Silence.
I pulled the door closed and said again, “What I mean is, Dave must have seen or heard the bird and thrown his own drill at the wall.”
Silence.
“Dutch?” I asked over my shoulder as I watched the little bird flutter to a birdhouse out back.
“Abby!” he barked from behind me, his voice completely void of humor. “Call nine one one!”
“What?” I asked, turning around just in time to catch Dutch’s cell phone, which he tossed at me from across the room.
“Call nine one one!” he shouted and dashed down the basement steps.
Alarmed, I tore across the kitchen to the top of the stairs to see whom he was chasing after, but as I reached the landing I came to an abrupt halt and sucked in a breath of surprise. At the bottom of the stairwell lay the crumpled form of a woman with beautiful blond hair dressed in a white nightgown and matching silk robe. Her skin was very pale, and her face stared up at me with lifeless eyes. About her head was a thick pool of red and I knew she had not survived her fall. Dutch was moving quickly down the stairs toward her, mindless of his own injury. “Ohmigod!” I gasped as I flipped open the phone and began punching in the three digits to emergency.
But even before I reached the final digit I heard Dutch say, “What the hell . . . ?!” And as I looked up quickly I sucked in another breath. Dutch stood stock still at the bottom of the stairwell, a look of shock and surprise plastered onto his face as he looked up at me as if to ask for an explanation. That’s when I realized he was alone, and the woman in the nightgown had vanished into thin air.
Chapter Three
“So then what happened?” Milo asked as we sat in the ER. Dutch lay on his stomach with his butt in the air as an intern restitched all the sutures he’d pulled out of his wound on his flight down the stairs. I sat in a chair nearby trying not to squirm as I watched the attending doctor’s needle dip up and down on my boyfriend’s beautiful derriere.
“We saw this bird—” Dutch said.
“What kind of bird?” Milo interrupted.
Dutch looked a question at me and I shrugged. “I don’t know, I never really got a good look at it. I think it was a swallow or something close to a swallow.”
“Okay, go on.” Milo said as he penciled the detail into his notebook.
“Well, then Abby went to let the bird out and I turned toward the basement stairs and there she was.”
“There who was?” Milo asked, his pencil pausing on his pad.
“I don’t know exactly. There was a young woman lying at the bottom of the steps, and she was hurt.”
“Describe her,” Milo said, back to scribbling.
“She was white, blond, petite . . . I’d say about five feet to five two in height. Age was late twenties, early thirties, roughly ninety to a hundred pounds. She was wearing a white dress—”
“Negligee,” I supplied.
“What?” Milo asked, turning to me.
“She was wearing a white negligee, and a matching robe. And she was barefoot.”
“Uh-huh, got it. Okay, so then what happened?”
Dutch and I looked at each other, still completely perplexed by what had happened at the house. The truth was, we really didn’t know what we’d seen. One minute we’d been rushing to the rescue of some poor woman lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of a stairwell, and the next we were staring at an empty space and looking around as if we’d just entered the twilight zone. I had rushed down the stairs to see for myself that she’d really vanished and confirm that it wasn’t just some strange trick of the eye, and that’s when I’d noticed Dutch was bleeding.
We’d come here as quickly as we could to get Dutch cleaned up and restitched and on an impulse Dutch had called Milo, thinking that filling out a police report was the sort of thing one should do in this type of situation—whatever that meant.
“Well . . .” Dutch stammered, “I’m not really sure.” He looked to me to supply the answer.
I dealt with weird on a daily basis, so I didn’t hesitate to say, “She disappeared.”
“Excuse me?” Milo asked, his pencil paused again on the top of the pad.
“Vanished. Into thin air,” I said, allowing a little drama to creep into my voice.
“I don’t understand.” Milo said and turned to Dutch for explanation.
“Join the club, buddy,” Dutch said and scratched his head.
“Okay, you’re all set, Agent Rivers.” The doctor said from behind Dutch as he peeled off his rubber gloves and came around the gurney. “Now, I recommend that you avoid taking any more stairs and rest for a few days before starting your physical therapy.”
“Will do,” Dutch said as he carefully squirmed back into his boxers.
I got up from my seat and went to help Dutch roll off the gurney and get his pants buttoned. “Thanks,” he said sheepishly as I carefully pulled the back of his pants up over his new bandage.
“You’re welcome, and you still owe me,” I said, smiling at him.
“Can we get back to the vanishing chick?” Milo asked, watching us with a bit of skepticism.
“Milo,” Dutch began as he reached carefully for his cane, “I don’t know what to tell you, buddy. One minute I’m looking at a woman with a head trauma and the next thing I know she just isn’t there. I don’t know where she went and I don’t know how it happened but I swear, I saw what I saw.”
“Okay, okay,” Milo said, holding up a hand of concession. “So, just to humor me, what kind of pain meds have you been taking for that war wound?”
