Possession

ELEVEN

The address Mindy gave me led me to a small long-term care facility that was not quite in Capitol Hill. I parked outside and looked at the building without enthusiasm. Hospitals are not fun places for me; their complex layers of history and emotional residue make them look nearly black to my Grey sight. Even a brand-new facility quickly accrues a burden of anxiety, fear, and pain and the places where we hide people so we don’t have to watch them die are among the worst. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, trying to ease the discomfort in the injured one before I plunged into the darkness that lay before me. Nothing changed except that I wanted eyedrops.

I took Chaos out of my bag and put her in the small travel cage in the rear with a bowl of water and some kibble. She danced a bit, frustrated that I was leaving her, and I wished I wasn’t, but hospitals were not good places for ferrets and I knew she’d be fine for an hour now that the drizzle was starting up again. With a sigh, I got out of the Land Rover and headed inside to find Jordan Delamar.

Since I had the room number, I didn’t bother with the front desk, but walked straight through to the elevators and into the heart of the facility, concentrating on my good eye to keep me out of the swirling eddies of ghost-stuff. No one stopped me, but then, it was midday and well within visiting hours and I didn’t look like a troublemaker or a vagrant—in this neighborhood both were common enough.

Delamar’s room was a single, but I still crept in like a penitent into a church. I invade people’s privacy as part of my job, but I don’t enjoy it much and the hospital made me more aware of my trespass than usual—all those angry phantoms staring at me as if I should have done something for them. Ghosts don’t understand the apparent indifference and inattention of the living. They also have no sense of time. The ugly apparition that loomed in the doorway didn’t even know it was dead, badgering me with a roaring complaint as I passed through it, trying not to flinch.

“Hello?” I said in a low voice, noticing a figure sitting beside the bed that was wreathed with a ring of anxious ghosts in a boil of Grey mist.

The young black man in the chair raised his head, blinking as if he’d been asleep, though I knew he hadn’t. “Hello? Can I help you? Are you the social worker?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I am trying to find Jordan Delamar, though. I’m a private investigator. My name’s Harper Blaine.”

The man stood up, seeming confused. “I don’t understand. What do you want with Jordy? He’s . . . he’s not well. You can see that. Is it the insurance?”

I shook my head again, smiling reassurance. “No, nothing like that. Nothing bad. I’m trying to help another patient like Jordan. I just wanted to talk to you or his caregivers about his condition.”

In the bed, Jordan Delamar rolled his head to the side, but gave no other sign of animation. His arms lay on top of the covers, pale brown skin slack over too-prominent bones.

“His condition? You mean the PVS?” the man asked. “It hasn’t changed. He’s still . . . just like this.” He waved at the angular shape under the blanket. His lower lip trembled very slightly and he blinked too rapidly. “What could you possibly want to know that would help anyone?”

“I want to know about the episodes—the strange things that can’t be happening, but are.”

The man sat back down, hitting the chair seat hard. “No. There’s nothing going on. Nothing.” He shook his head.

A shadow as dark as oil smoke pressed down over the bed and the rest of the ghosts broke away, floating out toward the corners of the room. Delamar stirred slightly and his lips parted with a small wet sound. The other man looked down at him and then rose as he lunged forward, trying to cover the patient’s arms with his hands. Delamar’s limbs were so thin and his protector’s hands so large that it almost worked, but I could still see the eruption of blood red words that scored the patient’s skin, flowing as if they were being written before my eyes.

“What does it say?” I asked.

The man shook his head frantically. “Nothing. It doesn’t say anything. It’s just . . . it’s a rash.”

I stepped closer, coming up next to the man beside the bed, and looked down at the script now scribbling itself up Delamar’s arms and vanishing under his pajama top, appearing swiftly in the collar opening and glowing through the thin cloth across his chest.

“It’s dermographia,” I said.

The man stared at me. “It’s what? Is that a disease?”

“No,” I said, amazed. “It’s ghost writing. It’s a technique fake mediums used to use in séances. They scratched their skin and the scratches would swell up and turn red.”

The man turned on me, glaring and pushing me back. “It’s not fake! Jordan’s sick! These rashes—they’re not his fault!”

I put up my hands and didn’t resist him. “I know that. I can see it. I know it’s real.”

The man dropped his hand from my arms. “You do? Everyone else thinks I’m doing it to him. They tried to bar me from the room for a while but I won that fight. I wish—I wish this wasn’t happening.”

“I know you do. No one would want this.”

“You believe me?”

“Yes. I see the same thing you do.” I wished I could read the whole message, but the script was difficult to begin with—spidery and shaky—and the words were mostly under the patient’s shirt. All I could see were the words “Limos tribu . . .” on one arm and “broken wheel” on the other. At least I now had another reference to wheels and I thought I might understand Cannie Trimble’s reference to ashes, too—the ashes of the dead scattered in the market’s secret cemetery. “How long has this been happening?”

