The 'Geisters (14 page)

“I need to talk to your Aunt,” she said. “Is she there?”

“Ye-e-es,” said Ryan, taking a what-the-fuck tone. “She’s staying the week for Christmas. How come?”

“I think,” said Ann, “that I need one of those exorcisms.”

“What?”

“I’m not safe,” said Ann. “The placebo failed.”

“I don’t want to fly back.”

“That’s understandable. Sure. I can’t say I’d want to get into the air after something like that. We can put you on a train, if you like.”

Ann shook her head. Carolyn waited, a question in her eye.

“I’d like to rent a car. Drive back,” she said.

“Do you think that’s a good idea? You’ve suffered a head injury. And . . . a terrible loss. It’s days back to Toronto.”

If that’s where I was going
, Ann thought but didn’t say. She looked away. Carolyn was a tall woman with dyed-blonde hair. She had a deep tan that made Ann think about Michael’s lobster-red sunburn, and that made her think of the terrible fire in Tobago, and that drew her to the plane, the spinning cabin . . . Michael, spinning.

“I’ll sign a waiver,” said Ann. “Rent me a car. I’ll sign a waiver that absolves you from any liability.” She met Carolyn’s eye. “That should be worth something for you. For the airline.”

Something passed over Carolyn’s eyes then, and later, Ann wondered if the Air Canada representative wasn’t considering just that—absolving her bosses of all responsibility.

It passed quickly. Carolyn smiled gently, shook her head. “You shouldn’t make offers like that,” she said, “without your lawyer.”

“What lawyer?” asked Ann.

“Your family isn’t here yet but they’ve sent your lawyer along,” she said.

Ann shook her head, as if to shake the words into place; as it was, they were a jumble. “Family?”

Carolyn looked at her, nodded, and as though she had only then made up her mind. “Mrs. Voors, I don’t think we should be talking any details right now. Your lawyer called us and said he’d be here in an hour.”

“What family?”

“We’ll make sure you’re not disturbed,” said Carolyn. “You’ve been through so much. You just have a quiet talk with your lawyer. No one’ll bother you.”

“What lawyer?” said Ann again, but Carolyn was already out the door.

His name was John Hirsch. He was a partner in a Miami firm that had three other names besides his on the business card. He was not tall—Ann guessed maybe five-five—and he was losing his hair, although not excessively; studiously untidy tufts of dark brown hair colonized the crown of his head. But he was fit and hard, and tanned like Carolyn. He wore a light grey business suit and a tie the colour of arterial blood.

Hirsch had to explain it twice. He was on retainer with a local friend of Ian Rickhardt’s. Ian had called in a favour to engage Hirsch’s services for Ann.

Hah
, thought Ann. The “family” that Carolyn had spoken of. Family.
Right.

He crossed his hands over his middle, lowered his head. “Before we begin, please let me offer my condolences, Mrs. Voors.”

She nodded thanks. He leaned forward, for just an instant, looking into her eyes as though he was looking for something.

“Do you mind if I sit?”

Ann pointed toward a little armchair.

“I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” she said as he sat. “But I need to ask you . . . What do I need a lawyer for?”

“Hopefully not very much,” said Hirsch. “If all goes well, not much more than an advocate. An agent. We’re helping deal with the return of your husband’s remains. That’s pretty straightforward—but it’s nothing you want to spend your time dealing with, I’m guessing.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But that’s not all, I’m guessing.”

“No,” said Hirsch. “There are troubles you might encounter in the next while. I’ll see you through ’em. Just follow my lead.”

“I don’t want to sue the airline.”

“Didn’t say you should, although under other circumstances I might consider it. No, the problem is a bit more fundamental. You don’t know it yet, I imagine . . . but you’re on the roster to be interviewed by the FAA.”

“The—”

“Federal Aviation Authority. They’re looking into this flight, the incident, and particularly your husband’s . . .”

“Death,” she said, more sharply than she’d have liked. Hirsch smiled, but his eyelids fluttered strangely. He reached for a box of tissues next to the bed and held it out to Ann. She waved it away. He shrugged.

“Right now we’re doing everything we can to get you off that roster. And maybe we’ll succeed. But here’s the thing. You were found unconscious right outside the restroom. Along with a flight attendant. I haven’t spoken to her, or seen her testimony . . .
but I’m willing to bet she’s reported that she found you there before she was struck unconscious. Right at the door of the restroom, with your husband inside. There will be questions arising from that. We need to work on how you’ll answer them.”

