The Frighteners Read online

  Ray got off the bed. His impression disappeared. He looked around the room, cataloging the changes she had made since his demise.

  Again unheard, he said, “Where’s my rowing machine? Where are my clothes.” He prowled around, pulling open drawers. “Where did all those black panties come from? You always wore pink or white.”

  Although Lucy couldn’t see or hear him, she got the last message. She slammed her panty drawer on his hand. He howled with pain, even though his hand passed through the wood and the pain was mostly psychological.

  “Keep your hands outta my drawers, Ray. If you want to get your rocks off, take the bus to Portland and haunt your nineteen-year-old aerobics instructor.”

  Ray stood in the center of the room, looking disconsolate. His appearance was more decomposed than it had been when he first became an emanation. Ectoplasm was running down his face.

  “I don’t want you around me,” she said, searching the room for her car keys. “I don’t want you in this house. I’m a widow, Ray. Leave me the hell alone.”

  With that, she stormed out of the house, locking the door behind her and shouting over her shoulder, “I have to go to work. Somebody has to support this household, and you sure didn’t contribute much. Remember, I want you out of here. And don’t slam the door when you leave!”

  She got into her car and turned the key. Caught off guard, Ray had to run to keep up with her, slipping through the passenger’s-side door in an awkward movement. Clearly, he hadn’t yet gotten the hang of the emanation stuff.

  As Lucy drove along he said, “Okay, it’s my fault. I screwed up. But deep down, you know we have a great relationship, don’t we, honey?”

  She didn’t hear a word he said. She was lost in thought, a fact that caused her to fail to notice the Mercury Tracer following her at a discreet distance.

  Ray tossed up his hands. “Honey,” he said, “it’s just that lately . . . I don’t feel you’ve been giving it one hundred percent.”

  Lucy drove on, oblivious to his presence.

  “I know I haven’t always been the perfect husband,” he continued. “And maybe you could have done better than me, you being a doctor and all. I mean, how many doctors are married to personal trainers? By all rights you should have married a top doctor at one of the big medical centers, a urologist or something. And that’s what your mother always wanted you to do. I can remember those conversations like they happened yesterday.”

  She made the turn into the parking lot of the Fairwater Medical Center and pulled into the parking spot marked with a sign reading DR. L. LYNSKEY.

  The medical center was a smallish, white stucco building on the outskirts of the business district. It was office for several specialists in obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, and reproductive endocrinology and fertility. It had a large cryolab with walk-in freezer space large enough to accommodate the center’s growing in vitro fertilization program, as well as a well-equipped medical testing lab.

  With Ray tagging along, Lucy hurried through the back door and along a busy corridor—stopping every ten feet, it seemed, to accept the condolences of one or another staff member or patient—until she got to the reception desk.

  “Hi, Mary,” she said to the combination receptionist and insurance biller.

  “Dr. Lynskey, what are you doing here?” the older woman asked.

  “I needed to do something. It was tough sitting around the house.”

  “I know, dear. You must miss your husband so.”

  “She does, I can feel it,” Ray said, but of course no one heard him.

  “The house must feel so empty,” Mary continued.

  “Actually, it seems crowded to me right about now,” Lucy said, thinking of Ray’s ghost.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Mary said, “I’m sure that if you do something like buy new furniture, the house will seem all fresh and new to you.”

  “I was thinking of doing that,” Lucy said. “For one thing, the bed reminds me of Ray.”

  “You poor thing. You should put it right out in the street and let the garbage men pick it up.”

  “That’s an idea.”

  “Or else you could hold a yard sale. That’s the best way to get rid of old junk. And there’s another good thing about it . . .”

  “What’s that?” Lucy asked.

  “You might meet a few fellas.”

  Ray turned green. This was a prospect he didn’t want to face, being an emanation forced to watch his widow get on with her love life.

  “She doesn’t need anyone new,” he said. “She has me.”

  “You know, I think that’s a good idea,” Lucy said.

