Part 3 (1/2)

”Ghosts aren't scary,” Ross said before he could remember to speak hypothetically. ”They're just people. Well, they used to be.”

Shelby paused in the middle of folding the blanket. ”But you've never seen one.”

”No.”

”Even though you wanted to.”

Ross forced a smile. ”Hey, I've never seen a ten-thousand-dollar bill, but I've always wanted to see one of those too.”

Retirement made sense. It was simply a matter of convincing himself. The truth was, in nine months, he had not found what he was looking for. He had not witnessed an apparition because there was nothing there.

But then again, he had a mind-boggling photograph burning a hole in his back pocket; a spirit that might have taken strength from heat or from light or even his camera batteries, so it could project itself and be seen. To Ross, that was perfectly logical. After all, Aimee had been the one who energized him. Without her, he was no better than a ghost himself, slipping through his own life, unseen.

”I ain't bulldozing over him!” shouted the foreman on the job, his face s.h.i.+ny and florid as a plum. He glared down at Eli from the vantage point of the truck's cab, arms crossed over the shelf of his belly.

”Mr. Champigny-”

”Winks.” The guy lying supine on the ground smiled gamely at Eli. ”That's what everyone calls me.”

Eli's dog bounded out of nowhere and planted his front paws on Winks's chest. ”Down, Watson,” Eli ordered. ”Mr. Champigny, I'm going to have to ask you to get up. The Redhook company has contractual permission to perform due diligence on this land.”

”He speakin' English?” Winks called out to a group of picketers nearby.

”Can't you arrest them?” Rod van Vleet asked.

”They haven't made any trouble yet. This is civil disobedience, is all.” At least that's what Eli's orders were from Chief Follensbee, who didn't want to stir up what could quickly escalate into an angry racial disagreement. Eli knew that the Abenaki wouldn't press the issue, if they weren't pressed themselves. All the same, he wasn't much in the mood for this. He'd had to pick up Abbott Thule, the town drunk, from the Gas & Grocery and set him in a lockup to dry out. He needed to get Watson something to eat. He did not want to be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around now with a bunch of Indians with enough hubris between them to fill the bowl of Lake Champlain.

He rubbed the back of his neck. Times like this, he wondered why he hadn't moved to Florida after his mother pa.s.sed. He was thirty-six, and working way too hard. h.e.l.l, he could be out with his dad now, playing a round of golf. He could be sitting under a palm tree. At his side, Watson grinned up at him.

”There are human remains on this land,” Winks insisted.

”That true?” Eli asked.

Rod's face darkened. ”There haven't been any found. Just a tin locket, some pottery shards, and a 1932 penny.”

”An arrowhead,” Az Thompson called out, although Eli would have thought the old man was too far away to hear their conversation. ”Don't forget the arrowhead.”

The developer rolled his eyes. ”Yes, all right, they found an arrowhead. Which is proof of absolutely nothing, except that some kid played Cowboys and Indians here.”

Az Thompson came toward them. ”We don't care about arrowheads, either. Just our ancestors. Didn't you see Poltergeist Poltergeist? You dig up their resting place, it stands to reason that whatever you build on here isn't going to be at peace.”

Eli wondered where the old man's attachment to the property came from. As far as he knew, Az had moved to Comtosook from somewhere out west. Granted, he'd lived in town nearly as long as Eli had, but it wasn't like Az had any special connection to this spot. Apparently his grievance with the development wasn't personal as much as it was principle.

”That's a threat,” Rod said to Eli. ”You heard him.”

Az laughed. ”What did I threaten you with?”

”A curse. Some . . . hex.”

The old Indian cupped his hands around a pipe and lit the leaves in the bowl. ”Gotta believe in that kind of stuff before it can do its work on you.” He inhaled, his words slipping out on the smoke. ”You believe in that kind of stuff, Mr. van Vleet?”

”Look,” Eli sighed. ”I know how you all feel about this development company, Az. But if you have a grievance, your best bet is to go through the courts.”

”The last time the legal system said it knew what was best for the Abenaki, it did a d.a.m.n good job of nearly wiping us out,” Az replied. ”No, Detective Rochert, I don't think we'll go to your courts.”

