Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  “Did your father have something to do with snakes?” Joshua asked, grasping for some way to interpret the meaning of the image.

  “No-o,” Whitney said slowly.

  The snake was dark, reddish black. “Was he ever bitten by one? I think this has something to do with his death.”

  “No, he died of toxemia.”

  The image of the snake glowed and then disappeared. “You mean, poison?” Joshua asked.

  “Yes, he was poisoned, and . . . Oh!” Whiney exclaimed. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

  Joshua felt a little swell of pride; he’d followed his instinct and guessed right. Of course, without Whitney to make the connection, he would have thought the man died of a snakebite. He looked down and wrote in his notebook, Serpent in body=poison.

  “What else? Does he have a message for me?” Whitney asked, and for the first time, Joshua heard the need in her voice. He’d been so caught up in interpreting that he had forgotten he was seeing an image of someone she had loved and lost.

  “He’s definitely very happy. If I’m right, then he wants you to know that he’s not just okay, but ecstatic. Does that sound right?”

  “It sounds good,” Whitney said, and there was a slight quiver in her usually cheerful, steady voice.

  The figure of Whitney’s father kept on beaming and gesturing to his feet. Joshua tried to see why. They seemed normal feet, very white, nice and clean.

  “He keeps showing me his feet,” Joshua said, confused. “I think he wants to show me how clean they are?” He finished as a question, wondering what that could mean.

  Whitney looked at him with a befuddled expression. “His feet? He used to like to go barefoot a lot, especially in the summer, but I don’t know.”

  Outside, the sound of a car on the gravel made them both look out the window, and the white-robed figure vanished. The plain, dark blue sedan driven by Detective Sheridan pulled up into the parking area.

  “I wonder what he wants,” Whitney said. Though Joshua knew she too had a history with the detective that had ended happily, he could also well imagine she would prefer not to be reminded of that dark time.

  “I’ll go see. He’s working on the arson cases, and he might have some questions for me or Sterling about something at the site.”

  “Where’s Joy?” Whitney asked, almost instinctively.

  “I’m in the kitchen!” Joy called out. “You told me to make bread. I’m kneading my knuckles off.”

  Joshua put a hand on Whitney’s and felt her sigh out her fear by association. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.” Whitney smiled at him, her buoyant spirit and dynamic personality returning in full strength. “I think I’ll go call my mom and ask her about that foot thing. You go see what the good detective wants. What time do you think your mom will be home?”

  Joshua frowned. “Saturday is kind of a late day at the salon. I’d say we’d be ready for dinner by seven thirty.”

  “See you then.” With one more glance out the window at the two detectives, who were now headed for Joshua’s front door, she passed into the kitchen, boisterously egging on Joy to beat that bread.

  Taking up his notebook, Joshua went out and intercepted Detective Sheridan and Detective Wright. “Hi there!” he called out. “Are you looking for me?”

  Sheridan turned to him. “We were looking for Mr. Fincher, but I’d like to talk to you too.”

  “Sterling is in the house, marinating some steaks, I think. C’mon in. You want something to drink?” Joshua asked politely as he passed the two men on his wide porch and opened the screen door.

  “Water would be great,” said Detective Wright. “With ice, please.” Joshua could see the sweat trickling down his neck. He wondered how hot it was to wear that hairpiece, and why he didn’t just switch it for a baseball cap, preferably the vented kind.

  Sterling was working at the center island. He had obviously seen them coming, and he was finishing up quickly. He greeted them as they came in and moved next to the kitchen table. “Sit down, sit down,” he offered.

  “We won’t keep you long,” Sheridan said. “We’ve been doing a little research today, and we understand that you’ve recently employed a young man by the name of Simon Gomez. Is that correct?”

  Sterling had joined the men at the table while Joshua got two big glasses and filled them with ice water. “That’s right,” Sterling said, nodding. “He needed a job to be on a work-release program. Is there a problem?”

