The Spirit is Willing (An Ophelia Wylde Paranormal Mystery) (18 page)

I pressed on.

Suddenly the doors to the Alamo Saloon burst open and Hickory Lane staggered out, tossing a string of obscenities at those inside.

“Think a you’re too good for me?” she howled. “Let a me tell you, I’ve been a kicked out of fancier places than a this. Some a day, you’ll be a beggin’ me to come a back.”

She took a few unsteady steps into the street, then turned and saw me walking toward her. She had obviously been on an all-night and most-of-the-day bender.

“Look a here,” Hickory said. “Curious cat a walkin’ like she the Queen of England. Well, I a think she need the curious beat a right out of her.”

I said nothing. I was too tired for it.

“Didn’t you a hear?” Hickory asked, stepping in front of me.

I stopped.

“I heard, Hickory,” I said. “You want to beat me up.”

“Don’t that a scare you?”

“No, Hickory, it doesn’t,” I said. “At least you’re honest in your dislike of me. That’s good, because I can deal with that, I can plan around it. It’s the people who smile and pretend they’re your friends and then break your heart—those are the ones who scare me.”

Then I walked around her.

When I unlocked the door to the agency, Eddie greeted me.

“Weak and weary!”

“Quite,” I said.

Eddie ruffled his feathers and gave a terrible screech, to show his displeasure at my having left him for so long. A week must seem like a month to him.

“I’m sorry,” I cooed. “Next time, I’ll take you with me.”

Doc McCarty had taken good care of him, because there was plenty of food and water in his cage. McCarty had also placed a railway express letter on my desk, one that he had accepted in my absence. While Eddie chattered behind me, I looked at the return address.

It was from Old Statehouse Publishing Co. in Boston.

I felt the floor turn topsy-turvy and had to grasp the desk to keep from falling. Could Gresham have known anything about how Jonathan died? Would he have put the details in the book? Not knowing the details of his death had gnawed at me, always. Even though I had given up the séances in which I had tried without success for years to contact Jonathan on the other side, I still longed for a piece of solid information about his end. I especially wanted to know his last words and, selfishly and eternally, if he had mentioned me.

I determined to borrow three dollars from Doc McCarty to order the book and find out. So much for staying out of debt.

The bell above the door of the agency jangled as Jack Calder walked in.

He had a rifle slung over his shoulder, held a fistful of papers, and was caked in trail dust. He walked over to his desk, threw the papers down, leaned the rifle against the wall, and sat wearily in the chair.

“Tough day?” I asked.

“Tough two weeks,” he said. “Harker was easy, but Smilin’ Solomon Stone made a run for it. Had to chase him all the way to Bell County, Texas, and damn near had to kill him before I could get him in irons. But he’s in the Ford County Jail now.”

“So you didn’t lose the bond.”

“Not this time,” he said. “What have you been up to?”

“Something I could have used your help on. Especially your two-fisted, upper body strength kind of help.”

“Yeah?” he said. “That what happened to your face?”

“Yes.”

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

“How’d it happen?”

“I was on a case,” I said. “It began—”

Calder held up his hand.

“I’m sorry, Ophie,” he said. “You’re okay, and that’s the important thing. But I’m beat and have to get some rest. I’m dead tired. I’d love to hear about it, but tomorrow.”

“All right,” I said. “But tomorrow, Jack, we really have to talk.”

He nodded.

“I’m going home,” he said.

He started for the door, then stopped.

“Oh, I found something in my vest that I think is yours,” he said, pulling a railway ticket from his vest. “Don’t know how it got there. Had a weird dream of us being on a train, but it didn’t make any sense. Did you go to Iowa at some point without me knowing about it?”

“Iowa?” I asked.

“Yeah, it says Waterloo on it.”

I snatched the ticket from his hand.

“Oh, Jack!”

It was the temporary pass, Number 000.

I threw my arms around him. Then I backed away.

“Oh, Jack,” I said. “You need a bath.”

“It had crossed my mind.”

“And just because I hugged you,” I said, “doesn’t mean we don’t have to talk tomorrow, so plan on it. If we’re going to be partners, we’ve got to work together—and you have to stop being mad at me for handling the spook end of it and not being able to charge clients.”

“On this case of yours,” he said. “Did you make any—”

“I mean it, Jack.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

He shut the door behind him.

I clutched the ticket tightly. Then I started arranging a little sleeping space in the back of the office, using the blankets and other things I’d brought from the Dodge House when I’d moved out. It wouldn’t be as comfortable as my old bed in Room 217, but I was so tired I didn’t care.

