by Mary Marks
Once we sat at the table, I reached for a slice of bread. I bit through the crispy crust to the soft white inside, and my mouth filled with the savory melted garlic butter. While we ate, I told him about our day at Mystical Feather. “So, we’re going back tomorrow. After class we’ll return to the grave site and dig it up.”
“If it’s a grave.” He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What do you make of Freddy? Or shall I call him Andre?”
“Call him Freddy. He wants to stay undercover for now. He’s very knowledgeable about the paranormal. And he has a real knack for reading people. I think that helps his claim to be a credible psychic. I also think he’s gay. He flirted with Jazz.”
“You know, if you do find a body out there, you’ll have to stop digging immediately and report it to the police. You don’t want to disturb a crime scene.”
“I know what to do. I’m not a rookie. I’m an experienced homicide investigator.”
He closed his eyes and laughed.
* * *
The next morning Giselle and Jazz both converged at my house at seven. Giselle wore all white, even her tennis shoes. Jazz wore a long-sleeved blue cotton shirt and ankle boots made of fine Italian leather. I wore my uniform of jeans and Crocs.
Jazz carried a tote bag that looked suspiciously like a carrier for a small dog.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
He sighed. “Zsa Zsa gave me the silent treatment all night. I couldn’t leave her again today.”
As if on cue, the little Maltese popped her head out of the top of the carrier and barked in greeting. She wore a tiny denim cargo jacket over a pink-and-blue plaid skirt. Jazz had loosely tied a miniature pink bandana around her neck.
“See?” Jazz stroked her head and cooed. “How could I leave my adorable little girl behind?” Zsa Zsa’s tail wagged ecstatically.
Giselle announced she would drive again. We settled inside her Jaguar and left Encino just after seven. On the 101 freeway headed north, we got stuck behind an accident. We spent twenty extra minutes waiting to move past the collision and still managed to arrive at the Mystical Feather bookstore with five minutes to spare before class started.
We arranged ourselves in the same seats we’d occupied on the first day of class. Nkwa sat in the chair at the far end of the row of tables, I sat next to her, Giselle sat next to me, and Jazz took the chair at the other end of the row. Zsa Zsa settled down quietly in his lap.
Nkwa wore another colorful ensemble made with a print of yellow, black, and red diamond shapes. A white gele wrapped around her head. Her warm smile lit up her eyes as I took my place beside her. “Good morning, Martha. Did you do any of the reading last night?”
“Unfortunately, I was too tired. Did you?”
“Oh yes. I bought that book by Natasha St. Germain, Choosing the Enlightened Life. I read the chapter on tarot. According to her, she never began her day without spreading the cards for a personal reading. Her life was guided by the tarot. Once I know what I’m doing, I may try starting my day that way.”
Freddy entered from the door in the back and took his place beside a fresh page on the flip chart. He scanned our faces. “Good morning, everyone. Today we’re going to learn more about the meanings of each card. So, if you didn’t bring something to write notes on, I’ve got plenty of paper here.”
Zsa Zsa sat up and barked at the sound of his voice.
Jazz lowered his head and whispered, “Shh. We’re all friends here.” Then he looked apologetically at Freddy. “Don’t worry. She’s just excited to be in a new place. She’ll settle down.”
The rest of the morning we learned that each suit of cards in the Minor Arcana had a general meaning, each card within the suit had a more specific meaning, and in the upside-down position each card had an even stronger meaning. Memorizing all seventy-eight cards, including the twenty-two cards in the Major Arcana, was going to take a lot of studying.
Once again, we took a lunch break at twelve and hiked up the hill to the dining hall. Jazz stopped once to give Zsa Zsa a potty break. About five people sat at a table chatting and eating. Two of them were nude.
Giselle leaned over and whispered, “What happens if they spill hot soup?”
I chuckled. “That sounds like a question Lucy would ask.”
