The Hanged Man

by T. J. MacGregor

  He’d noticed, though, that she didn’t wear a wedding ring.

  “So this man is now riding the wheel of fortune,” she said. “It could stop anywhere. He’s accepted the risk.” She paused, laced her fingers together, rested her chin on this steeple of bone and skin, and studied the cards. “But when the wheel stops turning, he feels trapped. Or he makes someone else feel that way. I mean, look at this woman. She’s blindfolded and gagged, her arms are bound and she’s surrounded by eight swords that stick up out of the ground.”

  “A bad hair day,” Sheppard said with a wry grin, and she laughed. He tapped the Hanged Man, a guy suspended upside down by an ankle. Yeah, he could identify with this one, all right. It fit how he felt right now, how he felt in the middle of any investigation that appeared to be going nowhere. “What about this card?”

  “Since he’s hanging upside down, the Hanged Man doesn’t see the world the way the rest of us do. The card indicates a complete reversal in one’s affairs. Sometimes the Hanged Man is about spirituality, about psychic abilities.” She glanced up. “Does the murdered man have a son?”

  He nodded. “Right now Carl Steele is in intensive care, being treated for an insulin reaction. He’s conscious, but not out of the woods yet. I’m hoping I’ll be able to talk to him tomorrow.”

  “He may have seen what happened.”

  “That’s occurred to me. Right now, his mother is the primary suspect simply because of what she stands to inherit. But I have a few problems with that. Why would she kill her husband when her son was in the house, then split without taking him with her? She knows he’s a diabetic. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mica gathered up the cards. “I’ll see if I can pick up anything else, Mr. Sheppard, and give you a call when or if I do.”

  It disturbed him that he anticipated seeing her again, even if he had to talk about murder and tarot cards to do it. But as soon as he’d thought this, his emotional censor shook a finger at him, reminding him again that she spooked him. “Great, I appreciate it.” He jotted his home and cell numbers on the back of a business card and handed it to her. “Call any time, don’t worry about the hour. If I’m not in, leave a message.”

  They walked toward the front of the building, their shoes crunching over woodchips, the scent of jasmine suffusing the air around them. They made small talk about books and movies, about her store and his job, and he suddenly wanted to linger in her world, to explore it a little longer.

  Sheppard felt strangely comfortable around her, as though they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time and now had a great deal to catch up on. Except that he wasn’t thinking about friendship. He was thinking about how nice her hair would feel between his fingers.

  Watch it, big boy.

  When they reached the driveway, they were discussing Dead Again. She had liked the movie, but not the way it had depicted reincarnation.

  “That was what made the plot work,” he said.

  “Hollywood’s rendition of reincarnation is too linear. I think the Self is far more creative, that consciousness is multidimensional.”

  Sheppard didn’t have any idea what the hell she meant. Her world loomed like some exotic country in his mind, its culture too strange even for an experienced traveler like himself. Let it alone, he thought.

  “I’ll call you in a few days, Mr. Sheppard.”

  “Shep. Mister makes me feel old.”

  “And I’m Mira.”

  When they shook hands, he felt the chemistry again and knew it wasn’t in his head this time, that she felt it, too. He also sensed that the handshake communicated something psychic to her and quickly reclaimed his hand.

  As he hurried down the gravel driveway to his car, he still felt the phantom pressure of her hand against his palm.

  Chapter 7

  Mira stood at the window in the front office, watching the old Camaro pull out into the street. An odd stew bubbled up inside of her that was uneven parts of dread and delight. Dread that her involvement had now extended beyond what she’d intended, delight that the extension concerned a man to whom she was physically attracted.

  An electric warmth lingered on her palm; she could still feel the shape of his hand against her skin. This had happened only once before, the day she’d met her husband fifteen years ago, the two of them waiting in line at the courthouse to pay for speeding tickets. It had been the tourist season, the line was long, they had started talking. She couldn’t remember now what they had talked about, yet she clearly recalled how, in his presence, she’d felt as if she had returned home after a long journey.

