Optical Delusions in Deadwood (34 page)

      His smile was grim as he tucked a tendril of hair behind my ear. “I’ll come by each day to feed you Jell-O.”

      I stopped his hand, holding it, squeezing his fingers. “I’m going to hold you to that. Now will you please take me up to the Carharts so I can give Wanda this offer? I need to make some more money, because taking clients around via the handlebars of Addy’s bike isn’t going to cut it.”

      “Wait. Let me show you something first.” He pulled his hand free and walked over to the bookshelf on the far wall, the one that contained books about the Black Hills.

      I drifted behind him. “With the way my day is going, I hope it’s a map to Flint’s treasure with an X marking the spot.” Layne and I had read
Treasure Island
together last year. It was one of my favorites—and now one of Layne’s, too.

      “You think I’d share that with you, Long John Silver?” His tone teased. He pulled a handful of books out and reached to the back of the shelf, extracting a smaller book he must have hidden back there. A piece of paper marked a page. He flipped the book open and held it out to me. “Is this the tattoo you saw on Lila?”

      I grabbed the book, frowning at the drawing on the page—a pair of curled horns and the head of a pig melting into a goat. “I think so. It looks a little more detailed here than what I remember, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. What’s it say about it?” I scanned the page, but my mind wouldn’t focus on the words.

      “In the late nineteenth century, there was a cult in Deadwood made up of some of the Chinese immigrants brought in to work in the mines and build the railroads. This is a replica of an emblem associated with the cult.”

      “Cult?” That was never a good word unless it concerned a 1980s rock band. “As in the crazed religious type?”

      “Yes. They had a particular set of demons to which they liked to make sacrifices.”

      He extracted a second book that was tucked away in the back of the shelf and opened to another marked page. “Have you seen a picture of this woman before?” he asked, showing me the book’s page.

      It was a grainy black-and-white picture of a blonde sitting stiffly in a formal-looking chair. Her hair was pinned up, leaving just a couple of delicate ringlets hanging; her lips were straight; her eyes looked off to the side; her dress was fancy and in a style popular a century ago. She sat alone. “No. Should I have?”

      “Possibly.” Doc looked almost sad as he gazed down at the woman on the page.

      “Where? On the wall of one of the casinos in Deadwood?”

      “No, in the Carhart house. There was more than just a picture.” Doc’s dark eyes locked onto mine. “She was in the upstairs bedroom with us yesterday.”

     
Chapter Nineteen

      I held Doc’s stare, searching his eyes for a hint of jest. There was none. “Are you serious?”

      “One hundred percent,” he said.

      A wave of dizziness made me reach for the bookshelf. Did the room just tilt?

      Doc’s brow wrinkled. “You okay?”

      “No.” I blinked through a barrage of stars dive-bombing the fringes of my vision. “I think you just broke my brain.”

      “Here.” He grabbed the chair in front of the microfilm machine and pulled it over, taking the book from me. “Sit.”

      I followed his orders, resting my head in my hands as I waited for the stars to stop shooting. “Doc,” I said, blinking at my sandals. “How can you be so certain about this woman—I mean, ghost? When we were at the Carhart’s yesterday, you said you couldn’t really see it, just an outline or blur or something like that.”

      I heard one of his knees pop as he half-squatted, half-knelt before me. “It’s hard to explain ...”

      When he didn’t continue, I nudged him. “Try.” Peeking at him above my fingers, I added, “Please.”

      His gaze held mine, his eyes narrowed, wariness lining his face. “You’re not going to believe what I tell you.”

      That was probably true, but I said, “Give it a shot, anyway.”

      “You know when I lost consciousness at the Carhart house?”

      “You mean when she passed through you?”

      “It was more like a temporary possession.”

      “Possession? Really?” I cringed. The word alone brought about images of Linda Blair strapped to the bed, writhing, cursing in a gravelly voice, her head twisting around like an owl.

      “Yes, possession. Anyway, during that moment of connection with the ghost, I experienced a mental imprint.”

     
Mental imprint?
“Like a vision?”

