Emily blinked her eyes, wishing she was alone so she could remonstrate with her ghostly guest. “Do you need me to tell you anything?”
“Not a thing, love. You can just sit back and relax.” Crystal rearranged herself on her chair, dragging it closer and placing her hands either side of the ball. “If I have any trouble getting through, I might ask you to hold hands. We don’t have to if you don’t want, but it sometimes makes it easier to get in touch with the other side.”
“Don’t take her hands,” Mrs Pettigrew said, standing back from the table. She wiped her palms against her ghost dress. “I think sweating is this woman’s stock in trade, not communing with the dead.”
The strain of ignoring her friend took a toll and the muscles in Emily’s neck tightened.
“Don’t look so worried, pet!” Crystal gave her a big wink. “Unless you’ve left a trail of dead bodies in your wake, there’s nothing here to concern you.”
Mrs Pettigrew laughed. “Apart from the fact you’re being ripped off.”
And maybe Crystal was listening in to the ghost’s one-sided conversation, because she gave a start and sat back, drawing her hands into her lap. “I almost forgot to say. Payment is due up front. It’ll be two hundred dollars for the first session and I give a discount if you book another one before you leave.”
“That sounds very reasonable,” Emily said, pulling her wallet out of her handbag. “Is cash okay?”
“Great.” Crystal took the money out of her hand and counted it before tucking it into her bra. “If you need it in future, I’ve also got EFTPOS. I prefer debit cards, but I can process a credit card transaction for a slightly higher fee.”
“I bet she can,” the ghost said. Her eyes were glued to the medium’s face with rapt attention. “She’s a slick act, I’ll give her that.”
“Okay, love. Pop your hands flat on the table and relax. I’m going to reach out to whoever’s here for you in the spirit world.” Crystal tilted her head to one side. “Is there anyone specific you were hoping to connect with today? Your mum, for example.”
Emily gave a small cry as memories crowded forward. How lovely would that be? To talk to her soft and loving mother instead of listening to the barbed tongue of Mrs Pettigrew for hours on end.
But she wasn’t here for reminiscing. Work needed to be done.
She shook her head, lying through her teeth. “I’ve got nobody in mind. Just whoever’s nearest. They don’t need to be a relative of mine at all.”
“Why don’t you give her more pointers,” Mrs Pettigrew growled. “Maybe toss my name into the ring while you’re at it.”
“Fine. Let me just close my eyes and get my bearings, then.”
“Do I need to shut mine, too?”
“No, love. Not unless it makes you more comfortable.”
Crystal Dreaming sat still for a moment, hands near to the globe as though it was a fire to warm them. The woman gave a low hum, under her breath. It sounded comforting. Emily found her mind wandering as the long minutes passed. The muggy heat in the room pulled her eyelids closed for longer with each blink.
“I can feel you, spirit. Do you wish to communicate with us today?”
Emily jerked upright, staring across the table at Mrs Pettigrew. When the ghost didn’t say anything, she frowned and gave a sharp nod.
Mrs Pettigrew rolled her eyes but obliged. “I’m here and yes, I’d like to talk with you and Emily today.”
The medium continued to keep her eyes closed in concentration. After another long pause, she asked, “Are you still there, spirit? Can you tell me your name?”
“It’s Cynthia Pettigrew. I want to find out who murdered me.”
Crystal opened her eyes. “Does the name Gary Hendermacht mean anything to you?”
A sick dread poured into Emily’s stomach like an ice-cold liquid. She tried to shake her head, to say no. Instead, she gave a slow nod of recognition.
“Cynthia Pettigrew.” The ghost waved her hands in front of Crystal. “Hello? Anybody there? I need to find a killer. Rather important.”
“He’s here in the room with me. Gary wants to tell you it wasn’t your fault.”
