Good Lord, Deliver Us (8 page)

Shouldering the lumpy bag, the ghost
hunter came in after him, turning to close the door.

Shut inside at last, Z clicked off his
little light to save its battery, Stewart producing a tiny
flashlight of his own to begin what looked like a laser scalpel
dissection of the small room.

Meanwhile, Z let the heavy batteries
carry the cart forward until the simple machine's front was firmly
on the floor.

The ghost hunter slicing the room here
-- and there -- the living room gradually emerged.

No furniture. Some old newspapers
underfoot. Green wallpaper. Standard, 9-foot ceiling. Dirty
hardwood floor. No curtains.

Rooms without curtains had always
given Z the chills, their lidless windows glaring at him like
blind, reproachful eyes.

In spite of the warm air trapped in
that long-closed space, Z shuddered.

Could it be that this empty place
reminded Z of the bare rooms in which his Mother had taken too long
to die?

"This way," Stewart said, stabbing his
light through the arch at the back of the hall. "I think we'll use
the guest bedroom on the other side of the house from the
neighbors."

"You been here before?"

"Ashlock gave me the floor plan to the
place."

No doubt about who was the
superior partner of
this
team. "Yes, Massah'. Just tell 'ol Toby what to
do, Massah,'" -- what Z
felt
like saying ... but didn't.

The undersized ghost hunter leading --
Z still not getting anything but a shadowy look at him -- Z wheeled
the battery pack through the arch and down the short hall to the
right, then into the open-doored bedroom.

A stingy room. Dirty-white wallpaper.
Scuffed hardwood floor.

No bed. No dresser.

The room's only furnishing was a
mattress; a worn-out, king-sized job that took up most of the
cramped room's floor space.

Nothing else "haunted" the
bedroom but a short length of closet to the right, abused-wood
folding door crowded to one side, a few rusty coat hangers clinging
to a fat, wood rod. Maybe the ghost would rattle them just for
laughs, Z thought. Shake up both hangers
and
the ghost hunter.

Circling behind Z, Stewart closed the
bedroom door with a hollow thwack.

Stepping back, the man lowered his
twill sack to the mattress' bare, striped ticking, bending down to
spread open the bag's drawstring top.

Holding the narrow light so he could
see, Mr. Ghost Hunter began rummaging around inside -- but quickly
changed his mind -- stopping to stick the back of the penlight in
his mouth. Clamping the back of the light in his teeth so he could
see, at the same time get both hands in the bag, Mr. "Hunter" took
out what looked like a folded piece of heavy black cloth, laying
the cloth on the mattress. A second dip in the bag produced ... a
hammer. Fumbling inside again, he retrieved a small, clear plastic
box that, by the look and rattle of it, had to be nails.

Stewart turned in Z's direction;
looked up. "Tha thin' a thu," Stewart lisped, stopping to take the
penlight out of his mouth so he could be understood, "is to nail
this over the window." As an indicator, Stewart shined the beam on
the cloth, the thick black pad refusing to reflect the light, the
beam itself visible because it silvered dust-motes stirred up in
the grimy room.

The place smelled ... dry. ... Stale.
.....

"That way, no light will shine out. If
we're careful to switch off the lamp when we need to open the
bedroom door, we'll maintain the blackout."

Meaning, get your unessential ass over
there and nail the cloth over the window.

Z sighed.

Taking a long step forward, bending to
pick up the cloth, hammer, and box of nails, Z straightened to walk
around the end of the mattress to the room's single window on the
"far" wall.

The little man trying to hold the
light where it would do the most good, Z fumbled the plastic box
open, managing to get a number of the short, flat-headed nails out
and into his mouth. Setting the box on the floor and the hammer on
the window sill, Z reached up to spread the cloth over the
window.

Allowing the bulk of the material to
drop but holding the top corner of the drapery to the upper left
window frame, transferring the first nail from his mouth to that
hand, picking up the hammer, Z tacked the cloth to the frame,
continuing to nail the thick fabric across the dark-stained top of
the window frame.

Finished above, Z tacked a line of
nails through the cloth into the wood sills down both sides, then
nailed the bottom along the window ledge.

The window "buttoned up," the ghost
hunter turned the light away, leaving a once-more-useless Z alone
in the dark.

Z turned; stooped to toss the hammer
back on the mattress.

For Stewart's part, he was fumbling in
the open sack again, something coming out, Stewart standing to step
over to the batteries on the dolly. Penlight in his teeth once
more, the ghost hunter made some metal clicks followed by a loud
snap, the room exploding in light!

Instinctively putting his hands over
his eyes to filter out the sudden glare, Z was gradually able to
blink his eyes back to normal, finding that, rather than the
arc-light it had seemed to be in the cave-black room, Stewart had
plugged a small lamp into the battery pack and switched it
on.

And one more thing of
interest. ...... Now that Z's eyes had adjusted to the light, a
look at the ghost hunter revealed something Z had
not
expected.

Jamie Stewart ... ghost hunter
extraordinaire ... was a girl!

* * * * *

A girl! And from what Z could see of
her, a shapely one. (Her checkered, tucked-in work shirt was a lot
tighter than he'd thought when he believed her to be a
man.)

Undersized for a male, she was about
average height for a female: perhaps five-foot four. (Susan was
more like five-ten, a better "fit" for someone Z's size.) Jamie
Stewart had a shiny bob of straight, blond hair, violet-blue eyes,
high cheekbones, dimples and full, "pouty" lips.

"What?" she asked defensively,
glancing over to catch Z staring at her.

High-pitched for a man, her voice was
low ... for a girl.

"You're a woman."

