(Not Quite) Dead and Buried      (Not Quite) Dead and Buried

 by MR

  

 Author's website: http://www.geocities.com/unhingedds/

 Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, but it's fun to mess with their
heads.

 Author's Notes: 

 Story Notes: 

 

 

 (Not Quite) Dead and Buried
 By MR 

 "Frase?" 

 "Yes, Ray?" 

 "Do you believe in ghosts?" 

 We're sitting side by side on the couch in my apartment watching some
stupid slasher movie (Friday the 13th: Part 86?). Makes you hungry for
Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price; real actors who knew that real terror is
more than just blood and guts and gore. 

 I glance over at Fraser; he's staring into the distance with a faraway
look in his eyes. Damn, he's gone abstracted on me again. He does that any
time I ask him a question he has to think about before answering; gets
this vacant look in his eyes that says he's off in Fraserland; that icy,
snow-covered place in his mind he goes when Chicago and the noise and the
dirt and the shit get to be too much for him. 

 I know, I know. Abstracted. Pretty big word for a skinny Pollack cop who
dropped outta college, huh? Scares me sometimes; not just that I actually
find myself using the words, but that I know what they mean. 

 Such is life in Fraserland. 

 I give him a dig with my elbow. "You gonna answer or you plan on sitting
there all night with your mouth open catching flies?" 

 He looks at me, something I can't quite place in those dark blue eyes
"I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't seen some strange things in my life,
Ray." 

 That's Fraser-Speak for, "Yes, Ray, I do." 

 I nod and stare at the TV a minute; a pair of brain-dead teenage kids are
about to get whacked by insensate evil. Sort of like police work, except
our bodies don't get up and go home at the end of the day. They go
downstairs to Mort, and we get to spend our time trying to find whatever
sicko decided that lobotomizing someone with an ice pick is a really neat
way to kill them. 

 "Wanna hear a ghost story?" The words are out of my mouth before I
realize I'm going to say them. Damn, damn, damn!! I did 'not' mean to say
that! 

 He looks at me, one eyebrow raised. "You know ghost stories?" 

 "Well, not Louuuu Skagnetti-type ghost stories," I say, and we smile,
remembering that night in the park. "It's more sort of a true ghost
story." 

 That surprises him. "You've seen ghosts?" 

 "That's the thing. I've never been sure whether they were real or not.
Could've just been the pressure of the case. But let's be literal and go
with seeing ghosts. I once had six of them follow me around for nearly two
months." 

 I've got his attention now. He shifts sideways so he's facing me. "Tell
me about it," he says, his voice soft; almost like he knows how long I've
been holding this inside, how many times I've wished I could discuss it
with someone. Except before he came along, the only people I could've
discussed it with would've either laughed in my face or sent me to see the
department shrink. Probably both. 

 I was working at the 13th in Homicide then. Been a Detective for all of
three years, and I figured I'd seen just about everything: Kids killing
their parents for insurance money, husbands (or wives) killing their wives
(or husbands) so they could run off with their boyfriends /girlfriends,
guys who thought it was perfectly okay that they'd 86'd their main squeeze
"Cause she was cheating on me, man!" I'd pretty much lost my shine, but I
hadn't been in the game long enough to go completely stone cold. 

 I'm still not stone cold, thank God. The day I go stone cold is the day I
eat my gun. 

 I was working alone; my last partner had transferred to vice, and TPTB
couldn't find anyone green enough that they could force him to partner up
with Crazy Kowalski. I've wondered, sometimes, if having a partner
would've changed things. 

 Got a call one morning; a construction crew doing work on the site for a
new mall had dug up something out-of-the-ordinary. Place where they were
working had been a residential neighborhood back in the 60s, one of those
family-type, downtown areas that disappeared when the suburbs began to
spring up. Everyone who lived there had either moved away or died, and the
buildings stood vacant for quite a while before someone bought the land
with an eye towards making some money. They were knocking down the few
houses still standing when they found the bodies. 

