Deja Who Read online

  “But even that wasn’t enough after a while. It wasn’t enough to make them sad, to make them hurt. You had to make them gone. So you escalated to murder one. You keep a list, don’t you? The children you don’t like. The ones you have decided have wronged you, or don’t like you, or ones you loathe though you’ve never met—they’re all the same under it all, don’t you think? Just a bunch of whiny brats.”

  She was staring, which Leah was used to, so she continued. “You keep a list of names along with skim milk and chicken breasts and whatever new dry cleaner you’ve decided to terrorize this month. And you’re pretty confident you didn’t leave any crumbs. It isn’t difficult to kill a child. It can be to hide the crime. But you took care. Even so, you’re not entirely confident. Are you?”

  Still staring. Well, that was all right. Better than screaming, or throwing things, or stabbing.

  “So!” Leah gave the chart a brisk pat and straightened in her chair. “If there’s ever a trial, your well-paid defense douche can claim that you felt remorse, you knew you were sick, you tried to get help, all those poor children, you tried to stop yourself, society’s to blame, yak-yak. When sleep won’t come, it is only because you’re thinking about how awful ending the games will be. When you have night terrors, they’re not about your victims. They’re about being locked up. About never getting to have fun again. Never being the center of attention again. In prison, you’d just be another inmate. That’s what makes you sweat. It’s hard to know which is worse some nights,” Leah finished. “Isn’t it?”

  “You’re not—” #6116 had frozen in mid-tousle, and now peered up at her through rumpled bangs. “You’re supposed to help me.”

  “No. I’m supposed to find your truth. That’s what you paid for; that’s what you’re getting. And your truth is, you were a bad person then, you are a bad person now, and I imagine you’ll be a bad person in the next one, too. That last is just my opinion. That you get for free.”

  “No. None of that’s—it’s all lies. You’re trying to trick me.”

  “No. You tried to trick me. That’s how people like you get caught. It’s not enough to hurt and kill; you need to make a game of it. In all your lives, you considered children to be things, property, yours to do with as you liked. You knew it was wrong then, you know it’s wrong now. You don’t care. Hurting them . . . it’s just too entertaining. Yes?”

  There was a short silence, and Leah waited expectantly. Maybe #6116 would go the entitled route: You can’t talk to me like that. Or something victim-y: I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.

  “You’re just trying to bum me out.”

  “No, I’m not.” Leah was honestly surprised. Chart #6116 sounded grieved, almost forlorn, which probably worked great when she wanted someone to pick up the bar tab. Or drop the charges. “This isn’t a trick, or a game. These are your lives. I’m not sure you can grasp that, because in all your lives almost everything has been a game, and the more deadly serious the better, right? But you’re not a good person now. And you weren’t then. So I don’t see how you can be in the future. What are you learning from your lives? What is the one lesson you consistently take away? To do what you like, regardless of the cost—especially when you’re never the one who has to pay.”

  “You fucking bitch.”

  “Sure.” She nodded. Did #6116 expect her to gasp, to cry? To insist on an apology? It wasn’t even the first time that week she’d been called a fucking bitch. “I’m not a good person anymore. Wait. Maybe not ever, maybe I’m like you that way. Just a moment.” She hit the speak/sec button that connected her to the office admin. “Deb, I used to be nice, right?”

  “Oh, God no,” came the prompt reply. “You’ve never been nice. Not once.”

  “Thanks, Deb.”

  “Remember when I told you my grandma died, and you said me leaving early wouldn’t bring her back, and payroll wouldn’t calculate itself?”

  “Thanks, Deb.”

  “And when Dr. Turnman quit referring patients to you because he thought you might be one of the Horsewomen of the Apocalypse?”

  “All right, Deb.”

  “And remember when the guy who used to be Genghis Khan and Henry Clay Frick and J. Edgar Hoover made that chart detailing just how much of an awful human being you are? And we all got copies of the chart? And we all went to his presentation explaining the chart?”

  “That’s fine, Deb.”

  “And when my predecessor said you were a worse boss than the foreman of a South African diamond mine?”

