Ghost Story

and was mildly surprised to see him confronting a tall girl with dark hair, an oval face and small, chiseled features.

'Sears, we don't have time now, and I told this young woman to drop in tomorrow.'

'She says-' Sears took off his hat. He looked as if he'd been hit on the head with a plank. 'Tell him what you told me,' he said to the girl.

She said, 'Eva Galli was my aunt, and I'm looking for a job.'

(Mrs. Quast turned away from the girl, who had merely smiled at her, and blushed as she dialed the Hawthorne number. The girl moved away to examine the Kitaj graphics with which Stella, two or three years ago, had replaced Ricky's old Audubon prints. Incomprehensible and new, was Mrs. Quast's judgment on both the graphics and the girl. No, Stella Hawthorne exhaled when she had heard the hews about Dr. Jaffrey. Oh, poor Milly. Poor everybody, I'm sure, but I'll have to do something about Milly. When she pulls the jack from the switchboard, Mrs. Quast thinks, my goodness it's very bright in here and then thinks, no golly it's dark, dark as sin, the lights must have blazed up and gone out, but the next instant everything is normal, the lamp on her desk looks just as it always does, and she robs her eyes and shakes her gray head- Milly Sheehan had a soft cushy life right along, about time she went out and did a real job of work-and is astonished to hear Mr. James telling that snip of a girl that if she comes back tomorrow they'll talk about giving her some secretarial work. I mean, just what the dickens is going on around here?)

And Ricky, looking at Sears, wondered too-secretarial work? They had a half-time secretary, Mavis Hodge, who did most of their typing: to find enough work for another girl they'd have to start answering their junk mail. But of course it wasn't the need for more hands on deck that made Sears treat the girl the way he did, it was that name, Eva Galli, pronounced in a voice that would taste like port wine if you could drink it… Sears suddenly looked very tired, the sleeplessness and the nightmares and the vision of Fenny Bate and Elmer Scales and his damned sheep and how John's death (he was a leaper) had all gathered to unstring him if only for a moment. Ricky saw his partner's fear and exhaustion and saw that even Sears could come unglued. 'Yes, come back tomorrow,' he said to the girl, noticed that the oval face and regular features were more than just attractive, and knew that if there was one thing Sears didn't need reminding of at that moment, it was Eva Galli. Mrs. Quast was staring at him, so he told her to deal with all incoming calls during the afternoon, just to be saying something.

'I gather that a good friend of yours has just died,' the girl said to Ricky. 'I'm sorry to be coming at such an awkward time,' and ruefully smiled with what looked like genuine concern. 'Please don't let me delay you.'

He glanced once more at her foxlike features before turning to Sears and the door-Sears reflectively buttoning up his coat, white faced-and it seemed to him that maybe Sears's instincts were right, maybe this girl's coming was a part of the puzzle, nothing seemed accidental anymore: as if there were some kind of plan and if they could only get all the pieces together they'd see what it was.

'It's probably not even John,' Sears said in the car. 'Hardesty is such an incompetent that I wouldn't be surprised if he took Omar Norris's word…' His voice died out; both partners knew this was only fancy. 'Too cold,' Sears said, his lips puckering out childishly. 'Too damn cold,' Ricky agreed, and finally thought of another thing to say. 'At least Milly won't starve.' Sears sighed, almost amused. 'Good thing too, she'd never get another job with eavesdropping privileges.' Then there was silence again as they recognized that they were agreeing that John Jaffrey probably had stepped off the Milburn bridge and drowned in the freezing river.

After they had picked up Hardesty and driven to the tiny jail where the body was being kept until the arrival of the morgue truck, they found that Omar Norris had not been mistaken. The dead man was John-he looked even more wasted than he had in life. His sparse hair adhered to his scalp, his lips drew back over blue gums-his whole being was vacant, as in Ricky Hawthorne's nightmare. 'Jesus,' Ricky said. Walt Hardesty grinned and said, 'That ain't the name we got, Mr. Lawyer.'

'Give us the forms, Hardesty,' Sears said quietly, and then, being Sears, added, 'We'll take his effects too, unless you managed to lose them along with his dentures.'

