From: lalsoong@sprynet.com (Christine Wirick ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative Subject: Paradox Delusion 12/23 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 18:59:22 GMT Organization: Sprynet News Service Message-Id: <30f586b9.1157248@news.sprynet.com> Nntp-Posting-Host: ad70-113.compuserve.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chapter Twelve: The telephone on the desk let out a shrill cry, awakening the time traveler. He glanced at his watch, discovering that it was a few minutes before eight in the morning. Meg, eyes still closed, rolled over to squeeze Sam. He returned the embrace quickly before getting up to answer the phone. Meg moaned loudly, but sat up to stretch in an attempt to come fully awake. "Hello," Sam answered as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. "Hello, is this Patrick Marland?" a man asked, his tone pleasant. After Sam replied that it was, the man continued: "I would have gotten back with you sooner, but I was out of town with an art exhibit. This is Martin Bridgeman." "Yes, Mr. Bridgeman!" Sam exclaimed, suddenly coming fully awake. He stood up to pace along the desk as he spoke. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Meg getting up from bed and slipping on her housecoat. "As I said on your answering machine, I'm a freelance photo journalist, and I'm conducting research on alleged hauntings. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk with me about the old Simms' house." Meg walked around the bed to stand beside Sam. She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder. He kissed her on the forehead as he listened to Bridgeman's reply. "Mr. Marland, I really don't see the point. My stay at the house in Mt. Pleasant was so long ago and so brief that--" "I understand your reluctance, but I think you could be of some help to my investigation. I'd like to hear why you bought the Simms' house and then put it back on the market in a matter of weeks. Did something happen while you were living there?" Beckett consciously reminded himself to say "there" instead of "here." He wondered what Bridgeman's reaction would be if he knew that Sam, or rather Patrick, was staying at the house in question. Bridgeman paused for so long that Sam feared the man would hang up. "Can you meet me at my place in an hour?" Sam took only a brief moment to think about it. He had just a little over four hours before his meeting with Anna Simms. He could manage it. "I'm on my way." He hung up the phone and turned toward Meg. "Martin Bridgeman has agreed to meet with me." "I'm going with you," Meg insisted. "I don't know if--" "Sam, I'm an investigative reporter. Who better to help you get answers?" Beckett nodded, feeling foolish about his initial reluctance. "Of course, but only if you can be ready in five minutes. I'll call Anna Simms while you're getting ready to make sure it's okay with her if you come along." Sam never saw a woman get ready so fast. * * * Sam and Meg arrived at the Bridgeman house about an hour later. After Sam knocked on the front door, they waited anxiously. Holding Meg's hand, he stared into her emerald eyes and thought how attractive she looked in the green pants suit she had opted to wear today. A moment later, a young pleasant-looking woman in her early twenties answered the door. She had short black hair pulled back with a headband. Her skin was a light olive color, indicating a partial Oriental ancestry. "Patrick Marland?" she questioned expectantly, and he nodded. "My father was not expecting you to bring anyone with you." "This is Margaret Miller," Beckett replied. "She's a friend. There isn't a problem with her being here is there?" The woman shifted her eyes, hesitating to answer. "I'm an investigative reporter for the Atlanta Review," Meg explained. "Mr. Marland and I are working together on this case. We just want to ask your father a few questions about the house in Mt. Pleasant, and then we'll be on our merry way." Smiling shyly at them, she waved them inside. "May I take your coats?" she asked as they stomped the mud off their shoes onto the welcome mat. "Thank you," Beckett replied, removing his trench coat and handing it to the woman. Meg also handed her coat to the girl. The girl opened a hall door, removed a hanger, then placed the coats inside the closet. Sam waited patiently, though anxious to meet Bridgeman, for her to finish. "My father is in the sunroom," she told them. