by Mike Omer
“Did you argue?”
“I don’t argue with my sister every time I meet her, Detective,” Ginny said sharply. “I may have complained about her dragging our whole family into her business, but I didn’t argue, and neither did she.”
“This business, do you mean—”
“Her mumbo-jumbo business,” Ginny interrupted Hannah. “Telling the future, reading the entrails of animals, mixing potions in her cauldron—”
“No need to be like that, Mom,” Val said, turning to Hannah. “My mom is talking about the psychic business.”
“And Jacqueline dragged the whole family into it?” Hannah asked. “How did she do that?”
“Well, my niece was already doing it full-time,” Ginny said. “And then Jacqueline said she wanted to make Val a partner in the online store as a wedding present. And that’s on top of the tarot readings that Val had already started doing—”
“I just do it a couple of hours a day,” Val said, looking embarrassed.
“You’re a psychic too?” Hannah asked.
“Of course not. I don’t believe in any of that. But there are a lot of people online that want reassurance and advice. Women that want to hear that the man they love is about to ask them out, or that their husband isn’t cheating on them. Men who want me to tell them that they’ll be promoted soon. As long as I tell them what they want to hear, they pay good cash.”
“So you pretend to be psychic?” Hannah asked.
“It’s all pretend. No one is really psychic. But I make them happy, and they give me some money in return. Hell, ask Soph what happens when you don’t give them what they want to hear. It can get ugly.”
“Ugly how?” Bernard asked.
“Just angry reviews, people hanging up, demanding their money back. See the irony? I tell people what they want to hear. Soph tells people what she sees in the cards. I make triple what she’s making, and I don’t have to pretend to be—”
“Val!” Ginny snapped.
Val shut up.
“Pretend to be…?” Hannah prompted. “What were you about to say?”
“Just… I don’t really believe in any of this,” Val said.
There was a moment of silence. Then Bernard spoke up. “And did your aunt know that when she said she wanted you to be a partner in the store?”
“Sure,” Val said. “I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. She said she thought I could really help with the business angle of the store.”
“Wasn’t that Sophia’s job?”
Val shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Did Sophia know that her mother was planning to—”
“Don’t turn this back on Sophia,” Ginny said angrily.
“We’re just trying to get all the facts straight, Mrs. Mune.”
Ginny snorted in disgust. She was clearly not fond of Bernard.
Hannah cleared her throat. “Did your sister seem agitated lately? Was she worried about something?”
“Not that I know of.” Ginny frowned. “She seemed quite normal.”
“Did you know she bought a gun?”
Ginny started. “A gun? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why is that so strange?”
“Jacqueline detested violence and hated guns. She kept trying to convince people to stop carrying guns in the neighborhood. She’d never buy a gun.”
“Not even if she was afraid for her life?”
“Why would she be afraid for her life?”
“You tell me. Did she have any enemies? Get into any confrontations that you know of?”
“No,” Ginny said.
Val cleared her throat. “There was this weird woman called… Loretta. She also claimed to be a psychic. She got kinda aggressive about Aunt Jacqueline stealing her customers.”
“Anyone aside from her?” Bernard asked. He really doubted Loretta had anything to do with this murder.
“I don’t think so,” Ginny said. “But that neighborhood is full of criminals. It’s probably one of those drug dealers that hang around there.”
Hannah looked at Bernard, who shrugged. They got up.
“We might come again if we have additional questions,” Hannah said.
“I won’t hold my breath,” Ginny muttered. Val rolled her eyes.
The sun was setting as they got out, Bernard following Hannah. They walked over to the car and got in.
“What do you think Val wanted to say?” Hannah asked.
“Something about Jacqueline’s daughter, Sophia,” Bernard answered. “I don’t know. This whole shop business feels shady. Maybe we should try talking to Sophia again. Ask her about the shop, and about their new partner.”
“Maybe,” Hannah said. “Wanna go back to the station? We can work on the murder board together.”
“I think I’ll go home, maybe do some research from there, see my kids for five minutes before they go to sleep,” Bernard said.
“Okay, then,” Hannah said. “Let’s go.”
As soon as Bernard walked through the door, his daughter, Gina, ran at him, shrieking, “Daddy, Daddy!” She wore her ballet outfit, a pair of fairy wings, and her brother’s swimming goggles. He caught her in his arms, and hoisted her up.
“Who is this beautiful fairy princess?” he asked.
“I’m not a fairy princess,” she said, her shock at his ignorance palpable. “I’m a pixie bird queen.”
“A… pixie bird queen. Of course you are.” He walked inside.
“Gina!” Carmen shouted. “Come back to the table and eat your food!”
“This food is stinky! It’s poo!” Gina yelled. Rory, Bernard’s youngest son, roared in laughter. Delighted at her adoring fan, Gina added, “It is pee-pee.” Additional uncontrollable laughter followed her witty repartee.
“Gina!” Carmen snapped angrily. “We don’t say that about food.”
Gina looked at her, then at Bernard, who tried to appear as severe as possible. “This food is not to my liking,” she finally said, repeating the sentence she had been taught over and over.
“Eat five more bites, and then Daddy will give you a bath.”
