One-Eyed Jack (12 page)

I hesitated. I bit my lip. I’d already
told a few lies, and telling another shouldn’t have been a big
deal, but all the same, what I finally said wasn’t a lie. “Yeah, I
think I do.”

He considered that, then nodded. “I
think we’re done for now,” he said. “How about you get some sleep
in a holding cell, and in the morning you can show us where you
found the kid? It ain’t much of a bed, but it’s better than that
car.”

“
Fine,” I said. “That’d be
fine.”

So that’s what I did.

The holding cell had four or five
phantoms lurking in it, but they were all pretty insubstantial, and
even though the one that kept pulling its own guts out through its
navel was seriously disturbing, I decided I could put up with them.
After all, I didn’t need to watch, and it always put the innards
back, apparently unharmed. I curled up on the cot and went to
sleep.

And for the first time in several
days, I didn’t dream.

Chapter Eight

I was roused by someone calling,
“Gregory Kraft! Front and center!”

I rolled off the bunk and stood up,
and wished I’d somehow managed to get my bag from the car, because
my clothes were disgusting. Not only had I slept in them, but they
had Jack’s blood on them, not to mention plenty of dirt and sweat.
I tried to brush them into some semblance of presentability as I
looked around and spotted the cop holding the cell door
open.

Detective Skees was standing in the
hallway beyond. I was not happy to see that he looked annoyed; I
had thought we were going to go out to the crime scene on friendly
terms. “Good morning,” I said to him as I stepped out.

“
For you,” he said. “Your
alibi’s been confirmed, among other things, and I’m supposed to
release you. Not that I was actually holding you.” He jerked his
head, and I followed him.

I wasn’t sure at first where we were
going; I’d assumed we were heading for somewhere I could reclaim my
cellphone and then we could drive out to the scene, but he led me
back to the interrogation room.

There wasn’t anyone else there, which
I was pretty sure wasn’t standard procedure; there’d always been
two cops around when I was being questioned. The red light on the
camera wasn’t on, either. I had a momentary fear I was about to get
the crap beaten out of me, though that didn’t really seem like
Skees’ style and I didn’t know any reason he would be any angrier
with me than he was the night before. He was obviously not happy
with me, but I didn’t know why.

“
Mr.
Kraft,” he said, “I can’t hold you, or ask you to do anything you
don’t want to, but because of
why
I can’t, I’d like
to.”

“
You said my alibi was
good,” I said, trying to speak as calmly and mildly as I could. “Is
there a problem?”

“
Your
alibi for the
first
attack is absolutely solid,” he said. “Your boss
and your co-workers all swear you were at work that day, there’s no
record of anyone flying here, and you didn’t have time to drive. So
you’re off the hook for Jack Wilson’s finger, but you
were
here when someone
or something popped his eye out of its socket, and I could have
held you for that if it weren’t for your friends.”

I blinked. I wasn’t very awake yet.
“What friends?” I asked.

“
Two congressmen and a
senator.” The look on Skees’ face as he said it made me rethink
that whole thing about beating up suspects not being his
style.

“
Oh,” I said. I didn’t
know any congressmen, but I could guess who did. “Um... did you
talk to...” I caught myself before saying “Mel,” and finished,
“...to Melisandra de Cheverley?”

He shuddered. “I did. That is one
scary friend you have there, Mr. Kraft, and she did not appreciate
being woken up by my call. I would guess that was why I heard from
those other folks not long after.”

“
I didn’t ask her to call
anyone, Detective, honest.”

“
I believe you, which is
why I’m not going to make trouble for you about this.”

“
If you really thought I’d
ripped out that kid’s eye, I don’t think you’d let me go no matter
who Mel sicced on you.”

“
You’re right.”

He didn’t say anything more, and for a
moment we both just stood there, looking at each other. When the
silence started to get uncomfortable, I said, “You wanted me to
show you where I found the kid?”

“
We probably already have
the spot, but yeah, if you could come verify it, we’d appreciate
it.”

“
I’ll do whatever I can to
help,” I said.

He nodded, then pulled my phone out of
his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I took it without saying
anything and put it away.

We didn’t talk as we made our way out
of the police station and into his car, but when he put the car in
gear and started backing out I said, “Detective, I’d like to clear
the air here, if I can. I swear, I didn’t ask Mel to do anything. I
said she could find me a lawyer if she thought I needed one, but
that’s all. She... she’s just used to getting her own
way.”

He didn’t answer right
away, but once we made the turn onto Midland Avenue he said, “I’ll
bet she is. How does she
do
that?”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant. “I
don’t think she can help it,” I said. “It’s been like that since
high school.”

He hadn’t expected that. “Are we
talking about the same thing?” he asked.

“
The fact that you can’t
talk to her without being frightened half to death?”

“
Yeah, that.”

“
She
can’t help it. She can’t turn it off. She’s
always
like that. It’s a
curse.”

I thought he would assume I was
speaking figuratively, but I underestimated him. He thought about
it for a moment, and then, as we turned off Winchester Road, he
asked, “Do you know who cursed her?”

“
Mrs. Reinholt,” I said.
“Our high school history teacher.”

He glanced at me. “You’re
serious?”

I lost a little of my nerve. “Let’s
just say, I’m as sure of it as I’m sure that I came here because I
dreamed about Jack Wilson talking to a woman’s ghost.”

He grimaced. “Your history
teacher?”

“
Eleventh grade,” I said. “Mrs. Audrey Reinholt.
The
late
Mrs. Audrey Reinholt.”

