Free Sister Angel by Kate Wilhelm

DINNER HAD BEEN EXTRAORDINARILY good, Charlie thought with contentment, even if he had cooked it himself. From the kitchen there now came the soft chugging of the dish washer at work; closer, the clink of cup on saucer, a pop from the fireplace or a hiss; even closer, the nearly inaudible purr of Ashcan, who had settled on his lap instantly when he sat down. Outside, silently, the snow was piling up. He sighed again and opened his eyes.
    Candy was sneaking up on the cream pitcher on the coffee table. Her forequarters were low to the floor, her rear up high, and the white tip of her tail twitched like a semaphore flag.
    “Ridiculous cat,” Constance said. “That’s how she hunts, signaling, Here I am!” The cat reached the table. “Candy!” Constance said, not raising her voice. Candy now discovered that her right hind leg was filthy and started to wash it.
    Gretchen laughed. “It was so strange to think of you and Charlie stuck way out in the country, but it’s kind of nice. I like it.” She glanced at her husband and added quickly, “Not for myself, of course.”
    “We’re two hours out of New York,” Constance said.
    “And the village is lovely. The people, now that the tourists have gone, are very nice to us. They still don’t trust us, or include us when they say ‘us,’ but it will come.”
    “Maybe,” Gretchen said. She lifted her cognac and swirled it. “Is Charlie going to sleep now?”
    “Probably. Are you, Charlie?”
    He opened his eyes again and winked at Constance. “Tough day down at the south forty,” he drawled.
    How good it was, Constance thought then, to see him so relaxed, so content. During the year since his retirement, he had become younger-looking; the lines were melting away, the mask dissolving. The real difference was in his eyes, she thought, considering him; they had been turning hard, impenetrable, and now the deep brown was softening again, reverting to how his eyes had been when they first met at college over twenty-five years ago, before he had become a New York City cop. He was watching her watch him, she realized. She tried not to smile, shook her head al most imperceptibly, and turned to Gretchen, but not before Charlie raised an eyebrow and practically leered at her.
    She heard the hint of laughter in her own voice now. “Okay, we’ve wined you and dined you and later we’ll even bed you down. Can’t go out into the storm, my dears. Your turn. You said there was an urgent problem you had to discuss. Give.”
    “Do you believe in ghosts?” Dutch asked suddenly before Gretchen had a chance to speak. He ignored her stiff glance of reproof. Dutch was in his late forties, a very tall, heavy man who had been an athlete in school and had kept in shape since. He was an engineering consultant, with cli ents throughout the world. He was leaving again the following day, Gretchen had mentioned when she called.
    Gretchen was trying to contain her anger by studiously pouring herself more coffee, looking at her cup, the coffee carafe, anything but her husband. It bemused Constance to find that she had slid from her country hostess role into her professional psychologist role effortlessly, against her will even. Here she was observing, taking mental notes.
    Dutch scowled at the cat in the middle of the room, still grooming itself. “It started back last summer,” he said. “At her cousin Wanda’s house in Connecticut. Vernon and Wanda Garrity. Only Vernon is dead now, and Wanda thinks he’s haunting her. And she ”—he poked his thumb in the direction of his wife—“thinks I’m to blame.”
    “I never said that.”
    “You all but said it a hundred times.”
    “Wasn’t Vernon Garrity the inventor?” Charlie asked la zily. “I didn’t know he was dead.”
    “That’s the one,” Dutch said. “He showed us some cats he was working on last summer.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Here’s a guy who invents million-dollar gadgets for the government, for