The max porter box set, p.27
The Max Porter Box Set, page 27
Waking up his computer, Max checked the time — 8:27 am. His mother walked over to the windows and opened the blinds. Bright morning light streaked into the office.
“You should be more careful about your work habits,” she went on. “It’s one thing to work all night through when you’re in your twenties, but you’re older now. The body slows down and can’t snap back like it once did. You’ve got to respect that or your body will make you regret it.” She grabbed an empty mug next to the coffee machine and took it to the bathroom sink. “Do you remember Ronald Lewis? Oh, you probably were too young to remember him. He used to come by the house every month or so with a basket of goodies — mostly food but always a toy or two for you. I’m pretty sure he thought he was charming me, but I had no interest. Especially because he didn’t look after himself. Always working hard, talking about driving twelve hours here or seventeen hours there. Whatever it took to get to a potential sale — oh, he was in sales for some assembly line company or something. I don’t know. I never paid too close attention. But that’s not the point. The point is he pushed too hard, and one day, you know what happened?”
She paused, and though Max knew she wanted him to ask, he still needed his morning coffee before he felt like talking. Instead, he borrowed a page from the Dardens — he shrugged.
“Well, I tell you,” Mrs. Porter said, returning with the mug, filling it with steaming coffee, and handing it over to her grateful son. “Ronald Lewis got older and his body said No more. He drove that car so hard, a tire blew out, he lost control and drove right off the side. Flipped the car three or four times and he died before help could arrive.”
Max paused mid-sip. “What? His car tire blew out? What does that have to do with taking care of your body?”
“If he had gotten proper rest, he would have been more thoughtful about making sure his car was in good working order.” She pulled out a bottle of cleaner from under the sink and squirted it on the bathroom mirror.
Max continued to drink his coffee until half was gone. Only then did his brain start to function properly again. He moved a few papers around, organizing his notes, but he kept seeing his mother cleaning the office, and he had to stop.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Clean. You’re not the maid in this outfit.”
She moved from wiping the mirror to the sink. “I don’t mind. Gives me something to do.”
Max walked over to the bathroom and sipped more of his coffee. “You sure? I mean, about all of this. Being here. You left all your friends and your home and everything.”
“I didn’t have many friends anymore, and I gained more than I lost. I’m here with you. Plus, those boys are delightful.”
He watched her clean, unsure how to say what he thought without offending her. “Well, if you change your mind, I mean if you regret your decision, I’d understand.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” She said it playfully, but Max knew all of his mother’s tones. A sharp bite snapped beneath the surface of her voice.
“Not at all.” He returned to his desk, thumbing the paper with E.W. jotted at the top. “I just don’t want you to feel like you made a mistake. You spend all your time here at the office or with the boys, and I don’t see you getting to know anybody else.”
“You mean anybody my own age?”
With a guilty grimace, he said, “Don’t you want to talk with somebody who knows the same things you do? Lived through the same things?”
His mother crossed the office to wrap her arms around him. “Oh, Max. That’s sweet of you to worry, but I’m fine. I’ve only been here a few months. You got to give these things time. I’ll meet some of my peers, don’t fret.” Breaking from the embrace, she whisked on her coat. “I’m going to that lovely little bagel shop on the corner. You need some breakfast.”
As the office door closed, Drummond appeared. “What was that all about? You trying to get rid of her?”
“No.” Max tapped his chin as he stared at the door. He hadn’t meant to imply he wanted her to leave. Rather, he wondered how long she would stay. Her talk of taking care of the body and the fact that most of the people she knew back home were dead had forced Max to consider his mother’s mortality.
Then why was I making it sound like I wanted her gone?
Articulating his feelings in this matter proved harder than he had expected. Especially considering that he only intended to articulate them for himself.
Drummond snapped his fingers in front of Max’s face. “Wake up, there. We got work to do.”
“Right.” Max rapped his knuckles on his desk. “So, I checked deep into everything I could find on Spaghetti Man, and I came up with a lead for us. It’s not much, but it’s something — the initials E.W.”
“Edith Walker.”
Max’s skin prickled. “What?”
“That’s her name. Edith Walker.”
“I’ve been at this all night and you already knew?”
“You need more coffee. Look, foggy brain, I spent a lot of the night working, too.”
“I thought you were playing time-traveling lover with Miss 1800s.”
“I wasn’t going to be with her all night. Especially since we’re ghosts. We don’t sleep, and there’s only so much cuddling a guy can take. Now, you want to know more details of my love life or you want to hear about Edith Walker?”
Max drained the last of his mug and set it on the table. “Edith Walker. Please. And for the record, I never want to know details of your love life.”
A sly grin crossed Drummond’s face. “Fine. But you’re missing the better story. Anyway, I met with my informants — no news on Aunt Holly — but I got to thinking. A guy like Cancetto, dying so violently and with all that had happened to his body, well, there was a good chance he’d be in the Other, too. So I went looking.”
“You found him?”