  Sheridan took the glass from Joshua when he offered it, and Detective Wright responded. “Not necessarily. We’ve been assigned to these arson cases now that there’s been a suspected homicide. There was what may or may not be a connected matter on Friday night. An arson fire at a small convenience store on Foothill.”

  “How is that connected to Simon?” Joshua asked. Almost before the question was out, he caught a glance from Sterling that told him he should have kept his mouth shut.

  “Do you think it is?” Wright asked him.

  “No. I saw Simon with some friends at the carnival Friday night. They were still there when I left.”

  “What time was that?” Sheridan asked, pulling the same kind of small notebook that Joshua remembered so well from his breast pocket. It was the kind you buy at Rite Aid in a pack of three; spiral top, lined paper.

  “I don’t know. At least eleven. Joy and I went; she can tell you too.”

  At the mention of Joy’s name, Sheridan glanced up sharply. Joshua thought his voice was falsely casual as he asked, “How’s she doing?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Joshua felt flummoxed by the question.

  Sterling intervened. “She’s proved remarkably resilient. I’d say she’s doing as well as anyone could expect. We’re all really very proud of her.”

  For a split second, Joshua saw something flash over Detective Sheridan’s usually granite face, something that looked distinctly relieved and victorious, but it was gone before it registered fully, and when the detective spoke, there was no trace of either sentiment. “That’s good to hear,” he said blandly.

  “I’m sorry,” Sterling said, “but I don’t understand what my hiring Simon has to do with your arson investigation.”

  Sheridan and Wright exchanged an almost unnoticeable look. “The store that was vandalized by fire was also robbed a few months ago. Simon Gomez was ID’d by the shop owner, leading to his arrest. We went to the fire camp to talk to him, found out he’d been released, and that led us to you.” Sheridan inclined his head in Sterling’s direction.

  “That doesn’t mean it was him.” Sterling looked grave.

  “No, and we probably would have dropped it, except that it turns out that Simon Gomez was also on a work crew very near the Oak Springs fire the day it broke out.”

  Joshua was opening his mouth to object when he realized that this was true: He had first seen Simon there. So he snapped his mouth shut again, his mind swirling. Did this have something to do with the image of the malicious man he had seen lurking around Simon? Yet he felt sure that Simon was not responsible. He couldn’t have said why exactly. He thought of how Simon had risked his own life to save that dog. Was that the action of someone who would deliberately and randomly set fires that could kill any number of living things?

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” Sterling said. “He’s shown up on time, worked hard, and thrown himself in front of a speeding car to save a dog. He seems like an okay kid who might have taken a wrong turn. But then”—Sterling paused and shrugged—“lots of people seem okay who aren’t.” He looked very pointedly at the detectives in turn and then added, “As well as the other way around.”

  Detective Sheridan looked like no one had ever spoken a truer word. “If the people who were criminals looked like criminals, and the ones who weren’t didn’t, my job would be a whole lot easier.” Sighing, he flipped the notebook closed. “Well, we’ll need to talk to him. That’s our next stop.” Both detectives came to their feet with
a scraping of wood on wood as the chairs moved across the plank floor. “Thanks for the water.”

  They exited into the feverish autumn day, and Joshua watched them walk to the car with an undulating sensation in his chest that felt not unlike the heat waves coming off the hood of the car. Before the two men got to the car, Whitney came out of her house and intercepted them. Joshua watched them shake hands and exchange a few words, Whitney bestowing her thousand-watt smile on Sheridan. Then they left and she came over, climbing the stairs to the porch and sticking her head in the kitchen door.

  “I called my mom,” she said, and Joshua could see that she’d been crying. Her eyes, always bright, were especially luminous, and slightly red. “When I told her what you said, she burst into tears. She said that my father always used to go barefoot and it drove her crazy that his feet were always dirty. She was always after him to keep them clean.”

  Joshua smiled gently at her and said, “Well, he wants her to know that they’re clean now, and he’s really happy.”

