A Question of Ghosts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Becca Healy always believed she understood the shameful circumstances of her mother’s death—until the night her mother’s spirit whispers a simple message out of the static of a radio: “Not true.” Becca turns to the terse Dr. Joanne Call, an expert in Electronic Voice Phenomenon—ghost voices—to unravel the mystery of this decades-old tragedy. Joanne can coax messages out of the silence of the grave, but coping with this feisty, emotional Healy person might be completely beyond her. Together, Becca and Jo must tackle childhood grief, a serial killer, Xena withdrawal, and a growing attraction between the two most mismatched women in Seattle.

  A Question of Ghosts

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  A Question of Ghosts

  © 2012 By Cate Culpepper. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-713-4

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: July 2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Cover Photo by Jay Csokmay

  By the Author

  The Tristaine Series:

  Tristaine: The Clinic

  Battle for Tristaine

  Tristaine Rises

  Queens of Tristaine

  Fireside

  River Walker

  A Question of Ghosts

  Acknowledgments

  As always, warm appreciation to my Bold Strokes Books editor, Cindy Cresap. I also thank Cindy for forbidding my use of the term chobos in the Tristaine novels, because chobos do not exist outside of a certain television series.

  My faithful long-time betas, Connie Ward and Gill McKnight, gave me their usual insightful feedback and personal support, and crucial kick-ass reminders to just cowboy up and type.

  A smack to the bicep of my beta and sister scribe, Jove Belle, who nailed Jo’s diagnosis at first reading of Chapter One. I’m also grateful for the keen legal advice of that talented writer and attorney, Carsen Taite. Sheri did a wonderful job realizing the ghostly themes of this story in her cover design. Warm thanks to Julie Lundquist at Lakeview Cemetery, and to Lynn Brawley-Birkwist and her kin for allowing an image of the statue that graces their family plot to appear on this cover.

  Disclaimer: I freely acknowledge that in the writing of this story, I took liberties with the nature of Electronic Voice Phenomenon, the function of the Spiricom, the geography of Seattle, the topography of Lake View Cemetery, the layouts of Swedish Hospital Hospice and Western State Hospital, and the exact position of entire mountain ranges. Please cowboy up and read.

  Dedication

  For John William Voakes, with thanks for lending me a name worthy of a serial killer, and for our good amiga Terri Mervenne, who would fit in beautifully in Tristaine.

  Also for William Spillsbury Hayes, who still owes me a dance I’ll collect someday.

  “Psychoanalysis has taught that the dead—a dead parent, for example—can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts.”

  —Jacques Derrida

  Prologue

  1989

  “Becca.” The voice from the radio’s small speaker was tinny and faint.

  Becca’s finger stilled on the circular dial. Bette Midler warbled briefly about the wind beneath her wings and the music faded again into static. Becca nudged the dial one notch, and “The Living Years” trickled from the speaker. She turned the dial back to the static.

  “Becca.”

  A damp chill worked up Becca’s back and she hunched closer over the small blue box. “Is this a birthday present?” she whispered. “Hello?”

  She turned sixteen today, and she hadn’t heard this voice in eleven years.

  “Not true,” the voice whispered and fell silent.

  Becca closed her eyes and listened. Nothing but soft, crackling static for a full minute, two.

  After five minutes, she sat up and looked around, dazed. Her bedroom hadn’t changed. Weak light still played through the butt-ugly frilly curtains she would never have picked out. A faint aroma of chocolate reached her from the birthday cake her aunt was baking downstairs. Becca realized she was trembling.

  She crossed her legs on the worn bedspread and clawed her fingers through her hair. Her belly bulged a bit between the waist of her denim shorts and her cutoff T-shirt. Only one piece of cake tonight, she resolved, a small one. A faint yelp of laughter escaped her, but it sounded like a sob. Her dead mother had just spoken to her, and she was thinking of her diet.

  The voice was unmistakable. Becca had last heard it when she was five years old, a knobby-kneed, doll-clutching kindergartener, but it could be no one else. There was a faint, familiar bell of music in a mother’s voice when she spoke her child’s name, and Becca had recognized that private chime in those few words.

  It occurred to her that no emotion had really hit her yet, unless astonishment was an emotion. Which was probably odd. She should be feeling something. She realized the walls of her room looked fuzzy because of the tears in her eyes.

  Her mother had died the night Becca turned five. This loss had for so long been the dominant historical fact of her life, its resonance had begun to fade. She didn’t really remember her mother’s face anymore. She no longer prayed to her as if she were an angel, as she had for years. No one forced her into counseling these days, as her uncle and aunt had for months after it happened.

