A Wild Ghost Chase (3 page)

“As soon as you’ve answered me. First of all, if you’ve been here all this time, why haven’t we seen you before? Maxie and I have been in this house for more than two years.”

The boy floated up a foot or so, bringing his head to about level with my shoulder, a move I found significant. He wanted to be on equal footing with the adults, but couldn’t quite bring himself to a height that would be face-to-face, and wouldn’t go eye-to-eye with me, either. He looked at the wall. His nose twitched. “I’m really good at hiding.”

I shook my head. “You’re not getting your arrowhead if you lie to me,” I told him. “No one is that good at hiding, not even a two-hundred-year-old native ghost.”

To his credit, Antinanco chose not to argue that he’d been truthful. “I don’t always stay here,” he said. “My people travel all over this area. I am not bound to the earth, so I move over it.”

I looked at Maxie, who had done the research on the Lenni-Lenapes, and she nodded. That checked out. “Why are you here now?” she asked. “Isn’t this really the summer area for your people? It’s kind of late in the year for you to be down the shore.”

Antinanco, now seemingly pleased with the attention he was getting, smiled and stood a little straighter, although his feet were well off the floor. “I do not travel with my people,” he said. “I go where I please.” That really wasn’t an answer to her question, but Maxie did not choose to press him on it.

Melissa, however, had looked concerned at the boy’s last comment. “You travel alone?” she asked. “Where are your mom and dad?”

All of a sudden, Antinanco’s bravado seemed to fall from him; he stuck out his lower lip and his shoulders slouched. “I have not seen them since I closed my eyes with the smallpox,” he said quietly. “My father was a great hunter, and was not in the camp. My mother’s face is the last thing I remember seeing. Then I was alone.”

“So you haven’t seen your mom in two hundred years?” Melissa looked shocked; the idea clearly disturbed her. “I mean, she must have . . . she must be . . .”

“I am sure she has closed her eyes forever, too,” the young native said. “But she has not found me, and I have not found her. Perhaps she lived long after me, and forgot that she had a son called Antinanco.” He seemed on the verge of tears, and so did Melissa.

“Mothers don’t forget,” Maxie told the boy. “She’d never forget. If she hasn’t found you, it’s because she doesn’t know how.” Maxie saw her mother about once a week even now, although Kitty Malone did not see her daughter. But she knew when Maxie was in the room, and the two of them had long conversations on computer screens and yellow legal pads.

“She knew me only eight winters,” Antinanco responded, but it was clear he didn’t believe the implications of what he was saying.

Melissa, her eyes moist, looked at me. “We need to find Antinanco’s mother,” she said.

The young native, who was looking at the floor, lifted his head quickly to stare at her, although not in the eye. He looked at Melissa’s feet. “You can do that?” he asked.

Find a native North American woman who’d been dead for centuries? With no historical records, no idea of an accurate time period, no way to get out of this house and, without involving Alison (which seemed unlikely given her current level of activity), no eyes, ears and legs on the outside? It was impossible.

“I don’t think . . .” I began.

“Paul, you’re a private investigator,” Melissa said, her tone mysteriously approximating her mother’s, which she knew made it harder for me to resist. “You have a client who needs you and an exciting puzzle that no other detective has ever had before. Are you going to float there and tell me you’re turning that opportunity down?”

The Kerby women share one trait besides the ability to see ghosts like me—they are single-mindedly determined when they set their minds on something. Trying to dissuade one of them is like trying to talk a hurricane out of decimating your town.

“You can find missing people?” Antinanco asked me.

“Sometimes,” I said. “I don’t see how it can be done in this situation, but yes, that was my job when I was alive.”

“People give you things to do that? They trade with you?”

I guess that was how he could understand it, although the past two centuries of observation must surely have given him some idea of the capitalist system. “Yes,” I said. “They trade with me and I find things or people.”

“Find my mother,” the boy said. “If you do that, you can keep the arrowhead.”

“I don’t want the arrowhead for myself,” I told him, “but I’m going to keep it until we find your mom.”

