Chapter 25
Cora could hardly wait to tell Cisco and Frannie about her contact with Angel and what she read in the diary. The Lemont Area Historical Society was open for only limited hours, so the building was usually vacant by mid-afternoon and was a good place for private conversation. To save time rehashing events, Cisco and Frannie had already met to bring each other up to date. Cora had not seen Cisco since he left the house early in the day, so neither of them knew about her latest encounter with Angel. Now Cora unlocked the entry door and led them to the choir loft, where they took seats around the library table, and sipped from takeout cups of coffee.
"Did you bring your pad and pen?" Frannie joked.
"Sure did," Cora said, fishing for them in her bulky purse. "Brought my favorite pen. Makes me feel confident, working with a good pen."
In spite of her brave words, Cora looked around nervously to be sure they were alone. "I know this is my problem, and I appreciate your help." She looked into one set of eyes and then the other. "I think we agree now there's good evidence Angel is real, and after this morning I don't think there's any doubt." Cisco started to open his mouth, but Cora held out a hand to stop him.
"Let me finish. She's also violent and unpredictable. I don't think she'd hurt me, but she is a danger to people around me. That includes you." Her gaze rested on Cisco. "We have to prevent that."
"I still don't know how you can feel so sure you aren't in danger," Cisco objected.
Cora didn't answer him. Admittedly the information she got from Angel that morning was scanty and left a lot to interpretation, but now she had confronted Angel, knew her better, and felt less impotent.
Frannie reached into her purse, pulled out some notes and waited for someone to begin.
"It was quite a morning." Cora rolled her eyes, then took a deep breath. "Let's see if we need to fill in any gaps before I tell you about it."
Cisco and Frannie looked at Cora expectantly, knowing she would have something in mind. They were well aware of her management skills, one of which was running meetings. Cora's mother often said she wasborn in charge, and was so headstrong it was easiest to just give up and let her take over. She liked to be in control, and management as a career choice had suited her.
"Cisco, Frannie told you what she found out about wolves and spirits?"
"Yeessss." Cisco's doubt was reflected in his shifting eyes and clenched jaw.
"Did you tell Frannie what happened yesterday?"
"That poor man-how awful!" Frannie's eyes blazed, shaking her head, lips tight with anger.
"Cora thinks something Father said made Angel angry enough to make a wolf attack him," Cisco said.
"Uh huh." Frannie paused a moment. "Well, that's no crazier than anything else we been considering. How do you figure this mother business relates to that?"
Cisco frowned and shifted his eyes between the two women. With the rapid succession of events and limited discussions in their home, Cora hadn't told Cisco that theory yet. "Father suggested Angel might think she's my mother, since she used the word Máime, which is Gaelic for Mommy-or maybe I was reacting to grief over Mom's death."
Cisco examined Cora's face for a clue. "Well..." he said, "he's a psychologist, so I guess he would ask you about grief. But he thinks she's real, a ghost or something, doesn't he?"
"Either way, maternal feelings could be involved-mine, or Angel's-or both." Cora's voice shook, and she looked down at the table.
"I should have realized how much your mother's death was bothering you," Cisco said, reaching out and taking her hand.
"I've been hiding it, Hon-pretty well, I guess." She gave him a little tight-lipped smile. "Trying to man up...it's not your fault." She squeezed his hand. "Angel couldn't be my mother's spirit, of course, she was around long before Mom died. After she died, I kept feeling Mom wanted to know what I was doing or that she left things for me to find. Sometimes I thought I heard her call me."
"Doesn't that happen to a lot of grieving people?" he suggested.
"I suppose...you could be right." She pulled her hand away but gave him a warm look before saying, "We'd better get busy."
She began shuffling through papers on the table, straightened her back, looked at Frannie, and said, "I think a lot of what we talked about yesterday is barking up the wrong tree. Father's attack and this morning's events have put a whole new light on things."
She paused and looked at Cisco. "After you left, I heard from Angel."
"Really? Our plan worked?" Cisco sounded surprised.
"Yes. Not at first, but then I said something that made her mad, and she threw that big file cabinet on the floor..."
"What?" Cisco exclaimed. He probably thought she was exaggerating.
"...and picked it up again..."
"What?" Frannie said, her mouth dropping open.
"...she pretty much admitted to masterminding the attack on Father. 'Don't trust Father Fitzpatrick, Darlin'. It's all his fault,' is exactly what she said."
"On your computer again?" asked Cisco.
"Yeah, and some other things, too...not very clear, but I think I can fill in the blanks with guesses."
"Who's Father Fitzpatrick?" asked Frannie.
