Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“No,” Mickelsson said, and glanced at Jessica. “Is there anybody else she’d get in touch with if she came up?” He gave a little chuckle. “Actually, the reason I’m so persistent—I thought maybe I saw her.”

There was a pause, three heartbeats. “If she was here, I’d be the first one to know.”

“I see. Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

“No trouble, no trouble a-tall,” Dr. Benton said.

Jessica sat frowning thoughtfully, eyes evasive, the side of her index finger pressing into her cheek, like a professor listening to a not very carefully prepared seminar report, as Mickelsson told her how he’d nearly been killed, driving home last night, then explained to her the theory that was beginning to take shape in his mind. When he finished, she went on staring for a time at nothing in particular—the pipe on the great stack of mail on his desk—then gave her head a little shake. She had a wonderfully sharp jaw-line, the handsome, sharp nose and Near-Eastern slanted eyes of the warriors of Darius—if one could believe the ancient polychrome brick frieze. He wondered if the ancient Persians had been a tall people.

“Strange,” she said. Mechanically, making a comb of her fingers, she pushed a falling sweep of hair back from her temple. After a moment she asked, “But why would she have gone there without telling anyone? Her friends, I mean.”

“I won’t know that for sure until I’ve talked to her,” Mickelsson said. “Or talked to the Spragues.” He leaned back in his chair, looking at the door above Jessica’s head, aware that she was watching him more sharply now, surprised and displeased by his suggestion. “According to my theory,” he said, “she couldn’t very well tell her lawyer what she was doing, your friend what’s-his-name—”

“Bob Ceslik.”

“That’s it. If she told him she wanted to make a visit to the Spragues, try to persuade them to settle the thing privately, he’d have insisted on going with her, or more likely he’d have advised her not to go. You know lawyers. As for Benton or any other friends she may have—” He paused, casting about. “Maybe she was in too much of a hurry to see them, so she decided not to tell them she was coming. That’s possible, she may have flown up and rented a car at the airport. The one she was driving was new and clean, the kind you’d be likely to get at a Hertz or Avis.” He shrugged. “Or maybe, doing what she was trying to do, she felt uneasy—secretive. I don’t know; I haven’t thought that part out yet.”

Jessica mused. “What I don’t understand is why she was going so fast. No matter where she’d been—at the Spragues’ place or at yours—it makes no sense.”

Mickelsson smiled. “It would make sense if she’d been up at my place and seen the ghosts.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She leaned forward in the chair, her head almost level with Mickelsson’s. “I know you’re not even considering the possibility. But just for the sake of argument, suppose that’s what happened.” With a quick, impatient movement of one hand, she waved away objections. “Suppose she went to your place, maybe because for some reason she wanted to talk to you; she found the place dark, or maybe one light on somewhere, up in the upstairs bathroom, say—doesn’t matter—something that made her think you might be home. So she got out of the car and went to the door and looked in, right? And saw something. We don’t have to say it was a ghost. But we know she must have heard the same stories you’ve heard. Say she believed them—for whatever reason.” She shrugged and again waved away objections. “The point is, no matter what she saw—make it the worst thing your mind can conceive … I don’t know, some old woman in the kitchen, sawing the body of some old man into pieces—” Jessica laughed, startled by the image that had come to her, then hurried on: “She runs back to the car and gets the hell out of there. Flying, right? But after half a mile, would she still be flying?”

Mickelsson studied her, distracted from thought about what she was saying by the image of her earnest face thrown forward toward him, her hands palms up under her chin, level with her collarbone. He imagined her as a schoolgirl, straightening out her drama teacher.

“I wouldn’t,” she said, and poked the desktop with her index finger. “I’d drive like crazy until I knew I was safe, and then I’d slow down. And if she’d driven all the way from Spragues’ when she met you—whatever it may have been that happened at Spragues’—”

Mickelsson nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “But if something was chasing her—”

Jessica glanced at him, unpersuaded but willing to think about it. Then something else occurred to her. She asked, “Why is it you want to talk to her—or to the Spragues? What good will it do? You want damages for an accident that didn’t happen?”

“I’d like to know what’s going on, that’s all,” Mickelsson said.

“You feel threatened?” She leaned toward him again. “Look, why don’t you just forget it? Write it off.”

He smiled, ironic, unwilling to be bullied. “Maybe that’s it. I feel threatened.”

“You feel something weird, Peter. I realize you’re Superman and nothing scares you. …” Again her look sharpened. “Is it the coincidence of the names—the Spragues who lived at your house, the Spragues up on the mountain?” A smile began to form at one side of her mouth. “Some kind of problem in ontology—if that’s the word?”

“Maybe,” he said, dismissive, and reached for his pipe.

She watched him pick it up, feel into the bowl with his grimy index finger, then put it to his lips. Still with her legs crossed at the knees, she began to swing one leg slowly, as if purposely to bother him. “You feel threatened right now, that’s for sure.” She smiled.

“You’re a scary lady,”