Maybe This Time (38 page)

“Dennis saw the ghosts,” she told the medium.

“I know, he told me,” Isolde said. “Fucking amateurs.”

“He wants another séance.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Don't say that here,” Andie said. “Just help me exorcise the dead we already have.”

“I've been thinking about that,” Isolde said. “Did you see Dennis's drawings? The woman had a locket.”

“Yeah,” Andie said, trying to remember.

“I think it's the locket Alice is wearing.”

Andie stopped at the foot of the stairs. “She told me it was a treasure. Maybe that means she found it. Are you sure it's the same one?”

“Dennis has the drawing.”

Andie picked up speed and went into the dining room where all Dennis's work was still spread out. She sorted through the papers until she found the drawing of Miss J.

The drawing wasn't great, but that was Alice's locket.

“It's the same one,” she said to Isolde and then realized Isolde wasn't with her. “Isolde?”

She went out into the Great Hall and Isolde came out of the sitting room to join her, pale as death.

“What's wrong?” Andie said.

“We have to call the police,” Isolde said, and Andie thought,
Oh God, no, something really bad has happened this time,
and tried to go into the sitting room.

Isolde stopped her.

“It's Dennis,” she said. “He's dead.”

Andie had gone into the sitting room while Isolde called 911. Dennis was sitting there on the green-striped couch, leaning against one of the green-striped bolsters by the arms, staring straight ahead, looking not that different from when he was alive except that he wasn't blinking, but Andie knew instantly because there was no heh heh, no asthmatic cough, no lame jokes, nothing. So when she sat with him, and took his cold hand, and said, “Dennis, I'm so, so sorry,” she knew he wasn't there. She just didn't know what else to do.

North came in and said, “Isolde just came to get me. Andie, I'm so sorry,” and she knew how he felt, impotent to help her, because she felt the same way for Dennis. Then the EMTs arrived, and Andie stood back and let them work, letting North answer their questions, helping him when he didn't know the answers, part of her still believing Dennis would wake up, that he'd come walking in from the kitchen later with some banana bread, saying, “This is really extraordinary,” and ask for a brandy. Then she went up to the nursery and found the kids sitting together in front of the fire, Carter's arm
around Alice, Alice's arms around his waist, waiting for her to tell them why there'd been sirens outside.

“What happened?” Carter said.

“Dennis died,” Andie said, and Alice's face crumpled.

Andie went over to the window seat and sat down, putting her arms around both of them. Alice reached out as she wept and wound her fist into Andie's sweater, pulling her closer to Carter, huddling between them.

“They killed him,” Alice sobbed. “And he was
nice
!”

“He was good man,” Andie said, holding her close. “He died very quickly of a heart attack, and he didn't suffer. I don't think the ghosts killed him, Alice. I think he was really happy when he died because he'd seen the ghosts in the séance. He'd always wanted to, you know.”

“They killed him,
they killed him,
” Alice wailed.

“No,” Andie said, holding her close. “He wasn't trying to take you away. Why would they hurt him?” Unless he'd found out something else about them . . .

“Why did he have a heart attack?” Carter said, no emotion in his voice at all.

“He'd been drinking a lot and the séance really excited him.”
Plus he was doped to the gills on salvia.
“Maybe he just had a weak heart.”

Carter had that stubborn look on his face. “He didn't look sick. One of the teachers at my school had a heart condition and he was really pale all the time. Dennis looked healthy.”

“It can happen like that. Sometimes hearts just blow out.”

“Do you think he'll come back?” Carter said, and then the emotion was there, guilt and worry and a need for comfort. “Like Aunt May did?”

“No.” Andie smoothed his hair back and for once he didn't flinch. “I think he'd done everything right in his life, and I don't think he had any unfinished business. I think the only thing he really wanted to do, even though he wouldn't admit it, was see a ghost. And he saw a ghost.”

“Which one?” Carter said, tense again.

“All of them,” Andie said. “He talked about how beautiful your aunt May was.”

