Mortimer Lindquist

Mortimer Lindquist is a medium and psychic counselor living in Chicago. He first appears in Grave Peril.

Description
"I am what I am, Dresden. A coward. I don’t apologize for it."

- Mortimer Lindquist

An expert on ghosts, Mortimer Lindquist mostly conducted seances to help people contact the dead, settle unfinished business and offer a prediction service to help clients make decisions. Harry Dresden went to him for information from time to time over the course of the series.

In Grave Peril, Lindquist was a con. He ran fake seances for people but would not really contact the dead very often. Despite Dresden believing that he was nothing more than a mere con man, Lindquist showed that he was still somewhat brave by helping Dresden better understand the Nightmare.

In Death Masks, Lindquist has resumed contacting the dead and is slowly getting back into the swing of things. By Dead Beat, he had recovered from alcoholism and had regained his genuine ability to contact the dead rather than con people out of their money.

Up to Death Masks, he was a little man with rounded shoulders and a shining, balding head,, middle-aged and well-dressed. After the events of Dead Beat, Lindquist gained a scar on his scalp.

By Ghost Story, Lindquist had given up on the toupee and the "comb-over' style and has gone completely bald. He lost weight going from nearly obese to simply stout.

Not only has Lindquist started using his ability as a genuine ectomancer rather than conning people, he's also protective of the spirits, not wanting use them to help Dresden find the n ecromancers who would destroy them. He may not stand up for his fellow human beings but he would for the dead.

Lindquist is a self-admitted coward,  but when it comes down to it, he's much braver than he appears. He refused to let Corpsetaker take over his body, despite being tortured for a day.

He proves to be brave and loyal to a fault, earning him Dresden's respect. When, in the end, Lindquist shields Murphy from the others seeing her cry, Dresden thinks to himself that he wished he had been bright enough to see what kind of guy he was while he was still alive.

He is an expert on ghosts, a specialist on purely technical matters regarding spirits and shades. He calls himself a "Ghost Whisperer".

Uriel told Sir Stuart Winchester that he'd watched over his descendant Lindquist faithfully, and since he's grown so much in the last few years, he'll be just fine.

He has published a number of books, among which Ghosts of Chicago, The Spook Factor and They Shall Rise. According to Dresden, he did good work there.

He has a theory that the barrier between this world and the Nevernever is slowly being torn away. He says that the border has been waggling back and forth for the last two weeks. The instability has been making it easier to form bigger, stronger ghosts when people die.

Dresden tells him that he thinks he is one of the most powerful ectomancers that he knows of and that Lindquist could do a lot of good in the fight against the Red Court vampires having access to all kinds of information via ghosts and spirits. In Ghost Story, his true abilities as an ectomancer are in the open, as he can control ghosts by letting them possess him and gaining their knowledge and power. Lea told Dresden that Lindquist had power easily equal to Dresden's own, if of a different flavor, which is why the Corpse taker wanted his body. Lindquist had simply been smart enough to dodge the White Council notice. Lindquist tames wraiths that go insane to prevent them from causing damage to Chicago and helps them pass on. Dresden christened them The Lecter Specters.

Biography
Twenty years prior (to when?), he was a good investigator. He has a sensitivity to spiritual energies and apparitions—ghosts. He was a good ectomancer. He still has some sources in the Nevernever. The White Council had sent someone to visit him.

Grave Peril
In Grave Peril, Harry Dresden asks for Lindquist's help in tracking a mean nasty ghost that attacked St. Mary's. Lindquist is leaving town, he's is scared of some super ghost that is coming. He said that something crossed the border last night that he never felt before. It's big, it's angry and it's going to start killing. He calls it a "Nightmare". Lindquist doubts that Dresden or anyone can stop it. Just before leaving in his cab, Lindquist points Dresden to a box of notes he has hidden under his chair so that he'll be better armed to fight what's coming.

Death Masks
In Death Masks, Harry Dresden meets Lindquist on the Larry Fowler Show. He ask Lindquist what he found out about Susan Rodriguez. Lindquist says that Susan is alive and in Peru and was blocked from finding out anything more. Lindquist would only meet Dresden there because he was afraid to meet him on the street because of Dresden's "unsafe" reputation.

