Ghost of a Chance (14 page)

She wrung her hands together, her face so
pale I thought she would pass out.

“Maybe we should do this another time,” I
murmured.

“No,” Adam said, shaking his head. He spoke
calmly, his eyes intense but his voice soft as he took Amanita’s
hands in his. “She can do this. Think back to that moment, Nita.
What did the two men say?”

She swallowed a couple of times, clearly
trying to focus. “The one said he didn’t think they could get out.
Spider said, ‘I’ll be damned if I stay here any longer.’ Then there
were the struggling sounds, and Spider said… I think he said,
‘It’ll all be mine when you’re gone.’ Or something like that.”

“Who was he talking to, did he say?” Adam
asked.

“No. No one said anything else, I
swear!”

Adam made her go over the brief conversation
a couple more times, but she insisted that was all she had heard.
She was becoming more and more distraught with each passing moment,
however.

Adam opened his mouth to say something else,
caught my eye, and simply told Amanita to go upstairs to the
kitchen to wait for the other spirits. “We’ll talk to you again a
little later.”

She nodded and hurried off.

“All right, she’s gone. Now, why did you
give me a look that practically yelled an objection?” Adam
asked.

“She was about ready to have a nervous
breakdown. Even you must have seen she was nearly frightened out of
her wits. It would have been cruel to press her further.”

“She’s always frightened about something.
She’s a unicorn! Haven’t you ever been around them?”

“Not really, no.”

“They’ve been hunted for centuries, with the
end result being that they stay mainly to themselves. They don’t
like strangers, loud noises, or crowds,” Adam said.

“That’s understandable, but this wasn’t
normal fear. I think she needs some time to pull herself
together.”

He gave me a gentle push up the stairs. “Did
it occur to you at all that you might have had me send a murderer
off on her own?”

“A murderer!” I stopped at the top of the
stairs and looked down on him. He shooed me forward, clicked off
the light, and locked the basement door. “Amanita? You can’t be
serious! She’s your own ward!”

“I am very serious, and I know who she is.
She was down there with him—what’s to stop her from bashing
Meredith on the head, and killing Spider?”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’d
think that about someone who looks to you for protection. She’s not
at all the type to kill someone. Even if she could—and I don’t
think a woman would have the strength to strangle Spider—there’s no
earthly reason why she should want him dead. She hadn’t even met
him!”

“They all knew Spider destroyed your
domovoi.”

I remembered the horrible pain that had
seemed to radiate from the hellish machine Spider had used. “I
imagine every spirit in a five-mile radius knew one of their own
kind had been destroyed. But she didn’t know Spider.”

“No. But she must have known that what he
did once, he could do again—to any of them.” Adam’s voice was grim.
I knew it must be causing him no little amount of pain to have to
consider his own charges as suspects.

“I just don’t think it’s likely. She’s shy
and not at all aggressive.” I gave a little smile. “This is very
strange—me defending your own people to you. When it comes right
down to it, Pixie is more of a suspect than Amanita. She didn’t
like Spider, is demonstrably volatile, and has polter strength, but
you don’t see me trying to suggest her as the murderer.”

Adam paused at the door, giving me an odd
look. “I haven’t forgotten your moody teen.”

I gawked in surprise for a moment before
regaining my composure. “What do you think about what Amanita
said?”

“I think I’m going to have to talk to
Meredith.”

“Agreed.”

“But first…” Adam entered the living room.
Savannah strode about, waving her arms and declaring that she would
never make contact with the other side if so much negative energy
was continuously trapped in the house. “I can’t believe someone
would murder Mr. Marx just when we’re poised to explore the
unknown. Don’t they know how harmful a violent crime like this can
be to one’s psychic receptors? And then there’s the
circumambulation. How is that going to be performed if we’re all
trapped here?”

“It
is
extremely inconsiderate of
someone,” I agreed before I fully realized what she’d said.

“What the hell is circumwhatever?” her
husband asked as he slammed down a drink he’d poured himself from
the sideboard. He glared at everyone from his armchair, as if
daring someone to object.

