Reel Murder (36 page)

“In chapter three of my sequel,
Dead People Talk to Me
, I’ll be covering this topic in some detail.”

Aha, right on schedule. And now she’s hawking the sequel to
I Talk to Dead People
, a book that isn’t even in print yet! Genius, right? Chantel glanced up just in time to catch Vera Mae making a throat-slitting gesture. She glared at Vera Mae for a long moment, while I ducked my head and pretended to be studying my notes.

“Yes, but to answer Sylvia’s question,” I prodded. I looked up and plastered an innocent-looking smile on my face.

“I was
getting
to that,” Chantel said testily. “I want you to know I’m feeling very strong vibes from Barney right this minute, Sylvia. In fact, he’s here in the studio.” She looked past me and gave a faint smile. “I can practically reach out and touch him. Do you see him, Maggie? He’s right behind you.”

Vera Mae gave a startled yelp and dropped all her show notes on the floor. As she scrambled to pick them up, my heart thumped in my chest and my pulse zoomed into overdrive. A little rash of goose bumps sprang up on my arm, and I willed them away. I thought I felt a cool breeze fluttering somewhere behind my left shoulder, or was I imagining it? I refused to turn around; I wasn’t going to play into her silly game.

I forced myself to maintain eye contact with Chantel. She was obviously a master manipulator and was playing tricks with my head, making me doubt my own perceptions. I hated to admit it, but she was good, very good.

I don’t believe in ghosts. Again, there was another little puff of cool air behind me, and the papers ruffled slightly on the console. It was my imagination.
It had to be.
Or maybe the always temperamental air-conditioning unit was pumping out erratic blasts of icy air. That was why the papers were moving ever so slightly on the countertop.

No way was it a sign from the dearly departed Barney!

Was it?

I don’t believe in ghosts.

Do I?

“Yes, he’s here,” Chantel continued, her voice low and silky. “I feel his presence. Don’t you feel it, Maggie?”

“Well, um, actually—”

“You
would
feel it if you were more open to it.”
You mean I’d feel it if I were open to mass hysteria like your crazy followers. Call me Galileo, but I believe in science, not superstition. There is no way I’m going to fall for this, as a psychologist, I know all about the power of suggestion and—

“Barney is standing right next to you, practically screaming to be heard.
”

I’m sure pure shock registered on my face because she added, “I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. His spirit, his aura, is in the room, not his corporeal form. I’ll send you an advance copy of my next book, Maggie, and you’ll learn how to tune into the spirit world.”

See what I mean? Chantel has an uncanny ability to steal the show, put me down with a snide remark and draw the conversation back to herself. Who could compete with her “I see a dead guy in the studio” schtick? Ghosts trump psychological insights with the audience every time. Trust me.

“Ohmigod, Barney’s in the studio? Is he all right?” Sylvia shrieked through the headphones. I jumped in surprise, my right elbow slipping off the console. I’d been so caught up in the saga of Barney the Friendly Ghost, I’d completely forgotten about poor grieving Sylvia, waiting patiently on the other end of the line.

“Ask him if he needs anything! Does he look good? Is he happy?” Sylvia was so excited, she was almost hyperventilating.

“He’s very happy, Sylvia,” Chantel said warmly. “He has everything he needs. And he looks fine to me.” Chantel gave me a sly smile. “How does he look to you, Maggie?”

Ah, a trick question. How would a dead person look? I thought for a minute and drew a blank.

“Well, I guess he looks—”
Dead?
I wanted to say. I started to sweat a little, even though the AC was cranked up to the max. I thought I heard a faint cough sound behind me.
Do ghosts cough?

This time I really had to force myself not to look around. I was developing a nervous tic in my left shoulder, and I was stammering a little, which is also something I do when I get nervous. “I mean, I think he looks—”

“Maggie thinks he looks fine, too, Sylvia,” Chantel interjected. Then she waited a beat, lowering her voice to a funereal tone. “But he’s worried about you, dear. He doesn’t want you to be sad or unhappy at his passing.”

“But I miss him!” Sylvia wailed. “Of course I’m sad and unhappy.”

“Barney wants you to know that you didn’t do anything wrong,” Chantel said firmly, her forehead wrinkling in thought. “There’s nothing you could have done differently. He knows you feel troubled about something. It seems like he left this earth very quickly. That is correct, is he not?”

Chantel always tries to get “those left behind” to agree with her as part of her schtick. Then she builds on what they say, or changes tack if she thinks she’s veering off course.

Dead air for a beat. “No, not really.” Sylvia sounded confused.

Chantel frowned. “He passed unexpectedly, did he not?” Her tone was wheedling, argumentative, like Sam Waterston’s when he’s grilling a witness on
Law & Order
.

“Well, no—”

“One minute he was here, and the next he was not? That is correct, is it not?” Chantel was in rare form. She could give James Van Praggh a run for his money any day.

“I suppose so—”

“Then that’s
unexpected
, right?” She gave a derisive little snort, very unladylike. “Here one moment and gone the next. You can’t
get
much more unexpected than that, sweetie.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis and all the bracelets jangled together again.