Cora went on to describe in detail Angel's tantrum and how she had provoked Angel's responses. "Father Fitzpatrick was from old Saint James, I read that in the diary, and I guess Angel has a dislike of priests for some reason. She seems to be confusing him with Father McGrath."
"Right, spirits get confused, remember," Frannie said.
Cora leaned back in her chair and watched while her husband and friend considered the developments.
"The cabinet..." Cisco began.
"Dramatic, wasn't it? I'll let you pick up the mess." She gave a little chuckle.
"How can you joke about this?" Cisco asked.
Cora blinked rapidly and averted her eyes. "It's how I cope. You should know that."
A muscle in his jaw jumped and he started to open his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. Instead he asked a question. "She didn't actually say she caused the attack?"
"She alluded to it. I don't think she wanted to explain, so she wouldn't answer," Cora said. "I accused her of attacking Father because she was in a snit when she heard him say he wanted to stop her. I think I was right. The wolf isn't her, made manifest or some such thing, but a friend-her only friend, she said. Angel even told me the wolf's name, which is She-that's gonna get confusing, but it is what it is."
"What were her exact words?" asked Frannie.
"The first response I told you, and the second was: 'She is my only friend. We protect Darlin' from that man.' The third was: 'Wolf is She', with a capital 'S' for She. That reply came after I suggested that she-Angel-didn't attack Father herself, but that She-the wolf, Angel's friend-attacked under Angel's direction. See what I mean about the confusing name?" Cora gave a half smile.
"After the attack, I saw the wolf look at the window. You mean Angel was telling it what to do?" Cisco asked.
"That's what I think."
In the end Cisco and Frannie agreed with Cora's reasoning. Cora felt a sense of relief that Cisco finally accepted the idea of Angel's reality, was ready to explore the implications and discuss plans to take action.
"Cora, you write somethin' down on your little pad now, stuff we know," Frannie cut in. "Here's what to write. You say, 'Angel gets this she-wolf to attack Father, because he's getting in the way.' She's in a snit, so she calls her friend-this she-wolf-that's where the name came from, I figure."
"That's about what seems to have happened," Cora said, nodding.
"This Angel confuses me, though. One minute she wants to be your mother, next she's like some kid having a hissy fit because things don't go her way. And what does she want with you? Why you, not someone else?" asked Frannie, narrowing her eyes, unable to make a connection between Cora and the spirit.
"I don't know that yet-but I think I know who she is," Cora said, leaning back in her chair, arms folded and eyeing them smugly.
"It was her diary, wasn't it?" Cisco said, grinning.
"I think so, yes. You said that sarcastically, but I think you were right."
"You read it?" asked Frannie.
"Yes, right after she stopped communicating with me. Not the whole thing, but enough to convince me." This was going to take a while to explain, so Cora settled herself more comfortably, took a sip of coffee, cleared her throat, crossed her arms and rested them on the table, watching their expressions as she told them what she read.
"I'm convinced Angel is the spirit of the woman who wrote the diary-a young Irish woman who lived over a hundred years ago, who was murdered at Saint James. When I brought the diary into the house, Angel recognized it. I even think I know where the wolf came from."
In the silence Cora looked from face to face. Cisco frowned and furrowed his brow, not yet convinced. Frannie raised her eyebrows, grinned, and rubbed her hands together, excited.
"That's got to be it! A ghost don't rest sometimes because of a violent death-I read that. Here's what I think-this has got to be a murder mystery!" Frannie said.
"Right. The woman who wrote it, Meg, or Mavourneen, grew up in Sag Bridge, where Bridey lived. And, as Bridey told me when she gave me the diary, the woman who wrote it was killed in the summer of 1898, along with her husband and unborn baby. How many murdered women are there that could be my ghost?"
Cisco was listening intently, but he didn't say anything.
"Meg began keeping the diary when she was in her teens. There are almost ten years of entries here-I didn't have time to read it all, so I skimmed it until I got to where she wanted me to start," Cora said.
"Did it say who killed her?" asked Frannie.
Cora grinned. "She could hardly write about it after she was dead, could she? Clues, you mean, or something she knew that pointed to who killed her?"
Frannie nodded, and now Cisco did too.
"Nothing obvious. We'll have to spend some time analyzing it in detail. Here's the short version. Meg would have been in her early twenties, and she was married, happily, to Packey, a foreman in one of the quarries. She left Sag Bridge to work in Chicago, but returned to marry Packey. That reminded me of you, Frannie, coming home to a former life."
"I'll have to think about that-it didn't turn me into no ghost," Frannie said.
"She was pregnant, near term, with her first child. She and Packey lived on the family farm with Meg's sister and brother-in-law, but her mother lived at a boarding house in town. Meg described her mother as an irritating woman who made their lives difficult, and she was determined to be a better mother than her own Máime, which is what she called her mother."
