The Girl in Acid Park (3 page)

"I was here when everybody went ghost-crazy cause of a breeze. It was fuckin' cold," he said. "And all the crap on the news got everbody ready to shout about ghosts. Can't fart without somebody think it's a spirit."

I would have laughed if he hadn't stabbed a finger at me. "An' you ain't helpin'. Ain'tchu sick of the spotlight yet, honey?"

My face warmed, but I kept my smile cool, imagining myself with my handheld recorder and a lariat bearing "PRESS". I
was
sick of the spotlight. That was precisely why I needed to control it.

"So there was a chill, and that monster whirligig moved?"

"Yeah. But it was-"

"Did the little ones move?"

He lifted both hands. For a moment, he seemed ready to deny it, but Deputy Reid was watching him closely. Finally, he whipped his safety goggles off his head and tossed them on the gloves. "I didn't see."

"Thanks," I said, sweet as his grandma's iced tea. "That's all I needed to know."

Bill's disgruntled bro shoved his way into the workshop, dragging a pack of Winston Salems from his pocket. Next to me, Deputy Reid was showing serious eyebrow game.

At least this time her eyebrows seemed to be on my team.

"You going to law school?" she said.

I smiled at her. "Journalism."

She gestured at the massive green whirligig blossom. "This is actually the one where we found the blood. DNA samples matched our missing C.I. It wasn't long after that the restoration staff reported strange activity. The big propeller moving, and none of the rest. What we really need to know is whether the paranormal part of the claim is true. If it is, we can use any information the revenant might have to help us locate the body."

My ribs had decided to shrink around my lungs at the mention of blood and DNA and actual police-type stuff, but I was determined to look like I was up for the job. I nodded. Anyway, Deputy Reid didn't seem to be a skeptic like Sheriff Archibald, just determined to investigate properly. That was kind of awesome.

"I'm still not following something. How did the blood...you know," I gestured to the whirligig. "...Get here? I mean, was he hurt or killed here?"

She shrugged. "We've only got speculation at this point. One of the Salvadoran gangs in the area has a habit of warning people. Ramirez was an informant. They take that seriously--probably wanted to teach other would-be informants a lesson by killing him." She gestured to the half-empty field. "This place is usually vacant. Could be the gangs thought all those open holes might make a convenient grave."

I grimaced. With all the activity, it would be tough for a dog to determine which scent to follow. "You said there was no body."

"Right. If that's true, they got scared off for some reason. Maybe our friend came home." She smirked. "Maybe they believe in ghosts."

I suppressed a shudder. "Well, my skill set is different from Hiroki's, so this could take a few minutes."

Deputy Reid pressed her lips. "You can at least determine whether there's paranormal activity, right? We can't afford to shell out three hundred dollars for an EMF."

I snorted, waving my hand to dismiss the concern, and pulled out my cell phone. "Nah, there's an app for that."

"Of course there is," she said, rolling her eyes.

"It's pretty accurate, too, according to Hiroki. Though he might have been screwing with me."

I pulled up the app, making certain the settings were calibrated based on Hiroki's responses, but before I could even take a reading, Deputy Reid stepped closer, her expression dark.

"You're serious? Look, we can use an app," she said. "We could even use an EMF, if we had one--we've got an officer with the training. Even if Sheriff Archibald thinks it's bull, it's standard now. But we can't definitively establish the existence of a spirit with that. It has to be an expert witness. You can communicate with it somehow, right? The reason we need you here is to question the victim."

My chest clenched, partly in annoyance, and partly from the dread of knowing I was about to disappoint her. "But that's...that isn't what I do," I said. "I told you what I did in the Nguyen statement. I've had experience with the paranormal, but I'm not the one who can actually talk to-"

"You talked to Aaron Nguyen. You were quoted in the police report, and we have audio recording of-"

"He was possessing Hiroki!" I said, horror working its way up my spine, sinking its teeth into the base of my skull. The hopeful flicker that this case might heal my reputation was starting to gutter. "I didn't talk to him when he was all-" I twiddled my fingers, looking for a word to explain it. I knew the word. What was the word?

The green whirligig rattled, then, all at once, fell with a crash into the scrap pile. Both Deputy Reid and I stumbled back.