The train is stopped. On one side, there is a depot that looks more like a chapel than a railway station, and on the other, a vast park with gentle green hills that seem to roll on forever.

The other passengers have already exited the train. Some are still on the platform, talking, while others are strolling arm in arm across the grounds. Only the old man and I are left in the car.

The white-glove conductor walks down the aisle toward us.

“Brookwood,” he says gently. “Time to get off, Captain Gresham.”

“What?”

“We’ve arrived. It’s time.”

The old man nods, resigned.

“You’re W. L. Gresham?” I ask.

“I was.”

“Captain William L. Gresham? The author of
Syrinx of the Seven Worlds
?”

“Why, yes.”

For the first time, he smiles.

“You’re familiar with it?”

“Intimately,” I say. “And I’m looking forward to your new book.”

He grasps my hand.

“It is time, sir,” the conductor says.

“You don’t know how happy you’ve made me,” Gresham says.

“What about you, miss?” the conductor asks. “Getting off here?”

“No,” I say. “I have found the temporary pass.”

“You have indeed,” he says. “Take that right back to the superintendent and he’ll fix you up. And, if you’ll allow me to say so, I’m right proud of you. Not just for the ticket—for all of it.”

He takes Gresham’s elbow and leads him to the door.

“But wait,” I say. “I have to ask about the brigade.”

“No time, miss,” the conductor says. “Superintendent’s waiting.”

Gresham turns and waves.

I sigh.

“Guess I’ll just have to read the book,” I tell myself.

I walk toward the back of the train, through the empty coffin car, where the widdershins are lolling about and playing pinochle and eating the most awful-smelling snacks. I hold my breath and hurry to the private car at the end of the train.

“You found the pass,” Death says. “Congratulations and all that. Now hand it over.”

He snaps his fingers.

“So rude!”

“Schedules to keep,” he says, taking the pass from me. He opens a drawer and drops it in, then picks up a pen and scribbles a note in the ledger.

“Speaking of schedules,” I say. “Tell me when I’m going to die.”

“Against policy.”

“None of this has been exactly according to policy, has it?” I ask. “Tell me.”

He puts the pen down.

“You don’t really want to know,” he says.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, I won’t tell you,” he says. “People aren’t meant to know if they’ll outlive their children, or their friends, or even their pets. Do you want to know when Eddie is going to die? Of course not. It would be cruel. You could never enjoy another day together without thinking of that awful date.”

“But the awful date comes, whether we think of it or not.”

Death drums his fingers.

“The reason for the policy is this,” he says. “If a person knew with absolute confidence when they were going to die, years or even decades in advance, then it would be a kind of temporary immortality, as oxymoronic as that sounds. One could engage in any kind of behavior without fear of a fatal outcome. For the human of average sensibility, this might mean the taking of outlandish risks for amusement. For the sub-average, it could mean stunts that would encourage belief in miracles, the founding of religions, or fostering an unstoppable dictatorship that would enslave humanity until the fateful day.”

“And how would this differ from what we have now, exactly?”

Death sighs.

“This much I will tell you,” he says. “You will move to London. You will have incredible joy and unbearable heartbreak. You will witness the passing of one age and the beginning of the next. Your life will be, at turns, mundane and remarkable—as all lives are. And you will be buried here, at Brookwood Cemetery. That’s as specific as I can be.”

“At least it’s something,” I say.

“Do try to keep from crossing wires with us in the future.”

“This last case turned out all right, didn’t it?”

“If you mean you came close to having yourself drowned, driven mad, and murdered, then yes,” he says. “Personally, I can’t see the fun in any of it. That business with the book and the numbers—so elementary! But the spirit photo, that was a bit interesting.”

“How did you know about it?”

“Our branch was involved in picking up a number of passengers associated with your adventure, and I don’t mind telling you the widdershins had a devil of a time keeping you from spotting them, seeing as you had one foot on the platform and the other on the train, as it were.”

Death pauses.

“A word of advice, Miss Wylde,” he says. “Captain Gresham’s publisher will be looking for new authors, and you have been working for some time to scribble out your first adventure—what is it?—the
Mystery of the Girl Betrayed.
You might submit to them. Writing books could be a way of making a living at helping people, in your own fashion, without cadging nickels and dimes.”

Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

“Until we meet again, in another five or fifty years—adieu!”

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

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Copyright © 2014 by Max McCoy

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ISBN: 978-0-7582-8195-1

First Kensington Mass Market Edition: July 2014

eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8196-8
eISBN-10: 0-7582-8196-X
First Kensington Electronic Edition: July 2014