The silent force of an unreleased scream crashed into me. I jolted backward a step, squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my hand over my own mouth. The shock of the blow drained away. Solis put his hand on my shoulder and I shook him off. "What did that?" I demanded. I thought, if he'd been dead a few hours, shouldn't the body be stiffer?
Solis thought a moment, casting his gaze over me and around the hall as if there were an answer there somewhere. He watched the men carry the corpse away. Then he motioned me to follow him back outside.
We watched them load the black bag into a discreet blue van and drive off. We both took a few deep breaths of the cool, moist air and didn't look at each other. A small crowd had gathered at the end of the street, but they kept their distance and we were left alone.
At last, Solis spoke up. "Not sure yet. Looks like he was thrown against the wall. Maybe an accident." He didn't sound convinced. "We're working on it. You have any ideas? Anything like that demo he missed?”
"When did this happen?" I asked, dismissing momentary visions of dancing tables.
"A couple of hours ago, possibly three. I'll know more when the autopsy is done. What do you know?”
I stared at Sous, my mind racing. Lupoldi had died before the séance started, while I'd been eating lunch with Quinton. The scene gave me an unsettled feeling. What I'd witnessed at St. John Hall stuck in my mind and, though I'd been thinking Tuckman was wrong about it, I suddenly didn't like the thought that a poltergeist—real or artificial—could have the energy to do something like this. It was ludicrous, but I knew better than to assume Solis wouldn't be interested in at least some of the possible connections; someone who could fake PK phenomena might be able to fling a man across a room as well as a table. Fake ghost he wouldn't buy, but killer acquaintance he might.
Reluctantly, I started. "The demo is part of a psychological study at PNU. The researcher hired me to find out who in his group might be sabotaging his results, and today's demo went a bit wild. I came to see why Lupoldi—Mark Lupoldi is the name I was given with this address—why he hadn't shown up and if he knew anything about the demo going bad.”
Solis regarded me in silence.
"And I do recognize him," I conceded.
He blinked slowly and gave half a nod. "From where?”
"He worked in the used bookstore a couple of blocks from here— Old Possum's. I only knew him as Mark, and I didn't make the connection until I saw his face." I shivered again, harder and nothing to do with the sharp tingle of tiny raindrops that had begun falling. Now Lupoldi wasn't just a name on a list, just someone who was horribly dead; he was someone I knew, however fleetingly, who was horribly dead. The situation didn't feel like an accident to me any more than it did to Sous.
He must have seen the speculation on my face. "Ms. Blaine, I don't need to warn you against obstructing an active felony investigation.”
"The two cases might not be related," I suggested. "But I won't get in your way. I can't just drop my investigation on the chance that it might parallel yours, but I'll share any information I get that might be relevant. OK?”
"What if it's your client who did this?”
"Then he probably won't pay me and I won't feel too bad about ratting on him," I answered.
Solis almost smiled. "OK.”
I started to go, then stopped and looked back. "I'm going to head down to Old Possum's—I know the owner and I can ask her some background questions on Lupoldi. Do you want me to break the news or leave that to you and your partner?”
"I'll do it. I want to talk to the staff later.”
I nodded and walked back down the hill. I hadn't put Mark's death out of my mind, or the possibility of some paranormal involvement in it—the look and feel of the Grey in Mark's apartment was too abnormal to ignore. The idea of a killer thought-entity didn't sit well with me, but I wasn't sure which way Occam's razor would cut this time: person or poltergeist?
CHAPTER 6
Old Possum's Books 'n' Beans was one of the first businesses I'd patronized when I moved to Seattle: it was cluttered, H overstuffed, and as full of odd objects and comfortable, I shabby chairs as it was full of interesting old books and the smell of fresh coffee. I'd run in to get out of one of Seattle's fifteen-minute downpours while apartment hunting. Two hours later I'd still been curled up in a chair with my rental listings, a pile of books, and a cup of coffee, the rain by then long gone. The shop cats had dropped by to vet me—some of them literally dropping from the cat highways over the tops of the towering shelves. Wearing their fuzzy badge of approval all over my jeans and jacket and carting a stack of books for which I didn't even have bookcases yet, I'd been adopted into the shop's ragtag family. The fact that I loved weird old stuff hadn't hurt, either.
The owner, Phoebe Mason, still seemed to see herself as a bit of a surrogate mother to me, though she wasn't much older than I was. Phoebe was working at the front counter when I arrived much as I had the first time, dashing in from a sudden delivery on the promise of rain. I stood in the doorway shaking off the water as she laughed at me.
"Hey, girl!" she shouted, the dim childhood memory of Jamaica lengthening her vowels. "Where you been? And when are you going to buy a proper coat?" She beckoned to the nearest employee to take over while she exited the cash desk island to chivy me. She grabbed my jacket and hung it up on the rack by the door. A sign over the pegs read he who steals my coat gets trashed.
"Hi, Phoebe. I wanted to ask you some questions. Do you have time?
"Sure! Let's go back by the espresso machine. The minions can run the store for a while.”
I can't remember when they'd picked up the collective nickname "Phoebe and the minions," but it had become universal among the regular customers and the staff. It made the ensemble sound like a punk band, which seemed to please everyone.
I followed Phoebe to the back, where she evicted the minion from the espresso stand and sent her out to police the shelves. We were alone in the coffee alcove with its fake fireplace and grand mantel of papier-mâché stone guarded by cat-faced gargoyles. One of the gargoyles looked a bit dyspeptic, leaning at an angle on a recently chipped base. A traffic mirror hung from the ceiling to give a view of the alcove from the cash desk.
I kept on my feet and toyed with some of the books and knick-knacks on the shelves in the alcove. I needed information, but now that I was here, I wasn't sure how to start—especially in light of Solis's desire to interview the staff without their having prior knowledge of Mark's death. It would have been easier to ask someone I didn't know or like about someone I'd never met.
Behind me the steam valve on the espresso machine roared. In a minute, Phoebe nudged me and handed me a large cup of coffee. "Sit down and drink that. You're all cold and fidgety." I let her push me toward one of the scruffy armchairs near the cardboard hearth and sipped the drink.
"Hey. . what is this?" I asked, looking up. The hot drink was much richer than I was used to.
"That's a breve—like a latte with cream instead of milk. And don't you make that face at me," Phoebe added, flipping her hand. "You need a little padding on those bones of yours. You look like a bundle of brooms.”
"You've been hanging out at your dad's place, haven't you?" I asked. Phoebe's restaurant-owning family chided me for being underweight every time I saw any of them, which was a refreshing change from my own mother's insistence that I was in danger of running to pudge at all times and must be ever-vigilant against rogue calories that might stick unbecomingly to my hips or thighs.