Sophie closed her eyes. Great. Why couldn’t it ever just be good?
“Okay, bad first.”
“I had an interview with a local TV station for the Charlestown situation, and as they were asking their questions, it became clear that the interview was an ambush.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were asking about you. Somehow, someone in my office leaked that you were on the site when the bodies were discovered. I don’t know who, but I suspect the library clerk who was helping me with my research. I also caught a reporter snooping around my desk and they may have seen your file, though I can’t tell for sure.”
Sophie felt the color drain out of her face, her knees weakening slightly. “What did you do?”
“Well, I didn’t answer their questions, and I booted them out of my office. But I don’t know how much they know, or what damage it will do.”
“Wait – you have a file on me?”
“Yes, of course. The transcript and notes of your session, and what happened in Charlestown. It’s routine,” he said, as if it was no big deal that he had her most private secrets written down and kept in his office. But of course, he was a doctor, and a researcher. He would keep notes. Somehow, she hadn’t thought of that.
“Well, if there is good news, I sure hope it’s really good.” She grimaced.
“It is. I think I might have found your ghost.”
* * *
“Roger, hey, isn’t that your fiancée?” Delia Hargrove, one of the secretaries in the office, asked as they stood together in the break room. Roger was pouring coffee and turned to see what Delia was talking about. He had to blink a few times before he processed exactly what he was looking at. Sophie’s picture filled the upper corner of the screen, the lower banner reading “Local Psychic Responsible for Finding Women’s Bodies.”
“Oh, fuck no,” he said, lunging to turn up the volume.
“Investigative Reporter, Bryce Jones, has discovered that local psychic Sophie Turner may have been instrumental in finding the three bodies of Willard Dawson’s victims’ in the basement of a Charlestown home a few nights ago. Turner is currently still the prime suspect in another murder, that of Patrice Bledsoe, wife of Harvard Administrator Alan Bledsoe. Our sources reveal that Turner recently underwent hypnosis sessions with Boston’s own Ghost Therapist, Dr. Gabriel Mason,” the reporter said with a feral gleam in her eye.
The doctor’s picture showed up next to Sophie’s on the screen as the report continued. “Dr. Mason reports that Ms. Turner had suffered a deep memory loss following the traumatic murders of her family thirteen years ago. Hypnosis revealed that Ms. Turner in fact possesses a psychic ability to see ghosts and communicate with them via her tarot cards, leading to the discovery of the women’s bodies, as well as the grave of a woman buried over one hundred years ago. Police have attained a video of the event, but the tape is not public record.”
The TV screen switched over to an interview with Mason in his office, which Roger recognized from his visit there. Mason was sitting next to a table that showed a copy of his recent book, discussing the Charlestown incident. Roger clenched his jaw, hating that anyone would use such a tragic incident—as well as using Sophie—for publicity.
“Dr Mason, did you and your ghost-hunting crew find the bodies?”
“Yes, in part. We had been to the site several times. As you know, the property had been haunted for some while,” Mason said, doing that stupid finger-steepling thing that Roger hated. What was it with academics that they needed to press their fingertips together? Pretentious sonsabitches.
“We had tried several methods of solving the haunt, and I eventually brought in a consultant who was able to make contact with the ghost of the young woman, Eliza, and who also discovered that the spirit was trying to draw attention to her mother’s grave. The mother was tragically murdered by the same man who killed Eliza, though the police records simply showed her disappearing after the body of her daughter was discovered on a city street. Police records that far back are notoriously sketchy.”
“You mentioned a consultant? Anyone local? A psychic?”
“Yes, but I believe she’d rather remain private, as some psychics do.”
The reporter looked at the camera, and then back to Mason. “Dr. Mason, we’ve ascertained, from another source, that psychic Sophie Turner, who has recently seen you for hypnotic treatments, was your consultant. Is that true?”
The video cut from the interview back to the reporter.
“While Dr. Mason is obviously working in conjunction with Ms. Turner on a new case, perhaps that related to the stalled investigation into the murder of Patrice Bledsoe, the Ghost Therapist wouldn’t comment further on the subject when asked. When police were asked if they were working with psychic consultants, they would not offer any more information on the investigation.”
“Then how the hell did they get hold of his files in the first place? And how did they know about the video?” Roger asked the room, not realizing he was applying crushing force to the paper cup in his hand until hot coffee sloshed over onto his skin.
He cursed, loudly, turning to set the coffee on the table, and nearly dumping it all over Delia, who looked at him with something between concern and apprehension.
“Roger, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I have to leave for a while, though. Can you log me out?”
“Sure, but-”
“Thanks, Delia,” he said, not letting her finish as he hurried to his office and grabbed his coat, so angry that he couldn’t think straight. How could this happen? He’d seen the video of Mason’s excursion into the basement with Sophie and all it showed was Sophie talking to empty space, with the exception of some blurred images, flashes of light, that were simply the result of lousy lighting and bad camera angles. If anything, all the tape showed was that Sophie was talking to thin air. Matt was delighted.
Gabriel Mason had stepped over the line, obviously airing Sophie’s private business to increase his own publicity, though he tried to play it cool on TV, as if the information had leaked in some other mysterious way. Roger planned to find out what else he told them, one way or another.
