Death in the Cards

by Sharon Short

  “What’s happening here, Dalton?”

  Dalton looked apologetic. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s been a water main break, right on Main Street. In front of your salon, ma’am.”

  “Now Dalton, don’t go callin’ me ma’am; you’ll make me feel old, and—What?” Cherry sat up straight so suddenly that she whapped her head into my van’s interior light—a fitting symbol, I reckoned, for the figurative light bulb that had just gone off over her head.

  “Any damage to our businesses?” I asked, my stomach curling at the thought.

  Dalton looked at me, as if startled at my appearance. Note to self—if I should ever be insane enough to take a road trip with Sally and Cherry, Cherry’s driving. No tickets that way. “That’s right—your laundromat’s right there by the salon.”

  Thanks for remembering, I thought. Dalton came in every Wednesday night to do his laundry. But he got his hair trimmed at Joe’s, a one-chair barbershop at the other end of town. He’d probably pass out if he even entered Cherry’s Chat N Curl.

  “No damage that I know of,” he was saying to me, while glancing at Cherry. “But the water’s been shut off to your section of Main Street.”

  No water, no laundromat service. And no water in my apartment above the laundromat.

  “I don’t understand. It’s a fairly warm day. The water lines couldn’t have frozen,” I said.

  Dalton shrugged. “From what I heard, it’s the drought. After a drought this long, the ground shifts, and that caused a pipe to snap under Main and Orchard.” That was just a block down from my laundromat. “Water was coming up fast through the sewer.” He shook his head. “It’s a mess. ’Bout a hundred thousand gallons of water before they shut it off, I heard. No water until next Monday afternoon—maybe Tuesday—when the crews get it fixed. The main’s real old, anyway, and between the cold last winter and the drought since midsummer, it just couldn’t hold.”

  I groaned. Not only was my business shut down, but also I wasn’t going to be able to stay at my apartment without the use of the bathroom or kitchen. A hopeful thought glimmered—maybe I could stay with Owen?

  “Can we get to our businesses to see if everything is okay?” Cherry asked, all the flirt gone from her voice.

  “The fire department has shut off traffic from Main Street, but you might be able to get to them from Elm,” Dalton said.

  Elm was a residential street. My laundromat backed to a house, with a privacy fence between my tiny parking lot and the house’s backyard. But I knew the people who lived on Elm; they wouldn’t mind my crossing through their yards to work my way by foot to my laundromat. I at least wanted to get some clothes and a few other necessities from my apartment.

  We thanked Dalton and turned left, working toward Elm.

  “I sure hope my salon’s okay,” Cherry said, sounding tearful. “And your laundromat, too. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my business.”

  “You won’t lose your business. You have insurance to cover any damage, right?”

  Silence.

  Oh Lord. Had Cherry done something silly and let her payments lapse?

  “I’ll be okay. I’ll just go home and—oh, no. What are you going to do about where to stay?”

  “I’ll call Owen. Fish my cell phone from my purse,” I said.

  Cherry did as I asked, then repaired her mascara, turning my rearview mirror into a makeup mirror. Normally that would have annoyed me, but with everything going on, I let it slide.

  I called Owen. No answer, unless I wanted to count the answering machine, which I didn’t. But I left a message, anyway, for the sixth time, with my cell phone number. Where could Owen be? We had plans to get together that night, but I really wanted to talk to him right away.

  “You could always stay with me,” Cherry said. I glanced at her. She was smiling at me sweetly, her freshly mascara-ed eyes wide. We’d have killed each other before midnight.

  I reckoned I could stay with Sally, but the thought of intruding on Sally in her tiny little mobile home—especially with Harry, Barry, and Larry returning the next afternoon—didn’t make me happy.

  Then there was Winnie, but she lived up in Masonville. That would put me closer to Guy, true, but farther from my laundromat. And I wanted to be nearby in case something happened to my business. Not that I could necessarily do anything about it. But still.

  I sighed. I’d have to see if I could stay at the Red Horse Motel, with the psychics and psychic fair attendees.

