Cardinal Sin

by J. R. Ripley

  If Sylvia Stenson was up there floating around, she was doing a good job remaining invisible.

  “Oh, dear,” I heard Madeline Bell say.

  “Thank you for sharing your home with me,” Yvonne said next.

  I shivered. Was she really thanking a ghost for sharing her house?

  “What news do you have for us, Sylvia?” Yvonne inquired.

  Silence but for the sound of flames hungrily eating the wood in the hearth.

  Around the table, we looked at one another in the flickering light. It was several moments before “Sylvia” answered.

  “g-o-h-o-m-e,” the planchette spelled out.

  I cast a dirty glance Ross Barnswallow’s way. He was the likely culprit.

  “Go home?” asked Yvonne. “What do you mean, Sylvia?”

  The planchette spelled b-y-e, then abruptly stopped.

  “She didn’t stick around long,” quipped Ross Barnswallow. “Maybe we should take her suggestion and go home.”

  I was sure now that he had been the driving force behind go home.

  “We are not done yet,” complained Kay to my surprise.

  “That’s right,” Yvonne said. “We can’t stop until the spirits tell us to.” She scooted her chair closer to the table. “We don’t want to offend them.”

  Somebody snorted, but I wasn’t sure who. One of the men probably.

  We continued. Several others asked mundane questions, such as Kim asking if it would be a hot summer. Ho-hum.

  “Isn’t there someone you would like to speak with, Kay?” asked Yvonne.

  The table shuddered.

  “No,” Kay said quiet as a mouse.

  Derek surprised me by asking to speak to a deceased uncle, who told him that Ben, Derek’s widower father, would marry again.

  I couldn’t wait to tell my mother that bit of news. Mom and Ben were something of an item.

  “Let’s ask the spirits some yes/no questions,” suggested Yvonne.

  “Good idea,” I replied. “Um—”

  Dan cut me off. “Will the Panthers win the Super Bowl?”

  “That again?” Kim asked.

  The planchette moved slowly to yes.

  Dan grunted in satisfaction. He participated in several sports-related pools with other town employees.

  Ross Barnswallow cleared his throat. “Spirits, are there any secrets you can tell us?”

  The planchette vibrated a moment then moved slowly toward no.

  Ross Barnswallow appeared disappointed. “Spirits, will I succeed?”

  At what, I wondered.

  The spirits did not seem to share my lack of comprehension. The planchette moved straight to yes.

  Barnswallow appeared to relax.

  Kay cleared her throat.

  “Yes, Kay?” whispered Yvonne.

  “I think I do have a question.”

  “Go ahead, Kay.”

  “Spirits,” Kay Calhoun began, “spirits, can you hear me?”

  yes.

  We all watched and waited. Finally, Kay Calhoun asked, “Are you…are you waiting for me?”

  We all looked at Kay. What sort of question was that?

  The table jumped. I pressed my fingertips against the planchette as it trembled and shook. Moving all over the spirit board, side to side, round and round in big sweeping arcs.

  It came to a stop on no.

  “That was weird.” Dan said what we all had been thinking.

  Kay, however, seemed satisfied with the answer.

  Kim suddenly said, “Spirits, will anybody else at this table be hearing wedding bells?”

  I jabbed her in the side.

  The planchette darted to yes then spelled out the word soon.

  I looked around the table. I was torn between wondering whose idea of a joke it was—probably Kim’s—or if, indeed, someone among us was on the brink of matrimony. If so, could it be me? Or Kim?

  “Oh, mighty spirits,” Murray Arnold began. I could almost hear his eyes rolling. “Are you real?”

  The planchette jiggled and moved quickly toward no but at the last second it darted to yes and remained there.

  “This is the strangest game of Ouija I’ve ever played,” Kim muttered to me out of the side of her mouth.

  I nodded my agreement.

  “Maybe this is a good time to stop. It is getting late,” our host suggested. There were murmurs of approval.

