The Hanged Man

by T. J. MacGregor

  Ten years ago the so-called New Age had existed as an esoteric movement populated mostly by weirdos and social misfits. But at some point between his stint with the Bureau and his move to Fort Lauderdale, it had gone mainstream and become a multi-million dollar industry that included everything from health foods to vision quests. The shop looked to be flourishing in this favorable clime.

  He strolled through the open front door. Flute music issued softly from unseen speakers, the air was redolent with the sweet scent of incense or candles. His older sister had taken him into head shops in the Sixties that had smelled like this; the aroma brought back the wonder and confusion of his adolescence.

  To his immediate right he saw a small room where half a dozen women browsed through displays of crystals, polished stones, and a selection of Southwestern jewelry. To his left a much larger room housed a pair of cages and a pair of tall, wooden floor perches. A magnificent Amazonian parrot occupied one perch, a toucan stood on the other. A pair of white doves cooed softly from a large cage near the window.

  The birds probably violated health codes, but they were a nice touch.

  As he turned, he nearly collided with a pretty little girl of eight or nine. “Oops,” he said. “Sorry.”

  She dropped her head back and gazed up at him with her huge, dark eyes. “Wow,” she breathed. “You’re about the tallest guy I’ve ever seen. You a basketball player?”

  Sheppard laughed. “Nope. Those your birds?”

  “Well, sort of. They’re One World’s mascots, but yeah, they’re mine. I feed them, change their cages, stuff like that. The toucan’s name is Iquitos, because he comes from the jungle around there. The parrot’s name is Blue. He’s from the Amazon, too. You ever been to the Amazon?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “C’mon.” Her eyes widened. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “Is it true they have pink dolphins down there?”

  “Absolutely. They’re smaller than the dolphins you see in Florida.”

  “And they’re really pink?”

  “Like bubble gum. Supposedly they’re able to transform themselves into people. The legends say that whenever there’s a celebration in a village, one of the dolphins becomes a man and goes to the party, where he dances with the prettiest women. People recognize him because he wears a hat over his blow hole.”

  “Awesome.”

  He didn’t tell her the rest of the story, that the transformed dolphin seduced the prettiest woman, took her to the river, and impregnated her. That way when an unmarried woman got pregnant, she could say the dolphin had done it.

  “And did you see piraña?”

  She pronounced it in Spanish, the ñ rolling off her tongue in a way he had never mastered. “I went fishing for piraña.”

  “And you ate them?”

  “Definitely.”

  She made a face and he laughed. It was hard not to like a kid like this. If he and his ex had stayed together, a daughter might have been a reality. He thought about it more often than was healthy, thought about it at moments like this, when a kid asked him questions, when a kid caught his eye in a crowd. He was grateful, though, that she’d distracted him from a nagging doubt that he was completely off track with this tarot stuff. The way his luck had been running lately, he doubted the cards had any connection whatsoever to Steele’s murder.

  “Are they any good? The piraña?”

  “A little bony, but tasty. Eres Cubana?”

  “Medio.”

  Half Cuban. He extended his hand. “I’m Shep.”

  His hand swallowed hers. “I’m Annie. If you’re here for the Voyager workshop, it’s down the hall. That’s where everyone is.”

  It sounded like a workshop for alien abductees. “What’s a Voyager?”

  She giggled. “It’s a tarot deck.”

  “I’m just looking for the tarot books.”

  “I’ll show you where they are.”

  He followed her past a display of angel books and entered the heart of the shop, three large rooms designed for browsing, exploring, poking around. Sunlight formed warm, buttery pools on the throw rugs. Comfortable chairs invited him to sit down, kick off his shoes, and stick around a while.

  “The tarot books are at the very end of the shelves, under tarot,” Annie said.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Sure. If you need anything else, I’ll be up front.” She smiled and wandered off.

  Sheppard walked the length of the shelves that lined the north wall, topics clearly marked above each section. Angels, aliens, crystals, herbs, health, channeling, meditation, the spectrum of alternative strangeness.

  He felt uncomfortable just being in here. Maybe this stuff got into your system through osmosis. Or sound waves. Hell, if the magnetic field emitted by a transformer could cause cancer, no telling what disease he might pick up here.

  When he finally reached the tarot section, he was shocked at the sheer number of books and decks. Angel decks, Jungian decks, herbal decks, feminist decks, mythical decks, even the Voyager deck.

  “Do you need help finding something?”

  The elderly woman had approached him on feet of silk. She barely stood five feet tall and had to drop her head back to look at him. Her eyes captivated him, dark eyes like Annie’s, eyes he could drown in. Her curly salt and pepper hair was short, stylishly cut. A pair of glasses hung from a chain around her neck. She wore jeans, a Guatemalan shirt, and Venezuela apragatos, colorful woven sandals. Her face belonged to another age, Europe of a century ago, South America when the Incans had walked there. He couldn’t guess her age

  “Actually, I’m looking for a book on this particular tarot deck.” He slipped one of the tarot cards out of his windbreaker pocket. The Lovers.

  She put on her glasses, glanced at the card, and nodded. “The Rider-Waite deck.” Her long, bony finger trailed across the spines of books on a lower shelf and plucked out a thin book. “This book should do.”

