Death in the Cards

by Sharon Short

  Winnie shook her head. “I’m still stunned. I knew we were having financial problems because of the state budget cuts, but I’d never have predicted . . .” she stopped and shook her head again.

  I had to smile at how her comments echoed my own.

  “Tell me what’s happened since we talked, and then I’ll tell you what I’ve learned,” Winnie said.

  I filled her in on the events of the day. I hesitated before telling her about the book burning that Dru had tried to start, and that Luke and Greta had ended. I knew how passionately she felt about books and freedom of expression, and after the bookmobile’s closure, this news might be emotionally overwhelming to her.

  But Winnie is a strong woman. So I told her about the book burning. She glowered as I described the fire and the books that were tossed on the bonfire.

  “Dru Purcell is desperate to have everyone focused on the psychics and how awful they supposedly are because of more than just his religious beliefs,” Winnie said. “I found out today why he didn’t want the LeFevers here, or the psychic fair at the Red Horse, or in particular, Ginny Proffitt here.”

  She smiled triumphantly. I wanted her to just spill the facts, but I knew I had to praise her first. Winnie takes great (and justifiable) pride in her research skills.

  “Winnie, how did you find out all of that?” I asked, then sipped on my Big Fizz, and settled against the booth back.

  “I started by digging into Ginny’s background—news clippings, mostly, about her business in Chicago. Some of the earlier ones mentioned she’d had her first business, a psychic healing practice, in Randsburg, California, which is a tiny town in the Mojave Desert, about eighty miles east of Los Angeles. There’s not much out there, except a Naval weapons-testing and development facility.

  “So then I started looking for articles about Ginny in the L.A. Times online archives. And I found one—just one. But I hit pay dirt.”

  Winnie opened up her quilted cloth handbag and pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to me. I took the envelope, opened it up, pulled out a printout, and started reading.

  When I finished, I looked up at Winnie. “Oh my Lord.”

  Winnie grinned and nodded.

  The Shoo Flies started warming up for their next set. Martin came over. “Hey, Josie!” he said to me. Then he grinned at his wife, beaming as he always did in Winnie’s presence. Twenty-five years of marriage later, they still acted like newlyweds. As they went back to the dance floor to wiggle to the Shoo Flies’ version of “Let’s Give ’Em Something to Talk About,” I scanned the article again.

  Twenty-five years ago, when Winnie and Martin really were newlyweds, Ginny Proffitt, who had claimed that she’d never married, had in fact been married for three years . . . to Dru Purcell.

  The article was a feature about Crystal Visions, a psychic reading and healing program run by Ginny and Dru Purcell. People from all over southern California had flocked to their program, swearing by the results. “Amazing!” and “Miraculous!” patrons were quoted as exclaiming.

  The article went on to explain that Ginny and Dru had first met each other at Serpent Mound, when they’d each been on group trips from their separate high schools to the site. Then, Ginny had moved out west to pursue her interest in the “psychic arts.” Dru had enlisted in the Army with his good friend Ed Crowley (that made sense, I thought . . . I knew they’d been friends). Dru and Ed had been stationed out at Edwards Air Force Base.

  Dru and Ginny met again at a psychic fair in Bakersfield. Ginny was working at the fair and Dru was attending it. The couple fell in love and married and Dru did not re-enlist. Dru moved to Randsburg with Ginny to help her with her business and to pursue his real love, painting landscapes. (My eyebrows shot up at that. Dru, a fine artist? And then I thought of the paint-spattered overalls in the suitcase. The paints were artists’, not housepainters’, as I’d assumed. The overalls, with their paint. . . and their blood stains . . . had to be Dru’s.)

  Then, the article went on, Dru discovered he, too, had an ability in psychic healing. (Just how does someone discover an ability like that? I wondered. Ginny says, damn, cut my thumb opening the tuna fish can, and Dru, instead of grabbing a Band-Aid for her, starts meditating over her thumb and it heals?) So he became her partner in the psychichealing portion of her business, although she was the only one who did readings.

