To start at the beginning go here. To hear an audio reading of the chapter, hit the play button above.
I reclined in my chair as my lie clouded Sartre’s thoughts. Watching him, it suddenly occurred to me who probably told Sartre I was working with Mitnick. “Maybe it was Atwell.” I felt something warm bloom in my chest, unfurling as it pulled others in.
The invocation of Atwell by name produced the normal level of revulsion from Sartre. “Why would that worm tell Mitnick?”
“I don’t know. I just know he might have known where you stashed the Ukrainian.” Sartre squinted at me with a thousand questions. I blocked all of them with a placid, “He’s been having you followed.” Sartre’s nebulous cloud of questions condensed into a thunderous glare. I provoked it further with a shrug, “I thought you knew.”
As Sartre’s anger continued to distill I pretended it was directed at me. I help up a conciliatory hand to ward that off. “OK, ok. I’ll find him and ask if he knew about the Ukrainian.”
This gave Sartre pause and I realized that part of his anger was from impotence – Atwell may well be a worm in his eyes, but as a U.S. agent he was also largely untouchable. I had just offered to take the problem he didn’t know I created off his hands.
Sartre twiddled his fingers and the chip in his hand disappeared. “And if he did?”
“Then I tell you and you decide what happens to him.” I shrugged again. “But it might be useful to know why he told Mitnick.” I paused, then adding to the fog of uncertainty with, “If he did.”
Sartre’s hand fluttered like a perched bird knocked from its ledge. At this familiar signal, the rook standing next to him fitted a cigarette to his mouth and lit it. I had been in Europe long enough to get used to second-hand smoke, but in the close quarters of the holding room it was cloying. I tried to keep from making the useless gesture of waving it away from my face while Sartre considered what I said. It went on long enough that it took some self-control.
Sartre eventually continued. “There was a fire. With the Ukrainian. The authorities will have difficulty identifying the bodies.”
I stared at Sartre, giving him my best dog with a puzzle expression as I tried to (quickly) figure out why he would tell me this information. What came out of my mouth was, “Bodies? As in, more than one?”
Sartre nodded slowly. With the smoke rolling over his face under the overhead light, you might have thought he had his own cinematographer.
“Did you have more than one there?”
He shook his head, barely disturbing the wisps rolling up to the ceiling.
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to find a plausible explanation. “There was a fight?”
Sartre flicked his cigarette ash. “There may have been a struggle.”
I let my eyes dart around the rooks before settling back on Sartre. “With your guys?”
At this question Sartre only responded with another slight shake of his head. Through his smoke I could see him watching me very carefully. But that warm bloom in my chest was coursing through my body and I felt his X-ray vision bounce off of me.
Having provided some truth, I added a twisted bit of it in. “Some kind of falling out in-between the Russians?”
Sartre slapped the table like a man who just won a bet at craps. “You see, this is why I ask you these questions. You are very smart, American.” Cigarette between fore and index fingers, he pointed it at me with a sawing gesture. “If this is the what is happening, it would be exploitable.” I stared at him in honest confusion for a moment before I translated the French of ex-pla-taub-la into the correct English word for my brain. When Sartre saw I understood he continued, “You will find this out for me.”
WARNING: This chapter contains scenes of sexual violence.
For an audio reading, select the play button above.
I am a killer, a poisoner by trade, and a thief by convenience. Of course, it was not always this way.
After my parents had died in a carriage accident I became the ward of an uncle on my father’s side, a man of higher standing who owned an estate within the city of Dunhill. As I was not of legal age to receive my inheritance it instead went to my uncle and, as such, did the responsibility of my care. My parents, it seemed, had very little, having spent most of it in keeping up appearances, so it was only through his generosity that I was allowed into his home. This was made very clear to me by the stern state matron who delivered me, so I arrived in grief and shorn of pride.
After rattling across the cobblestone streets of Dunhill, our arrival at his home only reinforced these feelings. Gone was the small rural homestead my parents had maintained through my father’s work as a doctor and my mother’s loving attendance. In the heart of the smog choked metropolis was a massive gothic structure, two wings off its central hall, peaked roofs with rounded windows, the smoke stacks appearing more as church steeples than chimneys. From the steady stream of horse and foot traffic on the Dunhill street we diverted through a gatehouse and into the courtyard.