  “Becca?” her aunt called her from the foot of the stairs. “I’m going to need your help cleaning this place up. The board meeting’s at eight, but I’ll get as much done as I can before I take off. That was Marty on the phone. She and Khadijah will be here in half an hour, so you…”

  Becca tuned her out. She listened to the static still issuing from the small radio’s speaker, as empty and meaningless now as the winter fog over Puget Sound. She bent down and wormed her hand under the mattress, then drew out the small baggie holding the syringe.

  “Happy birthday to me,” she
said. “I guess.”

  Not true.

  Chapter One

  Twenty-three years later

  “Jeezis God, the Hill has changed.” Marty crammed more gum in her mouth and weaved around another black-jacketed teenager with multiple face piercings. “Doesn’t anyone smile around here anymore? Zero eye contact from anyone, zero, in the last six blocks.”

  Becca nudged her friend. “You’re perimenopausal, pal. The Hill doesn’t change.”

  With her usual theatrical timing, Marty stepped onto a small mound of dog poop. She rested her elbow on Khadijah’s plump shoulder and scraped the heel of her sandal against the sidewalk. “Damn mutts.”

  “Damn mutt owners,” Khadijah corrected her, steadying her. “And the girl’s right. The Hill doesn’t change.”

  “How can you say that?” Marty stared at her partner of fifteen years with umbrage. “Are neither of you seeing the same Broadway I’m seeing? Have you not noticed the new condos crowding out the gay bookstores, the chain outlets swallowing the little independent businesses, the—”

  “This street saw twenty years of Gay Pride marches, darlin’.” Khadijah nudged them on down the narrow sidewalk. “Hot auras don’t go away after that long. They sink in.”

  “Well, they get harsher, then,” Marty said.

  Becca saw her point. Broadway thronged with people this balmy June evening. The storied avenue on Capitol Hill, Mecca for Seattle’s gay community, had always skewed fairly young. Becca, Marty, and Khadijah had strolled often among these charged crowds in their own high school and college years. It was true that the energy in the neighborhood was different now—edgier, a bit darker. There were more hard-core homeless kids on the street. Since the cops clamped down on the University District, more of the city’s young addicts and mentally ill sought refuge on the Hill.

  But for Becca, Broadway was still and always the sculpture of Jimi Hendrix kneeling on the sidewalk with his guitar, one arm outflung, often with a cigarette or even a joint stuck between his fingers by affectionate passersby. It was the bronze art footprints embedded in the sidewalk below their feet, marking out the steps to a tango. Her queer kindred walked hand-in-hand all around them on this street. Becca hadn’t lived on Capitol Hill since she was five years old, but Broadway was still her spiritual home.

  They moved on toward the north end of the avenue, and Khadijah rested her hand on Becca’s shoulder as they walked. Touch came to Khadijah as naturally as breathing, and Becca appreciated her familiar support. Her stomach was beginning to tighten again. She shouldn’t have had the flautas for dinner. Given her anxiety level, she would probably spend her meeting with this crazy scientist constantly trying to suppress some real insistent flatulence.

  “I’m still not sure why we’re doing this.” Becca knew very well why they were doing this, but she needed to hear it again.

  “Okay, no prob. One more time.” Marty tweaked a folded newspaper article out of the hip pocket of her frayed shorts and flapped it open. She handed it to Becca and tapped one photo on the creased page. “That’s Joanne Call. She’s the leading national expert in ghost voices. Leading national expert, Becca, says so right there. In our own little Seattle. Who knew.”

  “And her office is just about two blocks yonder,” Khadijah added. “We’re doing this so you can talk to Joanne Call about the voice you heard on your birthday when you were sixteen. The one you heard again on your birthday, two nights ago.”

  Becca frowned down at the face she had memorized from previous viewings. This woman scientist looked pretty buggy. Her eyes were too big, too piercing. “But come on, you guys, being a national expert in ghost voices. Isn’t that like being queen of a tribe of lentils, or something? And who says what I heard on my birthday was the voice of a ghost?”

  “You know it was.” Khadijah slid her arm through Becca’s and her tone gentled. “And you know who it was. This has you seriously spooked, Rebecca Healy. We’re spooked for you. We need to learn more about this.”

  Becca sighed. Marty chucked her gently on the chin with one callused knuckle, her comfort, as always, gruffer and briefer than Khadijah’s. Marty folded the article and they moved on. They were coming up on the Quest, a mystical fruit salad of a bookshop owned by the local branch of the Theosophical Society. All of Becca’s friends loved the place, but of course she had never been inside.

  “Damn.” Khadijah’s hold on Becca’s arm tightened. “Window.”

  “All eyes ahead.” Marty moved closer to Becca.