  And that was it. The article was an upbeat feature, just a little patronizing in tone in places (I could sympathize with the skeptical reporter on that), laced with quotes from the Purcells’ large following, and a few quotes from a Christian fundamentalist preacher in Bakersfield (the nearest city to Randsburg) condemning the Purcells for their “dabbling in devil’s arts.”

  Wasn’t that ironic? I thought, crunching on an ice cube. The Shoo Flies had moved on to another song, but I wasn’t sure what it was. The music and laughter and chatter whirled around me as I thought over what I’d just learned.

  No wonder Dru hadn’t wanted the LeFevers opening a psychic/New Age bookstore in town; the young couple reminded him too much of when he’d been married to Ginny.

  And no wonder Dru hadn’t wanted the psychic fair—especially with Ginny as the star attraction—at the Red Horse.

  What would his flock think if they knew of his past as a psychic healer and husband to Ginny? What would Missy think? Would Dru kill Ginny just to hide his history with her?

  Or what if Missy knew? Would she kill Ginny out of jealousy?

  I shook my head at myself while crunching another ice cube. Nope. Those theories were too simple. They didn’t explain a lot of things, like why Ginny wanted to come here in the first place to meet Dru again after all those years. Why she’d left me with a suitcase that contained only the handkerchief with the annoyingly cryptic note and the overalls, which I was reckoning (but couldn’t know for sure) had belonged to Dru. Overalls and a handkerchief that also held old bloodstains.

  Those simple theories also didn’t tell me whose blood was on the overalls and handkerchief, or who Ginny had met at the corn maze and why, or who had come to her Red Horse room and why Max wouldn’t tell me about the visit, or what she’d thought her tarot reading with Skylar really meant, or what she’d seen in her own crystal ball right after that reading, or why she’d run out after the two readings, or what role, if any, her illness and her return to psychic healing and alternative medicines played in her decision to come here to Paradise.

  I’d run out of ice cubes, so I started chewing on my lip. I remembered Skylar telling me that Ginny had planned on going to Mexico to try a radical alternate cancer treatment to supplement the psychic healing she’d been selfadministering, when she got more money.

  Could Ginny have been hoping to blackmail Dru with their past and with whatever knowledge those stained overalls represented? So she could get the cash she needed to go to Mexico?

  Possibly. I could believe that. But that still left a lot of questions unanswered. I was bothered by what she’d seen in her readings that made her rush out in a hurry, apparently unplanned. I was also bothered by why and how she’d known about my Mrs. Oglevee dreams and why and how she’d homed in on me as the person to figure things out if something happened to her.

  The circumstantial evidence pointed to Dru and Missy, and I wanted to believe it, but, somehow, even as angry as I was at Dru and Missy for all the havoc they’d created over the weekend with their protest at the corn maze and the book burning, for as annoyed as their self-righteousness made me, I suddenly felt uneasy with the idea of either Dru or Missy as Ginny’s murderers. Maybe it was because I hadn’t had time yet to investigate the other suspects.

  True, Winnie had uncovered fascinating information about Dru, but something was niggling at the back of my mind, something that didn’t feel quite right about all I’d learned of Ginny’s life and the circumstances surrounding her death . . .

  “Hey, pretty lady, want this dance?”

  “Huh?” I said. Not the most elegant response t
o a dance request, but the question had jolted me out of my reverie.

  I looked up at the source of the question, a tall, dark-haired man, with blazing azure eyes and a sexy, confident grin that made me grin right back. He had a fit, muscled body that filled out a denim shirt and jeans nicely. Even the silly cowboy hat didn’t look silly on him.

  His was the sort of physique and style that usually quickened my pulse, and set my desires to humming. In fact, gazing back at Mr. Azure Eyes, I felt that hum start up, a pleasant little buzzing just under my skin that revved up quickly.

  Before Owen, I’d have said yes to that dance request in a red-hot minute, never mind the fact that with this kind of man there was no future. That had always been the point.

  But this was after Owen. Or maybe during Owen. I wasn’t sure. All I knew for sure was that this wasn’t before Owen and that, even though part of me envied Cherry’s good times back at the Red Horse, I didn’t really want that for myself. I wanted Owen. Didn’t I?

