have to give me something in writing first, just to confirm who you are and that whatever confidential information we've got stays confidential. Handle the paperwork, cover our asses. Otherwise, be my guest.”

  We exchanged numbers, then I said goodbye to the detective and hung up. By noon, I had copies of all the information the VSP had on Adam Webb, and it didn’t amount to much. That was how it went usually. You came into this world screaming and bloody and there wasn’t anyone nearby who could claim not to know you’d arrived, but it was all too easy to leave it without so much as a ripple behind you.

  Not that he was necessarily dead, I had to remind myself. But if he was, and there was anyone who’d know, it was my girlfriend, and that meant holding on until the evening.

  3.

  I’d met Dr Gemma Larson in the far north of Maine while helping out Aroostook County Sheriff's Department on a murder case in my old home town. At the time, she was the county's part-time medical examiner. We just sort of clicked out of nothing, that way that some people do. No secret, no memory, was too private or too deeply held to share, and nothing else seemed to matter if we were together. Before we’d met, I’d figured my breakdown had probably put paid to any real hope of a normal family life with someone, and I’d accepted that to one extent or another. Afterwards, I couldn’t imagine going back to how things were before. I’d been in love with her for eighteen-odd months. In April she’d managed to land a post at North Country Hospital in Newport, Vermont, as one of the state’s regional medical examiners. It was still a three-hour drive from Boston, but that was half what it had been to Houlton in Maine. Close enough to spend more than just the weekends together, and that was fine with me, gas bill be damned. If I could’ve worked closer to where she was, I would’ve done.

  She came through the door a half hour late, her face hidden in a haze of shoulder-length blonde. I took her bag to tip the odds in her favor in the struggle against her purse and coat. Then, when she’d won the battle and successfully ditched both, produced a bunch of flowers from behind my back. She smiled then. It lit her up along with everything else around her. She was thirty-three, four years younger than me, but sometimes I felt like we were both kids.

  “What have you done?” she said, eying the bouquet. “Something to be sorry for?”

  “Nothing. That’s for being here, and this,” I said, pulling out a narrow box covered in gift wrap, “is because I’ve not seen you in a week.”

  She opened it and held up the necklace inside. Nothing too fancy because I wasn’t made of money, plain silver with a pendant that was either a flower or a bird or a butterfly depending on how you looked at it. She watched it dance in the light for a moment and said, “That’s lovely. Is that my birthday present?”

  “You never cashed in the voucher I wrote for you, so yes. Otherwise I’d still owe you one by the time the next came around. It’s OK?”

  She smiled again. “It’ll do.”

  We kissed long and deeply then, holding each other tight. I could feel the curve of her figure as it tapered towards her waist and then out over her hips. I could feel every breath she took, every movement as she pressed against me. Each time she went away, I missed that closeness.

  Eventually she said, "So where’s my chocolates to go with all this? Don't tell me you forgot.”

  “The store sold out, so I figured I'd have to do you an entire dinner instead. Three courses, wine, the whole nine yards.”

  “Three?”

  “There are cookies in the kitchen. Treat them as an appetizer.”

  She slapped me playfully on the shoulder. “So what are we having? I can't smell anything cooking.”

  “I didn't know what time you'd be here so I haven’t started yet. It'll be salmon in a mushroomy sauce with apple pie afterwards. The pie's not my own work; I bought frozen. I’m not a superhero.”

  “No one's perfect. Since you're going to be slaving away over a hot stove and I’ve just driven halfway across the country, I think I'll ditch my stuff and then have a quick shower if that’s OK.”

  “Depends if I'm allowed to join you or not.”

  “You keep your hands to yourself,” she scolded, shooing me away. “I expect to be fed on my return.”

  I saluted. “Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say, ma'am.”

  Once talk over dinner turned to work, I showed her the photos of Adam Webb and asked if she could check whether he’d turned up in any of the state's morgues when she was back in Vermont.

  "Who is he?” she asked.

  “Bit of a drifter. Grew up here in the city but moved away. His mom's looking for him. Those photos are old; he's twenty-five now.”

  “Can I take one of them back with me? I'll show it around.”

  “Sure. If it's no problem. Don’t feel like you have to just because it’s me asking.”

  “It'll do me good, looking so diligent. There's talk that Dr Kirkland could retire in a few months, which would leav
e the Deputy Chief ME’s post open.”

