he was there when I found Adam's grave.”
She continued to stare at Sam, though no longer really focusing on him as the implications of what she was saying compounded in her mind. “He even phoned me this morning.”
“Phoned you?” Sam echoed. “What for?”
“He wanted to…say hello.” She made a vague gesture, feeling guilty suddenly, as though she was hiding something. “He asked if we could have lunch…”
She was going to say that she'd refused, but Sam spoke before she could get the words out.
“Do you have his number?” he asked.
“No, I…it's in my apartment.”
“He must be listed.” He reached for her phone. “May I?”
“Go ahead.”
He dialed information, gave the name and the street and the number of the house, which Joanna found she could remember. There was nobody of that name listed at that address. He put the phone down.
“Maybe it's listed under a different name,” she said. “He's only just moved in.”
Sam thought a moment, then got abruptly to his feet. “I'm going over there.”
“I'll come with you.”
They gathered up their things quickly, thanked Ward for lunch, then asked almost as an afterthought if he'd like to accompany them. Sensing perhaps that it would be better if they did this alone, he said he needed to get some rest before the evening. They confirmed that they would all meet at the lab at six.
Fifteen minutes later they got out of a cab on Park Avenue, preferring to walk the last few yards rather than make a slow crawl around two blocks in the one-way system. They looked for numbers to work out which side of the street the house must be on. Having determined that it must be on the south side, they moved to the edge of the sidewalk and waited for a break in the traffic. Just as they were about to step off the curb, Joanna grabbed Sam's arm hard enough to make him almost lose his balance.
“What on earth…?” he started to say, but then saw she had a hand to her mouth as though to stifle a gasp and was staring at something across the street.
He followed her gaze, and saw an elderly couple getting into a smart black town car while a driver held open the door for them. They were both short, the woman wearing the kind of expensive fur coat that would draw stares of disapproval and even open hostility in many places these days, and the man a camel-hair coat and black fur hat. They were glimpsed for only a second before they disappeared into the car's interior.
Perplexed by Joanna's reaction, Sam turned to her, intending to ask again what was wrong. But her gaze was so strangely intense that he remained silent, watching with her as the car drove off. As it passed them, he discerned two vague silhouettes gazing impassively ahead; then it was swallowed up into the flow of traffic going west toward the park.
Still she clung on to him in fear, her eyes fixed on the disappearing car. He had to speak her name twice before she looked at him.
“Joanna? Joanna, what is it? Who were they?”
“Ellie and Murray Ray.” Her voice was flat, like someone in shock, unable to connect with what was happening.
“Ellie and Murray Ray? The couple from Camp Starburst?”
She nodded, mute.
“But you told me he was dead.”
“Yes.”
He paused, taking in what he'd just heard. “So obviously she lied to you. That first day we met, you and I, the old woman had just told you he was dead. Obviously she lied.”
Joanna shook her head. “I checked. I had someone call the hospital.” She looked at him, her eyes seeming to search his face yet unable to focus. “Murray Ray died.”
They continued looking at each other, neither knowing what to say.
“Then that wasn't him,” Sam said, suddenly and decisively. “We were…how many yards? Twenty? Thirty? It probably wasn't her either. You couldn't be sure of recognizing anybody at this distance. You saw two people who looked a little like them, and you imagined it was them.”
She was silent, still pale and clearly shaken, but he felt her grip slacken on his arm.
“Yes, you're right,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I must have been mistaken. It was just so weird for a second.”
He put his arm protectively around her, and they crossed the street. They walked briskly past the spot where they'd seen the couple getting into their car. Joanna turned to look, as though the ghost of the event somehow still lingered in the air. Sam's attention was on the houses they were passing, calculating which one up ahead must be the number they were looking for.
“One-three-nine…right here,” he said. They slowed outside a big brownstone similar to all the others on the street-except that the windows of this one were shuttered, the paintwork drab and peeling, the whole place exuding an air of neglect as though it hadn't been lived in for years.
“This can't be it,” she said.
“It has to be. There's one-three-seven on one side of it, one-four-one on the other. Are you sure it was this street?”
“Positive.”
“Well, if anybody's living here, they want to keep it a secret.”
There was a clatter from the basement area. Two cats scuttled out of a garbage can that lay on its side amid an accumulation of debris that nobody had cleaned out for a long time. The basement window had bars set into the wall and wooden shutters inside like the rest of the house.
“I told you,” she said feebly, “he's just moving in. When I met him on Saturday he was buying curtains.”
Sam looked up at the house, its stonework streaked and stained from long neglect, its windows grimy and unwashed. “It's going to be a while,” he said, “before anybody needs curtains for this place.”
41
Is this going to take long?” Roger asked. He was subdued, more so than Joanna had ever seen him.
“Not much more than an hour, I would think,” Ward said.
They were in Adam's room in the basement of the lab, all of them except Pete, who had not yet returned from his apartment-hunting. He had promised to be there by six, but it was now ten after.
Roger had listened to the story of the grave, sitting impassively on the old sofa with his arms stretched out along the back. He made no comment apart from a nod of acknowledgment. Nor did the coda about the empty house provoke a response. He seemed resigned to any and whatever fresh absurdities were presented by the situation they were in.
“So now we try exorcism,” he said, and gave a loud sniff-whether out of disapproval or the beginnings of a cold was hard to tell, but he produced a green and white spotted handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.
“Do you remember what you said when Drew talked about exorcism?” Joanna asked him. “You said something about complementarity-two ways of describing the same thing.”
“Yes, I do remember,” Roger said quietly, tucking the handkerchief back in the breast pocket of his old but immaculate tweed suit. “I remember very well-though I'm beginning to think that limiting ourselves to only two ways of describing what's happening here may be unduly modest.”
Sam looked at his watch. “Time Pete was here. He swore he wouldn't be late.” He walked over to where new video and audio equipment had been set up-paid for, Joanna reflected, by Around Town magazine-and began to check it over.
“By the way,” he said, almost as an afterthought, “I'm proposing to record this-it's still a legitimate part of the experiment. Ward has no objections. I trust neither of you has.”
Roger waved a hand indifferently. Joanna said of course she hadn't. She watched Sam as he bent over plugs and switches and control units with tiny flickering lights. There was a hunch to his shoulders, a concentrated
