Stolen Hearts

by Jane Tesh

  She perked up. “I see it as a huge opportunity for the Service. We have people who channel all sorts of musicians, spirit writing, phantom music. I want Robertson and his team to include us in his program, and Cam would be the perfect spokesperson.”

  I thought about the strange folk songs Camden had been singing lately and decided this was the last thing to mention. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, besides his looks and his singing voice, he’s very receptive to spirits. I’m sure he could call up anyone they need.”

  This was so ridiculous I wasn’t sure what to say. However, I’d figured out why she wanted to speak to me in person. “You think I can convince him to do this?”

  “I don’t see why not. The two of you seem to be good friends. I would appreciate it if you talked with him.”

  Like Camden, I didn’t promise anything. “I’ll see. When is Robertson coming to town?”

  “In the next few days. I understand he’s in talks with Morgan Freeman to do the narration.”

  “Sounds like a big deal.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “A really big deal.” She straightened the poster for “Ready To Believe,” even though it looked straight to me. “Actually, I’m one of three people being considered for the Psychic Network producer’s job.”

  Oh, ho. “So this could be your big break?”

  She made an unsuccessful attempt to sound casual. “Possibly.”

  “Do you know if there’s going to be anything about Stephen Foster in the documentary?”

  “I don’t know. Is there a paranormal angle?”

  “There might be a connection to the documentary. Did you hear about the break-in at the Smithsonian? A man was murdered, and some music was destroyed, maybe even stolen. It was all old American folk music, probably the same kind that’s going to be featured in the documentary, including, I would imagine, songs by Foster.”

  I could almost see a little machine in Ellin’s mind cranking out dollar bills. “Anything by Foster would be extremely valuable. That’s something to consider. But I’ve researched Spiritualism. There was a popular song in 1853 called ‘Spirit Rappings.’ Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if Cam sang this in the documentary? It fits right in with the time period.”

  “If Camden sang this as himself, or someone else?”

  “Well, it would certainly add an exciting dimension if there was an actual spirit involved.”

  “But this documentary, it’s about the history of American music, right? Not the history of American ghosts.”

  “Whatever it is,” she said, “I want in.”

  By any means necessary? Ellin Belton looked like a gal who just might do that.

  ***

  On my way back toward Grace Street, I pulled in at an apartment complex that had a “For Rent” sign out front. Despite a slightly shabby appearance, the buildings, parking lot, and grounds were clean. The swimming pool was closed for the season, but several children were in the small playground area, swinging and sliding.

  The manager showed me the unit, a four room apartment, very basic, also clean, but just about as sterile and soulless a place as you could imagine: beige walls, brown carpet, tan linoleum in the kitchen. Even the light was wrong, a melancholy sort of light that said, well, this is all I can manage. I thought of the riot of color that was the Grace Street island living room and the way the sunlight poured in from the back bay window. I thought of the green bedroom with the view of the oak trees and the room that could be my office.

  I thanked the manager and went out. I was just about to the Fury when I saw one mother help her little girl off the swings. She bounced the child on her hip and swung her around, laughing. I couldn’t look away. They were so young, so spontaneous. I had taken Lindsey to the park to swing many times.

  The mother hugged her daughter and started to carry her back home. That’s when the little girl saw me. She smiled at me over her mother’s shoulder, and then, to my amazement, she blew me a kiss.

  My heart stopped for a moment and then began to pound furiously. I could see Lindsey dashing off to school, pausing to throw me a kiss with that same exuberant gesture, those same sparkling eyes.

  A message. A message from Lindsey.

  No, damn it! A coincidence! There were thousands of little girls in this city, and they all knew how to blow kisses. If I started reading deep significant meanings into ordinary occurrences, I’d go crazy. Get a grip!

  But I stood there, unable to move, until the little girl and her mother had gone into their apartment. Why me? I didn’t look like the kind of person who deserved a kiss. I looked exactly like what I was, a down-at-the-heels loser who was trying to get by. What made her smile at me in the first place? I hadn’t encouraged her in the slightest. It was almost as if she had recognized me.

  A sign. A message.

  No!

  No.

  Chapter Six

  “The Sorrow-Filled Dream”

  By now, it was past five. I was tired and freaked out and wanted to head on home for dinner.

  Head on home? What was I thinking? I didn’t deserve a home like 302 Grace. I sure as hell didn’t deserve anyone like Kary. I wasn’t even sure I deserved dinner.

  But when I pulled up to the house and sat for a moment looking at it, the place couldn’t have appeared any more warm and inviting. Lights gleamed from the porch and the big front windows. Inside, nothing was beige.

  One more night, I told myself.

  As I made my way through the house, I could hear voices. Rufus and Buddy were in the backyard, making a hell of a mess. Buddy’s a Rufus clone, only a little lighter and a little less hairy. He had on overalls and a baseball cap that said, “Old Fishermen Never Die, They Just Smell That Way.” The two of them were surrounded by piles of wood shavings, pieces of wood, paint cans, tools, boxes, and cartons of Mountain Dew. I stepped out the kitchen door and gave them a wave.