  Now he was dead and the possibility that she might have prevented it still haunted her. Nadine, of course, was more sanguine about it. If you’d told him about the dreams, he might still have died. This particular “what if” remained one of the great riddles of her life.

  Tom’s death had left an emotional void inside of her that she initially filled with Annie, with the store, with her clients. These elements still mattered to her, but not in the same way. Annie was older and more independent now, and with Nadine actively involved in the business, the store didn’t demand the time it once had.

  As a result, she often experienced bouts of intense loneliness, a hunger for the kind of intimacy and companionship she and Tom had known. She’d been involved with two men since Tom’s death. One man had felt threatened by her clairvoyance, the other had hung on because of it. Neither relationship had provided what she needed.

  In the last year, her social life had shrunk considerably—family events, outings with friends, several short vacations with Annie. She hadn’t met a single man who remotely interested her. Until now.

  But Christ, a cop? Why did he have to be a cop?

  Even more to the point, why did their meeting have to involve a murder? How could anything positive come from this? Despite her physical attraction to Sheppard, she felt that the single violent act of Steele’s death would taint whatever might develop between them, that it was a kind of curse. In other words, forget Sheppard. He would be nothing but trouble.

  “Mom, the workshop people are taking a break.”

  With some reluctance, she turned away from the window. “Is that pot of coffee done?”

  “Yup. And I put out cups and sugar and stuff.”

  Mira slipped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “You just got a raise, kiddo. Two bucks an hour.”

  Annie grinned and rubbed her hands together. “I’m going to get this new CD I saw advertised. It’s called Crystal Skull and it’s about a search for a magical crystal skull that’s really powerful. And there’s an underground city and stuff where you get your clues.”

  “My computer whiz kid,” Mira murmured.

  “That guy you were talking to? Shep? He told me the most incredible story about the pink dolphins in the Amazon.”

  As she chattered on about the myth, Mira realized that a man who could talk about magic and transformation with an eight-year-old couldn’t be a typical cop. But it didn’t change her mind about getting involved any more deeply in this investigation. One vision was enough; she didn’t want a repeat performance.

  As soon as Sheppard hit Sunrise Boulevard, the needle on the temperature gauge swung into the red zone. Thanks to the oil leak, he had been adding oil to the engine every other day and he’d forgotten to do it the last two days.

  He drove another two blocks and turned into Gabby’s Garage. Gabriel Jacinto worked twelve hour days, seven days a week, unless his wife threatened to divorce him. This week she apparently hadn’t threatened him.

  Cars were lined five and six deep in front of the three stalls, typical for Gabby’s. Other mechanics in town were as good as or better than Gabby and certainly cheaper. But no other mechanic was as honest.

  Sheppard parked at the side of the building, got out, raised the Camaro’s hood. The stink of scorched metal floated into the warm October afternoon. If Gabby couldn’t do a
quick patch-up job, Sheppard would be up shit’s creek. He tried to remember which of his credit cards hadn’t maxed out and which one had the lowest interest rate. Visa from First Union? Master Charge from Sun Bank?

  “Hey, amigo,” Gabby’s voice boomed behind him and he slung an arm around Sheppard’s shoulders.

  Gabby was short and thin, a Cuban with jovial dark eyes and a Ricky Ricardo smile. His thick, dark hair had begun to pale at the temples. He wore stained jeans and a blue work shirt unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest. Nestled in the mat of hairs was a gold St. Christopher’s medal.

  “I’ve got major problems, Gabby.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “You have one problem with many facets, amigo. A new car would solve everything.”

  “I can’t afford a new car. I’ve spent too much money trying to keep this one running.”

  Gabby’s frown caused his bushy brows to melt together so they formed one continuous line above his eyes. “We work out something on this one, amigo. I owe you.”