 Bodies. As in six of them, buried deep in what had once been the back
yard of a two-story white frame house. Dead long enough that nothing
remained but their bones and a few scraps of clothes. Wasn't the worst
part though. 

 Worst part was that they were kids. The ME at the 13th figured the oldest
one had been maybe 11 or 12, the youngest about four. Three girls and
three boys. The sort of case that makes you go "Oh shit," and wish you'd
become a doctor like your parents wanted. 

 We tried to keep it wrapped up tight; you always try to keep homicides
involving kids wrapped tight because they tend to bring out the parent in
everyone. The media scooped us anyway and the case ended up plastered all
over the front page and the six o'clock news. But for once, that
journalistic zeal to find out what's going on right this minute worked in
our favor. Because a woman from one of the newspapers went off on her own
and researched everything she could find; old maps, city directories,
school and church records, you name it, she probably looked at it.
Essentially she did my work for me; but because she didn't have a
half-dozen other cases to juggle, she found the information long before I
got a chance to get started. And all of a sudden one morning our six
skeletons had names and faces. 

 And that's when the ghosts showed up. 

 Eddie, Oliver, Sheryl, Clara, Max and Bridget Henninger. Parents were
Mike and Carol Henninger; in their early 20s, married going on five years.
They'd moved into the house on Ashcroft Circle when Eddie was four and
Oliver two. Mike worked at a meatpacking plant (the same one my old man
worked at, I later discovered). Carol did the typical McCarthy-era June
Cleaver thing; stayed at home and took care of their rapidly growing
family. 

 Maybe it was the fact she'd found school pictures of the kids (turned out
Bridget was five and had started Kindergarten that fall) that made the
ghosts come. Before they'd just been faceless, nameless piles of bones.
Now they had names and ages, and parents, and a two-page article full of
information from school records that Dianna Coster (the newspaper writer)
had unearthed. So we knew that Eddie, 12, was 'very serious about his
class work, which is always done in a timely manner.' Oliver, 10, was 'a
bit of a daydreamer; he shows promise but tends to have trouble staying
focused on the task at hand.' Sheryl and Clara, the twins, were eight,
'they lag behind others their age, due, I suspect, to their attachment to
each other-separation into different classes may be advisable.' Max, who
was seven, 'displays an intelligence far beyond his age level; we're
looking into the possibility of getting testing done.' And Bridget, the
baby, 'works and plays well with others; she enjoys story time and has
learned to write her first name.' 

 The night after the story appeared in the paper I had my first dream. The
dreams remained the same during the two months I worked on the case; I was
always somewhere dark and quiet, except for the sound of something (water?
blood?) dripping in the background. And they'd all six be standing there
like they were in line-up: Eddie holding Bridget in his arms, neatly
dressed, the girls' hair done up in pony-tails (except for Bridget, who
had braids). They never said anything, but that was okay because from the
first dream on I knew what they wanted: For me to find who killed them and
bring them to justice. Never mind that the statue of limitations on their
murders had probably run out years ago; they were kids, not criminal
lawyers. Their lives had been snuffed out before they'd even begun, and
somewhere out there whoever had done it was still alive. It was up to me
to give them peace. 

 The Lieu at the 13th agreed that working the media angle was our best
bet. In exchange for vague promises of exclusives, several of the papers
printed notices in which we asked anyone who'd known the Henninger's when
they lived on Ashcroft Circle to please contact us immediately; stressing
that solving the case was going to depend on any information we could get
from people who'd known the family and might have a clue as to what
happened, however small. 

 The ghosts, meanwhile, had set up housekeeping. It got to the point,
after the initial shock wore off, that I could go several hours without
really 'noticing' them. Kind of like a blind spot in your vision; after a
while you just get used to it and it only bothers you when it prevents you
from seeing something. Even when I wasn't looking at them I still knew
they were there, grim and silent. 

