Poltergeist (14 page)

She pulled herself up and braced against the hard corner of the wall. White sunlight shimmered on her wet skin and clothes and threw a moment of butterfly illumination onto her face, leaving a flashbulb impression of film goddess perfection before she shifted slightly and the light slid away.

"I joined the project because Tuck asked me to. I took some classes from him at the U as an undergrad and we understand each other. He thought I'd enjoy it. And I do. I enjoy the creation of Celia. There's a challenge in reaching a successful consensus of minds and moving forward from there. It's an exhilarating change from leading the corporate pack for a while.”

"How successful is the project?”

"Very. We are able to accomplish extraordinary things. There were some early hitches and recently I lost a piece of jewelry that I'm annoyed over—but other than that it's very smooth now.”

"Do you think one of the participants stole your jewelry?”

"No. It was a Knight family heirloom—it belonged to my great-aunt Bertha, who was mayor of Seattle, and it has great sentimental value—but I'm sure its just misplaced. Our poltergeist sometimes hides things from us and she's fascinated with jewelry.”

I nodded, remembering Celia's interest in Ana's earrings in the recordings—but I also recalled the ghost in the theater who'd said a certain brooch was a fake. Same brooch? If she was the ghost of Bertha Knight Landes, it might well be. "Do you believe in it?" I asked.

"You'll need to rephrase that question. I don't know what you're asking." She slipped a little on the wet grips and grunted as she dipped her hands one by one into the chalk bag at her back, then dug her hands and feet into new positions.

"Do you believe the phenomena are genuine?”

"Yes. I was doubtful initially, but I've been convinced. There truly is more to the world than we can see.”

"Do you think that any of the phenomena are faked, sweetened, or manipulated, now or ever in the past?”

She laughed again. "I know the early days were faked. Seeded, you could say. We no longer need that crutch. We control Celia through our committee of the mind now. No one's faking anything." She chuckled. "Anything.”

"How do you know?”

"Mark told me how it's done. Once I knew what to look for, I could spot it. Now I never see it. We're clean." She sounded rather smug as she wedged herself into another chink in the overhanging surface. She checked her position. "What time is it?" she asked.

I looked at my watch. "Three twenty," I called back.

"Good. Almost done here. If you have any other questions, you'd better ask quickly.”

I asked her what she thought of the rest of the group. She replied they were pleasant enough but, like her husband, she found the college students a bit silly and not of her social class. She also didn't like Patricia and called Wayne, the retired military man, "a likable sot." The only people she seemed to truly like aside from herself were Tuckman and Mark. I kept speculation to myself on why she liked Tuckman, and I wondered why Mark had told her about the faked effects and how she'd react when she found out he was dead.

By the time she'd finished answering my question, she had come to the apex of the climb. She hooked onto the rappelling rope and glided down, chalk-streaked, her thin shoes crunching into the gravel in front of me.

Carolyn didn't look the least chilled or uncomfortable. I held in a shiver, realizing how damp I'd gotten standing in the drizzle while she clambered above me. She was breathing a little fast, but not much, and she glowed through the sheen of sweat and rain with more than exertion and health. She fixed me with brilliant blue eyes and looked me over, nodding. Then she gave a very small smile. "You can call me Cara. Any other questions?”

"Not right now," I replied. It was strange to feel my height was, for once, no advantage. Cara radiated assurance beyond physical stature, though she certainly wasn't short. I was irritated at my small pleasure in her evident approval. I squashed it with quick self-reproof. Cara Stahlqvist was a first-order opportunist, driven by ambition. There was nothing soft to her, inside or out. She didn't like people, she used them and thrived on competition.

"Are you satisfied with your investigation thus far?”

"It's about what I expected." I looked at my watch again and snuck a peek at her through the Grey now that the sun was no longer obscuring my view. Like the others, Cara had a thin yellow thread mantling her head and shoulders, but nothing like the shifty aura that had surrounded Ken or the strange colors around Ian.

She glanced down at her left hand and frowned at a bleeding scrape. She had removed her wedding ring, but I noticed there was no band of untanned flesh to mark it. "What time is it?”

"Three thirty.”

