The Séance

Heather Graham

The SÉance

For Mary Walkley, with many thanks for many things,

and with very best wishes to Leigh Collett

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Prologue

Christie opened her eyes.

Everything seemed to be as it should be. The small porcelain clock on the mantel—Gran’s favorite, brought over from Ireland—sat in its place, the seconds ticking away softly. A night-light burned in the bathroom, because she didn’t like total darkness.

The air conditioner hummed.

The clock chimed softly.

It was midnight.

Then she realized what was wrong. Granda was in the room. He was watching her from the old white rocker that faced her bed. He was smoking his old pipe and rocking gently, and he smiled as she opened her eyes.

“Granda?” she murmured.

“Ah, girl, I woke you,” he said. “I didna mean to do so.”

“It’s okay, Granda,” she told him, curious. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, my girl, just the way it is,” he said, and he leaned toward her. “I want you to be good to Gran, that’s all, Christie. Be there for her.”

She almost laughed aloud in protest. She was twelve years old, and she didn’t even live near Gran, so she could hardly be much help to her. “I’m a kid, Granda,” she reminded him. “I can’t even go to the mall by myself.”

She was rewarded with one of his deep and endearing smiles. “So y’are young, girl, so y’are. But children can give a lot of love.”

She frowned, surprised suddenly that he looked so good, and that he was so calm, just sitting there, rocking, the pleasant odor of his pipe tobacco so strong. Gran had been on him about that pipe lately. And he had tried to stop smoking it to please her, which had been easy enough, since he’d been sick in bed so much lately. That was why she was there then, actually, when she should have been back home and going to school. They had come up to help Gran. Of course, Gran wasn’t alone. Christie’s uncle, her mother’s brother, and his wife and two sons lived in the area, but Christie suspected that her grandmother needed her mother. Certainly her mother believed that daughters had more of a bond with their parents—or maybe daughters were just more useful.

“She should know it, aye, she should, but you make sure she knows I love her, eh?” Granda said.

“Oh, Granda. She knows.”

“And your mom, too. But she has your da, and he’s a good man.”

“Mom loves you, too, Granda,” Christie said firmly, feeling it was important that he really understood that.

“Aye. And you love me, too, eh, moppet?”

“Of course!”

“Gran is the one who will miss me most.”

“What are you going on about, Granda? You’re not going anywhere!”

“Be there for her,” he said, then rose and set his pipe on the mantel. He came to the bed, sat by her side and scooped her into his arms against his chest, and held her as he had often done when reading her a story—or making one up. She seldom knew what was true and what wasn’t, because Granda had, so Gran told her, the gift of blarney. But she loved him and loved his stories, and all her friends loved him, too, because he had such a way with the tales he’d brought over from the old country.

He smoothed back her hair. “The Irish are special,” he told her. “They have the gift of sight.”

She remembered one time when Granda had said so in front of her father. He had remarked dryly, “Ummhmm. Special. Give ’em a fifth of whiskey and they’ve got the sight, all right.”

Granda hadn’t been angry; he’d laughed right along with her father. Her dad hadn’t been born in Ireland, like her mom, but his parents had been born there. And even though she wasn’t quite a teenager, she was very aware of what went on around her.

A lot of their Irish friends did have a habit of consuming whiskey.

“Guard your gift,” Granda said softly to her.

“Oh, Granda, I’m too young to drink,” she told him. “Honestly.”

He laughed. “I mean the gift of sight, y’little sass,” he told her playfully. “I have to go, Christie. But I’m all right. You let Gran know that, okay?”

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

“Somewhere beautiful,” he said. “Where all wars cease, where God sees goodness, not religion. Where the grass is as ever green as that I knew in Eire.”

The way he spoke was scaring her. She hated when anyone talked about death. She knew that her grandparents were older, that things happened. But she always thought as long as she was cheerful and convinced them that they were still young, nothing could go very wrong. “A place that beautiful?” she teased. “We should go with you.”