  Whitney’s eyes brightened with a shiny new wetness. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then, as though eager to treasure her melancholy wonder in private, she was gone.

  Chapter 26

  Even at the salon, wrapped in a thick terry bathrobe after a quick shower, Susan Hughs looked professionally preoccupied and distracted. It couldn’t have been any more apparent that she felt she was wasting her time.

  “Thank you for fitting me in at the last minute on a Saturday. I can see how busy you are,” Susan said to Greer as she came into the treatment room.

  “No problem.” Greer smiled as though it had been no big deal to move three other appointments, one of which had been scheduled over a month ago. “I’ve been wanting to work on you since I met you. I sensed a certain amount of what I call city smut on you that needs to be cleansed off.”

  Susan’s left eyebrow had lifted a fraction of an inch. “You sensed?” she asked.

  “Yes. I get these little feelings about things sometimes,” Greer said, careful to keep it light. “I suppose it comes from dealing with people’s bodies and energies on a daily basis. Quite a bit of my practice has to do with energy flow, or the interruption of it. Anyway, it’s nothing you’d even really notice. I don’t sacrifice goats or read chicken innards or anything like that.”

  “I see. How interesting.” Susan looked as though she thought it was anything but and was eager to get the hell out of there.

  Greer understood completely and decided to say no more. When a person was resistant to her sensibilities, she found it was best to leave it alone. “I’ll just step into the hallway while you take off your robe and get under the sheet.” She indicated the massage table. “Do you like citrus smells?” Greer was positive she knew the answer, but she asked it anyway out of politeness.

  Susan looked surprised. “Yes, I like the stimulating effect.”

  “Me too,” Greer agreed as she opened the door. “I think though, that for you and your intense stress level, we’ll add in some rosemary and lavender.” She went out and closed the door, ignoring Susan’s slight eye roll, which could not have been more easily interpreted if she had said, “New age hippie,” out loud. In the hallway, Greer closed her eyes and summoned Susan’s energy into her mind’s eye to have a look at it.

  As she suspected, it was covered in a gray, mucuslike mass, city smut. That would need clearing. There was some fear there, appearing to Greer as a dark red glow, and while that seemed incongruous in someone as confident as Susan, Greer had seen it too many times on successful women to be surprised. The fear was so often what motivated them.

  Something else hovered around the center of her energy, something rusty colored and dense: greed, an unhealthy, unbalanced set of values and needs. No big revelation there either.

  Turning, Greer knocked on the door before stepping quietly into the room and dimming the lights. She selected three small bottles of oil and put a few drops of each into an infuser, lighting the candle beneath it. Almost instantly a fresh, calming scent filled the room.

  Greer walked to stand near the table, and after rubbing her hands together and taking a cleansing breath, she placed both of her hands on Susan, one on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades.

  The jolt that came through them was so strong that Greer had to force herself not to pull away. Instantly, she could see the tight, inky mass in the vicinity of Susan’s chest.

  Exhaling hard to expel the negativity and block it from coming into her own body, Greer threw up a wall of white light and then began to gently prod and knead the knots of tension.

  It was apparent to Greer’s expert touch that this was a woman who seldom endured or even received physical contact. At first Susan tensed and fought every attempt to ease her muscular tightness, but then, almost inaudibly, Greer began to hum, just enough to create a vibration that traveled from her chest, down her arms, into her hands, and to Susan. Greer continued to repeat and send a few interchanging tones. Susan began to respond, relaxing and releasing. Focusing primarily on the dark, injurious energies that she could hardly contain, Greer began to slide the tones, to change the notes, to extend the healing sound, and as she did, the gray and the rust and the dark red lessened, lightened, eased.

