Montag, 5. Dezember 2016
Ghostlights
quadrotriticale, 23:32h
“Excuse me?” a quiet, nervously high voice sounded through the small office.
The man looked up from stacks of paperwork. The view of the door was normally obscured by his huge partner on the other side of the double desk, but Keaton had called in sick two days ago, and so the view of the doorframe was clear.
“Detective Rye?”
“That's right. How can I help you?” He eyed the girl over. Sixteen, he guessed. A black leather jacket over her blue and white school uniform, and unruly mouse-brown hair, waved in a way that hinted she had worn it in a braid earlier. A dark red scarf was draped around her neck in several layers. Her backpack, which was covered in buttons, was too small to hold the thick red folder she was carrying under her arm. Straight from school, he figured, and checked his watch to see if that fit with the time. Doing so he realised he had missed his lunch break, and also that he was hungry.
The girl looked around, hesitated for a bit and then pulled Keaton's chair around the desk to sit closer to him. She placed the folder on her knees. Rye caught himself trying to read the label on it in search of a name, but it just read Dull, Boring, Predictable.
“I wanted to talk to you about the case of Mrs. Salinger,” she began.
“Case?” he paraphrased laughing. “Not much of a case there, love.”
Her eyes narrowed. Rye immediately felt bad. Especially regarding that he had had the feeling that there was more to it from the beginning. He had definitely spent too much time with Keaton, talking down to a youngster like this. He hated it when his seniour partner did it, and now he'd done it himself. Maybe this time apart from him would so him good.
“I'm sorry,” he said, rubbed a hand over his pale face and caught a glance at a coffee stain from this morning on his rolled up sleeve. “I didn't mean to make fun of you.” Rye smiled at the girl's surprise at his apology. “It's just that the case was closed several days ago.”
“But I think I know what's happened. I know it won't be much of a help to her now, but didn't you yourself say it was strange?”
The detective frowned. Then his memory kicked in. “You are the girl that came past the crime scene when we were called in, aren't you?”
“That's right, I was coming home from school,” she nodded, and extended a hand. “Stacey Machliss.”
He smiled and shook her hand. “You already seem to know my name. So what is that theory of yours?”
“I don't think she was poisoned.”
The detective leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “And what makes you think that?”
“Because-”
“Hang on, how do you even know about this? That information wasn't released to the press.”
Stacey shrugged. “People talk.”
Rye raised his eyebrows, but motioned her to continue.
“Think about it,” she continued, “who would have had reason to kill her?”
“No one said that she was killed.”
He noticed that he had caught her off guard with that. The red folder slid half an inch down her thighs before she remembered to tighten her grip on it. “But I thought...”
“Look, first of all, you shouldn't believe everything that people say. I grew up in a small town myself, I know what folks can be like. Secondly...” He paused, knowing that he telling her would be sort of unorthodox and probably against some regulation, but he would be lying if he said she hadn't sparked his curiosity. Maybe it was fate that Keaton wasn't in.
“Secondly?” Stacey asked.
Rye leaned forward, resting his arms in his lap. “Secondly this doesn't look like murder. We're fairly sure that she took too much of her medication. Whether by accident or on purpose is not my place to say, but-”
“Bloody right it's not you're place to say!” For the first time, Stacey's voice got something like loud. “She would never have killed herself.”
“Did you know her?” the detective asked compassionately.
“I live down the street from her.” That made sense, Rye found. They had only talked to the immediate neighbours. “I sometimes helped her with her garden for some pocket money.”
“Look, Stacey, I know it can be hard when someone you know is suddenly gone, especially when it happens in such a rather drastic way, but look at the facts.” He hated himself for sounding so much like Keaton. Why was he doing this instead of just listening to what the girl had to say? But despite his thoughts he continued, “Mrs. Salinger was old, she was on medication for her heart condition, and she had been through quite something, with losing her husband and all that. It happens.” He shrugged.
Stacey's eyes narrowed again. “You're just arranging everything so that it fits the way you want it. Mrs. Salinger wasn't old, she was fifty-nine, for Christ's sake. I mean, sure she had the heart thing but she wasn't senile. And her husband already died like ten years ago, and from what she told me he was a dickhead. So I doubt she had a sudden fit of missing him and killed herself over him.”
“You-” Rye attempted to interrupt but she wouldn't let him, she had really worked herself up about this.
