Chapter 5
Earhardt Private School...
San Francisco, CA
"Aw... come on, Kat... Honey," Rachel cooed as she nudged her car through after school traffic. She switched on her "beguiling" face and glanced over at her daughter. "I know I promised we'd go shopping, but I was supposed to meet David for lunch. I had problems with a patient and had to stand him up."
"So it's 'suck-up' time?" Kat asked peevishly.
"No...," Rachel countered. "It's 'I'm sorry and I still want to have lunch with you' time.... So... I called the station. He's out at some grocery store... around Forty-nineth and Fulton... on a case. I thought we could take a picnic and surprise him.... Maybe drive down to the zoo for an hour or so.... It's not that far... or that late. Wouldn't that be fun!"
"The zoo! No way!" Kat exclaimed in horror. "I'm not a kid... Mom.... I'm way over fuzzy, little animals."
Rachel sighed. "Well... I'm not over fuzzy, little animals... nor is David. It's Friday, so you and I can go shopping afterwards... and I'll take a look at those leather pants you were raving about. If they're too 'old' for you... maybe those boots or a pass at the cosmetics counter. Will that make amends?"
At the thought of the mall and her mother's open wallet, Kat's mood instantly lightened. She knew the pants would never pass inspection, but those boots... with their two-inch stacked heels... would leave Mandy Parker green with envy. Still, no sense tipping off her mom too soon.... She might be able to wring some more concessions out of her.
"...And can I go over to Amy's... to show her what I got... listen to some music... maybe spend the night?"
Rachel was not fond of Amy Harrison... too abrasively sarcastic as only a fourteen-year-old girl can be... and Nadine would be be left alone... not a good idea... not yet. "What about Nadine?... She's our guest.... We've got to make her feel welcome.... Let's do something that can include her."
"Yeah... OK...," Kat conceded. Nadine would be able to teach her how to "really" walk in those boots, with their higher, tinier heel. Mom would teach "ladylike".... Nadine would teach "Sell it, baby!"
< < + > >
Fulton Street...
"There's David!" Rachel couldn't conceal the eagerness in her voice. She stopped the car in the middle of the street. "David!... Over here!" she called out, waving and tooting the horn... missing the scornful glance from her daughter.
"Mothers!" Kat shrank down as the driver behind blasted them with his own horn. Would her mom never stop embarrassing her?
Rachel hurriedly pulled into the supermarket's parking lot and waited as Det. David Royce trotted over.
"Hi... ladies," he said in a chipper tone. "This is a pleasant surprise."
"Mom's idea... a picnic at the zoo," the teenager spouted and was rewarded with Rachel's blush. Kat liked Det. Royce, whom she considered a step up from the 'geeks' her mother usually seemed to attract. "Has there been a murder or something? Is the body still here?" she asked, wide-eyed. Tales of blood and gore never failed to impress Amy... or to gross out Mandy.
Royce glanced at Rachel and received a nod. "There was a death... that had some unexplained elements... just loose ends. An elderly lady had a coronary down at the beach. Her daughter thought she saw someone... an old man... dressed old-fashioned... but she didn't get a good enough look to work with an artist. Frankly, I'm not sure she saw anything.... She was upset... you know?... So, I thought I'd give this a shot... just to rule it out.... A vagrant would likely be collecting cans and plastic bottles to get a little cash.... This is the closest recycling center.... You never know.
"How 'bout a burger and fries instead of a picnic?" David suggested. "There's a pretty good burger joint on the south side of Golden Gate Park. They get a lot of the beach crowd and dog walkers.... Two birds with one stone. Scoot over... I'll drive," he said as opened the car door and slid behind the wheel.
"The beach crowd?" Rachel repeated the words. She glanced around, and for the first time noted the area without her mind being on her search for the detective. She suddenly realised how close they were to the beach... Ocean Beach. Her mind had so been on her rendezvous that the Legacy's case had flitted away. An unwelcome thought niggled at the back of her mind. "What exactly did the old woman's daughter see?" she whispered, then noticed that Kat had slipped on her earphones and wouldn't hear anything else... probably for the rest of the afternoon.... A screaming banshee would be ignored. She and Royce could talk without fear.
"She was confused," the detective answered as he turned left onto the highway called the Great Way. "We thought maybe a vagrant.... She talked about an old man... and mist... but she wasn't sure what she saw." He glanced at Rachel and read her thoughtful expression. "Don't tell me...."
"It's probably a coincidence," she said slowly, "but we were investigating a recent apparition on Ocean Beach... an old man... shabbily dressed... dressed old-fashioned."
Royce groaned. "An apparition?... I don't think I'll be putting that in my report."
< < + > >
Ocean Beach Grille...
