Emily's Ghost (11 page)

They worked a little more
on what she'd begun to think of as the "chronicle," when the shrill
brrrring of the doorbell went off. The ghost jumped, and so did
Emily. "Hide!" she said without thinking. She ran to the door and
opened it to find a lanky, gawky kid from Domino's, balancing a
steaming cardboard box on the palm of his hand.

"Oh -- my wallet," she
said, her thoughts in disarray. "Wait there a sec."

She turned and found
herself face to face with the ghost, who smiled amiably and said,
"This is it? This is a peetsa?"

"My God -- what are you
standing here for?" she cried.

"You told me to wait
here," the Domino's boy said, confused.

"Don't move," she
commanded the boy. "Into the bedroom!
Now
," she practically shouted to the
ghost.

She turned back to the
delivery boy, who was pop-eyed with wonder. "My mom told me this
would happen," he said in a cracking voice. "Wow."

"Not you. Him," she
answered, jerking her head over her shoulder as she rifled through
her purse. She tracked down fifteen dollars and threw it at the
delivery boy, who barely had the chance to say, "Who?" before she
said, "Beat it," and slammed the door in his face.

Heart thundering, cheeks
on fire, she leaned her forehead into the door and whispered, "My
God. He didn't see him."

She waited a moment,
drawing a deep breath or two. The aroma of tomato sauce and onions
wafted up from the pizza box she held. Ghost or no ghost, she had
to eat. She dropped the box on the tiny oak dining table; then,
still standing, she slithered a slice of pizza away from the rest
of the pie and with both hands lifted it for that first,
satisfying, triangular bite. She polished off the slice, then
wandered over to the fridge, took out a Bud Lite, popped the top,
and took a long, thirsty pull of beer.
This has been one heck of a hell of a day
. She heaved a sigh; it came out a burp.

"Would that be
beer?"

"Yikes!" There he was,
perched on her Formica counter and looking wistful. Where he'd come
from, she hadn't a clue. "You know, it's very unnerving when you
evaporate and reappear like that. And yes, it's beer," she added,
annoyed that he'd caught her in a burp.

"In cans; fancy that." The
ghost shook his head, bemused. "Beer. There be few joys in life
more profound than a cold stein on a hot day. I do miss it," he
said softly.

He was making her feel
guilty, which annoyed her still more. Out of sheer spite -- and
forever after, she was sorry she did this -- she walked over to the
sink and poured the rest of the can down the drain. "It makes my
thinking fuzzy," was the excuse she offered him. "I'll stick to
coffee."

He looked almost hurt; she
chose not to see it. Hostages sometimes developed a bizarre
sympathy for their abductors; everybody knew that. But Emily would
not become a Patty Hearst for him or anyone else.

"Why are you looking that
way?" she demanded. "Am I really supposed to feel bad because you
can't have a cold one? What's the big deal about a glass of beer,
anyway?"

She watched the play of
emotions on his face--from shock to anger--and thought,
He reminds me of a woman, in some ways. He can't
hide his feelings at all.

But when he spoke, he
sounded one hundred per cent male. "Are all the women in this
pitiable age like ye? Cold, and defensive, and so eager for
battle?"

"I am not!" she cried,
stung. "You don't know anything about me. How can you? You haven't
let me get a word in edgewise."

"I didn't come all this
way just for ye to get a word in edgewise!" he answered hotly. "Yer
job is to find out who killed Hessiah Talbot --"

"Nothing to
it!"

"--and then make known the
murderer. That's all."

"And how am I supposed to
do that? We don't have town criers any more."

"It's news, ain't it?
Ye'll print it in yer newspaper."

"Are you
crazy
? I'd be the
laughingstock of Boston!"

"As near as I can tell, a
little laughter'd do you good."

"Out of the
question."

"You have no
choice."

"Don't I?" Her anger
goaded her. "Listen to me, O'Malley. I'm making you up. You don't
exist. My mind can create you; my mind can take you away. The pizza
boy didn't see you at all!" she said triumphantly.

He snorted. "And the
writing on the drawer?"

"That doesn't exist
either!" she cried, working herself into a frenzy of denial. "I
could have done it myself, in my sleep. Yes! I put it there, and
now I'll take it away." She rushed to a low kitchen drawer crammed
with odds and ends and pulled out a sheet of sandpaper and a
screwdriver. Then she ran into the bedroom, pulled out the drawer,
and dumped its contents on the bed. She removed the knobs and began
furiously to sand away the scorch marks, muttering bits and pieces
of incoherence all the while.

"It's stress, of course
... working too much ... the s
é
ance ... suggestible ... or worse
... in the family ... Uncle Jerry ... oh, God, after Vietnam ...
lost it ... his demons ... I forgot ... look at me ... what's
happening ... out, out ... please ... go ... hold on, hold on ...
later ... funny ... tell them ... Lee ... laugh ...."

Exhausted and in pain, her
tears falling in dark wet stains on the freshly sanded wood, Emily
ran, at last, out of steam. Her fingertips were on fire. She turned
her hand over slowly, dumbly, and stared. Her fingers were scraped
and raw. She'd sanded through her skin.

"What am I doing?" she
mumbled, letting her head drop to her chest, no longer fighting the
waves of sobs that rolled over her. "What am I doing ... what am I
doing ...."

*****

When she woke up it was
blackest night, and a driving, vindictive rain was pitching itself
through her open window. The wind was bending the tops of the
maples outside her third-floor bedroom; their heavy, wet branches
clawed at the side of the shingled house, pressing, insisting.
Emily sat up in bed. Her right hand buckled with pain. Wincing and
groggy, she staggered to the open, double-hung window and tried to
pull down the lower part. It stuck -- it always stuck -- and was
impossible to lower with only one hand.

