by Jane Tesh
“Do you see special Harper numbers?”
“I see a lot of numbers, but I don’t know what they mean in relation to Mrs. Harper. I don’t want to know what they mean. I’ve told Ellie I don’t work that way.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose it matters now. I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to tell her.”
I had to stop at another red light. I looked at him. “Tell her what? That the wedding’s off? Been nice knowing you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
“I still say you’re overreacting. Your own future never works out the way you see it.”
I could tell by his expression he was unconvinced. “I keep seeing a pattern of black and white.”
“Like a chessboard? We are all pawns in the game of life, that sort of thing?”
“No. Different shapes, stripes, circles.”
“What’s this got to do with your kids?”
“I have no idea.” He glanced up. “The light’s green.”
“That’s the only thing you’ve said tonight that makes sense.” I turned the Fury smoothly onto Food Row. “Don’t tell Ellin anything yet. Wait and see. This new trick of yours might be a temporary condition, like hay fever.”
He wasn’t in the mood to be consoled. “Or it could increase over the years until I spontaneously combust.”
“Don’t combust in the car, okay? I’ve got enough to worry about.”
“I wouldn’t call it a trick. I had a problem with the dishes earlier.”
Camden uses dishwashing as therapy. It’s one of the ways he supported himself during the years he wandered the country, learning to control all the wild pictures that popped into his mind. “What? They wouldn’t go where you wanted them?”
“Oh, they went, all right. I barely had time to open the cabinets.”
“Did they wash and dry themselves? That would save a lot of time.”
“No. They were clean. They shot away like a flock of startled pigeons.”
“I thought you said you could control this new power.”
“I can, but it still takes me by surprise.” He slumped in his seat. “It took me years to figure out the visions and how to keep them in line. Now this.”
“We’ll figure it out.” I sounded more confident than I felt. I had no idea how to fix this problem.
***
The next morning, Camden had calmed down a little, and we all went to church as usual. I’m not what you call religious, but it’s certainly worth a sermon and a couple of Bible verses to sit next to Kary. She and Camden are faithful members of Victory Holiness, a friendly nondenominational little church in a rundown part of town where it really doesn’t matter who you are or what you wear. Having been brought up in a cold and sterile Lutheran church in Minnesota, I found Victory Holiness as inviting as a church is likely to be, but I had too many doubts about the fairness of life to believe as easily as Kary and Camden did in an all-loving deity. But if church was important to Kary, then I would park my butt in the pew every Sunday. Still another example of how far I will go to win this woman.
For the offertory, Camden and the choir sang something about turning your eyes upon Jesus, but the only one I could turn my eyes upon was Kary. As she smiled and passed the collection plate to me, I looked into her warm brown eyes and said a special prayer. Lord, whatever she’s looking for, I hope it includes me.
***
After lunch, I finally managed to get a hold of Dahlia Two. Her voice was slow and languorous, as if she’d just gotten out of bed. It took me several tries to explain who I was and why I was calling. She gave a little hiccup and said she didn’t have no cousins named Viola and not to call her again, especially so dag-nabbed early. One o’clock on Sunday. I apologized and hung up, making a mental note to ask Rufus what “dag-nabbed” meant. I dialed my final number and listened to the phone ring on the other end. Okay, Dahlia Three. Where the hell are you? I hoped she wasn’t buried in her basement.
I finally gave up for a while and spent a couple of hours at the Drug Palace in disguise. I wandered the aisles with a clipboard and pen, pretending to check stock, and keeping an eye out for suspicious characters. Everyone in and around the Palace qualifies as a character. Only a few are truly suspicious. A wall-eyed geezer who likes to nap on the bench outside. A grown man who wears a propeller beanie. He always buys two copies of Field and Stream. Maybe he figures he needs one for the field and one for the stream. An older woman who likes to take out her teeth and click them at me in a bizarre long-distance hello. These people are harmless.
On the side of justice, I caught a couple of slack-jawed teens lifting candy bars and a pouty blond teenage girl putting a yin-yang bracelet in her purse, you know, the kind that resemble two tadpoles checking out each other’s tails. No sign of anyone filching vitamins.
Ted O’Neal was a large man with a fringe of black hair around his bald head and a cheerful manner. He was even more cheerful I’d caught the shoplifters. The candy bar thieves, to my surprise, apologized to Ted and offered to pay for the candy if he wouldn’t call the police. Ted agreed and let them go, but banned them from the store. The girl tried to convince us the bracelet fell into her purse. Neither Ted nor I bought this story. When she tried to run, I blocked the door until the cops showed up. She gave the policemen another tall tale about needing the bracelet for her mother who was in the hospital and wailed and cursed as they took her out.
“Honestly,” Ted said. “Can you believe all that? She could’ve bought that bracelet and anything else she wanted in here. And those boys had money to pay for candy bars.”
“They weren’t your vitamin thieves, though.”
“No, so you need to keep on the job.”
***
The vitamin thieves did not strike that afternoon. When my time was up at the Drug Palace, I decided to check on Taffy.
