Blowing Smoke (4 page)

“Now I know why my TV isn't working too well,” I quipped as I stepped inside.

Pat Humphrey smiled politely.

The house was pleasantly cool. I caught a faint aroma of sandalwood. Everything in it, from the hardwood oak floor to the diamond-leaded windowpanes, sparkled. The walls of the small vestibule I was standing in were covered in an expensive, textured, wheat-colored paper, which contrasted nicely with the ocher-colored living-room walls. The pictures on them, mostly landscapes, looked like original oils and watercolors. The worn nut-brown leather Chesterfield sofa and club chair sat on a fair-sized Oriental rug. A bouquet of baby's-breath, sunflowers, and daisies sat in a polished copper vase in front of the fireplace. The mantel, painted white, was covered with photos and ceramic candlesticks.

“Very nice,” I said. The place dripped with good taste, the kind it takes a fair amount of money and knowledge to accomplish.

Pat Humphrey nodded her head graciously. “Most of the furniture is my grandmother's. This”—she indicated the lamp to the right of the sofa—“is a real Tiffany. The table under it is a signed Stickley.” Pat tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

“We're talking what? Maybe fifty to sixty thousand dollars?” I posited, realizing I'd spoken out loud. “My mother was in the trade for a while,” I explained.

“People say I should sell this stuff and invest the money, but having it here makes me feel closer to Gran.”

I made a noncommittal sound. I had no reason to believe Humphrey was lying about where she'd gotten the stuff, but she didn't strike me as the sentimental type, either.

“I guess I've been fortunate,” Pat Humphrey added as she led me into the dining room and sat me down at the table in the center.

Maybe. Or maybe she'd made her own luck. I positioned my backpack on the table, close to where she was sitting. “No pets?”

Pat Humphrey spread her fingers out and studied her carefully manicured nails. “I find them a distraction. I need quiet.”

She certainly had that. Aside from the whir of the overhead fan, the only other sound I could hear was the swish of the dishwasher running. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a metallic green beetle march its way over the fringe of an old Herez and onto the floor. When it got to the leg of the sideboard, it stopped and waved its feelers around for a few minutes, wondering what to do.

“How did you get into this line of work?” I asked her as the beetle began its climb.

“I've always had the ability. From the time I was a little girl. I'd get these flashes. My grandmother had them, too, so I guess you could say I inherited it. This is a way to use my ability for good.” Pat Humphrey clasped her hands together and cocked her head slightly to one side. “Tell me, how can I help you?”

“I thought you'd know.”

Pat Humphrey frowned a little. The gesture brought out the furrows between her eyes. “I have lots of other clients who need to see me. If you think this is a joke...”

“Not at all,” I hastened to reassure her, after which I proceeded to give her the story I'd decided upon when I'd phoned. “I'm worried about my German shepherd, Duke. He's not eating well. He looks different. Not right. I was hoping you could tell me what's the matter.”

“Have you taken him to a vet?”

My respect for her went up a notch. “Of course.” I allowed my voice to grow indignant. “He's had all sorts of blood work done. Nothing's shown up.”

“I see. When was he born?”

“August of last year.”

“So that would make him a Leo,” Pat Humphrey mused aloud as I watched the beetle clamber over a carved wooden rose.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. Let's get started, shall we?” And with that she closed her eyes.

Her face grew slack; her breathing became shallow. The only discernible movement was the occasional flicker of an eyelid. It was a good act. I wondered how long she'd be able to keep it up. Probably for a while. It seemed as if she'd had plenty of practice. I checked my watch. Two minutes later, I checked my watch again. Five more minutes and I began to get antsy.

I got up. Pat Humphrey didn't move. Probably because she was on another plane, a spiritual one, chatting away with her spirit guide. Right. I restrained myself from snapping my fingers in front of her face or sticking my tongue out or any of the other ten-year-old maneuvers I wanted to perform. After all, I was just here to see the show and make a report, and it seemed to me the report I was going to make was pretty conclusive.