Antinanco still wouldn’t look me in the eye, and his fingers fluttered just a bit at his sides—he wasn’t happy. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I want to be sure you’ll keep coming back,” I said.

3

Despite my continued questioning, the following was all our young client could tell us about his mother: Her name was “Moon,” which he said would have been “Jaci” in his language. She was tall and strong, which was not terribly surprising—Antinanco was tall for his age and probably would have been a large man if he had grown—but had a warm and loving heart. She had been in this area for the summer, roughly two hundred and forty years ago.

It wasn’t, as they say in the detective novels, much to go on.

What was unusual (and the unusual is always helpful in an investigation) was that the boy said his mother’s hair had not been the dark color of so many native North Americans. Her hair, Antinanco insisted, was red.

Once I had (reluctantly) agreed to look into—that was how I put it—the whereabouts of Antinanco’s mother, I insisted that Melissa go back up to her room and refused to discuss the matter again until morning. The little native boy said he had a place that he went to at night, one that made him feel safe, and promised at my insistence that he would check in every day for progress reports. I looked at Maxie, suggested she do more research on the Lenni-Lenapes (strictly because I couldn’t think of anything else to do), and then dropped myself back down through the floor to the basement. I can’t feel the heat of the boiler, but I find the glow from its pilot light soothing, and I do some of my best thinking there.

This was, at least on its surface, a hopeless case. Antinanco’s mother had died more than two hundred years earlier, and could have done so anywhere from upstate New York—practically near Toronto, where I was brought up—to Maryland. As far as I knew, she had no idea that her son was patrolling the area where he had died of smallpox. Even if she had searched for him, she’d probably given up the effort a century ago, much as Antinanco had stopped hoping he would find his mother until Melissa had helpfully offered our services.

I’ve discovered that each of us who remain on this level of existence after death has some ability, some talent that helps us manage our indefinite time here. Sometimes these abilities seem to evolve; for example, Maxie could now leave 123 Seafront and its surrounding property, although I could not. She was also still better at manipulating physical objects, although I am improving my skills steadily and can handle pretty much anything I concentrate on touching now.

But one thing Maxie has never been able to do that I can, is to communicate with the network of spirits like ourselves without speaking or leaving the house. I am gifted with the power of what the living would call “mental telepathy,” although it’s not like an ability to read minds or to predict the future. It is, when I concentrate properly and let myself reach a state of simplicity, a way to send and receive messages from specific spirits or groups of spirits. I can “think” my way into the attention of those like myself. It’s an inexact science, more an art, and Alison, who does not understand it perfectly, refers to it as “the Ghosternet,” which she believes is amusing. Humor is subjective.

If there was a chance I could contact Antinanco’s mother, Jaci, I felt I owed it to the boy to try.

The process is not dissimilar to meditation—I had made some attempts at the practice in my prior existence, which might have some bearing on my ability to find the proper mental state now—in that it requires an almost passive state. I clear my head of all conscious thought, stop considering current tasks to perform or brooding over the sad state of affairs that led me to this almost-alive-but-not-quite existence. I give up any anger, anxiety, concern, or fear I am feeling at the moment and focus my attention. In this instance, I focused on one word: “Jaci.”

I don’t really know how long the process takes; I am not wholly conscious of my effort as I make it. What is necessary is for me to be sure I am thinking solely of the one being I’m trying to contact, or, when attempting to communicate with the ghost community as a whole, on the message I’m trying to convey.

In this case, I thought of Jaci and Antinanco. I had no mental image of the woman, so I concentrated on the boy, whose face I had seen clearly.

The process has an odd effect: it is relaxing. All that concentration would seem exhausting to a living person, but I find that time passes quickly when I am in this state of communication, so when I next was aware of time, the sun had risen and light was pouring through the basement windows. I don’t own a wristwatch, but the angle of the light at this time of the year indicated to me that it was full morning, but not yet time for the ten o’clock “spook show.” The creaking of floorboards above me indicated activity upstairs. If the guests were awake, it was a good bet Alison would be as well.

