A Thorn Among the Lilies

by Michael Hiebert

  Ethan was the only one up early. He was already here watching the game when Leah showed up. Chris had come in about twenty minutes after Leah.

  Ethan called a meeting in his office.

  “I’m gettin’ my coffee first,” Leah said. She was on her third cup.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Chris said, and waited behind her for his second cup.

  Outside, the January day was cold and bright. Green plants grew in front of the window, their big leaves reaching for the sun. Two cardinals ducked in and out of leaves before taking off, following each other in flight. Looking closer, Leah even saw a pink butterfly sitting on a lush green leaf before leaving for places unknown.

  “So let me see if I got this straight,” Ethan said, looking at Leah.

  “Got what straight?” Leah asked.

  “You solved a series of serial killer cold case files brought to you by a psychic?” Ethan asked, finishing the statement he’d started before taking a big gulp of coffee.

  “It would appear so,” Leah said. “Although the clues she gave me were vague at best.”

  “Even still, I don’t believe it.”

  “There’s nothing to believe,” Chris said. “Everything she told Leah happened three months ago in Birmingham. All she had to do was read the Birmingham Times.”

  “Why would she care?” Ethan asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “If you’d have asked me that a month ago,” Leah said, “I’d have told you she wouldn’t and that the whole thing was ridiculous.”

  “So, should we put this woman on the payroll? Make her part of the department?”

  Leah laughed. “No, I don’t think she’s that helpful.”

  “What you’re sayin’ then is that you did most of the work.”

  Leah thought this over. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m sayin’. She just gave me the kick in the pants I needed to go investigate a crime from two and a half months ago that had been all but forgotten.”

  “Maybe you should be investigatin’ more of these cold case files?” Ethan said. “You seem pretty good at them.”

  Leah sighed. “I dunno ’bout that. This one damn near killed me.” She touched her chest where that .22 slug had hit her, and winced.

  “You know, if you’d have told me you were on a case based on information from a psychic, I’d have pulled you off it,” Ethan said.

  “I know. That’s why I never told you.”

  “So you lied to your superior officer.”

  “No, I neglected to tell some elements of the case to my superior officer.”

  “Holding back information is . . . Wait, haven’t we been down this road before? It doesn’t go in a very interestin’ direction.”

  “How ’bout we say this?” Leah said. “Every time I was round you, I forgot ’bout the psychic part entirely. Besides, I had enough information to continue my investigation after the first day when we found the body in Willet Park. Everythin’ was sort of taken out of my hand at that point.”

  “I can’t stop thinking that, if the psychic knew to tell you ’bout the other body, she somehow knew this new body would show up two days later,” Chris said.

  “Madame Crystalle, you mean?” Leah asked. “The psychic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t given it that much thought,” Leah said. “Maybe this is somethin’ we should consider.”

  “I think it is,” Ethan said. “I simply can’t believe she has psychic abilities. What did she tell you?”

  “That the number seventy-eight was important (the first body was found in Graysville on Highway Seventy-eight). She gave me a partial on a Welcome to Graysville sign. She told me about the eyes being stitched up, although in not so many words. And she told me ’bout the writing on the bodies.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chris said. “The writing was held back.”

  “Jeez, you’re right.”

  “Did she mention the crosses? Did we ever figure out the crosses?”

  “She did not mention the crosses. I simply wrote them off as Luanne’s callin’ card, so she’d have somethin’ on the body to prove it was her. She left the crosses knowin’ we’d hold that piece of evidence back.

  “Madame Crystalle also said I’d find a body in darkness, which completely explains the Graysville murder far better than the Alvin one.”

  “I’m having trouble with her having prior knowledge to the words written on the bodies,” Ethan said.

  “Me too now,” Leah said. “I think it’s time to pay a little visit to Madame Crystalle. I’ll go to her house after hours and try to catch her at home.”

  “Before you do that, please tell me our mayor is clean in all this?”

  “Basically, Luanne was reenacting the murder her sister went through. She sewed up the victims’ eyes so they’d be blinded the way her sister was. She kept them drugged and drunk so it would be similar to being on life support in a coma. For the same reason, she kept them bound. She only kept them for a smaller time frame. One week would go by and then she’d pull the plug—or in her case, shoot them in the side of the head with her daddy’s old gun.”

  “And she only picked up women who looked like the woman who killed her sister,” Chris said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s right,” Leah said. “Twenty-somethings with thick blond hair. She’d pluck them from the Six-Gun Saloon because it was an easy place to find single girls. She didn’t care if they were alcoholics or hookers. In fact, she probably preferred it.”

  “And the mayor had no idea this was going on, even though she was using his cabin as a hideout?” Ethan asked.

  “None,” Leah said.

  From the other room, the phone on Leah’s desk rang. She was sitting farthest from it. “We gonna get that?” Chris asked.

  “May as well,” Ethan said.

  Chris walked out of his office and answered Leah’s desk phone. “One minute,” he said. “Leah, it’s for you.”

  Leah’s eyebrows came down, puzzled. She got up, walked out to her desk, and picked up the receiver. “Hello. Detective Teal here.”