“Yes, if you put it that way.”

Chantel closed her eyes for a moment and put her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, as if lost in thought. “I’m sensing there was a problem with his heart, or it might have been cancer.”

Heart disease or cancer. A safe choice. Don’t most people die of those things?

I mean, she could have gone out on a limb and said “leprosy” or “malaria” but why should she? Nothing like hedging your bets. I found myself hoping that Barney had died in a bizarre way.

Maybe an avalanche?
Admittedly, an avalanche would have been a rarity in southern Florida, but I’d love to see Chantel try to talk her way out of that one.

“But he didn’t have heart trouble, and his blood sugar was fine.”
Uh-oh.
A doubtful note was creping into Sylvia’s voice. Grief-stricken or not, she wasn’t falling for what Vera Mae calls Chantel’s phony-baloney.

So now what?
It looked like Chantel was way off target, and that meant it was time for a quick backpedal.

“Of course he had heart trouble! When he died, his heart
stopped
, didn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s true, but—”

“There are no buts about it. He died because his heart stopped. That means he had heart trouble. Period.” Chantel sat back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest, looking smug and vindicated. Chantel Carrington, the psychic cardiologist.

Dr. Oz, eat your heart out.

Vera Mae and I locked eyes as she gave a little shrug.
But doesn’t everyone die because their heart stops? Isn’t that the definition of dying?
I bet our thoughts were chugging along the same track because she gave me a tiny eye roll.

Chantel took a quick peek at her notes. Better get off the details of Barney’s passing and jump into something else fast.

“Is he still there in the studio?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes, he is. In fact, Barney is telling me right this minute that you were his soul mate, the love of his life,” she said slowly into the mike. “But you already know that, right?” Her tone was as treacly as molasses.

Sylvia gave a tremulous laugh. Chantel was winning her back. “Oh, yes, I do know that.” A pause. “I hope he realizes it was his time. At least that’s what Dr. Harper said.”

Dr. Harper?
Chantel hesitated, looking blank for a moment. She opened her mouth like a guppie, snapped it shut and then took a deep breath through her nose. “Barney knows that Dr. Harper made the right decision.” She spoke slowly, the way people do when they’re not quite sure of what they’re saying.

Had Barney been on life support? I wondered. Maybe Sylvia felt guilty about pulling the plug. I couldn’t think of any tactful way to ask, so I remained silent.

Luckily Chantel talks enough for both of us.

“Barney tells me his loved ones were all with him when he passed,” Chantel continued. “That must be a comfort to you.”

“But that’s impossible. Barney didn’t have any relatives. They all died years ago.”

Chantel blinked. She was off her game today. “Well, when I said they were
with
him, I meant they were
waiting
for him on the other side. You know, after he went into the white light and crossed the Rainbow Bridge.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vera Mae making a quack-quack motion with her hands, a sign that a commercial was coming up. Time to wrap this up till the next segment.

“I’m afraid we have to take a break now—” I ventured.

“Wait!” Sylvia pleaded. “I have to ask one more question. Does Barney know about Harold?”

Harold?
It’s awful when a caller says something out of left field, and I saw a flash of panic in Chantel’s eyes. She bit her lip uncertainly and some of her flame red lipstick smeared onto her front teeth.

“I think he does,” Chantel told her. “Yes, he’s nodding his head.” I resisted a ridiculous impulse to look around and see if the ghostly Barney really was nodding in approval.

“And he’s okay with that?” Sylvia asked breathlessly. “Because Harold’s sleeping with me now. I know it seems a little soon, but it was just one of those things.”

Harold is sleeping with her and Barney just passed last week
? I felt like I was caught up in an episode of
The Young and the Restless
. Or maybe
One Tree Hill
.

“I . . . Yes, I believe Barney is okay with that,” Chantel said. She swallowed, clearly flustered. “Barney seems to be drifting away now, so I’m afraid I can’t be more specific. . . .”

“I never thought I’d get another Pomeranian, but I bought Harold from the same breeder that Barney came from.” Sylvia was talking in a rush. Pressured speech, the shrinks call it. “He’s got papers and everything. I may show him at Westminster next year.”

Same breeder, Westminster?
Suddenly it all made sense.

“Barney’s a
dog
?” I blurted out.

“Of course he’s a dog,” Sylvia huffed. “A prizewinning Pomeranian. What did you think he was? I had to have him euthanized last week, his kidneys went. Dr. Harper said it was time. I just wanted to see if he was doing okay and to tell him about Harold.”

I was speechless but Vera Mae took up the slack. “And so the circle of life continues,” she muttered into her mike. “We’re coming up on a break, and we just have time for a quick word from our sponsor, Wanda’s House of Beauty.”

The moment we went to break, Chantel and I whipped our headphones off and stared at each other in stunned silence.

Mary Kennedy
is a former radio copywriter and the award-winning author of forty novels. A clinical psychologist in private practice, she lives on the East Coast with her husband and eight eccentric cats. Both husband and cats have resisted all her attempts to psychoanalyze them, but she remains optimistic. Visit her Web site at
www.marykennedy.net