 Surprisingly, we got a few good leads. Within a week, I'd been to a
nearby retirement home to talk to Mrs. Elnora Norris; she, her husband
Lee, and their three sons had lived in the house next door to Henninger's
when they moved in. Elnora, who was in her mid -70s, remembered them well.
"A nice young couple. Two little babies, and of course she was expecting
the twins when they moved in. They kind of kept to themselves, rather
standoffish actually, though she and the children joined the Methodist
Church. Eddie was a year behind our youngest boy Davey in school. Mr.
Henninger worked odd hours, but a lot of men in the neighborhood worked at
the packing plant too. And Carol would always come over and gossip if she
happened to be outside when I was hanging up clothes. The twins were a big
surprise and she was sick quite a bit while carrying them. Peggy Delong,
who lived across the street, used to baby-sit Eddie and Oliver for her." 

 Peggy Delong, I discovered, had died in 1973; she'd been a widow with
grown children when she lived in Ashcroft Circle. I talked to Elnora's
sons, and it was from Davey (now David Norris, co-owner with his brothers,
of Norris Consulting) that I got the first inkling all had not been
sweetness and light at 352 Ashcroft Circle. 

 "It seemed to me his father was hard on Eddie; he never got to come out
when the guys in the neighborhood decided to play stickball or football or
something. Never said much, but I sort of got the feeling he was expected
to watch the younger kids. I can't imagine why; I don't think their mother
ever left the house, except to go to the church and the market. They
didn't even have a car when they first moved in, Mr. Henninger used to
ride the bus to work. Didn't get a car until right before they moved." 

 "Wait a minute," I held up a hand. "They moved?" 

 He nodded. "In the fall of 1961. I distinctly remember Mrs. Henninger
telling my mother they were moving back east where her family lived. They
took the kids out of school and there was a big moving van came one day to
take away the furniture. And when we got up the next morning they were
gone. Mama thought it was strange that they left without saying good-bye,
but they'd never been really friendly to start with." 

 I'd thanked him for his help and left the building to find the Henninger
kids waiting for me on the sidewalk outside. It was a rotten day, rainy
and cold, and I remember standing there looking at them and saying, "It
was your parents, wasn't it? Either one of them or both?" Course they
didn't answer me, but I was pretty sure I was on to something. 

 The question now was where back east? Could've been anywhere from Maine
to Florida, though I had this idea that if it'd been Florida she would've
said 'south'. Which left us with the New England states. On the other
hand, she might have been lying. For all we knew they could have gone
west, north, or halfway round the world to Borneo. 

 So we put out APB's to all the police stations we could in the east, and
the west and north too just to be on the safe side. Sort of like looking
for a needle in a haystack, but the FBI database wasn't up and running
back then; it's not like we could switch on a computer, tap in and find
anyone in the US in a few minutes. I tried to explain that to the kids,
but they weren't impressed. Stella had moved into the guest bedroom; she
refused to sleep with me until I saw a doctor about the nightmares I was
having. Not that I ever gave her any particulars and I'm positive she
never saw the Henninger kids; otherwise, the marriage would've ended right
then and there, instead of dragging on for another two years. 

 Just when I'd resigned myself to the Henninger's being a permanent part
of my life, we got another lead. 

 It started with a call from a State Trooper in Maine concerning a small
town named Partridgeville. He remembered a couple named Henninger moving
there in the mid-70s when he'd been a teenager. 

 His name was Sam Roberts, and I spent almost an hour on the phone with
him that afternoon. "They were a strange pair," he said, with that
peculiar twang that characterizes the New England area. "My dad was town
Sheriff and he hauled Mr. Henninger in at least once a week for being
drunk out of his mind." 

 "So he drank a lot?" 

 "Almost constantly. I think he hit town dead drunk and didn't sober up
until he got sent to Westcourt." 

 "Westcourt. That's a prison?" 

 "It's a maximum-security psychiatric facility for the criminally insane.
They sent him there after he went berserk and beat Mrs. Henninger to death
with a baseball bat." I winced. "Damnedst thing I ever saw in my life;
took my dad, me and three deputies to get that bat away from him, and he
wasn't that big a guy. Once they got him restrained, we found out he'd
been next door before he came home and beat an old woman who'd been his
wife's best friend to death too. Laura Brisco, her name was; close to 80
and wouldn't have harmed a fly. But she'd gotten Mrs. Henninger involved
with St. Thomas's. Apparently, that's what set the whole thing off." 

