She pulled herself up and braced against the hard corner of the wall. White sunlight shimmered on her wet skin and clothes and threw a moment of butterfly illumination onto her face, leaving a flashbulb impression of film goddess perfection before she shifted slightly and the light slid away.
"I joined the project because Tuck asked me to. I took some classes from him at the U as an undergrad and we understand each other. He thought I'd enjoy it. And I do. I enjoy the creation of Celia. There's a challenge in reaching a successful consensus of minds and moving forward from there. It's an exhilarating change from leading the corporate pack for a while.”
"How successful is the project?”
"Very. We are able to accomplish extraordinary things. There were some early hitches and recently I lost a piece of jewelry that I'm annoyed over—but other than that it's very smooth now.”
"Do you think one of the participants stole your jewelry?”
"No. It was a Knight family heirloom—it belonged to my great-aunt Bertha, who was mayor of Seattle, and it has great sentimental value—but I'm sure its just misplaced. Our poltergeist sometimes hides things from us and she's fascinated with jewelry.”
I nodded, remembering Celia's interest in Ana's earrings in the recordings—but I also recalled the ghost in the theater who'd said a certain brooch was a fake. Same brooch? If she was the ghost of Bertha Knight Landes, it might well be. "Do you believe in it?" I asked.
"You'll need to rephrase that question. I don't know what you're asking." She slipped a little on the wet grips and grunted as she dipped her hands one by one into the chalk bag at her back, then dug her hands and feet into new positions.
"Do you believe the phenomena are genuine?”
"Yes. I was doubtful initially, but I've been convinced. There truly is more to the world than we can see.”
"Do you think that any of the phenomena are faked, sweetened, or manipulated, now or ever in the past?”
She laughed again. "I know the early days were faked. Seeded, you could say. We no longer need that crutch. We control Celia through our committee of the mind now. No one's faking anything." She chuckled. "Anything.”
"How do you know?”
"Mark told me how it's done. Once I knew what to look for, I could spot it. Now I never see it. We're clean." She sounded rather smug as she wedged herself into another chink in the overhanging surface. She checked her position. "What time is it?" she asked.
I looked at my watch. "Three twenty," I called back.
"Good. Almost done here. If you have any other questions, you'd better ask quickly.”
I asked her what she thought of the rest of the group. She replied they were pleasant enough but, like her husband, she found the college students a bit silly and not of her social class. She also didn't like Patricia and called Wayne, the retired military man, "a likable sot." The only people she seemed to truly like aside from herself were Tuckman and Mark. I kept speculation to myself on why she liked Tuckman, and I wondered why Mark had told her about the faked effects and how she'd react when she found out he was dead.
By the time she'd finished answering my question, she had come to the apex of the climb. She hooked onto the rappelling rope and glided down, chalk-streaked, her thin shoes crunching into the gravel in front of me.
Carolyn didn't look the least chilled or uncomfortable. I held in a shiver, realizing how damp I'd gotten standing in the drizzle while she clambered above me. She was breathing a little fast, but not much, and she glowed through the sheen of sweat and rain with more than exertion and health. She fixed me with brilliant blue eyes and looked me over, nodding. Then she gave a very small smile. "You can call me Cara. Any other questions?”
"Not right now," I replied. It was strange to feel my height was, for once, no advantage. Cara radiated assurance beyond physical stature, though she certainly wasn't short. I was irritated at my small pleasure in her evident approval. I squashed it with quick self-reproof. Cara Stahlqvist was a first-order opportunist, driven by ambition. There was nothing soft to her, inside or out. She didn't like people, she used them and thrived on competition.
"Are you satisfied with your investigation thus far?”
"It's about what I expected." I looked at my watch again and snuck a peek at her through the Grey now that the sun was no longer obscuring my view. Like the others, Cara had a thin yellow thread mantling her head and shoulders, but nothing like the shifty aura that had surrounded Ken or the strange colors around Ian.
She glanced down at her left hand and frowned at a bleeding scrape. She had removed her wedding ring, but I noticed there was no band of untanned flesh to mark it. "What time is it?”
"Three thirty.”
"Then your time is up." She looked back into my face. "If there's anything else, call me.”
I let my eyes narrow. I didn't like her and she didn't have to like me. "I'll be in touch.”
She gave me a cooler smile and strode away into the building. I gave her time to get into the locker room before I followed through the building and back out.
I headed for Queen Anne, thinking that there was something wrong. None of the participants so far seemed to have any unusual ability in the Grey that could account for the power of the poltergeist. Unlike a vampire or a witch, they had no inherent power and no apparent tie to the power grid except the thin yellow tether to Celia. But they also seemed to have no knowledge or opportunity to manipulate anything physically to create the effects Tuckman was recording. I was still convinced that what Tuckman was getting was real phenomena, but I wasn't sure how they'd jumped the barriers that had stumped the Philip group. And if the poltergeist was involved in Mark's death, I couldn't figure out how without the whole group to support it, which seemed unlikely.
But before I could argue with Tuckman about the poltergeist's power, I'd have to prove to him that none of his people could have faked the phenomena physically. And I still needed to know how that could—or couldn't—be done.
CHAPTER 14
Ben sat at a small wooden table in the Five Spot's bar with a canvas book bag beside him. The seasonal menu looked to be Hells Kitchen Italian, to judge from the collection of American tin advertising signs and picturesque laundry arrayed overhead while the Bobby Rydell version of «Volare» played in the background. Excess is the Five Spot's stock-in-trade, though they'd forgone the red-and-white-checked tablecloths in the bar. I slid into the bench opposite Ben's chair.
"Hi. I thought I'd be ahead of you. It's not four yet." "Mara shooed me out of the house early. I tried to call you a little while ago, but I just got your voice mail.”
I snatched the cell phone from my pocket and saw I'd never turned it back on after leaving the theater. "Damn," I muttered. "This thing has the worst ringer—some kind of annoying pop song. I shut it off and forgot to turn it back on. I miss my pager." "I'm sure it's got a vibrate mode." "Yeah, I just can't find it.”
"Can I take a look at it?" Ben asked, holding out his hand. I shrugged and handed it over.
Ben poked at it and the phone made several aborted yelps and squawks before giving forth a rich purr. "There. That should do it." I peered at him. "How did you do that?”
"It's the buttons on the side. You press the top one to unlock the mode, then poke the bottom one until the screen says Vibrate' and then lock it again." "Now I feel stupid.”
"Don't. I had to get one of my students to show me three or four times." He handed the phone back to me and I tucked it back into my jacket pocket. "Do you want a drink?" Ben asked, putting his hands flat on the table.