“Steady,” McParland said, not moving.
Sam sat down. Mrs. Atlee dying. South and the dead people at the dinner.
“‘He who wishes a successful outcome, let him fight with strategy, not at random,’” McParland said.
Sam leaned back in his chair, unconsciously assuming a position much like McParland’s. Was he being threatened? It sounded more like advice.
“Vegetius,” McParland said.
Sam nodded. He didn’t know who that was and didn’t care. The leather on the chairs around him glowed dimly. The bartender ran a towel over the surface of the bar and smiled at something one of the businessmen said.
“Mr. Morgan,” McParland said. “Are your feelings for Mrs. Fisher strong enough to convince you of the necessity of putting them aside in the coming days?”
“My feelings for Mrs. Fisher aren’t your business,” Sam said. “Is that who hired you? Her husband? What a waste of money if he did.”
“Be calm, sir. Please.”
“This is bullshit,” Sam said.
“Easy,” McParland repeated. “I ask only for your benefit. You must learn to be calm.” He had chosen his seat so as to have a view of Sam and of the entrance; he wanted to see Sam’s face at the moment Alice came in. Now, with Sam’s last answer, the placement seemed unnecessary, though still entertaining.
People came into the bar in twos and threes, pausing at the entrance to pick a spot in the gradually filling room.
“She arrives,” McParland said, nodding toward the entrance. He watched Sam’s head pivot, his face expand: Precisely so, he thought.
Sam stood up and took a hesitant step toward Alice, who saw him and smiled.
“Hi, Sam,” she said, approaching him. Her hair was pulled back from her face and her blue parka was open. “Is everything ok?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “As far as I know. Hi.” He didn’t know whether to shake hands or kiss her on the cheek so he stood still.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Sam—if you please,” McParland said, standing up.
Sam turned. “This is Mr. McParland,” he said. “A private detective. He’s—”
“A what?” Alice said. Her face tightened.
“He’s the one who asked me to call you,” Sam finished.
“A pleasure,” McParland said, nodding to Alice, who nodded back. “Would you like a drink?”
“No,” Alice said. She turned to Sam. “Is he—did Ed—”
“He won’t say,” Sam said.
Alice sat down, her parka across her knees.
“So we’re here. What did you want to tell us?” Sam asked.
McParland resumed his seat and lit a cigarette.
Sam turned to Alice. “This is bullshit. Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Mrs. Fisher,” McParland said. “As Sam has said, I am a private detective. I am not at liberty to discuss who employs me at any given moment, but allow me to say, broadly, that I am far more often in the business of telling people what they already know than of surprising them.”
“Ed,” Alice said. But she hadn’t done anything wrong. She looked at Sam and wanted to take his hand.
“You refer to your husband,” McParland said. He looked intently at Alice. “How long have you suspected him of having an affair?”
“Excuse me?” Alice said.
Sam turned to her.
“Indeed,” McParland said, nodding. He smiled at Sam. “I can see what you two have in common,” he said, the gurgle and hum of conversation around them drowning out the last few words.
“Get to the point,” Sam said, raising his voice.
“Of course,” McParland said. “Whether I have most often been an angel of good or bad has depended entirely on who paid me. You see, money is good. Or it always was, anyway, and that which is bad, in its service becomes good, too. Rarely, very rarely, have I had an opportunity to do something that is just good.” He finished his drink and put out his cigarette in the ashtray. “You will, I hope, forgive me if I have taken an extra moment or two to enjoy it.”
McParland closed his eyes. How light he felt, how gray. His laudanum was upstairs, lovely; the window looking out upon the old church, the old church filled with colors. Lovely. The shiny chandelier at the rich peoples’ dinner party.
Sam lurched forward to stand up but Alice put a hand on his arm.
“Mr. Morgan,” McParland said. “I do not know if you have ever decided to do something for the rest of your life that you know will turn you into—into a different person than you had ever hoped to be. I know Mrs. Fisher and I have done so. Have we not, Mrs. Fisher?” His eyes opened.
Alice didn’t move.
