Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 120, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 733 & 734, September/October 2002

Rules of the Game by Kate Wilhelm

A star in both the science fiction and mystery worlds, Kate Wilhelm began her career as a professional writer nearly forty years ago. In science fiction, she has been the recipient of three Nebula Awards and a Hugo Award, that genre’s top honors for fiction. As a mystery writer, she has proved to have a dependable and devoted readership, with new novels appearing regularly, the most recent being Skeletons, from St. Martin’s Minotaur.

I was watching a senator give a speech a couple of years ago. “They say it’s not about money, it’s about money. They say it’s not about politics, it’s about politics. They say it’s not about sex, it’s about sex.”

Then Harry came in and said, “Hey, so the guy plays around a little. What’s the big deal?”

Eleven months ago I kicked Harry out, after six years of being married. He talked me into calling it a trial separation, and agreeing to let him keep this office in our house because he had a year’s supply of letterheads and cards with this address. He even had an ad in the yellow pages with this address and phone number: Computer Consultant, On Site. He hung out here, ate my food, drank my coffee, and was gone by the time I got home from work. Too late I realized that what he gained from our agreement was rent-free office space and freedom. He never paid a cent of our mortgage after he moved out.

Four months ago I left him a note in his pigsty of an office telling him I wanted a divorce. He never got around to answering. I left the divorce papers on his desk; they vanished. He was as elusive as a wet fish when I tried to reach him.

Two weeks ago I buried him.

And now here he is, Harry Thurman, as big as life, if not as solid. I can see a lamp through him. He’s like a full-color transparency.

I drop the coffee-crusted mugs I’m carrying and he lets out a yelp and disappears.

“And stay out!” I yell at the lamp.

I step over the mess on the floor, leave the office, and close the door behind me. I’m shaking, not from fear but from anger. My fury ignited when I opened his apartment to clean it out and found expensive suits, a huge flat-screen television, DVD system, Chivas Regal... He drove a two-year-old BMW. For a year I lived in near poverty, meeting our mortgage payments, insurance, his and mine, taxes... I cashed out my 401K to meet payments, since I couldn’t sell the house without his cooperation. A small inheritance from my aunt had made the down payment; I would have lost everything if I’d failed to pay up every month. My fury increased when I found two gift boxes in his bureau, one addressed to My darling Marsha. That was a bracelet with semiprecious gems and pearls. The other was to Dearest Diane, a heavy gold chain. I also found four credit-card bills totaling twenty-seven thousand dollars, for which I would be responsible since I was his widow and my name was on them along with his.

“Let it go,” I tell myself, taking a gin and tonic into the living room where I sit and regard the bracelet and gold chain on the coffee table.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” Harry says, and he’s mostly there again, blinking on and off like a Christmas-tree light.

I close my eyes hard. “Either come in all the way, or go out, but stop that blinking!”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

When I look up again, he’s still there, no longer flickering, and I can still see through him.

“You’re not hallucinating,” he says. “I’m really here, or mostly here.”

I take a long drink. “Why?” My voice is little more than a whisper.

“I don’t know why. I just found myself here. You scared the shit out of me when you suddenly saw me, by the way.”

“What do you mean? How long have you been here?”

“When did that real estate agent come?”

“This morning.”

“I was here then. Two hundred seventy-five thousand for this place! Wow! You’ll make out like a bandit. Didn’t I tell you that mortgage insurance was a good idea? And double indemnity for my insurance, plus the BMW. Beautiful rich young widow. What are you going to do with all that dough?”

“Harry! Stop this. Why are you here? What do you want?”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“No. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

After a moment, looking surprised, he says, “Neither do I.”

“Isn’t there someplace you should be? Report in or something?”

He shrugs expressively. He’s very handsome, even if he is dead. Thick black hair just curly enough, wonderful dark blue eyes with makeup-ad lashes, cleft chin. He’s wearing pale blue sweats, possibly the clothes he had on when a hit-and-run maniac clipped him and ran.

“You never used to drink alone,” he says, eyeing the gin and tonic as if he’s longing for one just like it.