“
So Ms. de Cheverley
wasn’t born with it?”

I shook my head. “You
think she’d have survived infancy if she was? Babies have enough
problems when their parents
aren’t
terrified to be near them.”

He took that in silently, then nodded.
He didn’t say anything more until we pulled up to the side of the
street, right behind a cop car that was parked just behind my
rental car. “Mind if we search that?” he asked, pointing at the
Chrysler as he put the car in Park. There were two uniformed cops
standing beside it.

“
As long as you don’t
damage it,” I said. “It’s a rental, and I waived the optional
insurance.” I fished the keys out of my pocket and handed them
over.

He took them, and as we got out of the
car he tossed them to one of the cops. “Search it. Don’t break
anything.”

“
We looking for anything
in particular?” the cop asked, eyeing me.

I expected him to say something about
blood or weapons, but his first words surprised me. “A phone,” he
said.

Then he got to the obvious. “Blood.
Fibers. Hair. Photos. Notes. The usual.”

“
A phone?” I asked, as we
walked past the car onto the field. “I gave you my
phone.”

“
You’re smart enough to
give us one and hide another.”

“
I am?”

He didn’t deign to answer that. “Show
me where you found the kid,” he said.

I led him past various people who were
looking at the ground, or photographing the area, or otherwise
inspecting the scene, to the spot where Jack had been lying. Skees
beckoned to a couple of cops.

“
Here,” he said. “This is
where the kid was.” He bent over, looking at the ground; I couldn’t
tell whether Jack had left a mark, but maybe Skees
could.

Then he looked at the
bushes.

“
So,” he said, “where was
the ghost?”

I blinked. “What?”

“
The ghost.”

I pointed at the forsythia. “In
there,” I said.

“
Is it there
now?”

This was not a line of questioning I
was prepared for; up until now the only person who had ever taken
my visions seriously was Mel. “I can’t tell,” I said. “I can’t see
ghosts in daylight.”

He turned to stare at me. “But you can
see them at night? When you’re awake?”

I met his gaze. “Sometimes,” I said.
Which wasn’t quite a lie; if it was very, very dark, or if I had my
eyes closed, I didn’t see the night creatures, and 95% of the time
was technically “sometimes.”

“
You aren’t still claiming
it’s all hypothetical?”

I shrugged. “I will if you’d prefer
that. Last night you didn’t seem to like the idea that I see things
other people don’t.”

He turned away. “Last night I hadn’t
talked to the de Cheverley girl. She told me about your
dreams.”

“
You believe
her?”

“
I sure believe that
there’s something unnatural about her. My hands were shaking, you
know that? Just talking to her on the phone.”

He didn’t look at me while he spoke;
he was studying the forsythia. Before I could reply, he called,
“Jensen, I want these bushes checked out – I think our perp may
have hidden in there.”

“
Yessir.” One of the cops
signaled to someone carrying a leather case.

“
Show me where you went,”
Skees said.

I showed him, retracing my steps as
best I could given the drastically different circumstances –
walking in bright sunlight is not the same as carrying a bleeding
kid in the middle of the night.

When we came out on the street I
walked a little further, then stopped. “This is where your officers
took over,” I said.

Skees nodded, and looked around,
taking in every detail. “Was Jenny still around?” he asked. “Or did
she take off?”

“
She followed us,” I said.
I pointed. “She stopped over there and watched. Once Jack was in
the ambulance, I didn’t see her anymore.”

“
She didn’t want another
bite?”

“
I don’t know what she
wanted,” I said. I hesitated, then asked, “How’s Jack
doing?”

Skees didn’t look at me. “The doctors
say he’ll live.”

That wasn’t actually very helpful; I’d
never thought his injuries might be fatal. “That’s good,” I
said.

At that the detective turned to look
at me. “You want to talk to him?”

I hadn’t expected that. “I... I don’t
know,” I said.

“
His parents might want to
talk to you.”

“
Anything I can do to
help,” I told him.

He looked at me for a moment, then
nodded.

The hospital was on the University of
Kentucky campus, halfway across town. We didn’t actually get there
for about another two hours, what with looking over the scene, and
more questions, and paperwork, but eventually I was in a waiting
room with the Wilsons, explaining that I’d been out for a late walk
and heard Jack whimpering and found him, and I didn’t see who
attacked him, I didn’t know anything about it.

Skees knew I was lying, but he didn’t
contradict me. We both knew I wasn’t about to tell them the truth,
after all. In fact, while he didn’t actually confirm my story, he
said, “We’ve been interviewing Mr. Kraft, and while we haven’t
finished our investigation, we don’t believe he was a party to the
attack.”

That was good to hear.

We talked a little more, and then came
the moment I’d been both dreading, and hoping for – Bill Wilson
said, “You want to see Jack?”

“
If I could,” I
said.

“
You may have saved his
life,” Jack’s mother said – I’d been introduced, so I knew her name
was Emily.

“
I didn’t do anything
special,” I murmured.

Then they ushered me into the kid’s
room. It was a double room, but the other bed was empty. Jack had
the one by the window.

He was lying on his back, the head of
the bed raised slightly, with bandages and tape covering the empty
socket while he stared at the ceiling with his remaining eye. He
looked strained and tired, and he didn’t move when we entered,
didn’t acknowledge us.

He almost shimmered, though. The kid
definitely had psychic ability – either that, or for the past eight
years I’d been misinterpreting that weird badly-photoshopped
effect.