Paradise Island Page 6

  The feeling started to fade; Ed became used to it rather than reasoning it away. He tried to make it wink out, but the living throb only eased off into a quiet pulse, like a thing – a tortured soul – anxiously waiting.

  * * * * *

  “Hey, isn’t that the satchel Matt Damon was carrying around in that movie?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ed said, keeping his head down to hide his irritation.

  “It’s really cool. I think I’ll get one just like it. Night vision?” Dobbs said, picking up an odd-looking helmet-and-goggles combination.

  “No,” Ed said. “I have it, of course, but I didn’t think we’d be needing it today. I call this the Full-Spectrum Clarifier. Obviously, it’s designed to be worn over the head so that the lenses are in front of the eyes. It’s a little something I’ve been working on in my spare time, what little there is of it. I’m working along the lines of an old theory about color vibrations and how they interact with living energy.”

  “Or dead energy?”

  Ed regarded his junior colleague patiently. “The assumption is that some essence continues as a life form when the biological matter releases it. Living energy, Dobbs. Not all light can interact with our physical light receptors – our eyes – and once our current life form undergoes the Great Change, the residual energy may occupy a part of the spectrum above or below our sweet spot, if I may call it that. The theory behind this device is that some combination of lenses will progressively select and isolate particular spectrum wavelengths within which, possibly, hopefully, the entities we seek will become visible.”

  “Cool,” Dobbs said, fondling the heavy contraption and flipping the stacked lenses up and down. “A new toy.”

  “Or a useless piece of junk,” Ed said, carefully taking it away from him.

  “No, I think you’ve got something there.”

  “Nevertheless, I suggest we begin with the standard, established procedures.”

  “Okay.” Dobbs sounded disappointed, but he dutifully picked up an EMF meter and got ready to search the house for electrical anomalies behind his mentor.

  Ed whipped out a voice recorder and dictated to it: “Saturday, October 28, 12:56 pm, Pissarro Investigation. Current location, Pissarro home, Paradise Island, Florida. No clients currently present. Investigative team members: Edson Darby-Deaver and Marvin Sterling Dobbs. Proceeding through the main floor of the house with EMF sweep, then ascending to upper floors. Dobbs will advise as we approach hot zones, as reported by the client.”

  He took the recorder away from his face and inquired, “Shall we begin, Dobbs?”

  The younger man gazed at Ed worshipfully and, said, “It’d be an honor, sir.”

  Chapter 9

  Two hours later they returned to the lanai. Dobbs followed Ed like an alert terrier, trying to memorize his every move.

  “What are you writing?” he asked quietly as Ed picked up a pencil and began to scribble in a notebook.

  “Eh?” He looked up at Dobbs, befuddled. “Oh. I’m making a rough floorplan. Since we have no results, I don’t need to mark areas of interaction, but it’s part of my routine. I find a carefully-observed routine to be useful. Even comforting.”

  “I can do that,” Dobbs said eagerly, and he sat down and took the pencil and notebook out of Ed’s hands.

  Ed was bereft. He began to wonder for the first time if the presence of this neophyte was going to throw him off his game. Ed liked his routine. He needed it. Without taking each step in the proper order, he began to feel lost.

  He started to repack the EMF meters and the prototype Full-Spectrum Clarifier, thinking, “What’s next, what’s next?” when the door alarm startled them. Ed straightened up, turned around and stared.

  “Oh, hey, Tiff,” Dobbs said, putting the pencil down. Then, less enthusiastically, “Britt. And who’s that? Oh, Kent. Of course. Hey, you three, this is my colleague, Dr. Edson Darby-Deaver. My mentor, actually. In certain circles, he’s famous.”

  “We’ve heard of him, naturally,” the young lady said, coming forward and offering a slim, soft hand to Ed. “This is my fiancé, Britt Bascombe; my brother Kent.”

  Ed nodded to the men and took the lady’s offered hand gently, thinking how cool it was. Poor circulation, probably. These young women ate like birds. He studied her clinically, gazing into the eyes, the windows to the soul and more to the point, betrayers of drug use or sickness, but even up close, he saw only a healthy radiance. Okay, she looked normal enough.

