Dead To Me

“I don’t think that our befuddled Inspectre has any dark secrets to hide, Co

As we moved farther into the apartment, the sounds of Co

“Those old boysall have dark secrets to hide,” he said. “That’s probably half the reason F.O.G. exists, so they can have one collective burial ground for all their bad mojo.”

I shook my head, another gesture wasted in the darkness.

My arm bumped into something tall, slender, and lamp-like, and I groped around it until I found a switch. With the tiniest of clicks, a Tiffany floor lamp-much like the one sitting half unpacked back home-sprang to life, its stained glass dragonflies sparkling with color. Both of us gasped as the small pool of light lit up a section of the large room. We had expected spacious, which it was. I had expected elegant, which it was. Neither of us had expected for the place to be thoroughly and abusively trashed from floor to ceiling, which sadly, it was.

I felt like someone had sucker punched me in the stomach. The similarity to my place was so striking that it was like seeing my own apartment ransacked. Tasteful antiques littered the floor, many of them now broken or overturned. Irene’s tastes definitely ran in the same circles as mine. Seeing a broken Venini bowl, a midcentury George III card table missing a leg, countless scattered books, and a shredded seat cushion on a late-eighteenth-century Highback-it all drove the pain home.

Irene Blatt might have been struck down by a cab yesterday morning, but someone had gone just as medieval on her apartment. It would be foolish to assume that the two were not co

Co

“And remember, even though we got in a little practice with your powers at the Antiques A

I nodded, slipped my gloves back on, and started poring over the scattered books, smashed relics, and broken antiques in the living room before venturing farther back into the apartment. I slowly waded through the knee-deep clutter of books, papers, and boxes, looking for any kind of sign. Most of Irene’s possessions, although broken, gave me greater insight into the living person she had been. I found myself liking her more and more, especially when I unearthed the worn-out box cover of an old board game.Hungry Hungry Hippos. A woman after my own juvenile heart.

I couldn’t resist pushing my power into it. I took my gloves off and placed a tentative finger on the head of the yellow hippo. I tried to envision Irene as a child playing the game-or maybe I’d see that she had kids or a family that she played the game with. Either way, it might offer a clue to our case. Instead, my psychometry skipped all that and jumped straight to showing me the last person who had handled it.

In my mind’s eye, the apartment was only partly trashed, but a figure in a dark robe opened the game box warily looking for something-but what? He tore the contents of the box out, smashing the plastic tray and sending the four rainbow-colored plastic hippos flying. The bottom of the box held nothing and the figure threw the whole game against the wall in frustration before heading farther down the hall, which was where I intended to go as well.

I pulled out of the vision-slightly weary-and helped myself to more of my Life Savers before wading down the hall to the first room on my left. I could probably read half the apartment with my power, but all I’d get was mental footage of that figure trashing it. I decided to conserve my power for now and entered the room on my left.

Irene had definitely been a packrat in life. The room was filled with overturned boxes, and every last article, book, or meticulously catalogued item she had ever come across was stored in them. There were other doors farther along the back hall of the massive apartment, and I imagined more of the same behind them. Whatever ma

A cracked frame showed a picture of Irene against a background of Italian architecture. In it, she wore a thick cable knit turtleneck sweater. The photo, at last, confirmed for us that my ghostly friend was indeed Irene Blatt, and that this trashed mess had once been her apartment. I slipped the picture from the frame and slid it into my jacket pocket, wondering who had snapped the shot. A boyfriend or maybe just a passerby. This didn’t count as stealing, I told myself, but checked the door guiltily anyway.

I was relieved to find the next room empty, and I heard the sounds of Co

“Co

I floundered for several seconds in the sea of scattered books and crumpled papers. The dark-robed figure rushed nimbly across the top of the debris without sinking in before racing out of the room. I hoped Co

Clumsily, I got back on my feet and waded as quickly as I could out into the main hall. The sound of a struggle came from the direction of the living room. As the hall opened up onto the main room, I saw Co

A kukri,I thought. It was the calling card for someone prepared to perform ritualistic sacrifice.That’s a cultist if I ever saw one.

“Knife!” I shouted to Co

For a second, the madman lifted the blade high overhead and I thought he was going to finish Co

Instead of attacking, however, the cultist flicked his wrist, and with a barely audible click, the blade disappeared up one of his voluminous sleeves. Co

Co