by E. C. Bell
I felt my nightmares slink and slither back into my brain and clutched the leash tightly as Millie walked and sniffed in order to choose that perfect spot.
“Please hurry,” I whispered.
She ignored me, of course. Just kept sniffing and circling, without a care in the world past the fact that she needed to pee in a very particular spot.
The nightmare wormed its way from my head to my chest and tightened until I felt like I could not breathe.
“Jesus, hurry up,” I grunted, trying to pull air into my quickly freezing lungs. “Please, Millie.”
But she ignored me. Just circled and sniffed until I thought I’d lose my mind. Then the voice of my shrink, Dr. Parkerson, whispered, “Remember the routine.”
Ah yes. The routine. Breathe. Reconnect with the present. See. Touch. Smell.
I tried to belly breathe but my chest was still so constricted I couldn’t do much more than gasp. So I looked around. Saw the edge of the apartment building, black on my side, and light on the other. The wall looked like it was made of cement. I took a step toward it, dragging a fairly pissed off Millie with me. She’d just found her perfect spot, and I was taking her away from it.
“Tough luck, dog,” I wheezed and took two more steps so I was within touching distance of the wall.
Millie restarted her pee search dance as I stared at the wall. Specifically, at the edge of the wall where dark turned to light. I tried taking another belly breath. Had a little more luck and the nightmare began to uncoil from my chest.
I reached out the hand holding the leash. Touched the wall. Felt the roughness of the concrete under my fingers and took another breath in and out. The nightmare loosened its grip on my chest even further so I leaned forward and smelled the concrete of the wall.
You wouldn’t think a wall would smell like anything, but it does. Sunshine with a hint of something sharper. Chemical. I tried to remember if the apartment complex had been painted recently. Breathed again, and felt my chest loosen even more. Smelled urine and glanced at the dog but it wasn’t hers. Someone had peed on this wall. I took a step away, and at the edge of the wall that cut through dark and light, I could see the stain just below waist height.
Men. They could be as bad as dogs.
Millie barked once, as if she’d read my mind.
“Sorry, girl,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”
WHEN WE GOT back into James’s apartment I took off Millie’s collar and leash and she trotted to her little bed. Looked like comforting was over for the night, but I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep. So, I made a pot of coffee and waited for the sun to rise.
AT THE COFFEE Factory, it took me two hours to gather all the information I could from the myriad index cards in Mr. Wesson’s antiquated data base. Since they were all in alphabetical order with no indication of a start date I chose them based on the handwriting and the yellowing of the cards. The older, yellower, ones had been written by a woman—or perhaps, two women. I was fairly certain that Mr. Wesson’s wife and Karen had written down the information about the Coffee Factory’s customers on the index cards that appeared to be the oldest, the edges stained. I wondered which ones Karen had written.
When I left I had thirty-five names plus one pound of freshly roasted, freshly ground Columbian coffee.
Mr. Wesson tried to talk me into buying whole beans and a burr grinder, saying that the beans stayed fresher than the ground, but I resisted. The grinder was expensive, and I didn’t want to have to carry the thing home on the bus.
“Think about it,” he said as he walked me to the door. “You’d really like how fresh the coffee tastes. Believe me.”
He was probably right about that—I loved the way the smell of freshly ground coffee surrounded me as I hopped the bus, heading downtown to the office. It was like wings of steel, protecting me from all the other nasty smells that hung out on a bus.
THE DOOR WAS unlocked when I got to the office, and Mille was in her little office dog bed. She barely glanced at me when I walked through the door. Ungrateful whelp, I thought. I walked you at three in the morning.
“That you, Marie?” James called from his office.
“It is,” I said. “And I come bearing gifts.”
He walked into the reception area and smiled when I held up the bag of coffee. “I figured you’d buy some,” he said. “Shall we give it a go?”
We did. The wonderful smell filled the office as the coffee brewed, then we drank the elixir of the gods at my desk and went through the information I’d gathered from the index cards.
“Hmm,” James said, pointing to a name in the middle of the list. “Will you look at that.”
I looked at the name to which he pointed. Dianna Westwood. Nothing twigged.
“Somebody you know?” I asked.
“That guy,” he said. “The one I met at the ball diamond. His last name is Westwood. I wonder if this person is related to him.”
I blinked. This was the man Karen had warned me against.
“Didn’t you say he was married?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe this is his wife. Now that would be a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”
“Would you think it was still just a coincidence if I told you that Karen—dead Karen—told me to tell you to watch yourself around that guy?”
James looked at me. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” I said. “She told me after the game. Said we had to watch him around Ella, too. I asked her if he was some kind of pedophile, but she said no. Just that he had a temper. Does this feel like more than a coincidence?”
“Yes,” he said. ”Yes, I think it’s much more than that.”
WE DOVE INTO Andrew Westwood’s life as we drank the last of that wonderful coffee. Well, we tried, anyhow. There honestly wasn’t that much that we could find online. Born and raised in the city. Graduated from Jasper High school in 1970. Married to Dianna Felix the next year. Went to university for a couple of years, but didn’t finish his degree. Looked like he had a kid—his daughter—about the time he dropped out of school. Got a summer job with the city but only lasted a couple of months. Went to work out of town for a few years, then got on with EdTel, and later with Telus. He was still with the company but it looked like he’d be retiring within the next couple of years.