“’Tis not to be, not now,” he said. “All in time. Gran will meet me one day. Till then, you give her what she needs.”

He smoothed her hair again. Then he frowned for a moment, looking around.

“What is it, Granda?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Ah, well, ’tis all new to me, but it seems…well, there are many doors. Indeed, I have opened a new door. No reason to worry, moppet.” He held her close, smiling tenderly. “You just remember all I’ve said to ye, me little girl.” Cradling her, he began to sing an old lullaby. Granda had a great voice. He’d never been a performer—except in pubs—but he could have been, she thought proudly. He didn’t think a thing of his talent—all Irish men could be tenors, if they chose, in his opinion.

As he held her, singing, she drifted off to sleep.

In the morning she heard the soft sound of tears coming from the parlor. It was a parlor in this house, and not a living room, like she had in Miami. Her grandparents had bought the place before so much of Orlando had been bought up by the Disney Company, then hotel and restaurant chains, and other mega-entertainment companies. It was one of the really old houses in the area, one of the very few that had been there before the Civil War—or the War of Northern Aggression, as some of Granda’s friends liked to call it. It had been falling to ruin when they had found it, which was why they had been able to afford it. They called it a Victorian manor. Christie’s two cousins—even though they were boys—found it creepy. She loved it—but then, she loved her grandparents, and they never insisted that she turn off all the lights.

Now it was daylight. But even from her upstairs bedroom, she could hear the soft sound of sobbing down in the parlor.

She stepped from the bed and hurried to the top of the stairs. She heard her father’s voice first. “Mary, Seamus is at peace now. He’s at peace.”

“Hush now, Sean,” her mother said to her father. “Mom knows that. We’ll all be crying just because we miss him so.”

Gran suddenly looked up the staircase, looking sad but strong. Gran always looked strong. She held out her arms. “Christie, girl.”

Christie ran down the stairs to sit on her grandmother’s lap, and hugged her, frowning. “Gran? What is it?”

“Granda. He—he’s gone.”

“Gone?” Christie said with a frown. Then her memories of the night washed over her like a wave. “Oh…he told me that he had to go.”

There was a strange silence. “When you were at his bedside, Christie?” her father asked.

“No, Dad. Last night. He was in my room, smoking his pipe, sitting in the rocker. He told me that he had to go, and that you’d meet him in time, Gran. He said that I needed to be here for you. He said it would be green, like Eire. And…”

Again there was silence. Moments later there were people at the door. Her grandmother set her down as the paramedics and police entered. Christie frowned, wondering why the police were there, then found herself forgotten as the paramedics hurried up the stairs. She followed. Someone asked Gran what had happened; she explained that she had awakened to find him cold.

“He’s been dead for hours, since at least midnight,” someone else said. Then someone got on the phone with Granda’s doctor, and Christie realized that since he had “passed” at home, they had to make sure Gran hadn’t killed him.

Christie was appalled.

But it was only then that she realized the rock-bottom truth of it.

Granda had gone.

Granda was dead.

But he had been in her room!

After midnight.

Her mother saw her and took her hand. Her mother was sobbing, and Christie felt her pain, her own sense of loss, but somehow, hers wasn’t as bad. Granda had been at peace, ready to live in a land that was as green as Eire again.

“Mom, it’s all right, it’s all right,” she said urgently.

Her mother was distracted and didn’t seem to really hear her. “He was ill,” she whispered. “In pain. And now…he’s not.”

“I saw him, Mom. Last night. He loves you all so much. He said he’s fine, and he wants you to be fine, too.”

“Out of the mouths of babes,” her father said gently. “Hey, it’s cold today, young lady. You need slippers.”

“I’ll take her,” her mother said.

Her mother walked with her to the room, still distracted, crying, quietly now, the tears sliding down her face.

When they reached Christie’s room, her mother paused and stared at Christie, frowning. “I…I can almost smell his tobacco in here.”

“He was here. With me. I told you that, Mom.”