"Máime! That does it. This has to be your ghost!" said Frannie.
"Yes, and the diary was filled with descriptions of inventions, gadgets, and toys-clearly that interested her, and could explain why she's using my computer to communicate," Cora theorized.
"But none of those people would have killed her," said Cisco, waving his hands as he talked.
"No, not likely. She seemed to care for all of them, even her irritating mother."
"What do you think Angel wanted you to see?" he asked.
"I'm not sure. The first revealing information I read, after the page she said I should start, was about a picnic on the Fourth of July and extensive gossip Meg heard that day, including trouble at the quarries where Packey worked. And the last entry was about a man she didn't know who approached Packey after Mass, and that her sister was very sick. She had an argument with Packey about a number of things, why he wouldn't tell her what the man at the church wanted, why he let the priest-Father Fitzpatrick, like in Angel's note-drag him into so much work at the church, why he had to keep boxing, which she didn't like. She was upset with her brother-in-law, Mick, who was being distant and crabby. Her final words were about patching things up with Packey before he left her alone that evening to meet with the priest, how eager she was for the birth of her baby girl, who she called Darlin', and she was very tired."
"Darlin'," Frannie said, nodding. "That's important too. How did she know her baby was a girl?"
"She said she believed it was a girl, she couldn't know in those days, of course. There was no more after that, but we know, of course, that Packey, Meg, and her baby girl were found dead in the cemetery, by Father Fitzpatrick, at least, that's the story. And no one knew who killed them."
"Other than the killer or killers," Cisco put in.
"If you still aren't convinced for any reason," Cora went on, "the biggest clue that this is Angel's diary is the strong reaction she had to it. It was like, as soon as I brought it into the house-where did that come from? Where did you get it? She must have recognized it, and it's extremely important to her. Once I got the idea Angel was Meg's spirit, things started falling into place, although I didn't like the connection. I found myself liking Meg, and it was hard to think of her as violent."
Cisco had a thoughtful look on his face. "You said you liked Angel too, before you started connecting the violent stuff."
"So Angel is a spirit...she was alive once, and isn't anymore. The next question is, what kind of link does she have to Cora? Why is Cora her earthly contact?" Frannie said.
"Good question," Cora said.
They looked at each other, and Cisco and Frannie waited for Cora's opinion.
"What?" asked Cora, and then exhaled, rested her elbows on the table again, rubbed her eyes, and took a moment to think. "From what Frannie found out about spirits, they focus on either a person or a place. I have no idea why she'd pick me. I didn't live here when she started visiting me, and she's followed me for years, wherever I moved. She doesn't stay put."
"Maybe ghosts can tell the future, and she knew you'd move to Lemont someday," Frannie suggested.
"She only hears us in the house, you think," Cisco put in. "And she's been more active since we moved to Lemont. That must mean something."
"Yeah," Cora said, shrugging and holding the palms of both hands out.
"It's a question...write that down," Frannie dictated. Cora jotted a note on her pad.
"So we'll assume Meg is Angel. We don't have any better ideas, let's go with that one," Frannie said. "What places would be important to her?"
"The place she lived," Cora guessed.
"No...," said Cisco thoughtfully. "...the place she died." They exchanged looks of agreement as the thought sunk in.
"He's right," said Frannie. She paused, then ordered, "Write that down."
Cora ripped two pages from her notepad. On the top of one she wrote: Known or Theorized. On the second she wrote: To Find Out or Do.
She placed both pages on the table for Cisco and Frannie to see.
"Ah!" Cisco teased, tapping a finger on one of the pages. "Cora's famous lists!"
"You ever notice," Frannie said, poking Cisco with an elbow, "the look she gets on her face when she crosses something off one of her lists? It's almost like sex."
"I noticed. I should be so lucky," Cisco replied.
"Let's do this," Cora said, ignoring their banter. "We can't prove Meg is Angel, but we strongly suspect it. So let's write down what we know, or think we know, that might prove it. Questions go on the list of things to find out. It could help us sort out what to do next, don't you think?"
They spent some time brainstorming and making notes. Frannie consulted her research now and then. Cora wrote items down as they sorted facts and suppositions from unknowns.
"Angel is a spirit-probably a young Irish woman who lived here a hundred years ago," Cora began.
"Spirits stay spirits because something keeps them from being at rest. Let's say that's the murders. Angel can't accept being killed, her husband and baby too," Frannie added, nodding.
"Angel says a wolf is her friend-a wolf named She, and She carries out Angel's orders," Cora added.
"There's some connection between Cora and Angel we don't know. There must be a reason she protects Cora," Cisco said. "And she wants Cora to do something-something important to Angel. What is that?"
