What's a Ghoul to Do?

  I'm afraid, I felt her say.

  "I know you are, but trust me: I can help you with that. First, show me what happened."

  I don't want to….

  "I know, I know. But sweetheart, I need to see it. We both need to see it. Take me to the end of it, if the beginning and the middle were too painful. Take me to that time right before you found yourself confused and lost."

  There was a pulling sensation to my right, and I looked over to the far corner of the room. I saw a struggle taking place. Carolyn was naked and bleeding from her nose. Her attacker was standing over her and had her gripped by the throat. She was clawing at him, her eyes wild with terror. My own insides tightened as I watched the scene unfold. This was the worst part of the job. Seeing what really happened to innocent people in those final terrifying moments was an awful thing to experience.

  "That's good, Carolyn," I said, hating that I was putting her through this, but knowing it was absolutely necessary. "Now go a little bit further, honey. Go beyond that moment where you're fighting for your breath."

  The scene changed, and I saw Carolyn's murderer drop her limp body on the floor. His head then snapped up as I heard the faint sound of a siren. In the next instant the killer dashed out of the room, leaving Carolyn lying where she was.

  "Good, honey," I said when his image had left the room. "That's terrific. Now, I need you to focus on your body for a moment. Can you see that?"

  I need to get up! she said. I need to run away!

  "But you can't, can you?" I said. "You can't, Carolyn, because you're not breathing. See?" I said, pointing to the lifeless image of her. "Your body has died, my friend. It's time for you to accept that."

  I had a sudden, almost overwhelming sensation of deep sadness in my chest, and I knew that Carolyn had finally registered that she was dead.

  I said, "Carolyn, listen to me. Even though your body has stopped functioning, your soul needs to move forward. I can help you do that, but you'll need to do exactly as I say. Pay close attention to my words and follow my directions and I'll get you out of here, okay?"

  With relief, I felt that mental nod come into my mind. "Good girl. Now, above you I want you to sense a great bright light coming down from the heavens, through the ceiling, and descending onto your head. Can you sense this, Carolyn?"

  There was a pause, and then, Yes.

  "Wonderful! You're doing great!" I praised. "Now, as this light envelops you, I want you to feel its warmth, its goodness, its purity, and its love. Can you feel all of those things, Carolyn?"

  Another pause, then an excited, Yes!

  "Awesome! Now, in front of you there should be a path. It may look a bit like a tunnel; sometimes it's different depending on the person. Can you see this path?"

  I can.

  "Great. I need you to be very brave and take a step onto it. It leads to more of the light, more of that love that you're sensing right now. It's a good path to follow, and while you're on it you will never be hurt again."

  I held my breath, waiting for Carolyn to make that next oh, so critical move. If she blanched, I'd have to come back and try to coax her over another time. If she went for it, she'd find her way to the other side without worry. Finally I sensed something like acceptance from her, and right before I felt her move forward, I clearly heard her say, Tell my parents I love them. Tell them I'll look after Midnight and I'll be all right now.

  I smiled brightly. "I promise I'll get the message to them, girl. You take care—okay?" But she was already gone. In the next instant I became aware of the silence. I opened my eyes and looked around. The room was empty; there was no energy in it besides myself. As I sent out my intuitive feelers, the room felt warm and clean and happy. I smiled and stood up, and, glancing at my watch, I realized I needed to get a move on. My next client was meeting me at my office in about a half hour.

  I made my way back down the stairs, retrieved my duffel, and headed out the door. Cassandra's car was parked in front of the brownstone. I met her at the bottom of the steps and she said, "Well? How'd it go?"

  "Ghost is clear!" I sang. I loved that line.

  "You got rid of it?" she asked me, peering anxiously up the stairs.

  "Yep. And there are a few things I need to tell you before I take off."

  "Go ahead," she said as she fished around in her purse and pulled out her checkbook.

  "Carolyn has a message that needs to be delivered to her parents. She says that she'll look after Midnight, and that she's going to be all right now."

  Cassandra gasped. "Oh, my," she said.

  "That message makes sense to you?"