It was much to my surprise that, in addition to two servants, we were received by my uncle himself. I had, in my mind, an image of my uncle that I had derived from my father: Tall and fit, neatly kept, with a trimmed beard and natty clothes. Instead, standing between the gray of the courtyard stones and the leaden Dunhill sky, was a corpulent and pallid man. He appeared as if he had not left the gaslit halls of his own home for quite some time, his pale skin hanging beneath its stubble as if an insalubrious condition had recently caused him to lose some of his ample weight. His shirt was undone at the collar and he wore no coat, his shoes only loosely buckled. He smiled with teeth that were bright and white.
It was perhaps this last quality that convinced the matron to allow me to pass into my uncle’s company. Upon setting eyes on him I could feel her presence go rigid and disapproving behind me, ready to slip me back into the carriage and off to an administrative orphanage. If only she had listened to that iron angel of her nature.
Before that celestial could whisper to her, though, my uncle introduced himself, speaking only to the matron. “As you already know, wise woman, I am the Baron of the house, Daman McDowell.” He then introduced his two servants that stood by him, a man and a woman, as Charles and Gildred. Each was dressed in black and white formal house uniforms. Each was as pale as my uncle, smiling the same white smile, theirs as fragile as porcelain. Prodded by the matron, I introduce myself, muttering, “I’m Cole.”
We all stood their in the cool, wet air of the courtyard until my uncle leaned in and said, “Ah Cole, from the Gaeilge, meaning a pledge. How fortuitous.” I stared back at him, trying to hold my fear in place with the gratitude I knew I should feel. He gestured us toward the house, the servants closing ranks behind us while stablehands pinwheeled the carriage, preparing it for the matron’s departure.
We were led into a vaulted main hall, its center occupied by a massive staircase. It was dim, lit only by a few gas lamps. No one, not a servant or my uncle, offered to take the matron’s coat or hat. In the chill of the house, she did not even remove her gloves.
Nonetheless, the eyes in her stony face becoming marginally less flinty at the opulence of the interior. “This is all very impressive. How did you make your fortune?” As a state matron, such a direct question was not out of bounds.
“Shipping,” replied my uncle, as if access to Dunhill’s deep port were all that was needed for a man to make himself rich. “I spent much time traveling and trading in the West before settling back in Dunhill.”
In anticipation of her many other questions regarding my care, my uncle launched into a speech about diet, education, and discipline. He discussed his adherence to Kessler’s new fashionable diet plan, which kept the body clean from mouth to colon. He detailed his plans for a series of private tutors on everything from proper English to maths, chemistry, biology, and anatomy, as well as many facets of physical education.
The matron had many questions, though, she at no point insisted on leaving the foyer. My uncle made gestures to the doors that went off the main hall, one a room covered in full bookshelves, the others closed or hidden by shadow, until he motioned up the grand staircase and asked, “Would you like to see the poor boy’s room?”
I blushed to the roots of my hair, assuming that my uncle spoke of my financial situation rather than that of my spiritual one. However, the matron appeared pleased with this or perhaps pleased that her duties had been completed enough for her to leave. She said something that ambiguously covered both possibilities and excused herself back to the carriage that brought her. What little light the Dunhill day exuded vanished behind the courtyard door as a rapidly disappearing sliver, leaving me in the dark of McDowell manor.
I felt my uncle’s hand on me in a very territorial manner, his voice calling me to, “Come now, boy.” He turned and gave me to the manservant, directing Charles to take me to my room. His hand was cold as he took my bag, his legs working steadily as a metronome as we ascended the stairs, my uncle’s voice calling behind me that, “I will see you at dinner.” The steps up were as if climbing a mountain, leaning forward so my dark hair might hide the shame in my eyes, and hoping my thin frame could carry my burden of sorrow and shame.
Charles said nothing, but took me directly to my room, set down my bag, and left. Under different circumstances, I would have been pleased with the accommodations: a soft, big bed, bookcases, a chest of drawers for my things. However, my grief and the shadow-stained halls of the manor kept me down.