  My laundromat, Cherry’s salon, Sandy’s restaurant, and all the other businesses on a two-block strip on Main Street had been evacuated, as had the houses on the street behind me. It took a little begging, but the firemen finally let me through so I could cut through the backyard of the house that backed to my laundromat’s parking lot. I shouldn’t take long, the fireman warned me, and under no circumstances should I try to use the plumbing.

  Chip had locked up my laundromat. I’d have to thank him later, I thought. Maybe buy him dinner at Sandy’s, when she reopened. When I was in a more thankful mood.

  Which was not at all how I was feeling as I stood at the back of my empty laundromat, staring at the sheen of water at the front. Sitting on the counter were several boxes of supplies that had previously been under the counter. The boxes, I knew, held smaller sample-size boxes of detergent and fabric softener. I kept those available for sale at only a slight markup for customers who forgot to bring their own supplies. Even from the back of the store, I could see the wetness that had spread halfway up the boxes.

  I went to the front of my laundromat and found the note Chip had taped to my cash register.

  “Josie,” it read, “sorry I didn’t get the supply boxes up faster. But the water came in sudden and quick!” I blinked back a tear, sniffling. Damn it. I hated that my business, and the other Main Street businesses, were closed and maybe damaged.

  “I closed up the front as fast as I could after me and Winnie got customers out the back,” Chip’s note went on. “Then we mopped up what we could. Hang in there. Chip.”

  I looked out my laundromat’s front windowpane, past my logo—a grinning toad sitting in grass, rainbowed by the slogan: TOADFERN’S LAUNDROMAT: ALWAYS A LEAP AHEAD OF DIRT. Usually, the cute toad and slogan I’d created made me grin, but that afternoon I found no comfort in either.

  The street was flooded and the water was about an inch over the sidewalk. Water seeped in under my front door. Already, some of the tiles around the door were curling up.

  What if more water poured in, damaged the washers and dryers? My business insurance would mostly cover it, although the deductible would be hard to come up with, but it could be weeks before I could get back to business.

  I could survive the business loss, but it wouldn’t be easy. And what about Sandy and Cherry and the others? This kind of thing hits small businesses in small towns very hard.

  I sat down on one of the white plastic chairs and put my head to my hands.

  Fretting wouldn’t set things right, though. I looked up, startled at the thought. It was something Mrs. Oglevee had always said, usually with a smile when she returned to me a homework paper marked with a C, or worse.

  Mrs. Oglevee. Somehow Ginny Proffitt had known my dreams of her. I remembered Cherry saying that Ginny had suddenly gone pale at something she’d “seen” while gazing, trancelike, into her crystal ball.

  Her own death, maybe?

  And before I met Ginny Proffitt for those few minutes in the parking lot, a little more than twenty-four hours before, life had been good. Simple. Predictable. I was going to have a nice weekend with Owen at the corn maze, visit Guy on Sunday . . .

  And then I met Ginny, who somehow knew about my dreams of Mrs. Oglevee, and everything went to hell.

  Ginny murdered. Hugh wanting to quit tutoring. Winnie’s bookmobile shut down. Guy ill. Owen off somewhere, not returning my calls. And now this, a water main break that could hurt my and other businesses in Paradise.
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  Why couldn’t Ginny have predicted any of that and prevented it? Or had she seen something of her own death in her crystal ball, gone to try to prevent it, and failed?

  And for pity’s sake, I rented the apartment next to mine to two psychics. Couldn’t they have predicted any of this? Warned Ginny to stay home? Called the city and warned them of the water main break? Realized someone would break into their store, and bought extra locks?

  I sneezed in my cold laundromat. The electricity was off and no dryers were running.

  At least, couldn’t the LeFevers have told me to take extra Vitamin C pills to shore up my strength so I could better handle all of this?

  I shook my head.

  The fact was that a person could make plans, try to predict outcomes, believe she could see the future, maybe even actually see it, for all I knew—and every now and again, she’d still get broadsided, like I’d been. Or murdered, like Ginny.