The man backed away from me and fell again into his chair, letting out a sound like a sob of relief as he put his head in his hands. “Months. Since April at least. It’s hard to remember. Every day’s the same. . . .”

I spotted another chair and pulled it up beside his so I could sit with him. “You come here every day?”

“Since the beginning. It’s been hard. . . . I had to lie about our relationship so they wouldn’t throw me out, but no one asks you to prove you’re a relative.”

“What’s your name?”

He stared at me, frightened. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just to be polite. My name’s Harper Blaine,” I repeated, offering him my hand. “What can I call you?”

He hesitated, shivering, then took my hand in a grip that was cold with sweat. “Levi. Levi Westman. Jordan—called me Westie.”

“I’ll stick with Levi, if that’s all right.”

“That’s fine.” He was trembling harder and his control was crumbling. “You really believe me? You believe I’m not doing it?”

“I can see you’re not doing it. I know what it is. It’s not you. I believe you.”

He broke down and cried quietly for a minute before mumbling through his fingers, “Thank God. Thank God someone believes me. I’ve been so scared—too scared to tell anyone what’s been going on in case they made me leave. They almost made me go once before but I . . . I tricked them into letting me stay. They don’t know about us. They’d make me leave if they knew!”

“You and Jordan are partners.”

He nodded, trembling, fighting to regain his self-control. In a moment he wiped his eyes with the hem of his shirt and raised his face. “Yes. We—we’re partners.”

“Then why would they make you leave?”

“We didn’t get married. That stupid election . . . we were going to, but then they put the referendum for affirmation on the ballot and we couldn’t. And then it was affirmed, but . . . Jordy was injured before we could do it. And I’m not legally a spouse, so I don’t actually have any right to be here. But he doesn’t have any family in the area, so . . . no one questioned me at first. Now, I just keep on lying. So I can stay with him.”

In 2011 Washington’s voters had passed the Marriage Equality Act, which gave same-sex couples the privilege to marry legally and enjoy the same protections under the law as heterosexual couples. A religious group had called the law into question before it went into effect and the referendum had gone back onto the ballot for affirmation in 2012. In spite of strong lobbying by the political right, the law had been affirmed by a solid margin, and gay and lesbian couples had rushed to make their partnerships legally binding. Without the paperwork, however, Westman didn’t technically have the same rights to visit his spouse or make decisions about his care. With no other family in the area to back up his decisions, Westman was walking a very dangerous line.

“What would happen to Jordan if you were forced to leave?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose they’d need to talk to his folks or . . . they might make him a ward of the state. I don’t know what would happen then, and it scares me. This is awful. And then this strange thing—these messages—started. I don’t know what they are or what they mean.”

“Have you been keeping copies of them?”

“No. It’s too freaky. Why?”

“I think it’s connected to two other cases with similar events.”

“What does that mean? ‘Similar events’?”

“There are other PVS patients who are manifesting strange activity, like the messages on Jordan’s arms. It’s not the same thing, but I think it’s of a piece.” I didn’t want to raise his anxiety further, but I knew time was short. “I’m sure Jordan’s doctor has told you that the longer a patient remains this way, the less likely his recovery becomes. One of the other patients seems to be failing, so there is some pressure to figure out why this is happening as quickly as possible. If I have all the pieces to the puzzle, we might discover what’s causing it and come up with a way to help all of them.”

“Really?” Westman grabbed my hands. “Will it make him better?”

“I don’t know. It may be that all I can do is make the messages stop. But wouldn’t it be worthwhile to try?”

“Yes! I’d rather have Jordy back, but it would be something, at least, not to see him in this state,” he said, waving at the angry marks that lingered on Delamar’s skin.

“Would you be willing to copy this message down for me?”

“Yes! But we don’t have to write it all down—I can use my phone to take pictures if you’ll help me. . . .” He seemed uncomfortable asking for a favor, the energy around him flickering orange and green.

Assisting with the photos was uncomfortably intimate and I wished I could look away, not invade their privacy or witness the wasting state of Delamar’s body and Westman’s painful sadness at revealing it piece by piece, moving sheets or the shirt aside with care and then covering him again gently. We closed the door and worked in methodical silence until every line of swollen, bloody words had been recorded.

Then we sat down again, not speaking, not looking at each other. Westman stared at the photos, checking them. He frowned and put the phone down on the tray table that we’d moved to the side of the bed.

“What is it?” I asked, watching him reach for a pad of paper and a pencil.

“I’m not sure,” Westman said. He wrote something on the paper, looked at the photo again, and crossed something out before writing a new word over the excised one. He held the pad out to me. “It’s hard to make out—the writing’s so bad. . . .” He held up the camera next to the pad for me to read and flipped through a series of pictures. “I’m not sure I remember right, but . . . this message—or a lot of these words at least—may have appeared before. Do you think I’m reading the words correctly or just . . . wanting them to be familiar?”

