Steeling myself, I pushed the jackets aside and shined the cell phone light into the gap.
Two women huddled on a plush bearskin rug, neither of them looking at me. They were holding hands. A camping lantern sat between them, now off, but I thought I detected a faint glow from the bulb. One of the women was the old woman in the fur coat, her silver hair up in a bun, her face covered with so much makeup that she had the look of a porcelain doll. I saw that her jaw was trembling.
The other woman might have been just as old, but I could barely see her face through the cloud of dark, curly hair. So much hair. I'd never seen someone with so much hair, not just long but dense, the curls like compacted springs. She was big and bosomy, dressed in an outlandish purple and yellow robe, the purple shiny like silk, the yellow glittering like gold. In the harsh light of the cell phone, the purple seemed almost black. Her fingers were adorned with so many rings— big rubies, sapphires, and emeralds—that her hands appeared larger than they were, and they were already plenty large. She smelled like green tea, or something equally minty. Her feet, crossed beneath her, were bare, and her toenails had been painted half purple and half gold to match her robe.
"It's no use pretending," I said, keeping my voice low enough that Dorothy wouldn't be able to hear even if she'd moved to the bottom of the stairs. "I can see you."
They both looked at me. The older woman, whose complexion was already the color of bleached concrete, paled even more. The woman in purple, the woman I assumed was Mary Rittles, stared at me through that mess of hair, blinking big round eyes decorated with glittering gold eye shadow.
"You," she said.
"Me," I said.
"The Ghost Detective."
I sighed. "I don't really like being called that, but yes. You're Mary Rittles?"
"No."
"No?"
She released the old woman's hands, cleared her throat, then parted the hair that hung over her eyes like a curtain and tucked it behind her ears. When she looked at me again, I saw a round face that had been ravaged by a hard life, pockmarked and liver-spotted, lumpy in places, sallow and sunken in others. She could have been anywhere from forty to seventy, though my guess was closer to forty.
"My name is Madam Lavender," she said haughtily. "I'm known far and wide as a psychic, a teller of fortunes, and a medium providing a connection to corporeal beings for the non-corporeal."
"Connection to corporeal beings? You mean you help the dead talk to the living?"
"That's a very crude way of putting it, but yes. I transmit messages for those who have—who have passed into the next world, using my God-given gift to send those messages to those on the other side."
"And the living, they can talk back?"
"Of course. Through me. They are communicating with us on a very deep subconscious level."
"Ah," I said, impressed with her ability to adapt her con game so it worked for the dead as well as it had worked for the living. "Well, whatever name you're using, this is Rose City Psychic?"
She hesitated. "It is. And I knew you'd come. I've been expecting it."
"Oh really?"
"I saw it in a vision."
"I'm sure you did. Does the name Olivia Ray ring a bell?"
"No," she answered quickly, then shook her head as if irritated with herself. "I mean, not personally. But if you'll give me a moment, I can use my gift to—"
"That's all right. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes but not here. Finish up your, um, session, and join me in my car on the curb outside. Green Prius. Can't miss it."
"And if I refuse?"
"Hmm. Well, you've got a very nice setup here, Madam Lavender. Cozy little corner. I'd hate to have to tell Dorothy, the new owner of the building, that she's got a terrible rat problem."
"What?"
"And that the only way to fix it is to completely purge this area of everything in it."
It was difficult to see in the garish light of my cell phone, but I thought I saw a bit of purple showing up in her face, too. "You—you wouldn't do that—"
"Downstairs," I said. "Five minutes."
I didn't wait for an answer, clambering back through the attic and down the creaky stairs. I put the ladder in place and gave Dorothy the good news that there was no methane gas. She was quite relieved and seemed even more relieved to get me out of her house. The night air, clear and cold, nipped at my face. The snow appeared solider and slicker under the glare of the streetlamps, like the frosting on a cake.
I waited in the Prius with the engine off, my breath clouding in front of me. The street was quiet; most of the businesses were dark, most of the houses silent, a window or two shining yellow. It wasn't long before I saw the older woman in the fur coat flee the house, flee being the appropriate way to describe the way she hustled down the street. One minute after that, Madam Lavender also appeared, a big and bulky presence dressed in a thick purple coat with a high fanning gold collar, like something a queen might wear.
She waited outside my passenger door, arms tucked around that wide girth of hers, peering at me, waiting. I motioned impatiently for her to get into the car. She rolled her eyes at me and slipped through the door. The Prius, already tiny, felt like a phone booth with her sitting next to me. I smelled garlic and other spices.
"You could have at least opened the door for me," she huffed.
"You're a ghost," I said. "Nobody opens the door for you anymore."
"Still, it would have been nice to be treated like a lady again. Even if just for a minute."
"Sorry."
"And the way you burst in there like that! Do you realize how hard it's been to build up my practice again? I can't have it get out that the Ghost Detective is hanging around my place all the time!"
"Are you Mary Rittles or not?"
"I told you, my name is Madam—"
"Cut the crap, will you? Whatever name you use for your little racket, I don't care, I need to know if you were born Mary Rittles."