      “For lack of a better word.”

      “What did you see during this vision?”

      “The events that occurred at the time of her death.”

      I recoiled, stunned by equal measures of doubt and dismay. “Was it like watching a slasher movie?”

      “No. But, yes.”

      “Gee, that cleared things up for me. Thanks.”

      Doc sighed, then pushed to his feet. He drifted over to the table in the center of the room. “It was like I’d already experienced the events. An instant memory, shoved into my head, put there for me to relive as the victim.”

      An instant memory? Reliving death in first person point of view? Wow. This was
Twilight Zone
material. Doc’s rigid stance didn’t go unnoticed by me. “Have you ever told anyone else about this stuff?”

      He nodded. “But he’s dead now.” His eyes searched mine. “You think I’m nuts, right?”

      I hesitated, recognizing what it meant, trust-wise, for Doc to share this. Whether I believed him about these visions or not, a gut feeling told me to keep this door between us propped open. But he deserved my honesty. “I don’t know what to think, Doc. You’re an intelligent, logical financial planner who claims to be able to interact with ghosts on some level. It’s a bit baffling.”

      “Fair enough.”

      “Reliving death over and over must be horrific.”

      “Now you understand why I try to avoid it.” He sat on the edge of the table. “And why it hits me like a locomotive at full speed.”

      “Is there any way you can stop it?” A good head doctor? Drugs? Electroshock therapy? Exorcism?

      “Not that I’ve figured out yet. I’m trying to find a way to control it, or at least a way to live with it.”

      “Control it how?”

      “Desensitize myself to the smell.”

      How could he un-train his nose? “Then what?”

      “Work on how to handle the mind-fuck part.”

      I rested my elbows on my thighs. “Do you think these ghosts want something from you?”

      He shrugged. “We don’t really communicate. Everything I get is like yesterday’s news. A slice of the past replayed for my private experience.”

      I frowned across at him. This would be easier to swallow with a shot of tequila. Or a whole bottle.

      He jammed his hands in his front pockets, rounding his shoulders. “I’m not crazy, Violet.”

      “Good. One of us has to remain sane, and I think I’m slipping.” I squeezed my temples, my headache threatening again, hovering just behind my eyes. “Has anyone else ever smelled these ghosts?”

      “Not that I’ve witnessed.”

      “What about dogs? Do you think they can smell ghosts, too?” Why not? They had super sniffers. It seemed plausible.

      “I haven’t tested that, but I don’t think so. I have a theory that it’s not really an actual scent that I’m smelling.”

      Was it just me, or was Doc starting to talk in tongues? “But you said—”

      “I know, I know.” He pushed off the table and paced in front of it, kneading his hands.

      I watched and waited, sensing that he was building up to spill some more. He’d better be, anyway.

      “There are a few things I think I understand about this curse of mine.”

      “Some might call it a
gift
,” Polly Positive piped up before I could muzzle her.

      He stopped pacing and crossed his arms at me. “Right. Being harassed by the dead. What a gift.”

      I covered my mouth and mumbled, “Continue, please.”

      A hint of a grin sneaked onto his lips. “My theory is that when a ghost is in the vicinity, my brain picks up on its presence and triggers something in my olfactory system that makes me think I smell something. The stronger the presence, the more pungent the odor. This is why I can smell them and nobody else can.”

      In spite of my uncertainty on this whole subject, the fascination that came with the “what-ifs” lured me to want to hear more. “What else have you figured out?”

      “There’s the mental imprint bit that I just told you about.”

      I nodded.

      “And the ghosts are unable to understand me when I speak to them.”

      “You’re sure they don’t hear you?”

      “I didn’t say ‘hear,’ just understand. They respond to the sound of my voice, but they don’t seem to comprehend what I’m saying.”

      The idea of Doc talking to thin air and expecting an answer made me want to stomp about and throw things. His behavior crossed the line between worrisome and mad; I didn’t want him to be that mentally unstable. It would mean no future of any kind with him, not when I had two kids to raise and protect. I let my hair fall forward to shield me from his eyes.