  “Spirits,” intoned Yvonne, fingers lightly touching the planchette next to mine, “have you any final words for us?”

  The fire flickered and sputtered, and, I swear, Baron Samedi coughed—okay, maybe it was just the log spitting, but it sounded like a Lord of Death cough to me.

  “I think the spirits are gone,” Kay Calhoun said.

  The planchette jumped as if to refute her.

  The heart-shaped device danced as if electrified, whisking from one letter to the next.

  Finally, the planchette, dragging our fingers with it, zoomed to a stop at the word goodbye, which was stenciled along the bottom of the Ouija board.

  “Who did that?” a couple of somebodies asked.

  “What did it say?” Madeline Bell asked.

  “It was too quick for me,” I confessed.

  “Nothing but a jumble of letters,” said Murray Arnold.

  “I told you this was stupid.” Ross Barnswallow pushed the planchette off the board.

  I caught it between my hands. It was warm to the touch.

  “I don’t get it,” Kim complained.

  “What about you, Dan?” inquired Derek.

  Dan nodded. His face shadowed by the light of the fire. “I am murdered.” He scratched his head.

  “What?” Derek said.

  “I am murdered,” Dan repeated.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Not me.” Dan chuckled nervously. “That’s what the Ouija board spelled out.”

  4

  “Are you sure?” Kim was skeptical.

  “i-a-m-m-u-r-d-e-r-e-d,” pronounced Dan, one letter at a time.

  “Those might have been the letters,” admitted Madeline Bell, her chin bobbing like she’d caught a trout.

  “Could it have spelled something else?” I asked.

  “Like what?” Derek said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Everybody think,” Kim said.

  Everybody did, but no one came up with an alternative to Dan’s conclusion, weird as it was.

  “I am murdered,” I whispered, pulling my hands from the planchette like I’d been burned.

  Yvonne rose and flicked on the lamp beside the sofa.

  “Very funny,” I whispered to Kim.

  “Don’t look at me,” she protested loudly. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Kim was always teasing me about my nosing around in murder investigations. I wouldn’t have put it past her to have spelled out that ominous phrase. Her idea of a joke. Kim liked gags best when I was the butt of them.

  But if it wasn’t her…

  “Derek?” I asked.

  “Hey, don’t look at me, either.” He raised his hands. “I was just along for the ride. Speaking of which, shouldn’t we be going?”

  “Yes.” Murray scraped his chair against the floor and rose. “Next time, maybe we should stick to Pictionary.” He turned his gaze on Ross Barnswallow. “Or pin the tail on the jackass.”

  Barnswallow ignored the other man and buttoned up his coat.

  Yvonne slid the Ouija board back in the drawer. She thanked us all for coming and promised to come by Birds & Bees soon to talk about selling her feather craftwork. “And I love your idea about making this property a habitat that’s friendly to golden-winged warblers,” she added.

  “I’ll do some more r
esearch and figure out our next step.”

  “Thank you all for coming.” Yvonne waved goodbye from the doorstep.

  * * * *

  “What was with Dan?” I asked from behind the wheel of my Kia. The strident strains of “To Life,” from Fiddler on the Roof, fluttered around the interior of the van.

  “What do you mean?” Kim lifted her feet onto the seat and wrapped her arms around her legs. Not the safest way to be traveling in a moving vehicle if we crashed, but I knew better than to say anything. She’d only order me not to crash. “That whole I am murdered thing? You think he wrote it?”

  “No. Not that. He seemed distracted is what I meant.”

  Kim agreed. “That’s probably because he’s got an old friend, an old roommate of his, actually—they went to the police academy together—coming to visit for a few days. He’s a little uncomfortable with it.”

  “Why would he be uncomfortable about that?”

  “You know Dan. He’s sort of set in his ways.”

  “It couldn’t be because his pal is further along in his career than Dan, could it?” Dan didn’t seem like the type to care much about such things, but one never knew.

