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Authors: Susan Carroll

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BOOK: Parker And The Gypsy
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“The state welfare people probably swooped in on him. Poor kid.” Mike grimaced. When had been the last time he had seen his own mother? Had he been six or seven?
He wasn't sure. He couldn't recall her face, but other unwelcome images remained. The sound of sirens, an ambulance stretcher, her hand reaching out to him, a soft voice assuring him that everything was going to be all right.
But of course, it hadn't been. Other memories intruded. He never knew where his father had been during this time, probably off trying to fleece old ladies at bingo or something like that. All Mike recalled was himself, huddled alone on the bed in another hotel room, weeping softly into his pillow. As far as he could remember, it was the last time he'd ever cried....
Mike's gaze dropped to the box on the bed and suddenly he wasn't so sure he wanted to open the damn thing, but Sara was waiting expectantly.
He had to remind himself that the box contained someone else's life story, not his. This all had nothing to do with him. Dragging the jewel case closer, he flipped open the lid. During his career both as a police officer and a detective, he had sorted through someone else's private effects many times and he'd trained himself to remain impersonal about it.
But Mamie's small store of treasures were more pathetic than most. A pair of the colorful plastic “pop” beads that had once been the fad among teenage girls, a cheap zirconium ring that could have come from a Cracker Jack box, a few hair ribbons, a pair of blue baby bootees, a child's stick-figure drawing of a boy and a smiling woman, labeled in proud, crooked letters Mom And Me.
Mike shoved those things aside, going straight for a small cache of black-and-white photographs. They were mostly of the boy. John Patrick playing down by the lake, John Patrick clutching a ragged stuffed dog, John Patrick blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.
He'd been a cute kid, a little on the chubby side with laughing dark eyes. It was hard to tell the color of his hair because he had a crew cut, making him look like a little roly-poly sailor. Some shade of light brown, Mike supposed. Not that it mattered. Kids' looks could change a lot as they aged.
Mike saw how much the boy resembled his mother when he came to the last picture. Obviously Mamie and her son. She didn't look to be much more than a kid herself, despite her high heels, pleated skirt and tight-fitting sweater. John Patrick half hid behind his mother, peeking playfully at the camera, but Mamie's bright smile was strained.
“That was taken on John's sixth birthday.” Sara's voice came close by his shoulder, startling him. Mike had been concentrating so hard on the pictures, he hadn't realized she'd moved to stand beside him, a soft kind of sadness clouding her eyes.
“That was the last happy day Mamie ever spent with her son,” Sara continued. “Even then she realized how sick she was and worried about John Patrick's future.”
“And who's the bald old geezer lurking in the background?” Mike pointed to the grizzled old man in coveralls standing just behind Mamie's shoulder.
“That's Mr. Kiefer. He was the groundskeeper and short-order cook. The people that owned the inn used to serve lunches and dinners here besides running the boardinghouse. Mamie helped with the waitressing and cleaning. That's how she supported herself and John.”
Mike flipped over the photograph, looking for some kind of notation on the back of it. “Sara, where the hell are you getting all this information?”
She squirmed and looked uncomfortable. “You really don't want to know, Michael.”
No, he was afraid he didn't. He'd hoped to have a few more facts to work from, not just Sara's so-called psychic impressions. He flipped through the photographs again. One figure was conspicuously absent.
“There's no picture of John Patrick's father.” He hardly realized that he'd mused aloud until Sara answered.
“No, Mamie doesn't like to talk about—” Sara broke off. flushing. She amended. “I—I mean I get the feeling that whoever he was, he wasn't a very good person. An older man who turned out to be married. He seduced Mamie and then left her to fend for herself after she got pregnant.”
A tragic story, but not an unusual one. Mike dropped the pictures back in the box along with the rest of trinkets. “This isn't a whole lot to go on, Sara. Are you sure there's nothing else lying around here—a diary or some old letters? Any legal documents?”
Sara shook her head. “If there was anything else left, I'm sure Mamie would have given it to me—that is, I think it would have been there in the box, or hidden away in the closet, too. The only other thing in there is John Patrick's dog.”
“His what?”
Sara dove back into the closet and unearthed a small black-and-white stuffed dog, missing one eye, its plush fur dirty and rubbed down to the nubs. It was the same one the kid had been clutching in the picture.
“It was John's favorite toy,” Sara explained. “Mamie bought it for him one Christmas because he could never have a real dog here at the inn.”
Mike held the ragged, moth-eaten dog up by one ear and grimaced, “I don't think this mutt is going to be much help unless he can talk.”
“Well...” Sara began, then stopped, biting down on her lip in a guilty embarrassed fashion that filled Mike with foreboding.
He stifled a groan. “I can almost handle the fact that you think ghosts whisper in your ear, Sara, but please,
please
don't tell me this dog talks to you, too.”
“Of course not.” Her cheeks colored bright red. “But there are other ways, Michael. Haven't you ever heard of a thing called psychometry?”
“Psycho-what?”
“
Psychometry
. The ability to touch an object and gain impressions or feelings about its owner.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, I remember one of the other detectives in the department was always calling in some psychic to fondle the evidence in murder cases.” The scorn in his voice showed clearly what he'd thought about such proceedings.
“You used to be a police detective?” But Sara's surprise faded as quickly as it had come. She nodded to herself, murmuring. “Yes, of course you were.”
Mike scowled. He hated when she seemed to know things about him without him really telling her. Deflecting the subject away from himself, he demanded, “And you claim to have some of these psychojigger powers?”