Instead, I went into the kitchen, got myself a drink of water, and came back into the dining room. Pat Humphrey was still in her trance, and the beetle was on top of the sideboard. He looked as if he didn't know where to go. It was probably tough living in a psychic's house, with all that spiritual energy flowing around you. Of course, in ancient Egypt beetles were holy, so maybe he was used to this kind of thing. I was about to pick him up and take him outside, anyway, when Pat Humphrey's eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes.

She gave a slight cough. I sat back down and waited to hear what she had to say. Her face looked drawn. A delicate trace of sweat was visible over her upper lip. As she wiped it away, I noticed there was a slight tremor in her hand. The woman really did put on an excellent performance. I'd give her that. Suddenly, she began to talk. Her voice sounded weary. But, hey, I get tired when I fly to New York City and back.

“Your dog, Duke, is surrounded by a field of negative energy. It is impinging on his ability to heal himself. If you want him to get better, you must work on your own negative emotions and those in your immediate environment. You must become more positive. The universe is a vast sea. Whatever you throw out comes back to you.”

“What should I do for him?” I asked, trying to get her to say more about my nonexistent pet.

“Duke wants you to know that he needs your support,” Pat Humphrey continued. “He is in pain.”

“What kind?”

“In his hind legs. He needs to sleep off the floor.”

Considering he was a German shepherd and most shepherds have hip problems, that wasn't too hard a guess.

“Also,” Humphrey continued, “I sense he has a problem in the area of his liver. The food you are giving him is rife with negative karma. You must change it. If you do these things, he will begin to heal.”

Since most commercial dog food is made with ground-up animal by-products, that wasn't too surprising, either. That's why I don't feed it to my dog Zsa Zsa. But then Zsa Zsa doesn't eat dog food. Of any kind. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the beetle pause on the edge of the sideboard. He wavered for a few seconds, then plunged over the edge. He landed on his back and stayed there, legs frantically waving. Finally, he managed to right himself and scurry under the side-board.

I was trying to spot him when Pat Humphrey pushed herself away from the table and stood up. I redirected my attention to her.

“And now, if you'll excuse me, I must lie down for a few minutes. I hope I was helpful.”

“Oh, you were,” I assured her. After all, any animal could benefit from the advice she'd given me. Feed your dog healthful food, be nice to it, and cut down on the fighting around the house. I hoped she was giving Hillary's mother more detailed readings for the money she was getting.

“Good.” Pat Humphrey clasped my hands in hers. Her palms were dry and cool. “Tell me if Duke begins to feel better.”

“I will,” I promised.

I started for the door. I was thinking that all I had to do was run a background check on Pat Humphrey and give Hillary Cisco the tape of this meeting along with my report and I'd be done with the job when Pat Humphrey called out to me.

“Wait,” she said.

I turned.

“Do you have a cat called James?”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

Pat Humphrey licked her lower lip. “Because he's locked in somewhere and can't get out. Somewhere dark. Somewhere without windows.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up. “A van?”

“I can't tell. It's too dark.”

I was having my bedroom painted. The guy doing it owned a covered truck. I glanced at my watch. It was four-thirty. John said he'd be done and out of my house around now. Could James have jumped into the truck and gotten himself locked in? It was possible. He'd done something like that a couple of years ago.

She held up a finger as I began to speak. “There's something else. Something about a person... a man. His name starts with an M...”

“Murphy,” I blurted out.

Pat Humphrey shook her head. “I don't know. I'm sorry. I've lost it now.” She looked genuinely upset.

She wasn't half as upset as I was.

I
watched George—who was what? My boyfriend? My sometime live-in?—take a long pull from his bottle of beer and listened to the dull click of glass on glass as he put the bottle back on the table. It was a little after ten in the evening, and we were having a nightcap in my backyard—it was too hot in the house—and discussing the day's events.

“If it had been me, I would have handcuffed that little shit to the door of the car,” he observed.