"The last time I looked." Her
enigmatic smile showed small, white, even teeth. While
braces-perfect teeth had always intimidated Z, that was the only
flaw he'd seen in the girl so far.

"I didn't know."

"A name like Jamie
can
... swing both
ways." Again, the cloudy smile, the girl leaning back against the
wall by the lamp, hands at ease, fingers interlocked in front of
her. "Which has gotten me some jobs I wouldn't have been hired for
otherwise." Said almost defiantly. Z thought about how it
was
his
practice
to try to sign up clients over the phone. Big and ugly -- while an
asset in some aspects of the detective business -- could frighten
off a prospect.

The girl paused; brought her hands up
to smooth her fine, shiny hair; shook her hair loose again,
girl-style. A light frown creased her forehead. "That didn't seem
to be the case, here, though. Ashlock hired me after a personal
interview."

Z was
sure
of
that
.

There didn't seem to be much else to
say on the subject of employment.

"For now, there's more equipment in
the truck ...."

"I'll get it." Women like this were
made for inspiration, not perspiration.

"I'll need to come, too. To show you
what to bring."

That settled, putting a tapered,
delicate-fingered hand into the slit pocket in her dark slacks, Ms.
(Mrs.? Miss?) Stewart brought out her thin penlight.

No wedding ring.

The lack of a ring meant
less than it used to, of course.
Wearing
a wedding ring meant less
than it used to.

Switching on her little light,
kneeling down, snapping off the table lamp, the girl straightened
to open the door.

First shining her light into the hall,
she slipped out, Z following the girl until they were out of the
house's front door into the oxygen-rich evening air; down the walk;
through the gate; and across the street to the truck.

Several times.

On the third trip out, Z took his
detective case back to his car. (The girl was so at ease with this
ghost business Z saw no need for his satchel of
"goodies.")

Returning to the tiny
bedroom with the last of the containers, the little room getting
even smaller as it filled up with boxes, the door firmly shut, Miss
Stewart -- Z had decided to think of her as
Miss
-- squatted down to turn on the
white-shaded table lamp.

Rising with the desk light in hand,
she stretched the lamp cord from the battery cart in order to place
the lamp on top one of the larger boxes.

After that, putting away the penlight,
the girl kneed several containers to the edge of the
mattress.

Sitting down on the pad, the springs
inside barely squeaking under her 110 (soaking-wet) pounds, Miss
Stewart slipped the canvas shoes off her small feet. After that,
contorting first one slim ankle under her, then the other -- she
assumed the always intriguing, knees wide, "pretzel" position only
young girls could manage.

Wiggling herself comfortable, the girl
set about the task of unpacking by stripping a length of gray duct
tape from the top of a box, wadding the tape into a sticky ball and
placing it on the floor at her feet. Spreading open the cardboard
"wings" that formed the lid of the box, she began scratching
inside, scooping away plastic-worm packing, eventually taking out
what looked like an underwater camera.

Beasts of burden no longer needed, Z
stood awkwardly by the door, Z sweating a little in the too-still
air, wishing he could open the cloth-draped window he'd so
carefully blacked out.

As if just remembering he was there,
the girl looked up; noticing he was ill at ease, flashed him the
high-voltage smile girls use to warm men to the bone. "Not much you
can do -- for now." Even her foggy voice was ... cute. "It's just a
matter of deciding what I want to use and where to put
it."

"Have you been ... a ghost hunter ...
for long?"

"Ghost hunter?" She looked up at him
and smiled. "Since I went to Duke. You know, parapsychology?" Z did
remember something about quirks of the mind being studied at Duke
University. "Didn't that program ....?"

"Fail," she finished matter-of-factly,
ripping another piece of duct tape off the top of a smaller box,
strips of cardboard tearing with the tape to reveal the box's
corrugated bones. "Asking a blindfolded subject to guess what card
was drawn from a fifty-two pack. Telling someone to concentrate on
a circle, wavy line, square, rectangle, or triangle -- a psychic
trying to 'read' that figure in the subject's mind." She shook her
high-fashion-model head as if remembering unpleasant
times.

Again, she looked up at Z with
penetrating blue eyes. "You're right. They all failed. 'Gifted'
subjects who tried to move objects by psychokinesis. The
spoon-benders. Levitators, table-rappers, conjurers, and ESP freaks
as well as faith healers, astrologers, numerologists, and
prophets."

"No truth to any of it?"

"None."

"But you ....?"

"Check out hoaxes."

"The lights? A hoax?" Z gave a wave
that took in the whole house.

"Could be. Maybe done cleverly. Maybe
not." Again, the mysterious smile flickered at the corners of the
girl's mouth. Looking at her more than paying attention to what she
was saying -- Z noticing that not even a "beauty" mark flawed the
young woman's juicy looking skin -- he realized she was still
speaking. "... every trick in the book. Have to go some to fool
me," she finished, Z deciding not to ask her to repeat the first
part of what she'd said.

There could be no doubt
about why the Vice Chancellor had hired Jamie Stewart (other than
that she was pretty.)
She
didn't believe this ghost nonsense any more than
Mr. Vice.

Goodbye TV special on the
supernatural. Goodbye house.

"Of course, there's always
the
possibility
there's something ... out there." Again, Miss. Stewart smiled
her withdrawn smile. "A real ghost. A poltergeist. If so, I'm going
to be the first to discover it." She frowned. "No chance of a
genuine spook, though. Jobs like this are the result of somebody
breaking and entering." She smiled again. "Either way, it's extra
money.

"I generally work for city
government."

Z had a comforting
thought. If some nutcase was playing a mindless prank, it could be
that this young and pretty -- bordering on beautiful -- girl
did
need a big, ugly guy
to protect her.