  But the black would not budge. Again and again Greer focused on it, tried to find its note, its vibration, but it eluded her. She tried to sense what it was, danger—certainly—but it was very difficult to read. She wasn’t very good at diagnosing illness, but Greer couldn’t help fearing that Susan’s body was harboring some kind of cancer or heart disease that would attack in the near future. With a growing sense of desperation, Greer realized she didn’t know what to do to help Susan if it were a serious physical illness. It would be completely inappropriate for her to suggest that a massage client might have a malignant tumor.

  After a full hour, Susan had relaxed enough to have fallen asleep and was actually snoring lightly. Greer felt that she could safely try something more extreme.

  Stepping to the side of the room, she lifted the votive candle and carried it over to the sleeping figure, holding it in her right hand. Her left hand she placed against the center of Susan’s back, and after drawing a line of light through her wrist, she focused hard on drawing the darkness into her hand. She could sense it moving, budging. Small beads of sweat formed on Greer’s lip as she tried to lift the image of the dark mass from Susan’s body and spirit. Holding the candle ready, Greer began to lift her left hand, as though pulling up on a great weight.

  When it was only inches away from Susan’s body, she moved the flame of the candle down toward the space between the two. She would burn away the energy; she would force it to leave Susan.

  Slowly, she began to bring the candle into the space that felt as dense and tight as though she were pulling up on a thick rubber band. Greer slid the candle into place and mouthed the words, “Burn away this darkness, free this woman from this danger.”

  The candle sputtered and went out.

  Shaken, Greer left Susan to sleep for a few minutes and retreated to the reassuring buzz of activity on the salon floor. She found Leah in Dario’s chair. He was busy chopping her severely blunt haircut into a softer, layered look.

  “So, something, or should I say, someone, inspire you to get a new look?” Greer asked, crossing her arms and leaning against Dario’s station while secretly drawing comfort from the presence of her two friends.

  “What?” Leah tried to feign ignorance, but the attempt was betrayed by a blush.

  “Oh ho,” said Dario. “So, we’ve got a boyfriend, then?” Well aware of Leah’s past, he knew this was promising news, and he was determined to treat it as ruthlessly as he would any other gossip, to make her feel more like one of the gang.

  “No. I had a sort of a date, yes, but it’s not anything serious.”

  Dario’s assistant, Jonathan, seemed to appear from nowhere, much like a greedy ant at a sloppy picnic. “Do tell,” he said. �
�What does he do? No wait, let me guess. He’s an investment banker . . . no, a mass tort lawyer.”

  Leah laughed, delighted at the fact that Weston was so very different from what they would all presume she would be attracted to.

  “He’s a fireman,” Greer said before Leah could object.

  “No way.” Jonathan actually closed his eyes and licked his lips. “I’ve always wanted a fireman. How was it?”

  Leah blushed again. “Couldn’t tell you that, we’ve only had one date, but if I can work up the courage, I’m going to call him and see if he wants to have a drink tonight.” She twisted her dark green smock in her fingers as she spoke.

  Immediately picking up on Leah’s residual fear of being alone with a man, any man, Greer said, “Hey, we’re having a little barbecue at Whitney’s, just us and them. Why don’t you bring him by and have a beer with us? Just a casual drink.”

  Leah’s pitiable look turned radiant at the safe suggestion.

  “A fireman,” Dario said approvingly. “Is he going to be in the Columbus Day parade? The firemen are always in the parade, on those big, shiny red trucks. Everybody likes that.”

  “It’s the crossover fantasy.” Jonathan was nodding. “Men want to ride on those big, red trucks, and women want to ride on those—”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Dario warned.

  “When is Columbus Day?” Greer asked.

  Since the bank was closed for the holiday, that was an easy one for Leah. “Monday. You’re not open, are you?”

  “We’re not closed.” Dario frowned. “What are we, a library? No, national holidays are like weekends for us, extra busy.”

  That reminded Greer that she had promised to reschedule one of the appointments she had sloughed off to make room for Susan’s.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and then added to Leah, “Don’t you dare leave without letting me see Dario’s work of art.”

  “We’ll frame it,” Dario muttered with a smile.