Pall in the Family

by Dawn Eastman

  Tonight, he was fairly upbeat and sat next to me, humming to himself.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I said, looking him over.

  “We’re having pot roast.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  “You don’t really like pot roast,” I said, and spooned carrots onto my plate.

  “No, but you do, which means your mother has plans for you and not for me.” He pointed to each of us and snapped his napkin open.

  “Oh, Frank,” my mother said. “That’s ridiculous. Clyde had a terrible day. I thought she deserved a treat.”

  I knew then that I was in trouble.

  As usual, the table grew quiet as everyone worked through the first serving. My mother turned on the dining room lights as the storm picked up. I sat between Seth and Dad. One was eating like he hadn’t seen food in weeks; the other was pounding the wine and humming. It made for a distracting meal. Vi broke the silence. My father poured himself a generous second glass of pinot noir as she began her observations. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “I’ve been working with Tuffy all day, and I can’t get anything out of him.” She leaned forward, glanced at Tuffy, and lowered her voice. “Shih tzu’s are not known for their discerning minds. They bark at anything and have a generally overinflated opinion of their own power in the world.”

  My father muttered something to his wine that sounded like “It’s not just the shih tzus. . . .”

  Vi continued to educate us on the vagaries of shih tzus and their temperaments and finished by saying she was shocked she could get so little out of our particular houseguest. She glanced in his direction a few times, but he seemed to be ignoring us. Her conclusion was that he should be shouting his feats of daring and courage from the rooftops but he wasn’t, and she was getting nowhere.

  Seth addressed himself to his dinner with the focus of a Zen master, and I kept checking to be sure he was breathing between bites. The storm outside was picking up steam, the thunder rumbling closer.

  I interrupted Vi’s monologue when she stopped to take a drink. “I heard today that Sara and Tish were having some trouble?” My mother glanced up quickly.

  “Oh that was nothing,” she said with a brisk flip of her hand, dismissing whatever I was about to say.

  “I heard it was something,” I said. “Tish tried to block her certificate. What’s up with that?”

  “What certificate?” Seth asked, coming up for air.

  “The city council grants a certificate to newly trained mediums to allow them to practice within city limits,” Vi told him.

  She didn’t tell him that without it the medium might as well pack up and move somewhere else. The law was passed decades ago and was still on the books, mostly because no one had had a reason to fight it. Whenever a new medium or psychic wanted to set up shop in Crystal Haven he or she had to interview with the city council and then pass a test that included giving readings to three council members. The certification process was not easy, but someone with Sara’s talent should have had no trouble.

  “Tish had a rough couple of years, and she and Sara just didn’t see eye to eye on everything,” said Mom. “Tish thought Sara was too showy, and Tish didn’t care for the kinds of séances she was doing. But it was all within the regulations, and Tish had no recourse but to remove her concerns and allow the certificate to go through.” She started to clear the table, a signal that she was done talking about this topic.

  “What’s the deal with Sara’s divorce?” I asked, holding my plate as she tried to take it.

  “What do you mean?” Vi glanced at my mother and then at me.

  “I heard there was some trouble there, too. Sara told me she and Gary had a custody battle over the dog.”

  “His name is Tuffy,” Seth said, and grabbed the meat platter from my mother. Tuffy’s collar jingled as he lifted his head in response to Seth’s voice.

  “Tuffy. They fought over him, and they were seen fighting recently in town.”

  “Are you involved in the investigation?” My father had perked up a bit now that Vi was done talking. He swirled his wineglass and allowed my mother to take his plate.

  “Only in the sense that I discovered the body and they’ve been asking me questions,” I said, but I didn’t meet his eye. My father could always tell when I was hiding something.

  “When I heard on the scanner that you had found a 10-100, I thought maybe you could help them with the case, get back into the swing of things,” he said, studying the tablecloth. We had been over this ground before. My family tiptoed around the question of why I was living with them again. They knew I had been involved in a shooting incident while on duty. But they also knew I was keeping something from them. My “administrative leave” excuse was wearing thin.

  “I don’t know that they want my help,” I lied.

  “What’s a 10-100?” Seth said through a mouthful of potatoes.

  “Dead body,” Dad and I said together.

  “I wish we could help somehow,” my mother said.

  “If only mother were still alive,” Vi said with a heavy sigh.

  My father rolled his eyes. Vi brought most crises back to wishing my grandmother were alive. Agnes Greer had left her mark on Crystal Haven and on her two daughters, who wanted nothing more than to continue her work. Aunt Vi had always been jealous that my mother had snagged a guy named Fortune. Not for any love of my father, just that his name was such good advertising. Her only compensation was that Greer carried its own weighty heritage in Crystal Haven. Greer’s Woods, one of the largest public parks in the area, was named after my grandparents. Agnes’s work as a psychic had brought fame to Crystal Haven and her donation of a large parcel of land meant that she had put Crystal Haven and the name “Greer” literally “on the map.”

  “I wish I could have met her,” said Seth.

  “Oh, she would have loved you, Seth,” my mother said. Her eyes welled up.