Her mother looked at her then as if hearing her for the first time. She forgot all about slippers as she paled and walked away.

That night, the Irish of the area came. First and foremost the family, of course, her uncle and aunt and her cousins, all in mourning, the boys, who were slightly older than Christie, looking very mature and somber, and being tender and even courteous to her.

Granda had left explicit instructions. He was not to be mourned. His life was to be celebrated in the old way. So his cronies also came, and they drank beer, and they lamented, but they celebrated, too, telling stories, drinking more beer. Granda’s family did him proud, hosting all those who had loved him the way it was done in the old country.

Seamus Michael McDuff was buried three days later.

At the gravesite, everyone cried. He had been seventy, had had a full life. He’d come from Ireland to the United States with his wife, his daughter and his son, and he’d created a good home for them. He’d been a pastry chef, and he’d worked very hard and saved his money, and finally he’d opened his own restaurant, where he also employed his Irish knack for a ditty and blarney, entertaining as well as feeding many people. He’d loved God and his family; he’d been a good man.

It was while the ancient Irish bagpipes were emitting the mournful notes of a lament that Christie saw him again.

Most people were standing, but Gran was still seated when he went to her side, touched her hair and whispered into her ear.

Gran looked up, startled, frowning. Then it seemed to Christie that the hint of a wistful smile shone through her tears.

Granda turned, as if aware that Christie was watching, and winked. He looked so healthy. So much younger. His playful Gaelic self.

She couldn’t help smiling, too.

The service was coming to an end, the bagpiper playing “Danny Boy.”

It was then that she looked up, across the expanse of the cemetery.

There was another funeral going on, small in comparison to her grandfather’s. There were a man and a woman and a priest. Just three people. The woman was crying her heart out. The priest was speaking, obviously trying to comfort her. Strangely, it seemed to Christie that they were in a hurry, as if they didn’t want to be seen by anyone else.

There was something so terribly sad about it.

She saw her grandfather again. He was eyeing her with a touch of wistful humor.

“Love is all we can take with us to the grave,” he murmured. “It is the greatest part of any existence, and in that, I have died so rich.”

She wanted to speak to him; she also wanted to scream.

Because he couldn’t really be there.

She heard him whisper. “If y’would, girl. Kindness to others, in me honor.”

She realized that his service had come to an end, and somehow she was holding a rose. She followed the others’ lead and dropped it down on the coffin. She turned away and noticed that one rose had fallen on the ground. She picked it up and, without thinking, started walking over to the other funeral, which had ended. The priest and the distraught couple were gone. Only the caretakers were there now, getting ready to lower the coffin into the ground.

“Do you know this man?” the caretaker asked as she drew nearer.

“No.”

“Then…?”

She set the rose she was holding on the coffin. “Go with God,” she murmured.

“Christina!” She heard her mother’s voice, calling. She turned away from the sadness of the grave where so few had mourned and hurried back to her family.

Later, thinking that it would make her grandmother feel better, she told Gran that she’d seen her grandfather. Gran stared at her, then said, “Aye, lovie, I sensed him there, that I did.”

But that night, to her surprise, her mother seemed angry. “Christie, please, stop saying that you’re seeing your grandfather. Stop it. It’s hurtful, do you understand?”

She didn’t understand. “I wasn’t hurting anyone,” Christie protested.

“And you wandered off…God, that was dreadful. To think that he was buried at the same time, on the same day, as my father.”

“Mom, what are you talking about?”

Her mother shook her head. “Christina, I’m sorry. I love you so much, and I know you’re hurting, too…but you’re dreaming. Dreaming at night, daydreaming when you’re awake. You cannot see Granda. And you must stop saying that you do!”

Her mother was upset, of course; she had just lost her father. Christie understood that. But, it was almost as if her mother were…

Afraid.

If she really was seeing her grandfather, wasn’t that a good thing?

To be honest, she wished that he would come again, closer, that he would speak to her, that he would explain.

Who had that other freshly dug grave belonged to?