She sighed. "Well, what difference does it make, anyway? Yes, I used to go by Mary Rittles, for God's sake."
"Grandmother of Marilyn Rittles?"
All of that haughtiness, all of that melodramatic indignation she'd been putting on as a show, suddenly disappeared. She whirled around to face me with genuine fear in her eyes. "What do you know about my grandbaby?"
"Only that she led me to you."
"She's all right?"
"I wouldn't call her all right," I said, "but she's not in any danger. Do you know who Olivia Ray is?"
"I told you I don't. But"—she reached out and hovered her hand over my heart, closed her eyes, and threw her head against the chair with outlandish flair—"I do sense that this person is of dark importance to you. Very dark. Very important. I sense her bringing great change into your life. Someone from your past, perhaps? If you want to know more, we could—"
"Will you stop? Seriously."
She opened her eyes and blinked at me, hurt. "What?"
"I don't have time for this nonsense."
"Nonsense! This is my gift! My life's work!"
"I'll tell you what it is. It's a parlor act designed to part idiots from their money."
"Well!"
"People like you feed off people's loneliness. They're so desperate they can't see the obvious con game you're playing. And the fact that you didn't change your ways even after you died really disgusts me."
"How—how dare—"
"Save it. You don't know who Olivia Ray is, just admit it."
"I don't have to talk to you, you know!" she protested. "I don't have to do this. You can't make me. You should be much nicer to me."
"Really? You want the Ghost Detective to put the word out about your business? You know I can, right? Tell everyone what a fraud you are?"
She glared.
"But I won't if you help me. Are we going to get serious now, or are you going to keep putting on this little show?"
It didn't take her long to see the folly
of making things difficult for me. I told her about Olivia Ray's abduction and showed her the girl's picture on my phone. She hadn't heard of her, nor did she recognize her, but she admitted she didn't keep up with the news.
Reluctantly, because I wasn't keen on sharing some of the more unusual information about this case with a woman who didn't know the meaning of the word discreet, I told her about Olivia's strange abilities—her way with animals, her possible connection through people's dreams. I asked her if this meant anything to her. She said no. She asked why I was coming to her, and I told her that, too.
"Make merry with Mary Rittles," she said. "You really think that has something to do with me?"
"I'm not sure of anything right now."
"I don't know what that means. If it means anything."
"Really? You're a psychic and you don't have any idea what it means?"
Her face purpled up again, just as it had inside the house. "It's not the same thing!"
"Think! It has to mean something."
"Don't yell at me! I'm—I'm a very sensitive person. It has to do with my gift; it makes me terribly fragile. I can't—I can't handle people yelling. Especially the living. I'm extremely sensitive now, especially if I'm in close physical proximity to someone. I feel what they feel."
"Oh, come on!"
She started crying, big gulping tears. She bawled like a child, rocking back and forth in her seat, quite the display. The sobbing was so loud that I glanced around out of instinct, fearing someone might hear us, until I remembered that she was a ghost. Then I got irritated. Irritation quickly escalated into anger. Usually I would have been able to tamp down that anger, find a more strategic way to deal with her, some combination of sympathy and gentle prodding, but I didn't have time for this crap.
"Stop it!"
My shout resounded like a shotgun in the enclosed space. It shocked Mary Rittles into silence. She peered over the tops of her fists at me, eyes wide and fearful. Oh yes, she was afraid of me. They were all afraid of me, weren't they? I was an outcast among the living, and I was a living terror among the dead. It was just another way I straddled two worlds without fitting into either. Most of the time, I hated this lonely personal purgatory, hated everything about this limbo existence in which I lived, but I didn't hate it right now. I wanted her to fear me. I wanted them all to fear me. It was something I could use, and I was going to use it.
"Listen," I said, pointing a finger in her face, having a hard time even saying the word with my jaw so tight. "You listen. You hear me? You listen good. There's a little girl out there, you understand? Her parents are both dead now. She's totally alone. There's a very bad person who has her. I don't know what she wants, but she has her. I need to find her. You may be the key. I don't know. But you aren't going to make it harder for me, you understand? You're going to do your best to help me. I don't want any more bullshit."
She gazed at me for a long time, and I thought maybe I'd gone too far, had scared her to the point where she'd no longer be useful. I saw a young man down the street, headphones over his hoodie, stop and stare at me, then cross to the other side. From his point of view, I'd been screaming at an empty passenger seat. I looked up and saw a hawk perched atop one of the telephone poles, his gaze fixated on me as well. How long had he been watching? Had he been drawn by the noise, or was this Olivia's doing?
When Mary Rittles finally spoke, it was in the soft whine of the punished child.
"I'll—I'll try my best," she said.
"Good. Now I want you to think real hard about what this means. Why would she say to make merry with you?"
"I don't know. Really, I don't."
"Make you happy? Have fun with you? Usually that's what it means, right? It means to go out and have fun with people—singing, dancing, that sort of thing."
"I don't sing," she said. "I don't dance, either. My—my talents lie elsewhere."
