Death in the Cards

by Sharon Short

  I swallowed my bite of sandwich. “A psychic healer? What does that mean?”

  Skylar took a long drink of her Big Fizz Cola. “You know how in some religions, there’s faith healing—a laying on of hands?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, psychic healing is just a psychic’s version of that. Harnessing psychic energy and directing it to the person’s diseased or broken spots,” Skylar said. She lifted her eyebrows. “A bunch of hokum, you think?”

  I shrugged.

  “Just as with prayer or faith healing, it can help the patient get calmer, more centered, and that can help medical treatment work better,” Skylar said.

  I thought about that, and then nodded. “I reckon that makes sense. If a person is overly tense, then maybe traditional treatment wouldn’t work as well.”

  “It’s more than just being calm,” Skylar started, “it’s also directing karmic energy—” She stopped, shook her head. “Never mind. The point is, psychic healing can be a good boost to traditional healing, in my view. I don’t see it as a complete alternative.”

  “Some folks do?” I wasn’t sure how this information would allow me to learn anything that could help me solve Ginny’s murder, but I figured the more we talked, the more open Skylar might be to the question I really wanted to ask.

  “A few do,” Skylar said. “Including Ginny. She even had a psychic healing practice, out in California, along with someone else—I don’t know who. But she told my mother she’d retired from psychic healing, although she still believed fervently in it. In fact, she was quite opposed to traditional medicine. Not the balanced view I’ve come to adopt.”

  I lifted my eyebrows at that. Ginny was a New Age fundamentalist, I thought. On the surface, it was a strange concept. But the truth is, anyone can be fundamentalist in his or her beliefs—have the view that those beliefs are the only ones that work. And from what Skylar was saying, Ginny, in her way, was as much a fundamentalist as Dru.

  “If she believed so strongly in psychic healing, why didn’t she still practice it?”

  “She told my mother that, after some experiences in California, she realized her greatest gift was in orb reading and dream interpretation. She said she’d be glad to recommend us to another psychic healer she knew. But you know my mother.”

  “She insisted Ginny treat you.”

  “Yes. My mother trusted Ginny completely. And finally Ginny agreed to see me. I was about thirteen. I went into the room at the back of her house where she did her readings—just her and me. She made us chamomile tea.

  “Then we started talking. About the weather. Then about school. Then about ideas about things—like what did I think of psychic phenomena and life after death and that kind of thing.”

  Tears welled up in Skylar’s eyes. “You know, it was the first time an adult really talked to me about anything other than me feeling poorly, or having the sniffles, or whatever.

  “Finally, Ginny just looked at me and said that I was fine. That I was just reacting to my mother’s nervousness over me. That my mother loved me a lot but the only way she could show it was through worry, and I was picking up on all that, and making myself sick, and that I just needed to focus on knowing I was a smart, pretty, funny girl and I’d be fine.”

  Skylar stared down at her plate and started picking the crust off of her sandwich.

  “Wow,” I said. “That was pretty good advice.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t tell my mother that’s what Ginny said, though. I just told her what Ginny told me to tell her, that Ginny had used meditation to direct healing energy to me.”

  “And you were fine after that.”

  “I’m allergic to fall pollen and I’ve had two sinus infections and one sprained wrist since then,” Skylar said. “Anyway, my mother was so happy that I didn’t get sick all week after seeing Ginny that first time, that she started taking me to see her every two weeks for psychic healing treatments. Ginny and I just talked at first, and then I expressed an interest in what she did.

  “The orb and some of the other methods she showed me didn’t excite me, but somehow, when she showed me the tarot—that was not a gift for her, but she did know the basics—something inside clicked. It just somehow made sense to me, kind of like tumblers in a lock falling in place so a door could open. And Ginny became like a second mother to me.

  “When I was fifteen, Ginny finally told my mom the truth, that she’d been teaching me tarot, and that she thought I had a gift. A real calling.”

