Fitzpatrick had turned sideways on his chair, staring with a frown at the lobster tank. One lobster was particularly active, climbing on the backs of its sluggish fellows, working its way clumsily up the glass and falling back.
'Can I ask you a question?' he said finally.
'Sure. I guess.'
'Where'd you grow up?'
'Northeast and New England. Bom in Philly, lived in eastern New York State and New Hampshire as a kid. Why?'
He tossed his head, puzzled. 'Your accent. Listening to you tonight, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were a local. Lou'siana born and bred. I didn't notice it so much when we first met.'
Cree felt a tingle of alarm. Part of her wanted to tell him the truth: that she'd been appropriating it from the environment, and most of all from Lila, as her borders seemed to dissolve. But by his standards that was beyond far-fetched. And even if he believed it possible, he wouldn't approve of it as a therapeutic process. She wouldn't blame him.
' I… I guess I just do that,' she said lightly. 'Pick up accents fast. I've been told that before. You know, we should probably look at these menus, or that waitress is going to throw us out of here.' She tried to smile.
'You're duckin' me, Dr. Black.' He turned toward her, looking straight into her eyes.
Cree returned the gaze, trying not to reflexively rebel against his probing. She liked his eyes: intelligent, honest, insightful. A sweet sensuality in their blue clarity and dark lashes.
'You are something of a medium, after all, aren't you?' he went on quietly. 'You pick up on things. That's one of your skills, right? Your talents? You… resonate. You've got your… antennae… up there in Jung's transpersonal space, you probe the collective unconscious. Only you're not a medium just for ghosts. You do it for the living, too.'
Cree took a breath, exhaled. 'You're not too bad at it yourself.'
'Not in your league. Not even close.'
Their eyes remained locked. The hubbub of the restaurant seemed distant, and for a long moment they paused in a sudden intimacy. Cree felt a growing warmth inside her, a magnetism that was at once foreign and deeply familiar. It was alarming but exhilarating, and for once she didn't recoil from it.
And then the waitress reappeared. This time she didn't say anything, just stood flat-footed as if indicating she intended to stay there until they damned well ordered.
'I'll have the special,' Cree blurted.
'Same for me,' Paul said.
The waitress jotted something on her pad, snatched their menus, and spun away.
'Whatever the hell the special is,' Paul whispered.
They attended to their drinks, as if the moment of intimacy, once shattered, had made them both shy. The warmth ebbed, leaving only the jitter ball in Cree's solar plexus.
'Why'd you ask about repressed memory?' Fitzpatrick asked. 'Is that what you think this is about?'
Cree drained the last of her beer. 'I believe Lila is the victim of some past trauma. If she was, the ghost could be someone who had a role in the original trauma. Or it could simply be that the ghost triggers her memory of it, and she conflates the two experiences. But there's some reason, psychological or situational, why Lila connects with it.'
'Trauma like rape?'
'Rape, or the emotional equivalent of it, yeah. Some extreme violation of self, of boundaries, of self- determinacy.'
Fitzpatrick nodded in agreement. 'Her defiance-submission thing – a common affective polarity for rape victims. Especially incest victims.'
They warmed to the topic, Cree speaking in her language, he in his, yet somehow able to ignore the divergences in their pursuit of a common goal. Fitzpatrick became more animated, and Cree knew it wasn't the wine. It was the joy of the hunt: Fitzpatrick was a fellow bloodhound.
The special turned out to be a mixed seafood plate, everything dunked in a slightly peppery batter and fried: soft-shell crabs, shrimp, oysters, and catfish, stacked carefully in a pyramid a foot high. Cree began eating tentatively, feeling simultaneously starved and a little sick, but the flavors soon got to her and she indulged her appetite. She'd never had soft-shell crabs before and couldn't get over their sweet, nutlike flavor. Fitzpatrick warmed to his plate, too, eyeing Cree with amusement between bites.
'I know,' she said, 'I eat like a stevedore.'
'Or a plumber.'
'Gotta eat.' Cree held her fork in her fist and stuffed in an oversized mouthful.
The warmth burgeoned again as they laughed, and they set to in earnest, eating in preoccupied silence for a time. When they talked again, it was about other things; Paul told her some scandalous tales of New Orleans city politics.
As Cree's hunger waned, the exhaustion returned, ashes and shards. The active lobster continued to trundle around on the backs of its fellows and climb the glass, a tiny, muck green, coral-speckled dragon. Then a cook came from the back of the restaurant, hesitated briefly over the tank with a pair of tongs, and snatched up the most obvious and available choice. The lobster came up waving its legs and claws in slow-motion panic, a stranger to the air, and Cree looked away. Somehow it struck her as a dour omen.
Fitzpatrick seemed to sense her mood. He set down his fork, wiped his mouth, and tipped his head to look around the restaurant. 'I gotta get you home. Where's our waitress? She was here every two seconds when she wanted our order, but when you want the check she's nowhere in sight. You know?'
They came out into a night chilled by a breeze that whispered in off the water. Over the top of the levee, a block away, the darkness of the lake's western horizon was stitched with a string of pinpoint lights that dwindled and disappeared into obscurity, the famous Ponchartrain causeway. Above, a few stars dotted the night sky.
Fitzpatrick frowned over at her. 'Are you limping?'
Cree had forgotten it. 'Had a bit of a tussle at Beauforte House. Sprained my ankle a little. It'll be fine.'
'Jesus.' He shook his head. 'The rigors of parapsychological fieldwork. We got to get this woman to bed.'
Cree didn't think he intended a double entendre. Paul unlocked his car and this time opened the door for her, solicitousness for an injured person.
They drove east along the lake, then dipped south through darkening neighborhoods, saying nothing. The silence was somehow pregnant but not disagreeable, and Cree relaxed and watched the city slide by. They had been driving for about five minutes when suddenly she sat bolt upright.
'What is that?' she asked pointing.
'Hm?' Paul was startled out of his own ruminations. 'Oh – the cemetery. I think this one's Greenwood. Or Saint Patrick's, they all kind of run together here.' He looked over at Cree, saw the intensity of her interest, and pulled over to the curb. 'Another beloved peculiarity of New Orleans. This isn't the best time of day to see 'em, though. Looks a little grisly now, but in daylight they're really very charming places.'
Cree had never seen anything like it. Stretching off into the darkness was what seemed to be a miniature city. The streetlights cast an angular chiaroscuro of silver-blue and black shadow over a tightly packed, haphazard jumble of masonry walls, pitched roofs, gables, and columns. The crypts appeared to be built of white marble, their roofs just over head height – tiny temples, or giant doghouses, many topped with stubby crosses. Hundreds and hundreds were ranged along little streets that diminished in the distance and darkness. The architecture was Old World – probably, as Paul said, charming – but the streetlights on pollution grime gave them a stark, metallic look.
'It's a whole… city,' Cree said.
'Yeah, that's what people call them – 'cities of the dead.' I should have realized they'd be of particular interest to a ghost hunter.'
'No. That's folklore. Cemeteries are among the least haunted places nobody's ever lived or died in them. I've just… never seen anything like this.' Cree couldn't stop looking at the scene. The cemetery hung in the dark, its miniaturized perspectives confounding the eye like a theater set or museum diorama.
'You really didn't know about burial customs here?' Paul chuckled.'Well. It seems weird to an outsider, I