Rachel scanned the eatery.... It was not exactly what she'd have chosen. It was, indeed, a "burger joint". Rock and roll blasted from an old, Wurlitzer jukebox. With a candy pink scarf tied around her ponytail, the woman behind the counter looked as though she'd been there since the heyday of the Big Bopper. Rachel asked for a menu and was treated to a sneer... by "Tammy".
"See the board up there?..." Tammy snapped her gum and pointed to the blackboard above the order window. "That's it... lady...."
Kat stifled a giggle, while Royce covered his amusement by giving his dark, windblown hair a dignified brush back into place. "I'll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a banana shake," Kat declared.
"Make that twice, but with coffee," the detective seconded.
Rachel shuddered. "David... a cheeseburger?... At your age?... What's your cholesterol level?" she asked. "I'll have a salad... no dressing... iced tea."
"Lady...," the woman countered, pointing again to the board. "We don't got no salads."
"Well...," said Rachel. "You've got lettuce and tomatoes that you put on the burgers, don't you? Give me a burger with lettuce and tomato, but hold the meat."
"Whatever," the woman responded with another snap of her gum.
* * *
Bearing their cardboard trays, the threesome found a relatively clean table outside, sheltered by the building from the prevailing wind. They sat back to enjoy the gentle warmth of the afternoon sun.
"You know... we're not too far from Lincoln Park," Rachel said as she played with her wilting "salad," resting on its sesame seed bun... which tasted of griddle grease. "How about we go to the Palace of the Legion of Honor. You'll love it, Kat.... There are lots of sculptures... the original of Rodin's the Thinker
is there in the courtyard... and a fabulous collection of European art."Kat remembered a fifth-grade field trip there and was doubtful that she'd "love" the place any more now than then, but she knew she'd overstepped the mark with her mother, so it was her own "suck up" time. "That'll be great, Mom," she agreed.
Royce nodded, quietly pleased he had a report to file... and so, a good excuse for escaping the after school, educational excursion. As he leaned back against his chair, something hard stabbed him in his hip pocket. He stood to extract the offending object... a piece of carved marble that he'd absent-mindedly deposited there.
"What's that?" Kat asked, reaching for the stone.
"I found it on the beach," Royce explained. "It's carved.... See... It almost looks like a flower."
Kat took hold of the warm stone and stared at the image, which resembled a wild rose. Despite the physical warmth from having been in the detective's pocket, the stone "felt" cold... so cold. Suddenly black-and-white images and distorted sounds cascaded through her mind... tombstones... the pounding of sledge hammers... unearthly wails of loss and grief. She dropped the stone onto the metal table... fearful of what might come next.
"What's wrong, Sweetie?" Rachel asked, alarmed at the stark whiteness that had swept across her daughter's face. She brushed back the girl's blond hair and felt her cheek.
"Noth... nothing...," Kat stammered, shaking off the hand. "Let's go... please."
Rachel picked up the discarded stone and ran her thumb over its rough edges.
"Mom...." Kat's voice was small and frightened. "Look."
They all turned to see an old man, standing beside the table... actually... to see through an old man, standing beside the table.... He looked down at them. The cold surrounding him... spreading from him was intense. The table began to shake violently, Styrofoam cups and paper wrappers were swept upward in a gust of cold, musty wind. The security light at the corner of the building suddenly flared on, then burst, sending shattered glass across the patio.
A wasted hand grabbed the rock from Rachel and brought it close to the decayed face. Black eyes examined it. Then the apparition hurled the rock towards a car window. "Not mine!... Where's mine?..." he howled in anguish. "Where's my place?"
< < + > >
Angel Island... evening
Rachel sat on the sitting room's small, overstuffed couch with Kat curled in the crook of her arm. They had collected in there in the coziest, cheeriest, most intimate room in the entire house. It, more than any other room, exuded a feeling of safety. Nick sat across from them, while Alex sat on the floor at their feet. Rachel occasionally sipped from a large cup of coffee as she told them about the incident at the Ocean Beach Grille.
Nick carefully watched Kat, who sat playing with her hair... hiding behind her hair... unwilling to meet anyone's eyes.
"Kiddo, did you 'see' anything?" he asked quietly.
Why can't I be normal, Kat wondered with no small amount of pain and anger. "I don't want to be 'special'," she muttered to herself, wishing Derek was there. I could talk to him... he understands. Alex has her "Sight" and says she understands, but her "Sight's" not the same.... Somehow, it's different... weaker, maybe?... Warmer... not as scary?.... Not as overwhelming.... Not as weird.... She raised her head to gaze directly into Nick's eyes and declared, "No!"
