a new policy to go with the new intercom system.
I went over and peered through at her. “You can go up now,” she said. “Your cousin’s in room 402. The elevator’s on the right, there.” I could see where the elevator was. The sign was about ten feet high. I suppose they have to say that, but it struck me as awfully silly. I thanked her and walked to it, ten steps or so, straight ahead.
Spit was out of intensive care and in a semi-private room. He was hooked up to an IV drip, and his head was bandaged. Someone had given him a shave, and he looked pale and vulnerable lying there. The curtains were drawn around his room-mate’s bed, but his were open. When he saw me he smiled broadly in recognition.
“Well, if it ain’t the goat-girl,” he said, wheezing. “C'mon in. Have a drink.” He gestured to a pitcher of water next to his bed and winked. I had shared a slug or two with him one rainy Friday when I was feeling devilish. Spit drinks Rico Amato’s homemade rotgut, so it was a bonding ritual only.
He got a kick out of calling me “goat-girl”, and, seeing as I called him “Spit”, it seemed like a fair exchange.
“How are you feeling, Spit?” I said, pulling up a chair.
“Big headache, girl. Big headache. But I’m alive, which is good. Gotta get out of here, though.”
“How come?”
“Too many ghosts. Guy over there just died, eh? Heart case. He was talking to me plain as anything last night and when I wake up this morning, ain’t no beep coming from behind his curtain.”
“There’s a body in there?” One dead body a week was about all I could take. Spit started laughing, then stopped with an inward gasp of pain and put his hand to his head.
“No, no. They took him away. But his ghost is flipping around the room like a trout, and I can’t get any sleep.”
“You see ghosts, do you?”
Spit’s eyes narrowed and he studied me carefully to see if I was kidding him. I wasn’t.
“Yup,” he said. “Sometimes. Cops probably won’t believe me either, when I tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“About Sunday night. They’re on their way over here. To interview me, doctor says.”
“The cops haven’t talked to you yet?”
“Nope. Ain’t talked to nobody but my roomie. And he’s dead.”
“When did you regain consciousness, Spit?”
“Last night, I guess. And they took away my damned tobacco.”
I reached into my pocket, where I’d slipped the tin of Red Man I’d picked up on the way over. There was an honourable tradition to be upheld: Always bring tobacco when you visit an elder.
His eyes brightened.
“You’re a good girl,” he said, prising the lid off and stuffing some under his lip. “Now I got a use for that bedpan they keep shoving at me.”
“So what about Sunday night?” I said.
“How’d you get in here, anyway? You a deputy cop or something?”
I grinned. “I’m your second cousin, twice removed. Theresa sent me to make sure you were okay.”
He grinned back, his face distended by the wad of tobacco. “Little Terry,” he said. “She’s a good girl, too. Tell her I’m fine.”
“Do you remember what happened Sunday night?”
“Sure do. But I’m not sure I should tell you before I tell the cops.”
“I won’t blab, I promise. It’s important.”
“Why? You and Freddy planning to get married or something?”
“What? Freddy?”
“I’m charging him with assault, eh? You shouldn’t be pairing up with him, girl. He’s not your type.”
“Freddy was the one who hit you on the head?”
“Well, it wasn’t the tooth fairy.”
“But why? When?”
“We got into an argument about the dresser I gave to Amato last week. Freddy wanted to sell it for cash, eh? Like always.”
“When? When did he hit you?”
“Why is that so important? What counts is that he did it.” I realized that Spit probably didn’t know about John Travers’s body, or if he did, he was playing innocent.
“So why are the cops coming to interview you?” I said.
“Don’t be foolish, girl. You know as well as I do that Travers’s dead body was in the wood hole. That’s why you’re asking me all these questions.”
“Yeah, Spit. I know because I found him. But how do you know? You were out cold, and you said you only came to last night.”
Spit spat. The glob hit the bedpan, four feet away and made a satisfying little “ping” when it landed.
“Small town hospital,” Spit said. “Everybody knows. Got it from Pat, the nurse, who got it from Mack, the ambulance attendant.”
“Oh. So you think Freddy did it? Killed John Travers?”
“Don’t know about that. I was drinking with him in his hut from seven until nigh on midnight—the quart I got from Amato for the dresser. Freddy’s usually a good drinking buddy, but Sunday night he was acting funny, and the wine made him crazy.”
“So he hit you? Were you fighting, like, duking it out?”
“Nope. I turned my back on him after he called me a sneaking weasel and next thing I know, I’m here.”
“But you were found in your hearse, Spit.”
“I know that,” he said. “He must have dragged me there after he done it.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Probably thought he’d killed me. Put me there so he wouldn’t be blamed, then took off. But after I tell the cops, he’ll be blamed, all right.”
“You said something about ghosts, Spit. On Sunday night. Before Freddy hit you?”
“That’s the part the cops won’t believe. They’ll say it was DTs, like they always do.”
“What part won’t they believe?”
A flicker of fear passed across Spit’s face, and he shut his eyes for a moment. “Could have been DTs, I guess,” he said. “Could have been a dream. But I know a ghost when I see one.”
“Where?
