Dave nodded again. This time he met my eyes and said, “Yeah, I’ve been brushing him off for a while. Listen, this is no sweat for me, but I’ve pulled all of the insulation and most of the rafters in the attic section down. It’s pretty cold in your bedroom. You definitely want me to finish this job before it gets much colder, and if we have to work out a payment plan then that’s fine with me. Really.”
I smiled at him and stood up, squeezing his arm playfully. “I can’t imagine that it will take me any longer than two weeks to get back on track.”
“Okay, I’ll get my things then and be on my way. Call me when you want me to come back okay, Rocky?” he said, and phantom-boxed with me on his way out of the kitchen.
I saw him off and closed the door, then looked quickly at the clock, which read eleven thirty. I had only an hour and a half before my first appointment, so I raced upstairs and got underneath the showerhead, letting the hot water console my anxious heart. Still, it was a long time before the cloying scent of cigar smoke and malice snaked their way down the drain.
Chapter Six
Sunday night found me chatting happily away to my sister, who had completely forgiven me and was back home from her trip to New York. The excitement in her voice wasn’t from her success in the Big Apple, but more about the book she’d read on the plane ride home, Fifteen Minutes to Tarot Magic!
“Abby, this book makes it really simple. I’ve already memorized all of the meanings for the major arcana.”
“The major what?” I asked. Even with my lesson from Kendal—the expert—I still had no clue.
“You know, the major arcana,” she insisted in a tone that meant I should know this. The face cards like the fool, the magician, the high priestess . . .”
“Oh, okay, I get it. And the other suit cards are called what?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“Those are the minor arcana, silly. You can’t have a major without a minor.”
“Uh huh,” I said, losing interest again.
“So anyway, I think I may try to put together a party of my own next week.”
“A party of your own?” I asked.
“Sure! Why not? My book club meets on Tuesdays, and I thought it would be fun if instead of talking about some boring book we could have a little psychic party.”
My eyes had grown large. Cat was so successful at everything she tried that she tended to try everything, but this . . . well, this was different.
As her sister, however, it was impossible for me to try to insert a word of caution without coming across as a doubting Thomas. I’d have to tread carefully. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked tentatively.
Cat’s voice immediately grew defensive. “What do you mean, do I think it’s a good idea?”
Oh, crap. I’d blown it. “Well, it’s not that I think you wouldn’t be good at this. . . .” Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! “It’s just that it really takes a lot of practice to become proficient enough to offer your skills to an audience.”
“So you’re saying my party isn’t a good idea?”
Warning, minefield ahead! “No, it’s not that. It’s just that intuition is a tricky thing to master. It’s harder than it looks, and maybe you’d be better off giving individual readings to one or two close friends first, then working your way up to a group setting.”
“You don’t think I can do this, do you?”
Duck and cover! “Uh, well the thing of it is, Cat, that reading an entire group of people puts a lot of pressure on you. It sets a level of expectation, so to speak. You know what I mean?”
“You think I’m going to fall flat on my face, don’t you?” Indignation and hurt were clearly evident in Cat’s voice.
Arrroooga . . . ! Abort! Abort . . . ! Arrroooga! “Of course not. I know if you put your mind to doing something you absolutely will do it. You know what, honey? Go for it! Do the party!”
“Really?” she asked me, nearly pleading for me to believe in her.
“Of course. You’ll be fantastic!” Left side, heavy feeling. “Really, I think you’ll do great!” Liar, liar, pants on fire . . . “You should absolutely go for it. I mean, if you can’t practice on a few friends, how will you ever learn. Right?” Brruck, bruck, bruck . . . Chicken Little!!
“Exactly,” she said, relief in her voice. “So I’m thinking that I’ll give everyone a written survey after each reading so I can get some honest feedback; what do you think?”
“Great idea.” Liar, liar . . . pants on fire . . . My sister couldn’t help but insert her business sense into everything she did.
“I know! It is, isn’t it? Well, listen, on that note I need to go; I’ve still got mountains of memorizing to do, and Tommy will be home with the twins soon. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sure, sure. Have a great night, Cat,” I said, thankful to have gotten away with it, and I hung up the phone, easing backward into the comfort of the overstuffed chair and ottoman my sister had purchased for me the previous summer. Eggy was curled up on my lap, and a down throw was spread over us as the television played across the room.
Normally at this hour I would be upstairs curled up in bed, watching the telly in my bedroom, but it was freezing up there, even with the heat on high, so I’d given up going up to bed until the last possible moment.
I could, of course, pull the hideaway out from the settee in my study and sleep on that, but it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as my own bed, and I sighed again at the bleak financial picture I’d painted for myself.
With the readings from this weekend added to the abysmally low balance in my checking account, I’d just barely be able to make my office rent and mortgage payment, which, by the way, was being automatically withdrawn from my bank account on Monday.
As it was I’d even resorted to calling ten clients on my waiting list and booking them on my two days off, tomorrow and Tuesday, just so I’d have a little something higher than a goose egg in my bank account for the next few days.
If I kept adding a few clients here and there I figured I’d be back on my feet in a couple of weeks, and then I’d be able to call Dave and get him back to work.