  “You mean like Dan’s an officer and maybe his buddy is chief of police?” Before I could answer, Kim continued. “No way. Dan wouldn’t care about that. Not that he wouldn’t mind being chief of police one day.”

  “How about tomorrow?” I joked. My relationship with our current chief of police was not the best. I still maintained that was because the one date we’d had in high school had ended badly. By badly, I mean he tried his hormone-induced teenage moves on me, and I responded with a few touch me like that again and you’ll die moves of my own. Since then, our relationship had been icy. Like Arctic icy.

  And if Dan got a promotion, maybe he would stop dreaming about returning to Hawaii and I wouldn’t have to see my best friend possibly make that move with him.

  As we drove the big curve leading up to Ruby Lake—not the town but the body of water from which our town gets its name and for which many tourists visit us—I slowed the van and eased onto the shoulder. The car behind me honked like I’d committed a major crime, then shot past.

  “What’s wrong?” demanded Kim, swiveling her head. “Why are we stopping?” She groaned. “Not another flat tire?”

  “No. Not to worry. We’re good.” To save money, I’d been buying secondhand tires for the minivan. They were cheap but not long-lasting. We had had a flat or two as well, literally wearing through the rubber until the air escaped. Air has the unfortunate habit of always being on the lookout for places of lower pressure to occupy. Derek tells me that’s the law of physics.

  Physics sucks.

  “I forgot my purse. I’m gonna have to go back.”

  Kim sighed. “Can’t it wait, Amy?”

  “The ring that holds my keys to the cash register and floor safe is in that purse. I have to open the store in the morning, and I need the cash that’s inside the safe to stock the till. I won’t have time to get to the bank.”

  “Tell them to pay with credit cards. That’s what I do.”

  “Not helping.”

  “Borrow Barbara’s keys.”

  “Mom keeps all her keys on one ring, and I happen to know she’s taken her keys with her.” I had already locked myself out of the house once and had to call Esther. I wasn’t about to grovel a second time. “And Mom’s on vacation, remember?”

  “Right. How about Esther?”

  I glanced at the clock on the dash. “You want to be the one to wake her?”

  Kim frowned. “Definitely not.”

  “Then back we go. Besides,” I added, “my camera is in the purse. I’d really like to see those shots I took of that yellow cardinal.” I had told Kim all about the rare bird after she had promised not to breathe a word about its uniqueness to anyone except Dan. I’d already shared the tidbit with Derek.

  “Can’t you drop me off at home first?”

  I grumbled.

  “Come on, it’s only a mile or two from here.”

  I started to protest that each mile for her was a mile each way for me but knew that if I did convince her to make the return trip, I would only have to listen to more of her squawking all the way to Yvonne’s house and back again.

  Kim wasn’t done with me yet. “Besides, this is all your fault for not trusting me with the keys to the register and safe.”

  “That’s because you can’t be trusted with them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re always losing keys.”

  “That’s why I keep a spare house key outside.”

  “Yeah, outside your kitchen door under a flowerpot, which, by the way, I think the whole town—and possibly half the tourists—are aware of. And your spare car key is duct-taped to the underside of your rear bumper. You do know they make little magnetic boxes exactly for that, don’t you?”

  “Amy Simms, you can be so mean.” Kim crossed her arms.

  “And you cheat at Ouija,” I countered.

  “Do not.”

  We kept up our friendly banter all the way to her Craftsman-style bungalow.

  “Your porch light is still out,” I noted as I dropped her off. No ugly yellow light surrounded by a cloud of the night’s finest flying bugs to greet us.

  “I know.” Kim climbed out. “Dan keeps promising to fix it.”

  Wondering at my best friend’s inability to change a lightbulb, I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket and dialed Yvonne’s number. After several rings, she picked up. I explained to her that I had forgotten my purse and would be stopping by.

  “No problem. I’ll be waiting,” Yvonne replied.

