Ghosts

At 12:20 that afternoon he called the Craig apartment, hoping to catch Hillary Scott there. He let the phone ring an even dozen times, replaced the cradle on its receiver, looked up the number for the Parapsychological Society in Isola, and dialed it.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Hillary said.

“What about, Miss Scott?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“No, I’m sorry, I just got back.”

“I gave the message to somebody up there. Somebody with an Italian name like yours.”

Carella looked across the room to where Genero was eating a sandwich at his desk, munching in time to “Deck the Halls.”

“I’m sorry, what were you calling about?” he said.

“The autopsy. I understand they want to do an autopsy.”

“That’s right, an autopsy is mandatory in any trauma case.”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“Miss Scott, I’m afraid this isn’t something—”

“What happens when Greg’s essence passes over?” Hillary said. “If you cut him open and take out his insides, what happens when he gets to the spirit world?”

“I have no control over this,” Carella said. “An autopsy is mand—”

“Yes, I heard you. Who do I talk to?”

“About what?”

“About stopping the autopsy.”

“Miss Scott, the Medical Examiner’s Office has probably already begun work on the body. It’s vital that we establish the cause of death so that when the case comes to trial…”

“It’s vital that Greg’s spirit pass over intact!”

“I’m sorry.”

There was a silence on the line.

“I’ve heard about too many mutilated spirits,” Hillary said.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Miss Scott, the reason I was calling—”

“Far too many,” she said, and again there was a silence on the line. Carella waited. There was no sense continuing the argument. The autopsy would be performed whatever Hillary Scott said or did. As he’d just told her, the ME’s Office had probably already begun work. At the morgue, the body of Gregory Craig would be slit open like a slab of beef, the vital organs removed and tested, the skull lifted back on a tab of flesh to expose the brain. When the corpse was later displayed in a funeral home, none of the mourners would realize they were looking at the hollow shell of what had once been a man. The silence lengthened. Carella assumed he had made his case.

“I was wondering if you could meet us at the apartment later today,” he said.

“What for?”

“There’s the possibility that Mr. Craig may have been surprised by a burglar. We want to know if anything’s missing, Miss Scott, and the only way we can determine that is with someone who knows what should be in the apartment.”

“It wasn’t a burglar who killed Greg,” Hillary said.

“Why do you say that?”

“It was a ghost.”

Sure, Carella thought. A ghost tied Craig’s hands behind him with a wire coat hanger. A ghost stabbed him nineteen times in the chest, the back, the arms, the throat, the hands, and the head with a ghost knife the lab boys had not been able to find anywhere in the apartment. The same ghost knife that had most likely been used on Marian Esposito, Companion Case R-76533.

“I felt a very strong flux in that apartment yesterday,” Hillary said.

“Can you meet us there in an hour?” Carella asked.

“Yes, certainly,” she said. “But it wasn’t a burglar.”

If it hadn’t been a burglar, it had certainly been someone who’d helped himself—or herself—to a great many things in the Craig apartment. According to Hillary Scott, there had been some $300 in the bill compartment of Craig’s wallet when she’d left the apartment yesterday morning at 10:00. She knew because she’d asked him for cab fare to the office, and he’d fanned out a sheaf of fifties, searching for smaller bills. The money was gone now, but Craig’s credit cards—seven of them in all—hadn’t been touched. His jewelry box, open on the dresser top, had been looted of a gold Patek Philippe wristwatch with a gold band, a pair of gold Schlumberger cuff links set with diamonds, a gold pinkie ring with a lapis stone, and a gold link bracelet. Hillary was uncertain about the value of Craig’s missing jewelry, except for the gold bracelet, which she’d bought for him herself last Christmas and that had cost $685. She suspected the Patek Philippe wristwatch had cost somewhere in the vicinity of $6,500. She was more specific about the jewelry that was missing from the box she kept in the top drawer on her side of the dresser. All of it had been given to her by Gregory Craig during the year and a half they’d been living together. She listed the stolen items as:

One Angela Cummings hand-carved root bracelet of Burmese jade and eighteen-karat gold at $3,975.

One Elsa Peretti snake hair band of eighteen-karat gold at $510.

One eighteen-karat gold choker set with diamonds at $16,500.

One pear-shaped diamond pendant set in platinum with an eighteen-inch chain of eighteen-karat gold at $3,500.

One emerald-cut diamond set in a platinum ring at $34,500.

One pair of eighteen-karat gold earrings with Mobe pearls at $595.

One pair of diamond earrings set in platinum at $1,500.

One rope choker of eighteen-karat yellow and white gold at $2,950.

One bracelet of eighteen-karat pink, yellow, and white gold at $1,250.

And two fourteen-karat gold bangle bracelets at $575 each.

In addition to the jewelry stolen from the box, she told them she was missing from the dresser drawer itself an Elsa Peretti bean-shaped bag of twenty-four-karat gold lacquered with magnolia wood at $2,500 and a Chopard bracelet-watch of eighteen-karat gold set with diamonds at $14,500. She had kept the watch in the original case it had come in; the case was still in the drawer, a black velvet exterior, a white satin lining—but the watch was gone. She knew the value of the jewelry Craig had given her because they had recently made an insurance appraisal on all of it.

“But not on his jewelry?” Carella asked.

“Yes, his, too. But we had to get separate policies because we aren’t married. I was only familiar with what mine came to.”

“And what was that, offhand?” Hawes asked.

“Offhand, it was exactly eighty-three thousand four hundred and thirty dollars.”

“That’s a lot of stuff to have kept loose in a dresser drawer,” Carella said.

“Greg was planning on buying a wall safe,” Hillary said. “Anyway, it was all insured. And besides, the security here is very good. We wouldn’t have taken the apartment if we weren’t promised such tight security.”

“Anything else missing?” Hawes said.

“Was he wearing his college ring?” Hillary asked.

“There was no jewelry on the body.”

“Then that’s missing, too.”

“What college?” Carella asked.

“Holman University. Where he met his former wife.”

“What kind of ring?”

“Gold with an amethyst stone.”

“Where did he wear it?”

“On the ring finger of his right hand.”

Carella remembered the Wounds Chart: Slash wound on inside of ring finger of right hand. Had the killer used the knife to pry the ring loose from Craig’s finger? Had he come into the apartment armed, or had he used a knife he’d found on the premises? If he’d come here specifically to commit a burglary, then how had he got through the “tight” security downstairs? Would Craig have admitted a stranger to the apartment, someone who’d later stolen in excess of $83,000 worth of jewelry and killed him before leaving? But Hillary Scott insisted it was not a burglar.

“The flux is strongest in this room,” she said. She walked to the desk facing the windows and put her hands on its surface. “He was here at the desk.”

“He?”

“A male spirit,” she said, running her hands lightly over the desktop. “Young. Black hair and brown eyes.” Her own eyes were closed; her hands flitted lightly over the surface of the desk; she swayed as she spoke. “Searching for something. Seeking. Restless. A restless spirit.”