Kristin Ashe: Disorderly Attachments Part 30

"Doc Holliday? Buffalo Bill?" I pried.

Ca.s.s smiled patiently. "I can't divulge confidences."

"You're no fun," Fran chided.

"There were dozens of small, dark s.p.a.ces laid out in labyrinth fashion. It took time because of the sheer volume of catacombs, but I restored natural balance to each area. Fortunately, most souls had been released elsewhere, at the sites of their physical deaths. I've returned once every three months as part of a follow-up program. At all six visits, I've cla.s.sified the building as inactive."

"You're awfully confident," Roberta observed. "Does that certainty come with a money-back guarantee?"

"A refund wouldn't benefit either of us," Ca.s.s said coldly. "Instead, I'll warranty my performance. If necessary, I'll live in the building until every paranormal remnant has exited."

My eyes widened at the prospect.

Roberta stopped chewing on the end of her pen and removed the cap. "How much will your services cost?"

Ca.s.s backed onto the lawn and looked up at the building. "What's the square footage of the house?"

"Around eighteen thousand, including the third-floor attic."

"And the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"Twenty-four thousand total."

"And the carriage house?"

"We can't touch that," I said hastily, "or you'll be dealing with a live spirit, Hazel Middleton."

"I charge twenty cents per square foot," Ca.s.s said, returning to the porch. "Forty-eight hundred for this job."

Fran whistled. "That's a pile of coin."

"I'm moving considerable energy," Ca.s.s said, not easily intimidated. "More than a century's worth."

"We're lucky you don't charge by the decade," Roberta said wryly.

Ca.s.s looked her in the eye. "I've thought about adding a surcharge, according to the age of the building, but for now, I bid by size."

"Look at the big picture," Fran said, aware that Roberta had recapped the pen. "A year from now, you could be sitting on the second-floor balcony on the southeast corner, waving to neighbors below. Or how about some winter's night, lying in front of the marble fireplace, watching it snow through the two-story bay window." I swear Roberta winked at Fran, who continued. "Forget the plywood contraptions that pa.s.s for homes these days. You'll have one foot of solid Manitou Sandstone between you and the outside world, six-inch thick interior walls. They don't make 'em like that anymore."

"Think of the fee as a necessary line item in your one and a half million dollar budget," I added.

Roberta scratched her chin. "That's a good way of viewing it."

"With your permission," Ca.s.s said, "I'd like to come back with a team of professional investigators."

When Ca.s.s paused, Roberta said, "I'm listening."

"I meet once a month with a group of colleagues, and we visit active locations. We're scheduled for tomorrow night, and I'd be honored if we could tour the Fielder mansion. At no charge, of course."

Roberta smiled faintly. "Be my guest."

"Meantime, let's keep the dream moving forward," Fran said as she grabbed the pen, opened the checkbook and handed both back to Roberta.

Roberta Franklin wrote the check.

Chapter 25.

Minutes after I left the Fielder mansion, Nell Schwartz reached me on my cell.

"Mother called last night to inform me that the house is inhabited. After years of ridiculing me, now she believes spirits are running amok."

I pulled over to the side of the road to concentrate. "In the carriage house?"

"In the main house. Several bas.e.m.e.nt windows have been broken. Three on the north side, nearest the carriage house, are cracked."

"I was just there, with Roberta. We didn't notice anything."

"I'm sending a handyman to board them up. Mother also reports lights switching on and off in the attic window."

"But there's no electricity."

"She describes them as intense, flashing lights."

"It could be someone with a flashlight. Are you concerned your mom's at risk?"

"Only of eating crow," Nell said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

"You're sure Hazel's telling the truth?"

"Why would she lie?"

As soon as I returned to the office, I placed a call to the district police station to find out if any reports of mischief or vandalism in the 1200 block of Pennsylvania, where the Fielder mansion was located, had been filed recently. The officer responded that the only crime statistics available to the public encompa.s.sed the entire district, a twenty-square-mile area.

Little good that did me.

Hearing the disappointment in my lukewarm thanks, she referred me to NARC, a neighborhood watch group that monitored activity in the immediate vicinity of Hazel's house.

I called NARC headquarters and left a message, and within the hour Sybil Greenwald, of Neighbors a.s.sisting Revitalization Concerns returned my call.

A four-year-old organization, NARC had been formed to combat drug dealing in a nine-block area that included the Fielder mansion. A core group of thirty neighbors lobbied city council for stricter enforcement of existing laws, removed graffiti and trash and conducted patrols every weekend night in the company of an off-duty police officer.

To date, they'd claimed responsibility for more than 500 arrests, the elimination of "mobile bordellos" and the closure of a nightclub and liquor store, both of which regularly sold to minors.

Sybil attested that nothing was going on in the area around Hazel's house, other than garden-variety trespa.s.sing, vagrancy and urination.

She invited me to join their Friday night patrol for a "firsthand look at the challenges the neighbors face on a daily basis," an offer I declined. My own residence, less than a mile from Hazel's, often felt as if it were under siege. I didn't need any additional doses of late-night reality.