“How do you mean? I went to the restroom because I was worried about my husband. It seems pretty—” and Hirsch raised an eyebrow, and at once, she got it.

“Oh. They’ll think I was in there with him.”

“By the evidence,” said Hirsch, “someone was.”

“And they’ll think that it was me,” said Ann, nodding, “doing, what do they call it? The Mile High club?”

“That’s already in play,” he said. “The Miami Herald has a story online today with an unnamed source suggesting that’s what might’ve happened.”

“Wait a minute—there are news stories?”

“Mrs. Voors,” said Hirsch, “this is a news story. Flight 1205 came
this
close to crashing rather than emergency landing at Miami International Airport. A Canadian lawyer with a prominent firm died returning from his honeymoon. The cause is mysterious . . .
or at least, a little scandalous. There is huge exposure on this. And that’s why . . . why everyone is concerned, that should it become necessary that you are interviewed, you might respond . . .
intemperately.”

“Why would I do that?” asked Ann.

“You tell me.”

At that, for the first time since she’d regained consciousness, and learned about the death of Michael Voors, her husband of less than a month, Ann felt her throat constrict, and tears well in her eyes.

Were those tears for her husband? He had pulled her from the flames in Tobago—made good on vows to be by her side until death—and she had been unable to reciprocate. He had died and she had lived. And the life they’d had planned, such as they had planned it . . . it was just gone.

And there was the shame—the idea that the newspapers in Miami were making sniggering insinuations about Mr. and Mrs. Voors, fucking in a restroom while Flight 1205 nearly crashed—she must’ve been a
little slut
; he must have been
insatiable
; they both must have been
on something
.

And then there was this:

He’s raping me.

“That’s good, Mrs. Voors,” said Hirsch. He produced a tissue from the box. “Let it all out.”

You don’t want that
, she thought, and before she could stop herself, she said aloud, “You don’t want it all out, Mr. Hirsch. Neither does Mr. Rickhardt.”

More of the fast blinking. Hirsch got up, and went to the door, cracked it open. He peered down the hallway, and shut the door, firmly. It seemed that in doing so the temperature in the room dropped noticeably. Ann felt the hairs on her arms rise, and her tears freeze. A terrible thought occurred to her.

She didn’t know this man. He had a business card that had his name on it, and he’d identified himself as a lawyer and he’d dropped Ian Rickhardt’s name. But that in itself was no assurance. And she was alone with him in a room where he had shut the door.

He smiled, as though he’d divined her anxiety, and put both hands up in an “I surrender” gesture to reassure her.

“Mrs. Voors,” he said, “I’m on your side.”

Are you?
she wondered. But this time, she said nothing.

He sat back down in the chair beside the bed, rocked back and forth in the seat.

“There are a range of things that can happen. This can be very serious—you could, if you play this foolishly, implicate yourself in your husband’s death. I suspect that my counterparts with the airline would be very pleased, faced with evidence that you and he behaved recklessly and their crew were perfect professionals. Now look—I know that you didn’t. Like I said—on your side.”

“But you’re working for Ian Rickhardt.”

“He’s paying the bill,” said Hirsch. “But Mrs. Voors—may I call you Ann?—rest assured. My only interest is seeing you out of this unscathed. At least, as unscathed as possible. Because there is another thing that might emerge. And I think we both know what that is.”

“Mr. Hirsch, please sit back. Just a bit.”

“Of course.” He had been leaning forward in his chair. He rocked back now, and regarded her.

“Now,” said Ann, “what do we both know?”

Hirsch didn’t answer immediately.

“What do we both know?” she said again.

Hirsch’s eyes darted away from her, to a corner of the room. He rubbed his arm and looked back at her. His face was flushed, and his eyes widened, almost hopefully.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” he said.

Ann sat up and pushed herself against the headboard. Somewhere at her shoulder was a button to summon a nurse—although she hadn’t used it since her arrival, not being that kind of patient.

“Yes,” Hirsch said, “you can do that. Call in a nurse. But you remember what happened on the plane, don’t you? When it came out. Do you really want to expose a nurse to that? Do you want it to get out?”

