Speed Dating With the Dead by Scott Nicholson Page A

kicked Father Time’s ass if she’d had the chance to meet him.
    “Take all the pictures you want,” Wayne said. “You never know which one will catch the evidence.”
    “You make it sound so random,” Gelbaugh said.
    Wayne ignored him and clicked on his digital voice recorder. “White Horse Inn, Room 202, November twenty-first, 6:30 p.m. Six people present. Room temperature is 72 degrees.”
    Wayne put his recorder on the coffee table in the middle of the bedroom. The two elderly women settled into arm chairs, Ann and Duncan sat on the bed, and Gelbaugh took up a post by the window. Wayne turned off the lights and closed the door, then returned to the center of the room. Gelbaugh’s silhouette was clear, but the others blended into the twilight.
    “Is anybody here?” he said, in a stage voice.
    No answer.
    “Show yourself.”
    Nothing.
    “We would like to meet you.”
    The bed squeaked a little as someone changed position.
    “Audible bed squeak,” Wayne said, wanting the comment on record to account for the stray sound.
    “Did you hear that?” Gelbaugh said.
    “Bed squeak,” Wayne said, annoyed that Gelbaugh seemed intent on ruining the hunt.
    “Not that,” Gelbaugh said. “Something else.”
    They all listened for a moment, but only their shallow breathing disturbed the silence. A flash went off near the bed, illuminating the room like a lightning strike, freezing Gelbaugh as he moved away from the window. Ann had taken a digital photo.
    Wayne resumed his summons. “Can you say ‘Hello’?”
    The huncher gasped.
    “I heard it, too,” said the other.
    Wayne hadn’t heard anything. He pressed the glow button on his wristwatch. “6:33 p.m.,” he said for the benefit of the recording. “Report of auditory anomaly.”
    The notation would help him review the data later and examine the sound waves to match them with the subjective reports of the people in the room. He didn’t expect the recorder had captured much of anything. Gelbaugh was along to cajole and smirk, and the two old ladies were suggestible enough to turn a whistling wind into the keening of a rabid banshee. Ann and Duncan were the anchors of the group because of their apparent open-minded skepticism.
    “Are you with us now?” Wayne said.
    Nothing.
    “If you’re here, can you move the recorder on the table?” Poltergeists were reputed to respond to challenges on occasion, though Wayne had never witnessed such behavior. He’d seen things fly across the room before, and books and knickknacks fall from shelves, but nothing to convince him the incidents weren’t due to telekinetic powers rather than mischievous spirits. In fact, if the recorder had actually moved, he would have attributed it to floor vibrations caused by the heating system.
    The bed squeaked again.
    “Audible bed squeak at 6:36,” he said.
    “Something touched me,”‘ Ann said.
    Wayne squinted into the darkness and made out her shape. She was sitting in a lotus position, with her legs folded under her. If the touch had startled her, it wasn’t reflected in her tone or posture.
    “Can you describe it?” Wayne asked.
    “I feel it, between us,” Duncan said, showing more excitement than Ann.
    “Is it there now?” Wayne said, keeping his voice flat. If the two old ladies started twittering, any auditory evidence would be lost.
    “It’s cold,” Ann said.
    Wayne slid a digital thermometer from his pocket, but before he could move to the bed, a red dot appeared on the blanket. “Sixty-seven degrees,” Gelbaugh said.
    Infrared temperature gun. To bother reading surface temperatures at a distance, Gelbaugh must have had a deeper interest in metaphysics than he’d implied. Or maybe he was trying to stay one step of Wayne, proving the superiority of reason over faith.
    “Invalid,” Wayne said for the benefit of the witnesses and the recording. “You have no baseline for comparison.”
    “I’ll get my baseline afterward,” Gelbaugh said.
    “It’s