The Fortune Teller's Daughter

by Lila Shaara

  Maggie held the hands of the girls as a number of mourners approached them. There was a procession of black people and white people, young and old, male and female. A few faces were familiar to Harry, like Dottie the waitress, but most were strangers to him. Miss Tokay wasn’t anywhere to be seen; Miss Baby said that she was being looked after by her niece and the objectionable developer husband. As the line grew, Serge and Amelia moved away to observe from the margins, as well as to keep an eye on the reporter and his boorish photographer.

  Harry wasn’t sure where to stand, but Miss Baby took his hand and kept him in the line with her granddaughters and Maggie as they received the good wishes of one person after another. Most of the comments were about Josie: “She knew the treatment would come out all right, she said so, she was right.” “She said my mamma wouldn’t suffer none, and she didn’t, it was peaceful, thank God.” “I left the bastard the way she said, and now I’m better off, I sure am.” But then a middle-aged woman with hair so thin her pink speckled scalp showed through the strands thanked Maggie for fixing one appliance or the other; an old man with a hump on his back that was painful to look at gripped Maggie’s arms while telling her how well his pickup ran after she’d done something to it. Through his tears, Calvin Crane told her how much he’d miss Josie, then added almost casually that two lightbulbs had burned out and asked when she could replace them. Harry thought, thunderstruck, the beautiful light in Crane’s, it was from Maggie’s hands. It was then that Josie’s words about the responsibility of taking care of Maggie came back to him with force; it was much more profound than shielding a shy girl from social slings and arrows. He felt a sudden panic and thought, God, I hope I’m man enough.

  His chest gave another unpleasant little thump when he saw three women walking across the cemetery lawn. Two were wearing smart, silky pantsuits: Julie Canfield and Ronnie Ho. Ronnie in particular looked surprised to see him. Judd Lippman wasn’t with them; Harry seemed to remember Amelia saying something about Ronnie dumping him in front of a bunch of other students at the Brew House. The third woman had a simian, acne-scarred face and was wearing jeans, a white blouse, and a tweed blazer. Harry suspected that she was Ronnie’s roommate, the physics student from a thousand years ago, the one Josie had told about the stolen Ziegart effect. Julie broke away from the trio and came to his side while Ronnie and her roommate approached Maggie, each in turn shaking her hand. Julie said in his ear, “Poor Maggie. Ronnie and Cheryl thought the world of her aunt. I thought I might see you here.” She gave him a quick, rueful smile and moved toward her friends. Ronnie’s roommate, Cheryl, was telling Maggie how sorry she was while Ronnie nodded in agreement. Harry wondered what her reaction would be if she ever learned that she had just shaken the hand of the true inventor of the Ziegart effect.

  It wasn’t long before the memory of Lawrence’s funeral hit him gently; it had been sparsely attended but just as miserable. He thought about Dusty’s wooden face, so much younger then, and Ann’s open sobbing. He’d thought at the time that her overwrought displays of emotion didn’t allow him room to express anything; now he thought, I can blame her for a lot but not for that. I was so goddamned mad at him, he thought. Maggie nudged the girls in Miss Baby’s direction and came beside him. She took his hand. “Funerals suck,” he said.

  A tall, skinny man of about sixty, skin toughened and coffee-colored from too much sun, stood off to the side of the other mourners, a bewildered look on his face. Harry asked who he was; Maggie murmured, “Roy Crawley. He runs a junkyard. He was in love with Josie.” Harry believed her; the man’s face was heartbreaking in the understated way of some men’s terrible grief. Harry noticed that Calvin Crane was now openly crying while taking obvious pains to stay on the other side of the gathering from Roy Crawley. The latter made his way through the crowd to Maggie. As soon as he was an arm’s length away, he said, “I woulda married her, Maggie.”

  He fell into her arms, silent, but the movement of his broad, bony shoulders giving him away. “I know, Roy, I know,” she said, patting his back while he leaned on her. It took Harry a second to take this in, that this man was so lost for Josie Dupree that his self-control would desert him in public. Roy pulled back after a minute or so and said, “You just call me if you need anything, you hear. I got some stuff for you. You come see when you’re all settled down.”