She tried a combination of
forearm and good hand, but still the window resisted. With a moan
of despair Emily crawled back into bed and pulled the quilt up to
her chin. The rain pounded and bounced and made flying leaps from
the windowsill to her cheek, where it mingled with an occasional
tear. She'd never felt as alone and helpless in her life as she was
feeling now.

The room became suffused
with soft light -- no more than forty watts' worth-- and O'Malley
was there, sitting at the foot of her bed. He seemed less real to
her now, more shadowy. It made her feel less self-conscious. In her
tired and fanciful state, she wondered whether some of his essence
had been absorbed by the storm, or whether it was just that her
madness was subsiding.

"Feeling better?" he asked
in a kindly voice.

She rolled her head away.
"Not especially." He sounded as real as ever, she thought,
dispirited.

"Your thoughts seemed far
away."

"I was wondering," she
said to herself more than to him, "who will take care of me if I am
mad. All four of my brothers are married; all of them have wives
... and kids ...."

"Never fear, Emily. Ye're
not mad."

"I suppose I'll find out
tomorrow."

"When ye go off to
Newarth? Ye'll see I'm right."

"I don't want you to come
along," she said dully, thinking about the psychiatrist she planned
to see. "Not at first."

"What? Ye'll need my
help--" he argued, jumping up.

"Not at first," she
repeated. She pulled the quilt up over her shoulder and burrowed
into her pillow, signaling an end to the discussion. Reality or
delusion, she wanted him to go away.

For a long moment the only
sound was of the rain drumming on the roof. Finally O'Malley spoke,
in a voice of chilling calm. "All right. Since ye seem to think
I'll be a hindrance, I'll stay out of it for the present. But hear
me good: we made a bargain. I trust ye to keep it."

When Emily dared open her
eyes again, it was blackest night.

Monday morning was nothing
like Sunday night. With a bright warm sun to give her courage,
Emily marched defiantly out of her condo, determined to take her
problem and lay it at the feet of the man who started it all:
Senator Arthur Lee Alden III. Forget the psychiatrist. Forget the
library. What she wanted was something more along the line of
Ghostbusters, and it was the senator who came closest to fitting
the bill.

She slipped her key into
the door of her parked Corolla and glanced up at her third-floor
window, half expecting to see a shadowy figure move away from the
shutters. But there was no sign of Fergus O'Malley; nor had there
been all morning. It didn't matter. Hallucination or abomination,
shortly he was going to be someone else's problem. Emily wasn't too
proud to admit that she needed help on this one.

She drove directly to the
senator's office building in downtown Boston. Lee Alden would be in
Washington, but his secretary would know his schedule, and his aide
would be able to add to it. She found Mrs. Cusack behind her desk,
looking as sensible as ever. The secretary let her know that the
senator wasn't due back until the end of the week. Was there, she
asked Emily pleasantly, a problem with the upcoming
interview?

Emily answered just as
pleasantly, "Not at all. But it's rather important that I speak
with him, even if only by phone."

As if on cue Jim Whitewood
popped his head out of his office and said, "Millie, I've got the
senator on the horn and I can't find the day care file. Is it on
your desk?"

"No. I'll help you look."
She stood up and Jim Whitewood withdrew without a glance at Emily.
The secretary paused and reconsidered, then pressed the blinking
button on her phone line. "Senator? I have Emily Bowditch next to
me. She needs to speak with you. Do you have a moment, while we
look for the file? Good."

With a smile that might
have meant anything she handed the phone to a dumbstruck Emily and
went off in pursuit of the aide.

"Emily?" Lee Alden's
voice, deep and assured, rocketed through her. "What's
up?"

Oh, sure, let's talk
ghosts
, Emily thought wildly. She kept a
watchful eye through the open door on the distracted pair and said
in a whisper, "Look, Senator, there's been a complication. It has
to do with the s
é
ance." Only then did she remember that Lee Alden had left her
in a huff afterward. It seemed a hundred years ago.

And yet he sounded
friendly enough -- even glad to be talking with her. "If you tell
me you've sold your story to the
National
Enquirer
, I'll be disappointed," he said
dryly.

"Nothing like that," she
answered, intensely preoccupied. The other two could return any
second. "But that night, I think something got ...
loose."

"You mean, like a
parakeet?"

"No. Not a parakeet." Mrs.
Cusack, who'd stuck her head around the corner to see if Emily were
still on the phone, gave her a curious look.

"Emily, this may not be
the appropriate forum for 'Twenty Questions'," the senator
suggested at the other end. "Tell me what it is that got loose at
the s
é
ance."

Emily turned her body away
from the open door and cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. "A
goddamned ghost, that's what."

There was no response.
Then she heard Jim Whitewood's voice on an extension: "Hello?
Hello, Senator?"

The senator's voice came
in at last, cool and detached: "Thanks for the tip, Ms. Bowditch.
I'll take it under advisement."

Emily hung up and got out
of there before Jim Whitewood had the chance to tell her what a
nitwit she was -- assuming he'd heard her. On the other hand, if
anyone would believe her, presumably he was the one. Unless he was
a fraud and opportunist. Or unless he thought she was making it all
up to -- who knew? -- get in bed with Lee Alden. Any way she looked
at it, it was a mortifying thought.

When she got to work the
first thing Stanley Cooper said was, "What happened to your
hand?"

Apparently she'd been
favoring it; she cursed Stan's relentless powers of observation and
said, "Burned it." She slung her purse over the back of her chair
and that's when she saw the telephone message written, thank God,
not in Stan's handwriting: "
Concerning the
parakeet, call at noon
."

"Getting a new
pet?"

Ah, shit, he saw
it.

She avoided looking at
Stan. "No. Yes. Why not?"