This was not aided by dinner. Gildred called me down for food, and my uncle did not join me until she served the meal of roast beast and carrots. With little discussion, he at once began to dig into the meal with the ferocity of a glutton, not a man suffering from cachexia. Despite whatever underlying health problems he might have, he made short work of the meal and departed with little more than a hello and goodbye.
I did see my uncle again that evening, though, when he slipped into my room, much quieter than I would have thought him capable. He had waited until I ceased crying, and then some time, but I was still awake. His presence, for a reason I couldn’t define, petrified me and I did nothing as he stood over me. He must have sensed I was awake, though, as he spoke to me, saying only, “Stop me if you wish.”
With no more preamble, he pulled back the covers and fondled me, both hardening and terrifying me, until I ejaculated into my night dress. At this, he only guffawed roughly, saying “I knew that you were that kind of boy.”
I was too ashamed to say anything the next day, either to the servants or to the parade of instructors that came. My uncle was good to his word in the latter regard, my days filled with learning well into dusk, sequestered in his home until I grew as pale as he. My only contact with him came at nights when he would visit my room, his dirty work there growing from fondling me, to him taking my hand and placing it upon his own member, guiding it up and down, then eventually flipping me over and painfully inserting himself. The only sound I made through any of this was to cry aloud with pain or anguish, but the rest quietly wept with shame. I assumed my own hardening and ejaculation meant that my uncle was right, that I was “that kind of boy,” and that I deserved what was done to me. In my darkest moments I came to believe that my parents’ death was my fault, that their demise was providence taking me from them and delivering me to my uncle, the guardian I deserved.
So I said nothing to any of my instructors, even those kind enough and observant enough to make subtle inquiries into my health, some suspecting there was more than grief behind my silence. I said nothing, though, only adhering to my lessons. My uncle said very little, frequently disappearing into the manor and only appearing at night. He would occasionally breeze by one of my fencing or chemistry lessons telling me that I was doing well, and that he wanted me in “tip-top” shape.
At the time, I believed that this desire of his was for his nightly pleasures as well as the pride he took in showing me off to his guests. I was never invited to the table when others visited the home, but trotted out after nuts had been served, typically to recite a litany of facts on New South Dunsany or from the Magnalia Christi Columbia or the properties of sulfur, or some other item that my uncle thought would impress.
I remained my uncle’s show pony until I was old enough that I could have physically bested him, but still found myself paralyzed at his nocturnal visits. Even so after I noticed that he would bring other boys into the manor, often times when he thought I would not notice, frequently shuttling them away into the bowels of the house. It is to my shame that I became grateful for their presence. When they were about, my uncle did not visit me at night. I never saw these boys leave.
I assumed that this was because he spirited them away with even more surreptitiousness than he had brought them in. Too weak to protest against his actions, I began to construct elaborate fantasies about rescuing the other boys from the manor. It was the only substitute I could find for the imaginings of what my uncle was doing to them once evening came to the cold streets of Dunhill.
To start at the beginning go here. To hear an audio reading of the chapter, hit the play button above.
I decided that being on the wrong side of the interrogation table was having an overly dramatic effect on my attitude and the next blow from one of the rooks would cost them. I wanted to tell them that, the anger in me seeking some petty release, but I decided not to give them any warning. I squirmed in my seat to sit up straight, giving them the evil eye and trying to formulate a question that might make it sound like I didn’t know what this was all about.
Before I could, though, I heard the utility door behind me open and felt several new presences enter the room. I kept my eyes forward, half-expecting a slap in the back of the head. Instead, another rook stepped around the table and set down a folding chair. He thumped its legs against the floor a few times to make sure it was stable, then stepped back, retreating to the corner underneath the dead camera.
Wearing a new suit, equally dark to all of its predecessors but unwrinkled, Sartre stepped around the table. He placed his hand on the back of the chair, eyes on me, appraising me as if he were the tailor he was named after. I stared back, letting just enough of my anger show to be insubordinate.
I decided it might be suspicious not to say anything so I led with, “What’s this all about, Sartre?”
He moved to sit, as casually as a practiced hand letting go of a guillotine’s rope. He dropped the words, “Someone within my organization is talking.”
