Cemetery of Angels (31 page)

“We can talk in confidence,” the doctor allowed. Then there was a flash of further recognition upon his face.

“I now put two with two together. You’re the woman who’s been on television! Your children are missing!”

“That’s me,” Rebecca Moore said without emotion. “That seems to be how I’m defined these days.”

“So terribly sorry,” Dr. Lim said. “Anything new? Anything hopeful? ‘

“I’m trying to be hopeful about everything,” Rebecca answered.

“Of course.”

“I’m also here on a referral from Dr. Einhorn.”

“Yes. I know. He phoned.” Rebecca moved to the point.

“I was hoping you might help me,” Rebecca said. The doctor, still toweling his face and shoulders, slowed in mid-swipe.

“Of course. I’d be most anxious.”

Rebecca drew a breath. Her hands fidgeted with each other. When she saw the doctor looking at this, she stopped abruptly.

“I want to be hypnotized,” she said. “But not for the reasons Dr. Einhorn suggested.” Dr. Lim waited.

“Then for what?” he asked.

“There’s something going on in the house I live in,” she began. “The house you visited. I think that there’s some sort of supernatural or paranormal presence. And I think it’s involved with the disappearance of Patrick and Karen.” Initially, Dr. Lim looked skeptically at Rebecca. Then he eased.

“Ghosts? Spirits, you mean?” he asked.

“Yes. That’s what I think.”

“I cannot do that, Mrs. Moore.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I’m not a ghost hunter,” he answered gently. “I’m a clinical psychiatrist.”

“And you’re a hypnotist,” said Rebecca.

“Yes. And so? I use hypnotism, among many other forms of therapy.”

“About a week ago,” Rebecca continued, “I was in one of the upstairs rooms, and I saw a man. I talked to him, and he talked to me. But I’m sure he was a dead man. From some other point in time.” She paused. “He knew me, Doctor Lim, and I knew him. I’m sure of it. This happened.”

Lim studied her. A group of female runners passed them on the track. Lim watched the girls for a moment then looked back to Rebecca.

“And so?” he asked.

“And so I want to know who I saw,” she said. “I want to know who I saw because I think it’s important. I think understanding this might bring my children back.”

“Why do you think this?”

“I don’t know why,” she answered. “Something tells me, okay?”

Dr. Lim shrugged. As Rebecca waited for him to complete his thought, she was aware of something in his manner that gave her a creepy feeling. She tried to dismiss it.

“This man…?” he said again. “Was he…?”

“He was a ghost,” Rebecca said. “Maybe you don’t believe in such things, but I didn’t either a week ago.” She sighed. “Now, please. No one is accomplishing anything. Can you at least try to help me?” Dr. Lim had grown still. Listening. Watching Rebecca.

“What you’re saying is that you saw a ghost,” he said. The sunlight washed over him so brightly that his brow formed big black shadows out of the sockets of his eyes.

“Doctor, I know what I saw.”

Dr. Lim sat down on the bench next to Rebecca and thought about what he had heard. She envied him. Her anxiety had her wound up tight enough to burst. And the more she pressured him, the more he seemed to relax.

“I understand this correctly?” Dr. Lim said. “You want hypnotism so that you might be able to identify this man you have seen. This spirit?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You feel drawn to the ghost?”

“Yes, I do.” He placed a reassuring hand on hers, cutting her off in mid-squawk. He shook his head and smiled.

“Never done before in my long experience.”

“Never done what?”

“Hunt ghosts,” he said.

“I’m trying to find my children,” she said again. “I’m trying to understand where they went. When I saw this spirit, my children were with him.”

“Your children were with?” he asked, newly astonished.

“Yes.”

“Then, to discuss would not that mean that your children are?”

“Dead? I don’t know. But there might be a chance in a thousand that this will help. So I’m begging you to help me try it.”

The doctor examined his own hands for a moment. To Rebecca, he suddenly looked as if he were miles away. But the doctor’s eyes came back and found Rebecca. He reached for his bottle of water and took another long drink, still weighing his response.

Then he looked back to her.

“You must understand,” he cautioned softly, “that what you ask me to do carries peril. First, initial session of hypnotherapy might not even ‘take.’ Sometimes the mind rejects hypnotism even if you outward feel eagerness to undergo a trance.”

Rebecca Moore nodded.