  “I had no idea there were so many decks and books on tarot.”

  She laughed. “I don’t even try to keep up with everything that’s coming out these days. Not that long ago it was impossible to find more than a couple of decks.”

  “Do the meanings of the cards change from deck to deck?”

  “Minor changes. The differences are primarily in the focus of the particular deck. Some are best for predictions, others are best as tools for self-knowledge and spiritual growth. It depends on what you’re looking for.”

  Most things did, he thought.

  “That card, for instance. The Lovers. In one deck it might indicate that you’re facing serious choices in a relationship. But in another deck, it could point to a duality in your nature that you must come to terms with before you can move on with your life. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Yeah, Sheppard thought. You either banished your demons or learned to live with the little fuckers. “I think so. Do you read the cards?”

  “My granddaughter, Mira, is the tarot expert.”

  “Is she here?”

  The woman smiled at that. “Most of the time. This is her store. Would you like to speak to her?”

  “That’d be great. I’d like to get this book, too.”

  “I’ll ring it up for you. By the way, I’m Nadine Cantrell.”

  “Wayne Sheppard.”

  Something changed in her expression when they shook hands, a small thing, a fleeting nuance too brief for him to determine what it meant. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Sheppard.” She headed toward the register, leaning lightly on her cane. “Are you new to the area or just down here for the season?”

  “Neither. I’ve been here about five years.”

  “But you travel a great deal.”

  His smile mirrored his astonishment. “It shows?”

  “A lucky guess. You look like the sort of man who moves around a lot.”

  It was news to him. M
ost people who knew him remarked that he looked like the kind of man who had never left his birthplace. In other words, a throwback to a simpler time. “Are you and Annie related? She’s a real charmer.”

  “She’s my great-granddaughter.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” he blurted.

  She laughed with obvious delight. “Who’s the charmer, Mr. Sheppard?” Then she rang up his sale and paged Mira.

  Sheppard picked up a schedule of monthly events at the store. Lectures, workshops, classes, daily yoga sessions, something scheduled nearly every day of the week. Most of it looked like weird shit, the nut fringe of the New Age—a woman who allegedly channeled “group energy from the Sirian star system”; a pair of UFO abductees; a psychic dentist. He fully expected the granddaughter to look and act strange.

  But she surprised him: a slender build, five-foot-six or so, curly black hair that brushed her shoulders. Her black Levi’s hugged her narrow hips and tiny waist; the flecks of silver in her shirt drew his eyes to her silver earrings, miniature Kokopellis, the Hopi symbol of fertility. A Kokopelli pendant hung from a chain around her neck, his delicate fingers playing a flute made of amber.

  She wasn’t a knockout, he wasn’t certain she was even pretty. But something about her struck him immediately and made him feel tongue-tied, awkward, like some teenager with wild, fluctuating hormones. Too long between women, he thought.

  Nadine introduced them, then handed Sheppard his book and the receipt, and left them alone. Mira folded her arms at her waist, as if she felt the sudden need to protect herself. “What can I do for you, Mr. Sheppard?”

  He flashed his badge. “It’s actually Detective Sheppard. I’m with the sheriff’s office.”

  “You’re kidding. It took Detective Ames a while, but he actually came through.”

  Sheppard thought he’d missed something. “Excuse me?”

  “Detective Ames sent you, right?”

  “Then I’m definitely confused.”

  Sheppard laughed. “So am I.”

  She shifted her weight to her right foot and tucked her fingers into the pockets of her Levis. “I, uh, spoke to Detective Ames Thursday morning. I had picked up some information on a murder and felt that I should report it. I thought he’d sent you.”

  “Picked up information?”

  “Psychically.”

  No wonder Ames had been mute. He lumped psychics under a broad category entitled horseshit. Sheppard supposed he meant well, but Ames was basically an idiot who belonged behind a desk in an administrative job. “I haven’t talked to Ames since early last week. I’m actually here because I need some information on tarot that’s related to a case. Your grandmother said you’re the expert.”

  “Me?” She smiled. “I learned tarot from her. But I’d be glad to help you out.”

  “Great.”

  “Let’s sit outside.”

  They exited through a fire door in another room and headed toward the garden behind the building. Blood red bougainvillea blooms blanketed the trellis at the entrance of the garden. The depth of their color seemed like a portent to Sheppard, symbolic of a fool’s bleeding heart. He blamed it on his sexual drought.

  They settled at a rickety picnic table where the air smelled faintly of gardenias. “What information did you give Detective Ames?” he asked.

  “Not all that much, really. Two men arguing, one of them was wearing green shoelaces. A little boy was watching them, peeking out from behind a door, I think. The guy with the green shoelaces shot the other man right about here.” She touched her breastbone. “Through the sternum or just below it.”

  A chill raced up Sheppard’s arms and shot through the center of his chest, an arrow of ice. Steele, she was referring to Steele. But how could she possibly know that Steele had been shot through the sternum? The news in this morning’s paper hadn’t mentioned specifics about his physical injury; that information hadn’t been released to the press. The story had focused mostly on Steele’s professional life. So even though she might have read about the murder, she couldn’t know something this specific.

