Poltergeist

"And he took up where he left off when he got here?”

Frankie nodded. "Pretty much. He always wanted to try this ghost thing. At first I was all for it—I thought it would be kind of neat—but it's not. It's crap. And he's not being straight with anybody. He's doing the same bad things.”

"How so?”

"OK, you understand this experiment is a really dangerous idea. Tuck's got this bunch of kind of wacky people thinking they can levitate stuff and make things appear out of thin air. This was supposed to be PK by committee, remember, but Tuck's stopped emphasizing that little detail. He's letting them think they have the power individually as well as collectively. Can you imagine what's going to happen to them when this project breaks up? He's got these guys thinking they can do anything—like they're all Superman or something—that the rules of the normal world don't apply to them. You know what we call people who think like that? We call 'em psychopaths. The whole thing's just creepy and I don't know what he thinks he's going to show, but I'm betting it'll be nasty—'cause with Tuck it always is.”

"Then why are you still here?”

"Because I now owe PNU for my graduate program. So I took this job and—naturally—they put me in the Psych Department, where I have to see Mr. Ego every day except Friday. I'm trying to get a different job, but there isn't anything available midterm. Unless someone dies.”

"You know, Tuck thinks someone is sabotaging his project. . ”

She giggled and drained the coffee mug. "Well, it's not me. I'm trying to make sure no one gets hurt if I can help it. That's why I volunteer to clean up the room for him—so I can see if he's changed anything. I wouldn't put it past him to electrify the chairs or something like that if he thought it would get him a novel reaction or push his subjects just a bit further. So I check for stuff every time I do the room. So far, so good. Although, you know, I heard he's got a theft problem.”

"Really?”

"Yup. His poltergeist is a magpie. Likes shiny things. Steals people's keys and loots the women's purses. Always has, from day one. I was kind of surprised he just let you have those keys since he'd be in six feet of deep-fried trouble if they got lost.”

"How much trouble would he be in if he lost an assistant?”

"Depends on how he lost him," she chortled. "You mean, like, quit—no problem. You mean, like, dead—not so good.”

She didn't know. "Do you read the paper or watch the news?”

"As infrequently as possible—I don't need any more nightmares than I got out of Tuck the past few years. Why?”

"Did you know Mark Lupoldi?”

"Tuck's special effects guy? Sure.”

"He was killed last Wednesday. He didn't make it to the session.”

Frankie's jaw dropped open. "You're kidding. Right?”

"No. The cops are looking into it.”

"Holy. . shrimp basket. For real?”

"Real as it gets.”

Frankie gaped and started shaking her head. Then she stopped and stared into her coffee cup. She didn't look up when someone entered the office, but I did. A lanky gray-haired man in a sweater stood in the doorway holding a coffee mug almost as large as hers.

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. I was bringing Madam Frankie coffee. Before she decides to have my head boiled in it. Is she in here? I thought I heard her…”

I pointed over the counter. "She's a little upset.”

He gave me a cockeyed smile. "She can't be too upset—she's not swearing." He looked over the counter. "Oh. Oh, no. That looks bad.”

"A friend of hers died.”

"Oh." He went behind the counter and crouched down next to Frankie, pouring the coffee into her mug with care. "Brought you coffee, Frankie. Hello. Earth to Frankie. Time for verbal abuse—it's Starbucks.”

"You brought me Starbucks. .?" she muttered.

"I know how you love to complain. So. I hear you're feeling like crap…”

"I don't feel like crap. I feel like the lowest trilobite fossil ever ground up and dumped on a roadbed in Tumwater under half a ton of tar.”

"That good, huh?" He glanced up at me. "I've got her. She'll be all right.”

Frankie exploded in tears and crammed her face against the man's shoulder. He looked startled, but waved me away.

I felt strange about leaving. It was my fault she was upset. But she wouldn't have felt any better about it tomorrow when it came from Solis. At least tomorrow she would see it coming.

I found a dry place to stop and make a phone call to the Danzigers. I wanted to double-check Frankie's story about Tuckman's exit from UW with Ben. As amusing as her version was, she had an axe to grind and that tends to color people's statements. But the Danzigers didn't answer their phones and I had to leave messages.

I didn't like the odd sensation in my gut. Maybe I was starting to get premonitions or something, though that seemed unlikely. Still, what I knew about Greywalking I'd come by largely through the worst kind of bumbling firsthand experience, so I might be wrong. I hoped not.

I had an appointment to talk to Wayne Hopke at one thirty and plenty to keep busy with until then.

Wayne Hopke lived on an old forty-foot powerboat that smelled of cigarettes, beer, and citrus-based organic cleaner. The boat was moored on the canal near the Ballard locks and Hopke had come out to greet me on arrival with a big grin on his face and a brew in his hand. He was, as Cara had said, a likable old sot who felt the loneliness of retirement and chased it off with conversation and cold ones as often as possible. Though he'd been fully retired from the army for a while and was approaching seventy, he was still sinewy and wore his white hair in a military buzz cut. The rest of his appearance had gone civilian—blue jeans, deck shoes, and a loose sweatshirt.

He launched into his background and his reason for joining the project with gusto—he'd been bored—and rambled on for quite a while about life in and after the army, draining several beers as he did. But the alcohol didn't seem to dull his wits any. He knew to the exact minute when he'd joined the project, what he thought of it all, and who'd done what when. He was the least judgmental and the most relaxed of the whole group. He seemed to have no discomforts or rancor with anyone and he believed in the project wholeheartedly.

He didn't quaver or qualify anything and he liked it all just fine, thank you.

Whenever he finished off a beer, he crushed the can flat and tossed it toward a box of empties before opening the fridge for a fresh one. A minuscule yellow thread seemed to unreel from him behind each flung can and tangle in a pale haze over the box.

One of the crushed cans made an abrupt veer and flew toward me. I ducked and knocked it aside.

Hopke glanced up. "I am so sorry. That's been happening more and more lately.”

I waved it off, though I tried to keep an eye on the thin haze of Grey energy that floated peripatetically about the cabin, sending tiny tendrils toward us like test probes. "I'm getting used to it.”

The boat heeled and pulled at the mooring lines with a creak. The sudden motion and the smell in the cabin forced me to swallow hard and dig my feet into the floor. Several books from the built-in shelves arced lazily into the air, defying gravity, and tumbled past my head.

Hopke scrambled to pick them up and stack them on a table. "Damn. Celia's getting frisky lately.”

"Is this unusual?”

"Not entirely, but it's more frequent since last week or so. Celia's always been a bit of a troublemaker. I think she took my keys this morning—it's a good thing I'm not pla

"That would be inconvenient.”

"It surely would.”

"All right," I said, resettling myself. "As long as we're on the subject, let's go back to yesterday, OK?"