“I saw it too, Milo,” I said before Dutch had a chance to snap at his former partner.
“You saw her disappear?”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, I glanced away to dial nine one one, but when I looked back she was definitely gone.”
“So you’re positive you saw her lying at the bottom of the stairs?”
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding.
“Okay,” Milo shrugged and closed his notebook. “Maybe this one’s better for you guys, Dutch.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if this doesn’t sound like something out of the X-Files I don’t know what does. Come on,” he said, looking at us with a big grin on his face. “You guys are playin’ me, right?”
Dutch shot an angry look at his former partner, then turned and began to limp out of the curtained area.
“What’d I say?” Milo asked as Dutch swung back the curtain and limped over to the checkout desk.
“We’re not making it up, Milo. It really happened.”
“Okay.” Milo said after a moment. “So you explain it, Abby. How the hell do both of you see a woman who’s lying at the bottom of a stairwell, and in front of your eyes she disappears?”
“I have an idea how, but I’ll need an hour to check it out.”
“What?”
“Can you take Dutch home?”
Milo looked skeptically at the back of his old partner. “I’m willing,” he said, “but he’s a different story.”
“I’ll tell him you’re taking him home. I have to check something out, and I’ll be back with you guys in about an hour.”
“Uh-huh . . .” Milo said doubtfully.
“Oh, Milo,” I said reproachfully. “Order him some stinking pizza and he’ll forgive you. I gotta fly. See ya later,” I called and dashed out of the hospital, pausing for only a moment to let Dutch know that Milo would be his escort home.
An hour later I was back at Dutch’s, the smell of warm pizza filling the room. “Where’d you go?” Dutch asked from the couch, a large piece of the meat-lover’s special folded slightly and about to enter his mouth.
“I had to get this,” I said holding up a thick reference text that I’d had to go to two bookstores to find.
“Haunted America,” Dutch read from the title. “Spooky.”
“Yes, but in here, gentlemen, is the answer to what we saw in that house today.”
“I’m all
ears,” Milo said, his mouth full of pizza.
Quickly I shrugged out of my coat and reached over to open the lid of one of the boxes of pizza on the coffee table. “Awww, Hawaiian! You remembered,” I said happily to Dutch, who gave me a wink and a smile as I scooped out a large piece and carefully laid it on the empty plate that had been set out for me.
“So here’s the drill,” I said when I was comfortably seated, the plate in my lap. “I think what we saw in that house is what’s known as an imprint.”
Both Dutch and Milo blinked at me, their faces suggesting they hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. “Say what?” Milo asked me.
“An imprint,” I repeated, my own mouth now full of crust and cheese. After swallowing I explained. “Six months ago I had a client tell me that her house was haunted. I did some research back then and I remembered this book and something about what we saw tonight clicked with something I read in this book.” I set my plate down and reached for the text. Flipping it open to the section I’d marked I read, “ ‘There are places all over the United States marred by events so terrible that they have left their images forever imprinted on that physical space. The battle of Gettysburg is one such example where every night gunfire can be heard and wounded soldiers still call out for help.’ ”
“Say what?” Dutch asked me, looking at me like I’d grown four heads.
“I think what we saw today was the imprint of a murder,” I said slowly, making my words ring with importance. “The woman at the bottom of the stairs was the ghost of someone who was murdered in that house.”
“Murdered?” Milo asked, leaning forward with a skeptical look. “How do you know she didn’t just slip and fall?”
I tapped my forehead and said, “My spidey-sense is saying she was the victim of foul play. Something awful happened to her—I think she was thrown down those stairs, and left to die.”
“So you’re saying we saw this woman’s ghost?” Dutch asked, doubt creeping into his eyes.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he replied.
“Tell that to the woman at the bottom of the stairs,” I said.
“She’s got a point there, buddy.”
“Shut up, Milo.”
“I’m just sayin’ . . .”
“This is crazy!” Dutch said, throwing down his pizza. “Abby, there’s got to be another explanation.”
“I’m all ears,” I challenged, leaning back in my chair and giving him a “come on” motion with my hands.
There was a very long moment of hesitation as we stared each other down before Dutch finally scratched his head and said, “Give me that book, would ya?”
Milo and Dutch pawed through the text for about an hour, pausing at photos and drawings and reading out loud small snippets of interesting factoids from the text. While the boys examined the book, I finished my pizza, then went to call Dave. No one answered at his home phone, so I called his cell and waited while it rang.
“Hello?” Dave said when he finally picked up the line, his voice muffled and weird.
“Dave?” I asked, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nuffin . . .” he said. “I’m ffffffine.”
“You’re drunk.”
“NawI’mnot!” he slurred.
“Where are you?” I demanded. I was worried that he might try and drive in his condition.
“Home sweet hommme,” Dave sang, and burped loudly. “Just watchin’ the boob tube an’ drinkin’ some beer.”
“Okay. I just wanted to check on you and make sure you weren’t too shaken up by today.”