I rose up through the basement ceiling, having been unsuccessful in receiving any message from Jaci. It was possible my effort had not achieved a “signal strength” sufficient to reach her in a faraway area, or it was possible that she had received the thought and ignored it or misunderstood it.

What I didn’t want to consider was another possibility: Not all those who die return to the world the way Maxie, Antinanco and I had done. If Jaci had skipped this level of existence, or had already moved on to the next, there was no way I knew of to reach her, and that would mean I’d have to admit defeat to the young native boy.

Uncomfortable as the thought made me, I found myself placing a good deal of my hope in the possibility that Maxie had uncovered something helpful in her research.

I floated upstairs, passing by the entrance to the library, a medium-sized room with no door that held books for the guests to read while staying here. I don’t even know what made me turn my head, but I did, and there in the center of the library stood a woman.

She was decidedly not one of the guests. She stood tall, shoulders back, hair braided on both sides. And she was dressed as a native would have been in Antinanco’s time.

Also, she was transparent, one of the people like me. She was a ghost.

“Jaci?” I asked quietly. Perhaps my message had been received after all, and this case would be solved with a minimum of difficulty.

But I noticed the woman’s hair was very dark, almost black, and certainly not red, as Antinanco had suggested. She didn’t answer, but stared at me. Perhaps this was someone who knew Jaci, and could tell me of her fate. Even if we couldn’t reunite the boy with his mother, he might rest easier if he knew she had moved on to the next level, or had been content at the time of her passing.

“Do you know Jaci?” I asked.

The woman stared for another long moment, then began to speak to me in a language I had to assume was that of the Lenni-Lenape, which Maxie had identified as Unami. She gesticulated stiffly, moving her hands as if holding something and then turning them over, and seemed to think I would understand the significance of the movement.

Then she vanished.

I stayed there for a while, trying to digest what had just happened. Clearly, I had contacted
someone
with my efforts, but it had likely not been Antinanco’s mother. But if it were someone from his era, why would she not have learned English like the boy had? Were there some tiers of this afterlife that I did not yet understand, where people who had died in one culture were left to it? Why wouldn’t Antinanco have been included? It made no sense.

Finally, I decided to make my way into the kitchen. I don’t like to enter areas where the guests might unexpectedly congregate. It’s not that they would see me, but I like to be prepared when there is someone nearby.

Since being murdered, I have gotten a little skittish. Perhaps that’s understandable.

Alison was starting the coffeemaker when I first saw her. She makes coffee and tea in the morning for the guests, but does not serve breakfast or any other meal in the guesthouse. She likes to encourage them to patronize local restaurants. I believe there might be other motives at work, but I haven’t pressed the point. I figure there’s time to find out.

If there’s one thing you know for sure when you’re a ghost, it’s that there will be time for everything.

“There you are,” she said when she saw me. “I was getting worried. Thought I might have to play loud music or something to wake you up.”

“You know I don’t sleep,” I reminded her. “Is Melissa at school already?”

Alison shook her head. “It’s only seven fifteen, Paul. It’s not late; it’s just that I usually see you first thing when I come downstairs. What have you been up to?”

This was awkward. Perhaps it was time to mention Antinanco’s presence and the case to Alison.

“There’s a case I’ve been trying to . . .”

That was as far as I got. “Oh no, Paul. If it’s an investigation, I don’t want to hear about it.” Alison sounded very firm. “I can’t help you now. I’m barely keeping my head above water, and I told you when we started that the guesthouse would come first. Right now, it has to, okay?”

“You should have let me finish,” I covered. “I was just saying that there’s an experiment that I’m working on. I’ve been trying to communicate with some people like me.” That was technically truthful. And it gave me an idea—perhaps trying to find
any
Lenni-Lenape spirit might lead me to Jaci or the woman who had just appeared. I would have to attempt that later.

“Just for fun?” Alison asked.

“Fun,” I repeated noncommittally. “Have you seen Maxie?”