 "St. Thomas's?" 

 "The local Catholic church. Mrs. Henninger never went out much; I think
he kept a real close eye on her. But she and Mrs. Brisco got to talking
over the back fence the way women do and Laura invited her to come to
Saturday mass with her. Don't know what religion they were before moving
here, but Mrs. Henninger ended up taking catechism classes and joining the
church. Sent her husband into a flaming fit." 

 "You think he physically abused her?" 

 "I know he did. Dad got called over there at least once a month and
there's she be, with her eyes blacked or her lip swelled up. He'd haul
Mike down to the lock-up and keep him there long as he legally could, but
she'd never press charges so he always had to let him go. Things just
escalated after she joined St. Thomas's. Mike Henninger wasn't real fond
of religion. Not that he hated it, more that he seemed almost afraid of it
if that makes any sense. I know he never set foot in any church in
Partridgeville." 

 "Do you know where he is now?" This was the question I'd been waiting to
ask; I could sense the Henninger kids behind me, hanging on every word. 

 "Still at Westcourt. He was found guilty but insane and sentenced to
life. He's an old man now, but no one's willing to take responsibility for
letting him out. I've got a cousin works there as an orderly, from what he
tells me, Mike's spent almost his entire sentence in isolation. I guess
they tried putting him in a less secure area when he first got there; by
the time evening bell came two guys were dead and another one was in the
infirmary." He gave a barking laugh. "Truth to tell my cousin's scared of
the guy. Says he's got the devil in him for sure." 

 By the time I hung up the phone, I knew just where in Northern
Massachusetts Westcourt was and had talked to the head doctor and obtained
permission to interview Mike Henninger. 

 "Not that I think it'll do you much good, Mr. Kowalski. The man's a true
psychotic; if not for the fact we have isolation I'd be inclined to ship
him somewhere he'd never see the light of day again." 

 That struck me as such an odd comment I had to ask about it. Dr. Olivetti
sighed. "I've only been head psychiatrist here for a few months; I
inherited Mr. Henninger from my predecessor, Dr. Termain. Termain's the
one who had him put in isolation when he first came here. To be quite
frank, Detective, I think justice would have been better served if someone
had shot him through the heart and thrown his body to the wolves." 

 And though I couldn't see them, I knew the Henninger kids were all
nodding agreement to that statement. 

 I was on a flight to Massachusetts the next morning; courtesy of three
vacation days I had coming and paying for my own ticket. The Lieu couldn't
see what good it would do "To go to the middle of nowhere and talk to some
senile old maniac. Christ Kowalski, even if he did kill them, it's not
like he'd be charged with it." 

 "It's the principal of the thing, sir," I said. It was easy enough for
him to not care; he didn't have the Henninger kids hanging around his neck
like six albatrosses. 

 I flew the last leg of the flight on a small private plane, finally
setting down at an airport outside the town of Westchester. Despite their
size, they had car rentals available, and within a half hour of landing I
was on the highway heading towards the even smaller town of Burlington.
The Westcourt Facility stood just outside the city limits. 

 By now they'd been with me so long I'd taken to talking to the Henninger
kids like I would've a partner, bouncing ideas off them, soliciting their
opinions. Not that they ever answered me, but I can truthfully say that
while I might have been lonely, I was never alone. 

 "You guys are gonna help me, right? Cause I'm assuming that if I can see
you, he'll have no trouble seeing you either. So maybe seeing you'll shock
him into confessing. Or maybe seeing his six dead kids in his isolation
cell along with a Chicago cop with experimental hair will give him a heart
attack. Then he'll be dead and you can deal with him in the afterlife." I
didn't bother to ask how all seven of us fit into a car designed for four;
I'd quit speculating over how the Henninger's did their magic early on. 

 Westcourt looked nothing like I'd expected. If not for the 20-foot high
chain-link fence with the barbed wire coiled on top, you wouldn't have
known it wasn't some rest home for the rich and easily upset. It wasn't
until you got closer that you realized the place was a prison of an
entirely different kind. 