  “I knew you’d like it, Dr. Lynskey, we’ve been so worried about you ever since we heard what happened to your husband. All I can say is, thank God you’re all right.”

  “Aw, that’s nice of you to say.” Lucy hugged the receptionist. “Now, is Dr. Kamins in?”

  “Yes, he is, Dr. Lynskey. He’s in the cryolab.”

  Lucy headed down a flight of stairs, then walked into the cryolab as Dr. Henry Kamins, a middle-aged man with a kindly face, emerged from a small, walk-in freezer carrying a tray of frozen test tubes. He closed the door carefully, and was surprised to see Lucy walk in.

  “Lucy! How are you?” he asked, putting the tray down on a stainless-steel bench that was topped, here and there, with various sorts of medical diagnostic equipment.

  “I’m okay, Henry.”

  They hugged.

  “Have you recovered from the funeral and wake yet?”

  “Not really. The police have been horrible. They kept me up all night asking questions.”

  “Questions? About what?”

  “They think Frank Bannister has something to do with these recent deaths—including, I suppose, Ray’s.”

  Kamins laughed. “That’s absurd.”

  “I know. I was there when Ray had his heart attack, and I wasn’t able to revive him. And you read the autopsy—massive coronary. So I don’t know what they’re talking about. But anyway, Frank Bannister is suspected in the death of Magda Ravanski early this morning.”

  “She’s dead? What a loss.” Kamins did not sound especially grief-stricken.

  Lucy smiled. “I know she was a favorite of yours.”

  “I know she nearly shut us down by printing that phony story that we were transplanting the wrong embryo into the right woman, and so on. We proved her reporter was wrong and she still wouldn’t retract. The case is still on the court’s agenda, but you can’t win. If you sue the press, they only think you’re trying to cover something up. How did Magda die?”

  “They didn’t tell me.”

  “So, Lucy, why are you here? I thought I told you to take a couple of weeks off.”

  “I thought I’d catch up on some paperwork.”

  “You know that can wait. Why don’t you go to Europe for a week, see Paris?”

  “Too expensive.”

  “Go to Boston, then. Or New York. Catch a few shows and have a couple of nights on the town.”

  “It all seems like a waste, considering I really enjoy my work.”

  “Have it your way.” Kamins shrugged. “Maybe work is the best therapy. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  Soon she was upstairs in her office, poring over paperwork. She put on a disc of Beethoven piano sonatas and closed her door, letting the music and the solitude bathe her. Before too long, she forgot about the possibility that Ray could be there with her, and as a matter of fact, he was, at that very moment, pacing back and forth in front of her desk ranting and raving.

  “I just don’t understand why you won’t pay any attention to me,” he said. “Is it the way I look? Is it this ectoplasmic stuff?”

  He wiped a goop of slimy ectoplasm off his face. “Does it turn you off?” he asked. “Honey . . . come on, honey—you’re not listening to me. Lucy!”

  He yelled. “Lucy! You gotta listen!”

 
Furious, Ray swept his arm across her desk, sending her papers flying onto the floor. Startled, she sat back.

  At that moment the phone rang. Lucy composed herself and picked it up.

  “Hello. Dr. Lynskey speaking.”

  “This is Patricia Bartlett,” the voice on the other end replied. “I . . . I’m sorry, I’m nervous. I haven’t used the phone for a long time.”

  Lucy tensed up. “Patricia Bartlett?” she asked cautiously. “Of Bartlett House, up there on the hill?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  Lucy cleared her throat. “You don’t sound nervous, Patricia. How can I help?”

  The only furniture in the sheriff’s interrogation room were three folding chairs and a plain folding conference table. Frank was seated at the latter facing Perry; Dammers was standing in the doorway. More for psychological effect than anything else, a single light burned beneath a conical aluminum shade suspended from the ceiling.

  “There has been a destructive force unleashed on this town such as I have never seen.” Dammers waved a fistful of files as he spoke.

