Chapter 22
I AWOKE Monday morning to a call from Ellen Boyd. Tanner hadn’t been home, and she hadn’t seen him since Saturday night. I told her I’d be right over.
As I dressed I called out for Robbie. Nothing. I didn’t get the sense he was around at all, so I didn’t think he was avoiding me on purpose. Most likely his emotions had drained him to the point that he couldn’t even manifest. He’d be around later. I told Daisy to keep an eye on things and went out to my car.
When I got to the Boyd house, Ellen was waiting for me by the front door. She was pacing a little and didn’t look like she’d slept at all. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said as I approached. “I didn’t think I should call the police. I kept thinking he’d come in last night, but….”
I nodded. “How was he when you saw him last?”
“He was acting very odd. He’s been withdrawn ever since we saw the ghost, but Saturday night he would barely speak to me. He sat at the kitchen table, just drinking beer and staring at the wall. He’s never done that before. He didn’t even talk much to the kids. Just sat there, drinking. Finally I got tired and told him I was going to bed, but if he wanted to talk, he could wake me up. When I got up he was gone. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Did he take anything? Clothes? Money?”
Ellen shook her head. “Just what he was wearing. His car and what he had in his wallet.”
I gestured to the door. “Let’s get inside. I’m sure we can find him.”
I got Ellen to show me to the bathroom. She stood in the doorway while I went over to the cabinet. “Did Tanner use a comb or a hairbrush?”
She got that look that I often get from people who suddenly wonder if I’m operating on all cylinders. “A comb,” she said. “Top drawer is his.”
I opened the drawer and found a medium-sized black comb. There were several hairs clinging to the tines. “Can I borrow this? I’ve got a friend who can locate Tanner right away using this.”
Ellen said, “Sure.”
GINA was in her living room watching a DVD of Casablanca when I knocked at her door. The picture was paused on a close-up of Humphrey Bogart. We sat down, and she picked up the remote and shut the television off. “I’ve tried to watch that damn movie six or seven times now, and something always interrupts me. I’ve never gotten to the end.”
“She goes off with Paul Heinreid, leaving Rick with Claude Rains. I’m pretty sure Claude and Humphrey walk off hand in hand in the last scene.”
“Thanks. And Rosebud is the fucking sled. Now, what’s up?”
I showed her the comb. “I need to find someone, a guy named Tanner Boyd.”
Gina reached over and took the comb from me. She looked carefully at the attached hairs. “This one here is particularly good. It still has the follicle attached.”
While I watched Gina got up and went rummaging through a small cabinet near the television. She uttered a cry of satisfaction and pulled out a small container. She sat back down and opened the tin. Inside was a hunk of clay. It looked to be the same kind I’d used back in kindergarten. It even had the same smell.
“So what has this Tanner Boyd been up to?” she asked as she began to knead and mold the clay.
“His family has a spirit in their home. He won’t admit that it’s there, and I think the ghost is that of his first wife. He’s been acting odd and has now disappeared. His wife hasn’t seen him since Saturday night.”
“That’s not that long,” Gina said.
“I’d still like to find him.”
“He could just be freaked out from seeing the ghost of his dead wife. Not everyone handles the paranormal as easily as you do.” Her hands worked quickly and soon the small mound of clay began to take the shape of a crude figure, human in shape. Satisfied, Gina took one of the hairs from the comb and worked it into the clay, making sure the hair was in what would be the chest of the figure.
“His wife, his present wife that is, is a nice woman. She’s very worried. They’ve also got two young girls.”
Gina smiled and got back to her feet. “Then let’s find him, shall we?” She led me into her parlor, where she conducted her palmistry business. She sat down at the central table and lit a candle. “Would you pull the drapes? I’d like the room to be darkened as much as possible.”
Once I’d closed the drapes Gina picked the clay figure up and stared at it intently. I stood by the window, more to keep out of her way than anything else. I also didn’t like to be too close to Gina when she was casting a spell. I don’t know what forces she called on, but whenever I was near her and she was doing some incantation or other, I felt chilled to the bone. I’m not talking about your regular feeling cold here, either. I mean like you’ve got a fever and the heaviest quilt you own isn’t enough to stop the shivers kind of chilled. I hoped that by standing across the room I could avoid that unpleasantness.
“Little man, shaped of clay,” she said, “I have something to ask of you.”
The atmosphere of the room changed immediately. The room darkened as if the sun outside had suddenly been covered by clouds. The temperature dropped dramatically, but at least this time I just got goose bumps on my arms.