  She had a clear, sun-kissed complexion, light caramel-colored eyes (sparkling), soft spirals of light brown hair (glossy), and a heart-shaped pixie-face. Nothing but skin and bones, though. Her clavicle sculpted the area above the décolleté and below a pair of firm, round shoulders; the low neckline of her sundress revealed that clearly. Did the clavicles of robust young women show quite so sharply above the chest area, though? Ed thought not.

  Reserving judgment on the girl, he turned to the two men, and his impression of them changed immediately. When they’d come walking out of the house with Tiffany they’d looked very similar, a couple of post-college-age men, causally wealthy and self-assured. But close-up, they were completely different types.

  Her fiancé was affable but unimpressive, and Ed silently agreed with Dobbs’s assessment: The sparkling little pixie in the soft yellow sundress belonged with a snappier specimen than the drawling frat boy in the loafers. He was as tall as Tiffany’s brother, but was somehow softer and less important. Any enterprising young man at a party would zero in on Tiffany, whether Britt was standing next to her or not. His hair was darkish, his eyes were greenish and his complexion was tannish. Everything about him was something-ish, but nothing was really definite. After a quick handshake, he seemed to fade away.

  Tiffany’s brother was another matter altogether: he was as vividly alive as his sister, but with harder edges. His hand was large and warm, and his grip was a little painful. The eye contact was even more painful. He seemed to be trying to decide whether to trust Ed or to throw him down and pin him to the pavers. His eyes were a darker brown than his sister’s, almost black, and they were fringed heavily with black eyelashes. He was a type Ed immediately classified as “a physical animal” – tall, slim, firm, confident. His hair was black and glossy, slightly long, falling negligently into loose waves.

  Still holding Ed’s hand, he said, “I want to make one thing clear: you’re working for us. Has anybody else tried to hire you to look into this?” Without giving Ed a chance to answer, he said, “Good. I know about Jessamine’s interview with you, and I know you didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her either, at first.”

  He seemed to realize suddenly that he was still gripping Ed’s hand and he dropped it, to Ed’s relief.

  Restraining himself from shaking out the crushed hand, Ed said, “Many people jump to conclusions about me. They call me ‘Darby-Deaver the Unbeliever,’ but that’s not true. I don’t believe or disbelieve. I investigate. I had not yet made up my mind about your stepmother. When I began to question her more closely, she assumed that I doubted her and she walked out on me.”

  Maintaining eye contact with this young man was extremely uncomfortable for Ed, but he managed. After another moment, the pressure from those black depths lessened, somehow, and Kent Pissarro gave a little grunt.

  “Cut it out, Kent,” his sister said. “They’re here to help. I read up on Dr. Darby-Deaver on the internet. He’s legit.”

  “A legit paranormal investigator,” Kent groused. “Now that’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”

  Britt chuckled absurdly and Ed looked at him, surprised that he was still there. The young man looked disconnected, somehow, and he was passing the time by idly looking over Ed’s equipment, especially the Full-Spectrum Clarifier. As unobtrusively as he could, Ed picked up the device and stowed it in his satchel, whereupon Britt chose a point at infinity to be interested in and withdrew himself further from the group.

  “Come on, let’s a
ll sit down,” Tiffany said. “It looks like you guys have gotten to work already. What have you found out?”

  Dobbs looked at his mentor and said, “Ed? Why don’t you begin.”

  Waiting until everyone was seated, Ed looked longingly at his voice recorder. This was the point at which he usually sifted through a printout of his notes to prompt himself, but he hadn’t transcribed them yet. He felt naked, facing clients with nothing in his hands. He picked up the notebook with the half-completed sketch of the house’s floorplan and began to indicate different areas, recounting their initial walk-through.

  When he was finished, Kent took the drawing and said, “So you got nothing, right? You went all over the house and took all these readings, and you got nada.” He dropped the notebook.

  Ed assembled his thoughts. “Mr. Pissarro,” he said, “you talked about hiring me. Just what are your objectives? What do you want me to do?”

  Evenly, almost tonelessly, Kent said, “My Dad is walking. I want it to stop. What is it that you guys say – he’s not at rest, is that it? His spirit is troubled. Make my Dad . . . move on. Give him peace.”