  “You've only been there seven months and you're already looking for promotion? I never knew I was going out with such a career-minded girl.”

  “Hey, it can't do any harm, making a name for myself. The higher up you are, the more interesting work you get.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “You're not getting anything interesting at the moment then?”

  I refilled her glass. “I’m busy, sure,” she said, “I might have to do an autopsy on a kid killed in a hit-and-run when I go back on Monday. The State Police think it may have been something to do with the heroin trade, and the vehicle impact might have been an attempt to cover prior damage. Blood screens, forensics, everything. I don’t get that kind of thing much.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “Not the killing.” She speared the last remaining piece of fish with her fork. “But heroin's huge all over the state. As huge as anything can be in such a quiet place. I’ve had two ODs since I started there, and the way I hear it the trade’s the main game in town.”

  The conversation moved on then, before stopping altogether once we’d eaten dessert and drunk the last of the wine. Then Gemma took me in her arms once again and reminded me of one more reason why I loved her.

  The following evening we went to Aidan Silva's gathering at his home over the river in Cambridge. His wife Jolene was in full hostess mode, taking coats, thrusting drinks under the noses of newcomers and merrily performing all necessary and several unnecessary introductions. A few of Aidan's friends from the force turned up. Rob brought his wife Teresa. Then there were some of the Silvas' neighbors — whose faces and names quickly merged into one interchangeable set — and a half-dozen or so friends of Jolene's who clucked and fussed over each couple as they arrived, everything brought to you by the letter O. Oh, she's ever so nice. Oh, I hope you're making sure he treats you like a princess. Oh, aren't you just lovely together. Just as I was thinking we’d never escape our turn in the spotlight, they saw that one of the neighbors was pregnant and descended on her like a flock of Valkyries, leaving Gemma and me to hide somewhere out of the way.

  Drinks flowed and the details blurred. Expectant faces, waiting for the punchline to a joke. The same faces open in laughter. The joke changed, the comedian changed, a dozen times or more. A pack of guys from the department and a handful of amusing anecdotes from the recent past. Found myself briefly trapped with complete strangers and all anyone seemed able to ask was “What business're you in?” and "What do you drive?” Scored points with my answers on both counts, but I moved on before everyone’s reserves of small talk ran dry. I ended up standing in circles with the guys I knew best, the same guys I always ended up standing in circles with at parties, telling the same stories as every other time we were together. At midnight, Gemma slipped her arm around my waist and whispered, “Let's go home.” Free. We made our excuses and walked the three-quarters of a mile back to my apartment, and then we belonged only to each other again for a time.

  Sunday passed quickly despite my efforts to hold it back, and all too soon night was falling and Gemma had to leave me for another week.

  On Monday, Webb’s mother gave me what little her son had sent her over the past year. I wasn’t surprised to see he hadn’t written often — “He mostly called,” she said — but I was a little surprised by the level of genuine affection he obviously had for her. Not something I’d expect from someone who’d willingly disappear unannounced. Two letters and a couple of cards. The latter weren’t anything much, but in the letters he wrote about working in upstate New York — Buffalo and Albany. In the first it seemed he was working at the rough end of the repo business, but a call to Buffalo PD told me his boss from back then was now in the middle of a year-long stretch for fraud. Adam sure hadn’t gone back to work there. In Albany he’d only been able to land a job flipping burgers and he’d hated it. That left his few remaining friends in Boston as the only available leads I could work from here, and that was — I knew — likely to be diving to, or beyond, the bottom of the barrel.

  Late in the afternoon, Gemma rang. I told her how much of a blank I’d drawn. “Well, I still hope he won’t show up here. I sent copies of the photo you gave me to Burlington, as well as every regional and assistant ME and hospital I could think of. I should hear back from most of them in a day or two.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just one of the perks of going out with a pathologist.”

  “And such a gorgeous one, too.”

  “Very smooth. When do you want to come up to look for this guy?”

  “Well, I'll be seeing you at the weekend, so why don't I stay on for the first few days of next week as well? If it's OK with you.”

  She laughed. “Of course it is. The more time I get to spend with you the better. I can thank you properly for all those compliments you keep paying me. I doubt you'll have the ideal weather for wandering around Burlington — it's been snowing on and off since the end of last week. Are you sure Rob trusts you to get any work done while you're here?”