“Very well,” McParland said. “Sensible woman not to answer. But I know what you have decided, and tonight I get to save you from it.”
“Get on with it,” Sam said. “My God.”
“Please, Mrs. Fisher,” McParland said. “Just remember that Mr. Morgan did not hire me. You may at some point believe that he did, but he did not.” He looked from Alice to Sam and back again. “Upstairs, in room 316—just down the hall from my room—your husband is with a woman named Kim. They arrived at 6:45 and, if habit holds, they will leave between nine and nine-thirty.”
Alice sat back in her chair. “What?” she said.
“I am afraid so, Mrs. Fisher,” McParland said.
“Goddamn it. God damn it,” Alice said. “That fucking asshole. That asshole.”
“Alice,” Sam said.
“I’m going up,” she said. She left her parka on the chair and started for the door. Sam went after her.
“Please,” McParland said, cutting him off. “Stay here. I will attend Mrs. Fisher.”
“No way,” Sam said.
“Please,” McParland repeated. “Think for a moment if it is wise for you to be there when the door to that room is opened. Wait here for us.”
He hurried after Alice, his missing heel aching, and fell in step with her halfway across the marble lobby of the hotel. She pressed the elevator button again and again. They rode up without speaking. The carpet on the third floor was thick and they made little noise as they rushed to room 316. At the door Alice breathed in, knocked. McParland stood to one side. There was no answer. She knocked again, hard and fast.
“Who is it?” a female voice called from within.
“Open the goddamn door,” Alice yelled. She banged again and tried the doorknob.
The door opened slowly. A short blonde woman with blue eyes looked out. “What’s going—” she started to say.
“Where’s my husband?” Alice said, pushing the door open and entering the room.
“What?” the blonde woman said. She had on a bra and skirt.
“Out here, please,” McParland said to her, pointing to a spot in the hallway with his cane. She hesitated and he held up a finger, as if to quiet her. “Out here, now,” he said, and she obeyed.
Alice looked around the room wildly. The bed was unmade. Ed’s blue sport coat hung on the back of a chair. She heard the shower water and tried to open the bathroom door.
“Open this door, Ed,” she called out, slapping it with an open palm.
The water shut off.
“What’s wrong, Sweet?” he heard Ed call. He opened the door, smoothing hair from his eyes. His belly hung over the towel he held around his waist.
“My God,” Alice said. She thought to hit him but didn’t move.
“Alice,” he said, his eyes wide. “Jesus, what are you doing here?”
She lowered her face to her hands, shrugging him off when he tried to touch her.
“Alice, you gotta understand, I’ve been under a lot of pressure,” he said. “This isn’t—Kim and I just came here to relax—”
“Oh no,” Alice said. She ran her hands through her hair. “Bullshit, Ed. Bullshit. Don’t even try.” Her voice rose. “You’re not gonna convince me I’m crazy this time, you fucking asshole.” She turned and left the
room.
In the hallway McParland was standing with the blonde woman, who had folded her arms across her chest and was staring at the floor. Alice rushed past them, her face red, her eyes wide. Ed ran out a moment later but McParland stepped in front of him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A Visit
Sam was in his office, staring out the window, dozing, his fractured sleep flooded with ghosts, ghosts everywhere, angry and unsettled in a world that felt sadder and lonelier than he’d known. He thought of Alice, tried to put her out of his mind but dialed her number and hung up at the sound of the answering machine. She hadn’t called him; he didn’t even know where she was staying. Maybe she was at her friend Viv’s house, maybe she’d kicked Ed out—he had no way of being certain. When McParland had come back to the bar he’d said, “Mrs. Fisher is gone.” Sam had grabbed her parka and run outside to catch her but she was gone. The small church with the square steeple had loomed above him; the street, flat like pounded coal, reflected glints of headlights.
South was supposed to visit Mrs. Atlee today but Sam was hoping South wouldn’t show. If he did, was there any way Sam could prevent him from seeing her? The last thing she needed at this point was a crazy person around her, relative or not. But if they were cousins, even distant cousins, Sam was in no position to tell South he couldn’t visit.