  "Well, yes. Midnight was the Kettlemans' cat. I know that because I have a few cats of my own, and Mrs. Kettleman was very fond of her pet. Last week when I called to tell her that we had an offer on the house, she sounded so sad. When I asked her why she said that they had to put Midnight to sleep that morning; the poor thing had kidney failure."

  "Good, then the Kettlemans will know that the message truly came from their daughter."

  Cassandra scribbled in her checkbook while I went on with my directions. "Also, there are three spikes pounded into the living room wall—

  "There are three what driven into where?" Cassandra squealed. Oops. I may have forgotten to disclose that sometimes I needed to make a few handy adjustments to the architecture.

  "It was completely necessary, Cassandra. It was either pound in a few stakes or have this house hang on the market for another few years."

  "But why?" she asked me.

  I inhaled and tried to explain. "The man who murdered Carolyn was as nasty in death as he was in life. Energies like him often create a portal or doorway to a lower plane of existence where they can become stronger and more deviant. The only way to combat them is to shut their access back to this plane, and that means closing the portal."

  "Okay," said Cassandra. "I think I'm following you."

  "The way to close them is by using magnets that create a barrier, because they screw up the electromagnetic energy of the portal. The stakes I used are highly magnetic, which should keep that nasty man from ever bothering anyone again."

  "But how am I supposed to explain stakes driven into a wall to prospective buyers?" Cassandra asked me.

  "You hire a handyman to come over and patch over the stakes. They're driven far enough into the wall that, with a little spackle and some paint, no one will ever know."

  Cassandra looked relieved. "Well, I can handle that," she said with a chuckle. "Is there anything else?"

  "Nope. That about does it. The house is clean and clear and shouldn't give you any more trouble, but just in case, here's my card," I said, extending it to her. "And if you know of anyone who can benefit from our services, I'd appreciate it if you'd pass it along."

  "Of course," she said, taking my card and giving me a broad smile. "Thank you, M.J., I'll get a handyman over here right away."

  I took my leave of Cassandra and jogged to my car, checking my watch again. I was cutting it really close.

  A few feet away from my auto, I hit the button on the key chain to release the locks. The car gave a toot of the horn, and from inside I heard a perfect mimic of the noise. "I'm comin', Doc," I said as I peered through the glass. My African Gray parrot sat perched on the steering wheel, bobbing his head in excitement as I reached for the handle. Sliding into the seat I asked, "What's up, Doc?"

  "Doc's cuckoo for Coco Puffs!" he answered back, flipping his red tail and bobbing his head.

  "You're cuckoo all right," I said, giving him a pat on the head as I started the engine.

  At the age of twelve I'd received Doc as a Christmas present from my rather eccentric grandmother, Pearl. She'd given me the six-month-old bird only three months after I'd lost my mother to cancer. It'd been her very clever way of coaxing some life back into me, as I'd refused to speak a word since the death of my mother.

  Grandma Pearl had offered me the noisy bird that day, and even now her words still rang in
my ears. "Mary Jane," she said as I opened the cage and extracted the parrot, my eyes wide with wonder, "this is a unique type of parrot that bonds for life with only one person, so you must take special care to treat him with respect and friendship. He will learn to talk soon, so you'll need to work on his vocabulary, and make sure the words you teach him are acceptable for polite society, because once an African Gray learns a word, they never forget it."

  She'd said that last bit with a wink, knowing full well that I was the sort of kid who would not limit my pet's vocabulary if I could get away with it.

  I'd named my bird after an old relative of mine, the infamous Dr. John Henry Holliday, who had survived the gunfight at the OK Corral, and called Wyatt Earp his best friend. Doc Holliday was my great-great-granduncle, and I liked to think that I'd inherited all my rebellious genes from him.

  That had been an important year for me, as not only had I lost my mother and gained Doc, I'd met Gilley Gillespie, my best friend and business partner. On the first day of school I'd been wandering around on the playground when I'd noticed a little boy was playing with two G.I. Joe figures. Something about the way he was making them interact fascinated me. I'd stared at him as he played with the dolls, and the moment he'd crashed them together and mimicked kissing noises I knew I had to meet him.