The meter on my app gave a spasm of activity. My heart tripped over itself for just a moment as I realized that, while we'd been arguing, someone else might have been listening, trying to get the attention of the only person in the county willing to pay attention.

"Oh my god," I said.

Deputy Reid froze, all except her dark eyes, which swiveled as she took in the workshop, searching for whatever had caused the movement. My hands went clammy, and my fingers slid over the glass screen as I turned in a slow circle, watching the EMF app's line jump and flicker like a heart-rate monitor. It was strongest near the scrap pile, where the whirligig lay. Ice slid down my spine.

"Mr. Ramirez?" I said. There was a sound like scratching on metal. I imagined fingernails, dragging over the green-painted whirligig's petals. I swallowed. What would Hiroki do? He'd talk. "Mr. Ramirez, I'm here to help. If you're there, just-"

"Actually, I call her Julie."

I fumbled my phone in my haste to turn around. For just a moment, I thought Mr. Ramirez had spoken to me. Then I realized the shop's back door was once again open and standing framed inside it was Bill's Bro. He stared at me with his eyebrows raised, a cigarette cradled between two fingers.

"Call...who?" I said, just as Deputy Reid said, "Who's Julie?"

Bill's Bro took a pull off his smoke and blew it out in a soft laugh. He jabbed the lit end toward the scrap pile. "The possum." He grinned. "I call her Julie."

"But-" I pointed at my flickering app. "But the EMF-"

Deputy Reid's sigh cut me short. She massaged her forehead with one hand, the other resting on her wide, shiny uniform belt, just above the little slot for handcuffs.

My face went scarlet as I realized what a total idiot I must look like.

"Well I can't see them," I said. My voice had shifted higher in defensiveness, and I forced it back down, trying to sound authoritative. Cool. "The app must need to be calibrated differently. Or maybe it's all the metal around here causing-"

"Miss Collins, you pulled out a cell phone app," she said, then turned back to Bill's Bro. "Excuse us a minute." He lifted his cigarette in salute and slid back into the shop, pulling the door shut after him.

"Look," Deputy Reid said. "We can't put this in a report. We can't use county resources to follow up on a lead based on the product of some chem-trail chaser with an associate's degree in programming."

I pressed my fingers against my lips. "But you were willing to follow a lead based on the word of someone who claims to see ghosts?"

She fixed me with a frustrated glare. Her eyebrows had clearly switched teams. "We take statements from witnesses," she said. "Those with confirmed Spectral Sight are considered expert witnesses or translators in a court of law. There is nothing official or confirmable about a cell phone EMF, no matter how close it gets to the truth. We can't
use
it, except as a basis on which to get in expert, which we thought you were."

I put my phone back in my pocket, swallowing hard. Heat crept up my neck. I needed to get out of this situation as fast as possible, preferably without doing any more damage to my already shaky social status.

"Okay," I said, and then, as if consoling myself, I repeated it. "Okay. I think there's been a miscommunication about my capabilities."

Deputy Reid glanced to the side, then back at me, as if this were such an obvious statement it shouldn't have needed saying. "Miss Collins, this 'miscommunication' has resulted in a waste of county time and resources."

My face went cold, and somewhere inside, that guttering hope succumbed. At the same time, I was getting frustrated. "I worked with Hiroki on Aaron Nguyen. I have genuine experience with the paranormal. What I do isn't what Hiroki does. I'm more of a...a..."

But that was the problem. Hiroki and I had searched for weeks to figure out what I was, but we couldn't find anything. I was a stairway to heaven, a bridge to the beyond, the touch of death for the dead. But the only one who could confirm it was Hiroki.

I unclenched my fists. "I'm not sure what I am, but I can get rid of spirits without needing an exorcism." I swallowed, because her dark look wasn't changing. "I guess...that isn't much help to you, is it?"

She didn't even need to shake her head.

CHAPTER THREE

Fact or Flush

I was certain there was no ghost-informant now. There had been a feeling in the air when Aaron was around--a thickening of air molecules, a pressure on my arms that made it shrink into goosebumps. I'd just been so desperate to be helpful, I'd convinced myself there was something where nothing existed.