All in all, it looked like he had led a completely ordinary life. We couldn’t even find a traffic ticket. All right, that wasn’t the truth, he got a few of those, but still, they appeared to be the only blemish on his record. He even paid his taxes on time. Every year.
“He doesn’t look like a bad guy,” I said. “I wonder why Karen was so spooked by him?”
“I think that’s something you are going to have to ask her,” James said. “The next time you see her.”
I felt a pinch of guilt. I was going to speak to her at the last game, but I hadn’t. Now, I would have to explain to her that even though I told her I wouldn’t, I was digging around in her life. She was not going to be impressed.
“But you can’t do it now,” he said. He pointed at the clock on the wall. “It’s nearly time for you to go to Sylvia Worth’s place.”
Oh, even better. I had to go and meet a ghost. Dig around in his life and maybe piss him off. Just because Sergeant Worth knew about my mom and me.
Marie:
Meeting Rory
SERGEANT WORTH’S APARTMENT building was a nondescript four-storey walk-up in a nondescript neighbourhood in West Edmonton. Far enough from the Mall to be quiet, but close enough that she could walk over and join the rest of the merrymakers looking for fun and not-so-cheap crap, if she so chose.
My guess was she didn’t choose to do that very often at all.
She opened the door to her apartment and let me in. Her place looked like an Ikea showroom.
As I took off my shoes at her front entrance, I wondered if she’d gone to the Ikea store, found a mock-up of an apartment with the same square footage as hers and said, “I’ll
take it. As is.”
It was catalogue neat and looked unused. Was this Sergeant Worth trying to prove to everyone she was living a normal life, right down to the knickknacks on the coffee table? The dust on the Billy book cases said yes.
“Nice place,” I said. I pulled off my hoodie and tossed it over the back of a dining room chair. Looking around I saw more dust at the edges of nearly everything. “How long have you lived here?”
“Fourteen months,” she said. “Since my divorce.” She looked around, like it was the first time she’d looked at it in a long time. “It’s a nice neighbourhood.”
“Good.” I didn’t know what else to say. I stood by my hoodie, draped over the dining room chair, and thought seriously about grabbing it and leaving Sergeant Worth to her Ikea catalogue apartment and her ghost.
Ah yes. The ghost. The reason I was there. That was a place to start.
“Rory,” I said. “When does he normally show up, Sergeant?”
Worth blinked and stared at me as though she couldn’t quite understand what I was saying. She looked exhausted, as usual. “Call me Sylvia, please,” she said.
“All right,” I replied, though I didn’t want to. First names implied an intimacy I didn’t think I wanted. Not with a cop. “When does Rory show up, Sylvia?”
“Usually at night,” she said. “But then, he worked nights when he was alive, so—”
“That makes sense,” I said. To be honest, I didn’t know if it made sense or not. I hadn’t noticed that ghosts followed the old patterns they’d developed in their lives. Not the ghosts who realized that they were dead, anyhow. “Can you tell me how he died?”
She turned away from me and pointed at the open concept kitchen that the open concept dining room where we were standing backed onto. “Want some coffee or something?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
She was silent as she busied herself making the coffee, then pulling the cups—two cups, I noticed—from the cupboard by the fridge.
“You take cream?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She opened the fridge and peered inside. “All I got is milk,” she finally said.
“That’s fine.”
She took out the carton, opened it, and sniffed cautiously. Half-smiled. “All good,” she said, and poured a dollop into my cup. Hers remained black.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to drink coffee,” I asked. “Blood pressure and all that.”
“One won’t kill me,” she said. “Besides, if I have to drink one more cup of frigging herbal tea, I will lose my mind. Don’t tell my doctor, though. He’d be pissed.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said.
“Good.” I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t just talking about the coffee. She was talking about the rest. The ghost, the mostly unused apartment, all of it.
Hey, you keep my secret, I’ll keep yours, I thought.
She handed me the cup then walked back into the safety of her open concept kitchen. Picked up her cup and drank deeply, like she was dying of thirst. Closed her eyes and sighed. “Not bad,” she said.
I took a sip of mine. It wasn’t as good as the Coffee Factory coffee but, like she said, it wasn’t bad. I set the cup down on the counter and turned back to Sylvia.
“How did Rory die?” I asked again. “I need to know.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s hard, though. Talking about it. You know?”
“I understand,” I said. “Would you feel more comfortable sitting down?”
I gestured at the table but she shook her head. “I’m okay here,” she said. “Let’s just get this over with, all right?”
She looked like she was ready to jump out of her skin, and I suspected her doctor was right. She probably needed to stay away from the coffee.
“He had a heart attack,” she said. Whispered, really. Like she was afraid Rory would hear her telling his secrets. “He went out for a run, and he had a heart attack. Died before anyone even found him. It was horrible.”