  I rang off and dropped the phone in the cubby under the dashboard. I swung the minivan around on the narrow residential street and started for the cabin.

  Yvonne’s matte black pickup sat at an angle on the gravel drive, as it had earlier. Several cardboard boxes were stacked side by side in the flatbed. The wooden handles of a couple of tools jutted up over the tailgate.

  Lights were on in the cabin, but the drapes were pulled across the windows. I pictured Yvonne sitting quietly by the fire, crafting her faux feathers from colorful embroidery floss. My customers at Birds & Bees were going to love them.

  Yvonne Rice was fashioning quite a life for herself. Then again, since coming home to Ruby Lake, so was I.

  The threatening storm had never arrived, but the stars overhead provided little light. Turning the engine off, but leaving the key in the ignition, I stepped up onto the wooden porch and knocked on the oak front door. It could have used a coat of varnish. The wood was drying out and showing signs of cracking. “Yvonne, it’s me, Amy.”

  The sounds of silence split only by humming insects—was it my imagination or were they singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”?—filled the earth as the Milky Way filled the sky.

  A twig snapped nearby, and I jumped.

  Probably a deer.

  Hopefully not a bear or a coyote.

  I was definitely going with deer. A cute little Bambi of a deer.

  But just in case, and since I didn’t feel like waiting around to become bear or coyote food, I scooted around to the back door and repeated the procedure: Knock. State name. Knock. Listen.

  I huffed out a breath.

  I really needed those keys. The only thing worse than facing down a bear or a coyote was facing down Esther the Pester.

  I jiggled the door handle. “Locked.” Not that I would have dared enter uninvited if it had been open. I barely knew the woman.

  I turned and gazed at the dark woods surrounding me. Was Yvonne out there somewhere communing with nature?

  I had called her from the van less than ten minutes ago to tell her I was on my way.

  Bathroom?

  I wa
lked carefully through the flower beds lining the back of the house to the far corner. I’d used the bathroom myself, so I knew the cabin’s only facility was on the right, with an exterior window. That window was dark.

  The sound of a siren split the silence like a jagged knife. I furrowed my brow. What could be happening nearby to disturb this tranquil world?

  The siren grew shriller. In fact, it sounded like it was coming straight for me. I ran to the front of the house just in the nick of time to see a black car pull up. The siren ceased, but the red and blue lights on the roof kept dancing in circles.

  A uniformed officer jumped out, his right hand on the butt of the weapon attached to his hip.

  “Dan?” I said. “What are you doing back here?”

  “Dispatch got a nine-one-one call. Since I was still in the area, I said I would respond.”

  “Respond to what?” I turned my gaze to the cabin. “Is Yvonne all right? Is she hurt?”

  Dan took my wrists. “Stay here.” He moved toward the house. I couldn’t help noticing that his hand was still on his weapon.

  What the devil was going on?

  “Wait. Didn’t you take Derek home? Why were you still in the area?” There was no sign of Derek, and Dan lived miles from Yvonne.

  Dan ignored my questions. “Wait for me in your car.” He took up a position outside the front door. “And lock your van doors.”

  “But, Dan—”

  He turned and banged on Yvonne’s door. “Ms. Rice? This is Dan Sutton. Open the door, please.”

  I hesitated with my fingers on the door handle of my van. “She’s not answering, Dan. I tried.”

  He looked at me. “You’re supposed to be in your vehicle. With the doors locked and the windows rolled up.”

  I moved even closer until we were shoulder to shoulder. “I tried the back door, too. Besides, with all the commotion we’re making between talking and your siren, if Yvonne could answer, don’t you think she would?”

  Dan blinked then jiggled the front doorknob. “Locked. You say the other door is locked too?”

  “Yes.”

  Dan nodded. “Stand back.”

  I took a step backward and slipped off the porch. As I rose and dusted myself off, I heard the sound of splitting wood. Dan had kicked the door in.

  “Wait outside.” All business now, Dan drew his gun and stepped inside.