The Supernaturals (24 page)

“It’s almost heaven—being here with you—the first time I saw you—I knew it to be true—but after all dear, I love you—I do—angel baby—my angel baby—”

She sang the first verse in slow, hauntingly soft words, and then the Karaoke machine chimed in with more instrumentation at the start of the chorus. The barroom became quiet as a church, all the patrons enraptured by the sweetness of the voice coming from the woman on the small stage.

The man recognized the old song,
Angel Baby
, originally recorded by Rosie and the Originals. As Tilden sang, her eyes remained closed and she gently swayed with the song— as if she were feeling it from somewhere deep in her soul.

The notes, both high and low, were perfectly struck. The red haired woman had transformed from a frumpy-looking five foot drunk a moment before, to someone you would kill to hear sing. The detective had never before seen a change such as he was seeing now. When the song came to an end, the crowd was mute. Only the tinkling of a few glasses interrupted the silence.

Jennifer Tilden once more grabbed the microphone for balance, but this time she went over, dragging the instrument with her.

That broke the spell. The barroom erupted in applause and shouts for more. The detective ran forward and assisted the doctor to her feet, then helped her from the stage. When she gained her balance, she glared at him.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” she shouted. Her voice was once more ragged and burned out.

The detective was stunned. Had he just heard a recording of someone else? She could not have sung like the angel he had just heard. She shrugged his hand away and stumbled through the crowd toward the front doors.

It took a moment for the man to come to his senses. He quickly followed her outside into the cold night air, where he found her sitting on the curb. Several passersby had to step around her, but she paid them no mind. She had no coat, just the light sweater she had been wearing inside. The woman was hugging herself and crying.

The man removed his suit jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She shrugged out of it and bent at the waist, then straightened. She rocked forward again, hugging her knees.

“Go away,” she moaned through her tears.

“Doctor Tilden, that was an amazing song. Your voice, it just—”

She turned on him with her red and angry eyes. “It’s what—what?” she shouted.

“Ma’am, I’ve been hired to find you and give you a message.”

“You just don’t take ‘fuck off’ very seriously, do you?” She tried to stand, swayed, and then fell right back onto her ass.

“Professor Kennedy said to tell you he needs you.”

The woman opened her eyes and turned her head slowly toward the detective. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“Two hundred thousand dollars ma’am, for a week’s worth of work in Pennsylvania.”

Slowly, she wiped a hand over her wet eyes.

“Gab…Gabriel Kennedy?”

“The UBC network has sent out a private jet for you. It’s at SeaTac right now.”

She stood weakly and shrugged the man’s jacket back on, nodding at him through her tears. “I may as well; I can’t sleep as it is.” She tried to clear her throat. “What the fuck do you care, afraid of some competition?” she mumbled beneath her breath, as if she was addressing someone close by her.

The man ignored her strange behavior. “As I said, you have the most amazing voice.”

For the first time, the detective heard her laugh. She turn away until she was once again under control.

“I take it Professor Kennedy didn’t enlighten you as to my ...malady?”

“I’ve never met the man. I was hired out of the Seattle office to find you.”

“Well, let me explain something to you.” She took the man’s arm with her hands. “That wasn’t my voice.” She laughed again.

The detective nodded his head, slowly coming to the logical conclusion. “A recording,” he said. He started walking, escorting the doctor toward the parking garage across the street.

“You’re smart,” she said, wiping her eyes, “but no. No recording.”

“Then what?” he asked.

She let go of his arm, walked a few steps forward, and then turned. A car swerved out of the way, its horn blaring and its driver cursing at her.

“Kennedy should have warned you that I have some baggage. Actually, another person has to come along, so you’ll be traveling with two of us. Me, and the ghost you just heard sing. His name is Bobby Lee McKinnon.”

The detective stopped in the middle of the street. “What?”

“For a man working with Kennedy, you’re not very informed.” She turned and continued toward the car park. “I’m possessed by the ghost of a songwriter, murdered in 1959 in New York. The motherfucker won’t let me sleep. He thinks his penance is to sing forever, and he does it through me.”

The man stared after her.

She turned, waiting on him. For the first time this evening, Doctor Jennifer Tilden seemed present behind her own eyes. She smiled and batted her eyelashes, looking almost relieved to be going somewhere.

The final game piece had been found. The real game could soon begin.

nine

Bright Waters, Pennsylvania

Gabriel Kennedy sat outside the hospital room and watched the occasional nurse stroll by and eye him with suspicion. He waited for Eunice and Charles Johansson to leave their son’s bedside in the ten-room building that passed for a hospital.

He heard the click of heels approach, and knew who they belonged to before he saw her.

“I had a feeling this would be your first move.” Julie Reilly stopped before Gabriel.

“Ace reporter, always vigilant,” Kennedy answered. He tried not to look the woman in the face.

“Professor, since you agreed to take the network’s money, that makes us partners. Do you think for the next eight days we can be civil?”

Kennedy smiled faintly. “No.”

“I did my job. I asked the questions everyone was thinking. Because you couldn’t answer them, Professor, to any degree of believability, I’m the bad guy?”

“A reporter’s job is to report the truth, not to speculate on what she thinks might have happened. Not to offer alternative solutions to a question that has but one answer. You lynched me in the public’s opinion and gave the state police what they needed to open the trapdoor underneath me.” He finally looked her directly in the eyes. “And the fall
hurt
, Ace Reporter.”

“What happened that night, Professor? Did your student really vanish into thin air, or was he part of a broader conspiracy for your financial freedom?”