There are worse things to do than tail Taffinia O’Brien. I knew she lived on Parkland View Avenue, but she wasn’t home. I knew she worked at the cosmetics counter in Myers, a large department store in Friendly Shopping Center, but she wasn’t there, either. A coworker at the store said she thought Taffy was meeting friends at Parkland Center for lunch, so I circled around Parkland Center, where enterprising folks are remodeling the older stores downtown, and caught my first break of the day. Taffy came out of a dark building on the corner of Main and Meade. Since the Fury is well-known in town, I swung into the nearest parking spot and continued on foot. I was halfway down the block when Taffy whirled around and pointed an accusing finger.
“Are you following me?”
“Who isn’t?”
“What’s the deal, Randall?”
“Can’t I just enjoy the view?”
The finger stabbed closer. “Charlie sent you, didn’t he?”
“I’m working a case on this side of town and happened to see you.” She looked as if she didn’t believe me. “Why would Charlie send me?”
She shrugged. “Forget it. I was headed for Insteps for lunch. Join me?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Insteps is a tiny, trendy little café inside a remodeled train station. It has a shoe theme. Why shoes and not trains is something I can’t figure out. We sat in the Pump Room on two high, cushioned stools. I helped Taffy take off her light yellow jacket. She was wearing a short green dress covered in sequins, so I got a great view as she crossed her legs. The dress looked too short and fancy for midday.
“Going someplace special?”
“No.”
“Coming back from someplace special?”
She picked up the menu. “Maybe I like wearing this dress.”
People on their way to illegal trysts tend to dress down. I tried to remember what was in the neighborhood and realized that dark building she’d come out of was Spider’s Web, an exclusive nightclub that was open ev
ery other weekend. The Web catered to the snootier strata of Parkland society. I couldn’t imagine the patrons lining up to hear “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”
“They take you on at the Web?”
A lovely rush of pink colored her cheeks, not quite the spectacular sunrise of Kary’s, but a guilty rush. “What if they did?”
“Just curious.”
“Don’t you dare tell Charlie.”
“Hey, what you do with your spare time is your business.”
Our conversation paused when the waitress came for our orders. I decided on the Sling-back Special, and Taffy ordered a High Heel Highball. When the waitress left, Taffy said, “I’m not singing there yet. I had an audition.”
“Did you dazzle them with ‘Lovin’ Sam the Sheik of Alabam’?”
Her glare almost reached Ellin intensity. “I sang my own songs.”
“I didn’t know you wrote songs.”
“J.J. doesn’t want to hear them. He says they’re awful.”
“You know J.J.’s musical tastes, like mine, stop round the late forties.”
She tossed back her hair. “He won’t even give me a chance. I love the old songs, but I’ve got all this other music in me, too. The Tempo’s a great club, but I have my career to think of, you know.”
As far as I knew, Taffy’s job at Myers consisted of looking gorgeous as she stood behind glass cabinets full of outrageously priced beauty products. I knew her main ambition was to be a singer, but she doesn’t have the annoying screeches and four octave trills of a modern pop star. Since her choices in town are limited, I couldn’t blame her for trying something besides the Tempo.
“So I’m guessing Charlie doesn’t like your new songs?”
“He wouldn’t set foot in a club like the Web.”
“I don’t see why you have to keep it a secret. The Web isn’t open that often, and the Hot Six doesn’t play every night. You can do both.”
“I don’t want to hear Charlie gripe about it.”
“Do you really care what he thinks?”
She hesitated before replying. “No.”
Our drinks arrived. My Sling-Back Special was pretty good. Taffy took a sip of her High Heel Highball. Something else was bothering her, I could tell. “You two sounded really good on ‘Sweet Man’ the other night.”
“Thanks. It would be even better if he’d agree to accompany me on my songs.”
“Have you asked him?”
“Several times. He refuses to listen to anything but jazz. It’s like he’s got a mental block or something. Manny’s done some good arrangements for me. Charlie could play them if he wanted to.”
“Manny?”
“Manuel Estaban. My teacher.”
Uh-ho. “What’s he teaching you?”
I watched for another guilty blush, but Taffy’s cheeks were blush-free. “Over at Parkland Community College they have a songwriting class. Manny says I have an excellent grasp of rhythm and lyrics. He says I’m wasting my talents doing nothing but traditional songs. He’s all for experimenting.”
I’ll bet he is.
“Manny says music should be an expression of your heart. He loves my work.”
Somehow I felt Manny would love Taffy’s work even if she used only one note.
She spun an ice cube around with her finger. “Guess how many songs I’ve written.”
“Twelve?”
“Twenty-six. And J.J. won’t let me sing a single one.”
I set my drink down. “Have you thought about writing a song that sounds more like the songs he likes? Kind of ease him into your other stuff?”
“But I like my music so much better. Why can’t he bend a little?”