I could, of course, ask my sister for a loan, but that was an absolute last resort. Cat wouldn’t hesitate to “loan” me the money—she was famous for her generosity—but that was just it; she wasn’t the type who allowed you to pay her back, and even though, in her mind, I would never be indebted to her, in my mind I always would.
Take my furnishings. While I was unconscious in a hospital bed, Cat had worked some major magic and refurnished my entire home. It was always in the back of my mind when I sat down on a chair, or made my bed, or did a load of laundry that it was my sister’s doing that allowed me these small luxuries. I wish I was the type of person who could receive a generous gift like that and think nothing of it, but I wasn’t. Privately, it bugged the hell out of me.
I sighed again as I thought about the other opportunity that I’d completely blown off. If I’d accepted Milo’s check, or even a small tiny fragment of it, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. It was too late to call him and tell him I’d changed my mind too. I’d already gotten a large gift basket filled with homemade chocolate-chip cookies, a ceramic ashtray, and a large card with the signatures of everyone at the Boys and Girls Club thanking me for my generous donation. A plaque with my name would be permanently displayed at the park once renovation was complete.
In a state of depression I’d eaten every cookie, and was now feeling a little sick to my stomach. My eyelids were feeling droopy when the phone rang unexpectedly, startling me out of my stupor. Quickly I picked up the receiver and whispered, “Hello?”
“Why are you whispering?” came a familiar baritone.
“Dutch?” I asked, sitting up, blinking my eyes awake.
“Yeah, babe, I just wanted to call. . . .”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest. A peace offering! “I’m really glad you did,” I said, squeezing the receiver.
“I know, I know. Me either.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
Silence, as we both searched for something else to say.
“You sound tired,” he said after a bit.
“I am. It’s been a bitch of a week. Where are you?”
“South, babe,” he said evasively.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going.” Dutch was never a man of many words. “So I have a small favor to ask you.”
“How small?”
Dutch chuckled. “Teensy-weensy.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “I’m listening.”
“Virgil’s being looked after by my neighbor’s kid while I’m away, but I was hoping you could stop by my house and check on him to make sure he’s getting enough food. I think he’d really like to see a familiar face.” Virgil was Dutch’s pet cat, and although I’ve never been big on felines, I had to admit that I had a particular soft spot for Virgil.
“I’d be happy to. Where’s the key?”
“Under the flowerpot on the back porch. You remember the alarm code?”
“Is that a hint that your birthday is a mere seven months away?”
Dutch chuckled. “Yeah, I’m subtle like that. Say, how’d your party go the other night?”
I suddenly remembered the weekend like a splash of cold water, and was so thankful that I could finally talk to someone about it that my eyes welled up with tears. “I am so glad you asked, Dutch, because there’s something I have to tell you. . . .”
“Shoot,” he said in a voice that said he could handle it.
“Well, the thing is, the reception was actually downtown, and when Kendal and I arrived we had no idea who the bride’s family really was, and as it turned out—”
“Dutch? Dutch, are you in here?” I heard a female voice say in the background of the phone call.
“Yeah, I’m on the phone,” Dutch said, pulling his voice away from the receiver.
“Oh? Okay, well, we still have some things to go over yet, so can you please wrap it up?”
“I’ll be there in a minute, Joe.”
“Kinda late for you two to be having a meeting, don’t you think?” I snapped, suddenly overcome by a certain green-eyed monster.
“I’m on assignment. There are no time frames to follow. It’s what we do,” he answered defensively.
“I see. How convenient,” I said tersely. My eyes had become slits, my foot had begun to snap back and forth and my fingers were drumming in irritation against the arm of the chair.
“Abby, please don’t start this again,” Dutch said, exasperation in his voice, which only fueled my anger.
“Start? Start?! I didn’t start this the last time! Your overly amorous partner started this, pal! So don’t pin this on me!”
“I’m not trying to pin this on you,” Dutch said, his voice tensing further. “I’m just trying to . . . Oh, for Christ’s sake! Why the hell are we even having this conversation?”
“You don’t want to converse? Fine, let’s not converse!” I said, and slammed down the receiver.
Screw him!
Screw her!
Screw everyone else!
I gathered up Eggy, who had slept through my entire tirade, and turned off the television and the living room lights. I marched up the stairs and into my bitter-cold bedroom, where I quickly got undressed and piled on a few extra blankets. I hurried into bed and wrapped myself around Eggy as I struggled to relax my breathing. It was hard, but around one a.m. exhaustion finally won out and I drifted off to a fitful sleep.
I was cold.
I remember that the most. I was really, really cold . . . and severely underdressed. I was standing in a large parking lot, in a T-shirt and shorts, hugging myself with my arms, and trying to remember how I got there. “Hello?” I called into the darkness. No one answered. I looked around the dimly lit parking lot. There were a few cars scattered about, but I couldn’t see a sign of anyone anywhere. I turned in a circle, surveying the scene, and noticed at the edge of the lot was a large store. I decided to go there and see if I could find help. I walked on the cold pavement, shivering and hearing my teeth rattle, when a man came out of the darkness and began walking toward me. I felt relief as I recognized the blue jacket and red-white-and-blue patch sewn onto the upper right shoulder of his jacket. He was a mailman. I couldn’t see his face, but as I watched him approach I noticed that he reached into his mailbag and extracted a mask, which he then slipped over his head. This alarmed me for reasons I couldn’t understand, and I hesitated in my progress toward him, pausing for a moment as he neared me. Something flickered on the edge of my thoughts, and I knew I shouldn’t be walking to him. I needed to run away, but I couldn’t remember why.