“I never used to sit talking to my dead husband.”

He reaches for the gold chain. His fingers pass through it. “Ah well,” he says. “Diane ran a credit check on me and said get lost. And Marsha wanted to get married and I said there was a little complication, namely you. She got sore. If you can find the receipts, you probably can return them. Be worth your while.”

I need a therapist. It’s one thing to hallucinate but quite another to hold a conversation with a hallucination. It could even be a serious disorder. I drink the rest of the gin and tonic.

“Did you find the pictures?” he asks.

“What pictures?”

“Oh. Well. What are you going to do with the furniture and things?”

“Garage sale, auction. I don’t know.”

“You might want to look in the desk drawer. Bottom lifts out, and there’s a file folder... I’d get them myself, but...” He passes his hand through the bracelet and looks at me with what I used to think was an appealing expression, like a boy caught stealing a cookie.

I go back to his office, step over the broken mugs on the floor, and head for his desk. There are pencils, pens, computer disks, miscellaneous office stuff. I dump it out and there really is a fake bottom. The folder has Polaroid shots of seven different naked women, including me. Just one among many.

I take the folder, pick up a newspaper in the kitchen, and head for the patio and the grill.

“Hey!” he says. “They’re worth something, you know.”

If he were not already dead, how satisfying it would be to hit him myself with a car, or a train, or a sledgehammer.

My lawyer said that if they found the guy who ran him down, we’d sue him for a million for wrongful death. Rightful death, I think, watching the Polaroid shots writhe, blacken, and curl up, emitting clouds of foul-smelling smoke.

He doesn’t walk exactly, just drifts along, near me when I go out to the patio, near me when I go back inside.

“Why are you haunting me?” I demand in the kitchen. “I never did anything to you.”

“I’m not haunting you,” he says a bit indignantly.

“Then get out, go away, and don’t come back.”

“I can’t,” he says. “See, I’m doing my morning run, down by the river, the way I always do, and whammo, just nothing. Then I’m here and you’re talking to the real estate agent. And neither of you seems to see me or hear me even though I’m yelling my head off.”

“Who hit you? Do you know?”

“Nope. Came out of nowhere behind me.”

“Have you even tried to find out what you’re supposed to do now? Someone to ask what the rules are or something?”

“What rules?”

“I don’t know. There must be a protocol, something you’re supposed to do, someplace to check in. There are always rules.”

“Maybe,” he says. “I used to think there’d be a rosy-cheeked cherub waiting to take your hand and guide you, or maybe an old guy with a long white beard and a staff, maybe even a beautiful girl in a flowing white gown, something like that. But like I said, nothing, then here.”

“A little guy in a red suit with a white-hot trident,” I mutter. It’s another bureaucratic snarl. I know something about bureaucracy, working for a law firm as I do, or did. I quit a week ago. There are always rules and procedures, routines to follow, and there are always some things that fall through the system and get lost. Like Harry.

“Look,” I say, “I believe you’re supposed to haunt the person or persons who did you in. You know, revenge, something like that. Or are you haunting the house? If I leave, do you stay with the house, like the refrigerator and stove?”

“I believe,” he says, “the people who wrote those rules weren’t the ones who knew much about it.”

“Well, I’m going out now, and you stay here. Okay?” I pick up my purse, fish out the car keys, and walk out, with him close enough to touch, if there were anything to touch besides a draft of cool air.

My neighbor Elinor Smallwood comes over to say hello, and it’s apparent that she doesn’t suspect that he is there; neither does her dachshund. “Lori, I hope you’re bearing up. Was that a Realtor I saw leaving this morning? Oh, dear, I hope if a buyer turns up, it will be someone compatible who speaks English. You know what I mean?”

I nod and return to the house. He doesn’t need doors; he flows inside while I’m still working with the key.

“It isn’t fair!” I yell at him. “I don’t deserve this! Get out of here! Let me get on with my life.”

He flickers for a moment, then spreads his hands helplessly. “I’m as stuck as you are,” he says.

