Possession (17 page)

She peered at me, her half smile holding steady. “It’s not an impression. It’s true. What made you think of it?”

“I met a woman named Mae. . . .”

“Purple skirt, beer can hat?”

I nodded, watching her closely. She returned my intense gaze.

“That was Lois Brown. They called her Mae West because of her bosom and her salty language. She used to be a regular in the market and she lived in one of the low-income apartments here until she died in 1995. Her ashes were buried under the white plum tree in the secret cemetery. The tree put out purple blossoms after that until they pulled it up in 2007. There were a lot of other people buried there—Indians, other market people. Since they started working on the tunnel, the tree they planted there hasn’t bloomed. If you saw Mae, maybe she’s not the only one of those buried in the market who can’t rest.”

“Where is the secret cemetery?”

“Across from Kells, in the Soames-Dunn courtyard.” She handed me the napkin she’d written on. “If they’re unhappy, maybe it’s the ghosts who are causing these problems—like the one that hurt Jordan.”

The idea hadn’t crystallized to that degree in my own head until Mindy spoke it, but it had been forming there. I wasn’t certain, but it did cast an interesting light on the relationship between Sterling, Goss, and Delamar: They’d all been injured in ways associated with the tunneling under Pike Place Market and both Sterling and Delamar had been in contact with the dirt from the tunnel. I wondered if the same was true of Goss. . . .

I took the paper with a frisson running down my back. “Thank you.”

Mindy nodded and picked up her hat. “You’re welcome. Come back and tell me how Jordy’s doing, won’t you?”

I said I would and watched her go, discomfited by my thoughts.

ELEVEN

_T
he address
Mindy gave me led me to a small long-term care facility that was not quite in Capitol Hill. I parked outside and looked at the building without enthusiasm. Hospitals are not fun places for me; their complex layers of history and emotional residue make them look nearly black to my Grey sight. Even a brand-new facility quickly accrues a burden of anxiety, fear, and pain and the places where we hide people so we don’t have to watch them die are among the worst. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, trying to ease the discomfort in the injured one before I plunged into the darkness that lay before me. Nothing changed except that I wanted eyedrops.

I took Chaos out of my bag and put her in the small travel cage in the rear with a bowl of water and some kibble. She danced a bit, frustrated that I was leaving her, and I wished I wasn’t, but hospitals were not good places for ferrets and I knew she’d be fine for an hour now that the drizzle was starting up again. With a sigh, I got out of the Land Rover and headed inside to find Jordan Delamar.

Since I had the room number, I didn’t bother with the front desk, but walked straight through to the elevators and into the heart of the facility, concentrating on my good eye to keep me out of the swirling eddies of ghost-stuff. No one stopped me, but then, it was midday and well within visiting hours and I didn’t look like a troublemaker or a vagrant—in this neighborhood both were common enough.

Delamar’s room was a single, but I still crept in like a penitent into a church. I invade people’s privacy as part of my job, but I don’t enjoy it much and the hospital made me more aware of my trespass than usual—all those angry phantoms staring at me as if I should have done something for them. Ghosts don’t understand the apparent indifference and inattention of the living. They also have no sense of time. The ugly apparition that loomed in the doorway didn’t even know it was dead, badgering me with a roaring complaint as I passed through it, trying not to flinch.

“Hello?” I said in a low voice, noticing a figure sitting beside the bed that was wreathed with a ring of anxious ghosts in a boil of Grey mist.

The young black man in the chair raised his head, blinking as if he’d been asleep, though I knew he hadn’t. “Hello? Can I help you? Are you the social worker?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I am trying to find Jordan Delamar, though. I’m a private investigator. My name’s Harper Blaine.”

The man stood up, seeming confused. “I don’t understand. What do you want with Jordy? He’s . . . he’s not well. You can see that. Is it the insurance?”

I shook my head again, smiling reassurance. “No, nothing like that. Nothing bad. I’m trying to help another patient like Jordan. I just wanted to talk to you or his caregivers about his condition.”