Her mother hadn’t answered her, but she heard other people talking. Everyone said it was terrible. There had been a murderer on the loose, but luckily he was dead. He’d been killed by the police, or he was the police, or something like that. She was irritated by the way people clammed up when she came near. She was nearly a teenager, after all, tall for her age, and she was actually developing a shape. It was insulting to be treated like a child. Then she realized that she had set a flower on a murderer’s grave. That was disturbing. But she had seen Granda just before, and he had spoken about kindness….

“What’s going on?” she asked her friend Ana, who lived down the street and was her own age. Ana had come to the funeral and then back to the house afterward, of course, along with her parents and her cousin Jedidiah, looking handsome in his military uniform. Her grandparents’ next door neighbor was there, too, Tony, who was eighteen already. He and Jed were off talking, so she was able to talk to Ana alone.

“You didn’t know?” Ana asked her. “They got that guy that was killing people. I guess maybe you didn’t hear as much about him down south, but up here, people were paranoid. He was buried today, too.”

And she had put a rose on his coffin.

Later, when she was alone with her grandmother, she was told again to stop talking about seeing her grandfather.

“You loved him, my girl. I know that. But you must stop saying you’ve seen him, though I know you are only trying to ease my heart.”

“Am I hurting you, Gran?” she asked.

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Gran looked at her very seriously. “It’s dangerous. Very dangerous. So today you’ve said goodbye. Never, ever think of him as speaking to you…being near you…again.”

“Granda would never hurt me.”

“Not Granda.”

“But—”

Gran was suddenly intense. “To see Granda…you have opened a door. And God alone knows who else might pass through that door.”

Gran’s words chilled her.

“Gran, was Ana telling me the truth? No one thinks twelve is old enough to understand anything, but it is. Tell me, please, was a murderer buried today?”

Her grandmother’s face went white. “Never speak of it, never speak that name in connection with your grandfather!”

“What name?”

“Never you mind. It’s over. An awful time is over. And your grandfather…well, he’s in God’s arms now. Where monsters go, I do not know.”

Gran kissed her then, and held her. “’Tis all right, my girl, ’tis all right. We have love. I have you, and I have your Mom, and my dear son and his lads…. ’Tis all right.”

Christie looked at her. She wanted to scream, because it wasn’t all right. They were always trying to shelter her from the world, but surely it was better to understand the world than hide from it.

But here in her grandparents’—her grandmother’s now—house, everyone was too upset.

Too lost.

She didn’t know why, and it made her afraid. Not afraid of Granda, but just…

Afraid.

Afraid of the dead.

That night, she didn’t sleep. She lay awake, praying silently in her soul that he wouldn’t come.

And he didn’t.

She had probably just been so upset that she was imagining things.

Granda, don’t come again. Don’t ever come again. If you love me at all, please, don’t ever come again.

She told herself that all she felt was the whisper of a breeze, though there was none. A gentle touch, as if…

As if she had been heard and understood.

Her grandfather didn’t appear.

In fact, she never saw him again, not even in dreams.

And as the years passed by, slowly, certainly, she forgot.

It had only been a dream, just as her mother had said.

She was able to believe that for nearly twelve years. And then one day she learned that her grandmother’s words were true.

Seeing the dead…

Was dangerous.

1

An autopsy room always smelled like death, no matter how sterile it was.

And it was never dark, the way it was in so many movies. If anything, it was too bright. Everything about it rendered death matter-of-fact.

Facts, yes. It was the facts they were after. The victim’s voice was forever silenced, and only the eloquent, hushed cry of the body was left to help those who sought to catch a killer.

Jed Braden could never figure out how the medical examiner and the cops got so blasé about the place that they managed not only to eat but to wolf down their food in the autopsy room.

Not that he wasn’t familiar enough with autopsy rooms himself. He was, in fact, far more acquainted with his current surroundings than he had ever wanted to be. But eating here? Not him.

