Page 12 of Lion's Share
Glad that the third degree was over — for now, anyway — he led her away from the library and down the street before cutting off onto the smaller lane that would bring them to Nancy Petterson’s property. He knew she wouldn’t be home, since she worked in Eureka three days a week and telecommuted the other two days, and he could only be relieved about that. Although there certainly wasn’t anything illegal about asking an expert to assess the electromagnetic happenings in Silver Hollow, Ben preferred to keep the research to himself until he had a chance for Marjorie to verify that there really was something strange going on here.
She had an oversized satchel slung over one shoulder, and he assumed it carried the equipment she needed to take any necessary readings. When they got to the cottage, though, instead of pulling out whatever gizmo she planned to employ, she said, “Can I take a look at the electrical panel?”
Luckily, he knew where that was — hidden out back inside a little wooden box that had been constructed to protect the panel from the elements. He wasn’t sure what Marjorie would find, since the panel had been updated at the same time all the wiring had been replaced about five years earlier, but he supposed they had to start somewhere.
“This way,” he told her, and they headed toward the back of the cottage. Even though it wasn’t his place and he was just renting it, he was glad the paint still looked fresh and the garden was neat and pretty, with snapdragons and viola and lobelia blooming in the flowerbeds and quaint gravel walkways crisscrossing the fenced-off backyard. It gave the appearance of a home that had been well cared for, and certainly not one with an electrical panel that would be malfunctioning in any way.
Marjorie eased the satchel off her shoulder and set it on the ground, then fished around inside. A moment later, she pulled out a small, rectangular device, one that made Ben want to smile…although he had a feeling she probably wouldn’t share his amusement.
She was holding an EMF meter, something that ghost hunters regularly employed because they claimed spirits were basically forms of electromagnetic energy that could be picked up by one of the devices. Of course, EMF meters had first been designed simply to measure electric and magnetic fields in the ELF — extremely low frequency — range, but now Ben guessed they were far more well-known for their much more interesting role in ghost-hunting.
“This will let me know if the field around this panel is especially strong or if there are any other anomalies specific to this location,” Marjoie told him as she switched the thing on. It made a few beeps but otherwise seemed mostly quiescent.
“It sounds kind of quiet,” he replied. Even though he’d devoted his life to cryptozoology these past few years and wasn’t anything close to a ghost hunter, he’d gone on a couple of expeditions to haunted houses, just to see what it was like. He still didn’t know if he’d seen any ghosts, although there had been a couple of uneasy moments when he’d walked through a cold spot and the EMF meter had lit up and started making squealing noises like a Geiger counter that had been placed next to an atomic bomb.
The one Marjorie currently held didn’t seem to be doing anything close to that.
“It is quiet,” she said, and now she sounded annoyed, as if she wanted to hold him personally responsible for having an electrical panel that was behaving itself. “So it doesn’t seem — at first glance, anyway — as if the panel is the problem. Still, this is just a preliminary reading. There’s a bunch of other stuff I want to deploy…an RF spectrum analyzer, a trifield meter, maybe some RF interference hunting equipment.” She paused there and glanced around. “Do you know of anywhere in town that hasn’t been experiencing these phenomena? I really need to get some baseline readings before I go much further.”
“Not really,” he replied, which only made Marjorie look that much more irritated. “But I’ll admit I haven’t asked that many people about it, either. I think your best chance is to get some readings away from the houses and the businesses on Main Street, just to be safe.”
She didn’t appear too thrilled with that entirely unscientific suggestion. Rather than argue, though, she only lifted her thin shoulders and said, “Okay, I’ll see what I can find. At least if I stay away from people, I won’t have to deal with them interrupting me and asking what I’m doing.”
“Probably not,” Ben agreed. While he’d already learned that the residents of Silver Hollow were a friendly bunch and the type to always stop and help someone who was having car trouble or to lend that missing ingredient you needed for your latest batch of quick bread, they also tended to be a little nosy…not so strange in a place that didn’t have a lot of diversions to offer.
If Marjorie could manage to stay away from as many of them as possible, so much the better.
“How long is all this going to take?” he asked next, and the grad student looked even more sour, if possible.
He could imagine a similar expression on Michelangelo’s face when the church elders asked him how much longer before the roof of the Sistine Chapel was finished.
But her tone sounded level enough as she said, “I’m not sure. Definitely the rest of the afternoon. I’ll try to collate my findings and get back to you tomorrow morning. I only have the one Monday class I’m teaching this summer, so I don’t need to be back in Davis until late on Sunday.”
Ben hoped it wouldn’t take that long to get all this figured out. On the other hand, he had no idea what they were actually dealing with here, and if it turned out the readings Marjorie took were so anomalous that they were also outside her realm of experience, then she might need a while to get to the bottom of things.
If she ever could.
“Okay,” he said, hoping he sounded unworried by the prospect of her investigation lasting longer than the single day they’d originally discussed. “I have something I need to do later today and this evening, but you’ve got my cell number if you need anything.”
Marjorie didn’t look too concerned. “I doubt I will. It’s not like you’d be able to help me take these readings.”
After delivering that remark, she returned the EMF meter to her satchel and marched off.
Had he ever been dismissed so thoroughly?
Probably not. On the upside, it sure sounded as if Marjorie Tran could handle everything on her own just fine, which meant he was free to do whatever he needed to do.
Sidney wouldn’t be off work for a few more hours, so he’d already planned to go to his makeshift office and finish editing the YouTube video he’d been working on. If Marjorie had needed him to stick close by, then he could have put that task on the back burner for another day or so, but obviously, that hadn’t happened.
With any luck, he’d have the video edited and uploaded and scheduled before five o’clock, and then he could meet Sidney knowing he didn’t have anything on his plate that absolutely needed to be handled.
Just in case all hell decided to break loose.
She texted him around four-thirty to ask if he wanted to meet for an early dinner at her house, and of course he’d said yes. While they went out to eat at least once a week — further fueling rumors that they were dating even though they both knew that wasn’t quite the reality of the situation — usually, they ate at her place, just because doing so provided them the privacy they needed to discuss all the otherworldly goings-on in their lives.
No bottle of wine tonight, though, not when they were going to be heading out into the forest just as soon as it began to get dark. The time stamp on the video of the black-clad stranger carving the trees showed that he’d started his activities around eight-thirty, well after the hour any hikers would have gone home, but definitely not the middle of the night.
As to whether it was wise to even be confronting such a personage without backup…well, there was no reason for the man to think they were hunting him. A simple explanation that they were out for an evening walk in the woods should be enough.