  “O-kay, Deb!” She smacked the disconnect button and turned back to #6116. “See? You’re right, you are entirely right: I am a bitch. But your plan to make me angry by calling me things that are true isn’t going to work. You came to me for ‘help’ and that’s what I have for you. I’m not saying these things to be mean. If I were being mean, there would be no doubt in your mind, I promise. What I am doing is pointing out that your insomnia and night terrors are from your fear of getting tracked and trapped for the murders.”

  “Not that it’s even true, not that any of what you’re saying is at all true, but how would you even—”

  I can see them in you. All of them.

  Ideas, first, the way you make guesses about a person you’ve just met. Then ghosts, their past actions impacting the patient like pebbles dropped in a pond, only the rings never fade, never stop. And then you can see those other people, those corpses, behind their eyes.

  When you came to me you showed me everything. Everything. It just took a few sessions for me to understand what I was seeing. “You’re not the only one who has trouble sleeping. And not that you care—why would you?—but my rent is late, my estranged mother keeps trying to slither back into my life, and the man who’s killed me half a dozen times is getting close again.”

  The pique was shifting to pissed. “So . . . what, everybody’s got problems?”

  “Some more than most. You, now. You have prison in your immediate future. That’s a sizeable problem.”

  She was ready for the swing, and #6116 obliged. Leah caught the taller woman’s wrist and applied various principles, and what with one thing and another #6116 flipped over the end table and smacked into the far wall. The plainclothes detectives, who’d been waiting outside trying to look like clients, came right in.

  “Would you please arrest #6116 for assault?” she asked politely. Leah was always polite to people who were in the service of the law and routinely carried weapons. Being murdered was no fun at all, and even if it was inevitable in her case, she (usually) had no interest in zooming it along. “Among other things?”

  “Alice Delaney, you’re under arrest.”

  “Me! That bitch should be arrested; she assaulted me! And I want her arrested for libel, too!”

  “It’s not libel if it’s true,” Leah replied helpfully. “Also, I think you mean slander. Here’s something to think about: perhaps spend less time on felony assault and murder, and more time with a dictionary?”

  “. . . you have the right to remain silent . . .”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before.”

  “We’re talking to Ms. Delaney,” one of the cops said pointedly.

  “Oh. How embarrassing.”

  “Like you know the meaning of the word! You’re just a—a psychic Peeping Tom! Fucking creepy is what you are!”

  “Would this be easier on you if I pretended to be hurt?”

  #6116’s answer was a furious growl and a lunge, fortunately stymied by the other detective, who was now cuffing her as quickly and carefully as she could. Insighters, Leah knew, gave people the creeps, which was a profoundly logical reaction. She didn’t blame them for wanting to vacate.

  “Right, sorry. Listen, Anna—”

  “Alice, you nasty fucking bitch!”

  “Mmm. Listen, while you’re slogging through the j
ustice system, you should return for a follow-up.”

  “Follow-up!” Chart #6116 yowled all the way out of the office and down the hall, promising grisly death, arson, murdered family pets, and, worst of all, a lawsuit.

  “See?” the receptionist said. Patients being led away, raving and occasionally handcuffed, was nothing new. “You’re the worst. Toldja.”

  “Not now, Deb. Listen, your court-appointed therapist will give you another referral for follow-up—”

  “You can follow up with my ass!”

  Leah trailed after the cops as they dragged her snarling client to the hoosegow, step one of what would hopefully be a decades-long legal process. “Don’t worry about a thing. It’ll all be covered by your insurance. Less your co-pay, of course.”

  Patient advised to return within sixty days for routine follow-up. Thank you for the opportunity to treat Ms. Delano. Ms. Dellen.

  Oh, hell, what was her name again? Delaney.

  Report filed CC. INS ID# 29682.

  THREE

  My name is Mary Jane Kelly.

  Mary Jane misses Limerick, Ireland, and yes, that is where she was born and she’s aware it’s much like a bad joke. There was a young lassie from . . . from . . .