  “Ahhh,” I said. “So that’s why your mother didn’t like Ginny. She felt tricked. Or maybe that Ginny held a special place in your life that she couldn’t, or—”

  “Are you kidding?” Skylar said. She took a sudden, large bite out of her sandwich, chewed angrily, and swallowed. “She was ecstatic! Suddenly, her average kid has a gift. A calling. I was a psychic child protégé! She started having me do readings for her friends.

  “Ginny was appalled. She said a young gift like mine needed to be protected, developed. My mother thought otherwise. They argued. I kept doing readings for my mom’s friends, who just thought it was delightful.

  “I felt, though, like I was doing cheap parlor tricks. When I turned seventeen, I announced to my mom that I had somehow lost my sight. That laying out the tarot was about as inspiring to me now as a game of solitaire. She was heartbroken.

  “I graduated from high school, moved out with a friend, went to night school at a community college while working as a waitress. I finished up an Associate’s in computer technology, got a good job, a better apartment . . . and was miserable. I finally realized it was because I missed tarot so much, that it really was my true calling. So I started up again and started building a business about the same time my mother retired and in a moment of weakness I said, sure, she could be my manager and now here we are. You see what’s happening.”

  We munched our cheese sandwiches in silence, while Skylar stewed in her misery and I thought about what to say to her.

  Finally, I said, “You know, Ginny gave you some great advice years ago. You are a funny, smart, pretty young lady with a gift and a calling. Now, I’m not sure what I really believe about the psychic arts, but I do know I believe this: God put us each here with our own unique gifts.”

  Skylar fingered the cross she wore around her neck. “Yes,” she said, “I believe that, too.”

  “And it’s our job to do the best we can with the gifts we’re given,” I went on. “Even if we have to tell our mamas that we need to do that alone.” Of course, my mama had run off when I was a young girl, so I’d never had to have any such conversation. But Skylar didn’t need to know that.

  Skylar sighed.

  “Her feelings will be hurt, but she’ll get over it more quickly than you think. She loves you.”

  A look of pain flashed across Skylar’s face. “How do you know that?”

  I didn’t, I thought, any more than Skylar really knew what choices I’d have to face. But she trusted in her gift of intuition, and every now and again, I trusted in mine. “I just believe that,” I said.

  A look of relief crossed Skylar’s face. “You’re right. I need to talk to my mother. I knew that. I was just putting it off.” She started to stand up.

  “Wait,” I said. “I want to ask you something now.”

  Skylar sat back down. “For you, Josie, it’s complimentary.”

  That was good, I thought, since she’d charged me twenty bucks for my reading.

  “Several people noticed that last night, Ginny saw something in her crystal ball that upset her. Then she got your attention and both of you went to the break area. When you came back out, Ginny looked upset, gazed into her crystal ball, grabbed it, and then left. What happened, Skylar?”

  Skylar’s face closed again. “She asked me for a tarot reading. I gave it to her. She was distraught over the results.”

  Interesting, I thought. For some reason, Ginny sought out her former pupil for guidance. Didn’t she trust her ow
n abilities to, as Skylar put it, find her path? Or had she seen something so awful on her path that she found it unbelievable? Had she even been concerned about herself, or could it be someone else’s path that worried her?

  More questions. And I hadn’t come any closer to answering the ones I’d already written out.

  “What was she asking about?”

  Skylar frowned at me. “That’s confidential. Clients come to us with problems that they don’t want anyone else to know about.”

  “I can appreciate that,” I said. “But Ginny was murdered.”

  Skylar flinched at that, but held my gaze and didn’t say anything.

  I leaned forward. “This is confidential, too, but I’m going to tell you anyway. In a few days, it will be ruled that Ginny committed suicide.”

  At that, Skylar gasped. “No, no, she wouldn’t—she wanted—” she stopped, put her hand over her mouth. Her hand was trembling.