June Tolliver and an elderly man with flabby arms carried trays of food to our table. The man wore a white chef’s hat, a white apron, and nothing else. They served us chili and beans, freshly baked rolls, and iced green tea. When they turned to go, I averted my gaze. I was sure they were breaking all kinds of health laws.
An hour later we returned to the bookstore for the last half of class. I could hardly concentrate on Freddy’s lesson. The thought of digging up a corpse weighed heavily. I’d added Detective Washington’s phone number to my contact list on my cell phone last night. Just in case.
The lecture ended at two and Freddy spent the next hour giving each of us a tarot reading. Only, this time, he asked us to interpret the cards using what we had learned. Giselle did the best job. Her mind was quick, a gift that enabled her to be such an effective CEO. Nkwa was able to read the cards with little prompting. If this were real life, Jazz and I would’ve flunked out of school.
At three, Little Fawn brought out a pot of tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies for after class.
Freddy said, “If you’re serious about reading tarot, you should memorize the handbook on the meanings of each card. Use the three-card spread you learned here and consult the handbook for interpretation. You have a couple of weeks before I begin the advanced class. Thank you for coming. It’s been a pleasure.”
Nkwa hung around long enough to drink a cup of tea, then she left. I watched out the window as she got in her gray Prius and drove off. Little Fawn hiked back up the hill. We were finally alone at three thirty.
We trooped out the back door of the bookstore. Two shovels leaned against the wall of the building. Jazz put Zsa Zsa’s carrier on the ground long enough to roll up the cuffs of his blue shirt. “I take it you and I will do the digging?”
Freddy shrugged into a camouflage backpack and handed one of the tools to Jazz. “Yeah. Follow me.”
We trooped downhill through the trail. Ten minutes later we reached the same clearing where we’d been yesterday.
I patted the cell phone in my pocket, anticipating the call I might have to make. “If there is a body, you don’t want to damage it with the shovel. Try not to shove the blade straight down.”
“You sound like either a forensic expert or an archaeologist, Sissy.”
“My undergrad degree was in anthropology,” I said. “Does that count?”
Jazz nodded once at Freddy. “Let’s do this.”
Freddy scored a rectangle on the ground with the tip of his shovel roughly four feet by six feet. “We’ll dig here.”
Giselle and I retreated to the shade of the nearby live oak. Freddy scooped the dirt first by slipping the lip of the shovel into the soil and moving horizontally. He dumped the load in a mound over to the side. Jazz did the same, taking care to only remove the first two inches of soil. Zsa Zsa jumped out of her carrier and began digging enthusiastically with her front paws at the edge of the square.
Freddy was right. The ground was much softer here. They worked in silence for the next fifteen minutes, making fairly quick progress.
When they were twelve inches down, Jazz stopped, pulled a clean white cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the sweat from his brow and upper lip. “Did anyone remember to bring some water?”
Freddy dug into his canvas backpack, fished out four plastic bottles, and handed them around. “I also brought some energy bars if you need one.”
Jazz opened the bottle, tilted his head, and drank half without stopping. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with each gulp. When he stopped for air, he poured some water into his cupped hand and offered it to the little dog. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to me. Underneath he wor
e a ribbed cotton tank top that had become soaked with sweat on the chest and under the arms.
Freddy stared at the well-defined muscles in Jazz’s bare shoulders. I thought for a moment they were going to have an “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” encounter, but the younger man kept his T-shirt on and resumed digging.
A slight breeze disturbed the leaves on the oak tree, causing my sister to shiver a little and rub her arms. “You know Sissy, I really like Ojai. It’s very peaceful here.”
“You mean as long as people aren’t getting murdered?”
“You know what I mean. I’ve been thinking how nice it would be to build a house with a view way up on one of these mountains.”
“They have insanely strict zoning laws here, G. You can’t just buy a piece of land and build any old house. By the time you get through all the red tape, you might be too old to enjoy it. Plus, this area is prone to wildfires. You could find your brand-new house burnt to ashes one summer.”