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you the way." Bridgeman's daughter led Beckett and Meg down an L-shaped hallway and into the sunroom. Martin Bridgeman turned away from his half-finished painting when he heard them come in. "Oh, Mr. Marland," he said, a lilt in his voice, as he set down his paint-brush and wiped his hands with a cloth he grabbed from atop a tray. "I wish you'd told me you were bringing such a lovely lady with you. I would have taken the time to spiff up." He discarded the cloth and said, "Have a seat." He pointed toward a small table with four chairs. "Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea?" Martin Bridgeman looked nearly sixty with long grey hair--which he wore in a pony tail-- a fuzzy beard, and spectacles propped loosely upon his nose. He was much lighter complexioned than his daughter. Sam got the impression that Bridgeman was a man of prestige, someone other people looked up to. "Coffee would be fine--black," Beckett replied. "I take mine with a little sugar, thanks," Meg answered. She and Sam pulled out chairs and sat down. "Thank you for your hospitality," Sam said, "and you can call me Patrick if you like." Bridgeman nodded. "Martin, here." He turned toward his daughter. "Mia, would you be a dear and get us some coffee, please?" Bridgeman asked her. She nodded and stepped out of the room. "She takes after her mother, Chen," Bridgeman said, smiling with pride. "She's quite fortunate she doesn't take after me at all. What would she do with such a prominent nose, eh?" The man cackled, pushing up his glasses to emphasize his point. Though Sam wasn't sure why the man wanted to discuss his daughter's genetic traits, he sensed that Bridgeman was lonely for a companion, anyone to talk with. "Only wish Chen--my wife--had been around to see our little girl grow up," Bridgeman continued. He sat down across from Beckett right next to Meg. "She died of cancer when Mia was only nine--horrible death." He paused, staring awkwardly at his hands. "I'm sorry," Sam offered, noticing that, despite the intervening years, his wife's death still deeply affected Bridgeman. "We are, both of us, really sorry, Martin," Meg said. "But we need to discuss the house in Mt. Pleasant." Reaching in to her purse to pull out a mini cassette recorder, she asked, "Do you mind if I record our conversation?" "No, I don't mind, but I'm afraid you've probably wasted your time coming out here," the man said. Meg set the recorder on the table and pressed play anyway. Bridgeman removed his glasses and began wiping them with his flannel shirt. "There isn't much to tell, really. When my wife died, I left Okinawa and returned to the states with my daughter. I bought the house in Mt. Pleasant because of its location. I thought it would offer me a great place to relax and work on my art. I found my stay there to be far from relaxing. "Things kept moving around on their own in that old house. I don't mean that I saw them move around, but I kept finding my belongings in places where I hadn't left them." He returned his spectacles to his face. "I thought I had an uninvited guest--and I don't mean a ghost!" "I can understand your skepticism," Sam replied. "I was quite skeptical at first, myself. But I've been staying in the house the past few days." Sam decided that Bridgeman needed to be told this if he hoped to convince the man that ghosts actually resided in the Mt. Pleasant house. "And I've seen things that can only be explained metaphysically." "The first time I visited the house," Meg added, "I saw a coffee cup go flying through the air and felt someone touch my shoulder when I was alone in the room." "I saw dishes moving on their own, too," Sam said. Bridgeman turned pale, bringing a shaking hand to his forehead. "Why didn't you tell me that you were staying in that house over the phone?" "I was afraid you'd react just as you are now." After a long moment, the older man said, "Indeed, it takes courage." Sam was immediately aware of the man's contradiction. Bridgeman adamantly claimed he didn't believe the house haunted, yet he openly acknowledged that one needed courage to stay at the Mt. Pleasant house. "Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?" Meg asked. "I was sure that some hoodlum was hiding in that house while I was living there. I had the police check it out, but they didn't find anyone or even any evidence to prove that anyone had trespassed." "Then Martin, how do you explain the strange things that are still going on in the house more than a decade later? Surely you're not going to tell me that you believe the same hoodlum is still ransacking the house!" the physicist challenged. "Of course, I no longer believe that! Now that I look back on it, I'm willing to admit that I might have been careless. I probably moved those items myself and just forgot about it. You haven't shown me any proof of the supernatural!" Bridgeman snapped. "Until I've seen tangible proof with my own eyes, I will not believe in ghosts or poltergeists or whatever else you claim is in that house!" Sam wished he had thought to bring the video tape and the pictures of