  I left through the back of my laundromat and went up the exterior staircase to my second-floor apartment to pack for a few nights at the Red Horse.

  I packed clothes and dry sneakers (the ones I’d worn into my laundromat were soaked) and toiletries and snacks, including a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of green tomato relish that I’d canned just a few weeks before. Then I locked up my apartment and left my suitcase just outside my door, while I used my master key to unlock the LeFevers’ door. They were staying at the Red Horse during the psychic fair, I learned when but I’d called and told them what had happened. They’d already heard, through the Paradise grapevine, but were grateful I’d called. Sienna had meant to come by that night to feed Eloise, Damon’s and her black and white cat. Could I please go in, make sure she had dry food and a saucer of water? I could use the bottled water in the fridge, Sienna’d told me.

  I smiled at that. My only “pet” is a pothos ivy, the sole plant I’ve managed to not kill in ten years of optimistically buying spider plants and jade plants and African violets and then killing them with kindness, too much water or fertilizer or something. I named my plant Rocky for its determination to survive despite my overwatering habit, and on that waterless Saturday in Paradise, poured the leftovers from my coffee maker on Rocky. Hey, the coffee was cool and besides, I’d read somewhere once that some plants like a little caffeine.

  Anyway, Sienna had also asked me to turn on the CD player in the bedroom so Eloise wouldn’t feel lonely; she already had Eloise’s favorite nature CD loaded in the player.

  I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at that, or feel touched. In any case, the LeFevers would make good parents.

  I took a quick look around the apartment. It was neat and clean, decorated nicely with a new set of furniture, which surprised me, since the LeFevers had made comments about how tight money was since opening their New Age bookstore. Still, they’d always paid their rent on time and as their landlord, I was glad to see the apartment was nicely kept.

  I filled the cat’s food bowl, opened the fridge, and balked when I saw the bottled water: Perrier. Perrier for a cat? But that was the only bottled water in the fridge. With their money worries, what were the LeFevers doing buying Perrier instead of generic Kroger’s bottled water? Or just drinking tap water, as I did? (I figured I could use the extra iron that Paradise’s system provided.)

  Not your business, Josie, I told myself. But I still cringed as I poured the Perrier in a bowl and carefully put the bowl on the floor.

  Then I went in their bedroom. Most of the floor space was taken up with a new king-sized bed, covered with a rose-colored satin quilt, and numerous matching pillows. The bookcase headboard was filled with CDs and books with titles like Wicca Through the Ages and Past Lives, Past Loves. On top of the headboard were more CDs and books. I stared up at them, starting to read their titles, then told myself to stop. I didn’t have time to snoop.

  A small CD player was on a side table. I pressed the play button. A nature CD of birds chirping and wind rustling and a stream babbling started up. Suddenly, I realized I had to pee. I started back to my apartment, and then stopped. No using the plumbing.

  I hurried toward the door again. I’d just have to get to Red Horse, fast. I stopped again as I realized I’d heard this CD before, through the wall that divided my bedroom from the LeFevers. Not that they’d played it loudly. It had been mostly a background hum I hadn’t even really registered hearing—until I heard it again, now, in the LeFevers’ bedroom. If I’d heard this, then the LeFevers could have heard me, say, hollering out in a nightmare about Mrs. Oglevee. Maybe I’d even hollered something like—“Mrs. Oglevee, shut up and go away!” Then they could have told that to Ginny Proffitt, and that’s how Ginny could have known about Mrs. Oglevee and my dreams, and . . .

  I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. Why would the LeFevers bring that up, especially in the midst of pulling off the psychic fair and worrying about their financial woes?

  I started to leave, but stopped yet again when I heard a shuffling sound under the bed. I knelt down, lifted the pink satin bed skirt.

  “Eloise?”

  Suddenly, it seemed, a black-and-white dust bunny sprang to life and streaked past me. Eloise. I yelped and then, when my heart stopped thudding, noticed the shoebox Eloise had knocked out from under the bed.