“Which one did he see when he died?” Carter said.

“I don't think any. I was in the dining room with him before he died, and he was definitely excited, but the room was warm and I didn't see anybody in there.” Carter relaxed, and then she said, “I'm pretty sure he was alone when he died.”

“You weren't with him?” Carter said, tense again.

“I went to bed.”
I left him alone.
“Isolde found him in the sitting room this morning.”

“You weren't with him when he died.”

“No,” Andie said.

Carter looked down at Alice who had stopped crying now.

“What?” Andie said.

“The ghosts killed him,” Carter said, and Alice nodded sadly.

“Ghosts can't kill people,” Andie said. “They can't touch—”

“There was a big black cloud and Aunt May screamed,” Alice said. “It was Miss J. I bet she killed Dennis the same way.”

“Listen,” Andie said. “We have to talk about you leaving. It's too dangerous to stay here, the ghosts are too strong now. So we have to figure out a way to do this.”

“We can't,” Alice said, starting to cry again.

“We can do anything,” Andie said. “Don't cry,
think
.”

“I just miss Dennis,” Alice wailed.

“I'll think,” Carter said, and Andie held Alice and said, “We'll all think.”

 

By ten, North had talked to the ambulance crew and the police, discovered Dennis had no next of kin, left a message with his university, waved the police and the ambulance down the drive as they left with Dennis's body, and refused Southie's offer of a beer.

Instead he went into the Great Hall where Isolde sat at the round table there, staring out the big mullioned windows on the front of the house.

“Can I get you anything?” he said gently, and she shook her head.

He waited a moment, studying her. She was a caricature of a woman dangerously out of touch with fashion, all dark eye makeup, big hair, and shoulder pads, but the emotion she was feeling was real, and he couldn't leave her alone in that icy barn of a hall, especially since she really believed the place was haunted.

“The sitting room is warmer,” he told her before he remembered that the sitting room was where Dennis had died.

She shook her head.

He sat down across from her.

“It wasn't your fault,” he told her.

“I know that,” she said, all of her former snap gone.

North nodded. “Can you tell me why you don't want to move someplace warmer?”

She looked at him with interest then. “It's cold because of the ghosts. They're feeding on the emotion here. I don't know what they're doing or who they are because Harold is gone, but they're still here in this room. That's why it's cold.”

I don't believe in ghosts,
North thought, but she clearly did. Whatever Isolde Hammersmith was, she wasn't a faker or a con artist. “Harold is gone?”

“He went to the other side. He said he'd had enough of humanity, living and dead.” Isolde took a deep breath. “Which is pretty rich considering he killed himself because he'd gotten caught fleecing humanity. He liked them just fine when he was taking their money.”

“Fleecing?”

“He was Harold Rich, the guy who ran the big Ponzi scheme out of Florida.”

“Oh,” North said, taken aback. If she was going to make up a spirit guide, Harold Rich was an interesting choice.

“Not a nice person,” Isolde said, “but very good at reading people. And ghosts. I was down there doing a reading and he was wandering around, bitching and moaning, so I took him on. He was really pissed when I brought him back to Ohio, but then nothing was ever good enough for Harold. Damn good spirit guide, though. Good with investments, too. Harold helped me a lot, so I put up with his lousy personality.”

“So that must be hard, losing Harold,” North said, trying to stick to the key points. “I'm sorry. But I really think you should come into the sitting room. It's too cold in here.”

“If the room gets warmer, it means the ghosts have gone somewhere else. Which would be bad because I think they have a plan. So I want to know where they are.” She smiled at him, a tight little smile that he was pretty sure wasn't natural to her.

“I can get my brother to come monitor the temperature in here. He thinks a lot of you. I'm sure he'd want you someplace warm—”

“Southie,” Isolde said, with some of her old spirit. “There's a great guy.”