I glanced around at the rooks as if it might be one of them. Back to Sartre, I asked, “And?”
He didn’t like that. “It is on a topic very few know about.”
“Sartre, I got the living hell beat out of me finding out who killed your Ukrainian. I don’t really need any new bruises. What do you want?”
From his blazer pocket Sartre produced a casino chip and tapped in onto the edge of the table. “The police have found our Ukrainian friend.”
I glanced at the chip and then back to Sartre. “I thought that’s what you didn’t want.”
Sartre smiled, as if he were pleased I recalled that. “It is precisely what I didn’t want.”
“Sorry to hear that.” I put a weight of indifference on that statement.
“You,” the hand with the chip pointed at me, “are one of the few people who knew about this problem.”
I nodded, conceding the point. “I knew about it, but unless you left him stopping up that pipe, I wouldn’t be able to tell anybody where he was.”
“You were the one who suggested we keep the body.”
“I thought it might be useful.”
“It has been for someone.” Sartre stopped tapping the table and held the chip in his open palm, waiting for judgement. “If not you, then who might it be?”
“I dunno.” Despite the fact that I did know, I found myself twisting with a burning annoyance that it looked like I was going to hold my job as house detective indefinitely. I almost considered telling Sartre the truth so this could just end. Instead I just started throwing people under the bus. “Did Jasper know?”
“No. He knows nothing of this.”
“That makes sense.” I barely lifted my hand to point to the door behind him, indicating the casino employees, “I’d hope none of these people are stupid enough to tell the police. Someone told Mitnick. And he told the police.”
“Why do you say this?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. You said Mitnick put the Ukrainian in the pipe because he wanted him to be found. When he found out where you squirreled him away, he tipped off the heat.” I added a bit of American slang in the hopes Sartre would find it as pleasing as the pit bosses. Nothing makes the French feel cooler than being American.
Sartre considered this for a time, twirling the chip between fingers. “The man who I had watching the Ukrainian told me a Russian frightened him off. This is why I came to see you. I know Mitnick pays you to watch the casino.”
Sartre knew about that without me telling him, so I reminded myself that that I hadn’t seen anyone following me. I was as sure as I could be that he didn’t know about my activities for the last few days. If he did, I would probably be dead already. Holding onto that, I bet on the reply, “Sartre, I don’t know what you did with the Ukrainian. I couldn’t have told Mitnick where he was if I had wanted to.” From the back of my chair I leaned into that lie and all my previous ones with, “And I’m the one who told you Mitnick might know where the body was.” I tapped on the table in much the same way as he had with the chip. “This just means I was right.”
To hear an audio reading, select the play button above. To see all cases, go here.
At the best of times, walking in to find a stranger in her office would have annoyed Sarah Ananya. And the middle of the night was not the best of times.
Whoever they were, they were too old to be a student trying to steal test answers. Their well-fitted and natty suit, clean oxford shirt, and bobbed haircut were all a bit too neat for a university employee. And while the outfit might mark the individual as wealthy, or at least successful, there was something in the button nose and quick eyes that told the professor that they weren’t a donor who had decided to be presumptuous with their access to the university.
The stranger was slight enough that Ananya didn’t see them as a physical danger, though, so she drew herself up with the authority developed over years at the head of classrooms and research projects. She spoke clearly and loudly. “May I help you?”
Ananya, accustomed to dealing with immature undergraduates and sycophantic Ph.D. candidates, was surprised that her authoritarian tone didn’t elicit the usual startled jump. From behind the desk, the stranger raised their gaze to inspect Ananya, eyes lighting with recognition. This was joined with mischief as the stranger asked, “Sarah Ananya?”
“Doctor Ananya,” she corrected, reaching into her purse to grab the hard, cold thing in it. “And if you don’t tell me what you’re doing here I’m calling security.”
The mischief in the strangers eyes spread to deviltry in a smile. She stepped around the desk. “Of course.” The tenor of their voice made the professor decide the stranger was a woman. The clean, bright nails and smallness of her polished shoes cemented this assumption into place as the stranger said, “I’m Aggie McPherson.”