 The guards at the gate looked at me sort of strange (I wondered, briefly,
if they could see the Henninger's too), but they called and buzzed me in,
saying that Dr. Olivetti would meet me in the front foyer. The long,
scenic road ended in the parking lot in front, where a young lady with a
gun the size of a bazooka assigned me a parking space. Another guard
waited at the door; I had to be buzzed in by someone inside. 

 Rather like Westcourt, Dr Olivetti looked nothing like what I'd expected.
He was a small, gray-haired man with a moustache and wire-rimmed glasses;
put me in mind of Einstein. He greeted me cordially and took me into his
office, to "Have a little talk before I set you loose amongst the wolves."


 "Detective Kowalski," he said, once he'd positioned himself on the other
side of his massive oak desk, "Exactly why are you here?" 

 "I told you last night on the phone, sir; digging in Chicago uncovered
the bodies of six children who were positively identified as belonging to
Mike and Carol Henninger." 

 "I know that." He waved a hand in the air. "But what do you hope to
accomplish? Even if you can get him to confess to the murders, I know
enough about the law to have realized the statute of limitations on this
crime is long past. And that's assuming you could talk the state of
Massachusetts into extraditing him back to Illinois. There's got to be
something more personal going on." 

 For just a second I considered telling him about being haunted by the
Henninger kids. On the other hand, I'm not so stupid I'd make a confession
like that to psychiatrist in an institution for the criminally insane.
"It's the principal of the thing, sir," I said, echoing what I'd told the
Lieu. "I've had this case hanging over my head for two months now. We
need...what it is you call it, closure here?" He nodded. "That's why I'm
here. I have to see this man and get some sort of closure. I hope I can
get him to confess, but even if I can't, at least I'll know then I've done
everything I can." 

 He gave a slight smile. "I can understand that. Tell me, have they buried
the children's bodies yet?" 

 "No sir; they've been waiting until all leads were exhausted." 

 "So irregardless of what Mr. Henninger tells you, if, in fact, he tells
you anything, they'll likely bury the bodies when you return?" 

 I hadn't really thought about that; it occurred to me he was probably
right. "I imagine they will, yes." 

 Again that small slight smile. "Very well, Detective. If you'll follow
me." 

 I'd never actually been inside a prison before, but even I knew enough to
realize what I was looking at here wasn't your average prison. 

 Too clean for starters. And while most prison guards are fairly
impressive guys, they aren't built like pro-football linebackers. 

 "Do you have any women working here?" I asked Dr. Olivetti, as we went
through yet another set of double-bolted doors. 

 "Not many. The few we do have are more than capable of taking care of
themselves. Despite how it looks from the outside, Detective, Westcourt is
not a nice place. Most of the felons here won't be seeing the outside
world again in their lifetime, unless some idiot gets it in their head
that they're innocent. We had a couple of cases like that before I came
here; some lawyer deciding, based on court transcripts and the likes, that
the person had been 'unfairly imprisoned.' In both cases, they managed to
get the men released." 

 "What happened?" 

 He stopped before a set of reinforced steel doors that wouldn't have
looked out of place in an industrial warehouse. "One of them, I believe,
is now living a peaceful life somewhere in Vermont. The other celebrated
his release by killing six people; none of them, unfortunately, the judge
that was responsible for unleashing him on an unsuspecting public.
Needless to say, I doubt anyone will be speaking positively at his next
parole hearing. This is Isolation." 

 We'd gone through the first set of reinforced doors, a smaller door made
of the plexiglass they made riot-shields out of (0which apparently worked
on some sort of voice-print system), and a second set of doors identical
to the first. If I'd thought the outside had been white it was nothing
compared to this place. 

 Everything was padded. Walls, floors, ceilings; hell, even the outsides
of the doors had padding on them (so, I found out, did the insides). I'd
been thoroughly frisked when I came through the front door and relieved of
everything on my person, including my comb. Now a guy who could've been a
close relative of King Kong's did it again, far less gently. He also
frisked Dr. Olivetti, who grinned at me. "No one is above suspicion here,
Detective Kowalski. Not even the help." 

