The Fortune Teller's Daughter

by Lila Shaara

  “It was true what I said. I was always going to try to convince you to be with me. Even before I knew about Lucasta and Cantwell and all that. You should know that.”

  He could feel her shrug sleepily against him under the covers. “Josie would probably say that that was important. But now it doesn’t matter to me at all.” Harry could feel himself drifting off to more blissful sleep when her voice brought him back. “You’ll have to go to meetings, Harry. I did it enough with Josie. I’m not going to do it with you. I’m not carrying you drunk to bed. Not ever again.”

  Harry felt suddenly cold, and sad. So humiliated. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Admit it, and move on.” She lifted her head, and her eyes were huge and dark. “I’ll stick with you through anything and everything, illness and the end of the bloody world, if you do your part.” Then she climbed on top of him and kissed him, and he didn’t feel humiliated anymore.

  It was three a.m. by the time they found themselves in the kitchen. Harry insisted that he make the omelets this time, which didn’t turn out as well as they would have had Maggie made them, but they were good enough. She was wearing one of his bathrobes, having a horror of getting back into her soiled clothes after a shower. Harry tossed them into the washing machine with a small load of his own laundry. He made a production of it, saying that if she came to live with him, these were the kinds of superior amenities she could expect, a washer and dryer on the premises, and was delighted with himself that he made her laugh. He said, “What was that music you had playing in the temple?”

  “A Bulgarian women’s choir.”

  “I’ve never heard anything like it. It was amazing.”

  “No matter what they sing about, herding sheep or washing clothes or feeding horses or whatever, it always sounds holy.” She took a bite, swallowed, then said, “I decided not to learn the language because I thought it sounded more beautiful if you didn’t know what they were saying.”

  The guilelessness with which she said this filled Harry with a burst of desire so strong that he leaned across the table and kissed her hard on the mouth. He thought, It never occurs to her that other adults do not usually have to resist learning a foreign language. “Those tests that your dad made you have.” She was still looking surprised from his sudden kiss. “Was one of them an IQ test?”

  Her face became still. “Yes,” she said after a moment.

  “So what was it?” She closed her mouth and shook her head as though that answered the question. “Is that when he left? After that?”

  She nodded. He asked, “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen.” Then she added, “He said that I didn’t need him.” She pushed her plate away, half the omelet uneaten. “I told him I did, but he didn’t believe me.” Her elbow rested on the table, and she dropped her chin into her cupped palm. “Mamma was sick of him by then. She told him he was right. I never saw him again. He died a few years later.”

  Harry finished his omelet in silence, thinking about James Roth and how to make your children crazy. Maggie said, “How did you figure it out? No one in Lucasta knows about me, do they? Now, I mean?”

  “You mean, does anyone there know you’re alive? Not unless Jonathan Ziegart has told them. I didn’t, if you’re wondering.”

  “So how did you figure it out?” she repeated.

  “The Little Prince.”

  “Oh God. You saw Fay Levy.”

  “Yes. She showed Dusty and me her copy of the book. I’d read it, but it’s been a while. I came across the line you quoted, the fox saying, ‘You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.’ ” His plate was empty. “Who was taming who?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know. You can decide.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “You’ve got to tell me everything, you know.”

  She gave his hand a squeeze and took a deep breath. “Growing up, I was always Maggie. When I went to college, I decided to use my first name. I thought it made me sound classier.”

  Harry got up and put the kettle on. He asked, “Dee wrote that letter about your suicide?”

  “She sent it when she was in Denver with her boyfriend. I wrote it.” “Everyone thought she was your sister.”

  “The letter was vague. I guess everyone assumed stuff.”

  “You were afraid of Jonathan?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t hide myself so well that a real detective couldn’t find me. But just so they couldn’t open a phone book and see my name. That was enough.”

  “Till I came to town and blew your cover.”

  “I tried not to lie to you, Harry. I mostly didn’t.”

  “You got Miss Tokay and Miss Baby in on it. They spun a good story.”

  “They mostly kept to the truth.”

  “Miss Tokay said you were dead.”