Rachel squeezed her daughter's shoulder and took her hand. "Are you sure, Honey? Nothing at all? We all saw something."
"I didn't see anything that made sense," Kat conceded petulantly. "It was weird... jumbles of stuff... but it was too confusing."
Alex too had been watching the child. "Kat... Honey... it's always 'weird'.... Did you 'feel' anything from him?"
"Well... sort of...," she admitted. "I think he's lost... in both ways.... He's lost. He doesn't know how to get where he wants to go... and he's lost something, too... and he's looking for it. He was real creepy... old.... I think he hates people... cause they're warm and he's so cold.... He's lost and no one understands. That's all," she announced, with a tone that informed them they'd get nothing more from her that night.
Rachel squeezed Kat's hand, "OK, Kitty-kat... why don't you go see what Dom's up to.... He said something about making some brownies."
Kat knew that they wanted to indulge in "grown-up talk" and this time she had no desire to be included. She nodded, accepted her mother's kiss, and hurried off to the kitchen.
"An old man... wandering around... looking for something...," Alex mused. "You know... if this had happened a few years ago, I'd be inclined to think of Lincoln Park."
"Why?" Rachel asked, surprised.
"You know that Lincoln Park used to be the Golden Gate Cemetery?" Alex asked.
"I didn't realize," Rachel admitted. "So?... I assume they moved the graves to make way for the park?"
"If only," Alex replied. "There's a belief that San Francisco is so 'spiritually' unsettled because of the mass relocation of the cemeteries. Back when they were clearing them all out and relocating them to Colma, most of the cemeteries were moved, lock, stock, and barrel, but not Golden Gate. It was too big. So, they removed the stones and monuments... broke them up to use for breakwaters, landfills, trenches, and so forth... but the conservative estimate is that at least ten thousand bodies remain."
"So?... What happened a few years back?" the psychiatrist asked.
"Back in the early nineties, they were doing some work on the Palace of the Legion of Honor...," Alex continued, "...repairing damage from the Loma Prieta quake or something. They unearthed about three hundred corpses! We were back and forth dozens of times. Lots of disturbed spirits... angry that their resting place had been damaged."
She paused, in recollection. "Derek channeled many of those spirits... encouraged them to 'move on'."
"Channeled?" Rachel was surprised. "That's a risky process."
"Yeah, tell me 'bout it," Nick growled. "It was right after I came here. It taught me two things about Derek.... He never cut himself any slack and he's the most stubborn SOB under God's creation.... It scared the hell outta me... and when I read some of Pop's journals, I found out it used to scare the hell outta him too."
"My God," Rachel suddenly realised. "I was going to take Kat to the Palace... to see the Rodin sculptures, but with her 'gifts' that's not going to be a good place for her... not if things are active.... But you said this was years ago.... There's been nothing recent?"
"Not that we know of," Alex replied, "but the park isn't that far from the north end of Ocean Beach.... You just take the road down past Sutro Heights Park and Cliff House... and there you are... right at Ocean Beach. The mechanical museum, where 'Laughing Sal' acted up, is right there underneath Cliff House. Maybe we'd better go see the park authorities... find out if they've started any more building or maybe sewer repair."
"I think its about time I got some 'culture'," Nick agreed. He had at last accepted that this was a "real" case. "Alex... you and I can check out the Palace tomorrow... talk to some people... then take a hike around the golf course... check some of the trails.... See if you can pick up anything.... On a Saturday it'll be busy with regulars.... Remember when that guy swore that his golf ball got swallowed by the hole? He rolled it in and when he went to pick it out... poof... no ball.... What hole was that?"
"Three, I think," Alex replied. "We should have Nadine dig out the old newspapers. I think the LA Times did a splash piece when the bodies were found. I'll get our files out and run some searches... and I want to run a scan on Royce's rock. I didn't 'sense' anything from it but a coldness and a sort of anxiety." She ran her thumb over the stone's surface. "It's edges are sharp and rough, so, even though he found it on the beach, it hasn't been exposed to the waves... but this flower... or whatever it is... is kind of worn, so it was exposed to the elements before it was broken. They dumped tons of rubble from the 1906 quake all along the coastline for landfill. Maybe a hiker picked it up... like Royce did... carried it around for a while, then tossed it, like Royce did."
"Yeah," Nick agreed, "or maybe they used stuff like that to widen the beach or for roadbeds. I know they did that in places along the bay, so maybe they did it along the ocean side too."
Rachel yawned and rose to leave. "It's late.... We'd better get home.... I'll tell
Nadine and put her to work on it tomorrow. I can drop her at the main library.... It'll
keep her occupied on a Saturday.... She really is like a bloodhound.... She loves it....
She'll stay till they throw her out."
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