by Jane Tesh
Just as I had suspected. “But you don’t know the long-term effects. You don’t know what it’s doing to your brain.”
“Right now, I don’t care.”
I slammed my hand on the counter. “Damn it, listen to me! Get rid of them. I know you think you want to be normal, but believe me, this isn’t the way to do it.”
Tamara and her customer gave me curious looks. Tamara started over to see what the yelling was about. Camden had that steely look that meant he wasn’t going to listen to anything I had to say. I had to find another way to get through. “Fine. Go to hell any old way you like.”
He turned back to the dresses. “See you there.”
Oh, this wasn’t over. I knew exactly who he’d listen to.
I went back home and hauled Kit out of bed. “Emergency,” I said. “I need a translator.”
He stared at me groggily. “Huh?”
“How are you with snakes?”
He rubbed his eyes. “They’re okay, I guess. What’s this about?”
“An intervention.” I punched in Ellin’s number. “Is Graber at the studio?” I asked when she answered. “How about his snakes?”
Her voice was terse. “The gang’s all here.”
“Kit and I want to talk to them.”
“If you can get them to leave, have at it.”
Since Kit slept in his clothes, he didn’t need to get dressed. He dozed in the car all the way to the TV studio, then yawned and stretched and said he was awake. We went inside where Graber was having a discussion with one of the cameramen. Slim and Jim rested in a pile in the corner of their cage.
Kit stopped. “Whoa. You didn’t tell me how big they were.”
“They’re friendly. Can you tune in?”
He approached the cage cautiously. Slim opened one golden eye. “What do you want me to tell them?”
“Tell them Camden is taking too many pills and they need to make him stop.”
Kit looked at me askance. “Are you sure? I thought he was afraid of snakes.”
“Yes, he is, and he needs to be scared straight.”
“Well, okay. If you say so.”
Now Slim had both eyes open and raised his head. Jim shifted and opened his eyes, too. Both snakes stared at Kit. He stared back. I watched Graber, but he was still talking to the cameraman. After a few minutes, Kit chuckled.
“These guys are hilarious.”
“What did they say?”
“They’ll do it, but it’ll cost you three rats apiece. Slim wants his sautéed, and Jim will take his au gratin.” He grinned. “Not really. Snake humor.” He communicated a few minutes more.
I saw Graber glance our way. “Better finish up.”
“I got it.”
Graber left the cameraman and strode over, his tight smile in place. “Mr. Randall. I see you’ve brought someone to admire my pets.”
“This is Kit Huntington, one of Camden’s tenants. He’d heard about your snakes from Ellin. I hope you don’t mind. They seem to like him.”
Slim and Jim obligingly stretched their bodies up as if wanting a pat on the head.
“Can I touch them?” Kit asked.
Graber stepped forward and covered the cage with the star-patterned cloth. “I’d rather no one touch them except myself.”
“They’re really neat. Wouldn’t mind having them in my act.”
Graber gave Kit’s grubby black jeans full of holes and slits and his many piercings a disdainful look. “I would imagine you are a musician.”
“Yeah, Runaway Truck Ramp. These snakes would be killer.”
“I’m sure they would, but you need to get your own.”
There was no sign of Bonnie or Teresa, and Reg seethed from a distance. The audience hadn’t arrived, but one young woman sat in the front row, checking her makeup and fluffing her hair. Must be Reg’s Honey here to support her man in this time of crisis.
“How are things here at the PSN?” I asked Graber.
“We had somewhat of a rocky start, but we’re working on it. A special edition of Cosmic Healing is in the works for next week—if I can get the camera people here to understand what I want,” he added with a pointed look in the cameraman’s direction. “I imagine I’ll have things running smoothly in a few days.”
“Everything okay with Ms. Belton?”
“Of course. I would expect resistance. After all, I’m intruding into her territory. But once she sees how ratings improve, that should ameliorate our relationship.”
Ameliorate. A Graberesque word, if I ever heard one. In my opinion, the only thing that would ameliorate their relationship would be for Graber to fall into a black hole. “Good luck with that.”
“Two people don’t have to like each other to work together toward a common goal, Mr. Randall. We both want the PSN to succeed. That’s all that should matter.”
Kit slouched back to the car, but I stopped by Ellin’s office. She looked up from her computer. “Are they gone?”
“Not yet, but I may have the answer to Camden’s pill problem. Kit and Graber’s snakes.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Honestly, Randall, I don’t want to know.”
I expected Kit to be asleep in the car, but his chat with Slim and Jim had energized him.
“Man, I never tried communicating with snakes. They are way more interesting than cats.”
“Did they say when they might stop by?”
“They want it to be a surprise.” He tugged at an earring. “Why don’t you just throw those pills away?”
“They aren’t illegal. Camden can buy more at the drugstore. Can’t you tell what’s going on?”
He shrugged. “Got a little insight for you, though.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I had a go at that paper with the song lyrics on it. Great lyrics, by the way. It wasn’t Gallant’s idea to steal those things, but he needed money for his niece.”
“Yeah, kinda figured that. Could you tell who hired him?”
Kit fiddled with a row of safety pins. “Lots of people.”