  The shoebox’s lid was missing, and credit card bills filled the box to the brim. I admit it. I looked at the top one. It was for a Visa . . . third notice . . . past due and over the $25,000 credit limit. I gasped. Below that, I saw an ATM slip. Okay, I looked at that, too. One of the LeFevers had tried to withdraw twenty dollars a few days before from a checking account, but the withdrawal had been denied, due to insufficient funds and an overdrawn overdraft protection. Try again later! the message at the bottom of the slip chirped cheerily.

  But from what little I’d seen, the LeFevers were running out of financial options for trying again.

  I pushed the shoebox back under the bed, knowing I’d seen more than I had any right to, even if I could blame Eloise—mostly. The LeFevers had talked about how tight things were financially for them, with the loans they’d taken out to open their shop. And yet they’d been reckless with their personal expenses. They had to be desperate for the psychic fair to go well and help build a regional customer base for them. And they’d been angry when Ginny had threatened to pull out of coming at the last minute. Had she done something else to anger them, to jeopardize the psychic fair after she arrived? Should I be suspecting them instead of Dru?

  I got up and left the apartment quickly, waving my fingers at Eloise, lapping up her Perrier in the kitchenette. But she—as cats so often do—ignored me.

  12

  I was halfway down the metal stairs on the outside of my building when I lost my grasp on my heavy suitcase and it went tumbling, handle over wheels, down the steps.

  “Damned suitcase,” I muttered to myself.

  That’s when I remembered Ginny’s luggage. The shock of the broken water main closing down my laundromat and rousting me from my apartment had pushed it from my mind until that morning.

  Even though I was eager to get to the Red Horse, I knew I had to get Ginny’s suitcase from the storage area of my laundromat and take it to Chief Worthy. The strange contents plus the handkerchief in my pocket might provide some clue that would help solve Ginny’s murder.

  I hoisted my own suitcase off the ground and let myself back in my laundromat to check under my desk for Ginny’s bag.

  It was gone.

  Twenty minutes later, I rushed into the small building that serves as Paradise’s mayoral and council chambers, prison (only two cells), and police station. I went in the section that houses the police station and prison and saw that Jeanine was dispatcher at the front desk that day. My heart fell.

  Jeanine is fifty-something, raised four kids by herself, is one of Sandy’s neighbors in the Happy Trails Motor Home Court, and has a thickly crusted battle-ax attitude. It’s her way of coping, which I understand, but it also makes her hard t
o deal with.

  Still, I rushed past her desk without saying a word.

  “Josie! What the hell do you think you’re—”

  “Ladies’ room,” I said, rushing past Jeanine’s desk to a tiny hallway to the left that led to the men’s and women’s rooms. Technically, I was supposed to sign in. But this was an emergency. Jeanine would understand, I was sure.

  A few minutes later, I was back in front of Jeanine’s desk, feeling much relieved. Plus I liked the freesia scent of the new bottle of hand sanitizer in the women’s room. That had to be Jeanine’s touch. None of the men, certainly not Chief Worthy, would think of such a thing. I told Jeanine as much.

  “Want to fill out a comments form complimenting me on it?” Jeanine asked wryly, in her cigarette husky voice. “Maybe it’ll get me a good evaluation and fifty cents more an hour.”

  I laughed. “Sure, I’ll take a comment card. I’ll fill it in later and drop it off.”

  Jeanine rolled her eyes. “That’s what they all say.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it now.”

  She pushed a card at me and watched, suspiciously, as I filled it out. When I finished, she plucked the card from me, and read my praise of her ingenuity and attention to detail that make living in Paradise a far more pleasant experience.

  She looked at me, eyebrows lifted. But I could see a bit of softening in her eyes.

  I smiled. “I need to see Chief Worthy.”

  “He’s busy. If you got a complaint, you can fill out another form, then see Officer Trenton—”

  I thought about asking for another comment card, but veiled threats would only harden poor Jeanine further, so instead I made puppy dog eyes. “Jeanine, c’mon, it’s about the murder. Ginny Proffitt. Chief Worthy’d want me to talk with him.”