Dr. Ananya summoned up her best professorial disdain and stared down at the proffered hand before looking back up into the rather lovely violet eyes of the stranger. “Ms. McPherson, what are you doing here? These aren’t my office hours.”
Aggie’s smile didn’t falter. “I should hope not. It’s the middle of the night. Why are you here so late?”
“I’m trying to complete a project,” Ananya lied. She did it easily and rather well. She’d been getting a lot of practice lately.
The stranger’s countenance shifted to a feigned confusion that Ananya trusted even less than her friendliness. “I’m pretty sure your project’s done. It’s been done awhile hasn’t it? I mean, the test at the 22nd Street Y and then with Melissa Burbidge surely proves out your research.”
Ananya found with that statement all of the distress she had been trying to intimidate into this Aggie was suddenly flipped back onto her. It transfixed her in place so she could only reply, “What are you talking about?”
“Your murder of Melissa Burbidge, of course.”
Ananya pulled out the pistol from her purse. It was a .380 semi-automatic, not much bigger than her palm, but she could see the darkness of its muzzle reflected in the widening of the stranger’s pupils. In a rehearsed tone, the doctor stated something she had read from the internet about firearm rights. “I fear for my life.”
The small mouth of the stranger named Aggie hung open for a moment before it snapped shut and her eyes shifted from the pistol’s barrel to Ananya. “So I guess I was right.”
Ananya faltered, seeing too late the accusation as the trap it was. “What – ?”
“The homeless man you that hired to,” Aggie’s violet eyes became clouded with disgust and Anaya could almost see him vomiting onto Melissa in them, “meet Ms. Burbidge at the restaurant you two were going to lunch at. He’s dead too. Did you know that?”
The reminder of a second death that belonged to her steadied Ananya’s hand, allowing her to level the pistol. “Get out of my office.”
Aggie gently waved as if she gesturing for someone to come forward. “There was a police report, of course, about the incident at the restaurant and he was arrested for battery. His name was Gregor Sampson, if you care. Of course, by the time Ms. Burbidge hired me, he’d been released and he didn’t have a permanent address. I wasted a lot of time searching of shelters and the surrounding area until an associate of mine, Detective Soburne, let me know when Sampson turned up at the morgue.”
“Why would a police officer tell you that?”
“Rescuing someone from the Rat Cult tends to engender loyalty.” Aggie shrugged. “Anyway, they did an autopsy. And found this.” Seemingly from nowhere, she raised her hand to show a black beetle, small with outsized mandibles, immovable and inert, lacquered like her nails.
“Mr. Sampson also had a large amount of cash on him.” Aggie widened her eyes, as if this were weirder than the beetle she held. “Like a lot of cash.” The smile came back onto her lips and she stared past the pistol at Dr. Ananya. “So I started to wonder, why would a vagrant with so much money go into a restaurant to aggressively panhandle?” She cocked an eyebrow at the doctor who felt a flashback to her own time as a student, the pressure for an answer lying on her. When she produced none, Aggie said, “Because you sent him there, natch.”
Before Ananya could summon a denial, Aggie adjusted the lapels on her suit as if they might be bulletproof. “He had a key in his pocket for a locker at the YMCA on 22nd. I asked around, a few of the volunteers knew him. I flirted with one of the cuter ones until they mentioned he did a lot of panhandling out front, so I asked to take a look at some of the security camera footage. I started with the a few days before he met Ms. Burbidge. And guess who I saw talking to him?”
Aggie stared into Ananya, who felt nailed into place by the next question, “Did you know it would kill them both and not care? Or did you think the beetle would transfer from Gregor to Burbidge and it would only kill her?”
Despite having killed two people already, Ananya hesitated, finding it was much more difficult when you were face to face. The steadiness of the stranger didn’t help, her eyes hovering over the sights of the gun.
The doctor felt tiny beads of sweat and goosebumps from across her body, forcing her to steady her grip on the pistol. What was happening here? Why was she the one that was afraid?
Before she could answer those questions, the strange little woman asked her another. “So you figured out a way to get the Deathwatch Beetle to carry disease rather than just observe it. The autopsies showed both of them died from a traumatic pronouncement of Bardet-Biedl Syndrome, but the coroner told me that’s genetic. It isn’t transmissible.”
