Remember Me (15 page)

He didn't have to kill you."

"But I had humiliated Dan."

"What did you do?"

I hesitated. "It's a long story." A disturbing idea occurred to me. "Peter?"

"What?"

"Since you've been dead, how much have you been

hanging out with us guys, you know, who were still alive?"

He smiled. "Are you asking if I ever spied on you while you were taking a shower?"

I would have blushed had I real blood in my veins. "No."

"I did once."

"What? You didn't!"

"Just once," he said, giggling.

"When? Was it last summer? Did I have a tan?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember! How did I look?"

"Fine."

"Fine? What does that mean?"

He continued to laugh. "You looked great."

I hit him. "You're disgusting."

"I was curious."

"Why did you choose me? Or did you go around peeking through curtains all over the city? I bet you did. I bet you still do. And here you were trying to give me the impression you're a guardian angel."

"You were the first one I checked out," he said.

"And I suppose I should be flattered?"

"Yeah."

I thought a minute and decided I was flattered. Of course, I thought, I couldn't let him know that. "I hope you weren't disappointed," I said.

"I found the entire experience spiritually exhilarating."

He stood and began to pace in front of me at the edge of the grassy bluff, returning to business. "Dan may be the last person we can pin your murder on. He was one of the last people to leave the living room, and he didn't come out onto the balcony until after Jo and Beth were already there."

"He could have been on the balcony before Jo got there and then gone inside before coming back outside."

"But he left the living room at the same time as Jo," Peter said. "He wouldn't have had time to kill you before Jo got to the balcony. Also, Beth would have had to have been in cahoots with him."

"Then what about Beth herself? Jo said Bern was on the balcony before her."

Peter nodded. "From the point of view of timing, Beth has to be considered the number one suspect. But what about a motive? So she had the hots for your boyfriend. That's not a good enough reason to kill you."

"But Beth was acting weird that night. After Jo used the magnet on her, she looked spaced out. Peter, when exactly did you leave the party?"

"I told you. A few minutes before you died."

"What was the last thing you saw? Did you see the seance?"

He stopped his pacing. "What seance?"

"When Jo was hypnotizing me," I said.

"I caught some of that."

"Why did you suddenly leave?"

"It was getting late," he said.

"But you don't have to sleep. Do you?"

"Not exactly. But I do rest sometimes."

"Why did you leave?"

He shrugged. "I just did."

"Well, I don't know what was wrong with Beth. Do you?"

"How would I know?"

"I don't know." Something was bothering him. I think I knew what it was. There was no sense avoiding the matter.

"Peter? What about Jeff?"

"He didn't kill you."

"He says he saw me on the balcony. But when Beth came into the bedroom, she said I was gone."

"It wasn't my brother. He couldn't harm a fly."

"He didn't like me," I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"I could tell."

"He wouldn't have had time to kill you before Beth appeared."

"It doesn't take a whole lot of time to shove someone in the back." Peter didn't say anything. "Why didn't your brother like me?" I asked.

"Shari, as far as I know, when I was alive, Jeff had nothing against you."

"All right. I believe you."

"What about Jo?" he asked.

I had to laugh. "Jo's my best friend."

"Did you trust her?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I trusted her.

Anyway, she didn't get to the balcony until after Beth."

"Beth thought Jo was there before her," Peter said.

"Beth didn't know what she was talking about."

"You shouldn't automatically eliminate Jo."

"You shouldn't automatically eliminate Jeff," I snapped.

Dying obviously hadn't improved my disposition. I felt ashamed. "I'm sorry," I muttered.

He nodded. "So am I. It's no fun dissecting your friends."

"And your family," I said.

"Yeah."

"Are we making any progress?" I asked.

"Who knows?"

"God must. Can't you give him a call?"

Peter smiled. "Did you notice how Garrett drew those crisscrossing lines behind your position on the balcony?"

"You saw those too?" I asked.