Karen. He would have loved to see the expression on Bridgeman's face when he saw the apparition on his television screen and flipped through the photographs. "I do have proof," Beckett said. "I only wish I had thought to bring it with me. My assistant, Raymond Steele, captured the female apparition on a video tape, and I snapped several photographs of her." "I can vouch for that," Meg said. "I've seen the video, and it is incredible! The ghost of Karen Simms is suspended in the air begging for someone to help her. I honestly believe that she's trapped between dimensions. She and her husband died violently and are now being influenced by evil spirits that will not allow them to crossover into Heaven." Bridgeman raised his eyebrows and dismissed Meg's claim with a wave of his hand. Turning toward Beckett, he asked, "And what proof do you have that you didn't just use some high-tech special effects to make the video?" This man would not be persuaded easily, if at all. "I don't have any," Sam said humbly. Bridgeman nodded triumphantly. "Now you feel like an imbecile, right? Imagine how I felt when the cops came out to the place. They treated me like I'd gone around the bend." Mia returned with their coffee and set the cups before them. Sam smiled at the girl, though she didn't offer one in return. She seemed unhappy to serve them as though she only did it because she was obliged to. Wondering if his initial impression of Martin Bridgeman had been all wrong, Sam questioned the girl's subservient behavior. He kept his distaste in check, telling himself that he didn't really know anything about their relationship. Quite possibly, he was misreading Mia's signals. "Thank you, Mia," Bridgeman said, taking a gulp of the coffee. He paused as though expecting his daughter to leave the room again. When he realized she intended to stay, he continued anyway. "I didn't want to believe I was getting senile and forgetting where I was putting things, but I went to the doctor anyway--you know, just for my peace of mind. He said my health was pretty good for a man nearing fifty." "Glad to hear that." "Well, I can't say my health is quite as good now at sixty, but that's life. I've allowed the belly to swell a little," Bridgeman said, patting his abdomen. "Anyway, we are getting off the subject. When I could find no reasonable explanation for the misplaced items, I decided no home was worth all the hassle, no matter how serene the location, so I packed my belongings and moved out." The older man glanced at his daughter, who was still standing before them, placidly listening to their conversation. She seemed content just to absorb the information rather than contribute to it. Bridgeman returned his focus on his guests. "The house stayed on the market for several years, which put me in a financial bind, but I wasn't about to return to it. I stayed in a small apartment for a while until I had a substantial amount banked from art sales." "That seems like an extreme action for a man who only believed he was dealing with a derelict trespasser," Sam observed. "If its only problem was vagrants, Martin," Meg began, and Sam noticed that the older man immediately grew tense with anticipation, "then why did such a gorgeous house stay on the market for so long?" They waited, with growing tension, for a reply. "I don't know," Bridgeman finally answered, sounding cross. "I'm not a real-estate agent." He gulped at his coffee, which seemed to ease his anxiety a little. Sam persisted, determined to crumble the older man's denial. "There has to be some reason you agreed to meet me. You could have told me all this over the phone and saved us the trip out here. I'm inclined to believe that you do think something strange is happening at the Simms house. Please, drop the facade, Martin, so we can get to the bottom of this problem." "You have no right to talk to me that way in my house." Bridgeman stood abruptly. "I told you what I believe, and I'm sticking to that story. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a painting I need to get back to." Mia's gaze followed her father as he wandered back to his painting. Once her father was fully engaged in his favorite activity, she turned back toward Sam and Meg and whispered, "Follow me." Meg quickly stopped her cassette player and slipped it back into her purse. Then Mia led them into the living room. "My father is not telling you everything," Mia informed them. "Wonderful!" Meg exclaimed. "Do you mind if I record you?" She reached into her still- open purse. "No," Mia snapped, then quickly added, "I'm sorry, but I don't want there to be any chance of my father finding out what I'm about to tell you." "That's all right. I'm sure that between the two of us, we can remember everything you have to say." Mia lowered her gaze to stare at