Alison gave me an incredulous look. “This early in the morning?” she asked. “Maybe you guys don’t sleep, but Maxie isn’t willing to talk to anyone before nine. You know that. I wish I could give her some coffee.” She finished filling the coffeemaker with water, and hit the switch that would grind the beans she’d loaded into it. The resulting sound would preclude any conversation for a short time, so I nodded, and rose up into the ceiling to search for Maxie, whom I had decided was my best hope.

I found her in the attic, where Melissa was brushing out her hair for the school day. “I’m running late,” Melissa said. “We’ll have to keep this quick.” Melissa is a very mature ten-year-old, and sometimes seems to believe she is the chief executive officer of Harrison Investigations. She does have a certain talent for logical thinking that comes in handy on occasion. “Maxie was telling me what she found out overnight.”

I turned to Maxie, who was in her morning mode, acting like a sluggish college junior who couldn’t believe she’d had to sign up for a first-period class. She was lying on her back, in plaid pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt that read, “Whatever,” and floating very slowly around the large attic room in a circle. Her voice was gravelly, an affectation she used to remind us all how this meeting was an inconvenience for her.

“It’s not much,” she said. “I already told you what I know about the Lennis. There’s very little anywhere about individuals in the tribe other than chiefs, and they were all men.” She glanced at me with a sneer. “Which figures.”

Now it was my fault that a group of natives two hundred years ago were somewhat sexist in their attitudes and had an artificial glass ceiling in the tribal hierarchy? “Their wives were not mentioned?” I asked, trying to steer her back to the topic. “Perhaps Jaci was a well-placed woman in the group.”

“Pah!” Maxie spat out, part amused and part disgusted. “There isn’t so much as one woman mentioned by name at all. I couldn’t find anything. In fact, when I searched for ‘Jaci,’ it didn’t even come up as a Lenni name; it was Tupi.”

I felt my eyes narrow. “That’s interesting,” I told her. “Was there any crossover between the tribes? Could a Tupi woman have married a Lenni-Lenape man?”

“Who died and made me Yenta the Matchmaker?” Maxie asked. “I don’t know. The Internet does have its limitations, you know. Like the fact that a lot of the stuff on it is wrong.”

I told them of my encounter with the spirit in the library. “I think she was trying to answer me, or to tell me something,” I said. “But I don’t speak Unami.” I looked at Maxie.

She opened one eye. “You think
I
speak Unami?” she asked.

“No, but I’m willing to bet you could find a glossary somewhere. At least a phrase book.”

“I don’t think Rosetta Stone has issued that one yet,” Maxie answered. “You’re going to have to summon up some Indian who speaks English and can translate.”

“I have my limitations,” I reminded her.

“So do I.”

“Why not ask Antinanco?” Melissa asked. “He must speak Unami.”

Generally speaking, it’s considered bad form to ask the client to participate in an investigation. But since this case was anything but orthodox, it was a possibility, however slim. “He probably hasn’t spoken Unami in a century,” I said, mostly to myself.

Melissa turned away from her mirror and regarded us. “This isn’t helping. We promised Eagle of the Sun that we would find his mother,” she said.

“Actually,” I pointed out, “
you
promised him. I tried to make it very clear that this was difficult and unlikely to be successful.”

Melissa, not always the cheeriest child in the morning, either, flattened out her lower lip and went on as if I had not spoken. “We’re not going to let him down. There has to be some way we can track his mother in history.”

I doubted it, but anything was worth a try. “If that’s the way you feel, Melissa, you have a very good source of information that you can tap.”

“I do?”

“Yes. That teacher of yours who used to come by when we first met. He was a history teacher, wasn’t he?”

Melissa scowled a bit. “Mr. Barnes?” When her teacher had briefly dated Alison, she had reacted the way you might expect a nine-year-old to react to the blending of her two worlds: She became grumpy, stayed in her room when he was in the house, and did her best to discourage the relationship. And to her point of view, there had been a satisfactory conclusion. Alison and the Barnes man had decided to stop seeing each other because it wasn’t a good situation for Melissa. I have to admit to some relief at that development. Alison’s choice in men—having met her ex-husband—is questionable at best. I have occasionally thought she would have done well to meet a man like me. Only . . . alive.