"I was peering over your shoulder when you were peering over his. Do you know what those lines meant?"

"No."

"Garrett's considering the possibility that someone was standing at your back on the balcony in the one spot that wouldn't have been visible from the center of Beth's bedroom."

"Amanda," I whispered.

"It would seem that she could have been behind you even when Jeff was in Beth's bedroom."

"It must have been her!"

Peter shook his head. "It would seem so on the surface, but let's look at it a little closer.

Jeff said the sliding glass door to the balcony was closed when he went into the bedroom. Garrett made it clear that when you close that door, you lock it. Amanda would have had no way to push you off the balcony and then get back inside, unless she went through the kitchen, where Beth and Jo and Dan would have seen her. Amanda must have been in the bathroom. Dan noticed her at his back when he was on the balcony, and when Jeff came back into the living room, Amanda was there."

"So we've determined it couldn't have been Dan or Amanda?"

"Maybe." Peter glanced up at the kaleidoscope sun.

"What if it wasn't someone at the party?"

"You mean someone from the outside might have murdered me?"

"No. We may be too caught up on the idea of someone. What if two people were involved? Or three? And they arranged their stories for Garrett so that the facts we're taking for granted might be completely false."

My jaw dropped. "What if it was all of them?"

"Then we're really in trouble."

We decided the best course of action would be for us to try to pick up clues by following my friends around for a few days. A ghost can't do much else, really—

or so Peter said.

Yet I was secretly determined to explore any imaginable way to make contact with the living.

We were leaving the cemetery when Peter remarked that it was time for my first lesson in spirit transportation.

"We don't use cars on this side of the fence," he said.

"What do you use?"

He tapped his head. "Our minds. But let's go over to the park before I show you what to do."

He didn't say it, but he meant he wanted to get me away from my burial plot.

The whole time we had talked, my eyes had strayed to the mound of fresh brown dirt.

Like the spot where I had died, it held a perverse allure for me. I couldn't help thinking how my body would decompose beneath the earth. I wished I had been cremated and my ashes thrown into the ocean.

The park was across the street from the cemetery. The two girls we had seen earlier had set aside their bikes and were playing on the swings. Peter steered me toward a bench beneath a shady tree.

"We're going to perform a little experiment," he said when we were comfortably seated.

"First, close your eyes."

I did so. "Now, picture to yourself the courtyard at Hazzard High. Think of how the benches surround the snackbar area.

Think of the buildings and the trees, the people we know who go to school there. Then say to yourself—"

"There's no place like home," I muttered, giggling and thinking of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

He laughed with me, but only for a moment. "Keep your eyes closed, Shari.

Think to yourself: I want to be there. I want to be at school. You mustn't try to concentrate on the desire. You simply want to have it, quietly, innocently. Now, go ahead. Do it for a minute or so."

I did as he requested. At the end of the minute, I opened my eyes and asked,

"How am I doing?"

"You're still here."

"This is supposed to teleport me to school?"

"It's the way I get around," Peter said. "You've done it yourself, remember?

Close your eyes, try again. But don't try too hard. Just picture the school and imagine yourself there. We have plenty of time."

"Indeed we do."

I worked at it for half an hour, and I would have to say that was one of my problems; I couldn't help trying. Finally, I opened my eyes. "I can't see this working," I said.

"That's why it isn't."

"Thank you, Yoda. Feel the force, Luke."

He smiled. "Star Wars. Good. Do you remember Peter Pan?"

I began to shake my head. "I'm not flying. No way."

He bounced up. "Anybody can fly, even the living. There are yogis in India who float from one mountaintop to another. I've seen them. But it's easier when you don't have a physical body. Watch this."

Taking an extraordinary leap upward, Peter crossed his legs lotus-style in midair and hovered a half-dozen feet above my head. "Christ," I whispered.

"Just Saint Peter, please. See how easy it is? Come on up."

"I can't. I can't get into a full lotus."