  I sighed. Confused and lonely are not good states of mind in which to accept dances with handsome strangers, even at a friendly bar where the bartender’s your cousin and will willingly whap upside the head anyone who gets too fresh, too fast. Or send Junior, the bouncer, to do the whapping.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not fit for company right now. In fact, I’m heading home.” Or to the Red Horse, anyway. But explaining that, I thought, would probably sound like an invitation of some sort.

  Mr. Azure Eyes tipped his hat. “I can take no for an answer. But maybe the next time our paths cross, you’ll feel like company. Or at least a dance.”

  He glided off, and I had to smile. The ego he wore on his shirtsleeve was at least genuine. A little thing like “no, thanks,” wasn’t going to make him pouty or demanding. I didn’t know who he was. Probably he lived in Masonville or maybe he was from one of the Columbus suburbs and liked to get out to the “real” country bars away from the slick, themed ones. I’d heard that line before, too. Before Owen.

  I blinked back tears. Damn it, I wished I knew what was going on with Owen, why he hadn’t talked openly with me, what was going to become of our relationship.

  Hard times and a difficult choice . . .

  Skylar’s words from her tarot reading for me flitted across my mind. She could have been talking about selecting between a mutual fund and an annuity. Or picking out a comfortable, well-fitting bra.

  But it seemed her words also fit my relationship with Owen. I stood up, pulled a pen from my handbag, scrawled a quick note across the manila envelope—“Thanks. I’ve got the printout. Josie.”—and left it beside Winnie’s drink. I folded up the printout and put it and my pen back in my handbag.

  Then I left the Bar-None. In the last thirty-six or so hours, I’d had an eerie psychic reading foisted on me, found a murdered body, gotten myself tangled up in investigating the murder, discovered my beloved cousin might be quite ill, sort-of broken up with my boyfriend, or at the very least had a doozy of a fight with him, been evicted from my business and my home, witnessed the sickening sight of a book burning, and turned away Mr. Azure Eyes.

  I was weary. All I wanted to do was get back to Room 23 at the Red Horse and collapse into blissful sleep.

  20

  Half an hour later, I’d had a nice, hot shower and put on my comfy Tweety Bird jammies and my thick white socks, and gotten into bed in my room at the Red Horse.

  And I was wide-awake.

  I couldn’t think about anything. My head was buzzing—no thoughts, just buzzing. My whole body felt awake, vital, poised to spring. This was not the effect I’d hoped the earlier bourbon and then the hot shower and the comfy jammies and socks would have on me.

  So, of course, being wide-awake but unable to focus on anything, I was eating crab Rangoons, which I’d nuked to gooey warmness in the motel microwave in the lobby. I used my green tomato relish as a dipping sauce. It was a combo that was much tastier than it probably sounds.

  And I had on the TV. A Mary Tyler Moore rerun, on TV Land. (The Rhinegolds got a satellite dish the previous Christmas, and as a result, all the Red Horse room TVs have access to just about any cable station available.) I was a newborn at the time the show was a hit its first time around.

  I wasn’t the demographic, agewise at least, that the show in its second time around was aimed at, but I didn’t care. Mary Richards, as played by Mary Tyler Moore, was more pulled together as a single woman than I’d ever be. And her apartment was cooler. I won’t even go into how much better her sense of style was, which anyone could figure out given that my big fashion inspiration for the year had been pairing the ancient Tweety Bird T-shirt with the kitten-print PJ pants I’d picked up at Big Sam’s in Masonville.

  I watched Mary deftly handle Lou Grant’s rant and ate another crab Rangoon with green tomato relish. Then Mary had a sensitive conversation with Rhoda about Rhoda’s nagging mother.

  Where was my Rhoda? I thought. I wanted a Rhoda to talk to . . .

  I heard a bang and a fit of giggles from room 23. My Rhoda was next door, in the form of Cherry, doing God only knew what—well, I could guess—with Max. No, I thought, munching another crab-Rangoon-in-green-tomato-relish. The analogy just didn’t work. Cherry was no Rhoda. I was surely no Mary.

  A few minutes later, I jolted awake, disoriented. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was and why. Then I moaned. My tummy hurt. I looked at the crab Rangoon box. Empty, except for a few dollops of green tomato relish. I glanced at the TV. Still on, but Mary had given way to Miami Vice. Ugh. I felt around, found the remote, and clicked the TV off.