Sam stretched, folded his arms across his chest, unfolded them. Ghosts. So everything didn’t end at death, or didn’t have to; even the dead didn’t know what came next, so even as the living struggled for understanding or for God they were bound by energy and decay without even the comfort of being sure that death, however terrifying, would bring them peace. How many years did he have left—somehow different now than the years he’d thought he’d have. What about Mrs. Atlee? How many—what—weeks?—days?—did she have left? He’d sat there beside her for hours and now he was sitting here and he’d go back there and….
Four forty-five. Maybe South wasn’t coming after all. McParland. Where did he come from? Another ghost, like the dead people at the dinner, probably. Sam felt a chill again. He’d never felt threatened by any of the ghosts but around them he’d felt their tension, their anger, and to think he could end up that way—to think of all the anger unresolved by death that was all around him.
He dialed Alice, got the answering machine, and pounded the receiver back into its carriage a few times.
Robin was Mrs. Atlee’s daughter, she could bar South from visiting. It might be a little awkward to ask her, he would have to explain to her why he didn’t want South to see Mrs. Atlee. For God’s sake, he thought. Relax, think. His stepmother might help, if he could think of what to say to her.
He took his overcoat from the hanger on the door. It was early to leave and if South showed up—well, too bad. Sam couldn’t spend his whole evening waiting around.
“Are you coming back?” Debbie asked. She was holding an overflowing manila folder.
“No,” Sam said.
Out on the street the wind cut at him, pulling his hair. He walked fast. So he was tense all the time now, and angry—so it was infecting him. Oh, Christ. He would apologize to Debbie in the morning. But he couldn’t do that job anymore, he just couldn’t. If he didn’t get out now, he never would.
White Christmas lights had been hung from the streetlamps and trees. This walk to the subway was so boring, he thought. The same buildings, waiting at the same corners for the same lights to change.
Calm, calm, he told himself. Maybe he needed to drink more, lots of people did that.
He had to stand on the train, an arm extended over his head to hold a support bar. So many people were reading, blocking everyone else out to be themselves—or whatever. Wedding rings on fingers, wool hats, red noses. Whatever, he thought. They’re me, I’m them, who cares. Boring.
Alice wouldn’t talk to him. She had a lot going on, of course. Could she have thought he set that meeting up—that he’d hired McParland? That freak. And even if he had—even if—had he also put Ed in that room somehow? Well, people do blame people for telling them things they don’t want to know. All the goddamn time. He thought of Debbie and pressed his fingers to his eyes.
He got off the train and hurried to his apartment. It was dark and cold. He changed into a sweater and chinos and drove to his father’s house. No one was home; he used his spare key and started up the stairs to Mrs. Atlee’s room. As he approached the door he heard low voices, someone laughing, Mrs. Atlee coughing. He couldn’t make out the second voice—Robin? His father? A stripe of light reached through the crack under the door. Mrs. Atlee laughed again.
Sam opened the door. The room was cold, and he saw that the window over Mrs. Atlee’s bed was open; the lamp on the bedside table provided the only light, as if under swamp water. Mrs. Atlee was propped up by pillows; her forehead was damp, her eyes bright.
“Hello, Sam,” Mrs. Atlee said.
Beside the bed a lumpish figure in the armchair turned to Sam.
“Are you ok?” Sam asked Mrs. Atlee.
“Fine, Sam. Very well,” she said.
“Hello, Sam,” South said.
“Yes, hello,” Sam said. “Aren’t you tired?” he asked Mrs. Atlee. “You look tired. Maybe Mr. South should go.”
“Mr. South,” she repeated, laughing. “Yes, I am tired, Sam. Very tired. And I don’t look well because I’m not well. But that’s all right. Do you see, Sam? It’s all right.”
“Sit, Sam,” South murmured. “Sit for a moment and listen.”
Sam blinked. Shouldn’t he get South to leave? An uninvited visit—but Mrs. Atlee seemed to want him there.