“Who the hell is Gary?” Mrs Pettigrew turned to Emily. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“Gary is the person who caused my car accident,” Emily explained. Her eyes stayed fixed on Crystal’s, but she spoke for the benefit of the ghost. “He’s very easy to look up on Google if you wanted to do that sort of thing. He broadsided my car and very nearly killed me. Certainly, he took away everything that meant something in my life.”
She rose from the chair, hands and legs shaking so much Emily wasn’t sure she could make it to the door. A tear escaped her eye, and she wiped it away with a vicious swipe of her hand.
“Perhaps he has something else to tell you,” Crystal gushed. “Just sit back down and I’ll—”
“I think we both know you’re a fraud,” Emily said. Her voice caught, and she had to steady herself on the back of the chair.
“What is this?” Crystal leapt to her feet, her expression turning from a polite smile into a glare. “Are you here to set me up? You don’t think I know how these things go. Here”—she dug the cash out of her bosom and thrust it across the table—“take your money and get out of my house. This is my livelihood. I try to help people. You and your society just try to drag everyone—”
“What society?” Emily felt as flustered by the change of mood as she did by her anger. “I’m not with anyone and neither am I trying to bring you down. I came here because I stupidly thought you might have answers for me. There’s a ghost standing a foot away from you who’s driving me crazy and I hoped you’d be able to help get rid of her.”
Crystal looked baffled. “There’s a what-now?”
“You were crazy to start with,” Mrs Pettigrew said with a sniff.
Chapter Nine
“I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for my shouting at you.” Crystal handed across a cup of tea to Emily, then stared at her empty chair. “Your friend isn’t sitting there, is she?”
“No. She’s still standing.”
“Of course, I’m standing. This place smells like it needs fumigation. I bet the windowsills in the bathroom are black with mould.”
Emily smiled. “I believe she’s insulting your housekeeping.” When an expression of alarm crossed Crystal’s features, she waved her hand. “Don’t worry. She insults everything about me all the time. I think it’s her way of making friends.”
“I don’t need friends, thank you very much. Unlike everyone else in the world, I believe in being completely self-sufficient.”
“How long has she been with you?” Now that the shock of the original explanation was out of the way, Crystal appeared to be taking things in her stride.
“She turned up late on Monday. It gave me a nasty turn. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was staring down at me like I’d done something wrong.” Emily laughed but the memory of her surprise made her heart thump a few quick beats.
“And she thinks someone murdered her?”
Emily nodded. “It makes sense. I’d be tempted if someone hadn’t already spared me the bother.”
“Hey. I’m right here, you know.”
“Like I am when you say all the horrible things you do about me.” Emily glared at the ghost until she turned her face away.
“She sounds like a real hoot.” Crystal took a sip of her tea, shot it a concerned glance, and replaced the cup in her saucer. “Why can’t she lead you to the killer and give you some secret information to make them certain she’s talking to you? I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere.”
“In the movies,” Mrs Pettigrew growled. “I’m glad this woman gave you the money back. I think the IQ of this table plunged when she sat down.”
“It appears Mrs Pettigrew can’t remember very much about the day or the murder itself. She does remember her head being hit and her stepson sitting in front of her, with his
hands coated in blood.”
“Oh, that does sound nasty.” Crystal’s mouth twisted in a strange smile. “Does she make you call her Mrs Pettigrew?”
“It’s a sign of respect,” the ghost said while Emily shrugged.
“It’s the only name I knew to call her for a while, so it stuck.”
“And Cynthia isn’t her actual name, I suppose,” Crystal said, twisting a fingertip into the deep dimple on her right cheek, a gesture of pure mischief.
“It’s my legal name. Considering the forms and application fees, I’d be wild if I found out it wasn’t,” the ghost said.
“I’m happy with the names I know her by,” Emily stated, a sense of loyalty rising. “And I’d rather this was a discussion over what to do than a dissection of her flaws.”
“Sure. Just curious, is all.” Crystal sat back, taking another large sip of tea and screwing up her face. “Sorry, I think the milk has turned.” She stood up and cleared away her cup, leaving Emily’s sitting on the table.