I swallow hard as the realization hits me: He really won’t, or can’t, leave. No matter what I do, he’ll be there watching, commenting. I haven’t been to bed with a man in a year; I dated a few times but I never let things get out of hand. After all, I was still married. Now I’m not married; I’m thirty years old, and whatever I do, there will be my audience of one.

“Oh God, what about Carl?” I say out loud. He’s the attorney from the office who is helping with my legal affairs. He suggested a quiet dinner in a discreet restaurant, and I know he intended to seduce me afterward, and I intended to let him.

“Aha!” Harry says gleefully. “You have a boyfriend!”

I head for the telephone to break my date with Carl. Actually, he never gave me a second glance until I became a fairly-soon-to-be-rich widow.

After the call I sit on the bench by the wall phone, my gaze on Harry, who is trying to pick up a salt shaker on the table. He swoops like a striking snake and his hand goes through it without causing a tremor; then he sneaks up on it stealthily, with the same effect. Over and over. God help me. If he learns to materialize completely, what then?

I start down a list of friends and family, trying to decide if there is anyone I can confide in. There isn’t. Who would believe me? Jo Farrell might, but she would find it exciting and want to hold a seance or something. I can imagine telling Super Iris; she thinks we mean like Superwoman, but it’s really Superior Iris, who always knows more than anyone else and is free with opinions and advice. I can hear her voice in my head: “Surely you understand that it isn’t about ghosts...” Wherever she starts, it always ends the same: It’s really your own fault.

It isn’t my fault, I think then, but it certainly is my problem. I remember a little red phone book in the drawer with the false bottom. Why that when he had a Rolodex?

We go back to the office where I pick up the phone book. He tries to grab it, but the only effect is that of a cool breeze blowing across my hand.

In the kitchen I sit at the table and look over the names in the little red book. Eight women! I even know one of them, Sheila Wayman.

Maybe, I tell myself, maybe one of those women still cares, maybe she’ll want him back, or maybe I can just dump him on one of them. Transfer him. Turn over custodial care... I can feel hysteria mingling with fury now, and I draw in a deep breath. Eight! I pick up the Portland phone book and look up Sheila and Roger Wayman. Southwest Spruce. A twenty-minute drive. Halfway to the door I stop. What will I say to her? I snatch up a paperback book from an end table, scrawl her name on the inside cover, and leave. He drifts along at my side.

“Where are we going?”

He oozes between molecules or something and gets in the passenger seat as I get behind the wheel. For the first ten minutes or so he comments on the beautiful June day, or the heavy traffic, or criticizes my driving, whistles in a low tone at a woman walking a dog... I ignore him. When I turn onto Spruce he leans forward, looking around, and now there’s a note of uneasiness in his voice when he asks again, “Where are we going?”

A minute later, when I slow down to examine house numbers, he says, “This is crazy. She might not even be home. She was a long time ago. She won’t even remember me. What’s the point? What are you going to do, make a scene, pick a fight with her?”

I continue to ignore him. At her house I pull into the driveway and get out holding the book. He is close behind me all the way. If she isn’t home, I’ll sit in the car and read and wait for her, I think grimly, but she answers the doorbell. A small boy on a tricycle is by her side, and she is fifteen pounds overweight.

“Sheila?”

She gasps, recognizing me, and her face pales. “What do you want?” she whispers.

“I’m cleaning out the house and I came across this. I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop it off.” I hand the book to her.

“Wow! She’s turned into a tub,” Harry says at my side. Sheila doesn’t even glance in his direction.

In the car again, I say, “One down, seven to go.” Harry lets out a ghostly type of moan, and tries to grasp my purse. He’s in the passenger seat with my purse on the same seat, where his crotch would be if he had any substance; he is looking at the purse cross-eyed as he makes a quick snatching grab, draws his hand back, and tries with the other one. I start to drive.

At home, I make myself an omelette and salad and he practices. “It’s like having a muscle that you can’t find exactly,” he says. “Like wriggling your ears. I’ll get it,” he adds confidently. I’m very afraid that he will.