This deep demonstration of all her work, the knowledge of her guilt, suddenly flipped a switch in Ananya and she cocked the pistol’s hammer. “I don’t think I’ll answer that. I think you broke into my office, I found you here, and I shot you.”
“That might be even messier than how you killed Ms. Burbidge. And leave a lot more questions. People might even begin to look into your work on transfer of genetic disorders via non-standard disease vectors and realize it’s rather…” Aggie laid the beetle on the doctor’s desk and Ananya realized much of her critical work had been printed out and laid across it. “Insane.” Aggie nodded. “Yes, that’s the word. Insane. Or at least that’s what most people call black magic these days.”
“So as near as I can figure it, Burbidge discovered your work, and was going to order you to stop. You knew that, and decided to send her a bomb in the shape of Gregor Sampson. Which leaves me with only one question.”
Unable to translate the shaking in her hand into pulling the pistol’s trigger, Ananya asked, “What’s that?”
“Ms. Burbidge used to work in this building, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Why is that important?”
“Because she’s right behind you.”
With that statement, Ananya shuddered and couldn’t resist a glance behind. It was enough that she never saw the small stranger move, only felt a blinding flash of pain and the pistol lifted from her hand. A moment later, she was crumpled on her office floor staring at polished shoes. The legs the shoes belonged to slowly bent, bringing violet eyes and dark hair into Ananya’s view.
“You know, with most people, that wouldn’t work.” Aggie’s smile and mischievousness were gone, her skin gray in the half-light of the office. “But you believe in ghosts, don’t you Dr. Ananya?”
With hands as small as her feet, Aggie smoothly unloaded the pistol. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to prove you killed Sampson and Burbidge. But I’m going to do my best to make sure you’re haunted by them for the rest of your days.”
To hear an audio reading of this, click the play button above.To see all cases, go here.
Aggie wondered at the transformation. Even by the famously poor standards of driver’s licenses, the woman in the laminated photo ID she held was beautiful. Even striking.
The woman sitting across the desk from her bore only the slightest resemblance. Her appearance was such that when she burst in, Aggie considered adding the words, “By Appointment Only,” under the heading, “Aggie McPherson, Spectral Analysis” on the pebbled glass of the office door.
However, the shell of what was once Melissa Burbidge had pushed her way in without warning. Even Gladys, tall enough to be intimidating, beautiful enough to give pause to the most determined, didn’t have time to rise from her receptionist desk to stop Mrs. Burbidge.
While Aggie didn’t think of herself as a woman without compassion, this was a place of business. Her business. The woman who had come into it, with stringy hair and pockmarked face, calling for assistance with a voice that was somehow both cracked and phlegmy, clothes that were as gray and dirty as the rest of her, appeared as if she needed medical help. Or a homeless shelter. Or both. Neither of which Aggie’s agency was suited to provide.
Aggie was also mildly repulsed by the invading presence, but self-aware enough to know this was a product of her own vanity: Her bobbed hair, natty seersucker suit, the polished nails, these things didn’t happen by accident. It was easier to clean herself than her well-maintained office, though, so she prepared to physically remove the stranger. The earnest pleading in Mrs. Burbidge’s tone, though, made Aggie stop and listen.
When Mrs. Burbidge produced her driver’s license it became clear that she had exactly the kind of problem Aggie might help with. The fact Mrs. Burbidge also produced her checkbook helped.
Many people had walked through Aggie’s door having been haunted by nightmares not meant for men, some drained of vital essences by etheric parasites, others plagued by nocturnal visitations, hungry ghosts, minor demons. So Mrs. Burbidge’s tale wasn’t unfamiliar to her. Even so, listening to Mrs. Burbidge describe being vomited on by a vagrant caused Aggie’s toes to curl. However, it did make it clear to Aggie that this was the beginning of Mrs. Burbidge’s transformation.
“Nothing is working for me.” Mrs. Burbidge fruitlessly pushed her stringy hair out of her face. “I’ve been to every kind of doctor, specialist, dietician. None of them have found anything wrong with me.” Melissa paused, on the edge of tears. Aggie handed her a handkerchief, encouraging her to continue. She tried not to think about the upholstery of the chair Mrs. Burbidge was sitting in.