“What, the Art Nouveau Gang?”
“Two or three. I couldn’t see anything else, except Gallant had a feeling they’d double-cross him, so he tried to make a run for it. The lyrics aren’t much of a clue. I mean, if you’re gonna leave a note for the police, you write down the names of the people you’re afraid are gonna kill you.”
“So the song’s a dead end?”
His brows drew together as he thought this over. “Maybe not. He really loved his wife, and that was her favorite song. I don’t know, man. It’s like one last love letter. You could ask Norma.”
For a moment, I didn’t know who he was talking about. Then I remembered. “Gallant’s wife?”
“Yeah, ask Lindsey about her.”
“Not a bad idea.”
He grinned and then yawned. “Anything else I can help you with? Better ask me now. I’m fading fast.”
“I don’t know how Gallant disarmed Pierson’s security system. According to the man at Guardian Electric, it was keyed to Pierson’s fingerprint.”
“Oh, my bass player knows how to dismantle all kinds of stuff like that. Saw it on YouTube.”
“You’re kidding.”
“All you need is something to disrupt the signal.” He sat forward in his seat. “You know in the olden days when all you needed was a magnet to erase a VHS tape? It’s kind of like that. When we get back to the house, I’ll show you.”
At home, Kit wandered into my office and sat down at my laptop. In a few minutes, we had an array of videos to choose from, including an interesting one on building your own EMP jammer, using a plastic box, a lithium ion battery, a high-voltage converter, and some enamel copper wire. The little box buzzed as it turned off cell phones and video games. I imagi
ned a similar little box, if modified, could turn off a security alarm.
Something very much like the remote Richard Mason had used to turn on his art.
Chapter Eighteen
“Consoled and Hoped”
Later that day, I escorted Kary to the church covered-dish supper and softball game. We’d invited Vermillion, but as we were getting ready to leave, Wally showed up in a tie-dyed tee-shirt and his best khakis to ask Vermillion out to dinner. When she learned the tee-shirt was an original from the Sixties, she was thrilled. Wally apologized about the pants.
“I still fit in the tee-shirt, but my cords are long gone. Corduroy pants, you know. Used to wear ’em tight.”
Vermillion didn’t mind about the khakis. “You look so fab, Wally.”
He beamed at her. “And you look neat-o.”
“You two have a blast,” I said.
They got into Wally’s van and we waved good-bye. “This looks promising,” Kary said. “Wally’s a good man.”
“There’s a bit of an age gap.”
Her grin was full of mischief. “That doesn’t hamper our relationship.”
“Six years, not sixty.”
“Oh, he’s probably only twenty-five or thirty years older. Age doesn’t matter.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that. Where’s your covered dish? What exciting food have you prepared for this evening?”
“I’m trying a new recipe called Ham and Cheese Rollups.”
“Is it ham and cheese rolled up together?”
“How did you guess?”
As a child, I always hated covered-dish suppers, being dragged away from play or my favorite TV show to sit in a dismal fellowship hall on a cold folding chair and eat weird noodly casseroles, lukewarm green beans, and those pink and orange gelatin desserts with cream on top and nuts floating around inside like shipwrecked roaches. Covered-dish suppers at Victory Holiness are feasts of delight. Fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, barbecue, ham biscuits, big chocolate cakes with gooey frosting, fresh coconut cakes, pecan pies, and all the iced tea you could drink. The men haul out the folding tables, and the ladies cover the tables with real cloths, not that paper stuff that rips if you look at it. Folks bring their own chairs or blankets to sit on out under the trees. If it’s too cold or it rains, we eat in the fellowship hall, a big cheerful room with lots of pictures the kids had drawn and photos of other successful suppers, not one of those industrial gray cinder-block rooms with a cement floor.
The evening was perfect, still warm, but clear with a breeze, and Kary looked amazing in her white shorts and lace top. Camden was warming up with the church team. Kary and I fixed our plates and sat down on the faded patchwork quilt we’d brought from home.
Before we came to the supper, I made a list of all the letters from Pierson’s artwork, and Kary and I put together as many words as we could. While we discovered “ruins,” “chains,” “solar,” and even “feud,” we couldn’t come up with any phrases that made sense. I told her Pierson had been highly insulted that I would accuse him of any wrongdoing, quoted from one of his obscure plays, and said the curse was on the move.
Kary handed me a napkin. “You don’t really believe it’s a curse, do you?”
“I think somebody might be trying to make the deaths look like the curse at work, and more and more I’m convinced that the somebody is Richard Mason and or Nancy Piper.”
“So now we need proof.”
There was a crack as a bat hit the ball. We watched the ball soar over the heads of the other team as our player dashed for first base. Whoops and cheers echoed around the field. I saw Camden sitting with his teammates on a bench behind the backstop. He clapped and cheered with the others. I’d tossed the bottle of pills I found in the kitchen, but I was pretty sure he had another stash.
“Kary, what did Camden say when you talked to him about those headache pills?”
“He said he’d thrown them away.”
“Well, he may have thrown them away and then retrieved them from the trash. He’s found a sneaky way to avoid outright lying.”
That’s when Nancy Piper and Leslie arrived.
