Pee trackers? I didn’t ask.
“Running water is best. I’m planning a trip down to the North Avenue bridge just as soon as I drop off a few empties.”
I’d always thought it never hurt to foster a healthy sense of paranoia. After all, my paycheck is signed by a secret government agency lurking in the shadows.
But talking to Boswell in person—now that I’d witnessed firsthand his elaborate cola processing system—I’d have to conclude that the weird flicker I’d seen was just wishful thinking, a diversion to spice up my mundane routine. And his apartment was just a normal apartment.
“Thanks for your time,” I told him, hoping he wouldn’t now deluge my voicemail with a dozen daily rants or Bigfoot sightings. “If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.”
“But I haven’t even told you about the dead woman in the bedroom,” he said. “Though I guess there’s not a lot to tell. Just the sense of her being there.”
“I’ll make note of that on my report,” I said.
I was turning around to head back to the car when he added, “And this weird shadow she cast running into the closet.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I SHUT THE passenger-side door of the FPMP-issue Lexus SUV harder than I meant to, and Evelyn climbed stiffly into the back seat. She didn’t say a word as she buckled her seatbelt, but she held herself like she’d just pulled a muscle.
“Well,” she said after too long a pause. “That was... deeply unsettling.”
No kidding.
I kept my eyes on the side mirror, watching Boswell peer at us through the window of his trash-packed van as Jacob wended his way out of the parking lot.
“What’s your standard protocol in a case like this?” Evelyn asked.
“There is no standard,” I said. “Not when it comes to ghosts.” Not to mention Boswell himself. Thinking back to the review, it could’ve gone either way: paranoid delusion or actual haunting. What were the chances of it being both? Then again, maybe it wasn’t really a chicken-and-egg conundrum. A constant barrage of half-seen, half-heard interference was enough to keep even a well-adjusted guy looking over his shoulder. Add a propensity to paranoia, and is it any surprise if it ends up with a van full of bottled urine? “We’ll need to re-check the apartment.”
“Great,” Evelyn said, way too fast. “I’d love to see it.”
I turned around in my seat to face her, and brought out the big guns: FPMP terminology. “We’re talking potential non-physical entity.”
She didn’t flinch. “I know that. But it would be incredibly valuable for me to see your process in the field.”
“Might not be the worst idea,” Jacob said, keeping his eyes on the road. “She could potentially catch something we miss.”
I blinked at him. “She’s not a medium.”
“No,” Jacob agreed. “But she would still bring something to the table.”
“I understand your hesitation,” she told me. “But I promise not to get in the way. Consider it an interdisciplinary opportunity.”
It all sounded so incredibly reasonable. She wasn’t some random person off the street, she was FPMP. Heck, she was a certified psych, with all the insider knowledge that entailed.
But she was also from National. And I didn’t want to cozy up with them any more than I absolutely had to. I turned back around and stared through the windshield. The traffic ahead had slowed to a crawl.
Everyone was silent, waiting on me. Evelyn didn’t plead, and Jacob didn’t argue for her. But the one casual remark about her “bringing something to the table” spoke loud and clear. That…and the fact that he was heading toward the apartment rather than making to drop our passenger off at HQ.
Do I like being steamrolled by Jacob? Of course not, though once in a while I need to let him get his way. In this case, whatfinally made me give in wasn’t so much the desire to pick my battles, but my sense that he probably had a reason for wanting her there. “Fine,” I told Evelyn, “you can come along. But you’re not a trained Stiff. If I give the order, you disengage. No questions asked.”
“Understood.”
Hopefully I wasn’t about to regret my decision.
Maintenance showed us into the apartment with a shrug, and I let the bland whiteness of the space wash over me as Jacob and Evelyn filed in. The place looked just like it had when I combed through it the day before. An empty, freshly-painted dump.
I headed for the bedroom, the location where both Boswell and I had noticed…something. Police procedure would discourage me from drawing any conclusions until I knew the facts. Blood spots, powder burns, a line of cocaine next to a rolled up C-note—all of that is deemed as a “substance” until the lab confirms otherwise. But it’s natural to draw conclusions. And the fact that Boswell had claimed there was a dead woman in the bedroom was something I couldn’t unhear.
