Shutter(38)

“Sergeant Seivers mentioned that these hallucinations that you’re having have to do with ghosts. Do you want to talk to me about these ghosts or spirits that you’re seeing?”

I sat in silence for a few seconds, my chair squeaking again as my foot drummed out an uneven beat.

“I was tired. I worked almost fifty hours that week. Work has been busy.”

“So, you didn’t tell Sergeant Seivers you see ghosts?”

“I can’t remember what I said to her.” I watched her pen. “I was delirious.”

“Is working fifty-plus hours a week the normal thing in your unit?”

“Not every week, hopefully. But Albuquerque is getting bigger, and the crime hasn’t showed any sign of stopping.”

She paused and poured herself water from a plastic bottle. “Is most of the work you do homicide?”

“Not always. Suspicious deaths, suicides, car accidents.” I wondered what she was getting at.

“But those all seem to involve a dead body. Am I right to assume that?”

“Yes.”

“Would you be interested in transferring out of this unit?” Her pen was already pressing into the paper. “Maybe do something else in the Crime Unit, ballistics or . . . ?”

“Are you asking me this because I’m Navajo?”

“Well, no.” She straightened in her seat. “I’m just a little surprised to see a Navajo so long on this kind of unit—that’s all.”

It had become quiet in her office, with just the hiss of the heater vents.

“What if I told you that I’ve been like this for years—seeing ghosts, I mean? What would you do?”

“You’ve been having hallucinations for years?” She scribbled furiously. “When did they start?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” I was angry at that point. “I’m not hallucinating. But I have a feeling that you think I’m going crazy.”

“I don’t know what I would do, Rita. What do you think I should recommend? How do you feel about this whole situation?”

Behind Dr. Cassler, Erma sat on a stool, shaking her head, her feet resting on the doctor’s file cabinet.

“I’m ready to work, doctor. I don’t know what else to tell you. And I’m in the middle of something right now that needs to be finished.” I got up to leave.

“You need to speak with me if you intend on going back to work,” she said. “I would hope that in the interest of keeping your job, you would answer a few questions about your current state of mind.”

I sat. “Aside from being tired and a little hungry, there is nothing wrong with me.”

Erma eased up to her ear. “You need to let her go, doctor. She has work to do.”

“Your coworkers are . . . concerned about your behavior over the last few weeks.” She put her notepad down. “Are you taking any medications that we should know about?”

“I’m not taking any drugs, Dr. Cassler.” My face churned with heat. “I’m under some pressure right now, that’s all.” Erma threw herself back onto the stool, frustrated.

The chair creaked. Dr. Cassler turned to look.

“Why don’t you just tell her that I’m sitting here?” Erma offered. “I bet that would convince her.”

“Do you want to talk to me about that, Rita? What is it that you need to take care of?”

“I need to wrap up this case. They’re waiting for some photos. I really didn’t think this was going to be a full-on shrink session. But I need to leave.”

Erma and Dr. Cassler stared at me in silence until Erma’s ghost rose from the stool and moved toward the door. Dr. Cassler turned to see what I was looking at.

“Maybe I’m just easily distracted.” I followed Erma’s ghost out the door.

“Maybe it’s finally time that you helped me find out how I ended up dead,” Erma said.





CHAPTER TWENTY

Mom’s Cameras

I WAS A senior when Mom got sick. Her kidneys were failing, and no one could figure out why. Mom wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, but I could see that she was in pain. She ate less and less and had to go to dialysis more and more. I just wanted to stay with her, to make sure that she was okay.

We started playing hooky all the time. She would call into work and would call in for me at school. Mom had it down.

“She’s been throwing up since last night,” Mom would report. “We can come pick up her homework.”

We would pay to see one movie at the first morning showing at the multiplex, then sneak from one show to another until we couldn’t take it anymore. Then we would go out and buy horrible food and rent bad movies and go home. There was no mention of homework or schedules. It was just me and my mom, all day, every day, for a couple of weeks.

I was always eager to drive, so my mom and I went all over. We drove for miles, to ruins, to the tops of mountain ranges, to churches and ashrams up in northern New Mexico. We talked about movies and books as we drove home in the orange of sunset, like we were enduring friends. I learned a lot about her during those three weeks.

“You’re going to go to college, aren’t you?” Mom asked on one of those days. She sat in the dirt and sketched a small drawing of the canyon below.