“No. But after talking with a few sources, I did have a nice sit-down with a lady from 1927 who had the exact same look as Cancetto and the hand. She told me that we’re looking in the wrong place. The funeral home had an off-the-books employee — Edith Walker. She, apparently, worked as an embalmer for the unusual cases.”
That got Max’s full attention. “Are you saying she handled witches and such that died?”
“That’s right. And when I say she was off-the-books, I mean it in spades. The McDougalds never even knew. She had stolen the funeral home key, made a copy, and she would sneak in at night to take whatever she needed. She also used their paperwork to requisition supplies as she needed.”
“How could the McDougalds not know? They’d see the papers.”
“Because the witches knew, too. And they cast spells for the McDougalds to forget about anything related to Edith Walker.”
“Including the papers. But why did the witches help her? She wasn’t one of them.”
“Sometimes, no matter how much of a witch’s life you lived, when your number comes up, you get a whole lot more into traditional burial matters. If you wanted that, then instead of a pagan burial, you went to Edith Walker.”
“You think this woman is still alive? She’d be at least a hundred and ten years old.”
“She’d also be a woman with a lot of witches as friends.”
Max thought back to an early case in which they met a man under a curse that had kept him alive for over two hundred years. He had also seen magic used to reduce the aging process. He had to keep reminding himself that when it came to age, magic broke the rules.
“Okay. Your source for this information is —”
“The ghost of one of her clients.”
“That source wouldn’t happen to know anything about a petrified hand, maybe?”
Drummond adjusted his coat and lifted his chin. “What kind of detective do you think I am?”
“A good one. So, what did your source say?”
“Doesn’t know anything about it. Nobody I asked knew anything about the hand.”
Max wanted to grab his coat and rush out the door. He could tell Drummond felt the same way. “It’s a bit early to go barging in on the lady. Plus, my mother is getting bagels.” He waved his hand to stop Drummond’s inevitable comment. “Let me have some breakfast with her, make sure she’s doing okay, give her a little time with her son, that kind of thing. Then I’ll look up Edith Walker’s address and we can go pay her a visit. Okay?”
“Fine, fine. But what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
Thankfully, Mrs. Porter opened the office door, saving Max from having to suggest entertainment options to a ghost. The bagel and coffee breakfast went down like a lump — mostly because Max’s mind swirled around Edith Walker and her potential to help the case. He tried to focus on his mother, but by the end, she patted his hand and said, “Go work on your research. I’ll finish cleaning.”
Max offered a sheepish smile before dashing back to his computer. He found the address with ease, grabbed his coat and car keys, and headed out. By the time he started the car and buckled his seatbelt, Drummond had appeared in the passenger seat.
“You’re not going to want to come,” Max said.
“What are you talking about? Of course, I want to.”
“Edith Walker is in her nineties and —.”
“So? I can handle old people just fine.”
“Yes, but she’s dying. She lives in hospice care.”
Drummond paused. “Oh.”
For both Drummond and Sandra, hospitals were difficult places to be since they both could see all the ghosts. In a hospital, there were many. But in a hospice, ghosts overwhelmed the place.
“Maybe I’ll sit this one out,” Drummond said.
“Good idea. I’ll let you know what I find out as soon as I can.”
As Max drove off, Drummond disappeared.
Chapter 9
MAX DROVE AROUND THE BLOCK TWICE, then pulled over to check the address on his phone. Odd. He had it all down correct, yet he found himself in a suburban neighborhood. The address itself led to a two-story, tan house at the end of a cul-de-sac. No sign outside. Nothing to indicate a medical facility.
He parked on the street in front of the mailbox and took the brick walkway to the front door. After ringing the bell, which played the alien five-note sequence from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Max considered driving back to the office and delving into his research again. This couldn’t be the right place.
But the front door opened, and a large woman wearing Winnie the Pooh nursing scrubs looked at him. She had a charming smile and spoke with such a caring tone that Max’s view of a hospice instantly changed.
“Is this Garden Hospice?”
“Why yes it is. Welcome. I’m Lee. Come on in.”
Max entered the converted house and wrinkled his nose — a stale, sickly odor permeated the air.
Lee said, “Are you here visiting or do you need a room for someone?”
He wanted to ask how the heck they managed to operate this place. This couldn’t be legal, yet Lee showed no alarm at a stranger knowing about it. In fact, the open secrecy of the place reminded him of the way witches lived.
Max’s gut clenched. His eyes searched the room, picking out the small details — the assorted colored candles on a shelf, the woman asleep in a chair with a book that looked older than her, the man in a wheelchair with an IV of an oddly-dark liquid, the woman with a cane that appeared to be made of bone. Could this really be a hospice for those who knew about magic?
“Sir? Are you okay?” Lee touched his arm but snatched it back as if she had received an electric shock. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you here for yourself?”
“Excuse me?”
“Obviously, your curse isn’t debilitating yet, but if you’re here to set up a room for future use, I’m afraid Shelly’s not here today. She’s our long-term sales person. Handles all the bookings for those expecting to need us in a year or two.”