"Then your time is up." She looked back into my face. "If there's anything else, call me.”

I let my eyes narrow. I didn't like her and she didn't have to like me. "I'll be in touch.”

She gave me a cooler smile and strode away into the building. I gave her time to get into the locker room before I followed through the building and back out.

I headed for Queen Anne, thinking that there was something wrong. None of the participants so far seemed to have any unusual ability in the Grey that could account for the power of the poltergeist. Unlike a vampire or a witch, they had no inherent power and no apparent tie to the power grid except the thin yellow tether to Celia. But they also seemed to have no knowledge or opportunity to manipulate anything physically to create the effects Tuckman was recording. I was still convinced that what Tuckman was getting was real phenomena, but I wasn't sure how they'd jumped the barriers that had stumped the Philip group. And if the poltergeist was involved in Mark's death, I couldn't figure out how without the whole group to support it, which seemed unlikely.

But before I could argue with Tuckman about the poltergeist's power, I'd have to prove to him that none of his people could have faked the phenomena physically. And I still needed to know how that could—or couldn't—be done.

Ben sat at a small wooden table in the Five Spot's bar with a canvas book bag beside him. The seasonal menu looked to be Hells Kitchen Italian, to judge from the collection of American tin advertising signs and picturesque laundry arrayed overhead while the Bobby Rydell version of "Volare" played in the background. Excess is the Five Spot's stock-in-trade, though they'd forgone the red-and-white-checked tablecloths in the bar. I slid into the bench opposite Ben's chair.

"Hi. I thought I'd be ahead of you. It's not four yet."

"Mara shooed me out of the house early. I tried to call you a little while ago, but I just got your voice mail.”

I snatched the cell phone from my pocket and saw I'd never turned it back on after leaving the theater. "Damn," I muttered. "This thing has the worst ringer—some kind of annoying pop song. I shut it off and forgot to turn it back on. I miss my pager."

"I'm sure it's got a vibrate mode."

"Yeah, I just can't find it.”

"Can I take a look at it?" Ben asked, holding out his hand. I shrugged and handed it over.

Ben poked at it and the phone made several aborted yelps and squawks before giving forth a rich purr. "There. That should do it." I peered at him. "How did you do that?”

"It's the buttons on the side. You press the top one to unlock the mode, then poke the bottom one until the screen says Vibrate' and then lock it again."

"Now I feel stupid.”

"Don't. I had to get one of my students to show me three or four times." He handed the phone back to me and I tucked it back into my jacket pocket. "Do you want a drink?" Ben asked, putting his hands flat on the table.

"Not yet. What are you going to show me about séance tables and knocks?”

"Well, not a lot. My technique is pretty rough." The table lurched toward Ben, kicking its feet up at me and sending the candle on the tabletop clattering to the floor. I yelped and slid back in my seat.

"Oops," said Ben as the table settled back onto all fours. I ducked down and retrieved the candle, replacing it on someone else's table.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Did that look familiar?"

"Sort of. How did you do it?”

Bens smile split his dark beard. "It's almost too easy. This technique was very popular with spiritualists and phony mediums at the beginning of the twentieth century when the Spiritist movement was at its height. A lot of people do it without knowing that they've done anything and then take it as evidence of spirits. That's called 'ideomotor'—the idea becomes motion—and Tuckman, as a psychologist, is certainly aware of it. The technique is the same whether it's deliberate or accidental and it takes very little pressure or strength to do it. You can use a pretty heavy table, but the lighter it is, the more dramatic the effect.”

"OK, I think I get this, but what's the difference between a Spiritist and a spiritualist?" I asked.

"Oh, Spiritism was the movement, and people who adhered to the SpiritistChurch or beliefs called themselves Spiritists—so did a lot of frauds. Spiritualist was and is a much looser term.”

"OK. So, yeah, what about this technique?”

"It's all just friction and leverage. See how my hands are flat on the table? So long as I have friction on the surface and can exert force outside the fulcrum point of the legs, I can tilt the table just by pulling my hands toward myself while not allowing them to slide across the surface. See?”