      “You’re hiding from me.” He read me like the walking billboard that I was. “I know this is hard for you to swallow.”

      A horse chestnut would have been easier. “A little bit.”

      I heard the rustle of his clothing and looked up to find him leaning against the window frame. “What I don’t understand yet,” he said, staring out the window, “is whether these ghosts are drawn to me because of something I’m able to give them, and if so, what that something is.”

      “Maybe it’s just the recognition that they exist,” I offered, while my own alarm over it all made my head spin.

       I wanted to believe him. I really did. If only there was more proof. Something
I
could see ... or smell, like burning hair. A flashback of the macabre tea party at the Hessler house haunted me for a moment until the sound of Doc’s voice snuffed it out.

      “Maybe,” he said. “But I’d like to be able to communicate with them, to figure out how to see more than their dying moments when our paths cross.”

      “You mean see other memories?”

      “Fewer scenes revolving around their deaths would be a pleasant change.” His focus remained outside the glass, his profile still drawn. “But if not, I need to know if I can turn this shit off without having to kill myself to do it.”

      Sobering words, unsettling thoughts. The quiet room closed in on me, the library’s usual bouquet of varnished wood and aging paper almost overwhelming.

      “Alcohol didn’t work,” he continued. “Neither did drugs—not even the hardcore stuff.”

      The back of my throat tightened. “Were you trying to turn it off or kill yourself?”

      He shrugged, still looking out at Deadwood. “Both, I guess. Drinking numbed my brain, but it didn’t stop the smells. Drugs only enhanced the imprints.”

      His need for control in other areas of his life made complete sense now. “How long has this been going on, Doc?”

      “As long as I can remember.”

     
Christ!
My chest ached for him and the weight he’d carried for decades, mostly alone. The fact that he’d shared the details of this dark, obviously painful secret with me, exposing his uncertainties and weaknesses, stirred something deep inside—an urge to comfort him, protect him—that propelled me from my chair.

      He watched me approach, his expression guarded. “Violet, don’t.”

      “Don’t what?”

      “Touch me. Not when you have that look on your face.”

      I rounded the table. “What look?”

      “Like I’m some injured dog lying in a ditch.” He backed away from me. “Stop.”

      I didn’t.

      “I don’t want your pity,” he said.

      “This isn’t pity.” 

      He kept the table between us as I circled. “What is it, then?”

      Good question. “I don’t know. I just want to touch you.”

      “You can’t.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because once you start, I won’t be able to stop.”

      “Maybe we should explore that feeling,” I said. “A hands-on therapy session of sorts.”

      “Not in the library.”

      I paused. “I didn’t realize you were such a prude.”

      “Prude?” He stopped, his eyes narrowing. “You’re calling me a prude?”

      “I didn’t stutter.”

      “Okay, Boots,” he reversed and came around the table toward me. “I’ll call your bluff.”

      He reached for me at the same time the door swung open. I stepped back from him as the librarian pushed a cart of books through the door, my heart rattling at almost being caught.

      The librarian stopped at the sight of us standing there. Her gaze behind the rhinestone-studded rims of her glasses bounced between us. “Can I help you find something?”

      Doc’s mental reflexes were faster than mine. “No, but you could answer a question for us.” 

      She raised one haughty eyebrow, but softened it with a tiny smile aimed at Doc. “I’ll certainly try, Doc.”

      She knew his name? It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.

      Charm dripped from the grin Doc gave her. “I want to learn more about cults and religions in relation to Deadwood’s past. Also, a bit more about the Chinese immigrant population in the late nineteenth century. Can you point me in the right direction?”

      Was this about Lila’s tattoo?

      “Well,” the librarian ran her fingernail along one of the book spines on her cart. “We don’t have much of a collection on those subjects here, but I seem to remember one of the libraries down in Rapid having a section dedicated to local religions. There may be something about cults mixed in there. Same goes with the Chinese immigrants. I’ll have to look it up on the Library Network database. Do you need this today?”