“Is there something on it?”
“Wouldn’t’ve told you about it if there wasn’t.”
Without thinking, I started for the house. Vandervoort grabbed my arm.
“Not so fast. You better wait till they’re both asleep,” he said. “Maybe we should talk in the morning.”
The first part was a suggestion, the second part wasn’t.
“Okay, Pete, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Until tomorrow then.” Vandervoort shook my hand and, like Connie before him, was slow in letting go. “Look, Moe, I like you and your family, but I’m going to need more from you than what I’ve gotten so far. Your wife isn’t the only one holding back. Somebody’s got to have it in for you and your family to go to this much trouble. That tape in your hand is a gesture of good faith on my part, so when you come by in the morning I hope you’re in a generous and sharing mood. Do we understand one another?”
“We do.”
He let go of my hand and said goodnight. I watched him pull away. Then I stashed the tape in the front seat of my car.
I made sure both Katy and Sarah were asleep before retrieving the cassette from my car. I watched the black and white surveillance tape over and over again. Apparently, the gas station had recorded and re- recorded over it a number of times. To say the images were muddy would be insulting to mud. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking Patrick. He knew he was on camera the whole time, giving a somber nod and salute when he came into the frame. He mouthed something that was beyond my abilities as a lip reader to decipher. The ghost wasn’t taking any chances if someone thought, as Pete Vandervoort had, to retrieve the video. He arranged energy bars on the counter to spell out:
SO ALONE
The people behind this were good, very thorough. They had done their prep work, but the prep work was a blade that cut two ways. Yes, it meant they could pull off this haunting crap with great aplomb. It also meant they had done their research, the kind of research you can’t do online or in libraries. That might be an opportunity for me. I rewound the tape and watched it again.
“There’s something wrong.”
I nearly had a heart attack. It was Sarah, standing in the dark of the hallway.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough. There’s something about that guy that’s just not right.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, stepping into the living room. “I can’t put my finger on it, but give me time.”
“I don’t think it’s a ghost either, but it looks a lot like him.”
“I guess.”
“You’re not the best judge, Sarah. You’ve only ever seen pictures of him and those are mostly ones of him before he changed.”
“Changed?”
“Before he redid his hair, got the tattoo and the earring… Just before. There aren’t very many pictures of him like that.”
“Yeah, Dad, but you also only know him through pictures.” She knelt down by the screen and placed her right index finger on his face. “I’m telling you, something’s just not kosher with this guy.”
Sarah was right about one thing: I didn’t actually know Patrick any better than she did. We’d never met, not face to face. It was just that Patrick, a man who was never really there, had consumed such an unnatural amount of my life that I felt as if I did know him. I shut off the VCR.
“Go back to bed, kiddo.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Me neither. Hey, you wanna go grab something at Molly’s?”
“Sure, Dad. Just let me throw some jeans on.”
“I’ll check on your mom.”
Katy, still fully dressed, didn’t stir when I came into the room. She seemed utterly zonked. We had shared the same bed for twenty years, but I wasn’t sure I recognized the woman before me. It can take a lifetime to become familiar and only seconds to become strangers again. I made to leave, but stopped. I removed the message tape from her answering machine, took one more look at Katy, then left.
I think I knew something was wrong even before I turned the car back onto Hanover Street. Sarah sensed it too. I could see it in her expression.
“Dad, what did you do with the security tape?”
“Oh, shit!”
Our worst fears were confirmed when we saw the flickering light through the otherwise opaque living room window. It was a bit of a blur from then on. I couldn’t remember putting the car in park or closing the car door behind me or putting the key in the front door lock. The first thing that stuck was the image of Katy laying face down in a sea of broken glass, blood oozing out of the gash on her forehead, the VCR remote clenched in her right fist.
“Dad! Dad!” Sarah was screaming. It didn’t register as screaming. Her panic reached me as a tiny voice at the end of a kid’s string and soup can telephone. “Dad, Mom took pills, lotsa pills.”
I think I said for her to grab the bottles. I was already carrying Katy to the car.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Vandervoort came in, I jumped at him.
“This isn’t funny anymore, Pete,” I growled, pinning him to the wall. “This is attempted fuckin’ murder.”
If anyone in the emergency room waiting area hadn’t heard the first part of my rant, that second part surely got their attention. I must’ve been pretty scary, not because Vandervoort looked frightened-frankly, I was rage blind and couldn’t’ve described the sheriff’s expression-but because a steel hand clamped down on my right shoulder.
“You okay, Sheriff?” a deep voice wanted to know.
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking. He’s just a little upset is all.”
Deep Voice was unconvinced. “You sure?”
“Why don’t you go and sit back down,” Vandervoort said. “You look like you could use some help yourself. What the hell happened to you?”
“Had to lay my hog down when some asshole in a SUV ran the light at Blyden and Van Camp.”
The steel clamp eased off my shoulder and I turned. I regained the use of my right arm and my vision. Deep Voice was a big man, barrelchested with a beer keg belly to match. He had a thick neck and thicker arms that were covered in blood and tattoos. He had a young doughy face, but was no kid. His gray beard was braided like a pirate’s. It too was soaked with blood and the gash on his forehead was nastier than Katy’s.
“Don’t go anywhere. When I’m done with this gentleman,” Vandervoort said, nodding at me, “I want to talk about your accident. Maybe we can discuss why you weren’t wearing your helmet.”
“Okay, Sheriff.” Deep Voice was sheepish, touching his hand to the cut on his head. He went and found his seat.
I backed off Vandervoort and gave him the details as we walked outside.
“She was totally asleep when we went to Molly’s. I didn’t think-”
“Stop beating yourself up over it. You couldn’t know what she was going to do. Where’s your kid?”
“She’s in the treatment area with her mom.”
“So that guy on the videotape with the candy bar message, he-”
“-looks an awful lot like Patrick, but the tape’s so fuzzy. It would be impossible to make a positive ID from it.”
“Look, Moe, don’t take this the wrong way, but your ex-wife did try to… Well, she seems pretty convinced.”
“So you believe in ghosts now too?”
“Nope, I’m just saying…”
“I wasn’t kidding in there, Pete. This isn’t funny. If I catch that motherfucker, I’ll-”
“Watch what you say and do,” Vandervoort cut me off. “Maybe that’s what these folks want, the ones behind all this. Your ex-wife goes off the deep end, you end up killing somebody and get shitcanned for life. Your daughter, for all intents and purposes, winds up an orphan. I’d say that’s playing into their hands, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re right. You’re right. I know you’re right, but you shoulda seen Katy laying there on the broken coffee table glass. I thought she was dead, for chrissakes. Sarah was freaked.”