  He’d worked with psychics a couple of times during his stint with the Bureau, but always on the sly. Not much had ever come from the leads. Maybe this woman would be different. Sheppard felt that quick, hot ripple of excitement again.

  “What did Ames say?”

  “That someone would get in touch with me if the cops had any questions. I figure he wrote me off as a nutcase.”

  Undoubtedly. But by now, Ames had to know about Steele and if he knew, he should have told Sheppard about Mira’s call. In a homicide investigation, you pursued every lead, regardless of how it struck you personally.

  “Did you pick up anything else?”

  “Later I did. A canoe, tall grass. The view was what you would see if you were lying on your back. Does this fit something you know about?”

  “It might. Could you tell where the canoe was?”

  “No. But the energy I tuned in on was female.”

  Energy? What energy? “I don’t understand.”

  She leaned forward, the scent of her perfume drifting toward him, a light, pleasing fragrance that stroked his libido. “Most of the time, I perceive energy. Men and women have different types of energy and this was female. If I encounter it again, I’ll recognize it. To me, energy is as unique as a fingerprint.”

  Sheppard wondered if his energy reflected the pathetic state of his financial affairs or the possible loss of his job. “Can you tell me anything about this, uh, female energy you perceived?”

  “Just that she seemed to be lying on the floor of a canoe.” Her lovely eyes narrowed, focused on something over his left shoulder. “Her vision was blurred. I felt a thick, crippling lethargy, like she was drugged. That’s about it.”

  Jesus, Sheppard thought. Was it possible that she had tuned in on Rae Steele? But if Rae had killed Steele and split, why would she be drugged and lying on the floor of a canoe? Because she didn’t kill him, he thought. Because whoever had killed Steele had abducted his wife.

  This scenario certainly made more sense to him than Paula Crick’s theory that Rae Steele had killed her husband and split. But if she had been abducted, why had there been no ransom demand?

  “You look puzzled, Detective Sheppard.”

  “Blown away is more like it.” He withdrew the envelope from his windbreaker pocket, took out the tarot cards, and fanned them out on the picnic table. The light made their colors look luminous. “These cards were found at a murder scene. The victim had been shot through the sternum.”

  She stared at them, chin cupped in her hands. Then she turned those deep, dark eyes on him. “Where were they found?”

  “In a tin of chocolate.” He showed her the slip of paper that listed the tarot cards and the item that had been mailed with each card. “These were supposedly mailed to his wife, who’s missing.”

  She studied the list. “So this is the order in which the cards were received?”

  “It would seem so. Do you have to know the order to tell me what they mean?”

  “No, but it would help. Do you know anything about tarot, Mr. Sheppard?”

  “Not really.”

  “With tarot, with any kind of divination system, you use spreads, positions that have particular meanings. A simple three-card spread might represent past, present, future. Seven cards could be laid out any number of ways.”

  Sheppard arranged the cards according to the list. The Lovers, the Tower, the eight of cups, the Wheel of Fortune, the eight of swords, the ten of swords, the Hanged Man. “Can you give me some idea what these cards mean in this order?”

  Mira, sitting across from him, turned the cards so they faced her. “I’m glad it’s not my reading.”

  Sheppard, tarot neophyte, particularly disliked the card that depicted ten swords sticking out of some poor sucker’s back. “Do any of these cards mean death?”

  “There’s no si
ngle death card in tarot. You have to look to the surrounding cards. If anything, what I see here is the ending of a cycle, a way of life.”

  She rearranged the cards in what looked, roughly, like a star. As she explained the meanings of the cards, weaving them into a kind of story, Sheppard felt as if he’d stumbled into some ancient past, where the future could be read in the toss of a handful of bones. He didn’t understand how this woman did what she was doing; at some elemental level, it terrified him. And yet, it also fascinated him.

  When she finished talking, he grappled for something to say. “So basically the cards are telling us that whoever sent them is dealing with issues having to do with love, sudden and unpredictable changes, with unions and new partnerships, and choices related to all of those things.” He paused. “Right?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Her smile held a hint of embarrassment. “Actually, it seems pretty general when you hear it out loud.”

  “It’s more than I had before I came here. What else do the cards say?”

  “Because of the catastrophe that slams into his life, he loses faith in himself, in his world. Nothing is what it seems.” She tapped the eight of cups. “He walks away from a situation or from a relationship that he’s finished with.” Her finger moved to the fourth card, the Wheel of Fortune. “This card always reminds me of the wheel of fortune in The Dead Zone.” She glanced up. “You ever read Stephen King?”

  “I used to. In Dead Zone, the wheel of fortune was at the carnival, right before Joe or Jack or whatever the hell his name was gets hurt.”

  “John Smith.”

  “Played by Christopher Walken. I loved the movie.”

  “Me, too.”

  Her gaze held his; he felt an odd tightening through his chest. Chemistry. Ridiculous. He could never get involved with a woman like this; she spooked him. He would always be wondering if she was tuned in, peering into him. No thanks. Besides, so what if they liked the same movie? He and his ex had also liked the same movies and what good had that done them?