Dead Beat
In Dead Beat, Harry Dresden visits Lindquist to learn what he knows about the threat of the necromancers in town. Lindquist says the dead are nervous and are difficult to even call up so close to Halloween. Necromancers can enslave ghosts, control them, even destroy them. He didn't want to asks the ghost for Dresden because they could get hurt. He changes his mind when he learns that one of the people under harm is Karrin Murphy—he knows her dad's ghost. The ghosts mark a map with red ink showing where Black magic, specifically necromancy has been used.

Ghost Story
In Ghost Story, Jack Murphy's ghost (Karrin's dad) drops Harry Dresden off at his house where he runs into Sir Stuart Winchester. At first Lindquist declines Dresden's request for help and closes himself behind a door with Ghost Dust in the paint. After Dresden helped save Lindquist from a gunman, he agrees to help him with Stuart's convincing. Lindquist, Dresden and Sir Stuart go to Karrin Murphy's home where he told Murphy about Dresden's ghost. Though she doesn't believe him at first, he acts as a go-between for Dresden, Murphy and the Chicago Alliance.

Later, Lindquist is abducted by the Grey Ghost and Sir Stuart gets Dresden to promise to get him back with his dying request. Dresden finds him at the Big Hoods hideout where she—the Grey Ghost is Corpsetaker—was torturing him in a pit full of wraiths trying to force him to consent to let him have her body. Dresden returned with a ghost army of soldier ghosts led by Sir Stuart Winchester and the Lecter Specters to save him. The Soldiers and Lecters fought their way to rescue him against Evil Bob's forces in the Nevernever and the lemurs and Big Hoods in the hideout. But Lindquist was upset that Dresden brought them there. He had been protecting the Lecters from Corpsetaker who ate them to manifest and didn't need Lindquist's body anymore. She orderd Boz to kill Lindquist. Lindquist warned Dresden, who had manifested to fight Boz, that it will harm him. Dresden untied him, and Lindquist borrowed Stuart to help him tie up Boz. In the end, he ordered the wraiths to get the Corpsetaker off of Molly, saving her, and then they pushed Corpsetaker into a Southbound Train. The EMTs looked after his injuries but he refused to go to the hospital.

Lindquist's description of himself
"You don't know what it's like, Dresden. To speak to things that exist in the past and in the future as well as in the now. To have them walk up to you at the salad bar and start telling you how they murdered their wife in her sleep. I mean, you think you've got a hold on things, that you understand, but in the end it all falls to pieces. A con is simpler, Dresden. You make order. People don't give a flying fuck if Uncle Jeffrey really forgives them for missing his last birthday party. they want to know that the world is a place where Uncle Jeffrey can and should forgive them. That's what I sell them. Closure. Like on TV they all want to know is that it's all going to work out in the end, and they're happy to pay for it."

"I mostly conducted seances. I do what I can to helped those who have lost loved ones or who need to contact them in the beyond in order to resolve issues left undone back here o earth. I also offer a predictions service in order to help clients make decisions on upcoming issues, and to try to warn them against possible danger."

Lindquist's house
His home is changed several times throughout the series.

In Grave Peril, his house has a fake gothic look with plastic gargoyles, a black iron gate on a link fence and plater statues lining the walkway. The house itself was a white stucco with a red roof that looked more like it was from southern California. It looked more like a haunted mansion at Disneyland. The interior had lots of black curtains over walls and doorways. Red and black candles were all over and a plastic human skull on the book shelves. There was table with several chairs around it. The head chair was wooden, high-backed and carved with monstrous beings.

In Dead Beat, Lindquist moved out of the stucco ranch house and into a converted duplex in Bucktown. He leases both halves and uses one side as his office, the other as his home. The entry hall was a small waiting room. His seance room was a richly colored room containing a large dark wooden table, polished, with matching hand carved chairs. Candles lined the room.

In Ghost Story, Lindquist's stucco house, which is odd for Chicago, is in Harwood Heights and has a red roof. His front yard now has a Japanese garden that contained: some hedges, a koi pond with a wooden bridge, and bonsai trees made from trees native to America—that must be his own hand-work since few do that kind of work. Lindquist's once staged seance room had been transformed into a living room with comfy sofas and chairs. The entire house was redecorated and renovated from dismal to beautiful. Mort's office was part library part office with a warm fire in the fireplace.