“I imagine,” I said. Heart attacks weren’t a bad way to go, all things considered.
“He was only forty-four,” she said. “And he looked after himself.” Her lips quivered. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“I know.”
“She isn’t telling you everything.” The man’s voice came from somewhere behind me, and I was turning when Sylvia gasped.
“He’s here,” she said. “I can smell his aftershave. He’s here, I’m sure he’s here.”
I could smell it too. Nautica. Rory had used Nautica aftershave. I recognized it, because I’d tried to convince my stalkery ex-boyfriend to use the same scent in my life before.
He’d said no, of course. Said it smelled like something a faggot would use. Said he wouldn’t be caught dead using something like that.
Of course.
I turned and looked at the silvery figure standing by the television at the far end of the living room. “Rory?” I asked.
“You can see him?” Sylvia’s voice sounded strangled. “You can really see him?”
“Yes,” I said. “Be quiet now, Sylvia. He and I need to talk.”
Rory was shorter than I thought he’d be. Sylvia Worth looked like the type of woman who would pick someone six foot four, with blond hair and Viking heritage. Someone who could turn Berserker at a moment’s notice.
Rory was the opposite of all that. Short—not more than five nine—and compact. Dark hair and eyes. He also looked haunted, but being dead could do that to you.
“What isn’t she telling me?” I asked.
“I’m telling you everything you need to know,” Sylvia said. Her voice roughened, but I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or fear. “You asked me how he died, and I told you.”
“Ask her about the last case I was working on,” he said. He glanced at Sylvia, and his face softened. “And ask her why she looks so tired. She doesn’t sleep, you know. She’s going to kill herself. Nobody can go without sleep. No-one.”
“Tell me about Rory’s last case,” I said to Sylvia. I kept my eyes on Rory, so I could see how he reacted to her answer. “He was a cop. Right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “He worked vice but went over to the drug squad a couple of months before he died.” She swallowed, and I could hear her throat click. “He was working the Ambrose Welch case.”
I blinked. That was the guy from the drug house who had killed Eddie Hansen, a ghost I’d moved on the year before. Ambrose Welch had tried to use me to get out of that drug house, through all those cops. I’d taken his eye out when I’d escaped. He featured in my nightmares, too.
Jesus.
“Is that everything?” I was asking Rory but Sylvia answered.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s everything.”
Rory shook his head.
“What else?” I asked.
“There’s nothing,” Sylvia said. She grabbed the coffee pot, poured more coffee into her cup, and drank deeply.
“That stuff’s gonna kill her,” Rory said. “I can hear her heart beating from here.”
“Just relax, Sylvia,” I said, as gently as I could. “I’m talking to Rory now. I need to get his truth. Not yours.”
“Truth’s truth,” she said. She sounded angry.
“Nope,” I said. “He’ll know things not even you knew. Just let me find out what he knows. Please. There’s a reason he came to you. Let’s find out what it is. All right?”
“All right.” I heard the coffee cup hit the counter. “Fine.”
“Rory?” I asked. “What else?”
“I was undercover,” Rory said. “I told Sylvia I’d only been with the drug squad for a couple of months, but that wasn’t exactly the truth. I’d been working undercover with them for a while longer.”
“How much longer?”
“A year.” He shook his head. “I was deep in with that crew for that year. Did things—”
“W
hat things?”
“I did everything!” he roared. He flared, briefly, setting that end of the living room awash in his light. “I did everything.”
“Drugs?” I asked.
Rory looked at me. Smiled. “That was the least of it,” he said. “The very tip of a mountain of shit that I did, getting close to Welch. And then, after all that, my bosses pulled me.”
“Off the case?” I asked.
“Yep.” He snorted derisively. “They said I had become unstable. That I needed some R and R. It was okay, they said. I’d done a good job and they’d get him without me.” He shook his head. “But you know how that rolled out, now don’t you?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you were the reason they finally got into the Fortress,” he said. “You were the one who put that asshole in jail.”
“How did you know about me?” I asked.
“She told me,” he said. “When she came home at night. She told me everything.”
Huh.
I decided to forget that, for the moment. Sylvia could work that out in therapy or something. I had to concentrate on Rory.
“So, you were trying to get your life back together when you died?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “But the drugs . . . ”
“Drugs?”
“Coke, mostly.” He snorted unamused laughter. “I kept telling myself I could quit anytime. You know. Like every other addict in the world. But I couldn’t seem to leave the coke alone. I figured that if I exercised and ate better doing the occasional line wouldn’t kill me.” He shook his head. “Was my face red.”
“And Sylvia didn’t know?”
“Sylvia didn’t know what?” Sylvia asked.
I turned to her, touched my forefinger to my lips, and watched her face tighten. Turned back to Rory.
“Did she?”
“I never told her,” he said. “Like I said, I thought I could quit.” He shook his head. “It took me a couple of months after I died to figure out what the hell was going on. I would come to on that running trail in the river valley, and then feel a punch, right in the middle of my back, and then black. Over and over, until I finally figured out that I was dead. Dead.”