“Daddy actually has to work…” Bernard began to say.
“Daddy will give you a bath,” Carmen said again, teeth gritted, her voice as taut as a violin string. There was the tension of little sleep and a nightmarish afternoon behind it.
Bernard wisely decided that Glenmore Park’s murderers could wait until the kids were asleep. “Five more bites, and then Daddy will give you a bath,” he told Gina.
Gina crammed five bites of the omelet on her plate into her mouth at once, nearly choking. While Carmen was saving her life, Bernard smiled at his oldest, Tom.
“How was your day?” he asked the nine-year-old.
“It was okay,” his son said, shrugging.
“How was school?”
“Okay.”
“Did you have any homework?”
“No.”
“Did you see anything interesting on TV?”
“No.”
Bernard sighed. Finally, trepidation in his heart, he asked, “Any success with the Pokémon today?”
“Oh, wow, I caught two Rattata today, so I had enough candy to advance one of my Rattata to a Raticate and I almost got Pikachu, but I didn’t, but Kyle already has two Pikachu, and he said that he got the second one in Buttermere Park, and he said that maybe his dad would take us to Buttermere Park this weekend to try and catch another Pikachu, which would be so cool, even if I only have one, and then I went to the gym that I told you about? The one that’s just down the block, and my Pidgey had a hundred and seventy-four CP, so I beat one of Kyle’s Rattata, which was awesome because Kyle usually wins…”
His son kept spurting his gibberish at Bernard, who nodded, occasionally saying “Wow” or “Really?” His mind went back to the case, thinking about the family of psychics and the violent death that had invaded their life.
“Gina, upstairs with Dad,” Carmen said. “Tom, you too,
I need to clean this up.” She alluded to the hellscape of tossed and smeared food on the dining table.
Bernard took Gina to the bath, filling it up. Then came the mandatory negotiation regarding washing her hair.
“No,” Gina said.
“You have to wash your hair, sweetie.”
“It’s clean.”
“I can see cheese and sand in it!”
“No, you can’t.”
“I’ll do it quickly—you won’t even notice.”
“I will. It’ll hurt. Pixie bird queens don’t wash their hair.”
Bernard sighed, then washed her hair. He wasn’t sure what the ingredients the shampoo contained, but if Gina’s shrieking was any indication, it was a mixture of acid and molten lava. His phone rang. Glancing amidst the chaos at the display, he saw it was Hannah. He answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Bernard? Listen, I talked to Matt, and… what is that abysmal noise?”
“It’s my daughter.”
“Are you slaughtering her? I can call later.”
“I’m washing her hair. Now is fine.”
“I talked to Matt and Annie. First, they’re already done with the autopsy.”
“That was fast,” Bernard said.
“I hate you!” Gina shrieked.
“Yeah, Annie said it’s a slow week. The cause of death was blood loss. One of the bullets hit her heart. It kept pumping, losing vast amounts of blood, and Annie said that the victim died very quickly after that. She found both bullets and believes that they were shot with a nine-millimeter.”
“Just like the Ruger that the victim supposedly had,” Bernard said.
“That’s right,” Hannah said. “The gun was missing, so it’s very possible that she was killed with her own gun.”
“Okay.”
“My eyes burn!” Gina clutched at her face as if it was melting.
“Matt sent me Violet’s diagram of the murder scene. The murderer was standing by the kitchen table when he shot Mune. He sent the blood samples and the glass for DNA testing, but he said it might take a really long time to get any answer.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Like they told us, the doorknob to the backdoor and the handbag metal clasp had been cleaned, as well as the faucet in the kitchen. Besides that, there were a lot of different fingerprints. Jacqueline entertained many visitors. We’re checking them against CODIS, but considering her neighborhood, we will probably get multiple hits.”
“Right.”
“Mommy! I want Mommy!”
“Wow, Bernard, next time we need a confession, you should wash the suspect’s hair,” Hannah said.
“It’s not my fault, she keeps squirming. Gina! Stand still for a moment and Daddy will wipe your eyes.” He wiped her face with the towel.
The three-year-old looked at him with a mixture of anger and hurt.
“There,” he said. “All better.”
It was clear from the hatred in her red-rimmed shampoo-afflicted eyes that, as far as she was concerned, all was not better.
“What else did Matt say?” he asked.
“Well, one of the glass shards he found in the pipe had something that might be blood on it,” Hannah said. “We’ll see if he’s right once it’s tested. He also managed to match the dried leaves found next to the body with the corresponding jar in the storage room. It’s squaw vine.”
“Squaw vine?”
“Yeah, if the label on the jar is accurate.”
“Okay,” Bernard said. “Anything else?”
“I made a really nice murder board. It has a timeline and printed pictures and everything.”
“That’s nice, Hannah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up.
