Poltergeist

"No, Tuckman. You understand it. You just don't want responsibility for it.”

"Ms. Blaine!”

I reminded myself that his check hadn't cleared yet and heaved a sigh. "What's the problem?"

"Celia is bedeviling the subjects.”

' 'Bedeviling'? Just how badly are they being pestered?" Maybe the relative calm around me now was the reflection of Celia's action elsewhere. I threw my things on the floor behind the desk and sat down.

Without his villain act to bolster the impact, he just sounded peevish and unpleasant. "Considering the range of injuries they've all sustained recently, it takes very little 'pestering' to make someone miserable. They've all called—every one—with one story or another of the poltergeist doing unpleasant things.”

"Great. Look, Tuckman, as I understand it, the poltergeist is a collective phenomenon, yes?”

"Yes," he snapped at me, impatient and a

"Well then, if it exists because they believe it exists, the obvious thing to do is get them to stop believing in it.”

"And do you think that's likely when they are being pummeled and assaulted by this make-believe ghost?”

I laughed. "You put it there, Tuckman. I can't do anything to help you on that score. You taught them to believe, you'll have to teach them to be skeptical again. Why don't you tell them it was a hoax? That you had the room rigged and almost nothing that they experienced was real? That should shake a few of them up. If you can get them to stop giving it credence, maybe it will stop harassing them." I didn't say a damned thing about its harassing me, too. The entity had gone off on its own with its master and I doubted that the rest of the group could do much more than weaken it by any lack of faith, but I wouldn't say it wasn't worth a try.

Tuckman remained silent, brooding.

"Dr. Tuckman. Seriously. You need to convince them to stop giving it their support. You have to. It's taken on a life of its own, but if you can break down their belief, you may weaken it enough to stop its doing anything worse. Be brutal. You have to.”

"You've been no help at all," he spat.

"Then I won't charge you. Good luck, Dr. Tuckman. Remember that this is no longer a game. Your ghost killed one of your assistants. This thing has to cease and it's up to you to break it. Not me.”

I could almost hear the slow boil of his vexation. Then he hung up on me. I didn't mind. If I was lucky, I'd never hear from Gartner Tuckman again.

I worked for a while, periodically fending off the random attacks of random objects. At one o'clock, I went to catch Phoebe at her parents' restaurant. Hugh had told me she'd be there, and I needed Amanda's address. I could have just called, but that wouldn't help me mend any fences—Phoebe might take it as another attempt to dodge my rightful dose of her wrath and that wouldn't be good in the long run. Besides, I loved the Masons and needed some kind of break from the grinding horror of this case.

The lunch rush had thi

As the patriarch, Phoebe's father had taken his usual seat at the family table in back, his arthritic hand clutching a glass of tepid water, which he used more for emphasis than hydration. «Poppy» was gnarled and weathered, as brown as hand-rubbed walnut, and still ran the whole family merrily ragged without lifting anything but the glass and his voice. The clan fluttered around the table, flying in and out the kitchen doors like giddy fruit bats, somehow managing not to careen into one another while acceding to Poppy's every command. He spotted me as I came in and waved me to his table.

"Harper! Come on back here, girl. Where you been? I thought maybe you finally gone wasted away t'nothin' and blew off on the wind." His accent was still as thick as breadfruit—full of «de» and «dem» and soft Rs, lilting and bouncing like reggae—though he'd now lived thirty years in Seattle.

I wound through the crowd of family and sat down next to him against the kitchen wall, which was deliciously warm after the exterior chill. "No, Poppy. I still stick to the ground most of the time.”

He uncurled his index finger from the glass and poked me in the shoulder, scoffing. "Barely. I suppose them foolish white boys you date don' know better. Too bad t'see a nice girl like you goin' t'waste.”

I made a mock sad face. "Well, I just have to make do—Hugh is taken.”

His body shook as he roared laughter. He was loud for a little old man in his seventies. He wound down after a minute, chuckling, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Girl, I knew you could.”

That confused me. "Could what, Poppy?" I asked.

"Unfreeze yourself.”

I gaped at him. "What?" I squeaked.

"Harper, ever since you come out the hospital, you been hard and chilly like steel in the freezer—I'm surprised you got a man a' all. You built up some icy walls like you spect someone goin' t'hurt you some more, but when you ain't lettin' nothin' in to hurt, you ain't lettin' nothing in to love you, neither. Then you be stayin' away from here, like you don't need your family no more—'cause you family, even if you are thin like an of broom.”

I stared at him for a while, this old man with sharp black eyes. I hesitated to ask. "You. . can see some kind of wall around me?" If I had erected such a thing, surely I had good reason to keep the world at a distance. And maybe it was the same for Ken—even tough guys can't take it forever.

Poppy laughed and poked me again. "That's a metaphor, little girl! But spiritual walls be just as hard and cold as the real thing. Why you go look so sad now?”

I jerked back, swamped with bleak memory. "My dad used to call me 'little girl. “

"Harper, I'm sorry. I'm not presumin' on him. How long he's been gone?

"A long time. I was twelve when he died. Now there's just me and Mom and we don't get along.”

"That I know. So. . that why you don't be comin' round? We're too clingy?" Then he sat back and winked at me. "Or maybe you don' like Miranda's cookin' no more?”

I snorted a laugh, relieved to be off the subject of me and my wretched family—even if it did mean dealing with the oddities of the surrogate one. "I love your wife's cooking and I'd be twice as fat as you want me to be if I ate it as often as I'd like to. And three times as fat if I ate it as often as you'd like me to. Things have been a little strange since I got hurt and I've been busy. And Phoebe's mad at me.”

"Oh, she don't be so mad as dat.”

A plate of steaming food was shoved onto the table in front of me.

"I am too as mad as 'dat. “

I looked up into Phoebe's scowl. Or rather, her attempt at a scowl that broke up into a smile as I watched. She put down her own plate and sat across from me. One of the family slid some glasses of water onto the table for us as they passed. Another dropped off rolls of utensils and napkins, never missing a beat on the cleaning and prepping for drinks, di

Noises came from the bar area and the front of the dining room as the tables were rearranged to make a dance floor and stage for the band. Shouts and laughter gusted out of the kitchen with every swing of the doors. Phoebe and I had to lean toward each other to speak at a normal volume.

"Hey, girl," she said.

"Hey, yourself. Thanks for seeing me.”

"Oh, like I'm goin' t'hold a grudge. I was mad. But I understand." She had picked up her father's accent again.

I'd already explained myself and resisted any impulse to do so again. "How are you doing?”