"Well, it could have something to do with getting drunk, too, right? Drinking is often part of making merry. Were you much into drinking in your, um, living days?"
"No," she said firmly, "definitely not. I don't like to drink. I don't like the taste at all, and I don't like what it does to me."
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated.
"Mary."
"It's nothing. I mean, I don't think it could be anything. I'm just very much a lightweight. I can't hold my liquor at all. And I … Well, it's embarrassing. The few times I got drunk in my life, I couldn't remember anything that happened the previous night. It was all one big blackout. And that's not all. I also … I also do silly things sometimes. Or so people tell me."
"What kinds of silly things?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Mary, come on. This could be important."
She sighed and wrung her hands together, everything such a big deal, everything causing her such enormous distress. She struck me as the sort of person who spent much of her time making little problems into big problems. "People tell me I say strange things when I'm drunk. Nonsense things. I make up little rhymes sometimes. I don't know. I never remember any of it."
"I see."
"I don't know how this can be of any help to you. I really don't."
"These things you say, are they like … telling people's fortunes?"
"No, no, nothing like that. I'm a psychic! Don't you think I'd know?"
"Has anyone deliberately tried to get you drunk to get you to do this sort of thing?"
"No. Well, I don't know. Now that you mention it, maybe. Yes, there have been a few. They thought it would be funny, I guess. Why, what are you getting at? I don't understand."
I didn't understand either. I was tired of sitting in the cold. My fingers ached. I was hungry. I had this sense that all of this business about merry riddles being the person Mary Rittles might have been a complete waste of time. But something told me not to give up on it. What if this con artist actually wasn't such a con artist after all? What if she had some kind of power, but it could only be unlocked by her subconscious mind?
Truly, I hated this kind of metaphysical mumbo jumbo. Despite my current line of work, I remained, at heart, a man governed by reason and logic. Give me Carl Sagan over Deepak Chopra any day of the week. But I was running out of options. I didn't have any other leads, and even the leads I'd already pursued were being erased. I felt like a man walking along a beach, not sure where he was going and looking behind him to find that even his footprints had disappeared.
I felt lost. I needed something, anything, to keep me going.
"I think it's time to get drunk," I said.
Chapter 11
Except for a couple of teenagers making out in a little Mazda truck, Mt. Tabor City Park was empty. The night, the cold, the snow—the conditions had kept most people indoors, and I couldn't have asked for a better place to get raging drunk without drawing a lot of attention. Except for my house, of course. That probably would have been safer, but I wasn't going to bring a crazy con artist like Mary Rittles, a.k.a. Madam Lavender, into my home.
"I just don't see how this is going to work," she protested.
Even with the dome light off, I saw her clearly enough from the lights in the parking lot. She hunkered down in her seat, her chin disappearing behind the wide gold collar. Despite her size, she was quite good at playing the part of the pouty child. The gasoline engine continued to rumble. The vents kicked out a steady stream of heat, which forced the Prius to kick over to the gasoline engine now and then. Bad for fuel economy, but I wasn't going to do this in the cold.
I reached into the back seat and grabbed the paper sack with the six-pack in it, placing it on my lap. I pulled out the beer and crumpled up the sack, tossing it behind me. It was cheap mass-produced American beer, not usually my style, being more a local microbrew kind of guy. But it was easy to put down, which made it the ideal tool for accomplishing what I needed to accomplish.
"I don't see how this is going to work," Mary said.
In
the clear night, the city lights stretched out to the west, the streets forming a quilted pattern of parallel lines. The elevation of the park was only a couple hundred feet, but it still offered an impressive view on the best of days. This was one of the better ones. Except for the snow in the fir trees just beyond the guardrail, there was little sign in the view below that a snowstorm had enveloped the city. I checked my phone. Still no text back from Jak. I'd hoped she might accompany me on this little experiment, since I didn't want to drive afterward, but I also didn't want to call her. She might be in disguise as a homeless person, and the ringing of a cell phone could give her away.
"You know, there's a volcano here," Mary Rittles whined. "It could blow up at any moment."
"Seriously? You're worried about that?"
"Well, it is a volcano."
"It's technically a volcanic cinder cone, and it's been dormant for something like three hundred thousand years. I think you're safe."
"Well," she huffed, but that was the end of her objection.
"Look, I don't want to do this either. But if it's going to get me closer to finding Olivia Ray, I'm willing to try it. You said you can often feel what the living feel, right?"
"Yes."
"And you also said you turned on that lantern, right? The one up in the attic? That means you have some ability to interact with the physical world."
"It's not much, but yes."
"Well, then I'm thinking that if I get drunk, and you're still connected to me, then you'll get drunk too. Making merry. That's what we're trying to do. We make merry, have some fun, well, maybe something will happen."
"Like what?"
"I don't know! I told you, all I have is what Olivia told me."
She swallowed, the gulp so loud I heard it even over the whirring of the heater. "So, what, I have to—to touch you, then?"
The Ghost, the Girl, and the Gold Page 12