He helped Gina dry herself off and dress in her pajamas while Carmen prodded Tom to take a shower and gave Rory a bath. Finally, it was time for a bedtime story. This mandated another round of negotiations, because both Rory and Gina wanted to be read to first. There was some screaming. Gina pinched Rory and he cried while she claimed she was only trying to kiss him. Bernard said that they had to agree between them, or no one would get a story. This prompted Gina to say that she should probably go first, and Rory to shout, “Me!” repeatedly. Finally, Carmen said that Gina went first the day before, so it was Rory’s turn. A fragile ceasefire was brokered and Bernard read Rory The Hungry Caterpillar. Then he read Gina a Disney princess story which he personally despised. Both of them went to their respective beds and began demanding water, a trip to the bathroom, a teddy bear, a different teddy bear, a night-light, and another hug and kiss. Bernard decided that this was a good time to leave Carmen to it.
He went downstairs and switched on the computer. Hannah had forwarded the reports from the autopsy and from Matt, as well as the crime scene diagram that Violet had made. Bernard went over all of them again, then leaned back, thinking.
What had Valerie been about to say when her mother had silenced her? She said that, unlike Sophia, she didn’t have to pretend… something. What was it?
He opened the browser and searched for “Sophia Thompson.” Then he narrowed it down to “Sophia Thompson psychic.” He found several sites on which she advertised her online tarot reading business. He began going over them, frowning. They all showed very little activity and only a few comments, most dated over two years ago. He drummed on the table and searched for “Sophia Mune psychic.” This got him nothing relevant. Then he tried “Mune psychic.”
The first result was an online profile for Jacqueline Mune, along with a picture of her. He clicked it. She had over nine hundred reviews, one from the day before. The profile read:
Spiritual Advisor and Psychic Reader with over 30 years’ experience. Fourth-generation member of a family of psychics. Discover what is awaiting you and get answers regarding your love life, your career, and your health. Both tarot reading and shell reading for a more accurate prediction. Absolutely no sugarcoating, only honesty and truth.
Sophia had said that her mother didn’t believe in online readings.
That’s what Valerie had wanted to say, he realized. She was going to say, “I don’t have to pretend to be someone else.” Sophia Thompson was using the name, face, and reputation of her mother, Jacqueline Mune.
Chapter Six
Sophia Thompson was clearly uncomfortable, avoiding Bernard’s eyes as she took in the sparse interior of the interrogation room. There wasn’t much to look at. It was a barren, depressing room, the decor a mix of black, white, and metal. It was lit by one bright bulb that shone over Sophia, casting her in an unflattering harsh white light. Bernard sat silently in front of her, a metal table between them, Hannah sitting by his side.
Sophia’s husband was waiting for her outside. When Bernard and Hannah had gone to their house that morning, asking Sophia to accompany them to the station, her husband had insisted on driving her over there himself.
Bernard began the questioning.
“Mrs. Thompson, you told me yesterday that your mother didn’t do online readings,” he said.
“That’s right.” She nodded.
He turned on his phone, the browser on the screen displaying her mother’s profile, and put the device on the table, pushing it over to her. “Then what’s this?”
She stared at it, her eyes wide.
“We had an interesting chat with your cousin yesterday,” Bernard said. “She said that you use your mother’s name when reading online.”
“Yeah, I… it’s just…”
His hunch had been correct. “Why did you start doing that?”
Her bottom lip quivered slightly. “The online business was going very badly. I thought that maybe… people in the community knew my mother. So I tried it out. An acquaintance of my mom who was overbooked immediately recommended to some people to try her out. It got me started. Sometimes you just need a lucky break in this line of work. Once I had twenty or thirty reviews, the clients just started contacting me.”
“Did she find out about
it?”
“Y—yes.”
“When?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“And what did she do when she found out?”
“She was very angry and told me to stop.”
“You told us that you were doing an online reading yesterday morning.”
“That’s right.”
“Which name did you use? We will verify it, Mrs. Thompson.”
“I… I used my mom’s name.”
“So you didn’t stop.”
“No.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “Look, money is really tight right now. We can hardly afford the mortgage. If my income suddenly dropped, we’d lose the house. I was about to stop, I swear! We just needed a bit more time.”
“A bit more time for what?” Hannah interjected. “Were you expecting a new line of income?”
“I… I started up my own shop for ointments and oils. I was slowly building my own client list.”
“Were you stealing your mother’s clients?” Hannah asked.
“No! Of course not!”
Hannah’s voice became sharper, angrier. “Did you know she intended to add Valerie as a partner?”
“Y—yes, she told me. I thought it was a good idea.”
“Maybe that was the moment you decided to start your own shop and steal your mother’s clients.”
“You’ve got it all wrong! I would never do that!”
“You had no problem using her name, maybe even tarnishing her reputation by offering readings online,” Bernard said, his face blank.
“I didn’t tarnish her name! I was just—”
“Your mother said that she didn’t believe doing tarot readings online was right.”
“Yeah, but—”
“So as far as she was concerned, you were tarnishing her name, by impersonating her and doing something she felt was against the way she practiced her business.”
“I talked to her about it,” Sophia sobbed. “I said I was sorry, and she forgave me. I promised I’d stop!”
“But you kept on doing it.”
“My husband asked for just two months. He said we’d lose the house otherwise. I had no choice! I had to protect my family.”
There was a moment of silence, and Hannah and Bernard exchanged looks. The questioning had just taken an interesting turn. Hannah leaned back, a clear signal for Bernard to take the lead again.