 Having assured himself I retained nothing but my clothing and what little
pride I had left, the guy moved to one side. Dr. Olivetti rummaged in his
jacket pocket and came out with a ring of keys. "Before you go in,
Detective, let me tell you how things work here. This entire area is
soundproofed and padded. And you'll notice the padding is smooth with no
seams?" I nodded. "We used to have the kind with seams in it; one
particularly dedicated inmate managed to pick a hole in it and cave his
skull in on the brick wall underneath. Each room is wired for sound and
has four video cameras." 

 I glanced around. "Where's the control room?" 

 "Ah, that would be telling. Suffice to say it's closer than you think.
Additionally, the inmate is put in restraints when they have visitors. So
what you're going to find when I open the door is Mr. Henninger sitting on
the floor of a bare room in a straightjacket. Arnold here," he gestured at
King Kong Jr., "will remain right outside the door and you'll be monitored
constantly." 

 I gave him a careful look. "I thought that sort of stuff was against the
law. Cruel and unusual punishment." 

 He was toying with a blue-marked key. "I imagine it is in more civilized
parts of the world, Mr. Kowalski. Of course last time I checked,
repeatedly raping and eventually beating to death your wife, her 82 year
old mother, your 14 and six year old daughters, and your 12-year-old
stepson was also against the law. If you want, I can have Arnold take you
down the hall and introduce you to that gentleman?" 

 I shook my head. "Didn't think so. If you could please stand back." He
put the key in the lock, but instead of just turning it once he turned it
in a series of motions, as if he were working a padlock. Eventually there
was a faint click and the store opened about 1/4 of an inch. "Mr.
Henninger?" Dr. Olivetti pulled the door open just far enough that we
could slip in. "Mr. Henninger, you have company." 

 The lighting in the room was so bright it was almost painful; it took my
eyes a minute to adjust enough that I could see the old man huddled in one
corner. 

 I don't know what I'd been expecting. Jack the Ripper I guess, given what
he'd done to his children, his wife and the next-door neighbor. What I
hadn't expected was the brittle, dried-up twig of an old man huddled in a
corner. His head had been almost completely shaved, but he had a couple
days razor stubble. He was flinging himself from side to side, all the
while chanting something in a monotone.
"takeemawaytakeemawaytakeemawaytakeemaway..." He stared at me with wild
eyes, and I remembered what Steve Roberts had said him having the devil in
him. It was still there. Maybe not as strong as it had been when he was
younger, but it was still there. 

 "You have 15 minutes, Detective Kowalski. Make your peace." Dr. Olivetti
walked past me and I heard the door click closed. 

 I glanced at the Henninger kids standing against the wall furthest from
their father, and realized with a shock that they seemed more 'real. Less
like the lost souls they were and closer to actual flesh and blood. 

 I looked at the old man, who'd stopped his screeching and was staring at
the wall as well, eyes wide, and it clicked into place. "You can see them
too, can't you?" 

 His head whipped back around. "Don't know how you got'em here, damn
worthless pups, but take'em the hell away now." 

 "Sorry, Mike, I can't do that." I moved over to lean against the wall by
the door. "It's funny, really. Here these last two months I thought they
were my ghosts; but they've been your's all along, haven't they?" 

 "Don't know what yer talkin' 'bout." 

 "Do you see Carol and the other woman...Laura? Are they here too? Maybe
been waiting a while because they knew the kids were coming? They knew it
and so did you. And you know why they're here don't you?" He was shaking
his head no. "Evil eventually turns on itself, Mike. You knew that all
along. That's why you killed Carol and Laura; because you were afraid they
were going to tell someone. Maybe they already had?" 

 "Damn bitch!" He spit the words out. "I told'er not to get involved with
anyone in that sorry-ass town, told'er to keep to herself, but she never
would listen to me! Never had, not from the very beginning when I tried to
tell her why we couldn't have kids. 'You don't mean that, Michael', she'd
say, an' she just kept turn'em out like a sow with piglets." 

