Poltergeist

"Not too well. The mirror makes people look kind of short and fu

"Did you get a better look at him when he ran out?”

"No. I was going back to help Mark. I shouldn't have left the cash desk, but I didn't think of that, then.”

It wasn't much of a description, and the only people it let out of the suspect list were the Stahlqvists and Wayne Hopke. Even distracted, Manda would have noticed their pale hair.

"Are you certain the person was male? Could it have been female?”

"A woman?" She thought about it, rocking in the seat. "I guess. She couldn't have been very. . curvy, though.”

"What about the hair? Was it long, short, black, brown?”

She thought, then shook her head with her brows drawn down in an unhappy scowl. "I don't know. I can't remember. It was just. . hair. Dark hair. I wasn't paying much attention.”

"Could you see a part in it?”

She kept shaking her head. "I just can't remember.”

I tried to bring back any other details, but the longer we went on, the less Amanda knew. She wouldn't agree to anything she wasn't certain of or try to describe something she had to guess at. Finally I gave up, thanked her, and started to go.

"Oh," she said. "Are you coming tomorrow?”

"Coming? To what?”

"The funeral. Its at Lake View Cemetery at two. I'm sure it would be OK if you want to come.”

"Oh. Thank you, Amanda. I may come. I liked Mark very much.”

"Yeah. He was a great guy." She bit her lower lip and stood up. "I think I'd better go inside." She let the door swing closed on its own and I heard the first quavering breath of a sob before the lock clicked shut between us.

I went back to my truck and started south, toward Seattle.

Unlike Solis, I didn't care about motive. I only needed to know who controlled Celia. If the incident in the bookshop had been the precipitating event, then the person Amanda had seen in the mirror was Mark's killer. That person couldn't have been either of the Stahlqvists or "Wayne, and Patricia wouldn't have passed for a man even in a badly foreshortened mirror. I was back to Ian, Ana, and Ken, again. Or not. Carlos had left room for error in his guess. The business at the bookstore might not have been the precipitating event or had anything to do with Mark's death. And Amanda might not remember as well as she thought.

If I assumed that I was right so far, then I might need to figure out a motive. All three of my suspects had demonstrated some control of Celia—the last séance had convinced me of that, though the evidence wasn't clear enough to determine who had done what. I could imagine some sort of motive for Ken or Ian—anger over the fakery, jealousy over the women—but not for Ana. Although she had said that it would be up to Celia to take revenge. .

I pulled into a parking lot and looked for her phone number.

Ana wasn't enthusiastic about meeting me again and this time she insisted it not be at her parents' place. She was working downtown and reluctantly agreed to meet me in the building lobby after work, but she had an appointment and could only spare a few minutes.

The west lobby of the City Centre building poured light down from the two-story windows and focused track fixtures onto collections of glass objects housed in display cases on both levels. The light ran over the glass escalator and the brass trim, turning golden and breaking into sudden bright sparks that pierced the greenery pressing against the cluster of food kiosks at the street level.

I ascended the escalator to the mezzanine. Ana came around the corner from the elevators. I walked to meet her in front of the massive installation of Chihuly disks, floating like striped and spined jellyfish and Jackson Pollock splatters that flowered in the rich colors of Persia.

"Hi," I said.

She raised her hand. The back was scored with cuts that matched a set of marks around the edge of her face and neck. Her hair had been cut to chin length, but still looked a little ragged where it had been clipped to remove glass shards from her scalp. "Hi," she replied. She sounded tired and nervous.

Glass rattled. We both turned our heads to look at the display. The swirling colors of the «Persians» quivered, jittering and chiming as the glass shapes strained toward us.

With one mind, we moved away from the display, heading for the exit and casting quick glances up to the streaming, icy shapes of the chandelier that hung from the ceiling sixty feet above the escalator.

"I'm so jumpy," Ana started. "Things like that keep happening. Some much worse.”

"What would be worse than having a million dollars worth of art glass fall on you?”

She shivered. "Don't ask. I don't have a lot of time to talk to you— I'm meeting someone for drinks. Can we walk?"

“Sure.”

She scrabbled around in her purse as we headed out the revolving doors. Just under the portico, she paused to light a cigarette. She stood for a moment, smoking and staring around as if she expected something to swoop down the streets and attack her. She hunched her shoulders and hugged her coat tighter. She looked at the cigarette and threw it on the ground with disgust, making a face and sticking out her tongue. "Ugh. I don't know why I do that. I stop smoking long time ago." She cocked an inquiring look at me. "You have any gum? I want that taste out of my mouth.”

I shook my head. "No. Sorry." Her English, as well as her healthy habits, was breaking down a little from stress.

She shrugged. "Oh, well. Come on." She walked up to the corner and waited for the light to change in our favor. "So, what did you want?”

"I wanted to ask you if you'd ever had any kind of relationship with Mark.”

Ana's face pulled down into a questioning frown. "No. I met him in January. I don't know him before then. You mean, like, did we ever go out? No.”

The signal changed and she stepped out into the street. I stayed beside her. "Not at all?”

"Not alone. I go out with Mark, sure, but with the others along, too. Ian and Ken and Wayne and Patricia. Sometimes just me and Ian and Ken. But not alone. I like Mark, but that's all." Her expression grew stormy as we paused on the next corner. "You think because I go out with one man, but I'm attracted to another, I'm a slut? I have a lot of boyfriends in the past, but most of them are not nice men. I just want to find a nice man. Someone fun, someone good for me. I don't sleep around. OK?”

We crossed the next street together, heading south down Union.

"I'm sorry Mark died," she continued. "I am. He was nice. He was good, but he's not for me. I already said this to the detective from the police. Why anyone thinks I had anything to do with this?" she demanded, her English syntax shattering. Something rattled nearby.

"There's a woman involved in this. There was a woman at Mark's before he died.”

"Not me!”

We walked past a hat shop, our faces reflected for chopped instants under the fedoras and sun hats. A haze of yellow floated behind us like an impression of toxic fog.

"Do you think Celia would be capable of killing Mark?”

"What?" She stopped under the awning of a shoe repair shop and turned to stare at me. "Our ghost?”

I nodded.

"No." Then she paused. "No. . maybe. But it's just us doing it. Why would any of us want to hurt Mark?”

"Why would any of you throw a table through a window or crack Ian's ribs? Why would anyone do any of the things that happened on Wednesday? Why would they hurt any of you?" She'd been one of the least hurt and that raised my suspicions as much as anything. That we were being trailed by Celia only heightened them.

Her eyes got hard. "Because he faked Celia! He lied to us!" she spat.