Savannah blushed under the attention of
everyone in the room and made pretty little flustered gestures with
her hands. “Oh, I… it’s something I read about. It has to do with
people dying, doesn’t it? It’s a ceremony or something?”

“Something like that.” I watched her for a
moment, then raised my eyebrows slightly at my father. He looked
suspious.

Meredith belched after taking a swig of what
appeared to be whiskey. “A man’s dead, Vanna. I think that’s more
important than some flaky ceremony you want to do.”

“It’s not just a ceremony, and it’s not
flaky,” she answered, turning to me, her hands spread wide in
entreaty. “You’re the expert on poltergeists. You’ll explain it
much better than I could.”

Yes, I was the expert… But why did Savannah,
who was apparently so badly informed about polters, know about one
of their more obscure ceremonies? “Circumambulation simply means to
walk a circle around something—an object, or even a person. It’s an
act performed in some religions, but it also refers to a special
ceremony that poltergeists perform when someone has died within
their domain.”

“Thrillsville.” Meredith yawned, his eyes
hostile as they moved from person to person.

“It has to do with them being guardians,
doesn’t it, Karma? People who die where poltergeists live can’t
move on to the next plane of existence until the poltergeists
release them?”

Adam stood silently in the doorway, watching
everyone. Pixie was slumped on the couch, her iPod in her hands.
Dad was moving around the room in his usual restless manner.
Evidently I’d been nominated official polter spokesperson. “It’s a
bit more complicated than that. Without going into the whys and
hows of polter caretaking, it means that the soul of the deceased
person is bound to its body until a circumambulation ceremony has
been performed by a shaman.”

“Good god, you’re all a bunch of crackpots,
aren’t you?” Meredith lurched to his feet and headed toward the
sideboard.

“I think that’s enough for one night,” Adam
said, moving to intercept him.

“Back off, freak boy. It’s not your liquor;
it’s Spider’s.” He paused for a second, awkwardly pointing toward
me with his glass. “I guess it’s hers now. Either way, I’m going to
drink to Spider, and no one can stop me.”

“Drunkenness isn’t going to help the
situation,” his wife chastised as he slumped back down into his
chair, spilling a bit of whiskey on himself.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Meredith!”

“I think we’d better get on with it before
he’s too sloshed to talk,” I said to Adam.

The imps, evidently awake, heard my voice,
burst forth from their box, and came running for me with arms
outswept.

“All right, who opened the box?” Adam asked
as they ran over his feet to get to me. I shuffled past him, my
feet being used as transportation devices by the six imps. “If
those little devils have harmed any of the furniture…”

“They’re fully housebroken,” I assured him,
giving in to the inevitable and sitting in the nearest chair to
de-imp my feet. “They don’t start fires or potty outside their
litter pan, and they pick up their toys without being asked. Most
of the time.”

“I don’t want them running around my house,
getting into trouble!”

I sighed and accepted the box he brought me.
“Easier said than done.”

“Oh, leave me alone, woman! I’m not drunk.
Yet.” Meredith suddenly stirred in his chair and shouted at
Savannah. She gave him a haughty look and strode dramatically to
the middle of the room.

“These negative emanations are so damaging.
It’s too much for someone as sensitive as myself to endure!” She
shuddered delicately. “A man has been murdered. Murdered! Right
here in this house, and now his soul is bound here, and other
spirits are trapped with him, and who knows what sorts of negative
entities are going to be attracted by all that! It’s so upsetting.
So harmful to the psyche. I don’t know how long it will take me to
recover from this terrible experience… Karma, do you think I could
have one of those imps as a little pet?”

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” I
told Adam in a low voice.

His eyebrows rose as he looked me over. “I
don’t see anything obvious. You have only two arms. You don’t
apport. You don’t even exhibit the restlessness unsual with our
kind. Do you speak Poltern?”

“Yes, but not easily. The clicking I can do
well enough, but the raps give me a bit of trouble. My toe joints
aren’t very limber, and I hate making my finger and toe knuckles
pop. That wasn’t what I meant, anyway. I was referring to the fact
that my husband is dead and I’m not crying. I’m not overwhelmed by
the tragedy of his death. I’m not feeling much of anything, to be
honest.”