  “I know,” Bannister said blankly, looking at nobody in particular. He seemed to have picked up Dammer’s trait of avoiding eye contact, such was the state he was in.

  “We have a body count of twenty-six.”

  Sheriff Perry raised his eyebrows. “That’s one hell of a bunch of people,” he said. “We get less than that at most Thursday Rotary lunches.”

  “You’re a very dangerous man, Mr. Bannister,” Dammers said.

  “Wait a minute,” Perry cut in. “You’re not suggesting that Frank is responsible for killing twenty-six people?”

  “You’re way out of your depth, Sheriff Perry,” Dammers said. “Please leave.”

  “I’ll leave when this local matter is officially declared a federal case,” Perry said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dammers, the Constitution of the United States says that rights not specifically granted to Washington are reserved for the states. And that includes the right to investigate murders that don’t involve state lines, federal officials, or the abrogation of someone’s civil rights.”

  “You don’t want to butt heads with me, Perry,” Dammers said. “This is bigger than the Constitution of the United States.”

  “That’s what Nixon said—before they ran him out of office,” Bannister chimed in.

  “Frank Bannister is my prisoner,” Perry insisted.

  Red with rage, Dammers reached into his jacket and pulled out his FBI badge. He held it aloft while staring, as was his habit, at the floor.

  He said, “By the power invested in me by the president of the United States, I am telling you to get the hell outta this room.”

  Perry frowned, but stood and headed for the door. “This isn’t the end of it, Dammers,” he said. “I’ll be talking to the town attorney and will get back to you.”

  He left the room, slamming the door behind him. Dammers slid his badge back into his jacket and paced the room.

  “Have you ever heard of Nina Kulagina?” he asked.

  “On March ten, 1970, Nina Kulagina used her mind power to stop the beat of a frog’s heart. The record of this experiment is in the form of a cardiogram currently held in the files of Professor Genady Sergeyev in Leningrad. As Sergeyev interpreted the cardiogram, the heart seemed to experience a sudden flare-up of electrical activity. The heart imploded, the arteries burst, and all because Nina Kulagina wanted the animal dead.”

  Frank slowly looked up at Dammers.

  “I don’t kill people,” he said tersely.

  “There are many other examples throughout history,” Dammers insisted. “There was a child who could start fires, a psychic who could predict a death to within minutes, an Obeya priest who could cook a fish by talking to it.”

  “I’ve always dreamed of having the ability to erase my signature on checks after I’ve cashed them,” Bannister said.

  “This is not a joke,” Dammers said.

  “Wouldn’t you like the ability to start your car by thinking about it? Telekinesis is fun to think about and the stuff of much legend, but all in all it’s the Clever Hans Effect.”

  “Who is Clever Hans?” Dammers asked, suspecting a spy or worse.

  “A horse in nineteenth-century Germany whose master honestly believed he could do math by tapping with his hoof. This was not a circus sideshow; it wasn’t a money-making enterprise at all, just pure science. Well, it took them years, but they finally worked it out that Clever Hans was getting unconscious cues from his master. He couldn’t solve the problems when he couldn’t see his master.”

  “Get to the point,” Dammers snapped.

  “The point is that if you take Madame Kulagina out of her salon, or wherever she operated from, in Leningrad, and put her in Times Square, her mental powers plus a token would get her on the subway. Most parapsychology, paraphysiology, call it what you will, is—and my apologies to Clever Hans—horseshit. What I have encountered—what I encounter every day, even when I don’t want to, is the afterlife, and whole religions have been built around that. It isn’t bending spoons, Special Agent Dammers.”

  Dammers sighed, then looked Bannister in the eye for a fleeting moment before returning his attention to the checkered pattern on the floor. “You’re a murderer and I won’t let you weasel out of it.”

  “Most of the billions of people on this planet believe in an afterlife,” Bannister said. “I simply am in the position to know what it looks like. I see what comes after death, Dammers. I don’t kill people.”