Ann found the button. It dangled from a wire that was velcroed to the headboard. Her finger brushed it.

“What do you call it now?” he said. “The Spider?”

“That’s an arachnid.”

“Ah hah. Right. The Insect.”

“The Insect.”

“And it’s here.”

“It is.”

Ann dropped the help button. The exchange had happened fast and cold, and it had hauled her down, as down a staircase, as into a cellar. How had he drawn it out of her? Was this a trick he used on the stand?

Those were questions that circled for just a moment. Because the ugly answer they circled was obvious, and terrible in its implications.

He knew about the Insect. She hadn’t told him anything. John Hirsch had come to her room, on retainer from Ian Rickhardt, after the Insect had very nearly crashed a plane and killed her husband, and he’d brought that knowledge here with him.

And now, Ann found herself agreeing with him. Whether the Insect was emerging or not right now, calling the nurse wasn’t the best use of her time.

“What is Ian’s, um,
friend
really paying you to do?” she asked.

“Oh, just what I’ve represented. Ian wants to make sure you get out of this and back to Canada safe and sound. He wants to minimize any fuss with the FAA, and would like the news stories to stay away from him. But fundamentally, he wants to make certain that you’re looked after.”

“But that’s not your whole game,” she said.

“Quite so, Mrs. Voors,” he said. “I’m working for Ian; I’m paid for by his friends. And I . . . well, I sometimes take my own counsel. And Mrs. Voors—there is another option. We might be able to avoid the FAA altogether. At least for a short time. My firm has a relationship with a private clinic outside St. Augustine. It is used by several plastic surgeons in the Greater Miami area as a recovery facility sometimes. Right now, it’s empty. I can, I believe, have you moved there—and arrange a later date for your interview.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Recovering from the grief at the loss of your husband?”

Did Hirsch smirk for an instant?
Prick
, Ann thought,
he did.

“That’s one reason. The other reason, the real reason, of course, is only obvious to you and me.”

“The Insect. Which you apparently know all about.”

Hirsch nodded. “It’s freezing in here,” he said. “Colder than south Florida air-conditioning. Didn’t you notice?”

“As you mention it.”

“Yeah, you girls never notice that on your own. You’re too used to it. All those spooky drafts . . .” Hirsch got up and stretched, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. He walked around to the foot of her bed, and picked up a green plastic bedpan. “What’s this doing in the middle of the floor? I bet this wasn’t here when your Air Canada rep was here talking to you. And—” he craned his neck, to look at the small washroom off the hospital room “—I swear, the light wasn’t on in there when I came in.”

“Stop it.”

Hirsch looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Mrs. Voors, I tell you honestly—right here, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Any more than you can. Isn’t that right?”

Ann felt tears welling up, her throat constricting. “Fuck off.”

Hirsch shook his head. “Don’t think so. I think, though, that we can calm this thing down a notch, if we keep from the potty mouth. Isn’t that right?” The last sentence he spoke at the ceiling, as though something hovered there. Possibly something did.

Without looking down from the ceiling, Hirsch continued.

“I gather that Ian Rickhardt visited you on your honeymoon. There are stories going around, about that visit. The terrible fire. Might I say—” he looked at her now “—Mr. Rickhardt reported enjoying himself terribly at the fire. He should have; he went down specifically for that purpose.”

Ann thought again about what she’d seen: Ian Rickhardt, turning slowly in the air as the Insect rampaged through the guest house. The expression he wore on his face . . . rapturous. Orgasmic.

And the words that the Insect conveyed to her, on the plane . . .

He’s raping me.

Ann felt the tightness in her throat well up, and this time, Hirsch didn’t bother with the tissue. He set the bedpan in her lap.

It caught nearly all the vomit.

They called a nurse in for that. Ann smiled, and thanked her, and when she asked what had brought it on, Ann said she didn’t know.

“Well you’ve been through a lot,” said the nurse. “I’ll tell the doctor.”

She pulled away the sheet that had caught a few flecks of the vomit, and pulled a new sheet from a cart.

“You figure you two are about done here?” she said.

Ann had looked at Hirsch, then back at her and said, “No. We still have some more things to discuss.”

The nurse closed the door. Ann thought she heard something click in its latch, roughly, as though the lock were being asked to do something it had never done before.