“Also, if you wanted to kill yourself and decided to OD, wouldn't you rather do it at home, somewhere private, and then wait until shit kicks in? You honestly think she popped the pills and then said to herself, Oh I better check on my husband's grave one last time and bring him fresh flowers, so that she would collapse in front of the cemetery gates for dramatic effect?”
“You done?” he asked.
Suddenly she looked embarrassed. “I'm just saying,” she replied, back to the quiet voice from the beginning of their talk.
“Listen, I'm afraid sometimes people just die. Sometimes there is no bigger mystery to it.”
Stacey's face tightened. “Fine.” She stood up and tucked the red folder back under her arm. “I'm sorry to have taken up your time, detective.”
Before he could say anything more, she had closed the door, and he realised that he hadn't even heard what she'd wanted to tell him.***
Rye had used his own car rather than the Astra. He didn't want to raise too much attention, parking a police car this close to a school. He sipped his coffee while he was waiting. It was already getting dark. That was the part he didn't like so much about autumn, all that duskiness in the middle of the day only to be night outside by four p.m. He got out of his car when the first students came out of the building, the younger ones running around, unbearably impatient to leave school grounds, the older ones more relaxed, cherishing talking to their friends before they would all go home and have a nice warm meal. Rye was hungry again.
Amongst that latter group was Stacey Machliss, her red scarf and folder giving her away. He watched her wave goodbye to another girl before they took off in different directions. The detective approached her without hurry.
“Stacey,” he called when he'd caught up with her. The girl flinched at someone suddenly walking next to her, and Rye realised she was listening to music. Now she yanked the earbuds out and met his eyes.
“Detective?” She slowed down, unsure whether it was appropriate to keep walking.
“I wanted to talk to you. About Mrs. Salinger.”
Stacey stopped short. “Did you now?”
He considered addressing this attitude of hers, but actually he felt that she was justified in her tone, so he pretended he had not caught it. “I requested to see the reports of her post-mortem.”
Stacey grimaced.
“While it was true that she had taken too much of her medication, it was not nearly enough to kill her. So that can't have been the reason.”
“Then why was the case closed?”
Rye shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. The case had been closed because Keaton had said so. He, Rye, had believed his partner when he told him about the dosage of medication in Mrs. Salinger's system, and considering all of the other evidence, or rather lack thereof, the case had been closed – and Keaton could add another one to his impressive record. Even though today it didn't seem as impressive to Rye anymore than just a few days ago. “That's complicated.”
“I see,” Stacey said. She tugged her hair tie out of her braid and combed through her hair with her fingers to loosen it. It seemed to double in volume as she did so.
Rye sighed when he realised that was all he was gonna get. “Look, the thing is, nobody really cares. I know it's rough, but that's the way it is, my superiours are happy with the way it got solved and send me to do the paper work, and most likely that's the way it's gonna be. But you were right with what you said, and to be honest, I need to know.”
Stacey smiled. “I can show you.” She readjusted the folder she was carrying, as always, and started walking again. Rye followed. “Have you seen her house?”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you been in her house? Have you seen it?” the girl persisted.
“Yes, why?”
He caught a side glance from her, as if he was supposed to understand everything from just that bit alone.
“She was extremely superstitious in case you hadn't noticed. She always played it down, as if everything was a joke, but I think she was actually serious. Like, she had garlic hanging from her windows. Against vampires.”
“All right?”
“You've seen all the crosses, haven't you? All the nazars, against the evil eye?”
“A lot of people have these in their houses,” Rye gave to consider while streetlights flickered to life around them.
“Please,” Stacey said. “This was way more than normal. I'm not saying she was crazy, but there was a bit of an obsession about that stuff. Not in a creepy way, but she seriously believed in all of that. You should have heard her when she talked about the time she went up to Loch Ness, she sure could tell a story.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I'm trying to say that Mrs. Salinger firmly believed in werewolves, monsters, and demons, that kind of stuff.” She took a sharp turn to the right, into a narrow alley with high walls to either side.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“This is my way home. It's way shorter than going around the whole block.” She kept walking, and the detective didn't have much of a choice but to follow. To the right the wall reached about the height of his shoulders, and trees growing over it hinted at gardens behind. The wall to his left was almost exactly as tall as he was, and he couldn't look over it. The light from the main street faded out, and Rye noticed that there weren't any streetlights in this one. Only at the far end he could make out the glimmer of the next one, even though it seemed to flicker.
“That's the cemetery behind there, innit?” Rye jerked his thumb to his left.