Emily took a cautious sniff, her own face twisting in disgust. She followed behind the medium, holding the cup by its handle over the saucer in her other hand. She didn’t want to risk any of the foul brew falling on the carpet.
“And you call me rude,” the ghost sneered. “Where're your hostess’s manners?”
As Emily pushed through into the kitchen, she felt sorry to have raised the subject. It appeared that highlighting a fault of Mrs Pettigrew was the perfect method to have her magnify it to ten times worse.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Crystal said, grabbing the cup from Emily’s hand to pour the mess into the sink. “Things have been tense in my community lately. It all came bubbling out in quite the wrong way.”
“You were talking about a society. Did you mean the sceptics?” Emily asked, trying to remember that far back in the conversation. “Don’t they approve of your profession?”
“No. I get gut feelings and intuitions about people. Always have, since I was a young girl. It’s not good enough for the naysayers, though. They want facts and figures and data and proof. In my line that’s not so easy to come by.”
“Because you’re a fake,” the ghost called out from the other room. “You deserve any bad publicity you get.”
“Isn’t there some standard for your profession?” Emily hadn’t felt an urge to consult a psychic before and didn’t know anything about the industry. “If you self-regulate, then it often stops outside forces poking their nose into your business.”
“It’d be like herding cats.” Crystal shook herself and the earlier smile made a strong reappearance. “And that’s not why you’re here. We need to figure out a way to turn your ghost from a liability to an asset.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Your first problem is that, without any new facts, you’re basically challenging the accepted view of this woman’s death without any additional details. It won’t be an easy sell.”
Emily heard the laughter of the policemen in her ears. “I think that sums it up pretty well.”
“If you don’t have a bunch of new facts to put before them, the next best thing is to prove you’re talking to a ghost.”
“Perhaps there’re some facts only she knows,” Emily suggested, looking behind her where Mrs Pettigrew remained in the lounge room. She raised her eyebrows at the ghost who just continued to stare lackadaisically back at her.
“Can’t she interact with things? A poltergeist is much easier to track than a simple spirit.”
Emily shook her head. “When she touches things, her hands or whatever just go straight through, like the world is made of jelly.”
“Peanut.”
For a second, Emily stared blankly at the ghost, then she clicked her fingers. “Of course. When we went to her house the other day, her old cat reacted to her petting. Would that be enough?”
“It’s a start.” Crystal walked to the front door and slid it open, then looked back at Emily. “Well? Aren’t you going to show me?”
“I really don’t want anyone to see me,” Emily said with a frown of concern. “It’s the third day in a row I’ve been here. They’ll think I’m stalking them.”
“The footpath is a public space.” Crystal gave her a hip bump. “It’s not like they can call the police for you trespassing.”
“No. They can just tell someone who’ll tell someone and pretty soon my name will be mud.” Emily wrinkled her nose. “Nobody’s going to want to bring their expensive items into a charity store if they know the town weirdo’s going to paw through their stuff.”
“Like Pete isn’t the town weirdo?”
Emily glanced at her, surprised. “Really? He seems fine to me.”
“That’s because you’ve met him after he broke up with Mrs P.”
For a second, Emily thought the medium must be referring to her ghostly companion, then realized it was a reference to the kiwi slang term for a drug sold by points of a gram. Methamphetamine—P.
“I don’t see my kitty anywhere,” Mrs Pettigrew complained. “How’m I meant to show my existence if the cat won’t oblige?”
Emily shook her head. “Perhaps we should try it another time. Cats like to go out as twilight comes on, don’t they?”
Crystal gave a soft laugh. “It’s only six o’clock. There’re another three full hours of sunlight left before then.”
“In which case, Peanut is probably sleeping,” the ghost said. “Which is even less helpful because he always likes to curl up inside.”
It took Emily a moment to remember Crystal wouldn’t have heard that information. She relayed it to her, making a mental note to do the same in the future, minus the spurts of pure invective.