  Maggie said, “Thank you for taking the blame for the workshop.”

  “Taking credit’s more like it. My tranny hums now. You doubled my gas mileage. I got a block, a driveshaft from an old Dakota. A bale of copper wire. You come see me.”

  Maggie thanked him again as he walked away, back to the farthest reaches of people, beyond the azalea bushes.

  “Your supplier.”

  “Yes.” She looked solemnly around at the crowd, not seeming nearly as distressed at dealing with them as she had been the people at Serge’s party. Then Harry remembered that Jonathan Ziegart had been there. He said, “No one told the sheriff’s people that the workshop was yours?”

  “No.”

  “But if the truth came out, they’d know your connection to Jonathan. Maybe they could find a link between him and what happened to Josie, and to Murphy.”

  Her eyes were not as tired as they had once been, but the sadness was back. “And they’d be able to prove nothing. And he’d be so mad at me I’d be dead in a week.” She sounded so certain that Harry believed her.

  The service was short in the sunlight. Miss Baby was the first speaker, using a churchy cadence that Harry found moving and oddly comforting. No one made Maggie get up and talk; no one seemed to expect her to, and Harry found that the most moving thing of all.

  The eulogies ended with Josie’s plain casket being lowered into the ground. The winch creaked in the silence, and soft sobs broke through the birdsong and the sunlight and the clatter of a pileated woodpecker ripping open a distant, dying tree. Maggie was quiet and dry-eyed as she watched the wooden box descend, but she squeezed Harry’s hand as it disappeared. In the near silence, Harry heard the sound of someone else approaching from the parking lot, soft footsteps on grass, and he turned to see Sheriff Melvin Kimble in an impressive dress uniform walking toward the funeral party, followed by a black-suited Jonathan Ziegart.

  Calvin Crane had closed his restaurant in honor of Josie’s passing, and the mourners were directed to go there after Josie’s body had been lowered into the ground. The sheriff and Jonathan had stayed in the background, a few feet beyond the canvas canopy. Now people were standing, murmuring, preparing to walk to cars and ride the short mile to Crane’s, or to leave altogether. Maggie lifted herself from her chair as though her weight approached Calvin’s, slowly and with attention to her joints. She let go of Harry’s hand for the first time in an hour, rubbing her elbows and then her neck as though she was in pain. Amelia moved in on her again, taking her arm. Maggie saw the sheriff and the man behind him before Harry could warn her. She didn’t move, just stared at them with her great blue eyes. He took an involuntary look at her hands to make sure there was nothing like a flashlight in them.

  Sheriff Kimble approached them first. Harry watched Jonathan move off to mingle; he couldn’t imagine what the young man would have to say to any of the strangers in the crowd but saw him walk toward Julie Canfield. Harry wondered what his responsibility was; should he warn her of something? He could imagine pulling her aside and telling her that Jonathan Ziegart was dangerous, but Julie was practically a lawyer and he had few facts. He sighed internally, knowing his job was to stay with Maggie.

  The sheriff said to Amelia, “I was wondering if you’d give me a private moment with Miss Roth?” Maggie nodded at Amelia’s questioning look. Serge was right behind her and looked for confirmation at Harry, who gave a tiny shrug. He said, “You two go on to Crane’s. We’ll follow you there in a few minutes.”

  “You sure?” Serge said.

  Harry assured him that he was, and the Olnikoffs moved away into the thinning crowd, casting back anx
ious glances.

  The sheriff had an appropriate expression, sad and ingratiating. “Miss Roth,” he said, extending his hand. Maggie looked at it for a moment before extending hers. “I wanted to express my condolences personally. A terrible thing.” Maggie said nothing, just stared at him while he went on. “I hope that you know that the Stowe County Sheriff’s Department only has the interest of the residents of this county at heart. I hope you understand that, honey,” he repeated.