“Yes, he is,” North said. “Let me get him—”

“Dennis was a good guy, too,” Isolde said, and North shut up. If she wanted to talk, he could sit in an ice-cold hall and listen for a few minutes. “He didn't believe, you know, and he wanted to. He wanted to see ghosts in spite of not believing. Then he saw them during the séance. Did a complete one-eighty. He was so excited.”

“You think he died because of that? His excitement gave him the heart attack?”

Isolde smiled at him kindly, as if he weren't quite bright. “No, I think one of the ghosts killed him.”

North sat back. “Isolde—”

“I think one of the ghosts went in there when he was weakened and scared him to death. I think they have a plan, and he knew too much about ghosts, and he was getting in their way. His information
was very good, you know. He didn't believe, but he did his homework.”

North nodded, trying to think of a way to make her suspicion normal. Maybe somebody in the house, the housekeeper, had done something to keep the fantasy of the ghosts alive and frightened Dennis to death accidentally. Except Dennis wouldn't have been scared to death by a human being. He'd investigated the best and lived to tell about it.

“I know you don't believe,” Isolde said. “That's all right, most people don't. But the danger is real. They want your children and they want your wife.”

North stiffened, but Isolde went on.

“I don't know why they want them. Harold didn't think two of them were even sane. But the danger is real. So I'm sitting here trying to . . . sense them. To see if they'll come to me. I think—”

She stopped and stiffened, as if she were listening.

“Isolde?” North said.

“It's getting warmer in here,” she said, and he realized she was right.

“They're moving,” she said and stood up.

“Where are you going?” North said, as she walked toward the big stone arch.

“To find the cold spots,” she said, and even though he didn't believe, he followed her.

 

Andie made sure the gas fire was burning brightly in the nursery, told Alice and Carter to stay put, and went downstairs to get them lunch. The police and the EMTs were gone, even Isolde was gone from the Great Hall, so she went into the sitting room and sat down on the green-striped sofa. Dennis's sofa. He had been alive right here and then he was dead right here and—

North came to the doorway between the sitting room and the dining room.

“I'm going through the house with Isolde,” he said. “She's upset and I don't want to leave her alone. Do you need me to sit with you?”

The idea of North sitting with anybody for comfort was so ludicrous that she laughed, and then she burst into tears.

He came over and sat down beside her and put his arms around her.

“I only knew him two days,” Andie said, trying to stop the tears as she cried into his chest. “But he was a good man. And he didn't believe in ghosts but he tried to help us anyway, and then he did believe and he was so happy and one of them killed him . . .”

“Isolde thinks they killed him, too,” North said. “She's going through the house looking for cold spots.”

“It had to be Peter,” Andie said. “Murderous son of a bitch. Dennis never had a chance. You can't fight something you don't believe in.” She drew a long breath and sat up, pulling back from North. “You know what? This is the first time I've really thought about death. I mean, Dennis is
gone.
I'm surrounded by ghosts but this is the first time I really understood what it meant. And Dennis did the right thing, he went on, he didn't stay around preying on the living . . .” She stopped, realizing that was a slap at May who could be lurking anywhere. “It's not natural for them to stay,” she said finally.

“There I agree,” North said. “Southie and Mother are in the kitchen with Flo, putting together some kind of lunch. I'll find Isolde. You go eat something.”

Andie shook her head. “I just want to sit here alone for a while and think about Dennis.”

North rubbed her shoulder. “Okay. I'll go find Isolde.”

Andie nodded, and North left, closing the door behind him, and she let the tears come then, quietly dripping while she thought about poor Dennis who'd died just as he'd opened a new chapter in his life. Well, she thought, trying to get a grip, he was opening a new chapter now. Whatever came next, she hoped it was wonderful
for him. She straightened the bolsters on the couch and found something soft behind one of them, and when she shook it out, she realized it was Dennis's godawful green argyle sweater, the one she'd gotten the pizza sauce out of the first night. He'd been so grateful. God, it was so sad, such a dweebish piece of clothing, but it was so Dennis, and Dennis had been so . . .