  We'd been best friends within five minutes, and it had been Gilley who had convinced me to flee my high school graduation party and the Georgia backwater where we'd grown up for the bright lights of Boston, where he had a full scholarship to MIT and I'd had far fewer prospects.

  We'd shared a tiny apartment on Cambridge Street, and while Gilley went to school majoring in computer science, I'd waitressed and worked odd jobs. Then one fateful night Gilley had come home and announced, "I got you a gig."

  "What kind of gig?" I'd said.

  "There's this girl in my HTML study group. Her father just died, and she can't concentrate. We have finals in three days, and I need her to help me through this exam. I told her you could make sure her dad was okay. She's coming over in an hour."

  Ever since I was a very little girl I'd been able to communicate with people who were no longer living. In the beginning I'd called them spookers, as most of them were slightly spooky to a little tyke like me, but a few I recognized, like my grandfather and my aunt Carol. Gilley knew about my talent, and had never even batted an eye when I'd make general comments to him like, "I was sitting on the subway today and this woman's dead husband told me he'd suspected all along she was really a lesbian. Now he knows for sure."

  And as irritated as I was at Gilley for setting me up like that, when the girl arrived I knew I had to help her. I connected her to her father, both her grandparents, and a friend who'd died in a car accident. As the very grateful girl got up to leave, she asked me how much I charged.

  Now, I'm not dense, but for whatever reason it had never even occurred to me to charge money for this, so I think I charged her some paltry sum, like twenty dollars. And after her session I'd had six more phone calls, all from people excited to hear from their deceased relatives.

  The rest was history—I'd had a booming practice going by the time Gilley graduated, and he'd graciously taken over managing my appointments while doing some computer hacking on the side. Our business changed forever after we'd gotten an unusual request from a woman who was afraid to stay in her own home. A former roommate had hanged himself there, and since then things had been weird.

  It was my first bust, and the high I got from it made me quit the medium business and dive headfirst into ghostbusting, which I've been doing ever since.

  * * * *

  My cell rang, shaking me out of my musings. "Holliday," I said as I moved Doc from the steering wheel to my shoulder.

  "Where are you?" Gilley demanded.

  "I'm on my way, Gil. Take a chill pill."

  "M.J.," he began—Gilley's big on lectures. "You have an appointment in, like … twenty minutes!"

  "And I'm a mere fifteen away, my friend. Besides, you should be proud of me. I've already collected on the Kettleman case."

  "The one in the Back Bay?"

  "Yep. And before you remind me that you were right, let me just congratulate you on your business acumen."

  "Told you so," he said, sounding smug. It had been Gilley's idea to start advertising to the real estate community. He'd been actively soliciting brokers for a few weeks now.

  "You just can't resist saying it, can you?" I answered with a chuckle.

  "It's my nature; what can I say? So about this next case. I have the scoop on this Dr. Sable."

  "Cyberspying again?"

  "If the information exists, I might as well look at it. Anyhoo, this guy is worth big—and I do mean big—bucks. Dr. Steven Sable is the son of Andrew Jackson Sable…."

  "That tycoon who offed himself?" I asked, remembering the news article I'd read a few weeks ago.

  "That's the one," Gilley sang. "And he has major connections. M.J., if we pull this one off, we could be sitting pretty. We could become a fad for rich people all over New England. You know, folks at cocktail parties could ask one another if their home has been busted or not. We could be the next big thing!"

  I rolled my eyes and stifled the laugh that wanted to burble up from my throat. Gilley was always predicting our imminent success. "Sure, sure. So what else can you tell me about him?"

  "Oh, nothing interesting …" Gilley said quickly. I knew he was hiding something.

  "Gil," I said, my voice dropping an octave, " 'fess up. What'd he do?"

  "Nothing horrible," Gilley said. "He's just had a little trouble with the IRS recently."

  "Tax evasion?"

  "Nothing proven yet. I mean, no indictments have come down… so far."