I didn’t have an answer. I listen only to traditional jazz myself. There are a few classical pieces Kary plays that aren’t bad, and the occasional rock tune from my past conjures up a memory or two, but I had to side with J.J. and Charlie. Of course, I hadn’t heard any of Taffy’s songs.
“When will you hear from the folks at the Web?”
“They’re supposed to let me know something tomorrow.”
“How about a little sample?”
She glanced around the restaurant. It wasn’t crowded, and our table was off by itself by the window. “All right. I wrote this one yesterday. It’s called ‘My Unformed Wish.’”
The title should’ve warned me. Taffy kept her voice low, but I could still hear how painfully bad the song was. No tune. No particular rhythm. And the words flopped between teen angst and stream of consciousness:
“It isn’t that. It isn’t what you think.
I tear at the walls of my existence to find a solace.
Solace, what’s that?
Outside my window a moon that only I can see destroys my visions.”
As she droned on, I kept an expression of polite interest. Good lord, what a waste of a perfectly good voice. Was this the same gal who could belt out “Some of These Days” and “All of Me”? Even my tie was getting soggy.
“How can I keep what lies beneath a secret?
The red walls surround me in a cocoon of unhappiness.
What is a wish that cannot be fulfilled?
That cannot be fulfilled.”
It took me a moment to realize she’d finished. “Wow. What can I say?”
“You see what I mean, David? You see why this is so important to me?”
“Then I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thanks.” She shook her wrist so her bracelet watch slid around. “I’ve got to get back to work.” She reached for her pocketbook.
I picked up the check. “It’s my treat, please.”
“Thank you.” Before she left, she held up a warning finger. “Not one word of this to Charlie.”
“Okay.”
It was going to be several words.
Chapter Nine
“But now it’s time to sleep.”
I was half way to Parkland Community College when I realized this was Sunday afternoon and Manuel Estaban probably wasn’t there. But as luck would have it, the college was having some sort of May celebration. There were people everywhere. I managed to find a parking spot, and a student pointed out Manuel Estaban. I’d hoped Mr. Estaban would be a gray-haired grandfatherly figure, but he was a tall dashing man in an expensive-looking suit. His glossy black hair was tied back in a ponytail. On most men, a ponytail looks silly, but on Estaban, the hairstyle accented his movie star cheekbones and profile. He was talking to a group of young women who giggled and hurried off as I approached.
“Manuel Estaban?”
“Yes. Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon,” I said. “I’m looking around the campus, thinking of taking a few classes this summer.”
He shook my hand. “I teach music appreciation and songwriting. Are you interested in music? We will be offering several courses next semester.”
“Songwriting sounds interesting. How do you go about teaching someone how to write a song?”
“Ah, well, you must have a little talent in that direction, of course, but it is not difficult. A simple melody, some words from your heart.” He spread his hands. “There. You have a song. In my classroom, I have a chart that shows you how everything connects. You can start with a tune, or with your lyrics. It is very simple.”
Up to now, I was thinking the guy had dazzled Taffy with his good looks and expertise. Then he said something else.
“I am also available after class for private sessions.”
Private sessions, eh? “Do many students take advantage of that?”
“A few of the more gifted.”
“Seems like that would take a great deal of your time.”
“Oh, no. It is a pleasure to nurture talent.”
Is that what you call it? “Do you have any students
who show special talent?”
His smile widened. “Indeed I do. There is one young lady in particular that I predict will go far. Not only does she have an exceptional voice, she has a soul that cries out to be heard. I have encouraged her to find an outlet for her talents. She hopes one of the local nightclubs will hire her to perform her songs.”
Taffy, for certain. “That’s a huge step.”
“Yes, I am very proud of her.”
“Are any of your other students making this kind of progress?”
“I have high hopes for all of them.”
Okay, so maybe he was sincere. Maybe I was reading too much into his idea of “special talent.” Maybe Charlie’s future with Taffy was doomed. “Thanks for the information, Mr. Estaban.”
He shook my hand again. “I hope to see you in one of my classes very soon. Will you stay for the celebration? There are refreshments, cold drinks.”
“Thanks. I’m going to speak to a few more teachers.”
“This is a fine community college. You will be happy here.”
No, I’ll be happy to get Charlie and Taffy back together, which was shaping up to be trickier than I thought.
***
There was still no answer at Dahlia Three’s. According to my information, she lived in Brooksboro, North Carolina, which was a full day’s drive away. Still, it would be worth a shot. I decided to go by the house first and pick up a few things, but I almost had heart failure when I came up on the porch and found Kary crying.
“What’s wrong?”
She wiped her face. “Jordan came and got Cam. They found Fred in the park. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
“Are you okay?” I never thought Fred meant anything to her other than the garrulous old nuisance he was to everybody.
“I feel so bad for Cam. You know how he feels about Fred.”
“He’ll be okay. You come in and sit down.”
We were not alone for long. A police car drove up. Jordan gave me a wave as Camden got out. Kary hurried down the steps and took Camden’s arm.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Jordan took Fred over to the funeral home for me. I had a talk about funeral arrangements.”