In the bed, Jordan Delamar rolled his head to the side, but gave no other sign of animation. His arms lay on top of the covers, pale brown skin slack over too-prominent bones.

“His condition? You mean the PVS?” the man asked. “It hasn’t changed. He’s still . . . just like this.” He waved at the angular shape under the blanket. His lower lip trembled very slightly and he blinked too rapidly. “What could you possibly want to know that would help anyone?”

“I want to know about the episodes—the strange things that can’t be happening, but are.”

The man sat back down, hitting the chair seat hard. “No. There’s nothing going on. Nothing.” He shook his head.

A shadow as dark as oil smoke pressed down over the bed and the rest of the ghosts broke away, floating out toward the corners of the room. Delamar stirred slightly and his lips parted with a small wet sound. The other man looked down at him and then rose as he lunged forward, trying to cover the patient’s arms with his hands. Delamar’s limbs were so thin and his protector’s hands so large that it almost worked, but I could still see the eruption of blood red words that scored the patient’s skin, flowing as if they were being written before my eyes.

“What does it say?” I asked.

The man shook his head frantically. “Nothing. It doesn’t say anything. It’s just . . . it’s a rash.”

I stepped closer, coming up next to the man beside the bed, and looked down at the script now scribbling itself up Delamar’s arms and vanishing under his pajama top, appearing swiftly in the collar opening and glowing through the thin cloth across his chest.

“It’s dermographia,” I said.

The man stared at me. “It’s what? Is that a disease?”

“No,” I said, amazed. “It’s ghost writing. It’s a technique fake mediums used to use in séances. They scratched their skin and the scratches would swell up and turn red.”

The man turned on me, glaring and pushing me back. “It’s not fake! Jordan’s sick! These rashes—they’re not his fault!”

I put up my hands and didn’t resist him. “I know that. I can see it. I know it’s real.”

The man dropped his hand from my arms. “You do? Everyone else thinks I’m doing it to him. They tried to bar me from the room for a while but I won that fight. I wish—I wish this wasn’t happening.”

“I know you do. No one would want this.”

“You believe me?”

“Yes. I see the same thing you do.” I wished I could read the whole message, but the script was difficult to begin with—spidery and shaky—and the words were mostly under the patient’s shirt. All I could see were the words “Limos tribu . . .” on one arm and “broken wheel” on the other. At least I now had another reference to wheels and I thought I might understand Cannie Trimble’s reference to ashes, too—the ashes of the dead scattered in the market’s secret cemetery. “How long has this been happening?”

The man backed away from me and fell again into his chair, letting out a sound like a sob of relief as he put his head in his hands. “Months. Since April at least. It’s hard to remember. Every day’s the same. . . .”

I spotted another chair and pulled it up beside his so I could sit with him. “You come here every day?”

“Since the beginning. It’s been hard. . . . I had to lie about our relationship so they wouldn’t throw me out, but no one asks you to prove you’re a relative.”

“What’s your name?”

He stared at me, frightened. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just to be polite. My name’s Harper Blaine,” I repeated, offering him my hand. “What can I call you?”

He hesitated, shivering, then took my hand in a grip that was cold with sweat. “Levi. Levi Westman. Jordan—called me Westie.”

“I’ll stick with Levi, if that’s all right.”

“That’s fine.” He was trembling harder and his control was crumbling. “You really believe me? You believe I’m not doing it?”

“I can see you’re not doing it. I know what it is. It’s not you. I believe you.”

He broke down and cried quietly for a minute before mumbling through his fingers, “Thank God. Thank God someone believes me. I’ve been so scared—too scared to tell anyone what’s been going on in case they made me leave. They almost made me go once before but I . . . I tricked them into letting me stay. They don’t know about us. They’d make me leave if they knew!”

“You and Jordan are partners.”

He nodded, trembling, fighting to regain his self-control. In a moment he wiped his eyes with the hem of his shirt and raised his face. “Yes. We—we’re partners.”

“Then why would they make you leave?”