  “He suspects I'll be too distracted to go trawling around town for missing people.” I glanced across the office, where my partner was shaking his head.

  “Tell her I'll have you fired if she keeps you from doing your job,” he called out.

  I relayed the message. Gemma said, “I’ll be at work myself so he needn't worry. I'd better go now. Duty calls. Love you.”

  “I love you too,” I said, and hung up.

  Rob rolled his eyes. “It's enough to make you hurl.”

  I finally caught a break of sorts the next day at one of the two addresses listed for friends of Adam. The first was a run-down brick duplex in an equally run-down street. The box-like front yard was overgrown with yellowing grass and creeping weeds, most of them dying off as winter set in. Posted on the front door was a notice that said the property was being repossessed and its occupants evicted. The place was empty. The second was an apartment in a dingy building at the end of a strip mall. The stairwell reeked of piss. My knock was answered by a scrawny guy I guessed around Adam's age. He was wearing a Metallica T-shirt five or six years past the point where the band had been relevant to anything, stained jeans and had bare feet. A mop of blond hair topped a pale, tired-looking face.

  “Yeah?” the kid said.

  “Justin?”

  “Yeah,” he repeated. “What you want?”

  “I’m trying to find Adam Webb — his mom wants to get in touch but she doesn't know where he is. Have you heard from him recently?”

  He stood still, thinking, or so I hoped. Then he nodded once. “I got a call from him maybe two, three months ago. I think. Said he had the two hundred bucks he owed me. Is that recent enough? He in any trouble?”

  This was the only outside confirmation I’d had that Adam even existed two months ago. “It's recent enough, and he's not in any trouble. What else did he say?”

  “We talked a bit, y'know. Asked how he was doin'. I mean, he borrowed the money years ago when he first took off. I'd forgotten, but I guess he hadn't. He sounded like he was doing pretty good for himself, up north.”

  “Did he say what he was doing?”

  The kid shrugged. “Not really. Got the impression it might not have been totally on the level, but I didn't ask. He said he was working with some chick called Jessie, sounded like he maybe had a thing for her. At least, they were friends n'all.”

  “Did he say anything else about her?”

  “Nah, not to me. Sent me the two hundred, though. I hope he's OK.”

  “Why wouldn't he be?”

  “I dunno.” He sniffed. “Just that when people need to come asking about someone, they usually end up on the evening news, y'know?”

  “I hope he doesn't. Look, if he gets in touch again, or if you remember anything else, give me a call. He's not in any trouble, and I'm not a cop.” I handed the kid a business card wrapped in a fifty.

  “Sure, man. No problem.”<
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  Downstairs, I called Adam’s mom and asked if she ever heard him mention a girl called Jessie. “No,” she said. “I don't think so. You think he could be with her, whoever she is?”

  “It’s possible.” I played safe, didn’t want to get her hopes up. “All I’ve got, though, is her first name and the notion that she was maybe with him in Burlington. I’ll need more to have any real chance of finding either of them.”

  “But you’re going to try, aren’t you?”

  “Sure. I’ll be going up to Vermont next week to see what I can find out on the ground. I’ve eliminated a few possibilities, but who knows what else will turn up. I’ll keep you posted.”

  She thanked me and I hung up. I felt a little bad, sounding so optimistic when I spoke to her, but I guessed I wanted to put her mind a little at ease. No sense making things out to be worse than they were before they were.

  I spent the walk home after work making a list of places where he might have stayed or worked around Burlington. I was hoping that the more I completed before I left, the more extra time I’d have with Gemma. The idea of a night or two spent by the fire with a bottle of wine instead of trawling dive bars had a lot of appeal.

  At eight thirty in the evening the phone rang and I listened, stone-eyed, as a total stranger told me Gemma was dead.

  4.

  In my memory, the air was full of the taste of spruce bark, dry and earthy and bitter. It mingled with the scents of a hundred other plants and flowers I couldn't name, combining in harmony to form a singular perfume which, for some reason I couldn't place, reminded me of old wine casks. Grass stalks rattled beside my head. July sunlight flushed warm against my skin. The hum of insects going about their daily lives formed a chorus line for the sound taking center stage: a woman's laughter.