  “No. She said I’d ascended. I’m sure she could defend that to you somehow.”

  “You sound like an attorney.” He let her smile linger for a while before asking, “You made the stun gun that looks like a flashlight?”

  She made a motion with her hand as though waving away his words. “They’re pretty simple. I got the empty casings from a friend of Josie’s. He has a junkyard.”

  “Why?”

  “You never know. I had a feeling that one day I might have to use it.”

  “And you stayed at my house the night of the party to protect me from Jonathan?”

  The smile went away. “He’ll keep trying to hurt you. Especially if he thinks you’re dear to me.”

  Harry liked the old-fashioned phrase. He said, “And if he thinks you’re dear to me?”

  Her face screwed up as though something suddenly hurt. “Especially if he thinks that.”

  “Because he loves you.”

  “Yes. And because he hates me.”

  “Like with Charlie.” Maggie nodded again, and Harry said before thinking, “And the baby.”

  He could have punched himself, but Maggie’s only response was to shake her head and say, “Oh no. That was all hate.”

  They talked for a long time. After a while, Harry went to his desk and found the picture he’d printed from Louise Glade’s e-mail. He could see Maggie in Emily’s face now, amazed at how he’d missed it before. Her hair was lighter now from the sun, and shorter with curls that hadn’t been there when it was long. So many years earlier, her face had been round, childish, undefined. It was amazing how much the same she looked now, and how different. Still young, but not remotely childish anymore.

  He handed her the flimsy photograph, printed on plain paper. She looked at it for a minute, then said, “That was the day Charlie died. After that, I really did become someone else.”

  “If I’d been able to see your eyes,” Harry said, “I’d have known right away it was you.”

  Maggie helped him clean up the shattered ginger ale bottle; then she washed the dishes while Harry listened to the messages on his machine. Serge had called three times: “I know you’re there, Harry. You’re pissing me off. Oh, hell, I guess you’re sleeping. Call me when you wake up.” It was four a.m. They went back to bed.

  Four hours later Harry woke again, so disoriented that at first he didn’t know where he was. Maggie was asleep next to him, and it took several minutes before he could convince himself that everything that had happened to him in the last two days was real. The most astonishing thing about the whole business was how well he’d slept.

  He called Serge while the coffee dripped and Maggie took a second shower. Serge told him some things he already knew and many things he didn’t. “The sheriff’s department got an anonymous tip that they were a bunch of terrorists; for some reason, that idiot Faber believed it. The call was very specific, implicating a hapless line inspector for the electric company. They fucked up badly, and now the poor fellow is dead, along with the fortune teller. Then some asshole took advantage of the whole thing and waited till the cops had gone and used the shrine for target practice. T
he sheriff’s got people talking to Hugh Covington about that; he’s the developer nephew. Anyway, they plan to release Mrs. Dupree’s body tomorrow. I don’t know when the funeral will be scheduled. Have you talked to Maggie yet?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. Then Serge said, “Is she with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Another silence. “I guess Amelia was right. I now owe her a night out.”

  After the Olnikoffs arrived, Serge said to Maggie, “I feel like I should make a joke about fireworks, but I won’t.”

  She said, “Barium makes green.” Everyone looked confused, so she added, “No one knew at your party.” There was more silence. Then she shrugged and said, “It’s not the explosion that makes the light. It’s when the stuff in the fireworks starts cooling down as it falls. That’s when you see the colors.”

  48

  FIVE OF PENTACLES

  REVERSED

  Coming in out of the cold. The tale of a monster

  Serge and Amelia insisted that the four of them go out for breakfast. Harry explained about Maggie’s sensitivity to fluorescent lights; Amelia suggested a coffeehouse with outdoor seating far enough from campus that they wouldn’t bump into anyone they knew, especially during the university’s summer session. The weather was fine. “There’s an awning,” she said. “So we won’t get burned.”

