they’d have records, wouldn’t they? Treatment records, maybe. Maybe we’d get dumb and lucky enough to stumble across a journal or something, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. There’s always the chance we might scare up a few doctor’s notes. ”
“Good point. Patient/client privilege doesn’t hold up when patient and client have both been dead for years. It’s worth looking into. ”
A flash of Technicolor hair at the window caught my attention. I looked out and saw Christ there, chewing on the filter end of a cigarette. “Excuse me for a minute,” I said to Nick.
“Again?”
“Again. Just for a minute. ”
I pushed open the heavy glass door and Christ flinched, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to run. “Christ, I want to talk to you. ”
He was glaring over my shoulder at Nick. Nick didn’t know what was going on, but he knew malice when he saw it. He made a tense, defensive shrug that asked through the glass, “What the fuck’s your problem?”
I turned my back on him and took Christ by the shoulder, gently pushing him away from the storefront and back to a spot where we were less easily observed. “I saw Ann Alice today,” I told him, and to his infinite credit he knew exactly what I meant.
“I told you!” he almost shouted, but I held him down with one hand and made a shushing gesture with the other.
“I know you told me, and hey—now I believe you. ”
“What’d she say? Where is she? What happened?” The questions came flapping out of his mouth one after the other, but I had to sit him down and quiet him with the truth.
“I don’t know—she didn’t say anything. She just led me to something, and I don’t know what it means. She wasn’t very helpful. ”
“Maybe you just didn’t understand!”
“Oh, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it. She took me to that old bank building on Market Street, the one on the corner that used to be a furniture store. ”
“Did you find her body?”
“No. Good Lord, no. I would’ve had to call the cops over that, and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if that had happened. I didn’t find any trace of her. But I did find something weird. I think it’s what she wanted to show me, but I don’t get it. ”
“Well?”
“Well, it was a series of paintings on the wall, underneath the plaster. ”
“Wait. What?” Christ deflated with confusion. “Murals? Under the plaster? How did you—”
“They were old KKK murals, pictures of hooded bozos on horses with burning crosses. But they’d been there a while, probably a hundred years or more. Someone had plastered over them ages ago, and the plaster’s coming down; that’s why I could see them. That’s what Ann Alice was trying to show me. As soon as I twigged on, she disappeared. I’d ask if you know what she meant by it, but I can tell by looking at you that you’re as stumped as I am. ”
“I’m not stumped,” he argued. “I’m never stumped. I’m just temporarily unaware. ”
“You’re nuts, is what you are. ”
“But Ann Alice wasn’t. ”
“Is that why she was selling her behavioral modification meds down by the river?”
He stood up. “Yeah, because she didn’t need them. That’s the point. She wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t stupid. If she showed you the furniture building, then she must have had a reason. ”
“But what would that reason be? That’s what I’m asking you!”
I hadn’t known Ann Alice very well. She’d always struck me as a pretty little burn-out tomboy. It seems to take ghosts a lot of trouble and effort to manifest, though, so when they do, there’s almost always method to their madness. Of course, sometimes madness is the method, and that’s where it gets tricky.
“I . . . I have no idea. But maybe I should go check the place out—get a look around. You didn’t find anything, but I might. ”
“Knock yourself out. Keep your eyes open, though. It’s private property and there could be cops hanging around. There’s a hole in the plywood covering one of the side doors. Go in that way and take a look. But be warned, you might end up running into Nick there too. He may do a local interest piece about it. ”
“Is that what you’re doing here? Talking with him about this, I mean?”