“Good.” He was looking at my mouth. That made me quiver a bit, and it had to go if we were going to get serious. Otherwise, we might as well go out in his car and make out for the rest of the hour.
Ooh. That sounded good!
But wasn’t I supposed to be avoiding this man? That was the plan. Maybe I should get a refresher course on avoidance. And Backbone 101. Hmm.
Anyway, we didn’t have time for that sort of thing right now.
“Okay,” I said, getting down to business. “I have here three letters I stole from a cubby hole box on Star’s property. Can I show them to you? Or will you cart me off and charge me with mail theft or something?”
He winced, his head going back. I could tell this wasn’t as easy as I might have thought. He really had some ethical problems with it. But finally, he overcame them. At any rate, he took a deep breath and nodded.
“Go ahead and show them to me,” he said. “We’ll deal with your criminality later.”
I wasn’t so sure that was in my best interests, but it was what I’d come for, so I did it.
He was interested all right. He looked over each letter in turn, reading everything. Then he looked at me and shrugged.
“What does it all mean?” he asked me. “In your professional opinion as a registered female.”
“These were written by a man,” I pointed out.
“That’s why I’m asking. I already know how I interpret these things as a male. I want the female perspective. What did Star think when she got these?”
I put on my thinking face. “I think she felt adored and pursued with the first one. By the third, she felt like she was losing control and that is one thing she couldn’t bear.”
He nodded. “That’s about what I thought, too.” He looked at me quizzically. “So why did she hide them?”
I shrugged. “Why did she keep them at all?” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “Being a cop, I tend to look for nefarious motives. I’ll bet she wanted them in case she needed to blackmail him for something.”
“Yikes.” I frowned. “You do have a cynical turn of mind, don’t you? I prefer to think she kept the first ones to warm a lonely night or two—and the third to study and reinforce her decision to make him pay for dumping her.”
“So who’s cynical now?” He gave me a half grin and stuck the letters into his binder. “What else have you got, lady?”
“Nothing much. But I was thinking you probably picked up bits and pieces of things when cleaning up the accident site. Right?”
He nodded. “What are you looking for?”
“Do you have a list of the items?”
“Yeah.” He made no move to pull it out. “But it’s police business. You’re not on the police force.”
“But I’m friends with someone who is,” I reminded him, leaning close and looking up at him flirtatiously.
He grinned. “Okay.” He pulled out a little notebook and read off a list of junk, trash, the sort of things that collect in an area like that.
“A matchbook from Stumpy’s Bar and Grill,” he read to me. “A locket without any chain attached. No picture. Some Spearmint gum wrappers. No used gum inside. A nickel. A #2 pencil, broken off.” The list went on and on and I was beginning to yawn. He stopped, grinning at me. “Okay. Your turn.”
I sat up straighter and tried to think. “Well…I met Star’s ex-husband when I went to visit the apprentices. Do you know him?”
He nodded. “He was a loud mouthed jerk back in the day. I don’t imagine he’s improved much.”
“I didn’t stick around to find out.”
“He and Star seemed well suited. Too bad it didn’t last.”
I smiled. Was it my imagination, or was he moving closer to me? “So is it true he’s been up in Alaska all this time?”
“So he says. Kind of strange timing for a trip home. Unless he hopped a plane as soon as he heard about her being killed.”
Killed. Ugh. That word gave me shivers, and not the good kind.
“The apprentices seem to think they’ve been promised a lot of things that aren’t being delivered. Now Star’s gone and they’re hopping mad. They feel cheated.”
He was definitely closer now. In fact, he stretched out his arm and his hand just happened to end up covering mine where it rested on the table. He played with the ring on my finger, turning it back and forth. But he went on as though he wasn’t even aware of what he was doing.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve talked to them. They’re young. They’ll get over it.”
“I don’t know. They might raise quite a ruckus before they go off gently into that good night.”
He frowned. “Isn’t that saying supposed to be about death?” he pointed out.
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
“So is that it?” he asked.
I hesitated, wondering if I should mention Bebe’s cadaverous-looking man, but after all, that was her secret, not mine. I wanted to say to him straight out that I thought Star’s death wasn’t just because of Bebe driving too fast. There was more to it, something we didn’t know yet. But I know I’d hinted around at that with him before. Without any real proof of anything, I didn’t think I could start hammering him with that again. Not yet.
Maybe Jill was right. We had to try the hypnosis on Bebe and see what we could get that way. If that revealed something meaty, then I could make my case.
“I guess that’s about it,” I said.
“Not quite,” he said softly.
I turned to look up at him and he reached out to brush back my hair.
The handy thing about the back booth was that you couldn’t see into it very clearly from the rest of the room. When he bent toward me, I raised my face to his and his kiss was soft, warm and friendly. I almost whimpered when he pulled back, but luckily I doused it in time.
He was leaving. The sense of disappointment that filled me was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I didn’t want him to go.
But he didn’t seem to have any such feelings.
“I’ve got to get back to the station,” he said cheerfully. “Thanks for this Mele,” he added, holding up his binder with the letters in it. “I’ll let you know if it all comes to anything.”