  “Detective Teal! Dan Truitt here, how the hell are you?”

  “Better.”

  He laughed. “That’s kind of why I’m callin’. I was wonderin’ if you would allow me the pleasure of takin’ you out again.”

  “Last time you took me out, I got shot.”

  “That wasn’t a date, and you invited me.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Would you like to go for another steak? It’s all on me.”

  “That rightly depends,” Leah said. “Will you let me order my own food this time?”

  There was a pause while Leah guessed he was considering this. During the silence, Leah realized something about Detective Truitt had hit a chord with her. “When were you thinkin’ of us goin’?” she asked.

  “Well, that depends on you. I can work round your schedule.”

  “How ’bout you give me a call Thursday and I’ll see how I feel for the weekend?”

  “That sounds great. I’ll call you then.”

  Leah slowly put her receiver back in its cradle. A smile crept across her face. She felt like a little kid again. Somebody liked her.

  “Who was that?” Chris asked as she returned to Ethan’s office.

  “Dan Truitt. That detective from Birmingham.”

  “Did he want some more information ’bout the case you just solved? He was there. You’d think he had everything he needs,” Chris asked.

  “Turns out he needs a little bit more,” Leah said, dreamily.

  Madame Crystalle’s real name turned out to be Amira Caspari and she lived up in Blackberry Springs in a highly wooded area. Mostly full of oak and birch, but the area was also home to the occasional willow and cypress, which dotted the landscape, mainly squeezing themselves into the riverbank, their gnarled roots trying to drink up all the water they could.

  Her house was a light blue rancher spread over a small area with a circular drivew
ay and a detached garage. Although they weren’t in bloom now, it looked as though, in the summer, the area around her house was full of flowers. She also had fruit trees and two walnut trees planted in her yard.

  It was seven o’clock, so Leah hoped Amira would be home. Funny, in her head, she kept having to remind herself that the woman was not Madame Crystalle and did not have special powers. Part of Leah regretted finding this out.

  After walking up to the porch, Leah rang the bell.

  A minute later, Amira Caspari answered the door looking only vaguely like Madame Crystalle. There were no ribbons in her hair. Her clothes didn’t shine and twinkle. She had a track suit on. She looked more like someone’s mother.

  “Amira Caspari,” Leah said. “I’m—”

  “Detective Teal,” she said, cutting Leah off. “I have expected you.” Her Persian accent was thicker than ever.

  “You have?”

  “Yes, you want to know where I get those clues. But first, did you manage to solve case?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “That is good news.”

  “It was. It turned out to be the mayor’s sister-in-law. She’s in custody.”

  “Even better news. Please, come in.” Amira opened the door wide and allowed Leah entrance. “Don’t take off your boots. Come into kitchen and have a seat and I explain everything. Would you like coffee or tea? I can make you hot or cold. Or special Persian coffee. Good for stomach.”

  “No, thank you very much. I am fine.”

  Leah was certainly taken aback by the fact that Amira seemed to know she was coming. She wondered again if maybe she was a little psychic after all.

  “I shall return shortly,” Amira said. “I must acquire something from my bedroom.”

  Leah hesitated. “May I escort you?” she asked, worried Amira may be going to look for a firearm of some sort.

  “If you feel you must, I don’t mind. I promise is nothing bad. Is simply a scrapbook.”

  Leah decided to go with her gut. “Go ahead by yourself,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  The kitchen sparkled. Everything had a place. The lights reflected off the silver toaster and microwave, the granite countertops gleamed in the sunlight coming in through the window, which was covered with open shutters. Her bright white fridge hummed along, beside the stove of the same color. The floor was patterned with dark green and white diamonds. It was one of the nicest kitchens Leah had ever sat in.

  Amira returned a few minutes later with a large scrapbook.

  “First off, let me tell you little secret.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I do not come from Persia. I come from Romania.”

  “Why do you tell everyone you’re Persian?”

  “Good for business. People associate Romanians with gypsies and everyone afraid of gypsies.”

  She laid the scrapbook in front of Leah and flipped it open. The first page was a newspaper clipping glued front and center of a man having hanged himself in an apple tree. “What the hell is this?” Leah asked, once more thinking this woman had an evil streak she just couldn’t pick up on.

  “I collect weird crimes. Anything strange. Especially if it happens close by. It helps with my work knowing about strange tragedies since many people come to psychics after deaths of loved ones or friends, especially when the death is not right somehow.

  “If I read about car crash where three cars have head-on collision and the next day one of the wives of one of the drivers who died in crash comes to me for reading, I can give her much more accurate account of what happened. It doesn’t just help me, it helps them too. I am very intuitive. I can take fact and mold it so that the woman of dead driver ends up with some, how you say? Closure. And I end up with good reputation.”

  “I see,” said Leah, who couldn’t believe the woman just admitted to being a fraud.

  “I subscribe to most newspapers from towns all around Alvin strictly for this reason.”

  “I see,” Leah repeated.

  “When I saw article for first killing in the Birmingham Times with eyes sewn up, I knew it had to be saved. I also know, from the experience I’ve had reading these types of things, that such a crime is never a ‘one shot.’ It would become a serial crime. I tried calling the Birmingham police station, but they didn’t want to talk to me or they thought I was crazy—I don’t know which.