  “She could have helped with this situation,” said Vi. “She could have contacted Sara for us and found out what happened. No problem.” She snapped her fingers to demonstrate how quickly we would have had our answer. “Sometimes I sense her here with us.” She looked up to the ceiling.

  “Mother has never come back to us. We’ve tried so many times,” Mom said, and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “Maybe we could get Sara to come,” whispered Vi. “You could do it, Clyde, if you wanted to.”

  So this was the reason for the pot roast.

  “I don’t . . . ,” I began.

  The lights flickered as lightning flashed outside.

  “Did you see that? It’s a sign!” said Vi.

  “A sign?” asked Seth.

  “I think that was the storm,” I said.

  “Can’t you feel it? Sara could be here right now, trying to tell us who killed her,” said Vi.

  “Cut it out, Vi. You’ll scare the boy,” said my father. He chugged the last of his wine, and glanced at the ceiling.

  I couldn’t help but look up, too. The room glowed with lightning. We all sat there for a moment, looking at the ceiling. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A loud crash of thunder shook the house. And then the lights went out.

  7

  “Wicked,” said Seth.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, not again,” said Dad. Despite his complaints, he loved it when the lights went out. He imagined himself as Mr. Fixit and had the whole electrical system in the house rigged with his own brand of circuit breakers. The fact that the house was almost one hundred years old and had switches that hadn’t worked since his mother-in-law and her family moved in didn’t bother him one bit. Between the wiring of the house and his police scanner, he was always off somewhere puttering, which conveniently kept him out of Vi’s way. He jumped up and went to find one of the emergency flashlights he had stashed all over the house.r />
  It was gloomy in the dining room with the storm outside and night approaching, but not completely dark.

  Taking a stack of plates, I followed Vi to the kitchen and hoped that would be the end of the plea for spirit contact. But persistence ran in the family.

  “Why won’t you even try, Clyde?” Vi said as she took the plates from me and rinsed them.

  “She’s always been stubborn,” said Mom, as if I wasn’t standing right there.

  “Well, she’ll come around someday, Rose. Don’t you worry.” Vi patted my mother’s hand with her own wet, soapy one.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but they weren’t done.

  “I don’t think she will. Ever since mother died she’s been dead set against all of this.” Mom spread her arms to encompass the whole room and possibly all of Crystal Haven.

  Just as Vi finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher, the lights came on and we gave my father perfunctory applause for saving us from darkness once again.

  Since I wasn’t part of this conversation about my flaws, I went to the dining room to check on Seth and scan for any remaining dishes. I could still hear them in the kitchen.

  “My cat clients have been very worked up about something. You know how they get when trouble is brewing. Whether it’s a storm, a divorce, or teenage angst, they sense it. The aloof ones get all sentimental and the affectionate ones withdraw. It’s like they can feel the emotional shifts and they don’t know how to deal with it. Plus, remember the robin that flew in here last week? It was a sign,” Vi said to my mother.

  “I don’t know . . . ,” Mom said.

  “And the bat this morning. And now this storm . . . ,” Vi said.

  I lurked in the doorway, eavesdropping.

  “Sara is trying to tell us something. Do you really think Tommy Andrews and Mac are going to be able to solve this?” Vi hissed.

  “Why wouldn’t they be able to solve it?” I asked.

  They both spun to look at me, and were not quick enough to cover their guilty expressions.

  “They’ll be collecting evidence and samples and interviewing people, hoping to find a connection or uncover a lie,” Aunt Vi said, not bothering to hide her sarcastic tone. Vi’s opinion about fact-finding was almost as scathing as the rest of the world’s opinion about psychics.

  I had a hard time keeping a straight face. “Well, that is normal police procedure: to examine the evidence and find out who might have wanted her dead and go from there. That’s how we solve crimes.”

  Vi shook her head. She waved her hand to dismiss the whole process.

  “We just feel that in this case they should be considering Sara’s talents and her unique connection to Spirit in their investigation,” Mom said.

  “You think she was killed by a ghost?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. But Spirit can act in strange ways when a person is as connected to the other side as she was.” Mom began wiping the counters.

  “What do you want them to do? Have a séance and question whoever shows up?” I asked, willing my mother to turn around.

  “Mac will never go for that, although it would be helpful,” Aunt Vi said, considering this idea carefully as if it were actually on offer.

  “I think I’ve been away too long. Or maybe not long enough,” I said, and left them to their plotting. This was an ongoing battle where my resistance was equally matched with their persistence. Between the dreams, the touch sensitivity, and the occasional flash of premonition, they were convinced I could be as great a psychic as my grandmother had been. The fact that I wasn’t even a little bit interested in pursuing that career path did not deter them.

  I found Seth in the room that used to be my sister’s until it was clear she was never coming back. Now it had an undecided air about it—no longer Grace’s room, not quite a guest room, but definitely gender confused. Her stuffed animals languished on shelves with her childhood books. Her various art projects and nature treasures that had been collected over the years decorated the walls and gathered dust on the dresser. Seth’s current possessions were of the small and electronic ilk: iPod, Nintendo DS, cell phone, laptop. They cluttered the small desk along with a collection of fantasy paperbacks featuring dragons and swords on the covers.

