"So, what do you want to know?" His eyes were lit from within by some amusement.
"When did you join the project and why?”
He chuckled and there was an odd glimmer around him, like color fragments reflected in a warped mirror. I'd never seen anything like that before. "Back in December I was feeling. . stagnant. You know—you keep on doing the same thing, seeing the same people, and it gets dull. So I thought I'd find something outside of the sociology department—that's my major—that would give me some new people to get to know. I admit I'm" — he broke off to laugh at himself—"well, I'm always kind of studying any group I'm in, and sociologists are just not fun to watch. They're never disarmed. And there's not much that's further away from functionalism than making your own ghost, you have to admit. It does start to smack of collective behavior, of course, but I just try to enjoy it, instead of analyzing all the time.”
"So this is a mental break?”
"Yes. And they're a good bunch of people.”
"Interesting?”
He laughed again. "Yes, they're great people. We get along well. Ana and I have been out a few times for drinks with Mark and Ken— good times. Well… I have to admit that Terry's an ass, but I don't have to deal with him, so it's no issue. Most of the time it's fun. It's certainly been rewarding.”
I raised my eyebrows. "In what way?”
He smiled crookedly, looking down. "It's not good of me, I know. I just find it difficult, sometimes, to be everything to Ana. She's the center of my universe but. . it's been good to have a few other people in it, to make some other friends. That's very selfish of me, very thoughtless of Ana.”
"That's Ana Choi, correct? She's also on the project.”
He looked up. "Yes. Please, don't rat on me. I don't want Ana to think I like them better than her. We can both be a little jealous and I assumed this was confidential," he rushed on, his blue eyes begging, but there was a flicker of dimple as he gabbled and that sparkle of strange color.
"Of course it's confidential, Mr. Markine." I wondered why he'd brought it up so fast.
He sighed and sat back. "Harper, you don't know how much that relieves me. This experience—with the project—has been so remarkable and I don't want to ruin it.”
"And how do you think the project is going?”
"Terrific! It's great! Sometimes it's very exciting. Wednesday, for instance, we really had something going." He gave a low whistle. "It was impressive, but, you know it's pretty tiring. We were all completely blown out afterward. Wow.”
"Have you ever thought that the phenomena were faked? Even just once in a while?”
He blinked and lowered his head to stare at me. "Faked? No. I mean, that's just—well, why bother? We do so well without anybody faking anything. And wouldn't we notice if it was? It's not as if you can hide something that can move a table around like that. I've been working in this place a long time and I've seen some of the equipment you'd need to do that—there's still a ton of the old stuff in the storage attic. It would be far too obvious.”
I didn't bother to tell him that modern stage rigs had come a long way since this had last been a live theater. Even as a mere chorus dancer, I'd seen my share of flying wire rigs and trapdoors that postdated anything in storage here. But I had to admit I wouldn't know anything about the equipment needed to fly a table with a roomful of people less than a foot away.
"One last thing and I'll let you get back to work. What would you think if I told you someone on the team had been faking phenomena?”
"I'd say you were mistaken.”
"But if it were true, who would you suspect?”
Ian frowned. "I don't like to point fingers. . but I'd have to guess Ken. He's got a tricky sense of humor.”
And eyes for your girlfriend, I thought, and wondered if he'd noticed. But since it was Mark who was dead and not Ken George, I presumed Ian hadn't noticed. He didn't seem bothered by it if he knew and his ego didn't seem to have taken any dings as a result. He seemed like a typical, self-involved young man who wanted to look more knowledgeable and impressive than he was. I couldn't have cared less.
I got to my feet. "Oh, one more thing. Do you ever experience anything strange away from the group?”
"Well, not really," he confided. "A lot of people claim this place is haunted by several ghosts, including the ghost of Seattle's lady mayor, Bertha Knight Landes, but I've never seen anything like that. No apparitions, no mysteriously moving objects. Our ghost is PK by committee, remember? It doesn't work outside its own little room." Ian winked at me.
"I see. I think that's all I needed to know. Thanks for your time, Ian.”
He stood up and offered me his hand to shake. "It was no trouble," he said as I accepted the handshake. He closed his other hand over mine. I found his grip cold and just a touch too intimate as he smiled at me. "If you think of anything else, you have my number.”
"Yes, I do," I replied, stifling a sudden spike of anxiety and the same chilly sensation Id felt when I saw the poltergeist with Patricia's kids. The thing seemed to be knitted to the members of the séance group, present even when invisible. I dreaded the next handshake from one of them if this feeling was going to be repeated.
In spite of his practiced charm, I was glad to remove myself from Ian's presence and head for my next interview.
Looking up at the woman on the wall, I had to squint against the sudden sunshine pouring through a tear in the cloud cover. I wondered why she'd chosen the outside climbing wall when Stone Gardens offered walls inside, protected from the weather.
"Mrs. Stahlqvist," I called up. "I'm Harper Blaine, you agreed to talk with me about Dr. Tuckman's project.”
"Yes. Go ahead." She glanced up and scanned for her next handhold.
The gravel I stood on below her was damp and dark from the persistent sprinkling of rain that had started as I drove between Capitol Hill and Ballard—rain now turned to visual white noise by the shaft of sun. Even the Grey was hard to see and I couldn't tell much about her from this angle, other than the fact that she had no need to fear spandex. I knew healthy twenty-year-olds who didn't have the muscle definition of Carolyn Knight-Stahlqvist at forty. Her blond hair— nearly the same pale shade as her husband's—was woven into a smooth braid that hung like a pendulum as she moved up into the first overhang.
The hoots of boat horns from the canal locks nearby and the swish of car traffic on the street beside us forced me to yell. "This would be easier if you came down.”
Her snort echoed off the wall. "I said I could give you some time. I didn't say it would be exclusive.”
I shrugged. "When did you join the project?”
"January. Dale told you that.”
"Yes, but husbands and wives often have differing memories of events.”
"I've no doubt of that. Dale sees the world by his own light.”
"What about you?”
"Of course I do. Women in business have to make opportunities as much as seize them. I seized Dale when I had the chance and I'll hold on so long as I need him. We both get what we want and we don't interfere with the other's life otherwise." She dug a foot into an artificial crevice and pushed the other foot free, planted it against a knob and stood higher on the wall.
"Sounds a little cold-blooded.”
"It's business. Hot blood is for other endeavors—which is not what I married Dale for. Younger men whose ambition doesn't rise above the bedsheets are much better for that, anyway.”
"Is that why you joined the project—to find someone to rumple your sheets?”
She laughed a precise and modulated derision. "Plato was right about women being like library books—he just had the sexes wrong. I can check a man out of anywhere and put him back when I'm done. And it's what they want, so they don't complain. I really don't need a stalking ground. Most women don't, they're just too sure it's wrong to help themselves.”