Barbara Michaels - The Walker in Shadows

When they had finished Kathy collected the dishes as if she had done that job all her life. Josef's eyes followed the slim little figure as it moved back and forth between the table and the sink. His expression was unguarded, and the baffled terror in his dark eyes made Pat ache with sympathy.

"I made reservations at the motel," he said abruptly. "For all of us."

Pat half expected that Mark would object. Instead he nodded soberly.

"I guess we'd better. At least you three-"

"You, too," Pat said firmly. "You're not staying here alone with vases and mirrors flying around the room."

"It isn't doing that anymore," Mark said. "The last couple of times there was no poltergeist stuff. Hmmm. That's interesting."

"Why?" Pat asked.

"He's got you well trained as a straight man," Josef remarked disagreeably. "You ought to know how he thinks-if the process can be called that. He interprets everything as a sign of a guiding intelligence-an assumption which, like all his other assumptions, he has yet to prove. The idea is that this nasty apparition was awkward and maladroit at first, unaccustomed to its powers. Gradually it is focusing them, concentrating on its real aim, so that it doesn't have to waste energy in random acts of violence."

Jerry's frown altered his son's face.

"You wouldn't be able to figure that out if you hadn't reached the same conclusions," Mark said. "Why do you keep fighting it? Hell, I don't like it any better than you do! The trouble is, we're caught in a vicious circle. We don't know enough to take the steps that would enable us to learn more. We ought to be testing the thing, experimenting, finding its limitations. But we can't take the risk."

"Mark." Josef rose and began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets. "I've gone along with your research because the only thing we stand to lose by it is a few days of time. And because-oh, yes, I admit it- because there is a remote chance that we might be able to learn something that would enable us to deal with this- this thing. Any other method is out. It's too dangerous."

"Why do you say the chance is remote? It seems to me-"

"Because I too, in my long-distant youth, read ghost stories." Josef leaned against the counter; a faint, reminiscent smile curved his lips. "I'd climb into bed at night with a volume of Poe or Lovecraft and read till my hair stood on end and I was afraid to turn out the light. I'm tolerably familiar with the literature, including the so-called 'true' ghost stories. The White Nuns, and the ghostly carriages, the banshees and the headless horsemen… I can't remember a single case in which a ghost was laid by an intrepid investigator who found out what was troubling the troubled spirit. In fiction, yes. Not in fact. Now be honest. You're a screwball, but you have a good mind. Do you know of any such cases?"

The compliment was not exactly wholehearted, but Mark was rather flattered by it, although he tried to appear blase.

"Well," he began.

"I'm not talking about the pop books written by professional ghost hunters," Josef added. "The cases they discuss are so vague, and their evidence is so illogical, that no sane person could take them seriously. I'm talking about ghosts-the kind that walk around old houses politely dematerializing when someone tries to touch them. And that, my boy, is just about all they do. Their activities are singularly aimless. Do you know of any real case like the one you have postulated-a case of a personality returning after death because of some unfinished business or frustrated ambition?"

"Well…"

"I don't either," Josef said.

Mark looked straight at his tormentor.

"Are you going to write this case up, Mr. Friedrichs? Or talk about it at cocktail parties?"

Josef's response was wordless. It might best be described as a growl.

At nine o'clock the others were ready to leave, but Mark had had seconds thoughts.

"You guys could sit in the car with the engine running, ready for a getaway," he proposed. "I'll wait on the stairs, just to see what happens. If it gets sticky I can run out and-"

"And lead the thing to the motel," Josef said.

For once Pat saw her son outmaneuvered. He bit his lip and refrained from further argument.

Perhaps because he had won that round, Josef was actively cooperative with Mark's next proposal-to set up a tape recorder and camera in his room. The tape recorder was simple enough; Mark's elaborate, expensive hi-fi system included recording equipment that would run for almost four hours. The camera was something else. There was no way of triggering it to go off at one a.m., although Mark proposed several unrealistic and impossible suggestions. The final result looked like a mad inventor's contraption; wires and cords ran all over the room, hooked up to the camera.

When the final cord across the doorway had been placed, Josef stood back and contemplated the maze with wry amusement.

"That might work if you were trying to catch a blind burglar," he remarked. "Although I doubt it. Pulling one of those cords will probably just jerk the camera off the tripod."

Pat glanced over her shoulder. Mark was out of earshot; he had gone down to console Jud and shut him in the kitchen.

"You helped him set it up," she said.

"I'll do anything that doesn't involve taking physical risks. Anyway, it kept him busy for an hour; God knows what he would have proposed if I hadn't gone along with this. All right, my dear, let's go."

Instead of heading for the nearest motel, Josef drove on through town and turned north.

"Where are we going?" Mark asked.

" Frederick. I figured we might as well put a little distance between us and our friend."

Having been concerned with far more vital issues, Pat had not considered the social aspects of their situation. But when the desk clerk addressed her as "Mrs. Fried-richs," a belated realization of what she was doing swept over her. As they walked down the corridor toward their rooms, Josef muttered, "You look like the picture of guilt, my dear. If we hadn't had the kids with us, the clerk would have assumed the worst."

"Why did you have to give your own name?" Pat hissed.

"Because I was using a credit card. Relax, will you? I'm already divorced; no one is going to cite you as corespondent." He put his key in the lock and opened the door. "Here we are," he said aloud. "Cozy, isn't it?"

The room looked like all the motel rooms Pat had ever seen: shabby, characterless and bland. The color scheme was green and yellow. The pictures over the bed were prints of chrysanthemums in green vases.

Josef crossed the room to a door in the side wall and unlocked it.

"You and Kathy can share this room," he said to Pat. Then he turned to Mark. "Your room is at the other end of the wing. I couldn't get three rooms adjoining."

For a moment Mark stared blankly at the key Josef had offered him. His eyes narrowed. Then, with a slight shrug, he took the key, and his mother relaxed. After all, it was the most practical way of arranging matters; Mark and Josef had no desire to share a room. And even Mark could hardly expect the older man to take the room at the end of the hall, away from his daughter.

"You don't mind if I stick around until one o'clock, do you?" Mark asked politely.

"Not at all. Make yourself comfortable."

In addition to the double bed, the room contained the usual furniture: a desk, a chest of drawers, and a table and two chairs. Josef pulled out a chair for Pat. She shook her head.

"Thanks, but I'd better hang up my dress. I don't want to go to work all crumpled and messy."

"You aren't going to work tomorrow!" Mark exclaimed.

"Mark, I have to. I can't go on-"

"Just one more day, Mom. I told them you had flu and probably wouldn't be in till the middle of the week. Just tomorrow, and then-"