This morning, it was doughnuts for the rest of them, but he’d even refused coffee. He’d never passed out at an autopsy, even when he’d been a rookie in Homicide, and he didn’t feel like starting now.

Even a fresh corpse smelled. The body—any body—released gases with death. And if it had taken a while for someone to discover the corpse, whether it was a victim of natural, self-inflicted or violent death, growing bacteria and the process of decay could really wreak havoc with the senses.

But sometimes he thought the worst smells of all were those that just accompanied the business of discovering evidence: formaldehyde and other tissue preservers and the heavy astringents used to whitewash death and decay. Some M.E.’s and their assistants wore masks or even re-breathers—since the nation had become litigation crazy, some jurisdictions even required them.

Not Doc Martin. He had always felt that the smells associated with death were an important tool. He was one of the fifty percent of people who could smell cyanide. He was also a stickler; he hated it when a corpse had to be disinterred because something had been done wrong or neglected the first time around.

There wasn’t a better man to have on a case.

Whenever a death was suspicious, there had to be an autopsy, and it always felt like the last, the ultimate, invasion. Everything that had once been part and parcel of a living soul was not just spread out naked, but sliced and probed.

At least an autopsy had not been required for Margaritte. She had been pumped full of morphine, and at the end, her eyes had opened once, looked into his, then closed. A flutter had lifted her chest, and she had died in his arms, looking as if she were only sleeping, but truly at rest at last.

Doc Martin finished intoning the time and date into his recorder and shut off the device for a moment, staring at him.

He didn’t speak straight to Jed, though. He spoke to Jerry Dwyer, at his side.

“Lieutenant. What’s he doing here?”

Inwardly, Jed groaned.

“Doc…” Jerry murmured unhappily. “I think it’s his…conscience.”

The M.E. hiked a bushy gray eyebrow. “But he’s not a cop anymore. He’s a writer.”

He managed to say the word writer as if it were a synonym for scumbag.

Why not? Jed thought. He was feeling a little bit like a scumbag this morning.

Doc Martin sniffed. “He used to be a cop. A good one, too,” he admitted gruffly.

“Yeah, so give him a break,” Jerry Dwyer told him. “And he’s got his private investigator’s license, too. He’s still legit.”

This time Martin made a skeptical sound at the back of his throat. “Yeah, he got that license so he could keep sticking his nose into other people’s business—so he could write about it. He working for the dead girl? He know her folks? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe I want to see justice done,” Jed said quietly. “Maybe the entire force was wrong twelve years ago.”

“Maybe we’ve got a copycat,” Martin said.

“And maybe we got the wrong guy,” Jed said.

“Technically, we didn’t get any guy, exactly,” Jerry reminded them both uncomfortably.

“And you feel like shit for having written about it, as if the cop who was killed really did do it, huh?” Doc Martin asked Jed.

“Yeah, if that’s the case, I feel like shit,” Jed agreed.

Jerry came to his defense again. “Listen, the guy’s own partner thought he was guilty. Hell, he was the one who shot him. And Robert Gessup, the A.D.A., compiled plenty of evidence for an arrest and an indictment.” Jerry cleared his throat. “And so far, no one has been proved wrong about anything. We all know about copycats.”

“Thing about copycats is, they always miss something, some little trick,” Doc Martin said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the M.E. on the earlier victims. Old Dr. Mackleby was, but he passed away last summer from a heart attack, and the younger fellow who was working the case, Dr. Austin, was killed in an automobile accident. But don’t worry, if there’s something off-kilter here, I’ll find it. I’m good. Damned good.”

“Yeah,” Jerry Dwyer said, adding dryly, “Hell, Doc, we knew that before you told us.”

Martin grunted and turned the tape recorder back on. Jerry gave Jed a glance, shrugging. He’d warned Jed that they might have trouble. He’d told him right out that if Martin said he had to leave, he had to leave.

An autopsy was a long, hard business, and Jed knew it. In his five years in Homicide, he’d learned too well just how much had to be done meticulously and tediously. And messily.