“Yes. Next left and were in my street. Or rather in front of her house.”
“All right,” he said doubtfully, not sure where his unease was coming from. He wasn't the easily spooked type. “So demons. Carry on.”
“She had tons of books about stuff like that. First time I noticed that I was kind of creeped out, but she was always really nice to me.”
“You know this isn't The X-Files, right?”
“Yeah, I know that, but Mrs. Salinger was probably Agent Mulder's biggest fan. So, just for the sake of understanding, imagine you were really into creatures of the night and whatnots, and then you go out over the street to put fresh flowers on your husband's grave, probably dazed on whatever it was she took too much of, and then you see this.”
“Holy shit,” Rye exclaimed, and flinched back before he got a grip on himself.
They had made the corner, and the stone wall had abruptly ceased, giving way to a low gate that led onto the cemetery. Right here, where they were standing, Mrs. Salinger had collapsed one week ago. Even at roughly the same time.
“What the...?”
“It's a vase, but it's slightly see-through, and red-tinged. I've looked at it by daylight. Believe me, first time I passed it in the dark, I jumped way more than you just did. Don't worry I won't tell anyone. But it really does look like someone sitting on that grave staring at you, doesn't it?”
“What's with these candles? How-?”
“It's one of those fancy shrine-like grave stones, It had niches to place small candles. Hell of an arrangement, though.”
“Nice pun,” Rye mumbled, and stepped closer. Now he could make out edges, it really was just a tall vase, flowerless, but with a thick candle burning inside. But the way the light fell on the plants and stones that decorated the grave it did look like a torso. A body half inside the grave and half outside, probably in the process of heaving itself back out, and with too much fantasy the two smaller candles on the notches incorporated in the gravestone could look like glaring eyes at first glance.
Stacey chuckled into her scarf.
“So she comes out here when it's already dark, sees this with her mind entirely set on the supernatural, and thinks... well.”
“And that's what gave her the heart attack. Not some mistake about medication,” Stacey concluded with a hint of triumph in her voice. The lamp nearest to them flickered rapidly.
Detective Rye nodded slowly.
“If you don't mind, I'm gonna go home now. My mum is probably waiting already.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I'm not sure if I can change anything about the case. But it might affect how her will is treated, whether she was sane. But I won't promise anything.”
“That's cool.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, though. At the very least I'm gonna have peace of mind about this case now. I knew there was something to it we were overlooking.” He smirked.
“Well,” Stacey smiled, and readjusted the folder under her arm, “the truth is out there.”
And with that she turned around and walked home.Case closed.
***
Liv
The man looked up from stacks of paperwork. The view of the door was normally obscured by his huge partner on the other side of the double desk, but Keaton had called in sick two days ago, and so the view of the doorframe was clear.
“Detective Rye?”
“That's right. How can I help you?” He eyed the girl over. Sixteen, he guessed. A black leather jacket over her blue and white school uniform, and unruly mouse-brown hair, waved in a way that hinted she had worn it in a braid earlier. A dark red scarf was draped around her neck in several layers. Her backpack, which was covered in buttons, was too small to hold the thick red folder she was carrying under her arm. Straight from school, he figured, and checked his watch to see if that fit with the time. Doing so he realised he had missed his lunch break, and also that he was hungry.
The girl looked around, hesitated for a bit and then pulled Keaton's chair around the desk to sit closer to him. She placed the folder on her knees. Rye caught himself trying to read the label on it in search of a name, but it just read Dull, Boring, Predictable.
“I wanted to talk to you about the case of Mrs. Salinger,” she began.
“Case?” he paraphrased laughing. “Not much of a case there, love.”
Her eyes narrowed. Rye immediately felt bad. Especially regarding that he had had the feeling that there was more to it from the beginning. He had definitely spent too much time with Keaton, talking down to a youngster like this. He hated it when his seniour partner did it, and now he'd done it himself. Maybe this time apart from him would so him good.
“I'm sorry,” he said, rubbed a hand over his pale face and caught a glance at a coffee stain from this morning on his rolled up sleeve. “I didn't mean to make fun of you.” Rye smiled at the girl's surprise at his apology. “It's just that the case was closed several days ago.”
“But I think I know what's happened. I know it won't be much of a help to her now, but didn't you yourself say it was strange?”
The detective frowned. Then his memory kicked in. “You are the girl that came past the crime scene when we were called in, aren't you?”
“That's right, I was coming home from school,” she nodded, and extended a hand. “Stacey Machliss.”
