Topaz Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  “Lady Lucy/Lucinda,” Sam exclaimed in delight. “Lovely irony and maybe the reason the artists here call themselves Lucys, not just because of the Lucent Ladies?”

  “Lucent Ladies?” Teddy asked. “Oh, Hillvale’s heroic spiritualist ancestors? Cute.”

  “So this Lucy/Lucinda painted a triptych of Hillvale,” Kurt said with a layer of skepticism. “Since she died in the 1970s, she probably created it earlier, depicting a futuristic town and people based on those she saw around her, like Cass and Lance?”

  “If she quit painting futuristic earlier in her career, then she probably painted this one in the 50s or earlier, before Cass and Lance were even born,” Sam corrected.

  Teddy was fascinated knowing there were people with even weirder talents than hers, but she was more interested in the reaction of the man beside her. Kurt was rubbing his temple and appeared in imminent danger of explosion. She kept her Monitor turned off for fear of cracking if he blew.

  He took a large gulp of his seltzer before admitting, “Cass’s mother, my father’s first wife, was a Wainwright. She owned most of Hillvale. My father inherited half of it from her.”

  Mouths gaped around the table. Lucinda Malcolm/Lucy Wainwright’s family had owned Hillvale? Kurt didn’t look particularly happy about his admission, rightfully so. The Lucys would be all over it.

  “Ouch.” Teddy sat back and thought about that. “So Lucinda Malcolm was actually painting her family when she included Cass in the triptych, and the painting may have reflected her version of infant Cass’s future.”

  “I’m not believing any of this,” Kurt declared, setting down his glass. “Just tell us what to do with the painting after Walker’s crew is done with it.”

  “It will need restoration, of course,” Elaine suggested. “You could donate it to a museum. Selling it without the rest of the panels would be awkward, but if you had the rest of the panels, it would be worth too much for any one buyer to acquire.”

  “Art gallery,” both Sam and Teddy said together, casting each other laughing looks as Kurt groaned.

  “It makes sense,” Lance said stiffly. “The town is full of artwork. It would be a draw for the kind of wealthy tourists you keep saying we need.”

  “Not many towns can boast a genuine Lucinda Malcolm,” Elaine agreed. “Unclutter the Ingersson mural in the café, reframe and properly display the artists currently hanging in your town hall, create a gallery of the 1970’s era artwork scattered around the lodge, and the entire town becomes a fascinating museum of twentieth century art.”

  “And that doesn’t even touch on the pieces hidden in Daisy’s stash,” Sam added in satisfaction. “Or Daisy’s own pieces. Those planters are spectacular if anyone ever noticed.”

  “My parents have a storage rental crammed with ceramics,” Teddy added with mischief, watching Kurt sliding down in his seat. She really shouldn’t be so mean to him, but he was wrong to want to tear down her shop. “I could display them.”

  “The kiln at the Ingersson commune was famous in its time,” Elaine said with interest. “Ceramics are not my specialty, but if you have any good examples from that era, you could draw many enthusiasts.”

  Newly-assigned Chief Walker sauntered up to the table as Teddy was trying to find images on her phone of some of the pieces her parents had collected.

  “Ceramics, like pottery?” he asked, peering over her shoulder. “They make pottery up here? Is there a kiln nearby?”

  The chatter halted and even Kurt turned to look at him with suspicion.

  “I don’t think the kiln is there anymore,” Sam said. “I’ve not seen it. We could ask Valdis and Daisy. They practically live on the farm. Why do you ask?”

  Walker grimaced, then shrugged. “Word will spread soon enough. Try to keep this under your hat until the coroner makes an announcement. The skeleton shows the body had been submitted to a high intensity heat before being interred in the attic—that’s the reason there was no smell or evidence of decay.”

  Thirteen

  June 28: early morning

  * * *

  Teddy kept her tablet’s volume low so the kids wouldn’t hope every beep meant their mother was messaging. It beeped now, before the sun was even up. She groped on the table beside the couch she was using as bed. No one but Syd would message at this hour. She listened for the kids as she pressed the Skype button. They were still asleep.