The table lurched again and I noticed that it leaned down toward Ben. I looked under the table. It was resting on the two feet closest to Ben with the other two feet in the air about an inch. Ben eased the table back down until it hit the floor with a bang.

"Sorry. I lost my grip. But that wouldn't matter. In the conditions of belief created in most séance circles, the sitters will be as impressed with the sudden thump as with a smooth return, if not more.”

"Drama," I agreed.

"Exactly. And you can do more with a few simple modifications of this same technique. It's easiest with a table like this that has the legs set a bit inside of the edge of the tabletop. The farther the legs are from the edge, the easier it is, and a table with a central pedestal—even a heavy one—is shockingly easy to tilt. Now, watch this.”

He placed his hands flat again and the table immediately slid a bit to the left and eased up onto one leg so the other three were off the floor. It wasn't much, but enough for most people to be impressed with. Once more I looked under the table and this time took a glance into the Grey. Nothing paranormal was acting on the table, even though the restaurant had the usual share of ghosts and memory.

As Ben continued speaking, he demonstrated. "You see that if I pull, the table leans down toward me. If I push, it'll rise on my side instead. Angular change changes the direction of tilt. With a confederate at the table, a phony medium can make the table tilt or even 'walk' in any direction. And if I push forward with even pressure and no tilt, the table will scoot in the direction of push, instead of rising. With a confederate to create or maintain the tilt, the phony medium can remove his or her hands from the table and still get phenomena. The other sitters will join in without recognizing it because of the suggestive quality of ideomotor. Takes a little practice to be smooth about it, but it's not hard. Try it.”

He settled the small table back down. I put my hands down and pushed a little. The table scooted toward Ben.

"Put your hands a little farther out and push down as you push forward.”

This time the table rose slowly about half an inch.

"Congratulations, you're a spirit communicator.”

I gave him a sour look. "What else can you do with this?”

Ben grinned and demonstrated how to make the little table turn and several techniques for making it rise off the floor, including one he called "the human clamp," which involved holding the table between his hand and the edge of his shoe, the same way most of us would hold an object between our thumb and finger, and moving it around without touching the floor. It was a full levitation with only a foot and a hand as tools.

Next, Ben reached into the canvas bag on the floor and brought out a large, stiff loop of heavy wire, which he strapped onto his forearm so the closed end was cupped under his hand like a gigantic hollow spoon. He slid his hands back onto the tabletop so the loop went under the lip. "This is called a crook and the operator uses it to lift the table. There are several kinds and they require a lot of discretion to use, but…”

The table leapt, the legs on my end flipping upward so fast I had to squeeze backward into the bench to get out of the way. Ben waved the table side to side and up and down. It was sloppy, but a little practice would have solved that. He waggled the table so it rotated around the axis of the loop and then put it back down.

By this time, the happy hour crowd was staring at us with varying degrees of boldness. "It's just a trick," I said to the nearest table full of gawkers. One of the men nodded and slurped his beer, but didn't stop looking at the table with suspicion.

I found myself shaking my head and stifling laughter. "Wow. How does anyone blame that on a ghost?”

"They don't get caught. If they do, they say they only did it to encourage the spirits. A stage magician does the same thing, priming the audience with little revelations and ideas that encourage them to suspend their disbelief and buy into the bigger illusions. Quite a bit of psychology goes into a successful magic act." Then he added with a growl, "Or a faked séance.”

I cast a speculative look on Ben. "Is this upsetting you?”

"Only because I suddenly realize how easy it is to fake these things and how many people—including me—have probably been taken in by willful fakes and sincere assistance' by well-meaning believers who make fools of the lot of us.”

I sat back and regarded him in silence a while.

He avoided my gaze and stared at the table.

"Disillusion's a bitch, isn't it?”

He snorted. "Yes, it is. And now I really want something to drink.”

We caught the eye of the waiter, who sidled up with a dubious glance at us as if he wasn't sure what would happen next. I ordered coffee. Ben asked for a dark beer.

He'd stripped off the crook and was rolling his sleeves back down when I noticed red dents on his forearms. I pointed at them.

"What caused those marks?”

"The crook. Pressure from lifting the table. I imagine that if you use a crook a lot, you probably build up some kind of callus or marks.”