Her chin came up in defiance. “A little.”
A moment of unease surged through Mike as he recalled the way she'd touched his letter from prison out in the parking lot. Was it possible that she'd been able to tell—
No! She couldn't. Because nobody could do things like that. It was a lot of mumbo jumbo. And to prove it to himself as much as to her, he startled Sara by tossing the toy dog at her.
She caught it awkwardly as he said, “All right. Go for it.”
Sara blinked in confusion. “Go for what?”
“Practice your voodoo powers on the stuffed mutt. Use him to tell me what happened to John Patrick.”
Sara paled a little when she realized what he wanted. “It's not something that I like to do very often, Michael. It can be rather frightening. And besides, you don't believe in such things anyway.”
“What does it matter what I believe?” Mike shrugged. “Maybe I should try to be more open-minded. Go ahead.”
Sara's troubled gaze dropped down to the toy she clutched in her hands.
“Unless, of course, you really don't think you can do it?” Mike taunted.
She shot him a reproachful look and her mouth set in a stubborn line. “All right. I'll try. But you have to stay still and be quiet for once.”
“No problem.” Mike leaned back against the bedroom door and folded his arms, waiting.
Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Sara sank down on the edge of the bed. Taking in a deep breath, she held the little dog tight to her breast and closed her eyes.
Mike experienced a brief twinge of guilt. He didn't know what he was doing, goading her into such a thing. Maybe it was because she was starting to get to him with all this psychic nonsense. Maybe, if nothing else, he needed to make sure he kept his own head screwed on straight.
Any minute now, he was certain she'd open her eyes and offer one of the usual fake excuses. His negative vibes were interfering with her concentration. The moon wasn't in conjunction with the right stars, or some rot like that.
But instead she just sat there, the time ticking by, beginning to tell on his nerves. He was just about to tell her to forget it when a violent shudder wracked through her.
“Sara?” he called uncertainly.
“Afraid,” she said in a small voice. “He's so afraid.”
“Who is?” Mike demanded.
“John Patrick. There—there's a horrible loud noise and it frightens him.”
Although the last thing he wanted to do was encourage this charade, Mike couldn't help asking, “Can you see anything? Are you getting a mental picture? Can you tell where he is?”
“It's not clear. He's outside the inn...I think.”
“And what's the noise?”
“A—a siren. And flashing red lights. John senses something bad is going to happen.”
“I get that same feeling every time I see red lights in my rearview mirror.” But Mike's quip fell flat. Sara was making him uneasy. She'd gone ice white, the contraction of her brow looking almost painful. If Sara was faking, she was damned good at this—the best he'd ever seen. She hardly seemed to be aware of anything Mike said or did, lost in a trance of her own making.
“His mother,” she murmured. “John senses something is wrong with his mother. Mr. Kiefer is trying to comfort him, telling him everything is going to be all right.”
Yeah, right, Mike mused bitterly. Where had he heard that one before? Although he'd promised Sara to remain still, he started pacing. He couldn't help it.
Sara suddenly began speaking in a different voice, the soft reassuring tone of an adult trying to comfort a small child.
“It's going to be okay, Johnny. Your mommy has to go away...in—in the big shiny white car.”
Big shiny white car, my butt, Mike thought, rolling his eyes. The kid had been six years old. What'd Kiefer think he was, stupid or something? He'd know an ambulance when he saw one.
“But you're going to be taken care of, John,” Sara continued, her voice cracking a little. “There is a nice man coming who will help you find a new home.”
“No, no!” Sara dropped to a heart-breaking whimper. “Don't want new home. Want my Mommy.”
Clinging to the toy dog, Sara began to rock back and forth.
“Sara?” Mike asked sharply. “What the hell's happening now?”
“Gone. Mommy gone. But the gray man is here.”
“The gray man?” Mike echoed. “Who's that? You mean someone from the child welfare board?”
“Don't...don't like the gray man. A-afraid. Want Mommy. Can't breathe.” Sara drew in a great unsteady gulp of air. “Chest hurts. All squeezed tight.”
He knew exactly what she was talking about because oddly enough, listening to her, he was finding it hard to breathe himself. His throat felt raw and dry, like it was closing shut.
“Sara, that's enough,” he growled. She was really starting to scare him. “This isn't getting us anywhere.”
But Sara didn't even seem to hear him.
“Th-the gray man says I have to be a good boy. But he isn't nice. Wants to—to take my doggie, throw him in the garbage. Says he's too dirty.”
“Sara, just stop it!”
“No, no!” Sara clutched the dog to her chest in a death grip, scrambling to cower back against the headboard of the bed. “Can't have him. Have to—to hide my doggie in Mommy's secret place. In the closet.”
“Sara!”
“H-have to....” She was trembling all over now, tears starting to stream down her cheeks.
Mike had had all he could take. Striding over, he wrenched the dog from her hands and flung it violently across the room. A terrible cry breached Sara's lips. Seizing her by the shoulders, Mike gave her a rough shake.
“Sara! Snap out of it.”
Her eyes flew open wide to stare into his, frightened and disoriented. A ragged sob escaped her, but slowly the haze faded, leaving only blue eyes brimming with tears.
“You—you okay?” Mike asked, gentling his touch on her shoulders.
Sara nodded, color seeping back into her cheeks. She squirmed away from him and rose shakily to her feet. Touching one hand to her face, she suddenly seemed to realize she was crying. Appearing embarrassed about it, she averted her face, trying to get her emotions under control.
BOOK: Parker And The Gypsy
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