Haunted Humans Part 2

"Thanks, Boss," D.J. said and sighed.

"You're in some kind of mood today, aren't you?" asked Dr. Bollings. "What was your first clue?"

The doctor just smiled. "Lucky the schedule's light today. Rest up over the weekend. I've got five reports to dictate, and I plan to spend a lot of Sat.u.r.day over a hot mike, so you'll have plenty to do on Monday."

"Promises, promises," said D.J. She sorted through the stack of papers, found the letter and envelope from Dr. Kennedy on the bottom of the pile.

D.J. put the letter on the copystand next to her keyboard and positioned the cursor a line below the date so she could type in the address. Dr. Chase Kennedy, Ph.D.

"Arlene!" D.J. cried.

TWO.

D.J.'S LANDLADY AFRA was watering the dwarf dahlias in the front planter at the Coat of Arms Apartments building when D.J. parked her six-year-old silver Tercel in the car port. D.J. groaned before she climbed out of the car and locked the door. Afra always wanted to talk, and D.J. was definitely not in the mood today.

"You got plans for the weekend, hon, or you going to spend it holed up with the TV again like the last six weeks? Have you thought about getting some sun?

You're so pasty!" Afra said as D.J. trudged up the concrete walk toward the front door.

"Have you heard about UV?" D.J. said, then really wondered. Afra was who knew how old; her face was leathery and worn like any skin tanned by years of sunlight.

"UV? Is that short for some new kind of perversion or drug? I have trouble keeping up with the kinds of mischief you youngsters get into anymore."

"Uh, no, it's ultra-violet rays from the sun. They cause cancer."

"Doesn't everything" Afra said.

Before she could get started on another topic, D.J. said, "I've got to get inside and make dinner. I'm tired."

"'Course you are, not enough fresh air, too much television, and improper nutrition." Afra waved her hand in a shooing motion. D.J. escaped. She checked her mailbox, afraid. She'd signed up here as D.J. Hand, and had paid to keep her number unlisted. But if Chase could track her to her job, he could track her to her home.

The only thing in her mailbox was the fall catalog for Community Education. She carried it upstairs to her second floor apartment, feeling relieved when she had fastened the chain from the inside.

Then she turned around to face her studio apartment and saw the writing on the wall. Red spraypaint, right across her Van Gogh and Rembrandt art prints. "Only you can purify me. Only through your blood will I be saved.

She would never forget his handwriting.

She had seen it in the love notes he'd left with flowers when he had courted her, four years ago. Later, she had seen his handwriting on the anonymous notes that the police found next to the corpses. She had seen it in the letters Chase wrote her from Death Row.

Those letters had finally driven her to give up a paralegal position with a future in it at one of the big law firms in San Francisco and move north, to Spores Ferry, Oregon, a town of a hundred thousand, as small a place as she could live in and not go crazy, she figured. Gary Campbell, the first detective who had seriously listened to her when she mentioned her suspicions about her boyfriend to the task force, the one she had kept in contact with after the sentencing hearing, had told her she didn't even have to open the letters. Chase couldn't get her, he said. But she opened the letters. She had to. Finally she had run anyway. She hadn't left any forwarding address anywhere, not even with her mother.

And maybe she had been right, and Gary had been wrong. Maybe Chase had been playing with her, through the trial, the sentencing hearing, even his going to jail for three years, just so he could come back and find her now, hidden as she was, ferreting out her job and her apartment and everything she had to cling to in her new existence.

A knock sounded on her door. She jerked and gasped, dropping her mail and her purse. Her heart speeded. She looked around for anything she could use as a weapon, grabbed an antique umbrella she had picked up at a yard sale, and went to the door.

Through the peep she saw Morgan's gaunt young face, his wispy black mustache. He had done something to his hair; instead of hanging lank and half over his face, it had height to it. Mousse? Gel? Morgan with fas.h.i.+on sense? A frightening thought. And he was standing up straight. Usually she saw him slouched on a couch. He was taller than she had thought.

"You alone?" she asked through the door.

"Deej, you know me better than that."

She slipped the chain off and turned the locks. "I just got home," she said. "I wasn't expecting you for another hour."

"Would you like me to go away for a while?" asked his fruitiest and most refined voice.

"No, Clift; I was just explaining why I haven't had time to change. Actually, I'd like you to come in."

Morgan blinked and stared.

"Actually, I'm kind of scared right now." Her voice wobbled. She reached out and took his narrow hand, pulled him into the apartment. "Look." She pointed to the graffiti.

"Messy," said Morgan in an approving voice.

She looked sideways at him, this gawky college boy with his many voices, and thought, what a thin reed I'm leaning on. I should send him home and talk to the police. Tell them my history, ask them to find out whether Chase is still in jail or not. "Morgan, did you really ask Dr. Kabukin if it was all right for us to see each other?"

"No," he said.

"What? But you said--"

"Sure," said Saul. "She would have told me to forget it, so I decided not to ask her. What do you think, lady, it's productive for a psycho to date his doctor's secretary? Jeeze, take a minute to think."

"Wait a second. I'm not the doctor around here. How would I know? Besides, you lied to me."

"Like no one's ever done that before?" Saul said, sneering.

"Morgan never did before," said D.J.

"How would you know?" Saul said.

"Shut up, Saul," said Clift. "D.J.'s right. Morgan never lied to her before. Of course, this particular lie was hopelessly transparent. Why did you believe it?

You could have checked with Dr. Dara before you said yes to us. Usually you're so efficient."

"I--".

"I doubt it's the body," Clift continued, holding out his arms and looking down at Morgan's slender frame. "I've been trying to get him interested in swimming, but one of the others died by drowning and won't go near water. Or is this a body type that appeals to you?"

"No, I --"

"Wait a minute," Clift said. "Wait. A. Minute. It's Gary, isn't it?"

D.J. sighed and closed her eyes.

"That p.r.i.c.k?" Saul yelled. "You know he's a cop? We got a d.a.m.ned cop in here with us. Pushy rude b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"D.J., is that the story? It's Gary you want to see?" Clift asked. "Was the picture that important?"

"I'm sorry, Clift. Sorry, Morgan. I think I know . . . . " She couldn't believe what she was about to say. D.J. had never known quite what to make of Morgan and his many voices. Dr. Kabukin was not a slave to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders the way Dr. Bollings was; she didn't diagnose her patients with number codes you could look up to identify their particular disorder. So D.J. didn't have a convenient label for Morgan. She just thought he was funny, and found several of his voices willing to play games with her, even though they also enjoyed irritating her.