“Go away,” she moaned through her tears.
“Doctor Tilden, that was an amazing song. Your voice, it just—”
She turned on him with her red and angry eyes. “It’s what — what?” she shouted.
“Ma’am, I’ve been hired to find you and give you a message.”
“You just don’t take ‘fuck off’ very seriously, do you?” She tried to stand, swayed, and then fell right back onto her ass.
“Professor Kennedy said to tell you he needs you.”
The woman opened her eyes and turned her head slowly toward the detective. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.
“Two hundred thousand dollars ma’am, for a week’s worth of work in Pennsylvania.”
Slowly, she wiped a hand over her wet eyes.
“Gab…Gabriel Kennedy?”
“The UBC network has sent out a private jet for you. It’s at SeaTac right now.”
She stood weakly and shrugged the man’s jacket back on, nodding at him through her tears. “I may as well; I can’t sleep as it is.” She tried to clear her throat. “What the fuck do you care, afraid of some competition?” she mumbled beneath her breath, as if she was addressing someone close by her.
The man ignored her strange behavior. “As I said, you have the most amazing voice.”
For the first time, the detective heard her laugh. She turn away until she was once again under control.
“I take it Professor Kennedy didn’t enlighten you as to my…malady?”
“I’ve never met the man. I was hired out of the Seattle office to find you.”
“Well, let me explain something to you.” She took the man’s arm with her hands. “That wasn’t my voice.” She laughed again.
The detective nodded his head, slowly coming to the logical conclusion. “A recording,” he said. He started walking, escorting the doctor toward the parking garage across the street.
“You’re smart,” she said, wiping her eyes, “but no. No recording.”
“Then what?” he asked.
She let go of his arm, walked a few steps forward, and then turned. A car swerved out of the way, its horn blaring and its driver cursing at her.
“Kennedy should have warned you that I have some baggage. Actually, another person has to come along, so you’ll be traveling with two of us. Me, and the ghost you just heard sing. His name is Bobby Lee McKinnon.”
The detective stopped in the middle of the street. “What?”
“For a man working with Kennedy, you’re not very informed.” She turned and continued toward the car park. “I’m possessed by the ghost of a songwriter, murdered in 1959 in New York. The motherfucker won’t let me sleep. He thinks his penance is to sing forever, and he does it through me.”
The man stared after her.
She turned, waiting on him. For the first time this evening, Doctor Jennifer Tilden seemed present behind her own eyes. She smiled and batted her eyelashes, looking almost relieved to be going somewhere.
The final game piece had been found. The real game could soon begin.
NINE
Gabriel Kennedy sat outside the hospital room and watched the occasional nurse stroll by and eye him with suspicion. He waited for Eunice and Charles Johansson to leave their son’s bedside in the ten-room building that passed for a hospital.
He heard the click of heels approach, and knew who they belonged to before he saw her.
“I had a feeling this would be your first move.” Julie Reilly stopped before Gabriel.
“Ace reporter, always vigilant,” Kennedy answered. He tried not to look the woman in the face.
“Professor, since you agreed to take the network’s money, that makes us partners. Do you think for the next eight days we can be civil?”
Kennedy smiled faintly. “No.”
“I did my job. I asked the questions everyone was thinking. Because you couldn’t answer them, Professor, to any degree of believability, I’m the bad guy?”
“A reporter’s job is to report the truth, not to speculate on what she thinks might have happened. Not to offer alternative solutions to a question that has but one answer. You lynched me in the public’s opinion and gave the state police what they needed to open the trapdoor underneath me.” He finally looked her directly in the eyes. “And the fall hurt, Ace Reporter.”
“What happened that night, Professor? Did your student really vanish into thin air, or was he part of a broader conspiracy for your financial freedom?”
“You just never quit, do you? Is it so much of an embarrassment to say that you took it too far, that maybe you liked the guaranteed airtime you got from using me as a stepping stone? You’re a real piece of work. After what happened to people from your own network, and that boy in there, I still don’t warrant the benefit of the doubt? Or at the very least a ceasefire on the fraud front?” Gabriel stood and looked down at Julie. “Have you contacted Detective Jackson?”
“Not yet. I expect he’ll be around soon enough. I don’t have to hunt him down — he’s hunting for us.”
“What do you want?” a deep voice asked from behind them.
Julie and Gabriel turned. Charles Johansson stood just outside his son’s room. He glanced behind him and made sure the door was closed.
“Sir, my name is—” Gabriel started.
“I know who you are, Kennedy. I remember the mess you made at the house — a mess me and my missus had to clean up. What do you want?”
“Mr. Johansson, I would like to speak with your son,” Kennedy said. Julie stepped up beside Gabriel and smiled, taking his arm. He flinched.
“He’s not speaking with anyone, haven’t you heard?”
“I understand he’s nonresponsive. I’m a psychologist. I think I may be able to help him.”
“He’s seen all kinds o’ docs that ain’t helped one bit. He still just stares at nothin’ and says nothin’.”
“Mr. Johansson, Professor Kennedy just needs a little—”
“Look, Miss, you and this ghoul get away from here and let my boy be. If I have to throw you out, I will. You don’t have a right to come here and—”
“Charles, that’s enough.”
Eunice Johansson stood just behind her large husband, rebuking him softly. The pretty woman was tired and haggard looking.
“They want to see Jimmy, Eunice. I won’t let—”
“Honey, go get us some coffee.” She placed a small hand on her husband’s arm. “Maybe get these folks some, also.”
“No, thank you ma’am,” Gabriel said. Julie only shook her head.
Charles looked from his wife to Kennedy. Then he deflated, the anger leaving him like the air out of a balloon. He lowered his head and walked away. Eunice watched his back retreat down the hall.
“Charles is the type of man that gets angry when he doesn’t understand something.” She turned and placed her hand on her son’s door. “This…well, he doesn’t understand it.”
“Mrs. Johansson, perhaps you remember me. I’m Professor Gabriel—”
“Kennedy. Yes, I remember. I remember both of you.”
Julie untwined her arm from Gabriel’s with an embarrassed look.
“Tell me, Professor, why would you want to see my boy?”
“I think I may be able to—”
“Too late in the day for lies, Professor,” she said sadly.
Gabriel looked from Eunice to the closed door. “I’m going back into the house.”
Eunice Johansson shook her head. She thought a moment, and then slowly pushed open her son’s door, behind her. Her tired eyes remained on the two visitors.
“You just won’t learn, will you? Your students, those TV folks and now my boy…well, look and see what that house did to my son. I never really believed in things before, but something took part of our boy. He was wayward sometimes, but he didn’t deserve this.”