Poltergeist

CHAPTER 26

The cloud cover was solid and lowering but still not a drop of rain had fallen. The expectant chill was perfect for a funeral. When I arrived, the service had already started. The crowd was large and I spotted a lot of familiar faces: Phoebe and the staff from Old Possums; most of the poltergeist crew; Amanda; and a cluster of people so blank and worn with grief and shock that they had to be Mark's family. I also saw a large hot spot of yellow energy hovering over the crowd like a poisonous storm waiting to break.

Following the threads of yellow from the mass, I spotted each of the séance members: Ken and Ana; Ian several feet behind them, bleak-faced; Wayne with his arm around Frankie's shoulders as she sniffled; Tuckman near Marks parents; Terry alone. No sign of the Stahlqvists or Patricia Railsback. As I picked them all out, I noted one more face: Detective Solis. He was staying to the back where the rolling ground rose a little. I worked my way around toward him, thinking that the presence of Celia at the funeral further ruled out either of the Stahlqvists as the killer—I expected to find the entity cleaving to its master.

I stopped next to Solis. He didn't look directly at me, but cut me a glance from the corner of his eye and inclined his head a little. "Still working?”

"I knew Mark," I replied in a quiet voice.

"Yes. Not, I assume, so well as Cara Stahlqvist knew him.”

"No. And I noticed she's not here, so you don't think she's the murderer.”

"She's an interesting piece of the puzzle.”

"In what way?”

"This case turns on a woman and her lovers—those she accepted and those she rejected. We confirmed Mrs. Stahlqvist's affair with Lupoldi and the information you gave us about the brooch—very dramatic. She preferred to make the advances—to choose rather than be chosen—she rebuffed others even though her relationship with Lupoldi was stormy.”

"Others?" I asked.

He jerked his head toward the cluster of Tuckman's youngest subjects. "The usual sexual stupidity.”

I wondered which of them he meant—if not all three. Cara's interests didn't seem to lie with women, so that let Ana out. But I recalled Ian's attention to her bustline and Ken's sudden bitter tone at her name. All three had been hurt in the séance, but Ana least. Was the woman at the center the killer or the cause?

I wasn't convinced of the Stahlqvist-Lupoldi scenario, though it might look good to Solis. If Cara had grown tired of Mark, their stormy relationship might have gotten lethal—or been cut short by her husband.

Maybe Ana had lied to me when she denied close contact with Mark. I stared at the members of the rotten triangle and wondered which of them might have taken «no» as a mortal insult. The yellow strands of Celia gleamed against the leaden sky above them.

I looked at Solis, trying to catch his eye, but he avoided me. "You suspect one of them.”

"I've already told you that suspicion is nothing without proof.”

"What about those keys? Would that be enough evidence?”

"To make an arrest, perhaps, but not to convict. I don't want this case to fail by insufficient evidence.”

"Then you're no longer looking for motive?”

"I have the motive.”

The clergyman at the graveside finished his final prayer and a couple old before their time stepped forward to the edge of the pit as the rest of the crowd began to loosen. Sous shot me a warning look and turned away.

I stared out over the crowd, watching Celia. The yellow haze grew thick and agitated as the crowd moved, three ropelike strands extending down. I followed them with my eyes to Ken, Ana, and Ian. Ken's Grey shield of blankness flickered as if under stress from something.

Ian had stepped next to Ana and was speaking in a low, furious voice, close to her face. She stepped back and he followed her. The knot of energy above them roiled and brightened with a flaring strand of red. I moved closer through the crowd. I could see all three of them again pulling on Celia, but they stood so close together I couldn't make out which of them the angry red line touched.

Ana swung a hand and Celia flexed and expanded, sending a sharp shaft down into the center of the three. Ian stumbled back a step or two. I couldn't see if Ana had hit him or if Celia had.

As I got close I heard Ian spitting insults, of which the nicest was "slut." He lurched closer to Ana, his right hand raised. Ken's shutters vanished and he pushed between them, exposed in a red wash, also with a hand poised to strike, and put his face close to Ian's, growling something low and venomous. Ian's seething gaze moved to Ken. The cloud of Grey around them throbbed red shot with black, boiling and distorting the air nearby. Then Ian's glare flicked over Ken's shoulder and Ian dropped back a step. Ken stepped back, putting a hand out to Ana without taking his eyes off his rival. The men's faces were studies in leashed rage. Ana's was blank and cold.

Ian straightened and looked daggers at them both. He cut his eyes away from Ana and gave Ken a cool, dismissive glance. "I'm done with the little tramp," Ian said. "Have fun, buddy.”

He turned and stalked off. Ken took half a step after him, then drew up short as Ana kept his hand without yielding an inch. He looked at her.

Something bright shot down from above Ian, caroming off his shoulder and arcing toward Ana. She flinched and Ian turned his head and spat on the ground without letting his gaze touch either of them. Ana snatched the shiny object, clutching it in an unsteady fist.

The thick red storm unknotted and drifted into a thin yellow haze over the lovers' heads. Ken tried to put his arms around Ana, but she wrenched away, pulling the object against her chest.

"No," she choked. She turned and ran. Ken's Grey wall slammed up and he pursued her, but every time she glanced back and saw him, she ran faster. I saw Solis break into a run parallel to them, falling in a bit behind to follow. Over it all, the shape of Celia re-gathered and began to move.

I ducked into the Grey and followed the entity. It was a hard yellow gleam in the cold mist, its thread to me spun out like spiderweb between us. I lost direct sight of it, my thread seeming to cut off without warning in the wall of a building. I eased back, glancing around, and saw I was now in Volunteer Park, the Asian Art Museum building intruding its bulk between me and Celia's course. I ran around the building to the driveway and threw myself back into the Grey.

Jolting into the slippery world, I found the thread spun ahead of me, out of the ghostly shapes of the park and down the nearest street. I followed it past the impressions of the mansions of Millionaire's Row, then lost it again in the side of a large house thronged with the ghosts of some long-ago party. I paused and stared at my own strand of Celia, thinking that it would point directly—like a compass needle—toward the poltergeist. Moving around a bit, I figured out the direction and set off through the flickering ghost-world, dodging the more solid things that rose up and trying to stay out of the way of anything too interested in me. The harsh jaws of things I didn't like to think about snapped at me several times and a swarm of hungry, mindless presences dragged on my limbs, gaping mouths and cries of want tearing at me as I ran after Celia, my living brightness like a beacon—a flame to vampire moths.

I was stumbling a little, panting, when I came out again at another wall. The silken strand of Celia pointed ahead and upward. I wrenched myself back to normal, pounding to a halt in front of the Harvard Exit Theatre.

Ian worked there, but Ana or Ken might have followed him. I saw no sign of Solis, but everyone was ahead of me. Even if Solis was inside ready to arrest one of them, my capturing the poltergeist could only help. I turned back toward the cemetery, hoping I had enough time to retrieve the ghost-bottle before Celia moved.