  “Thank you for all your help,” Maggie said to Serge, who shrugged it away.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more personally. I do environmental law. I’ve been told by a lot of my colleagues that that makes me useless when it comes to people.” Maggie gave Harry an apologetic look; he smiled back at her, trying not to look smug, and made a mental note to tell Serge that he had gone from okay guy to comrade in an instant. Over cappuccinos and blueberry scones, he told the Olnikoffs about his trip to Lucasta, checking with Maggie at intervals to see if she wanted to make corrections or add anything to the story as he knew it.

  “You’re Emily Ziegart?” Serge said.

  “Close your mouth, Sergei,” Harry said.

  Serge ignored him, gaping at Maggie. “Why did you leave Cantwell? Charles Ziegart’s death was a tragedy, obviously, but why would you give up everything after that? Surely he wanted you to have his name, his property, your position there, everything you’d worked for?”

  Maggie looked at Harry, who nodded. Then she answered him, “Because his son would have killed me if I stayed.”

  The silence that greeted this was profound.

  “Jonathan Ziegart,” Amelia said. “He pretended he didn’t know you because . . .” Her question trailed off.

  “Because he intended to kill me,” Maggie said.

  “Why?” Serge said, letting his cappuccino cool and leaving his scone untouched. “Why does he hate you so much?”

  Maggie didn’t answer, plainly reluctant. Harry stepped in. “Partly because she rebuffed him.”

  “Ew,” Amelia said. “When he was your stepson?”

  “And because she got pregnant,” Harry added. “He didn’t want a sibling.”

  “Oh my God,” Amelia said.

  “So you came back here and changed your name?” Serge asked.

  “Just my last name. My father’s name was Roth. I’ve always been Maggie here, so that wasn’t anything. I didn’t think Jon was going to look that hard for me if I went away like they wanted me to. He didn’t have my address down here.”

  “But she died, too, just in case,” Harry said.

  Serge stirred some sugar into his coffee. “He’s that dangerous?”

  “He killed his father,” Harry said. “He tried to kill Maggie, too.”

  “How could someone get away with something like that in this day and age of forensic everything, when you can be convicted because of your goddamned spit?” Amelia was unusually worked up. Harry liked it.

  Maggie regarded her, and Harry could tell she was surprised at Amelia’s heat. “He doesn’t really commit crimes,” she said. “Or if he does, they’re little ones that are easy to get away with. Like just letting Doug die. I think that was the first time he did anything really awful.”

  “Why?” Serge asked again. “Why did he let that poor boy choke to death?”

  “Doug was giving Charlie a hard time. Afterwards, Jon told Charlie all about what happened. He expected his dad to be proud of him for fixing things.”

  “And I guess he wasn’t,” Serge said.

  “He was horrified.” Maggie’s chair was close to Harry’s, and she leaned very slightly against him. “That really hurt Jon’s feelings.” Her face was no longer calm; she looked pale and ill.

  Harry couldn’t help imagining what it had been like, witnessing Doug McNeill choking to death, and what it would take to stand and watch, doing nothing. Waiting. God, he thought, Jesus Christ.

  Maggie said, “Even Jon was surprised it didn’t bother him. Watching Doug die. I was in the room when he told his father how interesting it was.” Her mouth bent down at the edges, like she was going to be sick. “He’s a sociopath. That’s the first time I realized it. Charlie realized it, too.”

  Harry said, “Somehow he managed to wrap a couple of yellow jackets in a handkerchief and then put them in his dad’s pocket, after tossing his EpiPen. Then he let nature take its course. If something bad happened, great. If not, oh well. No great risk to him.”

  “He probably didn’t plan it,” Maggie said. “I imagine he saw the wasps on the melon, and just took advantage of how easy it was to scoop them up.”

  “Holy shit,” Serge said.

  “What does any of this have to do with your aunt’s death, Maggie?” Amelia asked. “I don’t see how Jon could’ve had a hand in that.”

  “He set it up somehow. That’s what he does. We may never know exactly how he did it.”

  “The tip to the sheriff’s department,” Serge said. “Although why he thought they’d buy it, I can’t imagine.”

  “But he was right,” Harry said. “He probably succeeded beyond anything he expected.”

  Amelia continued to look anxiously at Maggie. “He’s a free man. The police aren’t even investigating him. They have no reason to. So the big question is, What do you think he’s going to do next?”

