falls mainly in the plain.' Better?'
'Much.' Joyce's almond eyes checked her face critically and then looked back to her desk, apparently reassured. 'Listen, Ed called while Clark Gable was here, I figured you didn't want to be disturbed. But he'd like you to call him back ASAP. Also your sister called, wants a return buzz.' Joyce handed her the phone slips. 'But don't forget there's Mrs. Wilson coming in ten minutes.'
Right. Cree had forgotten Mrs. Wilson. Ronald Beauforte's visit had put her off balance, and anyway it was seldom that two clients came to the office on the same day. She took the slips, gave Joyce a kiss of gratitude, headed back to the office.
Joyce didn't get involved with the supernatural end of the work, but she kept Cree and Edgar on track, managed the business end of things, archived their files, and did the lion's share of historical and forensic detective work. Like Cree, she was an East Coast transplant to Seattle. Her accent gave away that she'd grown up on Long Island – talking to her on the phone, people assumed she was a New Yorker, probably Jewish, and, given her deep contralto, probably large. They were always surprised to come to the office to hear the same voice coming from the small, delicate Chinese woman behind the desk. But Joyce Wu was a person of contradictions, and her appearance was misleading, too. She looked to be in her early thirties but was in fact forty-two, four years older than Cree, possessing some enviable longevity gene that kept her skin smooth and hair glossy. And though she was small and slim, she was as strong as any man Cree knew, something of a fitness freak. The first time they'd gone jogging together, Cree had done four miles with her, working hard to keep up with Joyce's lithe stride, before letting her go on for another three.
Mrs. Wilson. Right. The woman who had called for an appointment last week and who had refused to reveal any aspect of her situation, about which she seemed very uncomfortable.
When she came in, she looked very much as Cree had imagined her: an elderly woman, portly, expensively dressed, and nervous. She had a large, lugubrious, kind face beneath a well-coiffed cloud of gray hair, and an endearing humility. Cree invited her to sit and offered her some coffee, which she declined.
Mrs. Wilson's spotted hands fidgeted with the strap of her purse. 'I do hope you can help me,' she said.
'I will certainly do my best. Please tell me how.'
'It's a little… awkward.'
'I understand. Many of our clients feel the same way at first – your situation may not be as unusual or awkward as you think.'
'Our discussion is confidential?'
'Absolutely.'
Mrs. Wilson's watery hazel eyes caught Cree's and retreated. Another quick glance and retreat. 'Not so long ago, I lost someone dear to me. Very dear.' Pause.
'I'm so sorry – '
'I don't know anything about the 'afterlife.' I'm not religious, never have been.'
Cree nodded.
'And I'm seventy-three years old!' Mrs. Wilson looked at Cree searchingly, the glistening eyes finding the courage to linger this time, as if trying to convey what her words did not.
Cree put it together: My loved one has died and left an emptiness that hurts and frightens me. I am old and don't know what I believe. I am old and thinking about my own ending, facing big questions.
Cree waited. But so did Mrs. Wilson, who apparently expected Cree to take the lead. After another moment, Cree came around the desk and took the chair next to her. Mrs. Wilson was now clenching her purse hard against her buxom front, and Cree put a hand on one tense forearm.'Why don't you tell me about the person you lost.'
'My splendid prince. He died two weeks ago.' Mrs. Wilson faltered, and the big face crumpled. Cree's heart went out to her: 'splendid prince.' Such a romantic term coming from this powder-smelling, proper-looking, fireplug-shaped old woman. She fumbled in her purse, took out a laminated color photo, and gave it to Cree with a trembling hand. 'My companion for eighteen years. My splendid prince.'
It was a dog.
Cree was no expert in dog breeds, but the scruffy little brown dog in the photo looked anything but splendid or princely.
'You're surprised, I can see you are. Yes, he's just a mutt. I first called him Splendid Prince to be funny, to tease him. As if he were some noble pedigree, you see. But that is exactly what he became to me.'
Cree was speechless. This was very touching. Absolutely no words came for a full five heartbeats. Finally she managed, 'It must be a terrible loss. I'm very sorry.'
'That's why I hoped that you might be able to… put me in touch with him, wherever he is?'
Oh my, Cree thought.
It took another half hour to soothe Mrs. Wilson and convince her that she and Ed weren't mediums, they couldn't go looking for the souls of the departed. She left the dog issue out of it, just stressed that PRA got involved only when there was reliable evidence the departed had already chosen to return. No, sorry, Cree couldn't refer her to someone else. She urged her to be cautious if she continued her quest, wary of unscrupulous people who might take advantage of her grief and desperation.
As she was leaving, Cree felt a sweet-sad chord in her chest and spontaneously bent to give her a hug and a kiss on one doughy cheek. Mrs. Wilson looked grateful for the contact.
Cree forestalled Joyce's questioning look with a raised finger and went to call Edgar. It was only four o'clock, but it would be seven back east, and she wanted to catch him before he went to do any night fieldwork. She went to his room so she could use the videophone and get a look at his face, which she missed whenever they worked independently.
Edgar's room was three times the size of Cree's, with naked brick walls and a pair of tall windows facing the building across the alley. His desk and file cabinets occupied only one corner of the room; the middle was taken up by the counters, computers, and rack-mounted electronics of the lab he used for processing physical evidence gathered at field sites. The remainder of the room served as storage for the equipment Edgar used for his end of their work. He had taken the minimal kit needed for a preliminary review to the Massachusetts job, leaving the bulky stuff behind, a mix of off-the-shelf, high-end high-tech and Edgar's own adaptations of various technologies: infrared cameras, radar motion detectors, ambient-light night-vision photographic equipment, sound recorders, visible-light video and film cameras, air-pressure- and temperature-monitoring equipment, seismic vibration sensors, ion counters, electromagnetic-field-measuring devices, a forensic gas chromatograph, microscopes, skin galvanometers, voice-stress analyzers, the electroencephalographs, tripods, toolboxes, and bulky aluminum travel cases.
Edgar's playground. More than three hundred thousand dollars' worth of equipment. They'd gotten some of it used from various donors, received some grants from the Society for Psychical Research and the odd eccentric millionaire, including Ed's uncle, but the outlay had left them with some hefty debts. One big reason for Ed's concern for revenue.
And so far, it had produced very little in the way of empirical evidence.
But you had to try. Credibility ultimately rested on scientific evidence,-some hard physical proof. Something that all of Cree's emphatic talents couldn't provide.
Cree sat at Edgar's desk and used his videophone to dial the number Joyce had given her. Within seconds, the screen bleeped and there was Ed's familiar face. Cree looked into the little ball-shaped camera on top of the monitor and waved.
'I thought it might be you,' he said. 'Hey – you look different. You got your hair cut.'
'Just a trim. I'm surprised you noticed.'
'Are you kidding? It looks terrific.' Edgar smiled, a grin that crept up the right side of his face. Cree had always liked that smile, the touch of irony in it.
Ed was into technology, but he was not at all the proverbial nerd. He was too handsome, in a long-faced way, and his intelligence was by no means confined to machines. The tilt of his smile gave it away: the streak of sadness or resignation that came with knowing the human condition only too well. His lanky body, long face, and sandy hair gave him the look of a minor member of the British royal family, which he exploited to do an outrageous impersonation of Prince Charles.
'How did the meeting with Beauforte go?'
'He's sort of a smug son of a bitch. But I think there might be something for us there. I agreed to do a