He smiled and shook her hand. “You already seem to know my name. So what is that theory of yours?”
“I don't think she was poisoned.”
The detective leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “And what makes you think that?”
“Because-”
“Hang on, how do you even know about this? That information wasn't released to the press.”
Stacey shrugged. “People talk.”
Rye raised his eyebrows, but motioned her to continue.
“Think about it,” she continued, “who would have had reason to kill her?”
“No one said that she was killed.”
He noticed that he had caught her off guard with that. The red folder slid half an inch down her thighs before she remembered to tighten her grip on it. “But I thought...”
“Look, first of all, you shouldn't believe everything that people say. I grew up in a small town myself, I know what folks can be like. Secondly...” He paused, knowing that he telling her would be sort of unorthodox and probably against some regulation, but he would be lying if he said she hadn't sparked his curiosity. Maybe it was fate that Keaton wasn't in.
“Secondly?” Stacey asked.
Rye leaned forward, resting his arms in his lap. “Secondly this doesn't look like murder. We're fairly sure that she took too much of her medication. Whether by accident or on purpose is not my place to say, but-”
“Bloody right it's not you're place to say!” For the first time, Stacey's voice got something like loud. “She would never have killed herself.”
“Did you know her?” the detective asked compassionately.
“I live down the street from her.” That made sense, Rye found. They had only talked to the immediate neighbours. “I sometimes helped her with her garden for some pocket money.”
“Look, Stacey, I know it can be hard when someone you know is suddenly gone, especially when it happens in such a rather drastic way, but look at the facts.” He hated himself for sounding so much like Keaton. Why was he doing this instead of just listening to what the girl had to say? But despite his thoughts he continued, “Mrs. Salinger was old, she was on medication for her heart condition, and she had been through quite something, with losing her husband and all that. It happens.” He shrugged.
Stacey's eyes narrowed again. “You're just arranging everything so that it fits the way you want it. Mrs. Salinger wasn't old, she was fifty-nine, for Christ's sake. I mean, sure she had the heart thing but she wasn't senile. And her husband already died like ten years ago, and from what she told me he was a dickhead. So I doubt she had a sudden fit of missing him and killed herself over him.”
“You-” Rye attempted to interrupt but she wouldn't let him, she had really worked herself up about this.
“Also, if you wanted to kill yourself and decided to OD, wouldn't you rather do it at home, somewhere private, and then wait until shit kicks in? You honestly think she popped the pills and then said to herself, Oh I better check on my husband's grave one last time and bring him fresh flowers, so that she would collapse in front of the cemetery gates for dramatic effect?”
“You done?” he asked.
Suddenly she looked embarrassed. “I'm just saying,” she replied, back to the quiet voice from the beginning of their talk.
“Listen, I'm afraid sometimes people just die. Sometimes there is no bigger mystery to it.”
Stacey's face tightened. “Fine.” She stood up and tucked the red folder back under her arm. “I'm sorry to have taken up your time, detective.”
Before he could say anything more, she had closed the door, and he realised that he hadn't even heard what she'd wanted to tell him.
Amongst that latter group was Stacey Machliss, her red scarf and folder giving her away. He watched her wave goodbye to another girl before they took off in different directions. The detective approached her without hurry.
“Stacey,” he called when he'd caught up with her. The girl flinched at someone suddenly walking next to her, and Rye realised she was listening to music. Now she yanked the earbuds out and met his eyes.
“Detective?” She slowed down, unsure whether it was appropriate to keep walking.
“I wanted to talk to you. About Mrs. Salinger.”
Stacey stopped short. “Did you now?”
He considered addressing this attitude of hers, but actually he felt that she was justified in her tone, so he pretended he had not caught it. “I requested to see the reports of her post-mortem.”
Stacey grimaced.
“While it was true that she had taken too much of her medication, it was not nearly enough to kill her. So that can't have been the reason.”
“Then why was the case closed?”
Rye shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. The case had been closed because Keaton had said so. He, Rye, had believed his partner when he told him about the dosage of medication in Mrs. Salinger's system, and considering all of the other evidence, or rather lack thereof, the case had been closed – and Keaton could add another one to his impressive record. Even though today it didn't seem as impressive to Rye anymore than just a few days ago. “That's complicated.”
“I see,” Stacey said. She tugged her hair tie out of her braid and combed through her hair with her fingers to loosen it. It seemed to double in volume as she did so.