And just like that, he was gone.
I sat there feeling like you do when you’ve had a lovely hot bath and suddenly the water all drains away, leaving you cold and lonely.
But I had my buddy Jill riding to the rescue, as usual.
“Okay,” she said, slipping in to sit where Roy had been. “Now that he’s gone, we can get down to business.”
As if Roy being gone was something we’d been waiting for all this time. I sighed, but she didn’t notice.
“Look, I’ve made a list. These are candidates for our mystery man, the walking dead guy. Tell me if I’ve left anyone out.” She handed it to me.
First on the list, Jason Moon. I raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
“You always suspect the husband first,” she said.
“But they’re divorced.”
“Who told you that?”
I frowned. “I think it was Ginny Genera.”
“Ginny is usually an excellent source, but this time, she misfired. Star likes to tell people she’s divorced, but when you come right down to it, they never bothered to do all the paperwork.”
“But the huge blowup when they split….”
“Oh, there was a blowup alright. But it never went official.”
“Then there’s also the fact that he didn’t get back into town until the day after the death.”
Jill shrugged. “So he says.”
“Ah. Yes.” I looked at the next on the list. “Karl MacKenzie.”
Jill nodded. “Lovers are also great suspects. He and Star have been dallying for almost a year now. Rumor has it she was about to dump him.”
“And that can bring on anger and rage.”
“Absolutely. Plus he’s tall and kind of gaunt. Could be our
man.”
I nodded, thinking that over. “Okay. Then there’s Norm Miller.”
“Her brother-in-law. He hated her, and he’s also pretty tall and skinny.”
I nodded, then thought of something. “Plus there are some who say he put a bee hive in her yard. And she’s allergic.”
“Right. Attempted murder or just an obnoxious joke? No one’s ever pinned it down.”
I looked at the list. “So those are the tall guys.”
“Except for Jason. He’s only about five ten.”
“True. But I say leave him in the mix.” I looked at her. “And add Danny Ortega.”
“The apprentice? He’s not very tall.”
“No, but he’s tough. And he might have the anger in him to do something to harm Star once they began to realize she wasn’t treating them fairly. No pay for work done tends to make anyone testy.”
“Okay. I’ll add him.”
We both looked the list over. It felt like there was something missing. “Is that all we’ve got?”
“One more,” Jill said firmly. “I think we should add Fred Carver.”
“Really?” I looked at her in surprise. “Why?”
“He’s tall, and he and Star were once an item. He’s despised her ever since their romance hit the rocks.”
I frowned. I hadn’t known that but I’d suspected something along those lines. “Star had a lot of romances for a still-married lady.”
Jill did a silly voice. “That ain’t no lady—that’s a deleted expletive.”
That made me laugh, but in a sad way. We didn’t really have a lot of names on our list. I played with adding Roy’s name, just to make it a bit more impressive, but that seemed crazy so I didn’t even bring it up.
“Okay. I’ll work on getting pictures of the ones Bebe doesn’t know very well so we can see if they remind her of her undertaker guy.”
Jill stared at me for a moment, then said, “Let’s do it. Let’s do it now.”
I looked at her, startled. “Do what?”
“Try the hypnosis.”
“What? Now? Tonight?”
“It’s not that late. And the sooner the better. There’s no time to lose.”
I shrugged. “Okay. But only if she agrees to it.”
Jill went back to the office to gather some supplies and I walked out to the car to wait for her. Dante was leaning against the driver’s door. My heart jumped and I wondered how I was going to handle having him along if Jill came with us.
He smiled at me, and then a strange thing happened. There was a weird sound, sort of as though someone had crashed a big hammer into a gong, far, far away. His smile disappeared and he turned his head as though looking into something in the misty edges of the night. Another quick look at me, and he melted away. I reached out, knowing it was no use, but he was gone.
Darn! Was he going to start fading away on me too?
Just then, Jill came out and I turned to greet her, but it was awhile before I got that last look on Dante’s face out of my mind.
Chapter Fourteen
I was surprised at how quickly we were able to talk Bebe into trying the hypnosis. Jill was at her most charming best and Bebe had to admit she would try just about anything if it would get rid of this weird blank spot she seemed to have regarding the incident.
Aunty Jane, on the other hand, was appalled by the whole thing.
“She not da kine doctor,” she told me scathingly.
“You don’t have to be a doctor to hypnotize.” I didn’t really know, but I thought that was true. “Anyway, Jill is going to give it a try.”
Aunty Jane sneered at the very thought of it and went off in a huff. She had no faith. But I wasn’t much better. Ordinarily I had a deep, deep distrust of this sort of thing. Remembering that made me waver. What was I doing here?
Jill set the mood by putting some Satie on the player at low volume and dimming the lights. She had Bebe sit on the couch and drew a stool up to sit facing her. Talking in a soft, sing-song voice, she created a picture of peace and beauty, describing a picnic in a mountain meadow and asking Bebe to visualize it. Bebe did just that, slowly, haltingly, closing her eyes. Jill reminded her of the day of the accident and slowly, surely, took her step by step to that drive up the hillside road—then tried to hand the description over to her. Bebe seemed to be thinking about it. Her head began to slip quietly to the side, and then she was leaning back, her head against the cushion. She was sound asleep.