  “I don’t believe she would commit suicide, either,” I said. I sucked in my breath sharply at a thought that hit me all at once. I wasn’t sure if I should share it, though. It might get her to tell me why Ginny had come to her. But it also might make her and her mama run. Karen was still on my list of suspects for killing Ginny. After all, Karen had been angry that Ginny took clients away from Skylar. As crazy as it seemed, it was possible that Karen had killed Ginny with the notion that somehow getting rid of Ginny would help Skylar’s career.

  I studied Skylar for a moment. Would Skylar have helped her mama with a scheme like that? No, I didn’t think she’d plan out something like that, but she might protect her mama.

  There was only one way to shake information loose from Skylar. Scare her a little.

  “Skylar, I heard about your and Ginny’s private meeting from my friend earlier today. She’d been at the psychic fair yesterday, and saw you and Ginny go off, saw how Ginny looked when you two came out of the break area. If she remembers you two, and noticed Ginny’s expression, then lots of people could have, too.”

  Skylar shrugged as she ate her grilled cheese.

  “My friend assumed you gave Ginny a reading. She assumed the reading was based on something Ginny told you or asked you, something important. If she saw all that and assumed all those things, then the killer could have, too. Or heard about it from someone who did.”

  Skylar’s eyes widened as she peered nervously around the dining area. She dropped the last crust of the cheese sandwich back to her plate.

  “You really think Ginny’s killer could have picked up the fact that Ginny—that she—” Skylar’s voice trailed off.

  I was right! I thought. Ginny had told Skylar something important just before rushing off to the corn maze—and her death.

  “If Ginny told you something or asked you something that relates to why she ran out of the psychic fair last night, you need to tell the police,” I said. “It might help them figure out why she was killed.”

  “But you said the police believe she committed suicide.”

  “True.” I paused. “But I don’t believe that.”

  Skylar glanced around again, and then leaned toward me. “All right. I’ll tell you what I know, and then you tell me if you think I should go to the police. Ginny was ill. Very ill.”

  I’d learned that from Chief Worthy, but I lifted my eyebrows in an effort to look surprised.

  “She had cancer, melanoma,” Skylar said. “She was in the early stages of the disease, so she still had most of her energy, still could look and act as she normally did. She hadn’t started any traditional medical treatments, although she was doing things with her diet and herbs to fight the illness. She’d started psychic healing on herself, saying she’d refound her gift. In fact, it had worked so well on her, that she was thinking of again practicing psychic healing for others. And I know she wanted to go to Tijuana, Mexico, for a radical alternative cancer treatment, but didn’t have the money, yet.”

  “She told you all this yesterday.”

  Skylar shook her head. “No. She called me about two weeks ago. She was excited about the treatment as a complement to the psychic healing and diet changes she’d already started. She described the treatment as including organic supplements, lymphatic massage, coffee enemas . . .”

  I shuddered.

  “My mother doesn’t know anything about the conversation I had with Ginny.”

  Really, I thought. Could Skylar be so sure? What if Karen had found out about the contact and killed Ginny in a fit of maternal jealousy? Skylar had said moments before that Ginny had been, at one point, like a second mother to her. I didn’t think Karen would handle that very well. She might even feel betrayed by Skylar’s contact with her daughter and take it out on Ginny.

  “Ginny and I met several times,” Skylar was saying. “I gave her tarot readings around the question of her health and her decisions to seek radical treatment.” Skylar paused, chewed on her lip. “I always told her, after the readings, that she should keep talking to her traditional doctor, whatever she decided.

  “But she was adamant that she had no faith in traditional medicine. That she’d seen someone young and important to her die in its care.”

  “Did she say who?” I asked. Winnie was researching Ginny’s background that afternoon. This would be important information to her. “Was it a relative, a child?”

  Skylar shook her head. “Ginny never married, never had kids. I didn’t press for information.”

  “Was this what she was asking you about last night, then? More guidance on her illness?”