It was a miracle I made it out of my room the next morning, let alone to breakfast, mass, and first period Latin. I regretted skipping my usual stop by Higher Grounds, though, because I needed caffeine not only to handle the major shade my classmates tossed at me, but also to write down anything significant about today's lesson on conjugating the Dative of Agent.

My brain had turned against me, making all sorts of stupid connections to remind me of my shame. Dative of Agent made me think of agents in general, which made me think of the FBI, which made me think of my most recent run-in with the law. Let's just say Deputy Reid hadn't let me ride in the front of her patrol car on the way back to school, and I would find myself lucky not to be on Principle Brown's shit list until the Second Coming.

I shuddered in my seat, a full-bodied cringe overtaking me at the memory of climbing from the car in front of a bunch of freshmen and parents who probably thought I was now both a gossip and a criminal.

I shook myself and looked down at my notes, but I couldn't get the words I'd written to make sense. Sister Joseph Ann had written a reminder about passive verbs, but I couldn't figure out how it connected.

To my right, someone giggled.

Now, I've broken myself of thinking that every time someone near me laughs, they're laughing at me. Unfortunately, paranoia sits waiting at the door to your brain like a muddy dog, eager to barrel right back in the second you peek outside. My shoulders hunched and I reached into my desk for my powder compact. Sister Joseph Ann is super near-sighted, so she never notices if students use first period to touch up any makeup. It had taken a while to perfect, but I was getting pretty good at these cold war lady spy techniques.

I'd chosen a seat three rows back, on the side nearest the door. It was prime territory, because it meant I wasn't in spittle-range when Sister Joseph-Ann rhapsodized about her love of intransitive verbs, but I was still close enough to make a quick exit.

It also meant I could see the class fanned out behind me using my mirror, which is how I caught Kelly Waterman grinning at her lap.

It's funny that people think they're being stealthy using cell phones inside their desks. You're either texting, or appreciating your own crotch, and I know which one I'd prefer.

I heard Pete Cobb's phone give a slight buzz in front of me. He'd at least had the good sense to close his phone in the middle of a bible in his desk, but, of course, he pulled it out and immediately did the crotch thing. I couldn't see what was on the screen.

I had reached the time limit for pretending to examine my own face. As I bent sideways to drop my compact into my bag, I hazarded a glance toward the back, where Hiroki sat. He usually drew during Latin class, and there he was, charcoal poised above his sketch pad. But something had piqued his interest. He stared over the shoulder of the girl in front of him, trying to see what she cradled inside her propped-up textbook. I didn't like his expression.

A second later, he noticed me turned around and gave me a small shake of the head.

I righted myself in my chair. Pete Cobb's shoulders shook with silent laughter. A flash of frustration sent my hand into my jacket which hung off the back of my chair. I slid my phone under the flap of my notebook and typed a left-handed text to Hiroki.

What is it?

His reply appeared a hundred years later.

Some meme. I don't get it.

I looked at the message for a few seconds, remembering the face he'd made when reading over the girl's shoulder. Bullshit. Some people had resting bitch-faces, but Hiroki had resting bored-face. I've seen the way he looks when he doesn't understand something, and it's like someone's reading him War and Peace. Backwards. He definitely doesn't do that consternated-brow thing. (Which is good, because the consternated brow thing is very attractive, and even though I've come to terms with our friends-only relationship, I can't help but notice when he does something cute. And he gets confused a lot.)

So anyway, his text was bullshit. Which meant he didn't want to tell me what it was about. Which meant it was about me.

My pulse throbbed in my throat, but I swiped out of our conversation and scrolled down to the name MARION.

If you'd told me last year I would be texting this guy in the middle of class, I'd have called you crazy. I'd have written it on my blog. James Marion Grant, or The Bishop, as he was called around school, was captain of the chess cult, and former homework-farming tycoon of an essays-for-sale empire. He'd also been the best friend of Aaron Nguyen. I'd always thought he was a stuck up, nerdy rich kid, no matter how good he made the school sweater vests look. As it turned out, he was actually pretty cool once you got past the affected facade--still nerdy, but I liked that part. He'd helped Hiroki and me take down Aaron's killers, and though I suspect dealing with his best friend's death still gave him trouble, he's had my back ever since.