I glanced at the sentences—just two—that he had written down and compared them to the photos, looking back and forth from the long, spidery lines on Delamar’s skin to Westman’s transcription. “The writing is hard to read, but, yes, I think you’ve copied it correctly. ‘Given as Limos tribute, those who wasted away. Given to the wheel of death and birth, to break the wheel we are driven.’”

I frowned over the strange message as Westman said, “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“Not yet. It may eventually, though, in context with other messages.”

“Other messages?”

“If you remember any of the other writing you’ve seen. . . .” I was reluctant to be too blunt about the surface on which these messages were appearing—it seemed invasive and uncouth.

“Oh,” he said, crestfallen. “I thought maybe there were other messages from . . . the other patients.”

“There are.”

“Do any of them say something like this . . . ?” he asked.

“So far, no, but I haven’t read or listened to them all.” I changed tack slightly, since this conversation seemed destined only for frustration. “Can you tell me what happened to Jordan?” I didn’t want to rely on the vendor’s version of events alone.

“There was some work going on around the market—something about the tunnel or monitoring the tunnel. . . . Anyhow, whatever they were doing caused some temporary structures to collapse. He was hit on the top of the head by a falling awning pole. His doctor said something about cranial sutures . . . the place where the skull grows together when you’re a kid. He said the intersection is weaker than the rest of the skull and that’s right where Jordy got hit. He had some kind of swelling or clot pushing on his brain and they had to operate to remove it. But he—the surgeon—said that after they removed the clot the damage was like a bad concussion and Jordan should be fine. But he didn’t get better. I mean, his head healed up and they say everything’s fine, but he won’t wake up.”

“And where did this happen?”

“At the market—at Pike Place Market. Jody’s a musician and he performs there.”

“Did he fall onto a hard surface or down some distance?” I asked, to be sure it really was the same accident that had been described to me before.

“He landed in some dirt the workmen had dug up. It got in his mouth and nose, but the doctor said it didn’t contribute to the damage—it might have made the impact softer, actually. But he still got the clot and was unconscious.” He gazed at Delamar a moment before adding, “I haven’t seen him looking back at me since that morning. I was on my way to work and he was still in bed, smiling at me . . . and that’s the last time. . . .” He squeezed his eyes closed, forcing tears to roll off his lower lashes and creep down his cheeks. His breath was ragged and he didn’t say anything more until it eased back to normal. “I’m sorry. I get maudlin. . . .”

“It’s OK,” I said. The conversation stalled on the awkward moment.

After a bit Westman sniffed and sat up straighter. “What else did you want to know?” he asked, making an effort to act normal and do something.

“Did he have another job as well? I know performing can be rough financially.”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “No. I supported us a lot of the time. I’m a programmer. The money’s good but that’s another reason I’m worried—I’ve taken a lot of time off or been working from home, and his health insurance doesn’t really cover this. I do. I don’t know how much longer I can make this stretch. . . .” His eyes widened in alarm. “You’re sure you’re not from the insurance company? You’re not going to cut us off—!”

I turned my palms out in a calming gesture. “No, no. I’m not working for the insurance company. I work for the sister of one of the other patients who’s exhibiting similar behavior.”

Westman sagged in his chair. “I can’t take a lot more. I live in a state of fear every minute. ‘What if they find out?’ ‘What if they drop us?’ ‘What if he gets worse . . . ?’”

“I don’t know if it will be a consolation, but at least you aren’t alone in this and I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I promise.”

He grabbed my hands. “Don’t promise. I couldn’t stand it if it fell through. Please. Just . . . do your best.”

“I will. Would you keep on photographing the messages for me? Maybe writing them out again if they’re hard to read? If they’re not all the same, it will help to have that information.”

He nodded. “I’ll get as many as I can. I’m not here all the time, but I’ll see if I can get anyone to help me record them. How can I get them to you?”

I pulled a business card out of my pocket and handed it to him. “You can e-mail them to me, or call and I’ll come to you—whichever is easiest for you.”

“E-mail. Definitely. When I’m not with Jordy, I’m at the computer.”

That didn’t surprise me in the least. I offered a reassuring smile and my thanks before taking my leave. It was growing late and I had a few more things to manage.

I was sure now that each of the patients had been injured at sites associated with the tunnel project, though I still didn’t understand what the defining link was. Mindy and John from the market had both commented on the rise in strange occurrences and the appearance of Lois “Mae West” Brown’s ghost seemed to be part of that same phenomenon. Tunneling, by its nature, disturbs the ground it passes through and this particular bit of ground was full of artifacts of the dead as well as the usual dirt and bugs. Was it any wonder if there was an upwelling of ghosts, just as there’d been a rise in rat and insect infestations? Or if those ghosts were confused and creating havoc? I wasn’t sure what they wanted to say, but I was reasonably certain they were trying to say something. I wished I had more of Sterling’s writing and understood more about Goss’s paintings. I wished I knew if Goss’s accident had involved dirt from the tunnel just as Sterling’s and Delamar’s had. I doubted I’d change my evaluation once I had any of that information, but it might help me figure out what would make these spirits lie back down.