"How your legs are crossed is unimportant. All that matters is that you understand you can do it and that you have no fear of hurting yourself. Let's fly, Shari Poppins."

"Can I hurt myself?" I asked.

"That's impossible at this point. Now jump up."

I jumped. I didn't go very high, and I landed quickly. I tried it again, trying to pretend I was light as a feather. It didn't work. "Can't I hold on to you like Lois Lane did in Superman?" I asked.

"No. Your lead-foot mentality would make me sink."

"Why do I have to learn to do this?"

"You are not learning to do it. You're unlearning the belief that you can't do it.

Try again, without trying."

It's hard not to try when you're trying not to. I couldn't get off the ground, not even far enough to break Hazzard High's high-jump record. Peter finally floated down to my side.

"It'll come in time," he said.

"I feel that if I had a broom I could pretend better."

"I could get you one if you think it would help."

"Really? Where?" I asked.

"I could make you one."

"How?"

He gestured to the stuff in the air, which I had begun to forget about. "When you were alive," he said, "you were in a realm of matter. There's matter here, too, but it is of a finer nature and more easily manipulated. All I have to do is put my attention on a broom and the ether around us will generate one."

"Could you make me some new clothes?"

"Sure."

"Could you change the color of my eyes?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"My body?"

"What's wrong with your body?"

"I didn't think anything was wrong with it until someone told me it was just fine. "

He laughed. "Would you like bigger breasts?"

"No, I'd like— What color are my eyes?"

"Green. Why?"

"You are a saint." I hugged him. "Never mind, I'm satisfied with the way I look.

And forget about the broom. I was never into witches like Jo."

"You'll have to walk," he warned, sounding like the good witch in The Wizard of Oz.

"Can't I hitch rides?"

'' If you get through the car doors." He pointed to the tree.

"Walk through that trunk."

"No way. There're bugs beneath the bark. Hey, that's something I wanted to ask you about. How come I touch things, but don't really touch them?"

"Because you're dead."

"Yes, we've already covered that. What I mean is, my feet are touching the ground right now. The ground is supporting me. How come I don't just sink into it?"

"Because you expect the ground to support you," Peter said. "It's all in your mind." He paused. "Since you died, has a part of your body passed through anything physical?"

"Yeah. When I tried to grab Jimmy at the hospital, my hand went right through his arm."

Peter nodded. "You were probably desperate at the time, and dropped your psychological inhibitions. The point is you've already seen that it can be done."

He gestured to the bench. "Walk through that."

"All right." I had finally decided it was time to stop messing around. I strode toward the bench as if it wasn't there. I was furious when I cracked my shin on the wood.

"Ouch!" I cried, bending over in pain.

"It only hurts because you think it hurts."

"Would you shut up! It hurts! I don't care why it hurts!"

"Imagine that it doesn't," he said.

"I'd rather have an aspirin and a glass of water."

Because I was bent over and rubbing my poor leg, I didn't see any flash and glitter.

Maybe there wasn't any. The next thing I knew, he was handing me an aspirin and a glass of water.

"Swallow it, and let's get out of here," he said.

CHAPTER

X

V V E TOOK THE BUS. The doors opened automatically. We didn't have to worry about correct change. I was thankful for small favors. We had to catch a couple of connections to get to my neighborhood. The last bus we got on was jammed. I stood with several people while Peter sat on a cute blonde's lap.

"Pervert," I said.

"You think sex is dirty. You have a dirty mind."

"I think sex is fine between two consenting living adults."

"What about between two dead adolescents?" he asked.

I just laughed. I didn't believe he was serious.

Daniel's house was closer to the bus stop than my own. I told Peter I wanted to check on my old beau. A window around the side was open. Peter had to help me up. He didn't need any help. As I turned around inside, he was already heading from the kitchen into the living room.

There were voices. Big Beth and Spam.

They were making out on the couch. Daniel had his hand under her blouse.