Mrs. Atlee motioned for Sam to sit on the end of the bed. “When did you two meet?” she asked.
“A few weeks ago,” South said. “I asked Sam to do a bit of legal work for me.”
“Legal work?” Mrs. Atlee asked.
“Yes, a piece of land Daddy left me. It is somehow fitting that I should spend eternity boring lawyers, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Atlee said, laughing. “I remember Father—oh, when was this, years later, not too long before he died, it must have been—one of my brothers had filed suit against someone for something and I remember Father shouting at him that he’d turn into his aunt if he wasn’t careful.”
South smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “Your father thought I used my lawyer too much. Because, after a certain point, I only let your father talk to him.”
“That must’ve been awful,” Mrs. Atlee said.
South pressed his lips together. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose it was. At the time I only—after my father died I didn’t want much to do with either of my brothers. I did miss Mother quite a bit.”
Mrs. Atlee touched his hand.
“Did you know that it took almost a year for either of my brothers to notice I was gone?” South asked.
Sam stood up and tried to speak. “You are—you’re—”
“Her aunt, originally,” South said. “Isabel.”
“Oh my God,” Sam said. Isabel South—not a relative of his, but him? Not dead, not alive, all these years later. “Explain it to me,” he said.
“Please,” Mrs. Atlee said. “Please sit.” She turned to South again. “But didn’t you come to the house once? I have always thought I remembered you visiting—I must have been a tiny little girl, six or—oh dear.”
“No, dear,” South said. “I was only once at your father’s house, and only very briefly.”
“I suppose so,” Mrs. Atlee said.
Sam sat down, thinking he had to get South out of there, what if the anger and tension spread to Mrs. Atlee? But Mrs. Atlee seemed at peace.
“It’s all right,” South said. “There, there.”
Sam couldn’t tell if South was soothing him or Mrs. Atlee.
“I remember Daddy saying that you were gone,” Mrs. Atlee said. After a pause, she said, “I don’t want to go.”
“I know. I know,” South said. He turned
to Sam. “Sometimes you can feel all the time that’s passed—all the cycles that have run their course and it feels as if all of them are being torn from you at once. You—healthy, living people—can feel it, too, if you pay attention.” He turned back to Mrs. Atlee and smoothed gray hair from her forehead.
Sam stood up and paced the floor. He put his hand on the doorknob but pulled back. The world was not what he’d thought it was, finite for each of us; he needed to be alone for a while, to figure out what this meant. All the people at the dinner—Miss Thompson, Roberts, Dr. French—a car wreck, a walking stick…. But he wanted to stay by Mrs. Atlee.
“Please, come sit,” Mrs. Atlee said.
Sam sat again, staring at South.
“What happens?” Mrs. Atlee asked.
“Oh, Dearheart,” South said. “I wish I could tell you. I don’t think it’s the same for everyone. Not at all. And I don’t expect you’ll dangle as I have. I hope not.”
Mrs. Atlee sobbed. “No light?” she asked South.
“Maybe,” he said. “Yes, I suppose. I saw a light, coming to me then going away, over and over. Then it got dark. Very, very dark.”
“Did it hurt a lot?” Mrs. Atlee asked.
Sam leaned toward her and she touched his cheek.
“You know the answer to that,” South said. “How much does it hurt right now? How much did it hurt last week? It hurts that much. Mine was quick and painful. The terrible physical pain of the injury and of all the cells stopping—it felt like cramps all over my body, and at the same time I realized what was happening and I was so shocked—me? Me? And then that was gone and I took a last deep breath and then it didn’t hurt anymore. All of this took less than what you would call a second. Because time doesn’t move—ever, but you don’t notice that until your cells stop. With all the cycles stopped there’s not even anything to measure anymore. The last thing I saw—my God—the last thing I saw was my boot. Now that seems unfair.”
“Your boot?” Mrs. Atlee asked.
“In any event,” South said. “There it is.”
“You didn’t run off,” Mrs. Atlee said. “My father—that caretaker always said you’d taken a briefcase of money and run off. Father never—he—”
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 25