“Might be two or three sessions necessary to attain proper relaxation. Good mood. Then there are the dangers. Subliminal suggestion, please consider that.”

“You mean, you giving me a ‘posthypnotic suggestion’?” she asked. “Is that what you’re warning me about?”

“Exactly the opposite,” he explained. “We would go into this trying to find what already in your head. In consciousness. Far from try to put something in, we try to prevent that, I think you agree. It would be counterproductive if you underwent hypnotherapy and suggested answers to yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said. “You’re losing me.”

“We theorize: there are distinct levels of the mind’s subconscious state,” Dr. Lim explained. “Think of it in terms of different states of deep sleep. The hypnotism act is enormously, enormously, suggestive in and of itself. The last thing we want: something coming up out of deeper stages of consciousness and planting itself in one of the closer stages and project itself as a new ‘truth.’” Rebecca remained confused.

“Are you saying that this wouldn’t work?” she asked.

“No. I am warning you about your perils. I think we could get past this.”

“All right,” Rebecca said. “Any other warnings?”

“Only that we might fail.”

“Where would these sessions take place?” Rebecca asked.

Dr. Lim considered the point.

“Maybe at office,” he began slowly, “considering what we try to accomplish. But I could come to your home. We could, I suppose, conduct at least one of our sessions in the room where you witnessed the ‘ghost.’” Rebecca felt a chill, excitement tingling with fear.

“Right in that room?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Does this mean that you’ll do it?’ she asked. Another long hesitation. Then…

“I’m willing to make an attempt,” Dr. Lim said. “But no media involvement. I don’t want carnival atmosphere. And I can only attempt as long as there’s no problem with the police. I assume: there are detectives working on children’s disappearance?”

“Many detectives,” said Rebecca.

“One particular detective in charge? Probably?”

“A detective named Ed Van Allen,” she said. She paused. “He means well. But he’s a pain,” she said. They both laughed again. Rebecca also stopped short of saying that she felt that Van Allen had placed her on the top of a list of suspects.

“I have contacts within LAPD,” Dr. Lim said. “I could probably get proper authorization from above if it not forthcoming from the police closest to the case. I have worked major cases before. Los Angeles. San Diego. Long Beach.”

“When could we begin?” Rebecca pressed. Dr. Lim considered the point.

“If I get the proper authorization this afternoon from the police,” he said, “what about Monday? At my office.”

Rebecca nodded steadily in agreement. She felt a great burden lift from her, combined with a new anxiety over what might transpire under hypnosis.

“I’ll be ready for you,” Rebecca Moore said.

Dr. Lim nodded. An impish smile crossed his face.

“Ghost, huh?” he asked again. “I looking forward. I want to hear about it.”

Naturally, Melissa had her own spin on the situation.

“Los Angeles is a fantastic spot for ghosts and hauntings,” she said on the drive from Westwood back to Topango Gardens. Melissa had borrowed roommate June’s yellow Mustang for the trip. She and Rebecca drove with the top down.

“Ever driven past the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel? Right on Hollywood Boulevard?” Melissa asked. Rebecca wasn’t much in the mood for this conversation, but allowed it, anyway.

“I know where it is,” she answered.

“Suite l200,” Melissa said. “Marilyn Monroe’s ghost still haunts a mirror in the suite she used to use. Montgomery Clift, who stayed there while he was filming
From Here to Eternity
, apparently still paces the halls and plays a trumpet at odd hours. Isn’t that neat?” Melissa laughed. “And there’s a problem up on the roof of the Hollywood Roosevelt, too,” Melissa continued. She weaved in and out of traffic on Sunset as they drove through Beverly Hills. “An out of work actor named Harry Lee jumped to his death there in the 1930s. He still tries to push people over the side.”

“Yeah,” said Rebecca. She was more focused on Dr. Lim at this moment than Harry Lee. “Sure.”

“The Comedy Store is haunted, too,” Melissa continued. “You know that big place on Sunset? It used to be Ciro’s. Know what goes on down in the basement? You can hear the voices of people who were murdered by gangsters during Prohibition. The place was a speakeasy back then.”

A battered pickup truck with three workmen passed their Mustang. All three workmen turned to check out Melissa and Rebecca. One of them blew Melissa a kiss. In return Melissa flipped the man a bird and shouted at them in Spanish.