  Harry said, “If you’re asking whether Ms. Roth is planning on bringing a wrongful death suit against the department, we haven’t yet determined if she has grounds. We’re looking into it.”

  The sheriff turned to Harry. “Are you licensed to practice law in this state, Mr. Sterling?”

  Harry was about to assure him that he’d passed the Florida bar exam when Maggie said, “I won’t be suing you,” startling both of them. “I wish you people were better at your jobs than you are, but you got voted in, so it’s just as much the fault of the people that voted for you.”

  The sheriff looked confused, not sure how to reply to such a candid speech, then regrouped and said, “Well, I hope we can change your mind about that someday. Everyone in my office takes their job very seriously, I assure you. I hope there’s no hard feelings, and that we can move on.”

  Maggie stared at him for a moment before saying, “Time moves on no matter what any of us do. My feelings are very hard, but most of them don’t have anything to do with you.”

  Harry said, a thought occurring to him suddenly, “Sheriff, I have a favor to ask.”

  The sheriff didn’t look pleased at having such an immediate opportunity to change anyone’s mind about how helpful his office could be to civilians. Harry went on. “A boy disappeared in an Orlando bus station a few weeks ago. A homeless boy. All I have is his first name, Jake. He was last seen in the company of a man named Quick. I’d appreciate it if you’d make a call or two and see if the Orlando police know anything about what happened to him.”

  Kimble turned back to Maggie and seemed to mull it over as he looked at her, silent in the sunlight, regarding him with no expression at all, but Harry was willing to bet that, to the sheriff, she looked accusing and potentially threatening. Then he looked at Harry again. “I can make a call. I can’t promise a thing. You know that.”

  The reporter was approaching again, and the photographer followed behind, raising her camera as she walked. The sheriff grabbed Maggie’s hand again and pumped it with a look of earnest condolence while she looked blankly back. The camera whirred and caught the image. With another brief and slightly sour look at Harry, the sheriff left them to shake the hands of the more prosperous looking people still gathered around the grave. Harry glared at the reporter, who then led the photographer off in the sheriff’s wake.

  Harry said, “Are you sure you don’t want to try to sue? We could talk to some of Serge’s friends. You might have a good case.”

  Maggie said, “In this town, it isn’t likely we’d win. Even if we did, we wouldn’t get enough money to make it worthwhile.”

  · · ·

  Jonathan Ziegart was waiting for them to approach him. Harry expected Maggie to try to avoid him, but after the sheriff was out of earshot she walked to where Jonathan was talking with an elderly black couple, dressed in church clothes and smiling. Harry followed Maggie and heard the tail end of a conversation in which the older man was explaining to Jonathan how many of Josie’s suggested numbers had hit on the lottery. “I made me five hundred dollars once.” When the man saw Maggie nearing them, he stopped as though caught in something unsavory. He said, “Now don’t give me one of your lectures on how the lottery is ‘the poverty tax’ again, Maggie. I heard you the first ten times. I’m still ahead, you know. I ain’t played it five hundred times.”

  “No, only about three hundred. So you’re ahead, but not by much. And you’ll fall behind fast if you don’t stop.”

  “Your aunt always said the same thing, although I always got the feelin’ she was just quotin’ you.” He smiled sweetly and shook her hand as his wife nodded and smiled too. They made their good-days, promising to see all of them at Crane’s, and left.

  Maggie and Jonathan faced each other, a short strip of healthy grass all that lay between them. Harry stood at Maggie’s side. Jonathan’s suit looked expensive, and he’d gotten a haircut since they’d last met. My God, thought Harry; he looks like Charlie. Maggie said in a calm, reasonable voice, “You got her killed, you son of a bitch.”

  50

  JUSTICE

  Something like it, anyway

  Jonathan looked hurt; Harry thought, It looks like he’s about to cry. He’d always thought Jonathan’s affect was somehow distorted, and now the effect was horrifying, like sticking your hand into a bucket of something squirming and wet.