“How about we wander along the street rather than just standing and staring at this one house?” Emily said.
“Good idea,” Mrs Pettigrew said. “That way the entire street can mark you down as a snoop instead of just my family.”
Ignoring the bite of sarcasm, the three of them made their way along the side of the road at an amble. Even at the slow speed, it didn’t take long for Emily to feel the familiar bite of pain in her hip.
“We can’t keep doing this forever,” she announced as her watch crept over to seven o’clock. “How about we head back home and think of another way?” Her stomach gave a large groan, adding its support to the idea.
“I suppose that’s probably best,” Crystal agreed with a touch of reluctance in her voice. “Though I don’t know what else we can try.”
“Peanut!” Mrs Pettigrew exclaimed, pointing. “See him? In the neighbour’s front garden.” Her smile of delight grew ragged at the edges. “Be careful. She never got on well with me.”
“Just like everybody else, then?” Emily muttered under her breath, tapping the medium on the shoulder to point out the feline.
When Mrs Pettigrew hesitated, she jerked her head toward the animal. “Well, go on then. It’s not as though the neighbour’s going to see you.”
The ghost crept toward the cat, bending down to click her fingers. “Come on, Peanut. Come to Mummy.”
As Emily and Crystal watched, the animal’s ears twisted toward the sound and his eyes flicked to her deceased owner, then back to the patch of gravel where a sparrow pecked at the ground, unaware it was being stalked.
“Here, Peanut. You’ve been fed today already, fatty. Leave the bird life alone.” Mrs Pettigrew clicked her tongue and fingers again, cooing nonsense syllables.
“Has she started yet?” Crystal asked in a whisper. “Or is she waiting for something else?”
“The cat’s just ignoring her,” Emily whispered back. “It’s a pity her beloved pet wasn’t a dog.”
Despite Peanut’s glare of warning, the ghost crept closer. At least the sparrow was immune to her progress, still happily pecking away at the patch of stony ground.
“Come on, kitty. Don’t make Mummy look like an idiot in front of these people. You’re a good cat, aren’t you Peanut? Come on ov
er and get a pat.”
Peanut’s hind legs tensed, then wriggled back and forth, calibrating his body for the impending jump. The moment his front paws left the ground, the sparrow startled and took flight, landing on the spouting above, well out of harm’s way.
The cat sniffed where the bird had been, then cast it a disgusted stare and trotted over to his mistress. He rubbed his neck against her ankles and soon his back followed the rhythm of her strokes, arching to meet her hand.
“Do you see?”
Crystal nodded, biting the corner of her lip. “It’s not all that impressive, is it? I can’t imagine a policeman would be willing to reopen a case of accidental death based on this display.”
Although she’d worked the same conclusion out herself, Emily’s spirits took a short nose-dive. With each step she took toward the problem, the solution galloped a few more away.
Footsteps sounded on the driveway, and they turned towards a woman, holding a gigantic pair of clippers in her hand. The blades were dark with the juice of tree branches but looked hungry for meatier fare.
“What are you people doing on my front lawn?” the shrill voice demanded. “Do you know what we do to trespassers around here?”
Chapter Ten
“So sorry to intrude,” Crystal said, stepping forward with her hand held out to shake.
The woman stared at the limb as though its very existence caused offence. “Who are you? Why are you standing on my lawn?”
“We’re looking for houses in the neighbourhood,” Emily said, nudging Crystal aside. “The property next door is lovely and just what we’re after.” She glanced around her as if to check for eavesdroppers and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard the lady of the house died and the current owner might be interested in selling.”
“Lady?” The woman snorted but closed the clippers. She wiped her right hand on her trouser leg before shaking Crystal’s offered hand. “I can tell you for sure, that was no lady, but it would be great to have some new neighbours. These are a nightmare.” She demonstrated how much with an extravagant roll of her eyes.
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