  But she misses it. Still a wee one when the family moved to the city, her biggest problem back then was trying not to wet her clouts. She doesn’t have the accent, not like her da’, but the name alone

  (my name is Mary Jane Kelly)

  gives her away, tells the world she’s a mick

  (my name is Mary Jane Kelly)

  an Irish mick, a bog trotter, a coal cracker, a fire bush fumblin’ Dublin paddy narrow back potlicker wic sid, seven brothers and one sister because them Irish fuck like minks and none o’ them are virgins.

  She learned most of those hateful names from her mother, who decided Mary Jane Kelly should be earning on her back. Growing girls ate too much and didn’t work as hard as the boys. And there were too many girls in the family as it was. Got to make it up to the family some other way, and Mary Jane Kelly never got the knack of sewing, or cooking, or minding the wee ones. So . . .

  So here she was, and it was a bad time to be on the streets, a bad time to be in London’s East End, but here she was, and some of her customers called her Fair Emma and none of them would tell her why.

  Sometimes they called her Dark Mary and that one she did understand: Mary Jane Kelly was a mean drunk. She said terrible things when she was lit; she hit customers, she broke windows, she hurt, she’d been hurt, she yelled at her mother, dead now for two years. So, yes. A mean drunk.

  (She hadn’t gone to the funeral. Couldn’t. The letter from her oldest brother came too late. She didn’t care. And she was arrested twice that day.)

  She had plenty to be mean about. The fucking East End and the fucking weather and the fucking johns and fucking live-ins who didn’t want her but just the money she earned on her back and fucking Barnett, who smelled like fish no matter how much he washed and sometimes she was sure his fish smell was in her and she would never never never be clean.

  And the fucking Ripper man, whose sole focus was working girls like herself, soiled doves ladies of the evening sluts whores whores whores. Like she had aspired to this. Like she and other little girls and boys the world over told their mamas, oh yes, when I get big I want to be a whore whore whore. Like her mother looked at her when she was just born and thought, I’ll make her turn pross when she’s a teenager. For the family.

  She was six weeks behind on the rent; she owed twenty-nine shillings and it might as well have been twenty-nine thousand.

  A problem.

  It was November and fucking cold. Another problem. She’d spent her last pence on beer; it was the only thing keeping her warm. Made her want a piss, but . . . warm. Sometimes she thought she could be happy if she could just be reliably, dependably warm, all the time.

  The only men she met wanted to borrow money. Still another problem, and by far the most annoying and darkly hilarious. D’you think I’d be slinging my tits out here if I could loan you sixpence, daft man? Fuck.

  And then: a miracle. He’s there and he’s neat and clean and when she bitches about losing her handkerchief he gives

  (gives! not lends!)

  her his. He has a kind smile. He asks if she’s terribly cold. He has a nice voice, low and kind and a little stuttery with nervousness. He buys her another beer. He asks if she has somewhere warm they can go. He says he likes her eyes, her pretty

  (bog trotter coal cracker fire bush paddy potlicker)

  Irish eyes. He says he knows just by looking at her that her mother was pretty, too.

  (He’s right.)

  Amazed at her good fortune, she leads him to her nasty filthy room, which, at least, offers privacy, and she sings “a violet I plucked from Mother’s grave when a boy” for his delighted approval. He doesn’t care about the noise. In this part of town, at this time of night, no one cares.

  She unbolts the door by putting her hand through the window she broke when she was Dark Mary; everyone knows she does this. In truth the room isn’t much warmer with unbroken windows, in truth it’s dreadful, but there’s a bed and blankets and privacy and she can be warm, for a little while she can be warm with a nice gentleman, a good man who gave her a handkerchief and gave her beer and will give her money. He might not hit. Even if he does, the marks from his hands will keep her warm. For a while.

  The light from the lone candle is poor and guttering, but she doesn’t mind that, she never minds; what about any part of her life does she want to see clearly? It’s better like this, in the shifting shadows he could be anyone: rescuer, prince, lover, husband.

  (Her father, come to save her. “What’re y’doing in this hovel, girl? C’mon home with me, now. We’ve all missed y’so much.”)