  “Teddy,” Syd whispered. She wasn’t using her camera, just the audio. “Your message said urgent? Are Mia and Jeb all right?”

  “They’re fine, but do you want them living in a shop where a woman was murdered?” she asked sleepily. She’d had nightmares all night about a woman shoved screaming into the heat of a kiln.

  Syd went silent. That was a strong statement from her extroverted sister.

  “Sorry. I’m new to acting like a mother,” Teddy said. “I should be able to make these decisions, but I panicked. There’s an actual ghost there, and we found her corpse.”

  Syd made a gagging sound but blessedly didn’t question ghosts. “All right, I’m tired of running, and I miss the kids. I should come up there. Does anyone know who we are?”

  Teddy leaned against the pillow and tried to balance her desire to have her sister here against the danger involved. She wasn’t used to playing cops and robbers and couldn’t make up her mind.

  “Yeah, the lodge owner recognized my name,” she admitted. “He’s not said anything though. The question is, will Buttass know your maiden name and be able to trace our parents?”

  “It might be in my credit report, but how would he know to check their property records from twenty years ago?”

  Teddy brightened. “Kurt says the property is listed in his corporation now! We’ll need a lawyer to pry it out of his hands, but for the moment, that’s cool. Buttass will have no reason to suspect we’re here.”

  “His name is Ashbuth,” Syd said tiredly. “He’s still out on bail, and they’ve continued the court date until August. I’ll never be able to stop running.”

  “He held you hostage!” Teddy tried not to shout but the memory of those fearful hours were emblazoned on her memory. “He beat and raped you! How can they let the monster roam free for that long?”

  “They called it domestic violence, and remember, he’s a cop. They just think it’s a family argument, and I’m a conniving bitch who pressed charges. And now it’s all my fault that he’s on desk duty and stalking me. I’ve been tried and convicted by a jury of his peers.”

  Teddy rubbed her hair and tried to stay focused on the present. “Do you have any idea if he’s on your trail?”

  “No idea but I’m running out of cash,” she admitted. “The moment I use a credit card, he’ll have me.”

  “Okay, then get yourself up here. I can wire you more, if you need it, but this place seems safe. It’s isolated and the only officialdom is a good guy. He’ll listen to you, if necessary. But we can just lay low and play it cool until Dumbass does something stupid and gets picked up.”

  “And where will we stay, with the ghost?” she asked dryly.

  “You have a better idea?”

  “No,” Syd said with a sigh. “We’ll make a place for her at the table. Us battered women need to stick together.”

  And chances were very good that’s what had happened to the ghost in the attic, Teddy recognized as she hung up. Some man had beat her up, killed her, and thrown her in the kiln to get rid of the evidence. If it was a shared kiln. . . he couldn’t leave her remains in there.

  She Googled kiln heat and cremation heat. Apparently, kilns could get hotter than crematories, but if this had happened ten years ago and there was no evidence of a kiln today. . . what were the chances it had disintegrated before the body was consumed? Or that it couldn’t reach the necessary levels of heat?

  She scowled at the horror story she was creating in her head. She needed to find a way to placate a ghost because she had to move into the shop if Syd was joining her.
r />   June 28: midmorning

  * * *

  “That’s it!” Teddy cried cheerfully. “Scoot around on your tails until those towels are dirtier than the floor.”

  She watched Jeb and Mia wriggle their butts around the oak planks of the shop as if dusting filthy floors was the best game ever.

  While they played, she opened one of her jewelry cases. She’d cleaned the glass display case. She hadn’t been carrying much inventory when she’d gone to see Syd in the hospital in Sacramento. That’s when they’d concocted an escape plan which hadn’t included going back to San Francisco for any of her work materials. The display case was all she could fill at the moment.

  As soon as the dust settled—maybe literally—she’d have her office ship the rest. Her new life plans included experimenting with crystals, but Syd’s crisis had interfered. She wished Walker hadn’t carried off the ones in the attic.