her hands. "My father is lying to you. He didn't see anything, as he said, but I did, and he's well aware of that. That's why he wanted to move so quickly. He was afraid that Ben or Karen Simms were after me. I was only eleven at the time, and in his eyes, quite vulnerable." "What exactly did you see?" Sam asked. "Karen Simms' apparition a couple of times. And other times, it got very cold in my room. You do believe me, don't you?" "Yes," Beckett replied. "I've seen Karen myself. I told your father that I have her on video tape, but he refuses to believe that it could be authentic." "I'd love to see that tape." She shook her head. "As much as I'd like to, I couldn't dare take the chance of my father finding out." "Why does your father frighten you?" Meg asked. "My father doesn't frighten me, not in the way you're implying. He's just very protective of me. I'm all he has. Can't you understand that?" Meg nodded, clasping the girl's hand for a moment to offer reassurance. "Some might find the tape extremely frightening, but maybe in your case, it might give you peace of mind, reassure you that you're not really crazy thinking you've seen a ghost. The world is so skeptical. How can you not be frightened?" "You sound like a woman with a lot of experience." "I'm an investigative reporter. I investigate the supernatural for a living. You can't do my job without receiving a lot of flack from the general public." Mia nodded eagerly. "That's it exactly. Ever since I saw her apparition, I've been very interested in the supernatural, but I don't tell most people about my fascination, because they would treat me like I was weird, or worse, insane. It angers my father, so I'm careful not to leave any books or articles on the subject where he can find them." She paused for a moment, grinning slightly as though contemplating something. "I believe I have some psychic ability, though I certainly wouldn't tell Dad that." "Maybe that was what attracted Karen to you," Sam said. "Maybe she thought you could have helped her." "If only I'd been a little older, a little more experienced, maybe I would have been able to help her." Which room did you sleep in?" "Upstairs, the second room on the right side of the hall." "The same room I'm staying in," Sam muttered. A shiver ran through him as he remembered the other morning when the spirit's presence chilled the room. Mia reached into her pants pocket and pulled something out. "Maybe this will help channel your psychic energy," Mia said and held her palm out to reveal a chain and locket. Sam took the locket, hesitated, then opened the locket. He and Meg peered down at the tiny pictures inside and were taken aback as they found themselves staring at the faces of Karen and Ben Simms. "I think it belonged to Karen Simms. I found it in the attic along with other things, clothes mostly, that must have belonged to her. My father made me take the clothes to Goodwill. I never told anyone that I found the locket. I'm not sure why I kept it, except maybe for some unknown reason, I felt a connection with Karen. I feel so sad every time I think about the way she died." "You know how Karen and Ben Simms died?" Sam said. "Yes. I didn't back when we lived in the house, but later when I got old enough to do my own research, I went to the library in Mt. Pleasant and found the newspaper article on their accident." "How did you know I might be psychic?" Sam asked. "I can feel your aura," she replied, looking wise beyond her years. Sam cupped his hand around the side of her face, only briefly, to show not only his thanks, but his respect for her prudence. Sam looked again at the pictures. He'd seen her as a ghost recently, but he'd forgotten just how beautiful Karen Simms had been in life. Her features were well-defined, unblemished, and her smile warmed the room even from inside a picture. She looked ten years younger than her actual age. "Thank you for sharing your experience with us," Meg said. "If you want the locket back--" "No," Mia said hastily. "I've held on to it for too long already." "What is going on?" Bridgeman asked as he stepped into the doorway. "I thought you already left, Mr. Marland, Miss Miller." Noting the formality, Sam hid the locket in his clutched hand. "We were just on our way out," he replied. He glanced back at Mia to mouth a "thanks." They quickly stepped passed the older man and out into the foyer. As they found their coats in the closet and slipped them on, Meg said, "This place is almost as spooky as the Sheffields' house." "I couldn't agree more," Sam replied as he opened the front door and they stepped outside. He felt pity for Mia Bridgeman, and in a way, for her father as well. Though Bridgeman was a brilliant artist, Sam had the impression that somehow the man failed to see the beauty in the world.