  “Thank you, Ebony and Ivory,” Becca muttered. She trudged on, the center of this protective sandwich. “I know not to look in the Quest’s window, for heaven’s sake. I’ve got a passing familiarity with Capitol Hill. I know what windows to avoid.”

  “True, but you’ve been really sensitive the last few days, Bec.” Khadijah peered at her through her small spectacles. “It’s never been this rough on you before, not in my long memory. I’m afraid just a glimpse might set you off.”

  “Thanks, but I have no intention of glimpsing. And I don’t really ‘go off,’ Khadijah. No one but you two would even notice if I was triggered.”

  Becca had to chastise herself for her flautas-induced crabbiness. The loyalty of her friends was appreciated. Looking out for her was automatic now, for Khadijah and Marty, after years of practice. But all this warm solicitation was starting to feel distinctly maternal, and Becca had never needed mothering.

  She pulled herself out of her sulk. Khadijah was right. She was more shaken over that eerie voice now than the first time she heard it, the day she turned sixteen.

  Marty pulled them to a stop a few doors down from the Quest. “This is it. At least the queen of the lentil tribe set up shop in a nice funky neighborhood.”

  Becca stared up at the barred entrance of the tall building. As with all the structures on the north end of the street, this one was tasteful and neatly landscaped, but it gave no indication at all of its purpose. The heavy door behind the bars featured no sign indicating a public space, only a small plaque bearing the street number. Marty waited a courteous ten seconds for Becca to act before stepping forward and pressing the doorbell herself.

  Becca was about to try the bell a second time when the door opened. A tall woman with dark hair regarded them silently. The barred gate separating them cast striped shadows across her impassive face. Becca had a distinct impression of a dangerous captive gazing down from a prison cell. She put her hand on her waist and tried to quell the more lurid offerings of her imagination.

  The woman studied them from her elevated position. “Something?” Her voice was low and terse.

  “Something,” Becca repeated inanely. Khadijah scratched a small circle on her back. “You’re Joanne Call. Right? I’m Becca? I’m Becca. I left the message on your voice mail, about tonight.”

  “I’m Dr. Call. And yes, you did. You didn’t mention there would be three of you.” The woman stepped down the two stairs and unlatched the gate. “My space is quite limited. Your friends will have to wait out here.”

  Becca felt Marty and Khadijah lock eyes over her head. She slid her arms around their waists before she could think too much. “It’s okay. I’m fine. Get a booth at Charlie’s and order me a hot fudge sundae. The big one.”

  Marty frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely the big one.”

  “But are you sure you—”

  “The girl’s good.” Khadijah slid out of Becca’s arm and patted Marty’s face. “We’ll be right up the street, Bec.”

  Marty let Khadijah take her hand and tug her away. “We’ve got our cells,” she called back, ostensibly to Becca, but she was glaring at Joanne Call.

  Dr. Call swung open the barred door, and Becca had to banish an image of a sexier, female version of Virgil opening the gates of hell for Dante. She hesitated a beat too long before walking up the two steps and following Dr. Call into the darkness of her inner sanctum.

  The small entry opened onto a compact, high
-ceilinged space. A polished wooden floor and cream-white walls helped soften the starkness of the room. Joanne Call’s work area was scrupulously clean, which Becca could have predicted, but she wouldn’t have guessed such an eminent scientist’s lab would so closely resemble a discount store.

  Shelf after shelf was neatly stocked with old radios, small televisions, tape recorders—reel-to-reel and cassette—even two eight-track players that probably came out a decade before Becca was born. She lingered at one wall, fascinated by a series of compact, alien devices preserved within a locked glass case. There was something clinically pristine in the precise, symmetrical placement of each object.

  “We’re back here.” Dr. Call slid into an expensive ergonomic chair before a large oak desk in one corner. “You can put your purse beneath your seat.”

  “Okay.” It’s not a purse. Becca sat obediently in the markedly less comfortable armchair and dropped her bag under it.

  “I started your file when I got your message. We’ll start with some background information.” Dr. Call slipped a laptop from some recessed space and tapped rapidly at the keyboard. “It’s Rebecca Hawkins, correct?”

  Becca hesitated. Lying didn’t come naturally to her. “That’s right.”

  “Occupation?”

  “I’m a social worker with the state. I work with kids in foster care.”

  “Then you have graduate-level education?”

  “Yes, I have an MSW.”

  “Your age?”

  “I’m thirty-nine.”

  The blunt fingernail hit two keys. “And where have you lived, in your life?”

  “I’ve always lived in Seattle. I have an apartment off Lake City Way now, but I grew up on Capitol Hill. I’ve read a little about your work, Dr.—”

  “Do you have any chronic health conditions?”

  “I’m allergic to peanuts.” Another lie, but Becca was getting annoyed.