They thought they might find a clue to Jaffrey's death in the few things contained in the manila envelope Hardesty gave them. But in the collection taken from John Jaffrey's pockets they could read nothing at all. A comb, six studs and matching cufflinks, a copy of The Making of a Surgeon, a ballpoint pen, a bundle of keys in a worn leather pouch, three quarters and a dime-Sears spread it over his lap in the front seat of Ricky's old Buick. 'A note was too much to hope for,' Sears said, and then leaned gigantically back and rubbed his eyes. 'I'm beginning to feel like a member of an endangered species.' He straightened up again and looked at the mute assortment of objects. 'Do you want to keep any of this yourself, or should we just give it to Milly?'

'Maybe Lewis would like the studs and cufflinks.'

'Let's give them to him. Oh. Lewis. We'll have to tell him. Do you want to go back to the office?'

They sat numbly on the warm cushions of Ricky's old car. Sears removed a long cigar from his case, snipped off the tip, and without bothering to go through the usual rituals of sniffing and looking, applied his cigar lighter to it. Ricky wound his window down uncomplaining: He knew that Sears was smoking out of reflex, that he was unconscious of the cigar.

'Do you know, Ricky,' he said around it, 'John is dead and we've been talking about his cufflinks?'

Ricky started his car. 'Let's get back to Melrose Avenue and have a drink.'

Sears put the pathetic collection back into the manila envelope, folded it in half and slid it into one of the pockets of his coat. 'Watch where you're driving. Has it escaped your attention that it's snowing again?'

'No, it has not,' Ricky said. 'If it starts this early and if it gets much worse, we could find ourselves snowed in before the end of winter. Maybe we should lay in some canned food, just to be on the safe side.' Ricky flicked on his headlights, knowing that Sears would soon begin to issue commands about this. The gray sky which had hung over the town for weeks had darkened nearly to black, broken by clouds like combers.

'Humph,' Sears snorted. 'The last time that happened-'

'I was back from Europe. Nineteen-forty-seven. Terrible winter.'

'And the time before that was in the twenties.'

'Nineteen-twenty-six. The snow almost covered the houses.'

'People died. A neighbor of mine died in that snow.'

'Who was that?' Ricky asked.

'Her name was Viola Frederickson. She was caught in her buggy. She just froze to death. The Fredericksons had John's house, in fact.' Sears sighed again, wearily, as Ricky turned into the square and went past the hotel. Snowflakes like balls of cotton streaked past the dark windows of the hotel. 'For God's sake, Ricky, your window's open. Do you want to freeze us both?' He raised his hands to lift the fur collar nearer his chin, and saw the cigar protruding from between his fingers. 'Oh. Sorry. Habit' He lowered his own window and dropped the cigar through it. 'What a waste.'

Ricky thought of John Jaffrey's body lying on a stretcher in a cell; of breaking the news to Lewis; of the bluish skin stretched over John's skull.

Sears coughed. 'I can't understand why we haven't heard from Edward's nephew.'

'He'll probably just turn up.' The snow slackened off. 'That's better.' Then thought, well, maybe not: the air had a peculiar midday darkness which seemed unaffected by his headlights. These were no more than a glow nearly invisible at the front of the car. It was the objects and oddments of the town which instead seemed to glow, not with the yellow glow of headlights but whitely, with the white of the clouds still boiling and foaming overhead-here a picket fence, there a door and molding shone. Here a scattering of stones in a wall, there naked poplars on a lawn. Their bloodless color reminded Ricky eerily of John Jaffrey's face. Above these random shining things the sky beyond the boiling clouds was even blacker.

'Well, what do you flunk happened?' Sears demanded.

Ricky turned into Melrose Avenue. 'Do you want to stop off at your house for anything first?'

'No. Do you have an opinion or don't you?'

'I wish I knew what happened to Elmer Scales's sheep.'

Now they were pulling up in front of Ricky's house and Sears was showing obvious signs of impatience. 'I don't give a gold-plated damn for Our Vergil's sheep,' he said; he wanted to get out of the car, he wanted to end the discussion, he would have growled like a bear if Ricky had mentioned the apparition of barefooted, boneheaded