  Buddy squinted up at me. “What are you doing here, Randall? Thrown out again?”

  “You should go on Jeopardy. You’ve got all the answers.”

  Both Rufus and Buddy can take a joke, which is good, considering how big they are. They snorted and snickered. Buddy said, “Well, I wanted to go, but Rufus here done beat me to it. Won ten thousand dollars, didn’t you, Rufe?”

  Rufus dug in the pocket of his overalls for a can of chewing tobacco. “Had all my categories. Dogs, Hunting, Famous Strippers, Fishing Lures, and Words That Begin With F.”

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “Getting ready for the festival,” Buddy said. “Say, Randall, I want you to find me a dulcimer player.”

  “A what?” I inspected the rows of wooden ducks lined up for a final coat of varnish. “A dulcimer player?”

  “Yup. A possum bit Velmer’s hand, and it’s all swole up, so he’s not able to play this year, and I need somebody to fill in.”

  I’d forgotten that Buddy and his fellow bluegrass musicians set up on a corner downtown and assaulted everyone’s eardrums during the festival. Bluegrass music’s fine in small doses, but Buddy and Rufus have been known to sing. The term “nasal” doesn’t even come close to the barnyard sound these two can produce.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said, “but I don’t know many musicians. Did you ask Kary?”

  Rufus used his screwdriver to pry open a can of paint. “Thought we would when she gets home. I told Bud the group was fine with just him and the others, but he don’t believe me.”

  Buddy chipped carefully at a duck’s beak. “Needs more than just banjo, bass, and guitar. The dulcimer’s what brings in the tourists.”

  As far as I can tell, a dulcimer’s a piece of piano you bang on with little hammers. The twangy sound’s not quite piano, not quite harp. “Did you ask at the Crow Bar?”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, we put some notices up. Kinda pushing it, though, to be ready by next week.”

  “I can play a kazoo if that’ll help.”

  Buddy turned his head and sent a spray of tobacco juice across the yard. “Got a hot case goin’?”

  “I wish. All I’ve got is a lost locket and a dead songwriter.” Insignificant cases, perhaps, but I needed them.

  “Somebody must not’ve liked his songs.”

  I got a cola out of the fridge, checked to make sure the recorder was working, and took a few minutes to watch Gene Barry save America instead of London. Those creepy ships with their headlamp eyeballs still give me the chills.

  “Run out and sneeze on them, Gene,” I said. When the world had been saved, I picked the TV Guide off the coffee table and looked through the listings until I found the channel for Bible TV. The Ingram Bible Hour was on several times a day and had fifteen minutes to go in this hour. The Reverend Gary Neil Ingram, a large blond man with a red face, alternated between pleading and threatening people to come to the Lord. Sitting behind him was a large blonde woman in a lavender suit, her hair poofed up in an array of curls. She gazed at the man adoringly. Behind her was a row of men and women who nodded and clapped their hands at everything the reverend said. I could only watch a little of the program. I’ve always had difficulty with a god who keeps score.

  When the world had been saved again, not only by Gene Barry but by the Reverend Gary Neil, I turned off the TV and started dinner. I put some sweet potatoes in the microwave and hunted in the cabinets for a can of green peas. I turned the potatoes for their second nuking when the phone rang. It was Tamara.

  “Hello,” she said. “Who’s speaking, please?”

  “This is David Randall, a friend of Camden’s.”

  “Oh, yes, David. We’ve met. I was just wondering. Cam’s been odd today, not quite himself. And if he doesn’t stop with the morbid songs, I’ll have to fire him.”

  “I’ll check with him when he gets home.”

  “Ellin picked him up about thirty minutes ago.”

  “We may never see him again.”

  Her voice was concerned. “It may not be anything, but several times today, he just started singing these sad songs. I’m not sure what the customers thought. When I asked him about it, he looked at me like, so what? It was very unlike him.”

  Every so often, Camden does something like this, just goes off into space, or acts bizarre. “I’ll see what I can do, Tamara.”

  She thanked me and hung up.

  Kary came in around five thirty with some fried chicken. She set the red-and-white striped bucket on the counter. “Here’s the main course. The sweet potatoes smell good.”

  “We’ll be ready in about five minutes.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to practice a little.”

  In a few minutes, a lively melody I didn’t recognize filled the house. What was I going to do about Kary? Trying not to think about her only increased the tension. I busied myself wrapping the potatoes in foil to keep them hot. This was crazy. I could not get involved with another woman. Not now. I’d wish her the best. Nobody would believe me, but I wanted her to have whatever she wanted in life, and if that meant Donnie Taylor, then okay.

  I put the plate of potatoes on the table and then nuked the green peas. I filled the glasses with ice and set one at each place. The music spun itself out in ripples of notes.

  Kary finished playing and returned to the table. “There should be some napkins on the counter next to the grocery frog.”

  “The grocery frog?” I looked around for a real one.

  She pointed to a large green ceramic frog hiding behind her books on the counter. It had a scooped out back like a big dish. Various coins and bills lay inside. “That’s the grocery frog. We all pitch in.”