I plot out the following day, using a map, listing the women in the order of proximity, the closest ones on to the most distant. I had all day Saturday, when they might be home, and if not, then Sunday, on into the next week or however long it would take. I would track them down at their offices or schools or wherever they spent their time and see each one, give each one the opportunity to see Harry.

And if none of them claims him? No answer follows the question.

I don’t bother with an excuse again. When Hilary Winstead comes to the door, I say, “I’m Lori Thurman. I was cleaning out Harry’s office and I came across your pictures. I burned them. I just wanted you to know.”

Behind me Harry says, “She makes a mean martini.”

Hilary Winstead stares at me, moistens her lips, and then slams the door.

Bette Hackman is tall and willowy, very beautiful. Harry sighs when she says, “What do you mean? I paid for those pictures. He swore that was all he had. That bastard!”

On Southeast Burnside I detour a few blocks and park at the cemetery. A few people are around, none paying any attention to us as I walk to the new grave of Harry Thurman.

“That’s where you planted me?”

“That’s where you belong. Get in there and go back to sleep.”

He shudders and drifts backward. “You’re out of your mind.”

I guess I am. What I was hoping was that a guy with a long beard and a staff, or a cherub, or even a beautiful woman would cry out, “Harry! We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come along now.” We return to the car and I drive on.

No one answers the doorbell at Wanda Sorenson’s house.

Diane Shuster says, “I could care less.”

“Shrewd, but nearly illiterate,” Harry comments. “Great ass, though.”

I am ready to give it up. No one sees him, or notices a cold breeze, or anything else out of the ordinary.

Then he says, “How it goes is, they’d call for help with the new computer, or new software, and I’d go in and find things screwed up royally. So I’d fool around and get things working, and accidentally log on to a porn site, something like that, and then... One thing leads to another.”

I grit my teeth and look at the next name: Sonia Welch. He nods when I turn onto River Drive. “Ah, wait until you see that house! Gorgeous place! Sonia broke it off before I was ready, actually. Afraid her old man would find out.”

He sounds regretful when he says, “That was part of it, of course, the fear of discovery, a mad husband with a gun, something like that. A little added spice.”

My lips are clamped so hard they hurt. I am determined to ignore him until he gets so bored he’ll find a way to go somewhere else. He’ll find someone who knows the rules.

“That’s it,” Harry says, pointing to a tall gray house nearly hidden behind shrubbery. It is beautiful, with bay windows, stained-glass panels, professional landscaping... A heavyset man in shorts, holding a can of varnish, is touching up a motorboat in the driveway.

“Hello,” I say, getting out of the car. “I’m looking for Sonia. Is she home?”

The man looks me over as if I am up for auction.

“The husband. He’s a shrink,” Harry says. “Would you tell him your innermost secrets?”

I have to admit, although silently, that I would not. His eyes are as cold and fathomless as black ice.

“She’s back on the terrace,” Welch says. “Go on around.” He motions toward a walkway and returns to his boat repair.

I walk under a lattice covered with roses in bloom. The fragrance is intoxicating. I see the woman before I step onto the terrace; she is dozing, apparently, with a magazine over her face against the late afternoon sun.

“Sonia?” I say.

With a languid motion she moves the magazine and looks around over her shoulder. Then she jumps up and jams both hands over her mouth, staring wide-eyed, not at me but at my side, at Harry.

“No,” she cries then, and begins to back up, nearly falls over the chaise behind her, catches her balance, and continues to back up around a glass-topped table, staring, paler than death.

“I didn’t mean to, Harry,” she whispers. “It was an accident. Don’t come closer, stay back! Please, don’t come closer!”

Harry is flickering wildly, moving toward her like a cloud fired with lightning. Then he goes out. Sonia keeps backing up.

“Harry, stay away! I had to do it. I told you he was suspicious! I told you to stay away! I had to do it! You should have stayed away! Don’t touch me! Oh God, don’t touch me!”

I don’t think she even saw me. I turn and retrace my steps under the roses and out to the car.

“Wasn’t she there?” Welch asks, looking up.

“I think she’s sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her. I just wanted to thank her for a favor she did me. It isn’t important.”

I knew there were rules, I tell myself, driving away. There are always rules.