She continued. “We wish to locate someone. We wish to find a man named Tanner Boyd. I want you to lead us to him, little man. Take us to him, and don’t fail us, man of clay. We must find Tanner Boyd, and we ask that you assist us.”
I could hear some sort of whistling sound in the air even though the windows were closed and the air conditioner was off. There almost seemed to be voices within the whistling but they were too faint for me to hear any words. If indeed there were words.
Gina blew out the candle. A satisfied smile crossed her face.
“Do we know where he is?” I asked. The air was already getting warmer. I rubbed at my arms to get the blood flowing again.
She shook her head. “We don’t need to know where he is. He is coming to us.”
That surprised me. I had thought that she was creating some sort of locating spell. “You’ve summoned him?”
“And he cannot refuse to obey. He’ll be here before long.” She stood up and nodded in the direction of the living room. “Hopefully he won’t come too soon, though. I’d like to finish the damn movie. I’ve just got to the point where Rick is drinking himself into a stupor, and Sam is playing As Time Goes By. Care to join me? I’ve got some tea made.”
GINA finally got to see the end of Casablanca. As she switched off the set, she tilted her head slightly and scrunched her nose. “Movies are weird.”
“How so?”
“That’s supposed to be one of the great romances of all time, right? And she ends up having to go off with the handsome Paul Heinreid instead of staying with the troll-like, drunken Humphrey Bogart?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. It was good. I guess I just don’t see what’s so great about Humphrey Bogart. I’m not even sure why Claude Rains would go off with him at the end. Still, at least now I can say I’ve seen it.” Gina picked up the clay doll that had been sitting on the coffee table while we’d watched the movie. “It’s getting warmer. He’s getting near.”
“So it’s sort of a homing beacon? A homing clay figure, so to speak?”
“Something like that. And while we’re on the subject of romance, what’s been going on with you?”
I told her about my dates with Nick and my talk with Robbie. “I can hardly be mad at Robbie, since he’s been going through the same thing as I have.”
“But he was giving you hell about wanting to start dating.”
“Only because he felt guilty. It’s a tricky situation.”
“What do you plan on doing?”
I thought a moment. “I want to continue to see Nick. I like him. And I think he likes me. It’ll just have to go very slowly. I want to make sure that I’m making the right decisions before I plunge into something. Insert your own dirty joke here.”
Gina looked at me questioningly.
“I said plunge into something. I thought you’d make a comment. Anyway, I plan on being honest with Nick.”
Gina showed surprise. “You’re going to tell him you’ve got a dead boyfriend that you’re still seeing?”
“No! I meant I’m going to tell him I want to go on seeing him, but that we’ll have to take things very slowly. How are things going with you and the dentist?”
“The same. Slowly.” Gina glanced at the clay figure in her hands and set it back down on the coffee table. “He’s here now. Shall we meet him at the door?”
Indeed, a very confused looking Tanner Boyd was coming up the walk as we stepped outside. He was blinking rapidly, as if the sun was in his eyes, even though the day had become overcast. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with a tear in it just over his left pectoral muscle. He hadn’t shaved. I looked beyond him at the street, wondering if he’d walked all the way to Gina’s. There was a car parked at the curb.
He came up to us, putting his hands up to his temples as if to stop his head from exploding. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he said. He looked at me and seemed to suddenly realize that he knew me. “What’s going on?”
I don’t know what Gina could see, but I could tell that something was very wrong with Tanner Boyd. His skin was unnaturally pale and his eyes had an odd shine to them. It almost seemed to me that something was moving inside his eyes, a sort of mist in the pupil. My guess was that Tanner wasn’t alone inside his head. The spirit of his ex-wife (assuming that I was right in my guess as to the specter’s identity) was in there with him. Tanner Boyd was possessed.
Gina took him gently by the arm. “Please come inside. You look very tired. You should rest.”
He lowered his arms from his face and looked at Gina’s doorway with just a little apprehension.
“I’m not sure… I should get home.”
“We’ll get you home,” Gina said. “First, come in and sit down for a few moments. Duncan can call your wife and tell her where you are.”
Tanner shook visibly as Gina guided him to the threshold. There he put on the brakes, refusing to go further. “No,” he said, “I really must go home. My wife will be worried.”
Gina was trying to pull him inside. I was behind Tanner. It was almost like watching a mime act with Tanner going up against an invisible wall. Something was preventing him from entering Gina’s cottage. I wasn’t surprised. Ghosts and witches don’t mesh very well, so a ghost probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable walking into the dwelling of a witch. I put a hand on Tanner’s back and gently shoved. He lost his balance and tumbled forward.