“And, let’s see!” Melissa continued, unbothered. “The Alexandra Hotel has a ghost, too. A woman in her thirties in a high-necked black dress and a bustle. She wanders around the hallways looking for her lover. She’s quite harmless. I’ve seen her. Oh, and then there’s Culver Studios in Culver City. The big white building. Know that one?”

“No,” said Rebecca.

“Ever heard of Thomas Ince? He was one of the pioneers of the film industry. Ince founded Culver Studios. He died while celebrating his forty-third birthday on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht. This was about 1923, 1924, maybe. Anyway, according to the rumor mill of the day, Hearst caught his mistress, Marion Davies, kissing Charlie Chaplin on the boat. Hearst fired a gun at Chaplin, missed, and killed Ince. His ghost has been reported by carpenters and technicians for years.”

Melissa grinned and shrugged, watching traffic as she drove.

“Of course, those are the famous stories. There’s a load of private homes that are haunted. The actress Elke Sommer had a house with a ghost that drove her out. Ever read about that? And then there are all the places that are kind of anonymous. Nothing special about the houses; they just happen to have ghosts.”

Rebecca received it all with silence.

Melissa turned off Sunset, taking the final leg of the drive back to Topango.

“Is this conversation bothering you?” she finally asked.

“I could do without it,” Rebecca said finally. “I like to think of Patrick and Karen as still alive, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh. Sorry, honey. I’ll change the subject,” Melissa said. She stopped at a traffic light at Highland and pondered what might next be appropriate.

“You know our neighbor, Francine Yerber?” she asked. “The photographer?”

“Of course I know her,” Rebecca said.

“Francine still wants to photograph me naked. Some picture book she’s working on. ‘Nude California,’ or something. You know. Ordinary people, not models, caught jaybird naked in their backyards. Think I should do it?”

“Consider yourself flattered, Melissa,” Rebecca answered, an edge to her tone.

“I do,” she said. The car started again. “So I might do it, after all.” She giggled. “I don’t know if I like the idea of some strange guys wanking over me. Or maybe I do. I can’t decide. But on the other hand, maybe it’ll attract me a lover. I need to hit the gym. I should lose ten pounds. Who knows?”

“Who knows about anything anymore?” Rebecca answered.

They were within two blocks of Topango Gardens now. They passed the gates to San Angelo Cemetery. There was an old man out front who looked like a caretaker. He smiled to the women as they drove by then looked away. In passing the yard, Melissa felt some funny sensation that she had never sensed before. This whole thing, she realized anew, was getting creepier with each passing day.

Detective Van Allen returned home that Saturday evening, angry and frustrated. He went to his den and set down on his desk the files of the Billy Carlton case and the files of the Moore case.

He wandered to his kitchen and made himself a pair of sandwiches. He took the food back to his den along with a bottle of beer. He sat down. With a remote control, he turned on the small television that sat in his bookcase. No Lakers this evening. Just the Clippers. He groaned. The Clippers. Who were these guys dressed up as NBA players? He couldn’t be fooled. These were the old San Diego Conquistadors in disguise, and always would be.

The detective took a long gulp of his beer. He devoured his sandwiches. Food tasted so much better when a man only ate once, late in the day.

Ah, it was silly time, Van Allen knew. He had been maxed out on work and his mind was freewheeling in strange directions. The television still entertained him. Names rebounded out of the roundball past: Jerry West. Gail Goodrich. Elgin Baylor. Kareem! Magic! Shaq!

He smiled. Why not trace those Lakers from the current day all the way back to the Lakers of Thousand Lakes country, the team he used to hear about as a kid? The Minne Nowhere Lakers. Hey, where are you today, Slater Martin? George Mikan?

A line of doggerel came to him:

“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”

Fine. Good line, straight out of a piece of high school French that he had learned by rote.

“Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

And, for that matter, where were the Fort Wayne Pistons of yesteryear, also? How about the Charlotte Hornets? The St. Louis Hawks?

“And where are the actors of yesteryear, Eddie boy?” whispered something within his subconscious. “Have you thought about that, Eddie boy?”

Whoa! He stopped short. Where had
that
thought surfaced from? His mind was starting to play devious tricks. “Eddie boy” was a childhood nickname used by his father. His dad had been dead for nineteen years.