“You just never quit, do you? Is it so much of an embarrassment to say that you took it too far, that maybe you liked the guaranteed airtime you got from using me as a stepping stone? You’re a real piece of work. After what happened to people from your own network, and that boy in there, I still don’t warrant the benefit of the doubt? Or at the very least a ceasefire on the fraud front?” Gabriel stood and looked down at Julie. “Have you contacted Detective Jackson?”

“Not yet. I expect he’ll be around soon enough. I don’t have to hunt him down—he’s hunting for us.”

“What do you want?” a deep voice asked from behind them.

Julie and Gabriel turned. Charles Johansson stood just outside his son’s room. He glanced behind him and made sure the door was closed.

“Sir, my name is—” Gabriel started.

“I know who you are, Kennedy. I remember the mess you made at the house—a mess me and my missus had to clean up. What do you want?”

“Mr. Johansson, I would like to speak with your son,” Kennedy said. Julie stepped up beside Gabriel and smiled, taking his arm. He flinched.

“He’s not speaking with anyone, haven’t you heard?”

“I understand he’s nonresponsive. I’m a psychologist. I think I may be able to help him.”

“He’s seen all kinds o’ docs that ain’t helped one bit. He still just stares at nothin’ and says nothin’.”

“Mr. Johansson, Professor Kennedy just needs a little—”

“Look, Miss, you and this ghoul get away from here and let my boy be. If I have to throw you out, I will. You don’t have a right to come here and—”

“Charles, that’s enough.”

Eunice Johansson stood just behind her large husband, rebuking him softly. The pretty woman was tired and haggard looking.

“They want to see Jimmy, Eunice. I won’t let—”

“Honey, go get us some coffee.” She placed a small hand on her husband’s arm. “Maybe get these folks some, also.”

“No, thank you ma’am,” Gabriel said. Julie only shook her head.

Charles looked from his wife to Kennedy. Then he deflated, the anger leaving him like the air out of a balloon. He lowered his head and walked away. Eunice watched his back retreat down the hall.

“Charles is the type of man that gets angry when he doesn’t understand something.” She turned and placed her hand on her son’s door. “This…well, he doesn’t understand it.”

“Mrs. Johansson, perhaps you remember me. I’m Professor Gabriel—”

“Kennedy. Yes, I remember. I remember both of you.”

Julie untwined her arm from Gabriel’s with an embarrassed look.

“Tell me, Professor, why would you want to see my boy?”

“I think I may be able to—”

“Too late in the day for lies, Professor,” she said sadly.

Gabriel looked from Eunice to the closed door. “I’m going back into the house.”

Eunice Johansson shook her head. She thought a moment, and then slowly pushed open her son’s door, behind her. Her tired eyes remained on the two visitors.

“You just won’t learn, will you? Your students, those TV folks and now my boy...well, look and see what that house did to my son. I never really believed in things before, but something took part of our boy. He was wayward sometimes, but he didn’t deserve this.”

Kennedy cautiously stepped around Eunice and through the door she held open. Julie followed.

Gabriel was shocked. It was as though he was looking at a young child with white hair, not a strapping teenage boy, strong from working for a living with his father. He was curled in a fetal position on the hospital bed, wide-eyed and staring at nothing. A small puddle of drool had accumulated just below his mouth and had run onto the small pillow. Eunice moved to her son’s side, wiped his mouth, and then dabbed at the pillowcase.

“Pretty sight, Professor?” she asked. Tears flooded her reddened eyes.

Julie had slowly pulled out a small notebook. Now Gabriel glared at her until she placed the pad back into her bag. He gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs in the corner of the room and out of the way, and then he turned to Eunice.

“Five minutes, ma’am. I’ll do your son no harm.”

Eunice’s eyes went blank for a moment. She allowed Kennedy to lead her to a chair and sit her down. “What more harm can be done?” she asked sadly.

Kennedy patted her hand and then turned back to the boy, and his demeanor changed. He was in his element now.

Kennedy eased himself toward the bed. He reached out with one hand and brushed the long white hair back from the boy’s eyes. He tilted his head and looked deeply into Jimmy’s vacant, bloodshot eyes. Straightening, he reached into his sport coat and pulled out a small notebook. Thumbing through the pages until he found the one he wanted, he looked up at Jimmy again, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

Eunice had stopped crying and was watching the professor. He leaned close and said something into Jimmy’s ear. There was no reaction. Kennedy looked into his notebook once more.

Julie Reilly leaned forward in her chair, also watching as Kennedy confidently read a page and then closed the notebook once more. Again he whispered something to the boy. Still no reaction. Again, Kennedy checked his notes.

The door opened and Charles Johansson stepped into the room, carrying a cardboard tray that bore three cups of machine brewed coffee. He gave one to his wife, and then placed the tray on the table. Standing over Eunice, they both watched Kennedy. When his eyes shifted to Julie, she couldn’t hold the man’s accusatory stare.

Kennedy put the notebook away and leaned over the boy once more, again whispering into his ear. Suddenly the boy sat straight up in bed, almost knocking Kennedy over. Jimmy’s vacant eyes stared at nothing and he started to shake. Kennedy was strangely calm. Eunice stood with a start, her Styrofoam cup of hot coffee spilling to the floor, forgotten. It was the first time since her son had been brought to the hospital that he had made a voluntary movement of his own. Charles Johansson took his wife by the shoulders and held her, not allowing her to go to their boy.

Gabriel Kennedy leaned over and said something else to the boy, and this time they heard it.