“We didn’t get married. That stupid election . . . we were going to, but then they put the referendum for affirmation on the ballot and we couldn’t. And then it was affirmed, but . . . Jordy was injured before we could do it. And I’m not legally a spouse, so I don’t actually have any right to be here. But he doesn’t have any family in the area, so . . . no one questioned me at first. Now, I just keep on lying. So I can stay with him.”

In 2011 Washington’s voters had passed the Marriage Equality Act, which gave same-sex couples the privilege to marry legally and enjoy the same protections under the law as heterosexual couples. A religious group had called the law into question before it went into effect and the referendum had gone back onto the ballot for affirmation in 2012. In spite of strong lobbying by the political right, the law had been affirmed by a solid margin, and gay and lesbian couples had rushed to make their partnerships legally binding. Without the paperwork, however, Westman didn’t technically have the same rights to visit his spouse or make decisions about his care. With no other family in the area to back up his decisions, Westman was walking a very dangerous line.

“What would happen to Jordan if you were forced to leave?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose they’d need to talk to his folks or . . . they might make him a ward of the state. I don’t know what would happen then, and it scares me. This is awful. And then this strange thing—these messages—started. I don’t know what they are or what they mean.”

“Have you been keeping copies of them?”

“No. It’s too freaky. Why?”

“I think it’s connected to two other cases with similar events.”

“What does that mean? ‘Similar events’?”

“There are other PVS patients who are manifesting strange activity, like the messages on Jordan’s arms. It’s not the same thing, but I think it’s of a piece.” I didn’t want to raise his anxiety further, but I knew time was short. “I’m sure Jordan’s doctor has told you that the longer a patient remains this way, the less likely his recovery becomes. One of the other patients seems to be failing, so there is some pressure to figure out why this is happening as quickly as possible. If I have all the pieces to the puzzle, we might discover what’s causing it and come up with a way to help all of them.”

“Really?” Westman grabbed my hands. “Will it make him better?”

“I don’t know. It may be that all I can do is make the messages stop. But wouldn’t it be worthwhile to try?”

“Yes! I’d rather have Jordy back, but it would be something, at least, not to see him in this state,” he said, waving at the angry marks that lingered on Delamar’s skin.

“Would you be willing to copy this message down for me?”

“Yes! But we don’t have to write it all down—I can use my phone to take pictures if you’ll help me. . . .” He seemed uncomfortable asking for a favor, the energy around him flickering orange and green.

Assisting with the photos was uncomfortably intimate and I wished I could look away, not invade their privacy or witness the wasting state of Delamar’s body and Westman’s painful sadness at revealing it piece by piece, moving sheets or the shirt aside with care and then covering him again gently. We closed the door and worked in methodical silence until every line of swollen, bloody words had been recorded.

Then we sat down again, not speaking, not looking at each other. Westman stared at the photos, checking them. He frowned and put the phone down on the tray table that we’d moved to the side of the bed.

“What is it?” I asked, watching him reach for a pad of paper and a pencil.

“I’m not sure,” Westman said. He wrote something on the paper, looked at the photo again, and crossed something out before writing a new word over the excised one. He held the pad out to me. “It’s hard to make out—the writing’s so bad. . . .” He held up the camera next to the pad for me to read and flipped through a series of pictures. “I’m not sure I remember right, but . . . this message—or a lot of these words at least—may have appeared before. Do you think I’m reading the words correctly or just . . . wanting them to be familiar?”

I glanced at the sentences—just two—that he had written down and compared them to the photos, looking back and forth from the long, spidery lines on Delamar’s skin to Westman’s transcription. “The writing is hard to read, but, yes, I think you’ve copied it correctly. ‘Given as Limos tribute, those who wasted away. Given to the wheel of death and birth, to break the wheel we are driven.’”

I frowned over the strange message as Westman said, “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“Not yet. It may eventually, though, in context with other messages.”

“Other messages?”

“If you remember any of the other writing you’ve seen. . . .” I was reluctant to be too blunt about the surface on which these messages were appearing—it seemed invasive and uncouth.

“Oh,” he said, crestfallen. “I thought maybe there were other messages from . . . the other patients.”