  The debt Gabby referred to went back to when they’d met. His garage had been broken into and thousands of dollars’ worth of tools were stolen. It had taken Sheppard four months to track the leads to a ring of car thieves. During those months, he and Gabby had gotten to be friends. Sheppard was now a godfather to Gabby’s three kids and a regular guest for the rowdy Sunday dinners when the entire extended family gathered at Gabby’s. Sheppard was, in the words of Gabby’s wife, an honorary Cuban.

  “It’s the other way around. I still owe you for labor on the muffler.”

  “What labor? You did the work. I just showed you how.” Sheppard didn’t remember it that way. “Charge me what’s fair and square, Gabby.”

  “No way I can have this ready by tomorrow. I’m booked through the middle of next week.” He stabbed a thumb toward the silver Porsche he had bought a year ago in an estate sale. Sleek as a bullet, it would make it from Lauderdale to Miami in the blink of an eye. “You take Angelita.”

  Little Angel. “And I’d be in debt to you for the rest of my life if something happened to it.”

  “Shit, man, nothing’s going to happen to it with you behind the wheel and my saint on the dashboard.” He touched the St. Christopher medal around his neck, then tossed Sheppard the keys. “Now I sleep good at night and I can take my time with the Camaro, no?”

  Sheppard felt absurdly grateful for the break, but he didn’t want to take advantage of Gabby’s generosity. “At least let me pay you something for the use of the Porsche.”

  Gabby made a face. “Look, amigo, you are doing me a favor, me entiendes? I drive the car to work so my son can’t use it. Sixteen years old and he thinks he should be driving a Porsche, no? Ridiculous. Now I can tell him Shep is using it and he won’t say a word. He likes you too much to complain.”

  End of discussion. Gabby now poked around under the Camaro’s hood. “I thought you were diving for skeletons or something this weekend.”

  “I didn’t leave town soon enough.” Sheppard told him about the homicide; Gabby had never heard of Steele. No reason that he should have. Gabby’s contacts were extensive, but they began and ended with the Hispanic community in the tri-county area. “I’m hoping to get some leads from a psychic.”

  Gabby raised his head, obviously amused. “You and a psychic, amigo? I thought those people spooked you.”

  “They do. You know anything about One World? That New Age bookstore over by the river?”

  “I know the woman who owns it. Mira Morales.”

  The world, Sheppard thought, had only a thousand people in it. “She doesn’t look Cuban.”

  “She’s not.” His head vanished under the hood again, where he examined the dipstick. “She was married to a Cuban. Her grandmother is Cuban.”

  Sheppard noted the past tense. “She’s the psychic I mentioned.”

  “I myself don’t know whether she’s any good as a psychic. But I knew her husband, Tomas. He was a lawyer who did much free work with Cuban refugees. Five years ago he was shot and killed during the robbery of a convenience store. Una lástima, a man like that. The killer was never caught.”

  “Did it happen here in Broward County?”

  “Sí, claro. That store at the corner of Powerline and Northwest Tenth.”

  Sheppard knew the store he meant. It was about two blocks from the worst crack neighborhood in Lauderdale. “It must’ve happened before I started. Otherwise I’d remember the case.”

  Gabby grinned and held up the dipstick, which was bone dry. “You remember names, amigo, but you can’t remember to put oil in the car.”

  “Guilty.”

  “I don’t think there is too much damage to the engine, but give me a few days, no?”

  “Take as long as you need, Gab. And I can’t thank you enough for the use of the Porsche.”

  His options on this Saturday afternoon depressed him. If he took the rest of the weekend off and drove over to Warm Mineral Springs as he had planned to do yesterday, he knew he wouldn’t enjoy himself. He would worry about the investigation and about how he couldn’t afford the trip. Forget Warm Mineral Springs.

  If he stayed home and completed some of the projects he had begun shortly after he had moved, he would also worry about the case and fret over his unpaid bills. Forget staying home. That left one choice: go to work.