  The large shop window was great for watching cars entering town and people heading her way. Customers would be nice, but unlikely—she needed a sign. First, she needed a store name. Crystal Cave? Treasure Trove? Oh well, until she had customers, the window at least gave her warning of visitors.

  The one approaching bearing bags from the café was more than welcome. “All hail Samantha,” she called as the lithe, lion-maned waitress entered.

  She knew Sam was more than a waitress, but that was her current function in Hillvale, just as Teddy’s was kid-watcher and shopkeeper. Almost shopkeeper. Everyone needed a backup career.

  “I thought you might be getting hungry. Dinah got a bit carried away testing donut recipes in her new fryer. Is that coffee I smell?” Sam set the greasy bags on the round oak table they’d used for their séances.

  “It is. Tullah had a great coffeemaker just begging me to take it home. Do you mind pouring yourself a cup? I want to see how much empty space I need to fill before I send for inventory.”

  Jeb and Mia quit wiggling and jumped up to examine the bags.

  “The ghost lady says we’re doing a good job and deserve a donut,” Mia said matter-of-factly, digging into the gift.

  Teddy froze. Sam did the same. With a sigh, Teddy opened her Monitor, but she sensed emotional energy. She didn’t hear words.

  “She’s still here, although not as angry,” Teddy said in a low voice, as if that would prevent the phantom from hearing.

  “I should have taken up ectoplasmic studies instead of environmental science.” Shaking her head in disbelief, Sam left for the kitchen and returned with two mugs. “I don’t see or feel anything different. Not even negative energy, although I left my walking stick over at the diner. Maybe I should fetch it, but I didn’t feel anything earlier either.”

  “Walking stick?” Teddy asked.

  Sam waved a hand. “Harvey carves them. The weird among us can feel various forms of energy through them, although the Nulls like to call them magic wands.”

  Teddy snorted. “Right. That’s what I need, a wand to make everything better. If your gift is for plants, then it’s Mariah who should have taken up ectoplasmic studies. I wonder if there is a university of the weird?” Teddy sipped her coffee. Sam knew how she liked it from her orders at the café.

  As if she’d heard her name, Mariah crossed the street from the direction of the grocery—or maybe the town hall. Teddy saluted her as the black-braided ghost-hunter entered. “We’re liking our ghost today. Leave her ectoplasm alone.”

  Mariah checked the swinging nets on the ceiling, then glanced at the children scarfing up donuts. “She likes donuts or kids?”

  Teddy shrugged. “Both? What’s the word on the commune’s kiln?”

  Sam leaned over the counter to admire the assortment of crystals Teddy had set out. “Daisy said—and this is Crazy Daisy now, not a historian—that the pottery was defunct at the end of the 90’s. Several potters lingered in the area and continued to use the kiln.”

  Mariah helped herself to a donut. “I was a bad girl and borrowed Monty’s computer. Records say the kiln exploded over nine years ago. They surmised one of the rogue potters overheated what was already a cracked and deteriorating system. The county newspaper screamed about the possibility of fire spreading through the brush since Hillvale has no fire department and demanded that it be dismantled. The town started volunteer fire training after that, but as far as I can tell, the kiln was never rebuilt. The remains may be buried under the mudslide that hit the bluff some years back. They weren’t visible even before Gump blew up Boulder Rock.”

  “This sounds like a deranged and dangerous community,” Teddy protested. Picking up the ghost’s distress, she shook her head and put a finger to her lips to stop the discussion of how the ghost’s remains had been disposed of.

  “Evil is the word you want. I poked around a little more on the computer while I was there.” Mariah settled on the floor to better examine the counter contents. “The analysis of the pixie dust merely shows ground quartz and glass. Can you make glass in kilns?”

  “How did you get into the police lab records?” Sam demanded.

  Mariah shrugged. “Magic?”

  Teddy pondered the question rather than Mariah’s magical computer abilities. “A lab can’t test for magic or evil toxicity in the dust,” she concluded.