As soon as he hit the threshold, he seemed to split. A howl that wasn’t his erupted from his throat and a white vapor shot out of his mouth and nostrils. The mist went up into the air and nearly formed into a human shape before dissipating. The howl died away immediately and Tanner fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
Gina and I helped him to his feet. If he’d been confused before, now he was positively manic. “What the hell is going on? What’s happening to me?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Gina asked him.
He shook the cobwebs out of his head. “Last thing I remember clearly was sitting in my kitchen at home. After that, things are… hazy.”
Tanner wasn’t any too steady on his pins. Even with Gina helping to steady him he was leaning most of his weight on me. “You were possessed,” I told him. “Don’t worry. The spirit is gone now.”
“Gone?” He gazed at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Where? What are you talking about?”
Gina took charge. “Let’s get you inside. You need a cup of tea.”
Tanner protested, but I’ve never met anyone who could refuse to obey one of Gina’s wishes when she really pressed. He sat on the couch in her living room and muttered while she prepared another pot of tea. Once he’d had a few sips he did look remarkably better. Some color crept back into his face, and he stopped shaking.
I sat next to him. “The ghost we saw the other night was that of your first wife, Cindy, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I thought maybe we were just suffering from a mass hallucination or something. I didn’t want to believe that she’d come back. It really was her, though, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Tanner sipped some more tea. “And you think she possessed me?”
Gina was standing by the side of the couch, looking down at him. “We saw her. She couldn’t enter my house. She’s out of you now, don’t worry.”
“Where did she go?”
Gina and I exchanged glances. “She might be gone for good,” I said, “or she might have gone back to your house. If you’re feeling up to it, we can go and find out.”
He didn’t look like he was, but he came with us anyway. Tanner went with me in my car while Gina drove Tanner’s. When we got to the Boyd house everything looked normal. A light sprinkle of rain had started and the temperature had dropped, but that was just Indiana in September. Nothing paranormal. Ellen Boyd met us at the door.
She hugged her husband tightly. “Oh my God,” she said, her voice choked. I could see the tears starting to form in her eyes. “Where have you been?”
Tanner, still in her embrace, shook his head. “I’m not sure. I still can’t think straight.”
Once she finally let her husband out of her bear hug, Ellen smiled at me. “I don’t know how I can thank you enough. I was so worried.” She noticed Gina, and I introduced them.
Gina as usual was wearing enough jewelry to make an airport metal detector go berserk. She looked out of place outside a typical suburban house, but her manner seemed to put the Boyds at ease. “Do you mind if we come inside for a moment?”
Ellen ushered us all in. Gina sniffed the air and moved around the room. She caught my eye and shook her head. She wasn’t finding any trace of the spirit in the room.
I filled Ellen in on what had happened. I purposely left things vague when it came to the spell that had brought Tanner straight to Gina. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they’d believe me. Once you accept ghosts as a fact of life, it isn’t that much of a stretch to go on to witches. I did, however, want to keep Gina’s secret from them as much as possible. From my explanation, all they got was the impression that Gina was a truly gifted fortune teller.
Once I finished, Gina asked permission to check out the rest of the house. She found nothing.
“This doesn’t mean,” I told them, “that the ghost is gone for good. Just that it’s not here now. It may not come back at all, but I’d certainly keep an eye out. The first sign you get that she’s back, call me. Gina and I can come out and perform an exorcism.”
The Boyds nodded slowly. Ellen held her husband’s hand. “Thank you,” she said again. Tanner looked like he was going to be sick. He wiped a hand over his nose and stared at me.
I could tell he wanted to say something, so I paused by the door. He found the words. “She was insane. My first wife, Cindy. She was insanely jealous. That’s where she was going the night she crashed her car. She thought I was having an affair with a girl from work. I wasn’t. Hell, I barely knew the woman. That didn’t matter to Cindy, though. She was going to confront her. She was speeding way too fast for the slick roads. It had been storming that night. The police say she took a corner too fast and crashed into a tree.” Tanner Boyd sighed and slumped against Ellen. He was beat.
Gina touched Ellen Boyd lightly on the shoulder. “I can’t feel her presence anywhere in the house. She seems to be gone. I think you’re free of her. Just don’t play with Ouija boards or anything like that and do what Duncan says. The first sign that she’s back, call him. We’ll be right out.”
We left the house. The rain had started in earnest now, and Gina and I rushed to my car to avoid getting too wet. Before I pulled away I looked back at the house. Everything looked quiet, but looks could be deceiving. I hoped that Tanner and Ellen were free of their ghost.
Time would tell.