  He’s quick, too, he’s in a rush and that’s fine, that’s always fine, and she tries to help him with his clothes, or at least his trousers, and he’s helping with hers, tugging in his eagerness and ah, God, it’s been a while since a man wanted her with such urgency and she responds to his desire, his need, his warmth.

  He’s yanking, now, pulling hard and there’s a flash of silver and he’s—he’s cutting her clothes off her, the silver flashes so quickly it’s like she’s in the center of a pool of little silver fish and yes he wants her she’s never in her life had a man want her so badly and she’s warm, so warm, and her clothes are off and the fish are everywhere and she’s warm, she’s hot, it’s like he’s splashing hot chocolate on her it’s thick and warm and it smells it smells it smells a little like the farm

  (hog day, they’re butchering the hogs today)

  like home, like Limerick, the place she never should have left. It’s running from her throat, coating her breasts and dripping on the floor, and now it’s turning cold and getting tacky and sticky the way chocolate does when it spills and you don’t wipe it up right away it’s sticky everywhere she’s sticky and the fish are still darting at her and she shivers, cold again, always cold, always always always cold.

  FOUR

  Deep in the middle of part-time job number sixteen, he watched Leah walk outside, blink up at the sun like some kind of gorgeous mole

  (gorgeous mole? oh, man, you have it so bad)

  and cross the street, heading into the small park where her only friend—so far as he’d been able to find out in two weeks—was waiting on one of the park’s four deep green benches.

  He’d been on her for two weeks and she was probably crazy. A sweetly curvy, glum, crazy lady with no friends (except the homeless woman in the park), a job she seemed to hate, and no desire to do anything but the job she seemed to hate.

  Hobbies? Nope. Parties? Nope. Work parties? More nope. Dates? Ever more nope. Family? Nada. Friends, plural? Nope. A life full of nope.

  He could see her getting depressed
, actually see the physical symptoms of crushing depression every time she approached her office building. In the sixty-or-so feet between her car and the building, her shoulders went lower and lower, her mouth grew tighter, her gaze shifted from straight ahead to the sidewalk. Remarkable and so, so sad.

  He knew Insighters were trapped in their own world of weird, but this gal was one of a kind among one of a kind. (Would that be ones of a kind?) Normally he hated that phrase, since by definition pretty much everybody was one of a kind, but Leah really was. Back in the day, they would have yanked her eyes and burned and salted the remains. Having that prospect dangling overhead would make anyone grumpy, he was sure, even if that kind of atrocity hadn’t happened in over a century.

  Her professional rep preceded her by miles—Leah had been an expert witness in a baker’s dozen of criminal trials. History-making trials; Thomas J. Kinter v. Ann Boleyn brought about legislation preventing reincarnated victims from suing reincarnated people who had wronged them in previous lives. Little old ladies spilling hot coffee on themselves and then suing McDonald’s for selling them hot coffee was nothing compared to the legal headache of suing someone who reneged on a twenty-dollar bet in 1814 (“So accumulated interest over two centuries means you owe me just under a quarter of a million dollars. So d’you want to write me a check or should I just garnish your wages for your next four lives?”).

  So there were all sorts of things about Leah in her pro capacity, but nothing at all about her private life. If she even had one. Right now, he was guessing no. And he had the feeling that it was more than the caution employed by anyone whose job meant they were constantly interacting with the potentially homicidal: district attorneys, crusading journalists, loan collectors, reality show stars.

  In person—or as close to that as he could get in fourteen days—she was startling. He’d never met anyone odder or more intriguing. As a different sort of freak, Archer Drake figured he ought to know. And then there was the idea that had taken root in his brain that would not leave, the distinct impression he knew her, recognized her from somewhere. Impossible, since he hadn’t officially met her. But there, always there, nipping into his brain and making him nuts, all the more so because he couldn’t just march up to her and use the lamest of lame lines: Don’t I know you from somewhere? Oh, and I’m not a creep or anything. So, no friends, huh? Hmm? Oh, I know because I’ve been following you around for days.