Jill sighed. I sighed.
Suddenly I realized Aunty Jane was in the room, cackling into her hand. I sent her a reproving look, but no one else could hear her, so it didn’t really matter.
“Oh well,” Jill said. “You were right. It’s too late in the evening for this. Maybe we should try it tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I said. But I knew it wasn’t going to work, and I was surprisingly upset. If we couldn’t find out more about that evening, what were we going to do?
We left Bebe to sleep on the couch and I drove Jill back to her car. When I got home again, Aunty Jane was waiting for me.
“You ready now?” she demanded. “You out of time for this nonsense stuff. Let’s get to work.”
“You mean, on magic?” I wasn’t really clear what she expected of me.
“Yes. I mean on magic. My magic. I’m gonna teach you.”
“Now?” It was late and I was tired. “Can’t we just start tomorrow after we’ve had some rest and….”
“You think magic is just something I’m going to hand you, like giving you a wand?” she said, hand on her hip and eyes sparking. “No. Magic has to come slowly, like…like bodybuilding or losing weight. It’s gonna to take a long time and a lotta’ practice before you really know what you’re doing. Years. Many years.”
“But we don’t have years.”
“I know that. What I’m going to teach you now is a short cut way, and I don’t know if it gonna work. I do know it won’t work for long and it won’t work for much. Not yet. You need to be a kahuna for it to work right for you. And that’ll take time. Lots of time.”
I nodded. Though I’d been resisting, I was falling in line. I didn’t have much choice. “I understand.” I looked at Bebe on the couch. “Should we go…?”
Aunty waved her hands at the room. The lights were still on dim and the music was still playing softly in the background. “We can do it right here,” she said. “You ready?”
I looked at her, wondering what this was going to be like and a little scared. “Uh…sure.”
She nodded. “Okay. The first thing about magic is—it doesn’t come easy.”
“You said that.”
She glared at me and I realized this was all part of a lesson and I was supposed to absorb it, not go for an interchange of ideas.
Okay then.
She fixed me with a stare. “Okay. Number one, not easy. Number two, you have to be born with it already inside you.”
“And you think I am.”
“Oh yeah. But know this. I don’t know how yours will work for you. Your way will be different from mine. But to do it at all…” She shook her head as though she just wasn’t sure if I could handle it. “To do it will take much hard work.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. What do I have to do?”
“You gotta get put in the right state of mind. Focus. Concentrate. Learn to hover.”
“What?”
“Hover. You have to be able to rise above your body and see it from the outside.”
“How am I going to be able to do that?”
“It’s all in here.” She pointed to her head. “And in here.” She put her hand over her heart. “Your solid body will still be there, but your spirit…” She reached high as though to touch something. “Your spirit will be up here.” Her eyes were glowing in the dim light. “When you can do that, then I can teach you.”
I felt a fluttery feeling inside. Was it excitement? Hope? Or fear? “And all I have to do is focus?”
�
��Oh no. There’s much more to it than that. You’ll know when it begins to work.”
“But…”
“I’m going to give you words to say. That will help.”
Aunty Jane focused for a moment. Her eyes went dreamy and her hands rose into hula position. She began to dance as she began to chant.
I watched, mesmerized. It had been so long since I’d heard those ancient words and felt the emotions of my ancestors. As I listened, the tradewinds seemed to cool my cheek and the tropic sun beat down on my head. I felt things I hadn’t felt since I was a child. I heard the ocean, I smelled a plumeria lei. I tasted green mango and salt, I heard my mother calling me. Something caught in my throat and I bit my lower lip. Tears filled my eyes.
“Oh Aunty,” I said as she finished. “That was so beautiful!” Then it came to me why she’d done it. “But I can’t learn all those words.”
“No.” She laughed at me. “Not at first. Time come, you will. But right now, I just need you to learn the first line of that hula. Ho’opuka e ka la ma hikina.”
“What does it mean?”
She shrugged. “It could mean the sun is rising. Or maybe, that enlightenment is filling your heart.”
“Ah.” I repeated the old Hawaiian words and she corrected me quickly, repeating until I got it right.
“Now dance while you sing it.”
I danced. That part was easy. I’d spend many an hour at hula lessons as a teenager. And as I danced and repeated the chant, over and over, I began to understand what she meant by focus.
“I think I’m getting it,” I told her.
She nodded. “Okay then. Come into the kitchen. It’s time to make the tea.”
I boiled some water and she began looking through the cabinets, searching for certain teas and spices that she pointed out to me. She had me mix them in an open bowl, and then pour the hot water slowly over the mix while she performed another ancient Hawaiian chant. I had no idea what it meant, but I could see by the look on her face that is was supposed to be transporting, so I half-closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the brewing tea, letting the atmosphere carry me.
I poured the tea into two cups and carried them out to where Bebe was sleeping. Waking her gently, I got her to sit up and have some tea, though I almost got the feeling that she wasn’t fully awake, and that the aroma of the tea was going to keep her in that groggy state.
A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) Page 9