  I’d finished my snack and drifted off, I realized, to a dreamless sleep. Lucky me—but not for long. Something had jolted me awake. What?

  There was a banging on my door. Ah. I swung my legs around, hopped out of the bed, went to the door, and peered out the peephole. I couldn’t see a thing. Still peering out the peephole, I felt along the wall until I found a switch. I flicked it up and the light outside by the door popped on. A figure jumped back.

  I caught the outline of a cowboy hat first. Mr. Azure Eyes? Maybe I was still dreaming. Hmmm. This could be good. Then the figure leaned forward to knock on the door again. Max Whitstone.

  I opened the door.

  Max looked worried. “We’re in a terrible fix next door and Cherry asked me to come get you.”

  I eyed Max suspiciously and started to shut the door. “I’m not interested in your weird games. Go knock on another door.”

  Max stuck out his hand to keep the door from shutting. “Look, Cherry’s in trouble and she said she needed your help.”

  That was pretty unbelievable, Cherry specifically asking for my help. But Max looked distraught. And I heard a wailed “Damn it!” from their room.

  “All right. Just a minute,” I said. I popped back into my room long enough to grab my room key, attached to a big plastic red horse, then stepped outside and shut my room door.

  I followed Max for the five or six steps it took to get to his room. He opened the door, stepped in and then to the side, and I stepped in, too.

  The bed was a jumble of sheets and pillows. Cherry, in a bright red lacy nightie, sat on the floor in the midst of chip bags and pop cans and the ice bucket, which was empty, open, and on its side. She was next to the minifridge, her head smack against its door just above the handle, as if she and the fridge had fused into a weird variation of Siamese twins. Then I realized that Cherry was sitting like that because a large shank of her hair was stuck inside the fridge. And that she was crying.

  Cherry pointed at Max. “It was his idea! He wanted to use the Silly Putty! At first I said no, but then he described what we could do, and so I said, s-s-sure, and it was fun—k-k-kinda—but then the Silly Putty got in my hair . . .”

  Max tried to sound calm even though his voice trembled. “Now, Josie, it’s like this. I read in a book called Advanced Sex Tricks that you can enhance foreplay with Silly Putty by—”

&nbs
p; I didn’t hear the rest. I’d stuck my fingers in my ears and scrunched my eyes closed in a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil pose. It wasn’t that I didn’t want folks to have-no-fun. I just didn’t want to hear about it. Long after Max was gone from Paradise, Cherry’d be running the Chat N Curl next to my laundromat, and we’d be hanging out with Sally, and squabbling, and there were just certain images, I was sure, that I didn’t want randomly popping into my head. The one of Cherry fused to the minifridge and sobbing was bad enough.

  I opened one eye, then the other. Max was still looking embarrassed, Cherry still sobbing by the minifridge. Both of them had their mouths shut, though, so I slowly removed my fingers from my ears.

  I looked at Cherry. “You have Silly Putty in your hair. And you want my help in getting it out.”

  Cherry half sobbed, half hiccupped. “I remembered that if you get Silly Putty on your clothes you put them in the freezer and then scrape off the putty, so I thought if I stuck my hair in the minifridge that would help, but it’s not working—”

  “I thought if she waited a little longer . . .” Max put in.

  “Shut up,” Cherry and I told him in unison.

  “Then I remembered you had some trick for Sally when Harry ground Silly Putty into his new jeans. She told me about it because she was so amazed but now I can’t remember what it was, and oh, Josie, do you think it could work on hair?” she stopped in a fit of hiccups and sniffles.

  “I take it that the Silly Putty is not just on the tips of your hair?” If it were, Cherry could have just trimmed the ends and avoided this entire embarrassing scene.

  “It is,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, “embedded all the way to my scalp. In places.”

  I really, really did not want to know how that had happened. But there was something else I did want to know.

  Folks think having stain expertise just qualifies you for rescuing clothes or linens that would otherwise have to become cleaning rags. But truth be told, a little bit of stain expertise can go a long way in helping you solve puzzles and gathering information.