 "Why couldn't you have kids, Michael?" I hazarded a glance at the
Henninger children; they were pretty much complete. Eddie had put Bridget
down. Oliver straightened his glasses and I almost let out a relieved
sigh; I'd spent two damn months wanting to push that kid's glasses back up
his nose. 

 "I had to do it, don'tcha see?" He was staring at me, his expression
carefully calculated. "You say I'm evil, Mr. Kowalski, and you're right. I
am. I was born evil and I'll die evil. That's why I killed'em. I could see
it already in Eddie's eyes when he looked at me." 

 "See what?" 

 "Myself. It was better they die young than live the kind of life I'd
lived, do the things I'd done. My mother should've taken a coat hanger and
made sure I never came into the world. I was evil from the womb; giving
birth to me killed her. And after a while nobody tried to take me in as
their own child because they could see the evil too." 

 Something tugged at my arm, and I looked down to meet Bridget's blue
eyes. She was smiling which made me smile back; then she held out her arms
and I picked her up. She leaned forward and kissed the bridge of my nose.
"Thank you." She whispered. 

 I just nodded and sat her down, repeating the same thing with Sheryl and
Clara, except they were too big to pick up. Max and Oliver shook my hand
and thanked me as well; Oliver's glasses were already slipping down his
nose and I gave in to impulse and pushed them back up. He smiled even
wider, then ducked his head shyly. 

 Eddie came last. I'd never realized he was big for his age; he'd seemed
smaller, somehow, when he was still a ghost. He shook my hand firmly.
"Thank you for bring us here, Mr. Kowalski. I'm sorry about the last
couple of months, but you understand why we couldn't speak before now?" I
nodded. "I want to apologize for the nightmares as well; I hope you and
your wife make up." 

 I thought about Stella, how she'd been growing away from me even before
this had happened, but I just smiled and said, "We will, Eddie. Can I ask
you something?" 

 He nodded. 

 "How did he do it? Kill you, I mean? The coroner said there were no marks
on your body." 

 "He poisoned us." This from Oliver who's come over to stand beside Eddie.
"Not all at once but a little bit at a time, so we got sicker and sicker."


 "And nobody in the neighborhood noticed?" 

 Eddie shrugged. "We weren't allowed to talk to anyone, Mr. Kowalski. If
we made friends he'd just sit us down and lecture us about how evil we
were going to be when we grew up, so we might as well get used to being
alone now." 

 I look past the six of them, fair-haired and blue eyed, at the wild man
against the far wall. "They look like their mother don't they?" 

 He starts to say something, decides against it, and simply shakes his
head. 

 "Mr. Kowalski?" It's Bridget. Her smile's gone and her clear blue eyes
are clouded. "We're not evil, are we, Mr. Kowalski?" 

 "Oh no." I pick her up and hug her. "No, no, Bridget, none of you are
evil." 

 She glances at her father, who shrinks backs. "But what we're going to do
to him is bad," she says worriedly. 

 "Hey, what'd I tell you?" Eddie takes her out of my arms and swings her
over his head. "What we have to do to him is divine justice." 

 "Like God." Max offers. 

 "Yeah, like God." 

 She frowns, obviously puzzled. "But why can't God do it and let us go
ahead and see Momma?" 

 "Cause God's very busy, Pigeon," Sheryl (or maybe it's Clara) comes over
and straightens her braids. "He can't do everything; sometimes he has to
send..." she looks at her twin, "what's the word, Clare?" 

 "Divine agents," Clara says solemnly. 

 "Right. Sometimes he has to send divine agents." 

 "And divine agents can't be evil," Max is missing a front tooth, which
makes him lisp slightly. "That's why they're called divine." 

 "SHUT THE FUCKING HELL UP!!!" Mike's scream probably just broke glass in
the control room. It makes my ears ring; though the children seem unfazed.
"Divine agents my ass! You're no more divine than..." 

