“I am goddamn glad to see you here,” was Saunders’ first comment.
“Same to you, sideways,” Russ said. “Did you know those two clowns of yours had radioed me in as DOA? Damn lucky I didn’t bleed out waiting.”
“Damn lucky you got a thick skull and a hippie haircut. Somebody bounced a bullet off your head, and if they’d aimed an inch or so lower, it’d’ve gone between your eyes instead of parting your hair. I hear you busted loose a porch rail banging it with your head afterward.”
“Nothing much hurt but my good looks,” Russ allowed. “They want to keep me overnight for observation, but I’m heading home from here. I can damn well observe myself — no point in being a doctor if you can’t change your own oil. And don’t tell me the one about ‘… has a fool for a physician.’”
Saunders was serious now. Too serious.
“Russ, I’m going to tell you that the only reason you’re not headed from here to the station is because you were lying there DOA on Stryker’s porch at the same time Brooke Hamilton was being murdered.”
Mandarin decided he was still suffering the effects of his concussion. “What’s that about Hamilton?”
Saunders was looking for a cigarette, then remembered he couldn’t smoke here. “Just came from his place. A boyfriend let himself in around midnight, found Hamilton tied to a chair, throat had just been cut. And he’d been cut up pretty good elsewhere before he got his second smile. After that business this afternoon, I was afraid it was you I’d be bringing in. I was at your house when word came in that you were dead at the time of the murder. Reckon we’ll hold his boyfriend now instead.”
“Jesus!” Russ muttered. It was all coming too fast for him. “These queers do some weird shit when they have their love spats,” Saunders informed him. “Likely high on pot and LSD.”
“I didn’t know Hamilton was gay”
“No? Well, he looked queer. I can spot them. Anyway, if you hadn’t been busy getting shot in the head at Curtiss’s house at the time Hamilton was last seen alive, you’d be in worse trouble now.”
“I think I want to go home.”
“I’ll see that you get there,” Saunders said. “Only this time you stay put.”
“Scout’s honor.” Russ held up three fingers.
Saunders watched him without amusement. “And when you get there, you can help fill out a report. Tell us if anything’s missing.”
“Missing?”
“Somebody’d broke into your house right before we got there.”
Mandarin had a bottle of Percodan tablets for pain — contraindicated, of course, in the presence of recent head injury — and he prescribed himself a couple and washed them down with a medicinal glass of Jack Daniel’s. He supposed he should sue himself for malpractice. After all, he’d only been permitted to leave the hospital after signing an “against medical advice” form. A fool for a physician.
Was it possible for a head to ache any worse than his did? He had a gash above his forehead where the bullet had grazed his scalp, a lump across the back of his skull from his fall, and a terminal hangover. Russ almost wished his assailant had aimed lower. Saunders’ people hadn’t turned up any brass, and Saunders was of the opinion that Russ’s attacker had got off a lucky shot with a junk.22 revolver — probably one of his hippie dope-fiend patients. Typical of the times, Saunders judged, and with our boys dying in Viet Nam while scum like this dodged the draft.
Three break-ins in one night — not to mention the burglary of Stryker’s office the day before — hardly seemed random, Mandarin had argued. Saunders had pointed out that these were only a few of the dozens of break-ins that took place each night, and that it was all due to drugs, and that if certain psychiatrists would stick to shrinking heads and let the police go about their business, a lot of this sort of thing would be stopped.
Russ promised to go to bed.
But neither the Percodan nor the bourbon could ease the pain in his skull. And the thoughts kept running through his brain. And every time he closed his eyes, she was there.
I dream of that night with you
Darling, when first we met…
Mandarin realized that his eyes weren’t closed. She was there. In his room. And she whispered to him…
Mandarin screamed and sat up. His drink, balanced on the back of the couch, fell over and spilled melted ice cubes onto his lap.
The dancing image faded.
Never, thought Mandarin, never mix Percodan and alcohol. He was shaking badly, and his feet seemed to float above the floor as he stumbled into the kitchen for another drink. Maybe he ought to take a couple Valiums. Christ, he was in worse shape now than when Alicia died.
Could a poltergeist direct a bullet?
Russ noticed that he was pouring bourbon over the top of his glass. He gulped down a mouthful, not tasting it. His hands were steadier.
Could a poltergeist direct a bullet?
Either he was succumbing to paranoid fantasies and alcoholic hallucinations, or maybe he should have stayed in the hospital for observation. Was he going over the edge? What the hell— he hadn’t been worth shooting since Alicia died.
Someone thought he was worth shooting.
Could a poltergeist direct a bullet?
Was he haunted?
It wasn’t random; Saunders was wrong. There was a pattern, and it had all started that afternoon when Gayle Corrington told them about her poltergeist. A ghostly lesbian who dabbled in the occult and who liked blue. The stuff of one of Stryker’s pulp thrillers, but now there were two people dead, and someone— or something — had broken into the homes of everyone involved and scattered things about like a vengeful whirlwind.
Mandarin decided that a walk in the early dawn would do him good. He just might be sober by the time he reached the clinic and his car.
Could a poltergeist deflect a bullet?
This one ends on a bright summer morning, and a fresh dew on the roses that perfume the dawn.
Russ Mandarin eased his Jensen Interceptor into the driveway and killed the engine. All at once it seemed absurdly dramatic to him. He really should have phoned Gayle Corrington before driving over to her house at this hour.
Or maybe he shouldn’t have.
He closed the door quietly and walked up to the carport. The white Corvette was parked there as before, only before there hadn’t been a scraping of maroon paint along its scored right front fender. Fiberglass is a bitch to touch up.
Russ tried the doorbell long enough to decide that Gayle Corrington wasn’t going to answer. Either not at home (her car was still there) or a sound sleeper. Russ pounded loudly against the door. After a time his knuckles began to hurt. He stopped and thought about it.
Nothing made sense. Mandarin wished he had a drink — that was always a good answer to any crisis.
He ought to call Saunders, tell him about the maroon paint on Gayle Corrington’s white Corvette, Maybe just a fender-bender, but it might match up with the crease on the left side of Stryker’s Buick, And so what if it did? Curtiss was a terrible driver — he might well have paid Gayle a second visit, scraped up against her car in parking.
Nothing made sense.
Just this: Gayle Corrington had told Stryker something in the course of the interview — while Mandarin had been out of the room. Stryker had been excited about it, had written it into his account of the haunting. And someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make certain that whatever Stryker had discovered would never be published.