“Martha!” Jazz’s voice cut into our conversation. “Come and take a look.”
By now the hole was about eighteen inches deep and something peeked through the top layer of dirt. I dropped to my knees next to the hole to get a better look.
“Do you think that’s the body of one of the missing Mystical Feather members?” Jazz bent over for a closer look. “Who could it be?”
Freddy shook his head. “Almost anybody. Royal was capable of anything.”
“Darn! I wish I had thought about bringing gloves and a brush. If this is what I think it is, I don’t want to touch it with my bare hands.”
“I’ve had a long time to think about what I’d do if I came across a grave.” Freddy dug in his backpack and handed me a new two-inch-wide paintbrush with soft bristles and a pair of bright yellow latex kitchen gloves.
The fingers of the size-large gloves extended an inch farther than my own fingers, making delicate movements impossible. I handed Giselle my cell phone. “We need to get a picture of this.”
She knelt beside me. “What? That little white thing?”
I pointed to an area with something that looked like a white worm. “Exactly. Right there. Take a picture of that.” When she finished, I began to carefully brush the dirt off the object. As the soil fell away, a carpal bone appeared.
I looked at Freddy. “You were right. I’m not an expert in anatomy, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bone from a human hand. Take another picture now, G.”
Giselle snapped a picture of what was clearly a bone and sprang to her feet, soft dirt clinging to her bare knees. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Freddy. I really doubted we’d find anything here, but, as my sister says, you were right all along.”
Jazz gave me his hand as I awkwardly stood. I removed the latex gloves and gestured for my sister to hand me my phone. I scrolled down to the bottom of my contact list and sent the photos to Washington, Detective Della.
CHAPTER 24
Giselle, Jazz, and I sat under the oak tree while Freddy hiked back up the mountain to the bookstore parking lot to wait for the sheriff’s deputies. Zsa Zsa slept quietly in Jazz’s lap. Ten minutes after sending the photos to Detective Washington, we heard the keening of multiple sirens winding their way up Sulphur Mountain Road. After the noise stopped, car doors slammed shut and the sound of several excited voices cascaded rapidly down the mountain to where we sat.
Five minutes later, several sets of boots came crashing through the brush, Freddy leading the way. One of the deputies had strung bright yellow caution tape from the parking lot to our location. Not only would the tape secure the crime scene, it would provide a marked trail for the investigators to follow through the wilderness.
Detective Della Washington emerged into the clearing right behind Freddy, wearing a deep frown and a black pant suit covered in dead leaves. Her young partner, Detective Oliver Heymann, appeared right behind her, followed by Sergeant Diaz and Deputy Willard. This was the same group I had met when we discovered Royal’s body. Déjà vu all over again.
Washington glanced at the three of us. Then, without a word, squatted at the edge of the grave and peered inside. “Damn.” She stood and turned to Deputy Willard. “Get forensics here. They’ll probably be digging all night. Tell them to bring gear for a remote location.”
Then she pointed her finger at me. “You’re Martha Rose. The one who sent me the pictures just now.” It was a statement, not a question. “And these other people are... ?”
Giselle tucked her straight red hair behind her right ear and took one step forward, being careful to avoid the hole. “I’m Giselle Cole. Martha’s sister. And this is our friend Jazz Fletcher.”
Jazz cuddled the little Maltese against his chest. “And this is my brave little girl, Zsa Zsa Galore.” He held up one of her dirty front paws. Her red toenail polish barely showed through the soil still clinging to her white fur. “She helped us excavate.”
Zsa Zsa wagged her tail and barked once, but Washington ignored her.
“Mrs. Rose, I made the mistake of assuming your business up here was finished once your friends the Watsons were persuaded not to join Mystical Feather. Yet, here you are again. And here’s another dead body. How do you explain this?”
“We took Freddy’s class on tarot this weekend.” I glanced at him, sending a look that said, Feel free to jump in any time.
“How did you know about this grave?” Washington jerked her thumb toward the hole in the ground.