“Don’t want ta talk about it, Abby,” Dave said.
“Okay. Go back to your show. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon,” I said and hung up. Apparently Dave dealt with the unexplained by attempting to pickle himself.
I came back into the living room and took my seat again as Dutch and Milo closed the ghost text. “Okay. So what’s the next step?” Milo asked us.
“I think we should try and find out who our mysterious woman was,” I said. “Milo, can you check old police reports and find out if there are any records of a woman being murdered there?”
“How far back do you want me to go?” Milo said.
“From what I remember about what she looked like, it seemed to me that her hair style and clothing should have been twentieth century at least. Try going back fifty years and see what you come up with.”
“Fifty?” Milo gasped. “Do you know how much time that will take me?”
“Okay, then try twenty-five and see if that reveals anything. I’ll go to the library and see if I can find anything with that address from the newspaper clippings. Something’s gotta show up.”
“What are we supposed to do once we find out who was murdered there?” Dutch asked, and for a moment that really stumped me.
“Good question.” I said as I thought about it. “I don’t know offhand, but I can put a call in to Theresa and see if she has any ideas.”
“Theresa?” Milo asked.
“My best friend. She lives in California and she’s a fantastic medium.”
“I’m a large myself,” Milo deadpanned.
“Funny!” I said with a forced laugh. “And that’s the first time I’ve heard that joke.”
“Okay. Sorry. What’s a medium?”
“Psychic mediums act as a conduit for uniting the living with the dead,” I explained.
“In English?” Dutch asked.
“They talk to dead people.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Why can’t you just call this Theresa and have her talk to the woman at the bottom of the stairs and we can all get on with our lives?” Dutch asked.
“Because it, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way.”
“What way?” Milo said.
“The easy way. See, Theresa’s expertise isn’t talking to ghosts. It’s talking to people who already know they’re dead and have reached The Other Side.”
Milo looked at Dutch. “Does she always talk like this?”
“All the time,” Dutch said, rolling his eyes.
“Man! You got some translation book around here or something?”
“Mostly I just wing it and nod. It keeps things simple.”
“Simpleminded,” I snapped, losing patience with them. “Fine. I will dumb it down for the both of you. A ghost is the spirit of a person who does not realize they have died. They are stuck between two worlds. Ours, and The Other Side.”
“You mean heaven?” Milo said.
“Well . . . yes. I prefer ‘The Other Side’ but it’s really the same thing. Anyway, as I was saying, when most people die they go straight to The Other Side, and they are fully conscious of the fact that they are now dead. Ghosts, however, are people whose deaths were so unexpected that they can’t digest the fact that they’ve been killed. So when the opportunity comes to move to The Other Side they hesitate, and consequently, they get stuck between the two worlds. From what I understand about ghosts—which is very little—they typically relive the moment of their death, or the moments leading up to their death, over and over again. And they may be aware that they’ve experienced something terrible, but they are unwilling to acknowledge this so they continue to replay the incident time and time again, without fully accepting their fate. Meanwhile, time on this plane marches on, and these poor souls are unaware of this because they are so consumed with their own tragedies.”
“So why can’t Theresa talk to them?”
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “Theresa communicates with people who have crossed over. She can only communicate with spirits who make the connection willingly. She hasn’t had a lot of luck with ghosts, because as I said, they are unaware that they’re dead and that time is moving forward without them. They often don’t notice the living at all. This makes it very difficult to talk to them, because they don’t usually acknowledge someone trying to start up a conversation. There
’s also the fact that Theresa lives in California, and if we’re going to have someone confront this ghost, I’m pretty sure they’re going to have to do it in person. So, it’s not like she can just drive right over to help us out.”
“How come I knew this wasn’t going to be easy?” Dutch asked, wiggling on the couch in an attempt to find a more comfortable sitting position.
“What I can do,” I said, ignoring him, “is give her a call anyway, and see if by chance she can help us out in some way. Sometimes she’s able to pick up names and dates that could be relevant.”
“Sounds good, but I have one question for you, Abby,” Milo said.
“Shoot.”
“Why do we need to find out who the ghost is to get rid of it?”
“If we can find out how this woman died, and even better, if we can find out her name, I think we can then shock her into leaving.”
“Shock a ghost?” Dutch asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically.
“Yes. As I said, these spirits are hard to communicate with, but if we can yell her name out she might recognize it, and then it’s just a matter of telling her that she fell down some stairs, or was murdered or whatever. Get her to realize that she’s dead. Once they understand they’ve been killed, they usually move on to The Other Side.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Milo said agreeably.
“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” Dutch said, shaking his head.
“Who’s going to talk to this ghost when we find out her name and how she died?” Milo asked.
The three of us looked around the room at each other, no one volunteering. Finally, Dutch said, “Isn’t this right up your alley, Edgar?”
“Just because I’m psychic I’m also a ghost buster?”