”His courts?” Winks, standing now, snorted as he dusted off his jeans. ”Eli, who went and told you that fancy blue uniform of yours makes your skin look less red?” courts?” Winks, standing now, snorted as he dusted off his jeans. ”Eli, who went and told you that fancy blue uniform of yours makes your skin look less red?”

Eli didn't think, he just lunged for Winks, grabbing the smaller man by the lapels and slamming him up against the side of the bulldozer. Watson was a moment behind, teeth bared. Eli heard the satisfying crack of Winks's head against the metal frame, and then reason settled over him. He could feel Az Thompson watching; could feel the air caught in the bellows of his own lungs.

As he turned away and called off his dog, Eli remembered going with his mother's relatives to fish for a summer month along the banks of the lake. The kids, brown and barefoot, played so much tag they had flattened the tall gra.s.ses for nearly a mile square. Eli had been ten before he realized that the lake he knew as Pitawbagw Pitawbagw-the water that lies between-was marked on a map as Lake Champlain.

Nodding to the driver of the bulldozer, Eli gave the okay to start digging. Purposefully turning away from the Indians, he steeled himself to keep the peace.

A week after his arrival in Comtosook, Ross wandered along the edge of the lake, ignoring the scratch of pebbles beneath the arches of his bare feet. The water was cold-too cold, for August-but this he did not mind. Feeling anything, even discomfort, was a nice change.

Lake Champlain was so long that you could not see it from end to end, although the Adirondacks loomed like distant soldiers on the opposite sh.o.r.e. Aimee had been born on that other side, in upstate New York. They had been driving to her parents' home the day the sky fell down.

Once, at the bookstore in Manhattan where Ross had worked, an author came in to give a speech about death rituals. In Tibetan burials, a monk stripped the flesh from the bone of a corpse and cut the body into pieces, so vultures could devour the remains. In Bali, a body was buried during the years it took to plan the spectacular cremation ceremony. But before the interment, the deceased was spun and splashed and shaken in a colorful bamboo tower, so that the spirit couldn't find its way back.

Ross had been working that night, which meant setting up the chairs for the audience, arranging the books to be signed on a small table, getting the author bottled water at the podium. It was a good crowd-academic sociologists rubbing tweedy elbows with spiky-haired Goths in black overcoats. As the lecture went on, Ross stood in the back, amazed at how many ways there were to say good-bye.

Aimee had stumbled in sometime in the middle. She was still wearing her scrubs, and Ross's first thought was that she must be cold; she was always cold when she wore them as pajamas, yet here she was running through the streets of the city in December.

His second thought was that something was terribly wrong.

”Hey.” Ross caught her as she almost wandered past him into the stacks of the store.

She threw herself into his arms and started sobbing. Several members of the audience turned around; the speaker himself glanced up, distracted.

Ross pulled Aimee by the hand into the gardening section, where n.o.body in New York City ever bothered to browse. He framed her face in his hands, his heart pounding: she had cancer; she was pregnant; she did not love him anymore.

”Martin died,” she choked out.

Ross held her, trying to place the name. In fits and starts the story came out-Martin Birenbaum, fifty-three, had been the victim of a fire at a chemical plant. Third-degree burns covered 85 percent of his body. It had fallen to Aimee, as a third-year medical student in the ER, to try to make him as comfortable as possible by debriding his wounds, keeping them clean, and administering Silvadine. When he asked if he was going to die, she had looked him in the eye and said yes.

He was the first patient she had ever lost, and because of this his face was scarred into her mind. ”I stayed with him because I knew I couldn't help,” Aimee confessed. ”Maybe it gets easier, you know, every time it happens. But maybe it doesn't, Ross. Maybe I shouldn't be in medicine.” She suddenly stared at him. ”When I die, you have to be there. Like I was, today.”

”You're not dying-”

”Ross, Jesus Christ, I just had a profoundly upsetting experience . . . can't you promise me this?”

”No,” he said flatly. ”Because I'm going first.”

She was silent for a moment, and then a tiny laugh escaped. ”Did you already book your ticket?”

”Guei, or hungry ghosts,” the lecturer said just then, ”are the souls of the Chinese who pa.s.sed on unnaturally . . . as a result, they wander the earth making trouble for the living.”

At that, Aimee looked up. ”What the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l are we listening to, Ross?” are we listening to, Ross?”

”Yes,” he answered. ”That's close enough.”