Rye sighed when he realised that was all he was gonna get. “Look, the thing is, nobody really cares. I know it's rough, but that's the way it is, my superiours are happy with the way it got solved and send me to do the paper work, and most likely that's the way it's gonna be. But you were right with what you said, and to be honest, I need to know.”
Stacey smiled. “I can show you.” She readjusted the folder she was carrying, as always, and started walking again. Rye followed. “Have you seen her house?”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you been in her house? Have you seen it?” the girl persisted.
“Yes, why?”
He caught a side glance from her, as if he was supposed to understand everything from just that bit alone.
“She was extremely superstitious in case you hadn't noticed. She always played it down, as if everything was a joke, but I think she was actually serious. Like, she had garlic hanging from her windows. Against vampires.”
“All right?”
“You've seen all the crosses, haven't you? All the nazars, against the evil eye?”
“A lot of people have these in their houses,” Rye gave to consider while streetlights flickered to life around them.
“Please,” Stacey said. “This was way more than normal. I'm not saying she was crazy, but there was a bit of an obsession about that stuff. Not in a creepy way, but she seriously believed in all of that. You should have heard her when she talked about the time she went up to Loch Ness, she sure could tell a story.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I'm trying to say that Mrs. Salinger firmly believed in werewolves, monsters, and demons, that kind of stuff.” She took a sharp turn to the right, into a narrow alley with high walls to either side.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“This is my way home. It's way shorter than going around the whole block.” She kept walking, and the detective didn't have much of a choice but to follow. To the right the wall reached about the height of his shoulders, and trees growing over it hinted at gardens behind. The wall to his left was almost exactly as tall as he was, and he couldn't look over it. The light from the main street faded out, and Rye noticed that there weren't any streetlights in this one. Only at the far end he could make out the glimmer of the next one, even though it seemed to flicker.
“That's the cemetery behind there, innit?” Rye jerked his thumb to his left.
“Yes. Next left and were in my street. Or rather in front of her house.”
“All right,” he said doubtfully, not sure where his unease was coming from. He wasn't the easily spooked type. “So demons. Carry on.”
“She had tons of books about stuff like that. First time I noticed that I was kind of creeped out, but she was always really nice to me.”
“You know this isn't The X-Files, right?”
“Yeah, I know that, but Mrs. Salinger was probably Agent Mulder's biggest fan. So, just for the sake of understanding, imagine you were really into creatures of the night and whatnots, and then you go out over the street to put fresh flowers on your husband's grave, probably dazed on whatever it was she took too much of, and then you see this.”
“Holy shit,” Rye exclaimed, and flinched back before he got a grip on himself.
They had made the corner, and the stone wall had abruptly ceased, giving way to a low gate that led onto the cemetery. Right here, where they were standing, Mrs. Salinger had collapsed one week ago. Even at roughly the same time.
“What the...?”
“It's a vase, but it's slightly see-through, and red-tinged. I've looked at it by daylight. Believe me, first time I passed it in the dark, I jumped way more than you just did. Don't worry I won't tell anyone. But it really does look like someone sitting on that grave staring at you, doesn't it?”
“What's with these candles? How-?”
“It's one of those fancy shrine-like grave stones, It had niches to place small candles. Hell of an arrangement, though.”
“Nice pun,” Rye mumbled, and stepped closer. Now he could make out edges, it really was just a tall vase, flowerless, but with a thick candle burning inside. But the way the light fell on the plants and stones that decorated the grave it did look like a torso. A body half inside the grave and half outside, probably in the process of heaving itself back out, and with too much fantasy the two smaller candles on the notches incorporated in the gravestone could look like glaring eyes at first glance.
Stacey chuckled into her scarf.
“So she comes out here when it's already dark, sees this with her mind entirely set on the supernatural, and thinks... well.”
“And that's what gave her the heart attack. Not some mistake about medication,” Stacey concluded with a hint of triumph in her voice. The lamp nearest to them flickered rapidly.
Detective Rye nodded slowly.
“If you don't mind, I'm gonna go home now. My mum is probably waiting already.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I'm not sure if I can change anything about the case. But it might affect how her will is treated, whether she was sane. But I won't promise anything.”
“That's cool.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, though. At the very least I'm gonna have peace of mind about this case now. I knew there was something to it we were overlooking.” He smirked.
“Well,” Stacey smiled, and readjusted the folder under her arm, “the truth is out there.”
And with that she turned around and walked home.
Liv
... comment
