FIVE

DR. JESSUP HAD BEEN NO DANGER TO ME WHEN HE WAS alive, nor was he a threat now.

Occasionally, a poltergeist-which is a ghost who can energize his anger-is able to do damage, but they're usually just frustrated, not genuinely malicious. They feel they have unfinished business in this world, and they are people for whom death has not diminished the stubbornness that characterized them in life.

The spirits of thoroughly evil people do not hang around for extended periods of time, wreaking havoc and murdering the living. That's pure Hollywood.

The spirits of evil people usually leave quickly, as though they have an appointment, upon death, with someone whom they dare not keep waiting.

Dr. Jessup had probably passed through the pantry door as easily as rain through smoke. Even walls were no barrier to him anymore.

When he took his hand off my shoulder, I assumed that he would settle on the floor, cross-legged Indian style, as I was sitting, and evidently he did. He faced me in the dark, which I knew when he reached out and gripped my hands.

If he couldn't have his life back, he wanted reassurance. He did not have to speak to convey to me what he needed.

"I'll do my best for Danny," I said too softly to be heard beyond the pantry.

I did not intend my words to be taken as a guarantee. I haven't earned that level of confidence from anyone.

"The hard truth is," I continued, "my best might not be good enough. It hasn't always been enough before."

His grip on my hands tightened.

My regard for him was such that I wanted to encourage him to let go of this world and accept the grace that death offered him.

"Sir, everyone knows you were a good husband to Carol. But they might not realize just how very good a father you were to Danny."

The longer a liberated spirit lingers, the more likely he will get stuck here.

"You were so kind to take on a seven-year-old with such medical problems. And you always made him feel that you were proud of him, proud of how he suffered without complaint, his courage."

By virtue of the way that he had lived, Dr. Jessup had no reason to fear moving on. Remaining here, on the other hand-a mute observer incapable of affecting events-guaranteed his misery.

"He loves you, Dr. Jessup. He thinks of you as his real father, his only father."

I was thankful for the absolute darkness and for his ghostly silence. By now I should be somewhat armored against the grief of others and against the piercing regret of those who meet untimely deaths and must leave without good-byes, yet year by year I become more vulnerable to both.

"You know how Danny is," I continued. “A tough little customer. Always the wisecrack. But I know what he really feels. And surely you know what you meant to Carol. She seemed to shine with love for you."

For a while I matched his silence. If you push them too hard, they clutch up, even panic.

In that condition, they can no longer see the way from here to there, the bridge, the door, whatever it is.

I gave him time to absorb what I'd said. Then: "You've done so much of what you were put here to do, and you did it well, you got it right. That's all we can expect-the chance to get it right."

After another mutual silence, he let go of my hands.

Just as I lost touch with Dr. Jessup, the pantry door opened. Kitchen light dissolved the darkness, and Chief Wyatt Porter loomed over me.

He is big, round-shouldered, with a long face. People who can't read the chief's true nature in his eyes might think he's steeped in sadness.

As I got to my feet, I realized that the residual effects of the Taser had not entirely worn off. Phantom electrical sounds sizzled inside my head again.

Dr. Jessup had departed. Maybe he had gone on to the next world. Maybe he had returned to haunting the front yard.

"How do you feel?" the chief asked, stepping back from the pantry.

"Fried."

"Tasers don't do real harm."

"You smell burnt hair?"

"No. Was it Makepeace?"

"Not him," I said, moving into the kitchen. "Some snaky guy.

You find Danny?"

"He's not here."

"I didn't think so."

"The way's clear. Go to the alley."

"I'll go to the alley," I said.

"Wait at the tree of death."

"I'll wait at the tree of death."

"Son, are you all right?"

"My tongue itches."

"You can scratch it while you wait for me."

"Thank you, sir."

"Odd?"

"Sir?"

"Go."

SIX

THE TREE OF DEATH STANDS ACROSS THE ALLEY AND down the block from the Jessup place, in the backyard of the Ying residence.

In the summer and autumn, the thirty-five-foot brugmansia is festooned with pendant yellow trumpet flowers. At times, more than a hundred blooms, perhaps two hundred, each ten to twelve inches long, depend from its branches.

Mr. Ying enjoys lecturing on the deadly nature of the lovely brugmansia. Every part of the tree-roots, wood, bark, leaves, calyxes, flowers-is toxic.

One shred of its foliage will induce bleeding from the nose, bleeding from the ears, bleeding from the eyes, and explosive terminal diarrhea. Within a minute, your teeth will fall out, your tongue will turn black, and your brain will begin to liquefy.

Perhaps that is an exaggeration. When Mr. Ying first told me about the tree, I was a boy of eight, and that is the impression I got from his disquisition on brugmansia poisoning.

Why Mr. Ying-and his wife as well-should take such pride in having planted and grown the tree of death, I do not know.

Ernie and Pooka Ying are Asian Americans, but there's nothing in the least Fu Manchu about them. They're too amiable to devote any time whatsoever to evil scientific experiments in a vast secret laboratory carved out of the bedrock deep beneath their house.

Even if they have developed the capability to destroy the world, I for one cannot picture anyone named Pooka pulling the go lever on a doomsday machine.

The Yings attend Mass at St. Bartholomew's. He's a member of the Knights of Columbus. She donates ten hours each week to the church thrift shop.

The Yings go to the movies a lot, and Ernie is notoriously sentimental, weeping during the death scenes, the love scenes, the patriotic scenes. He once even wept when Bruce Willis was unexpectedly shot in the arm.

Yet year after year, through three decades of marriage, while they adopted and raised two orphans, they diligently fertilized the tree of death, watered it, pruned it, sprayed it to ward off spider mite and whitefly. They replaced their back porch with a much larger redwood deck, which they furnished to provide numerous viewpoints where they can sit together at breakfast or during a warm desert evening, admiring this magnificent lethal work of nature.

Wishing to avoid being seen by the authorities who would be going to and coming from the Jessup house during the remaining hours of the night, I stepped through the gate in the picket fence at the back of the Ying property. Because taking a seat on the deck without invitation seemed to be ill-mannered, I sat in the yard, under the brugmansia.

The eight-year-old in me wondered if the grass could have absorbed poison from the tree. If sufficiently potent, the toxin might pass through the seat of my jeans.

My cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

A woman said, "Hi."

"Who's this?"

"Me."

"I think you have the wrong number."

"You do?"

"Yes, I think so."

"I'm disappointed," she said.

"It happens."

"You know the first rule?"

"Like I said-"

"You come alone," she interjected.

"-you've got a wrong number."

"I'm so disappointed in you."