  “He’ll come after me one way or another. Or you,” Maggie added, looking at Harry.

  49

  FIVE OF SWORDS

  REVERSED

  A funeral

  The rush of perfect completion was almost orgasmic, the way his plans clicked and circled and purred like a beautiful piece of engineering. It had happened only a few times, this flawless convergence of mechanisms he’d set in motion, a whisper here and a smile there. He thought of the woman on the road, there by chance, alone, unguarded, unwitnessed, and a simple flick of the steering wheel altering worlds. His hands still remembered the cool feel of melon, the angry movement of wasps in the folds of a handkerchief, the stomach-tightening excitement as he slipped the toxic little bundle into his father’s jacket pocket, no one seeing, no one looking at him. He’d loved his father but had been strangely elated at his death. He’d never understood why, but the satisfaction had fueled his best dreams for years. Now he’d hit a stride again, now his life was moving. Nothing was as satisfying as this, being the butterfly whose tiny flutterings birthed the hurricane.

  God, he was in love with her. He thought that he’d loved her before; he thought that he’d known fulfillment before. But seeing her again, and so blooming, so aglow, as if whatever was in excess had burned away until what was left was only her brilliant core, and when she looked at him now, she saw him truly, in a way no one else ever had.

  His father was a shadow now, a ghost that he conjured when he looked in the mirror, the reflections merging beautifully. He wanted Emily in a way he couldn’t have imagined at seventeen, wanted her to look at him the way she’d once looked at Charlie. He combed his hair. He put his father’s handkerchief in his pocket.

  The weather held for the
funeral, hot and bright and humid. The service was to be at the graveside; Josie hadn’t been inside a church since she’d gotten married to Duncan Dupree thirty-five years before. There was a large white canvas canopy set up in a grassy area by the coffin, suspended above the rectangular hole where Josephine Timms Dupree was to be laid to rest. Underneath the canopy were rows of metal folding chairs. Serge and Amelia joined them, looking somber and well-groomed. Amelia hovered sweetly around Maggie, patting her hair and whispering encouraging words in her ear that Harry couldn’t hear. It was almost funny, he thought, how maternal she was being, even though Maggie was her senior by several years. But Amelia was almost a half foot taller; maybe there were times when height stood in for age. Maggie took it with good grace, looking surprised but grateful. Harry wondered if Amelia was trying to replace Josie, if only for the day.

  There was only one reporter from the Stoweville Register, along with a single photographer, a woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt that proclaimed “Life is Great!” Harry wondered what thought processes, if any, had gone into the choice of the shirt. The reporter made his way to Maggie after talking to a few people on the outside edges of the crowd. Harry watched a young white woman with a baby in her arms point to Maggie after speaking to him.

  “Hey, Maggie,” the reporter said after making his way across the grass. “What do you have to say to the sheriff’s department’s allegations that your aunt was a terrorist?”

  “No comment,” Harry said. Serge moved next to him, his expression as close to menacing as he could get. Maggie looked at Harry, then at the reporter, but said nothing.

  “Who are you?” the reporter said to Harry. The camera flashed behind him.

  “Her attorney.” He thought, I’m not exactly lying. “If you print anything that isn’t true, we’ll sue your ass from here to Mars.” The camera flashed and clicked, but the reporter moved away. Wimp, Harry thought.

  Miss Baby appeared from beyond the canopy with Charlotte and Tamara. Both girls wore chiffon dresses, Charlotte’s pink, Tamara’s yellow; Harry was reminded of Easter eggs. Maggie and Miss Baby hugged each other for a long time, Miss Baby in tears, Maggie dry-eyed. When they broke apart, Tamara and Charlotte flanked Maggie, putting their arms around her waist as she enveloped them, leaning down and kissing each girl in turn on the top of the head. Harry felt in the way until Miss Baby, still crying, threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him so hard it hurt; he hugged her back, feeling mortified, bewildered, and gratified all at the same time. After she let him go, Harry made the introductions. Amelia looked a little chagrined; Harry suspected that she was jealous of Miss Baby’s prior claim to Maggie.