  “For all that matters, we can’t determine if evil means intent or something actually toxic in the dust,” Sam added.

  “Let’s not get metaphysical.” Teddy lifted the last piece of rock quartz she was placing in the display case. “This is just basic Brazilian purple amethyst. Any good rock collector would disdain it. A laboratory would find nothing unusual. But I can grind it and add it to glass or carve it into a charm, and its healing properties are legendary. It blocks negative energies and exudes soothing ones.”

  Sam sat down beside Mariah to study the case. “Really? I’m not feeling what I felt with the dust. I don’t feel any vibrations. It just sparkles pretty.”

  Mia and Jeb joined them on the floor, sitting on their dust towels and wriggling happily. “The ghost lady says too ma lean,” Mia announced.

  Mia really was talking to ghosts? Wait until Syd heard that.

  Jeb wrapped his arm around Prince Hairy, who was licking the donut crumbs off his face. Teddy knew she was an awful mother, but if the dog wanted to be a washcloth—

  “Tourmaline?” Teddy translated. “What did she say about it?” She couldn’t believe she just asked that.

  Even impassive Mariah was studying the six-year-old with interest.

  Mia shrugged and spun around as if talking to invisible entities was perfectly normal. “It hides evil?” she asked, as if repeating what she heard. “And eggs,” she added, happy to recognize a word.

  “Cass and Valdis couldn’t get this much out of your ghostly presence,” Sam said in wonder.

  “Cass and Valdis interpret through adult minds.” Mariah finished her donut. “I doubt tourmaline and eggs came through clearly when they were asking for killers.”

  Teddy frowned and pulled out one of her research books. “I can’t be certain, but I have this niggling feeling that tourmaline. . .” She pointed at a page. “Red tourmaline can be radioactive.”

  “Pixie dust,” Sam said, looking alarmed. “But the lab didn’t detect radioactivity.”

  “The dust was actually red and blue and turned purple when mixed.” Teddy flipped through her quartz index. “There are dozens of crystals that contain anything from asbestos to uranium. They can be mixed in potter’s clay or paint for any variety of reasons. Or it could all just be superstition and the killer dumped everything he had in the attic and hoped it would hide his evil deeds.” Teddy shoved the book back on the shelf behind her. “And translating eggs is beyond my scope, except crystals often are found in geodes, which resemble eggs.”

  “Our gifts are limited, or we’d take over the world,” Sam said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t suppose anyone has a gift for making the cable company hook up my internet?” Teddy asked, not likin
g to continue this talk with spooks and kids listening. “Or for hunting up the property records to prove this place is mine?”

  “Oh, I did that.” Mariah stood and dusted off her jeans. “This place is listed as owned by the Kennedy Corp, sorry. You’ll need lawyers to fight a fraudulent deed.”

  Sam stood as well. “And does your magic computer cover my farm?”

  “Don’t poke fun.” Mariah pointed a finger at her. “I’m not just good at ectoplasm. And yes, the last recorded deed is listed as owned by the Ingersson Trust. I didn’t have time to look for where trust documents are filed. Your fancy lawyer can find out easily enough. The farm is yours, and the Kennedys can’t build anything there.”

  Teddy heard the note of triumph, but the farm land wasn’t the only property the Kennedys owned. They could still raze the entire town—Syd’s only safe haven and her own hope for the future.

  She’d have to hire a lawyer.

  Fourteen

  June 28: afternoon

  * * *

  Forewarned about Teddy’s activities, Kurt arrived in town wearing jeans, t-shirt, and an old Ralph Lauren denim shirt with buttons missing. He’d had to hunt in the bottom of boxes he’d brought back from college to find them—which made him feel old. When was the last time he hadn’t put on a suit when he got up in the morning? He’d never planned on turning into his father.

  Which was why he was here now, watching Teddy on her knees, bent over to add final touches to the exterior door she was painting. She reminded him that he wasn’t dead yet. He’d apparently just been dating the wrong women. His task was to convince this skittish female that sex was good for their mutual health. He excelled at challenges.