  Jonathan said, “You look beautiful.” He moved a step toward her, his hand reaching out. Maggie jumped back as though he had a gun in it. Jonathan stopped and looked hurt again. “I understand what it is to lose someone so important to you. I’d like to help.” He was smiling now, but it had an odd, glassy quality; he looked as if he was on an intense and unhealthy stimulant. “But I guess I should remember how shy you are.”

  Maggie had moved a few inches away from Harry, just enough, he realized, to avoid giving Jonathan Ziegart any more reason to think that Harry was dear to her. Fuck that, he thought, and reached out to take her hand in his. This at least got Jonathan to look at him. The anger in those bright, wet eyes was so hot that Harry almost felt the burn of it. Then Jonathan made to ignore Harry again, turning back to Maggie. He said, “I’m not allergic to anything, Emily. Which is good, because I am considering living here, and the place is full of bees.” A puff of dandelion landed on his lapel, and he brushed it away with a thin hand; it was shaking. Then he looked from her to Harry, at their joined hands, and said, “You have a son, don’t you, Harry?” It was said conversationally, pleasantly. Jonathan’s hands opened and closed as if he was a pianist warming them up before a concert. “I hear he lives with his mother in Orlando. I’ve always wanted to check out Disneyland.”

  Harry had once interviewed a prizefighter who’d lost everything because of an addiction to oxycodone. The young man had been almost comically huge, a half a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Harry, who wasn’t particularly small. He had seemed to be made entirely of muscle; no visible skin drooped or dangled. He made his living by hurting people, probably killing a few; he had worked for the second busiest drug dealer in the DC area. Harry had been surprised by how much he liked the murderer, how affable and intelligent he was. They’d started talking about how to damage someone so that it didn’t show, the attorney in Harry being interested in such things. “Hit ’em in the belly,” the boxer had said. “Fewer marks. The face bruises too easy and bleeds too much. You hit ’em in the jaw, you break all the little bones in your hand and it hurts like hell.”

  Now Harry said, “Disneyland is in California. Here, it’s Disney World,” and punched Jonathan Ziegart in the stomach.

  He was dimly aware of Maggie’s hands on him, one around his upper arm and the other pulling on his jacket. There were others around them, too, big hands against Harry’s chest, pushing him away from the man at his feet. These impediments irritated him mildly since he’d gotten to hit Jonathan only once. Jonathan had let loose a shocked bark of pain and was half sitting on the ground. For a second Harry was puzzled about how he’d gotten there. Then the judge spoke in his mind: You’re going to pay for this. But when he saw the happy look on Maggie’s face, he thought, I don’t care. Jonathan stood up with the help of Roy Crawley, anger and pain making his face dark and veined. His nose was bleeding, and he pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his face. Harry wondered if Roy was ever going to know the role of the man he was helping stand up in Josie Dupree’s death. By the look of him, Roy was another one who would kill someone given a good enough reason.

  The s
heriff and the reporters were gone, so the only witnesses to Harry’s assault on Jonathan Ziegart were the few people who hadn’t yet left for Crane’s. Miss Baby was among them, and she hurried over, looking alternately at Jonathan and at Maggie. “He the one, sugar?” Maggie nodded, and Miss Baby turned on Jonathan. “You best leave, boy, before you’re pounded to a pile of bone and grease by the assembled party.”

  Jonathan didn’t follow them to Crane’s. Calvin served no alcohol, although Harry was surprised to find that he didn’t feel the need for a drink anyway. He thought, From now on, I’ll need my wits about me.

  51

  STRENGTH

  The Seeker gets a backbone

  Harry expected a knock at any moment from the police or the sheriff’s department to haul him off for assaulting Jonathan Ziegart. “Maybe we should both get out of town for a few days, before the sheriff tells either of us that we can’t,” he said to Maggie. “We should go to Pennsylvania. You need to pay a visit to the good people at Cantwell.” At her worried face, he said, “My treat. Can Calvin spare you for a few more days?”