  I groaned. "I don't want to take work from a criminal, Gil."

  "M.J., he's innocent until proven guilty. Let's just hear him out, okay?"

  "Fine," I said, sighing at the traffic. I was stuck behind a shiny black Aston Martin, a car that had the ability to go from zero to sixty in, like, three heartbeats, but the guy driving this one was plodding along doing ten under the posted speed limit. "Crap," I said into the cell phone.

  "What's the matter?" Gilley asked.

  "I'm stuck behind the Batmobile, and I can't move around this guy." I noticed with irritation that the driver had his head cocked to one side, talking on his cell phone. "Man, I hate people who talk on their phones and drive at the same time."

  "Good point. Let me let you go," Gil said.

  "Uh … right. See you in fifteen," I said, and hung up. Groaning, I waited for a hole in traffic that would allow me to scoot around the moron, but things just weren't going my way today. My eyes kept inching back and forth to the clock on the dash. "Come on, dude," I muttered. "Just move over a little so I can get around you."

  After four more blocks, an opportunity came up for me to shoot past the Aston. As I stomped on the gas, I rolled down my window and yelled, "Get off the friggin' phone!"

  The man in the car next to me glanced over, and his blank expression seemed to ask, What?

  I gave him a quick snarl while Doc squawked, "Get off the friggin' phone! I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"

  * * * *

  We arrived with barely a minute to spare, and I wasted no time as I burst through the door. "You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days," said a man about my height, with thick brown wavy hair, a strong jaw, and a Roman nose, as he pointed to a clock and handed me a folder.

  "I know, Gil, I know," I said, hurrying into my office. Just as I had put Doc on his perch I heard the front door of our suite open and Gilley announce jovially, "Good morning! You must be Dr. Sable. So nice to meet you."

  Discreetly I shut my door and tossed my jacket on the coatrack in the corner, sat down behind my desk, and pulled open the file. A picture of a handsome man who looked to be in his mid- to late fifties stared back at me, and I scowled as I read the headline of the article: Wealthy Family Heir Questioned
for Tax Evasion. "Great," I said with a heavy sigh.

  Before I'd had a chance to read through the file, my door opened and in hustled Gilley with a look of absolute glee on his face. "Ohmigod! M.J., this guy is gorgeous!"

  "The doctor?" I asked, taken aback, because Gilley's tastes never ventured north of his own age.

  "Yes, he's beautiful, delicious … he's Dr. Delicious!"

  "Dr. Delicious! Dr. Delicious!" Doc called from his perch.

  "Great," I said, looking over at my parrot. "That's all I need."

  "Anyway, he's filling out the paperwork, and I'll send him right in. Remember, be polite, M.J. We could use this job."

  "Yeah, yeah …" I said, waving him away.

  I skimmed the rest of the article and moved on to another one that documented Andrew Sable's death. The article was heavy on Andrew's background as a shipping tycoon and light on details of his demise. The official cause was listed as suicide, and no further investigation was planned. I switched my attention over to the other side of the folder, where Gilley had jotted his notes from the telephone call he'd received from Dr. Sable three days earlier.

  Sable was interested in talking to the ghost of Andrew, which he was convinced was currently haunting the family's hunting lodge in upstate Massachusetts. I finished scanning the notes as my door opened again and in stepped Gilley. With a huge smile and a grand sweep of his hand he announced, "M. J. Holliday, this is Dr. Steven Sable."

  I stood up and came around my desk as a very tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair and ebony eyes moved through the doorway. He held little resemblance to the man in the article, as this was clearly someone much younger and more ethnic-looking. "Hello, Dr. Sable," I said, extending my hand to shake his. "I'm sorry, but I thought you were older," I said, shooting a look at Gilley.

  Gilley glanced at the file on my desk and quickly explained. "This is Dr. Steven Sable, the Second."

  "Ah," I said, nodding my head and gesturing for him to sit down.

  Taking his seat, Dr. Sable said, "Thank you for seeing me, Miss Holliday." His deep baritone was laced with an accent I couldn't quite place.