I nodded as the waiter returned with our drinks. Mark had had very similar dents on his forearms, according to the autopsy. I'd bet that a closer examination of the recordings would show that he had used a crook a lot in the early days of the sessions. Now I understood why Tuckman thought the heightened phenomena could be faked— the crook
was
impressive—but I was more sure than ever that they hadn't been. I hadn't seen the same movements from anyone else, but I'd seen Mark make the same hand slides and elbow dips I'd just seen from Ben.

Ben licked foam from his mustache and sighed. "This reminds me of university in Germany. I think the amount of beer I drank then is probably why I still don't speak German as well as I read and write it. I suspect the other guys in the program liked to get me drunk just to hear me butcher the language. I didn't mind at the time—I got a lot of free beer out of it. Damn good beer." He shook his head. "I haven't done anything that stupid in years.”

"There must be something stupid in your more recent past. There's plenty in mine.”

Ben laughed. "I prefer to pretend it's all the folly of youth and not endemic foolishness.”

"I don't have that excuse.”

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Harper.”

I frowned into my coffee and changed the subject.

"Ben, how would someone make a knocking sound?”

Ben picked up the crook again and rapped it on the underside of the table, making a sharp noise. "Like that?”

The rap sounded very much like Mark's first efforts. "Exactly like that. Is that how all knocks are made?" I asked.

"Oh, no. You can use your feet, hands, knees, or a hard object concealed in your hand or clothes. A character in a book once used a tin box strapped to her knee. When she pressed it against her other knee, it deformed and made a cracking sound.”

That rang a bell and I wondered which book I'd read it in but couldn't bring to mind.

Ben gulped some more beer and continued. "The Fox sisters— they started the whole Spiritist movement by accident—used to crack the joints of their toes or rap their toenails against the floor to create raps, and even though people caught them at it and they even admitted it, people wanted to believe. So they did. Investigations of people like the Fox sisters and their imitators led to modern parapsychology.”

"They chose to believe…," I repeated, thinking. "So parapsychology grew out of fakery?”

"The search for truth in the face of fakery," Ben corrected me, frowning. "A lot of the early investigators were magicians and scientists—Houdini was famous for debunking phony mediums. In fact," he added, reaching again into his bag, "one of the big names in modern skeptical investigation is another magician—James Randi. I brought you one of his books as well as one of Houdini's books. Neither of these guys is shy about showing how the trick is done. And they're both pretty blunt about what they think of the whole field. Although I think they're both wrong in condemning the whole without adequate proof.”

Ben was a bit defensive about it, but I reserved judgment. While I had more personal experience of ghosts and the paranormal, I wouldn't care to step forward and make any claims or attempt to prove any such thing to professional skeptics of the Houdini grade. As I'd already noted in Tuckman, the blindness of belief and desire isn't restricted to the oddball side of the discussion.

I put the books into my own bag as Ben finished his beer.

"Ben, could any of these techniques make a table break away from its sitters and run around the room?”

Ben chuckled. "Not without being about as obvious as a rhino in a bathtub. Some things can't be concealed at that proximity, no matter how good a psychological manipulator the magician or spiritualist is. And speaking of rhinos, Brian and Mara will be waiting dinner on me and we'd all like it if you would come, too. It's roast beef, and Mara might have some answers for you about glass and spirits. She did ask me to ask you…”

I hesitated, but Ben looked puppy-eyes at me. I gave in. Mara was a great cook—even without any witchcraft to help—and they were my friends as well as the closest thing I had to professional advisors in the Greywalker line. I smiled. "Dinner would be really nice. Thanks.”

"Great!”

We paid up and left, catching a few more stares from the patrons as we went. I wondered how many tables would be tilted tonight and how outrageous the beer-fueled stories would grow by Sunday morning. If they, too, wanted to believe, then I expected that by next Thursday it would be common gossip that the Five Spot was haunted by a fictional ghost of someone killed by the old counterbalance trolley, whose long-gone upper terminus the Five Spot now occupied.

When we walked into the Danzigers' house, the scent of savory meat and bread wafted to us along with a despairing cry of "Brian!”