  “I see.” I reached over to the basket on the counter and took out two napkins, realizing it would just be Kary and me for supper. Rufus and Buddy had gone to the Crow Bar, their hangout, and Ellin had yet to return Camden. I didn’t know where old Fred was and I didn’t care. “That was a nice piece you were playing. What was it?”

  She put a sweet potato and some peas on her plate and then took a drumstick from the bucket. “Oh, nothing really, just a little something I made up.”

  “You write music?”

  She brought her plate to the table, sat down, and took great interest in arranging her napkin on her lap. “I just sort of play around. I’m not very good at it.”

  “I thought it was great.” I filled my plate and sat down across from her.

  “Well, thank you.” Kary carefully peeled the foil from her potato. “I have to admit I’m intrigued by you, David.” Before I could spring happy cartwheels around the table, she added, “I guess I’ve always been fascinated by people who want to solve crimes.”

  Okay, so she was intrigued by my job and not me, personally. It was a start.

  She reached for the butter. “You’re actually doing something to make things better in the world, not just singing about it.”

  “Singing?”

  Kary looked flustered. “Did I say singing? I meant thinking. Thinking about it. You want to make things right.”

  “Well, I hope I can.”

  “You’ve been married before, haven’t you?”

  Whoa, where did that come from? Was this going to be a deal breaker in our fledgling relationship? Although peas and sweet potatoes are soft foods, I had a hard time swallowing. “Yes.” I left it at that. No need to trouble her with the details.

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

  “My fault entirely.”

  “Any advice?”

  Don’t do it, I wanted to say. You are my dream girl, my soul mate. Give me time to prove I can be the one you want.

  Are you insane? The other part of me said. What makes you think you’ll manage any better with Kary? But something inside insisted she was the one. I was just as delusional about Kary as Camden was about Ellin.

  “Well, it’s tricky. You have to be certain you and your partner want the same things. Got somebody in mind?”

  “I’ve been seeing someone for about six months.”

  A whirlwind courtship. Terrific. “And he’s the one?”

  Her gaze was disconcertingly steady. “I don’t know. There are still several things we need to work through.”

  This was encouraging.

  Then she said something very discouraging. “I know he’s planning to give me a ring. He wants to make it an official engagement.”

  “Right now it’s unofficial?”

  “Yes.”

  “So suppose tomorrow the two of you go out to eat and you find a ring under the hamburger bun?”

  “Like I said, there are still some things to work out.”

  “What about your folks? What do they think of him?”

  I thought for a moment I’d gone too far. She averted her gaze and gave all her attention to her plate. “They aren’t involved.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And if they were, they definitely wouldn’t approve. Donnie’s a scientist.”

  “Your folks don’t approve of science?”

  “My folks don’t believe in evolution. In fact, I’m a bit surprised they believe the earth is round.” Again she fixed me with her steady dark brown gaze. “I, however, believe in evolving, which is what I’m trying to do.”

  I wanted to say, “I will be happy to help you evolve,” but decided this might be a bit forward. “Trying to create a new life for yourself. I can relate.”

  “Is that why you’re here at Grace Street?”

  “It’s part of the reason.”

  “Right now, I’m figuring out where Donnie fits in. Or if he fits in. Or if there’s something else. I don’t su
ppose you need any help with your cases?”

  She asked the question so casually, so offhand, I almost didn’t process it. This time I could hardly swallow from amazement. Was it possible I was the something else she was looking for? I managed to get the sweet potato down. “I—well, sure.”

  She pushed her plate aside and leaned her elbows on the table. “I think I could help. I want to do something practical, something that actually gets results. I don’t mean chasing bad guys down dark alleys, but maybe something in the area of research? I know my way around the Internet.”

  I was still so stunned by her offer it took me a few minutes to reply. “That would be great, thanks.”

  “I don’t want to intrude, or get in your way, I just—I’m not sure how to explain this.”

  “No need to explain. I’m sure something will come up, and I’ll be glad to have your assistance.”

  When she smiled, I was surprised the light didn’t bounce off the walls. “Thanks. More chicken for you?”

  “I’m all done.” Boy, was I ever.

  “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  I helped her carry the dishes to the sink and then went into the parlor office and shut the door.

  Damn.

  Now this doesn’t mean what you think it does, my practical side warned. Lots of people are charmed by the idea of investigating. Don’t start thinking of Kary as your partner in crime.

  I needed to convince her I was the one before Donnie declared himself. If she saw Donnie as a way to a better future, I wasn’t sure I had much more to offer, but if she saw Donnie as a way to spite her parents, I was an even better example of Evolution in Action.

  I had to find something to take my mind off this, so I picked up the book Tate Thomas had given me. I was thirty pages into Ashford’s biography, all of it pretty dull, when Melanie Gentry called for a progress report.

  “I met with Thomas. From what he tells me, the music community sides with Ashford.”

  “Yes, that’s the standard answer. You see what I’m up against.” I could imagine her looking down from her throne at her unruly subjects. “What about Lassiter?”