  Seth was on the bed with Tuffy and Baxter. How they all fit, I had no idea. The twin bed was a mass of fur and boy. Tuffy seemed to have stopped shivering, and Baxter sat alert in his guarding mode.

  “Hey, the rain’s stopped,” I said. “Want to get these guys outside before it starts up again?”

  Baxter heard “outside” and leapt off the bed causing the springs to shriek in protest. Tuffy watched him leave and then stood at the edge of the bed peering down, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

  “Sure,” said Seth. “C’mon, Tuffy. You can do it.” He encouraged the dog to jump off the edge. Tuffy was not interested and had clearly been accustomed to more slave labor than I was willing to provide. He danced from one front paw to the other and fixed Seth with his imperious stare. It didn’t take a pet psychic to know what he wanted. Seth accommodated him and lifted him gently to the floor.

  “He’s got your number,” I said.

  “I s’pose,” he said and slumped out of the room, his two shadows padding softly after him.

  Outside, it had not cooled off but the rain left a clean smell behind. We’d forgotten to turn the lights on and stood in the semidarkness listening to the water dripping on the leaves overhead. The dogs seemed to be getting along. They made a funny pair, one so huge he could crush the other one. But Baxter was very gentle with Tuffy, almost as if he understood what a bad day it had been for the little guy.

  “I feel like Baxter really understands what Tuffy is going through,” Seth said, as if he had read my thoughts.

  “Yeah, they seem to be friends already.”

  “I hope they find out who killed that lady. It’s not right. She was just leading her life, and then someone comes along and takes it all away. Leaving behind people and animals that care about her,” Seth said.

  “I know.” I put my hand tentatively on his back, not sure what to do. “They’ll do their best. No one wants to let a murderer go unpunished.”

  “Clyde?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wondering . . .” He turned toward me, and I pulled my hand away.

  “There you are!” said a voice from the back door. I heard a click and the backyard was flooded with light. The screen door slammed and the porch steps creaked.

  Alex walked toward us, only his dark outline visible with the porch lights behind him.

  “Hi, Seth,” he said.

  “Hey.” Seth raised his hand and let it drop.

  “I see you have a couple of new inmates here at Chez Fortune.”

  “We didn’t know what to do with Sara’s dog, so we decided to keep him until her family can take him, and Tish called and needed to board Baxter with us for a day or two,” I said, shielding my eyes from the sudden brightness.

  “Makes sense,” Alex said, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the yard.

  “So, um, I’m taking them in before they get too wet,” said Seth. When he whistled, the dogs came immediately to his side.

  I watched, fascinated, as they followed him into the house. Neither one of them had ever done anything I had asked, whistle or no whistle.

  “Hey, Alex . . .”

  “Um, Clyde . . .” We both began at the same time.

  “You first . . . ,” we said together, and laughed.

  “Should we just forget it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have known better than to force you to eat eggplant.”

  “Well, I usually love all your food.” I caught his look of disbelief. “Okay, I love most of your food. Some of the more exotic stuff can throw me a little. Doesn’t mea
n there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Sorry, you had such a bad day. How hard are they pushing for a psychic solution in there?” He cocked his head toward the house.

  “My mother made pot roast.”

  “Oh, it’s on, then.”

  “I think it’s only just begun.”

  * * *

  The next day, Tuesday, Tish called in a panic about Baxter getting his heartworm medicine. She’d left a message and then shut off her phone. I had no choice but to go pick it up. Baxter got very quiet as we pulled into his driveway and lay down on the seat next to Tuffy. He pushed his jaw out and refused to look at me. I could tell he was gearing up for a battle. Apparently he and Tuffy had bonded more than I had realized.

  “You stay here with them, and I’ll run in and get his medicine,” I said to Seth.

  He gave me a thumbs-up and kept his head bobbing to whatever was on his iPod.

  I knew Tish’s house like my own, mostly because it had been my own. I had grown up here for the first eight years of my life. She had also been my babysitter off and on when I was younger, and I’d spent a lot of time with her. Much of my teen years were spent in the cozy living room that had once been mine, just hanging out, doing homework and avoiding my family. She was one of the few people in Crystal Haven who seemed to understand why a person might not want to have any psychic insight into events. When my mother got to be too much for me with her pressure to be a psychic, Tish stepped in and let me just be myself. She was from a generation between my family and me, a few years older than Grace but not as ancient as my mother and my aunt had seemed when I was a teen. Enjoying the absolute trust of my parents, she often became the chaperone to my teenage activities, straddling the line between cool and responsible.

  I passed the oak tree that had been my favorite climbing tree as a kid. It had a hole near the first large branch. I used to write coded notes and stick them in the opening to be found by my imaginary friends. I remembered telling Mac about my fantasies of finding treasure maps or secret messages hidden there. Shortly after that, I began finding notes from Mac. He was better on paper than on the phone or even in person. He had to force me to check the hiding place the first time. After several very subtle hints that I didn’t interpret correctly, he drove me to Tish’s house, dragged me to the tree, and shoved my hand inside. After that, I checked every day and was almost never disappointed. I still had the notes, somewhere.