The mailman grew closer, walking intently straight for me now. He was only a few yards away, in fact, when he reached into his mailbag once again and came up with a tire iron. Now I remembered why I was afraid, and why I needed to run. I turned to bolt but my feet were stuck. I couldn’t get them to move. I felt drugged, sluggish and like I couldn’t quite open my eyes all the way. I tried to scream, seeing how close he was to me, but no sound would come out.
The postman was ten feet away now. Nine. Eight. Seven . . . With all of my might I pulled up with my right leg and kicked forward, jumping into motion and straight out of bed onto my hardwood floor. My eyes snapped open, and my breathing came in great, frantic breaths. “It was a dream,” I said into the darkness. “It was just a dream.”
After a moment I collected myself and got up from the floor. I stood on shaky legs and grabbed my flannel robe from the hook by the door; then I walked out of my bedroom and down the stairs, through the living room, which was significantly warmer than upstairs, and into the kitchen, where I flipped on the light, squinting until my eyes adjusted, and I sat down at the kitchen table to collect myself.
I sat there with my head in my hands, thinking about the dream and how terrified I’d been, while trying to rationalize that my subconscious was just trying to work through some of the inputs that I’d picked up during the day. There was something different, however, that I couldn’t quite shake. Something I needed to pay attention to.
I got up and fished through the cupboards for a minute, reaching for the instant hot chocolate I always keep on hand and a large coffee mug. I filled the mug with water and set it in the microwave for a minute, waiting for the water to heat.
Next I grabbed a notepad and a pen off the counter and set those down at my place at the table, then, when the timer dinged, I got the mug from the microwave and mixed in the hot chocolate. I walked back to the table and took a seat, staring blankly ahead, trying to ponder things for a moment. Obviously the dream was about the rapist, and I felt that there were several clues within the nightmare that I needed to make note of.
After a few warm sips of hot cocoa I picked up the pen and began to write down everything I remembered from the dream: the dark parking lot, the cars, the postman, the ski mask and the tire iron. After I finished I looked at my notes, my intuition buzzing.
Eggy came down while I was staring at the words I’d tossed onto the page, and I reached down to pick him up. He was sleepy, so I folded him into my lap and spread the sides of my robe around him.
I looked back at my notes again and asked myself, What does the mailman represent? Mail could be news, or messages, or information. Because it came from the mailman it probably meant that it came from a distance. I wondered if Milo had had any luck with the Vegas PD, remembering that I’d connected the rapist to Vegas.
For some reason, though, that didn’t feel like it fit. There was something more significant about the postman that I wasn’t connecting. There had been no mail in the mailbag, just the mask and the tire iron. So what did the postman represent?
Then it hit me, and I sucked in a breath. I got up and carried Eggy to the living room, where I laid him g
ently on the couch, then darted to my purse. It took a moment, but I found the card I was looking for and quickly dialed the number. After the tone I punched in my home number and added a 911, then hung up and paced the floor.
Within two minutes my phone was ringing and a groggy voice answered my anxious greeting with, “Abby? What’s up?”
“Thank you so much for calling me back, and I’m sorry to get you up at”—I hesitated as I looked up at the clock on the wall—“uh . . . wow, four in the morning, but I have to ask you something. Does Jeffrey Zimmer work for the post office?”
“What?”
“Jeff Zimmer, your suspect in the rape case!” I was practically shouting into the phone with excitement. “Does he work for the post office?”
There was a slight hesitation as Milo seemed to struggle with my question; then he said, “No. He’s a computer tech at Verizon.”
I knew it. “He’s not your rapist,” I said firmly.
“Do you want to tell me what this is about?”
“Okay, you’re going to think I’m nuts, but I had a dream tonight, and in it I was in this big parking lot and I was cold and lost and the only person in the lot was a postman, but I couldn’t see his face, and he reached into his mailbag and pulled out a ski mask and a tire iron and put them on!” I was so excited I was dancing on the balls of my feet.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Milo said in a tone that let me know he wasn’t amused.
I was irritated that he didn’t get where I was going, so I said, “Well, Milo, funny as that story is, I’m actually not kidding you. So as I was saying—”
“Abby?” Milo interrupted.
“What?” I said, getting impatient.
“Call me in three hours,” he said, and hung up the phone.
“Hello?” I said several times into the receiver, not believing he had actually disconnected.
With a scowl I hung up my end and paced back and forth in the room like a caged animal. I was totally onto something here, and it frustrated the crap out of me that Milo was refusing to listen. I thought about calling him again just to tell him what he could do with his “Call me in three hours” baloney, but decided against it.
Better Read Than Dead Page 12