* * *
“I can’t believe you might know who the ghost is. This could change everything,” Sophie said excitedly as she and Gabe walked side-by-side back to the Harvard archives.
“I hope we’re on the right track,” he responded. “And I’m glad you aren’t too upset by my other news.”
Sophie breathed a sigh. “Well, you know, it wasn’t like you told them everything willfully, and you had to turn over the video as evidence. Who knows, maybe it won’t make the news, anyway. Don’t they need your permission to air the interview?”
“No, not really.”
“Oh. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m tired of living behind all of these secrets. Ever since we did the hypnosis, I feel like. . .I just want things out in the open. It feels good.”
“I’m glad. You have a special gift, and it is part of you, part of your family. You have no reason to hide. Besides, you’re too smart, and too pretty for that,” he said so casually she almost missed it.
Gabe thought she was pretty? She didn’t know what to say back so she didn’t say anything and kept walking. “If you are right about this, it could clear my name. It could potentially tell us who the real killer is,” she said hopefully.
“Well, we still have to confirm the name I have, but it’s a start. Don’t get too excited yet. What we need is a picture. I have a research contact in law enforcement, and it was actually pretty easy to do a search of all the Harvard students or staff from the 1920s who might have been murdered or died under suspicious means. There aren’t that many, really. When I narrowed by stabbing, we ended up with four possibilities. I have the names, so now we just have to find the files and hopefully a photo that you can identify.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about my ghost’s murder, even though he was obviously covering up a
mortal wound.”
“You were missing some of the pieces your hypnosis filled in. It’s just a theory that he was stabbed, but I posit that’s why he was attracted to the scene of Patrice’s murder, as well.”
“Though he showed up a few minutes before? She was still alive when he first came in.”
“Good point,” Gabe said, holding the door for her. “Perhaps your sense of time is a bit muddy, or the murderer was already on the premises, ready to act, when you passed out.”
“Huh. Scary thought.” As she brushed by him, she caught a faint scent of sandstone. His soap, maybe? It was nice.
“Yes. While passing out may have saved your life, your physical reactions to the ghosts’ appearances are not unusual. Many psychics suffer physical impacts like headaches, nausea. It’s controllable, over time. There are some meditations, spells, and doohickies that could help.”
Sophie stopped, turning to him in the narrow hall. “Did you just say doohickie?”
Gabe looked at her nonplussed. “Yeah, why?”
“Well, for a guy who goes around theorizing, postulating and positing all the time, I just never expected to hear you use a word like doohickie. It’s not very professor-like,” she teased.
“Well, I couldn’t quite come up with the word I wanted,” he said with a grin. “Besides, you never know, you might discover, in time, that there are a lot of things about me that aren’t very professor-like,” he said in a mysterious tone that had her raising an eyebrow as he passed by and started down the stairs, leaving her imagination to go wild.
He was flirting with her. More importantly, she wasn’t sure she minded. Surely it was harmless. Even married women flirted from time to time, right? As they worked their way back down to the archives desk where Sophie had gone before to find the yearbooks, it didn’t take long for the young librarian to plop several thick files in front of them.
“Here you go, Dr. Mason,” she said, obviously taken with him. Sophie watched with interest.
“Thanks Katherine. You’ve been very helpful. May we take these to a private table?”
“Absolutely. Just let me know if you need anything else,” the star-struck blonde said sweetly, her eyes glued to Gabe.
Sophie tried to hide a grin on her way to the table where he pulled out a chair, put the stack of files between them, and then sat down next to her. The table was brightly lit though the room around them was darker, and it closed in the space, making them feel somewhat more intimate than she had expected.
“So, let’s start looking through these, and here’s hoping you find your ghost,” Gabe said.
Sophie took a deep breath, shrugging out of her jacket and hat as the library was warm and a little stuffy.
“You always wear that Red Sox hat?” Gabe asked her, eyeing the jacket, and the hat. “Not a criticism – it’s cute.”
“It’s my Dad’s hat, but I’m a fan, too.”
“Ah. I wondered. That’s really special, that you have such a strong link to him.”
“Yeah. He took me to games all the time. Taught me everything.”
“I can’t say I know much about it. Sports were never big in my family.”
“You should take in a game sometime. If nothing else, Fenway is a special place. They give tours. You’d like it. If you’re going to stay here, you have to learn about the Sox.”
Gabe smiled. “Maybe you can bring me up to speed,” he said, flipping open a file.
“Maybe,” Sophie said noncommittally, unsure whether he was still flirting. Or maybe that had been her imagination. It wasn’t like she was an expert, only dating one guy for the last decade.
They settled in, looking through files full of student records, various class petitions, paperwork, communications, newspaper articles and such on the students and staff they had identified. Not all had photos, but Gabe suggested if nothing was in the files, they could try looking at other sources.
Her eyes were blurry by the time she got to the fourth one, but they popped open when she saw the newspaper article, the obituary, actually, laying right on top of the stack, her ghost smiling out at her. He looked different. Younger. Happy and full of life in the picture.