  Skylar stared off, her expression distant and troubled, as if seeking guidance from some other place about just how much to tell me. I kept silent. There was no point in pushing her.

  Finally, Skylar looked at me. She spoke quietly, evenly. “She did not ask about her health last night. She told me she had an important meeting to go to. She had to give advice as well as seek it, she said, and she wanted to know what probable obstacles or outcomes to expect.

  “So I did a simple one-card tarot reading around that question, having Ginny shuffle the cards until she was ready for me to pull the top one. It was the Death card. I interpreted it to mean that a distinct change in action was needed—either for her, or for the person she was meeting with.” Skylar shook her head. “But Ginny took it more literally. The word in the psychic community is that she’s been telling her clients specific outcomes, not potential paths or changes that might be considered. I guess she’s been doing that with her personal readings, too. Dangerous territory.”

  I sucked in my breath at that. “So Ginny interpreted what you saw as being about her death?” And yet Ginny had run out of the psychic fair, with her crystal ball, to her death.

  But Skylar was shaking her head. “I don’t think so. She kind of went into a momentary trance, and said something to herself at the end of the reading, something like, ‘no, not again,’ then snapped out of it and thanked me and ran out of the break area.”

  At which point, I thought, lots of people—and possibly her killer—saw Ginny emerge from her conversation with Skylar, looking distraught, saw her look into her crystal ball, look even more distraught at whatever she saw there, then run out of the psychic fair, abandoning her many fans and clients.

  “Do you think I should talk to the police about this?” Skylar asked.

  “Yes. But I’d keep it simple and say that Ginny mentioned to you that she had an important meeting just before she ran out of the psychic fair. Tell them you’re concerned that Ginny’s killer might have seen that Ginny was talking to you and assumed Ginny told you about the meeting—she didn’t tell you more than what you’ve already told me, did she?”

  Skylar shook her head. She looked terrified. If she had known more, she would have told me.

  “The suicide ruling won’t be public for a few days, so the police should listen to you. The fact Ginny was planning a meeting—not something someone about to commit suicide would do—might get them to take another look at her ca
se.” I thought about Chief Worthy and doubted it. “At least, you might get some protection from them, if they know you’re scared.”

  Skylar shook her head. “This whole fair has been a bust for me. I’m going to head home.”

  ”When do you think you’ll go talk to the police?” I asked.

  “Right away!” said Skylar. “Then my mother and I are going to stay put in the motel room and leave first thing in the morning.”

  “You’ll want to avoid mentioning to the police that you’re talking to them as a result of having first talked with me,” I added.

  Skylar lifted her eyebrows at that.

  I grinned sheepishly. “Long story. Short version is that the chief and I have known each other all our lives. We dated for a while in high school, broke up, and he’s never quite forgiven me since I was the one who did the breaking up.”

  “Ah. You damaged his male ego,” Skylar said. “You must really watch your speedometer carefully when you’re wheeling through town.”

  I laughed, both at the truth of her comment and in relief at her being able to make a joke. She’d be all right, I told myself.

  “You two doing okay?”

  I looked up at the gruff voice of Greta, who had materialized at our booth, hands on her aproned hips. Greta looked worn out but happy. She’d always loved running the motel’s restaurant until it no longer made sense to keep the restaurant open for anything other than a limited menu. Well, this weekend’s menu was still pretty limited, but at least she had enough customers to cook for that it seemed like the good old days to her.

  “Doing fine,” I said. “I told Skylar here you make the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world.”

  Skylar, despite her worries, didn’t miss a beat. “And she was right, Mrs. Rhinegold.”

  Greta beamed. “Well, I’m right glad to hear that. Josie, I found what you were asking for.”

  She pulled a brown bottle labeled HYDROGEN PEROXIDE

  out of her front apron pocket and put the bottle on the table. Skylar stared at it curiously.

  “For a cut on my toe. It’s a great disinfectant,” I said.