  Without looking at Britt directly, Ed registered a further withdrawal from that direction.

  “Still?” The question seemed to jar Kent, so Ed went on. “You believe there is still a haunting in this house, and that it is your father? The death of your stepmother has made no difference?”

  The siblings looked at one another uneasily. Then Tiffany spoke up. “I thought the same thing. That once Jessamine was . . . gone, Dad would be gone too. But I needed to know for sure. Kent figured it was over, but I needed to know. So I spent the night here in the house. Alone. Britt wanted to come with me, but I wouldn’t let him. I could tell he didn’t really want to.”

  “I’m here for you, Tiff, you know that,” he protested.

  “I know. But I needed to do this myself. For Dad. So I spent the night in the house, alone. I don’t know about Jessamine, but Dad is still here . . . or rather, there. In the house.”

  “You had an encounter?” Ed asked, at the same moment that Dobbs blurted, “You saw him?”

  She seemed more comfortable with Dobbs, but after a moment, she addressed herself to Ed. “He’s here. I didn’t need to see him. When somebody’s there, you know. Especially in his media room. He loved that room; he always went there to relax, so I knew it was him I sensed in there. I almost couldn’t bear to go in there – it was like something was pushing me back. But I went in anyway, and the feeling was so strong. He was there. And it’s not just him. You can feel . . . them. There’s a life force in this house. Even out here on the lanai. It throbs at me. It has a pulse.”

  Ed, startled, blurted something unintelligible. Then, aware that the others were staring at him, he steadied himself. “Unusual, that,” he said in his most pedantic manner. “Can you explain precisely what you mean by that?”

  “There’s turmoil,” she began. She frowned in concentration for a moment, then seemed to give up without really having nailed it down. “Dad’s not at rest and I want him to have peace, like Kent said. Please, you’ve got to help us.”

  Her slender body began to tremble, the color of her cheeks went from delicate peach to rose and her soft brown eyes began to shine. Altogether she couldn’t have affected Ed more if she’d thrown herself into his arms, weeping.

  He made himself turn to Kent. “And you? Have you sensed your father in this house?”

  After a moment of deep resistance, Kent said, “Yes.”

  “But not your stepmother?”

  “Her too,” Kent said gruffly. His sister turned to him, startled, and said, “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I didn’t want you to know. I figured she’d only come around me, but I guess you sensed her too.” He sat back looking stubborn, looking at nothing, obviously holding something back.

  “Why did you think she’d only come to you?” Tiffany asked with a touch of outrage.

  “Something . . . happened.”

  “Okay,” she said warily. “Well, there’s no point in trying to hide things now. What didn’t you want me to know?” After a moment, she took his arm and turned him toward her. “Tell me!”

  Kent’s complexion darkened and he looked down at his hands. “She came on to me.”

  There was a shocked pause.

  “I presume this was while she was still alive?” Ed asked. The others looked at him as if he’d just cracked a joke at a funeral.

  “Yes, while she was still alive,” Kent snapped. “While my father was alive, too.”

  Tiffany gasped. “You never told me. I was trying to be friends with her. If you’d told me . . . .”

  “It would have just made everything worse.” Kent turned bodily toward his sister now, and talked earnestly. “We were trying to hang onto Dad. If I’d told you, you never would’ve been able to hide it that you knew. And if I told Dad, I don’t know if he would have even believed me, or worse, blamed me for it. I couldn’t say anything.”

  “I understand,” Ed said. “Yes; a tricky situation. If it touches on my investigation, I may ask questions about it later, but for the moment, it’s irrelevant.”

  After staring at him for a moment, the others all started howling at him at the same time.

  Ed waited for them to subside, staring at each in turn. When he had silence, he repeated, “It’s irrelevant.”

  “How can you say that?” Dobbs asked.

  “Oh, it’s interesting,” Ed said, “in the way soap operas are interesting, but as far as any supernatural involvement, it’s totally irrelevant. Your father didn’t know that Jessamine was, er, attracted to you, I presume?”

  “Absolutely not!” Kent said.