“I’ve got him,” she said in awe, unable to take her eyes off the picture. “I can’t believe it. This is him! My ghost!”
“Let’s see,” Gabe said, sliding his chair over until they were huddled together over the file. “David A Masters. Harvard Law, Class of 1920, but he didn’t graduate. . .hmmm. Lots of disciplinary notices. David was a political guy, didn’t mind getting in trouble, it seemed. . .” Gabe said while Sophie read the obit through.
She reached to stop Gabe’s hand in place as he went to turn the page, and paused as a little electric jolt ran between them—a little more than flirting, she knew, as she swallowed and pulled her hand back from his--and he turned back to the obit, reading aloud.
“David A. Masters, twenty-four, of Springfield, Massachusetts. Died on Oct 7 in Beacon Hill. He is survived by his parents, Hank and Wilma Masters of Springfield.
“That doesn’t say much, but something tells me we could find some news articles on the incident. He obviously didn’t die of natural causes,” she said.
“Good call,” Gabe agreed, and a half hour later they were sifting through even more online records of old newspapers.
“This is nice, but I kind of miss the old microfiche machines,” Gabe said nostalgically. Sophie grinned, scanning her own screen.
“Technology is the way of the future, you know.”
“And yet here we are, looking for the answers we need in the past.”
“Touché.”
There had to be something about David Masters’s murder in the news.
“Ah! Here! I have it,” she declared triumphantly, and was quickly shushed by someone on the other side of the room.
Switching her voice to a whisper, she read, “David Masters of Harvard, age twenty-four, was discovered dead outside of the Lighted Lamp, a club of questionable reputation in Beacon Hill, last Tuesday night. The young Harvard student, originally from Springfield Mass, was stabbed twice in the vital organs from the front and once from the back. Police suspect the act was intentional.”
“And here,” she said excitedly, switching to a new page. “Professor and Harvard Administrator Percy Winslow, charged with the murder of David Masters. However, while awaiting his court trial, Winslow committed suicide.”
The article gave some background on Winslow, his wife Eloise, his academic accomplishments, but admitted no motive for murder was found. Sophie stared at the faded picture of Winslow on the screen. He was handsome, if in a slightly delicate looking in the way that often marked men of high breeding, it seemed. He also appeared tragically sad.
“Let’s print these out and see if there’s any more,” Gabe said. “We should be able to find some faculty records and histories as well.”
“But there’s nothing too mysterious about that. He was killed, and they caught the killer, who then killed himself. Don’t ghosts usually want you to find the bad guy?”
“Depends on if that really was the bad guy. There never was a trial.”
“Why else would Winslow have killed himself? He knew he was going to prison?” Sophie asked.
Gabe stared at the transcripts he’d had copied, shaking his head. “Possible. I think I saw that name before. The answer is in here somewhere. We’re probably looking right at it.” He yanked out a sheet. “Winslow was a professor in the Law School, but he was also David Masters’s mentor, his advisor.”
“His advisor. So they must have known each other very well.”
“Probably.” He frowned. “The Lighted Lamp sounds so familiar. I’ve read about that somewhere recently, but I’m having a hard time placing it.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then hit the table with his hand, making her jump. “It was a gay bar, that’s right.”
“They had gay bars back then?” Sophie asked, surprised.
“Th
e twenties were a huge period of social upheaval, the nineteenth amendment was added, the end of Prohibition, World War One was over, the Jazz age and gangsters were all emerging.”
“The 1919 debacle with the World Series Black Sox, and the Sox trading Babe Ruth,” Sophie added with a shake of her head. “All kinds of bad karma there.”
Gabe smiled. “There was a great emergence of gay subculture, too, and gay clubs were prevalent in cities. They called them pansy clubs, among other things. There are some very well-known buildings in Boston that were part of that scene. In New York, too, as well as other cities, but the Lighted Lamp appears to have been a hot spot here. I’m sure straight customers went to the Lighted Lamp as well.” Gabe looked up at Sophie, a light in his eye. “But what if David Masters wasn’t straight?”
Sophie tried to take it all in. “Okay, but if it was so out in the open, why would that make a difference?”
Gabe looked at her, and she realized how closely they were sitting. “Well, there are always people who worry about those they see as subversive, living liberal lifestyles different from their own.”
“Mags and I were just talking about that.”
“It’s an enduring issue. Harvard was a very conservative place back then. Have you heard of the Secret Court?”
Sophie shook her head.
“It was an underground group discovered a few years ago that held meetings and secretly interrogated anyone at Harvard who was suspected of being gay. The suspects were ‘outed’ and then they were usually expelled, their lifestyles revealed to their families, and sometimes even other employers or schools. Several of the men committed suicide. It literally ruined or ended their lives.”
“That’s insane. You think Masters was part of that?”
“It’s all guesswork. . .we need to get more info on Winslow, and a picture, if we can. If we can find some link to the Secret Court, all the better. Let’s hypothesize that Masters and Winslow’s relationship wasn’t entirely professional?”
“You mean that they were lovers, and maybe Masters, being a student, was going to have to tell the court about it? That would be a strong motive for murder on Winslow’s part,” she added.
Past Tense Page 19