 Bridget marches over to him and, before he can get the words out, smacks
him so hard my ears ring again. "Stop that," She says, in her soft
little-girl voice. "Blaspheming His name isn't going to make it any
easier" 

 "Momma!!" The shout goes up simultaneously, and I look towards where
they're gathering around a fragile, care-worn woman with graying hair.
Carol's finally arrived. 

 I check my watch, realizing my 15 minutes are almost up, and make my way
over to the knot of children. "Mrs. Henninger?" 

 She looks up and I find myself staring into the children's eyes; blue as
a summer's day. She smiles slightly and holds out her hands. "Detective
Kowalski. I understand you've been taking care of them these last few
months?" 

 I shake my head. "Not like it was that hard a job, ma'am." 

 "Don't give me that," she says gently, touching my cheek. "I'm their
mother, Detective. Even on a good day they're a handful." 

 I look at the smiling children and her, then over at the frantic man
trying to burrow his way into the wall. "My times almost up, Mrs.
Henninger. And you and the children have a job to do." 

 She smiles sadly, nodding. "It wasn't all bad, Mr. Kowalski. There were
times it was actually almost good." She looks at her children and her eyes
shadow. "At least until he sent them away." 

 A few minutes later the door pops open; Arnold and Dr. Olivetti are
standing there panting. "Mr. Kowalski! Thank God you're all right!" 

 "Why wouldn't I be?" 

 "Because we lost audio and video shortly after you went into the room.
And the lock was frozen; it's taken me almost 15 minutes to get it
undone." He glances past me at Mike Henninger, who's bucking and twisting
on the padded cell floor as if trying to shake something off, his constant
litany of "pleasenopleasenopleasenopleasenopleaseno!!" almost drown out by
the inhuman screeching of something only I can see. "What's wrong with
him?" 

 "I think he's having a fit," I offer, not bothering to turn around.
Viewing divine justice in action once is more than enough to last me the
rest of my life. "You might want to do something before he strokes." 

 I smile at Arnold as the good Doctor fumbles in his jacket pockets and
pulls out a cell phone. "Could you show me the way out?" 

 I follow him down the hall, Mike Henninger's screams echoing off the
walls in chorus to the sound of six happy children and their mother
laughing, celebrating being together again after far too many years spent
apart. 

 For a long minute, Fraser and I sit there in silence. 

 "You don't believe me, do you?" I try not to let the disappointment show
in my voice. 

 "I never said I didn't believe you." He interrupts my pity-party by
touching the side of my face. "If you say you spent two months with the
ghosts of six children following you around then you did." 

 "How can you be so sure?" I don't know why I always feel the need to
challenge his faith in me; maybe because I still can't quite believe he's
here in Chicago with me and not up north where he belongs. 

 "Because you're an honorable man, Ray Kowalski. It's part of why I love
you so much." 

 "Oh." As always, his ease in admitting it makes me feel like the jerk I
probably am. "Okay, then." 

 "Did you miss them?" 

 It's my turn to look at him askance; he's got the same lost look in his
eyes he had earlier. "Yeah, I did." It feels good to admit it after so
long. "Didn't miss the nightmares, but I wish I could've gotten to know
them better before they had to leave." He nods as if he knows exactly what
I'm talking about. And maybe he does, freak that he is. "Your turn now," I
say. 

 "My turn for what?" 

 "You said you believed in ghosts." 

 He looks genuinely surprised. "I did?" 

 "Well, not exactly those words, but trust me, I've been translating
Fraser-speak long enough to know what you meant." 

 He studies me a moment, then a grin steals across his face. "Louuuu
Skagnetti..." 

 I smack him, but I'm laughing too hard for it to have much impact. "Not
'those' kind of ghosts, you dim-witted Mountie!" 

 He's very close now, close enough that I can see him even with my eyes
closed, close enough that I can smell him without having to inhale. "I
love you, Ray Kowalski." 

 "You'd better," I answer, leaning in to steal the first kiss of the
night. 

 FIN 

End (Not Quite) Dead and Buried by MR: psykaos42@yahoo.com

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