Cate Culpepper - A Question of Ghosts

She came over the small rise and stopped short, and her heart gave an uneasy snap in her chest. The Lady of the Rock was shrouded in smoke.

Perhaps a breeze had carried the smoke from the burning house this far, but no smoke Jo had ever seen held the ethereal, witchy quality of this shimmering fog. The Lady’s face was masked by its light tendrils, and it swirled at the base of the statue, around Becca, who sat leaning against it. Jo corrected herself. She had seen this eldritch mist before, cloaking the Lady in her dream, and gooseflesh rose on her forearms.

Becca sat still, her back stiff against the base of the statue. Jo couldn’t see her features clearly from here, but she was holding something in her hands. She stared at it with a fierce concentration Jo could read in every line of her body.

Jo walked closer, and her heart gave another uneasy pang when she realized Becca held a small bottle. But when she looked up at Jo, there was no uncertainty in her. This wasn’t the laughing Becca or the frightened one, this was the Amazon.

“I’ve beaten this,” Becca said. She held out the bottle to Jo.

The mist swirled around Jo’s knees as she went to Becca and took the bottle from her. In deference to the sleeping dead around them, she made her way to the path between graves before twisting off its cap. Jo poured out the liquor on the ground, mumbling some vague version of a prayer of thanks. She rested the empty bottle at the side of the path and returned to the Lady.

The statue awaited her silently, holding watch over both her daughters.

Jo sat in the soft fog beside Becca, who cradled the Spiricom in her lap now. She said nothing, and Jo wished fervently, not for the first time, that this woman came with some kind of online manual. She didn’t know what to say.

“You know who he is, don’t you?” Jo asked finally.

“Yes, I think I do.” Becca was gazing at the Spiricom.

“Once we weren’t sitting on him, he looked familiar to me.” Jo grimaced. “My head’s just too busy right now. I can’t place him.”

Becca handed her the Spiricom. “Tune this in, please?”

Jo looked around. They couldn’t hope for much beneath the open canopy of the sky in the expanse of a cemetery, but she complied, turning dials. To her relief, the small screen flickered with light under her touch.

“I’m going to ask you to do something hard, Jo. I don’t want you to ask me any questions right now.”

“You’re asking me to stop breathing.”

“I know.” Becca leaned her shoulder against her briefly, and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “But there’s a lot to work out in my head before I can be sure. And we need to talk to other people first. Be patient with me, okay?”

“Becca…”

“Try.”

“Okay.”

Becca took the Spiricom back and held it in her lap. The screen cast a mild gold light across her face.

“Hey, you.” Becca spoke as easily, as normally, as if she were sitting across from her mother, sharing a cup of cocoa. “I hope you’re listening. I want you to know I understand what happened now. Not all the details. I still don’t understand why. But I know who, Mom.”

Jo felt a shudder go through Becca, a quick and hard grimace of the soul, but it passed.

“You didn’t do it. You didn’t kill Dad. You didn’t leave me.” Becca’s eyes filled with tears, but she smiled with a sweetness that made Jo fall in love with her all over again. “I get that. You never would have left me.”

The Spiricom hissed softly. Madelyn Healy answered from a great distance, and her voice was calm and free.

“ Thank you, little girl. ”

“Rest well.”

The hissing fell silent. Becca touched a switch on the Spiricom, and the small screen went dark.

“I doubt we’ll hear from her again. I think she’s gone.” Becca looked at Jo wistfully, as if she were newly orphaned. “You were right. That’s all she wanted. She didn’t do it, and all that ever mattered to her was my knowing that.”

Jo slid her arm around Becca’s waist and let her rest against her. Questions were all but exploding out of her throat, but she curbed them firmly. “Tell me what you need from me.”

“This is what I need from you. I want you to sit here and hold me until the sun comes up. Then you’re going to drive me to my place so I can get some clothes.”

“And then?”

“My mother may not need justice, but I do.” Becca’s voice grew quietly savage. “We’re going to visit my Uncle Mitchell.”

Patricia Healy waited for them in the open doorway of her stately house.

In Jo’s experience with Becca’s aunt, Patricia had been anxious and rather remote, but never haggard, as she appeared this morning. She wore a tailored ensemble appropriate for the office, but her skirt and jacket were rumpled, as if they’d been donned the day before.

When Patricia saw Becca, she slumped against the door in visible relief and lowered her head. She said nothing; only stepped back and opened the door wider to admit them both. Jo learned something else as she walked into the elegant entry. Judging by the fumes issuing from Patricia Healy, she was drunk as a lord.

The neighborhood was wealthy enough to foster trees that attracted songbirds, and their lilting music drifted through the Healy house. It wasn’t a fitting score for Jo’s mood, which was leaning decidedly dark. Her nerves were wound like clock springs turned tight, her body shaky and weak. She tried to mirror Becca’s composure as they walked into the large dining room.

Mitchell Healy had apparently passed a more peaceful night than any of them. He sat at the cherry wood table, neatly robed, silver hair brushed, legs crossed at the knee. He was lifting a cup of coffee to his lips but paused when he saw them.

Jo realized his sleep wasn’t as untroubled as she’d thought. His eyes were ringed with shadows. When he saw Becca, he betrayed the same quick flicker of relief that Patricia had shown. As far as Jo knew, no one had yet notified the Healys of the arson. She didn’t understand why they seemed so attuned to Becca’s recent danger.

“There, I told you, Pat.” Mitchell set down his cup, got up, and went to Becca. He took her arms gently, and she allowed it. “Becca, you look just fine. Your aunt has worried herself into a frenzy for nothing. Doctor.” Mitchell nodded tersely at Jo.

She returned it, just in case Becca’s dictum that Jo be nice to her family was still in effect. She kept an eye on Patricia, who had followed them into the dining room. She wore her alcohol as if it were new to her, moving with the studied care of the inexperienced inebriate.

“Please sit down.” Mitchell led Becca toward the table. “We can’t offer you much in the way of breakfast, I’m afraid. We weren’t expecting company this early on a Saturday morning. But there’s cof—”

“Mitchell.” Becca removed his hand from her arm carefully. “You need to tell me why we were almost killed last night by a man who’s been dead for thirty years.”

Mitchell went still. Jo saw a spark fire behind his eyes — clear disbelief, denial. But Patricia’s features, even blurred by drink, revealed only acceptance.

“Loren Mitchell Perry.” Becca spoke the name with no venom. “I’ve never forgotten his voice. Even as a kid, Loren spoke with that affectation, that tough drawl. Rachel’s dead son set the house on fire last night, with Jo and me inside.”

“Oh, sweet…” Patricia sagged into a side chair, but Becca kept her eyes on her uncle.

Mitchell sighed harshly. “They’ve caught him?”

“He’s in police custody,” Jo said.

“Becca, you can’t be sure about this.” A shadow of the attorney surfaced. “You’re saying this man sounded like a boy you last heard decades ago—”