It took me a moment to process seeing them here. Had I mentioned the church picnic to her? She saw me, smiled and waved, and then came over. I got to my feet.
“Well, this is a nice surprise. Kary, this is Nancy Piper from the museum and her daughter, Leslie. Nancy, this is Kary Ingram.”
The women shook hands. “Nice to meet you,” Nancy said. “Leslie goes to school with Audrey Garcia, and she invited us.”
Leslie pointed toward a group of children by the swing set. “There’s Audrey! I’ll be right back, Mom.”
Nancy had on a red sundress, red sandals, and a necklace made of oddly shaped beads. Leslie was in red, too—red shorts and a cute little red and denim blouse. She joined the kids on the swings, and soon they were chattering like little birds as they sailed up and down. Leslie was tall for her age and suntanned, her hair cut in a short bob that emphasized her resemblance to her mother.
Audrey’s mother and father spread their blanket next to ours. I introduced Nancy to everyone and she sat down with the Garcias. The rival team, Gethsemane Baptist, set up camp on the other side of the ball field. The game began. The feasting began.
I couldn’t pay much attention to the game. Nancy had angled so she was sitting on one side of me, her leg almost touching mine. It was so obvious she was flirting, even with Kary sitting on the other side of me. Kary put her hand on my leg.
“So, Nancy, did David tell you we’re engaged?”
She moved back a fraction. “Congratulations.”
This was a surprise to me, too, but I recognized a lifeline when I saw one. “We’re planning a big wedding next spring,” I said. “We’re pulling out all the stops, right, honey?”
Kary kept her smile, a tiny glint in her eyes warning me not to take things too far. “We’ll be sure to invite you, if you’re available. Do you plan to stay at the museum?”
Nancy waved some tiny sweat bees away from the biscuits. “Yes, I enjoy my job, and Leslie loves her school.”
Sweat bees are a nuisance, but they don’t bite. It would take twenty of them to make a Minnesota mosquito. I swatted them off, glad we were onto a neutral subject. “You said you and Leslie liked to do things together.”
“Leslie needs a lot of things to do these days. She still misses her father, but I don’t. He was very careless with money and left me with a lot of debt.” She waved her hand again, dismissing the sweat bees and her ex. “But I don’t want to talk about him.”
Yelps and cries from the ball field were a timely distraction. Somebody had been hit by a foul ball. Somebody else tried to slide into third and jammed his knee. The game halted while everyone’s injuries were tended. Camden took advantage of the lull in the action to come over and introduce himself to Nancy.
She motioned to the playground. “That’s my daughter, Leslie, on the swings.”
“She’s having a good time, I see.” Cam noticed how Kary had entwined herself around me and raised his eyebrows.
“We’re okay here,” I said. “How’s the game going?” I meant something else entirely and he knew it.
“I’m not much help today.”
He wasn’t reading anyone, wasn’t picking up any thoughts. Damn it, I wanted to say, it’s those pills.
Nancy, of course, took his statement at face value. “You’re not doing too bad. I thought I saw you hit a double.”
“Thanks. That was my one good hit.”
Yeah, you’ve taken one too many good hits. Glad to see you’re worried. “Still planning to take in the fair tonight?” I asked him.
Nancy looked interested. “The fair?”
“The psychic fair at the Ramada Inn.”
“Oh, yes, Leslie’s scout troo
p is going there on Saturday. Sounds like fun. Are either of you psychic?”
A nicely loaded question. I gave Camden a significant look. “Not today.”
He was called back to the field before he could answer, and what could he have said to me, anyway—“I’ve decided being an addict is better than being psychic”?
Kary handed me her plastic cup. “David, would you get me some more tea?”
This gave me a polite excuse to wander up to the buffet tables. Some of the older church ladies were sitting around the dessert table, snacking and gossiping. A round little Hispanic woman named Sara eyed me.
“You get enough to eat, Mr. Randall?”
“Way too much, thank you. It’s wonderful, all of it. Kary and I need some refills on our tea, please.”
Mimosa, the little black woman who played the piano in church, poured more tea into our paper cups. I used to think she was named after a mixed drink until she explained that her parents had been fond of the pink milkweed-like blossoms that grew on mimosa trees. “Now, who is that red-haired woman sitting beside you, David?”
“Nancy Piper. She works at the art museum.”
“Who are her folks?”
This was a question of primary importance. In the South, family is All. Knowing the elaborate family trees and connections was a favorite pastime, especially among the older people. I never understood how they could sit for hours, discussing who was related to whom and why.
“Her family’s from Virginia.” I knew this would put a plug in the conversation.
They exchanged significant looks. If the family wasn’t from North Carolina, that didn’t count. The fact that I was from Minnesota had stymied them for a while, until Camden made up some stuff about my Aunt Maude from the eastern part of the state.
Mimosa decided to console me. “Anyway, she’s a pretty girl. I believe that’s her little girl with Audrey Garcia? No papa in the picture?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Thought you was sweet on Kary.”
“I am. Ms. Piper’s a friend of the Garcias.”
They gave each other another look, and I could hear the wheels turning. They’d have me down the aisle with someone before Christmas.