Drying her eyes, Mrs. Burbidge continued in frustration. “Even simple things like bathing and combing my hair don’t do any good. I just end up,” Mrs. Burbidge waved the handkerchief over the wreckage of herself, “looking like this.”
Aggie was familiar with the physical toll lingering disease could bring and how sometimes tending to the things you could, helped with the things you couldn’t: A bit of make-up to bring out the features in a pallid face, shaving off hair when it started to come out in clumps, a blanket to hide withered legs. To be robbed of that simple comfort struck Aggie as cruel.
Instead of focusing on what others might think of as an impossible transformation, though, Aggie asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible. I’m exhausted all of the time. I can’t do my job or look after my family without feeling like I need a thousand-year nap. I could barely find my way here.”
She wouldn’t be the first person to have a hard time finding her way to Aggie McPherson’s office, but that was a different story. She had found her way here, which might be the best indication that Aggie could help her. She’d need more, though, so asked, “What is it that you do?”
“I’m the Dean of Medicine at Azoth University.”
While Aggie could see a connection between medicine and disease, she didn’t see an immediate connection there so asked, “And your family? Everyone doing OK? Any sudden tragedies or problems there?”
“It’s just me and my husband and our three girls. Jonesy is about to head off to college, which is a bit tough, but we’re managing it.”
Not much there to go on, which made Aggie wonder out loud, “This is clearly…abnormal. But typically, my offices handle a different sort of problem.”
“I was told that you handle hauntings. Ghosts, specters, that kind of thing.”
Aggie eyed the clearly well informed Mrs. Burbidge. “That’s correct.”
“Isn’t a spiritual possession just the haunting of a person rather than a place?”
Aggie tilted her head as if moving a prism through which she viewed Mrs. Burbidge, trying to see past the tattered visage. She began to think she might like Mrs. Burbidge.
“I suppose that argument could be made, but possessions tend to have a more diabolic component. And I’m not sure that’s what we’re dealing with here. This might be some kind of curse or hex. It’s hard to tell without being able to examine the point of origin.”
“Then you can find the man who did this.”
“You expect me to find a homeless man in a city of millions?”
Mrs. Burbidge looked at Aggie with undisguised hope, tempered by the clear, high expectations of one professional to another. “I was told you’re very good.”
Aggie smiled. She did like Mrs. Burbidge. “Very well. I’ll begin today. Please leave your contact information with Gladys on your way out. She can discuss my rates. If they’re acceptable to you, I’ll be in touch.”
Mrs. Burbidge clutched what was once most likely a very nice purse to her chest, both its surface and the smile she gave Aggie cracked and gray. “Thank you.” Aggie tried to ignore the tears forming in Mrs. Burbidge’s eyes.
Before those could reach a heavy enough state to fall, Aggie briskly stood up from her desk and escorted Mrs. Burbidge to her office door, opening it to reveal the smiling Gladys. With a gentle smile, Aggie’s secretary took her newest client by the hand, and sat her down to take her information and discuss payment details.
Aggie closed her own door and breathed a sigh of relief. She may like Mrs. Burbidge, but she didn’t want to share tears with her. Gladys was much better suited to that end of the work. It was too bad she couldn’t help Aggie with casework outside the office.
Aggie busied herself with a bit of research and contemplation on what might be vexing Mrs. Burbidge until she heard the client leave. Only when that emotional maelstrom departed did she poke her head out to the reception room. “Is she gone?”
Under the perfectly coifed blonde hair that Aggie could never fail to admire, Gladys raised an eyebrow at her boss. After inspecting her for humanity, she pretended to brush something off the sweater of he her Coco Chanel day suit and responded, “She’s a lovely woman. And she’s agreed to all the usual terms.”
Aggie breathed a sigh of relief, watching the entrance as if Mrs. Burbidge might return. “Well, that’s good. Any thoughts on Melissa Burbidge after spending some time with her?”
Gladys, the friendliest, kindest person Aggie had ever known, including her mother, looked right at Aggie with her impossibly blue eyes and said, “That lady isn’t gonna make it.”
