got to my place, he was saying how he’d watched a man get killed and did nothing to stop it.”
“Yes, I heard him say that, too. He seems to think that’s why this ghost is appearing to him.”
“But you didn’t hear all of it. He was very specific about the details of how this man died. He said they put a gun under his chin and blew the top of his head off.” She shivers and gives me a worried look. “There haven’t been any deaths like that in the area, have there?”
I shake my head. “None that I know of. I’ll check with Officer Devonshire to make sure, but I think I would have heard about it if there had been. Heck, in a town this size we all would have heard about it. Gossip goes through Sorenson at lightning-quick speeds.”
Another meager smile graces Allie’s lips. “You’re right.” She looks away, then back at me, her smile faltering. “Danny also said that a spotted purple and pink dinosaur watched the murder.”
I take a second to digest this. I can tell Allie is scared for her brother and worried about what these bizarre and very specific visual hallucinations might mean in terms of his mental stability.
“A spotted purple and pink dinosaur?” I echo, both amused and bemused. “That’s a good one. And you’re right, it’s a bit different from Danny’s usual auditory hallucinations.”
In the past, whenever Danny went off his meds, he’d hear voices telling him to do things. Some of the voices were kindly and suggested he do silly things, but others were more frightening, both in how they came across to him and in what they told him to do, things like taking off his clothes and running into the lake in the dead of winter.
“I’ll mention the dinosaur thing to Dr. Finnegan,” I tell Allie. “Maybe the new meds Danny’s on have visual hallucinations as a side effect.” This suggestion wins me a hopeful look from Allie.
“Oh, if only it’s something that simple.” She reaches over and gives my arm a squeeze. “Thank you, Hildy. You’ve always been so good with Danny and me. We appreciate all your help.”
“My pleasure,” I tell her, and I mean it. I don’t like all my patients, and some I like more than others. Regardless of how I feel about them, I always strive to give them my best. But Allie and her brother have always been high on my list of favorites. I love Allie’s dogged determination and the fierce love she has for her brother. And Danny, while cursed with some nasty mental illness challenges, has a big heart.
I’m expecting Allie to leave, but she’s still standing there looking at her brother, chewing on one side of her thumbnail the same way Danny had earlier.
“What is it Allie?”
“I have to admit, that ghost thing has me a little freaked.”
I dismiss her concern with a pfft and a wave of my hand. “The ghost part of Danny’s hallucination doesn’t worry me nearly as much as the dinosaur. It would be easy for him to misinterpret something like a bit of fog he saw during a period when his emotions were heightened, and his mental status was out of balance.”
Allie is staring at me in a most disconcerting way and I can tell she’s holding back.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask her after a few seconds.
Allie looks around us to see if anyone is nearby or listening in on our conversation. Satisfied that we are alone, she leans in close to me and says, “When we were driving by the cemetery on the way here, Danny said he saw the ghost.”
“Yes, he did. I’m sure seeing the cemetery triggered it. I don’t know what he saw... maybe it was something he cooked up in his imagination.”
“I don’t think so,” Allie says just above a whisper. “Unless I’m as crazy as my brother. I saw it, too.”
I look at her, my brow furrowed. “You saw what?” I say, thinking I must have misunderstood or misheard her.
“I saw the ghost,” she says softly. “It was exactly like Danny said earlier. An older man’s face and body, all wispy and white, easy to see yet with no real substance. And it appeared right out of the trunk of a big old tree in the cemetery when we drove by.”
Chapter 3
Allie’s revelation is disturbing on more than one level. While I still favor the idea that she saw something—fog or mist—and her mind simply interpreted things the way her brother had described them, I also wonder if Allie might have inherited some of her brother’s mental illness. She confided in me some time back that an aunt had had schizophrenia and had killed herself as a result, and these things can run in families. Granted, at thirty-something, Allie is a bit old only now to be manifesting signs of the illness, which typically present in the late teens and early twenties. That’s when it first appeared with Danny, and the guy’s been struggling with it for more than a decade now.
I reassure Allie with some verbal gobbledygook about how our minds can play tricks and make us see things that are suggested to us when we’re under high emotional stress. It’s not complete nonsense; this can and does happen to people all the time and might have happened to Allie. But something in my gut says this isn’t the case.
It looks like further contemplation will have to wait because Devo is telling me that he just got a call from the sheriff’s department asking Sorenson for an assist on a call for a welfare check.
“The daughter of a farmer who lives not too far outside our city limits said she hasn’t been able to reach her father all day and that’s not like him,” Devo explains.
“Maybe he took a trip,” I suggest.
“Daughter claims the guy is a homebody who never goes anywhere, especially since his wife died four years ago. She says she has a standing call time with him every Friday evening. And since today is her birthday, she’s certain her father wouldn’t miss the call tonight unless something was wrong. The girls—he has two daughters, both living in Minnesota—are thinking he might be ill or injured.”
“Or maybe he has a new relationship in his life,” I counter.
“Maybe,” Devo says with a shrug. “Either way, this is the kind of call your position is designed to help with. If the guy is hurt, or if he’s depressed, or having a mental breakdown of some sort, you can step in. If it turns out to be nothing, I think your presence will help minimize our intrusion to some degree.”
“Okay, give me a minute. I’ll meet you outside.” I check in with Dr. Finnegan and leave my number in case I’m needed for anything more with Danny, though the plan for now is to reassess him when the medication wears off and determine if he’s safe to be sent home with his sister.
Five minutes later, Devo and I are back in the cruiser, Roscoe inside his carrier, heading out of town.
“Do you get a lot of assist calls for stuff outside the city limits?” I ask Devo.
“Depends. The sheriff’s office shares a lot of duties with us and they assist us here in town when we need extra manpower. We often share investigations, too. Right now, the sheriff’s office is short-staffed, so they utilize us when they can for help with things. Something like a welfare check isn’t likely to involve any jurisdictional issues unless a crime has been committed. If we find that’s the case,