"This Angel's been around years, follows Cora from place to place, but all of a sudden gets mean and starts coming around just about every day. What made her kick into high gear out of the blue?" Frannie asked.
"Why did Angel latch onto Cora? Why not someone else?" Cisco asked, rephrasing his thought.
"Clues-calling herself Máime and me Darlin'-suggest she thinks she's my mother. Why? Could that be a motive?" Cora theorized.
"You're both Irish," Frannie noted.
"She seems to have limitations-she doesn't seem to react to things unless they happen in our house, but vengeful acts happen other places," Cora said. "So far. What she did this morning shows she's getting stronger, or was holding back before, so I wonder if she'll start to follow us other places-if there's anywhere we can talk safely."
"Meg, her husband and baby, were murdered, but we don't know who did it," Cisco said. "What about that man Packey talked to the day they died?"
"Meg's sister was sick. Does that mean anything?" Cora asked.
"What went on at that church? Angel doesn't like priests. Did the killings have something to do with the priest?" Cisco asked.
"What about the brother-in-law. Any idea what kind of guy he was?" Frannie said.
"I have to read the whole journal. Maybe there are more clues," Cora said, shaking her head slowly.
"What about the quarries? You said men were making trouble and Packey was foreman," Cisco said.
"My money's on that stranger. Everyone else seems like nice guys, that's what I think," said Frannie.
"Everyone we know about-there's bound to be other people," Cisco pointed out.
"I can pull out news stories about the murders at the historical society. A story like that must have had a lot of coverage," Cora noted.
"Okay, I think we've beaten this to death," Cora said, scanning both lists and marking notes by some items. "Let's prioritize and figure out what to do."
"Yeah, but wait," Frannie said. "I remember another question. Where did that diary come from? How did Bridey get it? Put that down too."
"Oh, I forgot," Cora said, tapping her forehead. "After I read the diary I wondered that too, and I called Bridey. How could I forget to tell you? It's interesting.
"A friend of Bridey's father worked for public works in Lemont. This was many years later-about the 1950s, Bridey thinks. They were boarding up all the old tunnels because they were dangerous..."
"Tunnels? What's this about tunnels now?" Frannie interrupted.
"Lemont has a spiderweb of connecting tunnels running under the old part of town. It was a very busy canal port at one time, and it was easier to unload barges and carry materials to businesses at canal level than to hoist stuff up to the streets and down again. Digging tunnels was no big deal after digging canals and quarries."
"So this friend of her father...?" Cisco circled one hand impatiently.
"Yes-well. Years later the tunnels started collapsing, so they boarded them up. In the process they found stuff that was stored in them and forgotten. Bridey had no idea how the diary got left in the tunnel. Maybe somebody who bought Meg's farm found it, handed it over to the village or the police, and it got into some inactive file. Her father's friend found the diary. Meg's family was gone, and the friend remembered Bridey's father telling Meg's story, and thought he would like the diary since he knew Packey, so he gave it to him. Bridey got it when her father died."
"Seems the historical society would've been a better choice," Cisco said.
"True, only it hadn't been started yet," Cora pointed out.
"Wait now. You said we'd know where the wolf came from. Where did this wolf come from anyhow and why is She Angel's friend? How'd you figure that?" Frannie complained.
"I could be wrong, but going back to the story Bridey told me, when the pastor of Saint James, Father Fitzpatrick again, found Meg and the baby dead, a wolf was lying with them, and started to attack him. He had to shoot and kill it. I think that's Angel's wolf, and it's a spirit too-a wolf spirit, like the one in that Algernon Blackwood story you told me about," Cora proposed.
Frannie pressed her lips together, wagged her head, and held out her hands. "Could be. So you think maybe Angel sent her, because wolves live in forests and travel around, this She wolf can do things and go places Angel can't?"
"I guess I missed part of Bridey's story," Cisco said, and then shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. "Hard to believe we're serious here, but if you buy into any of it...."
"Let's get back to the list, then, and figure out what to do. What jumps out at you?" Cora asked.
"The To do list is a whole lot longer than the What we know list," Cisco said, shaking his head and gesturing with his hands.
Frannie laughed, but Cora was dealing with a sudden thought and hadn't noticed Cisco's remark.
"I'm going to do something we didn't put on the list." She paused dramatically. "I'm going to Saint James tomorrow."
Frannie and Cisco looked at each other and waited for her to explain.
"I've been there before, but I didn't know any of this then. Things appear different when you put them in perspective, and I want to see for myself where this happened. Maybe it'll give me a clue." Noting the others starting to open their mouths, Cora held up a hand. "I want to go alone."