  The dozen detectives in the department supposedly rotated their weekends so no one worked more than one weekend a month. But at this time of year, vacations and the flu took their toll on the order of things. As a floater and the man with the lowest seniority, Shep had gotten stuck filling in for the last six weekends. Seven, if he counted this weekend, even though he wasn’t filling in for anyone. So it surprised him to see that nearly every desk on the third floor was occupied. Everyone bustled around.

  Budget cutbacks. The layoff rumors had brought in the troops. Put in an appearance, make it look good, and do it for comp time not pay, the route to job security. All of these guys had more seniority than he did and if they were worried, then he was fucked.

  Don’t think about it. Zen.

  Sheppard made a beeline for the very small office he shared with Pete Ames. As usual, Ames’s side of the room looked like it had been ransacked by a gang of thugs stoned on speed. The chaos had spilled over the imaginary line that separated his area from Sheppard’s, files and folders stacked haphazardly on his chair and his half of the windowsill. The air smelled suspiciously of the sickeningly sweet spray freshener that Ames used to cover up the stink of his cigarettes. Goddamn slob. Ames was one of the main reasons that Sheppard didn’t spend much time here.

  He shut the door, grateful that the office had only two windows—one that looked out into the street, another in the door. It gave him a modicum of privacy. He moved Ames’s files from his desk chair, pushed it up to the computer, and sat down.

  He booted up the computer, then suffered several moments of excruciating indecision. His job demanded that he cull information about Steele and his wife and that he do it immediately. If he could come up with something tangible in the next couple of days, it might save his ass from unemployment.

  But first, he wanted information about Mira’s husband.

  Sheppard initiated a search for a Tomas Morales. If the perp who had killed him had never been caught, then the case would still be open. Sure enough, the name came up with a cross reference to the cold cases division. He accessed the case number and printed it out.

  The investigating officer, Guy Hotchkiss, had retired. Sheppard vaguely remembered him, a sour-faced man with a beer belly who had once commented that the cold case division, where Sheppard was working at the time, should be abolished. Hotchkiss now worked as a security guard for Motorola up in Boynton Beach, a fitting place for the man.

  According to the investigation report, the murder had happened about the way Gabby had described it. Morales had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and the perp had gotten lu
cky. He wore a mask during the holdup. The description pegged him as about six feet tall, between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and ninety pounds, with light hair, which probably fit half the men under thirty-five in Broward County.

  Hotchkiss had taken copious notes on his dealings with Mira. She claims to be psychic, but hasn’t come up with a single lead that has checked out. Snide SOB.

  The door suddenly opened and Ames lumbered in, as graceless as a rhino in heat. “Hey, Shep. I hear you got stuck with the Steele homicide.”

  “You got it. And I hear you took a call that could be related to it.”

  “What?” Even when Ames’s blue eyes widened, they still seemed very small, like shiny blue buttons stuck onto his soft, pudgy face. “What’re you talking about?”

  “The woman who called in Thursday morning with a tip about a homicide.”

  Ames looked puzzled. Like a slow computer, the outdated microchips in his head struggled to make connections from the stored information. When he finally brightened, Sheppard expected to see smoke billowing from his large ears.

  “Oh. That.” Ames chuckled, moved the files from his chair, and sank into it. “C’mon, man, she’d had a vision, for Christ’s sakes. We get about ten calls like that a week. Who told you about it?”

  “She did.”

  His cocky smile vanished. “I’m not following.”

  “You don’t need to follow it, Pete. Next time you get a call like that about a case of mine, let me know about it.”

  “Chill out.” He grabbed a file off one of the stacks, rummaged through one of his messy drawers, and pulled out a bag of peanuts. He proceeded to consume them with great, noisy gusto, adding to Sheppard’s general misery.

  Sheppard returned to the computer printout on Morales. For a long time, the thick, stale silence in the office reminded him of that in a nightclub on a Sunday morning. Ames hated silence and finally broke it.