  “There’s a part of me that believes that,” Dammers said. “But there’s another part of you, Frank, that’s out of control—your destructive impulse.”

  “I have seen a figure in a cape,” Frank insisted. “I have seen it reach into people’s chests and squeeze their hearts.”

  “Who was it?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Who was it!” Dammers yelled.

  “Death,” Frank said quietly.

  “Who?”

  “Death. The Grim Reaper. The Soul Collector. There are dozens of names.”

  Dammer’s face remained impassive. “I can communicate with the other side,” Frank said slowly. “You of all people should appreciate this. I can see spirits. I don’t know why and I don’t always understand it.”

  If Bannister expected understanding or even patience, he was to be disappointed. For Dammers snapped, “You think you’re so unique, don’t you, Mr. Bannister? In my business I deal with your type every other week.”

  Frank buried his head in his hands. A feeling of hopelessness swept over him.

  “This death figure, this Reaper, is nothing more than a homicidal alter ego who satisfies your compulsion to kill,” Dammers continued. “Every time you decide to take somebody out, a fictional death figure suddenly appears and does the job for you.”

  “That Freud 101 explanation leaves out the little detail of how I squeeze the life out of people’s hearts without leaving marks on their bodies,” Bannister said into his hands, knowing Dammers wouldn’t care anyway.

  “I don’t know how you do it . . . yet,” the agent said.

  “It’s pointless talking to you,” Frank moaned.

  “This Reaper is your rational mind’s way of absolving yourself of guilt. How else could you deal with killing your wife?”

  “No!” Frank said, looking up. “I didn’t kill Debra. I couldn’t kill Debra. I adored her.”

  “When did you start seeing spirits—after Debra’s death?” Dammers asked.

  Frank nodded. “It has something to do with surviving a trauma.”

  “You blew her away, Frank.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You had just had an argument with Jacob Platz.”

  “And that prompted me to kill the woman I adored? For one thing, Jake loves arguments. He thrives on them. He tries to have at least one good one a day. And if I got so upset after arguing with him, why wouldn’t I kill him?”r />
  “There’s no predicting the homicidal mind,” Dammers said. “You killed your wife, and that was the catalyst that caused your psyche to collapse.”

  “No!” Frank said again, yelling this time.

  “Let’s take the case of Ray Lynskey. You have an argument with him—”

  “I missed a turn and ran onto his lawn by accident,” Frank said.

  “Yes, you seem to have a problem with that. Three hours later he’s dead. And about Magda Ravanski. We know you didn’t like her.”

  “No one liked her.”

  “But only you killed her. And what about Barry Thompson?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man in the toilet. What did he do to you, Frank? Did he piss on your blue suede shoes?”

  Frank had been, for a while, angry and frightened. He saw no way beyond that state. He felt more helpless than at any time since Debra died. What a mess I’ve made of my life, he thought. No money in the bank and only ghosts for friends. He buried his face in his hands again and began to tremble.

  “Why are you shaking, Frank?” Dammers asked warily.

  Bannister didn’t reply.

  “You’re doing it now, aren’t you?”

  Frank was too upset to think of something to say, and shaking too much to talk anyway.

  “You’re trying to kill me!” Dammers shouted triumphantly. “Well, forget it, Bannister . . . It won’t work.”

  With that, Dammers ripped his shirt open, revealing a sheet of dull, beaten metal across his chest. “I’m wearing a lead breastplate!” he gloated.

  He slammed the files he had been carrying down on the table.

  “We have twenty-six unexplained deaths here,” he shouted. “I think you are linked to every one of them . . . Let’s start talking, Frank.”

  Thirteen

  Lucy nosed her car through the old hospital gates, but instead of turning into the Bartletts’ driveway, she parked her car out of sight behind an abandoned service building. Sitting beside her and still invisible to her, Ray said, “Where are you going? I thought you were going to the house. I was married to you, babe. You always had to have the spot closest to the mall entrance. Remember how you’d make me drive around for half an hour to find the closest spot?”