“That’s normal,” he said, giving my shoulder
a little squeeze. “It’s shock. You feel kind of numb, right?”

I struggled for a moment to put into words
the odd state of my emotions and finally decided his description
was as close as possible. “Numb would be a good way to put it, yes.
Worried, as well.”

“Worried we won’t figure out who the
murderer is?” he asked, glancing around the room.

I bit my lip again. “I’m praying that won’t
be so. It’s just that we have this one chance, and after the seal
is lifted and it’s in the hands of the watch… well, that kind of
changes everything.”

“More people involved, you mean?” He nodded.
“It would be far easier for everyone if we have the murderer ready
to hand over when the seal lifts. If we don’t… I’m afraid my
captain will tell me that we’ll have to call in the mundane police,
and that’s not going to be good for anyone. I can set your mind at
ease about one thing, at least. I’ve seen your sort of reaction to
death before, and I can assure you that it’s common with family of
murder victims. As for not being overwhelmed by the tragedy of
Spider’s death…” His lips thinned. “You’ll have to talk to someone
else about that. I don’t particularly view his death as a
tragedy.”

I looked him in the eye. “But that’s my
problem. I don’t, either.”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you for
that.” His cell phone rang. He glanced at the number displayed
before moving to a quiet corner. “It’s my captain again. I’d better
take this.”

My father, correctly interpreting my eyebrow
movements, flitted over to where I stood. “I assume you have
something to say to me?”

“Quite a few things, actually, but most of
them can wait. Adam has deputized me.”

“So?”

I expected at least a bit of surprise. “He
wants me to help him talk to everyone here about Spider’s death. He
doesn’t think it was an accident.”

“Accident… miracle… they’re the same thing
in this case.”

“That’s not the point.” I fretted. “I’m
worried Adam won’t have enough time to figure things out before the
seal is up.”

He stopped fidgeting and gave me a long
look. “Why does it have to be before then? So long as the murderer
is caught, what does it matter if they figure it out today or
tomorrow, or even a couple of days from now?”

“Don’t you watch any of those crime reality
shows?” I asked, aiming for a light tone. “The first few hours of
an investigation are always critical.”

“Hmmph.” Dad snorted. “If that’s what’s got
your panties in a bunch…”

“It’s not just that.” I glanced at where
Adam was standing with his back to the room, and dropped my voice
lower. “Think of it from the point of view of an outsider: if
Spider’s death wasn’t an accident, doesn’t it strike you that the
person here who benefits the most from his death is Adam?”

Dad recoiled as if in horror. “Karma Phoenix
Marx! How can you say something like that about one of your own
kind?”

I shushed him before anyone could overhear
us. “I’m one of Spider’s kind, too, remember? Besides, that’s
neither here nor there. I’m not saying that Adam killed Spider; I’m
just saying that someone in the watch might remove him from the
case because he could concievably have a good motive for killing
Spider. There are polters who are just as capable of murder for
their own gain as mortals are. Adam must surely know that I will
inherit Spider’s possessions, and that I’m not likely to hold on to
a house I rightly consider his.”

“That doesn’t mean he killed him.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m just worried that
whatever investigation he does will later be tossed away because of
the circumstances.” I struggled to put into words one of the
worries that had been swirling around in my brain. “There’s another
thing. If Adam was very smart—and he seems intelligent to me—he
could use being in charge of the investigation to set up someone
innocent by manipulating the facts, evidence, et cetera.”

“Do you think that Adam is that sort of
man?” Dad asked, one eyebrow cocked.

“I don’t know. I suppose not,” I sighed,
glancing over at the subject of conversation. “It’s possible. I
just don’t know how I’m going to catch him if he’s manipulating the
investigation.”

“I don’t see that he can do much of that,”
my father answered. “If Spider was murdered, there aren’t very many
people who could have done it. The house is sealed, which means
only those of us here now could get to Spider. You and I didn’t do
it. Savannah was here with me most of the time. Her husband was
bashed on the head and knocked out.”