  “I think it was because my English not so good then and all they saw was a gypsy woman telling them about serial killer. They thought I was explaining a vision I saw. They wouldn’t take me seriously.

  “So when you came to shop, I decided to try and use you to finally get someone to investigate. Sorry if I took advantage. That the next killing happened within days of our meeting was just coincidence.”

  “Well, it worked. That’s the main thing. I have a question, though?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The writing across the chest. How did you know ’bout it? We held back that evidence. So did Birmingham.”

  She turned to the front page of the Birmingham Times with the picture of Faith Abilene. “Look at picture. They did not do a good job hiding the writing.”

  Leah realized she was right. You could see, at the bottom of the picture, the top of the letters where the waterproof black Magic Marker ended. You couldn’t make out what it said, but you could certainly see that there was some phrase written there. And, of course, Madame Crystalle had never told her what it said.

  “You brought her to justice for all this?” Amira asked.

  “Yes,” Leah said, still stunned at the woman’s openness.

  “This is good for everyone. Be proud of yourself.”

  “So . . . tell me . . . you aren’t psychic at all?”

  “Depends on how you mean. Being psychic means being intuitive. As I said, I am very intuitive. I feel people’s vibrations. Most of the time what I tell people turns out to be true.”

  “Well, that’s interestin’.”

  “For instance, I am sensing you have choice to make regarding man. And I believe you can’t decide whether your choice results in you being unfaithful to someone who has been out of your life more than five, maybe ten years. My advice? Take chances. It is time to move on.”

  Nervously, Leah turned the page of the scrapbook. “And where is that in here?”

  “It is not. All that’s up here.” And Amira tapped the side of her head.

  CHAPTER 63

  Me, Dewey, Carry, and Jonathon returned to Madame Crystalle’s so Jonathon could get his fortune read by someone other than Dewey.

  “Welcome back,” Madame Crystalle said in her Persian accent. “And how are all of you?” she asked.

  “I dunno,” Dewey said, narrowing his eyes. “How ’bout you tell us?”

  I elbowed him in the arm.

  “Abe!” he said. “Quit doin’ that!”

  “Then quit sayin’ stupid stuff.”

  “How was that stupid?” Dewey asked. “It was a fair question.”

  “I’m guessing you all fine,” said Madame Crystalle.

  “There ya go,” I said to Dewey. “Happy?”

  “I guess. ‘Fine’ is not very precise, though.”

  Carry cleared her throat. “Will you two shut up?” Then to Madame Crystalle, she said, “We’d like you to read the future of my boyfriend, here, Jonathon.”

  I could tell she was still getting used to calling him her boyfriend and seemed to use every opportunity she could find to do it.

  Jonathon took a seat at the table across from Madame Crystalle.

  Madame Crystalle took his left hand and stared down at his palm. “Ah!” she said. “I see wedding bells!”

  “Not soon, I hope,” Jonathon said.

  “No, not too soon.”

  “Wait!” Carry interjected. “You never told me I was gonna get married.”

  “You’ll probably just end up with a dog,” I said.

  Madame Crystalle told Jonathon a bunch more stuff, like that
he’d live a long, happy life and learn to appreciate his mother (whatever that meant). Then she read his cards and he found out he was going to start his own business after college.

  When they were finally done, Dewey started talking again.

  “You know,” he said to Madame Crystalle, “I’m psychic, too. I’ve made thirteen dollars so far tellin’ folk their future!”

  I rolled my eyes, but Madame Crystalle stared at him very seriously. “Really?” she asked. “Sit down.”

  “I can’t,” Dewey said, “on account of I ain’t got no money. I left my thirteen dollars at home.”

  “I no charge for other psychics.”

  Dewey quickly sat in the same chair Jonathon had been in moments before.

  “I do a quick reading,” she said, taking both his hands in hers and staring straight into his eyes.

  “Yes! I do feel psychic energy coming from you!” she said.

  Dewey beamed. I think he almost peed himself.

  Madame Crystalle looked to me. “Think number between one and fifty.”

  I did. Thirty-two. “Okay,” I said.

  “What number is he thinking?” she asked Dewey.

  Dewey concentrated a long while until finally blurting out, “Thirty-two.”

  “Well?” Madame Crystalle asked me. “Is he right or wrong?”

  There was no way I was going to let Dewey think he was psychic because of one lucky guess. “Wrong,” I said. “I was thinking of eleven.”

  Madame Crystalle glared at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You lie.”

  “What do you expect? I can’t just let him think he read my mind. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “But he did read your mind.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dewey said. “Abe was thinking of thirty-two?”

  I looked down at the gold shag floor. “Yeah, I was.”

  Dewey’s eyes went wide. “I really am psychic.”

  “More like psycho,” Carry said.

  “Why does everyone keep sayin’ that?” Dewey asked.

  “No,” Madame Crystalle said, defending Dewey’s position. “More like psychic in training.”

  “But I’m already professional,” Dewey told her. “I made thirteen dollars with my psychic stand.”