Max’s hand rubbed the spot on his chest where he had been cursed. He spent plenty of time trying not to think about it and plenty more thinking about it, but he always ended back at the same point — nothing he could do. Not yet. Not until they found a witch they could trust who also had enough strength to break the curse. Or, perhaps, not until Sandra became that witch — something that sent Max’s thoughts spiraling down if he let them.
“No,” he managed. “Not for me. I’m visiting. Edith Walker? Is she still here?”
Lee’s face lit up. “You know Edith! Oh, she’s going to be delighted. I don’t think she’s had a visitor in over a year. And that’s a shame when you consider that most people here don’t stay that long.”
“May I see her?”
“Of course. Come, come. Follow me.”
She led the way up to the second floor and down the hall. The four bedrooms of the house had been divided into eight smaller rooms. It would be a tight fit, but most of the residents did not appear to mind. Nor did anybody have much in the way of possessions to fill up the rooms. At least, not that Max could see.
One room on the right was empty, and Max’s mind flashed an image of his mother in that bed. His chest tightened. Before he could consider how he might feel sitting next to that bed, holding her hand, listening to her labored breaths, Lee stopped and opened another door.
“Edith?” she said. “You awake?”
Max entered the tiny enclosure. Though the room smelled of stale sweat, the meager furnishings had been kept clean. A knit blanket — black with a gold pentagram — had been spread on the bed. In the doorway, Max spied a set of arcane symbols drawn with an unsteady hand. Edith Walker sat in a wheelchair facing half-a-window. Presumably, the other half shed light on her neighbor’s room.
Lee pulled a blanket from a narrow hall closet and placed it on Edith. “You have a visitor. Take a look.” To Max, she added, “You can sit on the bed.”
Max complied, but Edith did not move. After tucking the blanket in at the sides, Lee turned the wheelchair to face the bed. Her hands jumped off the chair as if she had been shocked. Forcing a laugh and giving Edith a stern look, Lee said, “Don’t be naughty.” She flashed another delightful smile at Max, waved goodbye, and left the room.
At first, Max thought it strange that they let him in without any proof that he actually knew Edith Walker. But then it dawned on him that this hospice was filled with witches and other magic-using folk. Nobody had to worry here. At least, not from mundane things like thieves.
“Ms. Walker?” Max said.
No response.
“I’m Max Porter. I was hoping you could talk with me a little about the funeral home you lived next to back in 1927 or so.”
No response. Not even a flicker of light behind her eyes.
“Ms. Walker, do you remember the Spaghetti Man?”
Her head lifted slightly. With quivering lips and an equally quivering voice, she said, “Charlie took me to the drugstore. Got me a brown cow. It was so good, I wanted another, but I only had two-cents and you know what Mr. Holstein did? He waited until the counter was empty and he gave me a second one for two-cents. He winked at me and said that for a special girl like me, he’d lower the price.”
“Did Charlie help you at the funeral home?”
“Not at all, silly beans. Charlie wouldn’t want anything to do with that. Shucks, he never even believed me when I told him I’d met a witch.”
Trying not to sound too eager, Max said, “You met a witch? Tell me about that.”
But Edith’s glazed attention drifted toward the window. She stopped speaking.
“Edith? Can you tell me about Charlie?”
No response.
Max remained on the bed, straining for some secret word that might open her mind. But she sat empty and limp like a ragdoll. He waved his hand in front of her face but got no reaction.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said on his way out.
Lee blocked his way in the hall. “Leaving already? You have to give her more time. She has her lucid moments, but they’re not consistent. You have to wait around for them.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t spend the whole day here. At least, not today.”
“Then you’ll come back? It’s good for someone like Edith to have anybody she can look forward to seeing. Even somebody who isn’t family or a friend.”
Max’s guilty blush answered her accusation. “I never said I was anything but a visitor.”
“I know.” She led the way back to the front door. “Trust me on this, I never once feared for Edith. If you were here to cause trouble, you would never have made it to the stairs.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“What exactly are you here for? Edith never really did anything bad and she never did anything that got her noticed either.”
“I’m a detective, of sorts, and I’m looking into an incident that tied Edith with an old story called the Spaghetti Man.”
“I see. Her funeral home days.”
“You know about that?”
Lee waved her hand as if showcasing the entire room. “I know everything about each one of my patients. It’s part of the job.”
“Then maybe you can help me. I’m trying to find out—”
She giggled. “Oh, bless your heart. You really think I’m going to share personal information of my patients with you? Dear, let me make this clear. You are welcome to come visit Edith anytime you want. You are welcome to ask her questions and listen to her answers — if she gives any. And anything she wants to share with you is her business to share. But I will not betray the confidence of these wonderful people. You understand?”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. Now go on about your day, and I look forward to seeing you back here again soon.”
When the door closed behind him, Max stood on the porch for a few seconds. Whenever he thought he had a basic grasp of the world around him, something new jarred his reality. First, he met Drummond — an actual ghost. Then he learned of witches and curses. And ever since, he seemed to stumble into one darker region after another. Here he learned that there existed a greater level of infrastructure to the witching world than he realized — a woman who handled burial matters and a hospice that catered toward the magically inclined.