Freddy cleared his throat. “I was the one who told Martha and the others about it.” He confessed he was really Andre Polinskaya and launched into an explanation of why he’d spent months posing as Freddy Pea and scouring the mountain looking for possible victims of foul play. “I’d heard rumors that some of the members had disappeared in the past. I thought if I could find proof, I could make a better case. You know, for the courts to restore what should’ve gone to my mother in the first place.”
“And that’s why you were using the false name of Freddy Pea?”
“Exactly,” he said earnestly.
“Who else knew what you were up to?”
“Just my sister and brother, Paulie and Mikey.”
Washington scrolled down the screen of her smart phone. “You mean Paulina and Michael Polinskaya?”
Andre nodded. “Yeah. Otherwise, nobody else knew. Not even my mother.”
“Do you have any idea who this is?” Washington tilted her head toward the grave.
“I recently learned of at least two people it could be. An elderly man went missing a year ago, and a young woman disappeared a few years before that. I also heard rumors of other mysterious disappearances, but I wasn’t able to get anyone to be more specific.”
“I’m not through with my questions, Mr. Polinskaya. You’re going to have to go to the substation in Ojai.” She indicated Giselle, Jazz, and me with a sweep of her hand. “You can give statements to Sergeant Diaz, then you’re free to go.”
She turned to Willard. “What is the ETA for forensics?”
“They just sent a text.” He consulted his phone. “They should be here in five, maybe ten minutes.”
“Have someone escort Mr. Polinskaya down the hill. I’ll be there after I’ve had a chance to talk to CSI.”
We had no choice but to hike up to the parking lot. Two deputies escorted Andre to the back of a patrol car that disappeared down the driveway in a cloud of dust. Jazz, Giselle, and I gave Sergeant Diaz our separate statements and were finally released at seven that evening.
The tires of my sister’s Jaguar crunched over the poorly paved driveway as we slowly made our way to Sulphur Mountain Road. We continued down the mountain, stopping at the highway junction and waiting for cross traffic to clear before making a right onto Route 150. The headlights of an oncoming vehicle momentarily blinded us before it turned onto the road leading to Mystical Feather. The older I got, the more difficulty I had recovering from glaring lights. Vision still blurry, I did a double take as the car slid past u
s. Was that a reflection on the driver’s window or was it a white gele?
Once we transitioned to the 150, I remembered my promise and called Director John Smith. “This is Martha Rose.”
“I know.”
Right. Caller ID.
“It’s late where I am,” he said.
“Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be asleep yet. It’s only a little after ten in Washington, D.C., right?”
“I’m not in that time zone.”
“So, I’ll be brief. You asked me to contact you if anything new popped up. Well, this afternoon we found a body buried on the mountain right below Mystical Feather.”
“I know.”
“How...”
“Mystical Feather is flagged in the system. Remember?”
“We uncovered a finger bone before we called the sheriff.”
“That means the body’s probably been there for at least a year. That’s how long it takes for soft tissue to decompose. How did you know where to look?”
“Freddy, uh, Andre Polinskaya took us there.”
“Explain.”
I told him everything I knew about Andre and his movements during the last six months. “If the body’s been there for a year, Andre can’t be responsible. He only came to Mystical Feather six months ago.”
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go looking for more trouble.”
“It was just a tarot class, for heaven’s sake. How was I supposed to know it would turn into another homicide investigation?”
“Let’s see. After the tarot class you purposely went looking for a grave and you found one. What did you imagine such a discovery would turn into? A celebration?”
Smith had a point. “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Anyway, we just finished giving our statements. We’re on our way back to the Valley.”
He didn’t even try to hide a sigh of exasperation. “Who’s handling this at the local level? Is it still Detective Washington?”
“And her partner, Detective Heymann.”
“Okay. I’ll take it from here.” Smith ended the call without a “Thank you, Ms. Rose, for keeping me informed,” or even a simple “Good job.”