  “Even I didn’t know,” Tiffany added.

  “Then it’s irrelevant. It cannot be the reason he walks.”

  The logic of it struck them all at once, and it struck them dumb.

  “You’ve set the parameters of my investigation at helping to give your father peace. You said nothing about Jessamine, ergo, it’s irrelevant. We can visit the question of ridding you of her, if she persists, at some point in the future. Now,” Ed said while he still had silence, “in a case like this we need to establish the facts. I have to admit, here and now, that I have my own motives for pursuing this investigation. Your stepmother came to me with a problem, and I didn’t help her. Now she’s dead. I need to know if I could have saved her.”

  “Why bother?” Kent said bitterly.

  “People come to me with problems all the time. It’s how I earn my living. I need to know when I’ve made a grave mistake so it can never be repeated. Whatever the truth is, it’s worse not to know. So. Dobbs, here, and I will be conducting further tests, and we may need the house for a few days. Agreed?”

  The siblings looked at one another and shrugged while Britt gazed at them vaguely.

  “Yeah, sure,” Kent said.

  Ed stood up. “Is it all right with you if one or both of us remain in the house, 24/7?”

  They agreed.

  “Thank you. If we need you, we’ll call. Dobbs, here, has your contact information? Then I believe we are finished here and I’d like to proceed with the investigation.”

  “Hah!” the boyfriend said. “School’s out. He’s throwing us out. Care for a paddle, Tiffy?”

  Ed was shocked, but Tiffany barely seemed to notice. She absent-mindedly replied, “Oh, Britt, not today.” Her real attention was on her brother, and when Kent smiled, Tiffany did too.

  Ed made a mental note: Ever since Kent had finished revealing Jessamine’s advances towards him, he had relaxed visibly, as if a terrible burden had been lifted. That, in turn, had lightened everyone else’s mood. He had a strong presence that affected everyone around him, even when he didn’t seem to be aware of them, and when he relaxed, they all did. A powerful man. When he reached middle age, he would formidable. Ed tucked it away, for whatever it was worth.

  Everyone had risen from their chairs, and K
ent upstaged Ed’s dismissal by making one of his own. “You’ll be giving us a full, written report?” he asked.

  “Naturally,” Ed said, and he reached out for another handshake that turned out to be not quite so painful. “Although I want to make it clear that there will be no invoice. This investigation is on me.”

  “This investigation is on me,” Kent said. “I want that understood. Charge me whatever you like. If you’re feeling noble, make it a dollar, but I want it to be clear that you are working for us and nobody else.”

  Confused at the notion of clients lining up for the same investigation, Ed said, “Do you think your mother is going to try to hire us?”

  “You leave my mother out of this!” Kent said with unwonted savagery.

  A bit startled, Ed agreed, just to get rid of them. They escorted Britt, Tiffany and Kent back into the house and through to the front entrance. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Ed turned to Dobbs.

  “A paddle?” he said a little wildly. “I’m continually reminded of how old-fashioned I am, but really . . . he paddles her?”

  Dobbs had to suppress a shout of laughter. “He meant going kayaking. They do that all the time. Tiff and the stiff in a skiff, you might say.” He waited a few beats for Ed to get it. When Ed just stared at him, he made a false start on repeating it, decided to skip it, then went on. “It’s his new obsession. Jessamine told me that last year it was surfing. And he’s in some kind of volleyball league, too. He graduated from college four years ago, and as far as I can tell, all he does is act like he just cut class so he could goof off.”

  “Doesn’t he have a job?”

  “Who knows? He says he does, but when people work at home on their computers, how can you tell? He’s in sales or something. It used to be security systems, but I think it’s something else now. Anyway, he doesn’t really need to work. He’s got money, but he’d have that whether he had a job or not. The mater and the pater, don’t’cha know. He’s got I-don’t-know-how-much old sports equipment in Tiffany’s garage. He lives in a little condo on the beach, and it’s too small for all his crap, so he stows it at her place; everything but the surfboard. He probably sleeps with that. If they ever break up, she can get back at him by melting down his precious golf clubs. He does that too,” he added, as if golf were the social equivalent of nose-picking.