Before we disconnected, I played the "ninety-one-year-old widow living alone" card and asked Sybil to pay special attention to the Fielder Mansion the next time her group pa.s.sed. She agreed, and I promised to Send a fifty-dollar donation.

That was about all the work I could stand for one day, and even though the clock read five-thirty, it felt like midnight.

I called Destiny at the Lesbian Community Center, only to discover that she wouldn't be breaking for dinner, so I picked up Chinese food on the way home, but I was too tired to eat it.

I went to bed at eight, slept straight through to dawn and arrived at the office by seven.

A few minutes before nine, Fran joined me. "If anyone calls, you ain't seen me for days, don't expect me for weeks," she said, glancing about furtively.

"Are you avoiding someone?" I said, not much caring.

Fran locked the door and lowered the blinds. "Tess. Gotta lose her. Created a monster. Should have seen it coming. Hard not to fall for Fran Green."

"What's wrong?"

"What's not? The girl has a pallet of Mountain Dew in her storage locker and downs a six-pack a night. Thirty hits a day on my caller ID. Crying fits in the middle of s.e.x. Her, not me. Keeps an ax next to the bed. Again, her, not me."

"Why don't you dump her?" I said equably. "Wouldn't that be more honorable than asking me to lie for you?"

"Harder I try, more she holds on. Need a delicate approach, given the circ.u.mstances."

"Which are?"

Fran came close to me and whispered, "I'm referring to the covert op camps."

"Camps?"

"Didn't I tell you about those?" Fran said, dropping to the floor. She held a sun salutation yoga pose for a full minute before elaborating.

After she concluded, I couldn't stop shaking my head.

I think I would have remembered hearing about a woman who spent her last three vacations at covert military operation camps. Tess had completed courses on rescuing hostages, killing people in close-quarters combat and driving evasively. Surely, I wouldn't have forgotten Tess's favorite motto, "Engage or die." Fran downplayed the severity of her paramour's interests, likening the camps to the Circus College she attended for her fiftieth birthday. Fantasy weekends, nothing more, she insisted. Except that Fran had learned how to tumble vault, and perform trapeze work. Not exactly the same as. .h.i.tting vital organs with a 9mm and slashing a man's throat with his own knife.

Let me think, killing or clowning...a.s.sa.s.sinations or cartwheels?

Had Fran Green lost her mind?

I had little time to expand on this possibility before Fran dropped another bomb on me. "Speaking of strange, met with Shirley Ba.s.sett last night."

My heart started beating rapidly. "What? Why didn't you tell me? What happened?"

"Situation's worse than we thought."

"How?" I howled.

"Ba.s.sett knows everything. After the airplane banner stunt, she and O'Keefe moved out of Phoenix. Had to. Geri Cressman threatened to sue O'Keefe for s.e.xual hara.s.sment. According to Ba.s.sett, O'Keefe's always been obsessed with other women. Only thing that'll kill one obsession is another obsession."

I bit my middle fingernail. "This is not good."

"Right before Destiny, O'Keefe had her sights set on an intern who worked for her. Sent her cards, letters, e-mails. Joined her gym, started shopping at her grocery store, pretended to b.u.mp into her, left business cards on her windshield. This ring a bell?"

"Even though the woman hadn't encouraged her?" I said, my voice hoa.r.s.e.

"Same pattern. One night, O'Keefe filled the woman's voice mail with thirty-second messages, two hundred of 'em. Rambling, incoherent statements of love."

"How does Shirley know all of this?"

"Cops paid a visit to O'Keefe and warned her to back off."

"What happened to the intern?"

"She quit and moved out of state.

"To get away from Carolyn?"

"Seems so."

"I can't believe Shirley knows about all this and hasn't done anything to stop Carolyn," I said furiously.

"O'Keefe's high functioning fools a lot of people, including therapists."

"Carolyn's sought treatment?"

"Several times. Been diagnosed as bipolar. Takes medication, and the wacky behavior subsides. Stops because she starts feeling better and thinks she doesn't need the drugs."

"Obviously, she's not on medication now."

"Bingo. She told Ba.s.sett she's finished with talk therapy and scripted meds. No more, ever again. That's why Ba.s.sett intervened with Destiny. Soon as she saw O'Keefe's fixation, she tried to prevent an escalation. Didn't know what else to do."

"That's why Shirley gave the Lesbian Community Center the big donation?"

Fran nodded. "No other reason. She knew a large chunk of cash would give her access to Destiny. She couldn't warn Destiny directly but tried to channel Destiny's energies away from programs with O'Keefe."

"She underestimated Destiny."

"Got that right. Destiny mobilized to match the grant but insisted on following through with the teen programs, too."

"Which is why she's working twenty hours a day."

"That's what our friend Shirley discovered, belatedly."

"Why does Shirley stay with Carolyn? How could anyone's love run that deep?"