I swatted at a fly and inhaled the sweet scent of nicotiana wafting from my garden. A sliver of a new moon hung uncertainly in the night sky. “Now, that's a constructive suggestion.”

“Hey, at least what's her name...”

“Bethany...”

“Whatever. Wouldn't be out on the streets roaming around now.”

“She's probably sleeping in the basement of one of her friend's houses.”

George yawned and put his arms over his head and stretched. “God, I'm glad I don't work juvie anymore. You can't imagine how nice it is not to have to deal with that kind of stuff.”

“I bet the kids on the street are glad, too.”

“Har. Har.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “So what now?”

“Her parents want me to keep looking.”

“She's just lucky she's not my kid, that's all I can say.”

“What would you do?”

“I'd put her in a friggin' all-girls Catholic boarding school like my aunt did with her daughters.”

We both lapsed into silence. I was thinking about how George still sounded like a cop even though he was off the force when my phone rang.

“Aren't you going to get it?” George asked.

“No. Let the machine pick it up.” It had been a long day, and I didn't want to talk to anyone now.

A shaft of light from my kitchen illuminated the planes on George's face as he leaned over, took the tape of my session with Pat Humphrey out of the recorder, and tossed it to me. I missed, and it landed in my lap.

“You want my opinion on this?”

“I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.”

He ran a finger around the mouth of his bottle. “You don't believe this Humphrey woman is for real, do you?” he asked.

“Of course not,” I lied as Zsa Zsa chased a moth around the deck. She snapped at it, missed, and snapped again. She hadn't caught one yet. “I'm just asking for your explanation of the last part of the session.”

“For openers, she obviously recognized you.”

“I hope not. If she did, why didn't she say so? Why did she go along with it?”

George shrugged. “I don't know. Go ask her. But that's the only reasonable answer.” He spoke quickly, compressing the words together, the way he did when he was talking about something he didn't want to. The fact that discussing Murphy still upset him endeared him to me. “That's how she knew.”

I studied the glowing white petals of the nicotiana languidly drooping in the darkness instead. A giant moth, attracted by the lamp in my kitchen window, was fluttering its wings against the glass.

“The paper covered his death,” George added. “Remember?”

How could I forget? Although, God knows, I would like to. I took a sip of my scotch and tried not to think about that time. “All right, maybe she did know who I was,” I conceded, tracking a pair of yellow-green eyes that had materialized out of the bushes and would, I knew, shortly metamorphose into my cat. All black, he was practically invisible at night. In the Middle Ages they would have called him a familiar and consigned him to the flames. With my red hair and my big mouth, I probably wouldn't have been far behind.

“Maybe she was playing me, but what about James? How do you explain that?” I demanded as he brushed by my leg. I scooped him up and buried my hand in his thick fur. He moved his neck, letting me know he wanted me to scratch behind his ears. I'd reached my house just as the painter was pulling out of my driveway and gotten him to unlock the back of his truck. If I hadn't, my kitty would have been God knows where instead of sitting in my lap. “Pat Humphrey was right about him being in the van.”

George snorted and took another swallow of beer. “Get real. It was a lucky guess. That's all it was. That's all it usually is.”

“I wish I was as sure.”

“Humphrey is running a classic textbook con.” George put his beer down on the table. “Think about it. She made a general statement about James.”

I took a sip of my scotch before replying. “No, she didn't.”

“Yes, she did. Robin, saying James is in an enclosed space is like saying he was up a tree. Crawling into nooks and crannies and climbing up trees are two things that cats do.”

“What about the van part, then? How did she know that?”

“Easy. You gave it to her.”

I flushed and fished a Camel out of the pack lying on the table.

“See,” George said, taking my silence for assent.

I went to light the cigarette, and James, disgusted with my actions, jumped onto the ground and disappeared back into the hedges. “You still haven't explained how she knew I had a cat.”

George cocked his head and studied me for a second before replying. “Like I said before, she probably knew who you were.”

I drew in a breath of smoke, then exhaled. “How do you explain the fact that she knew James's name? That's a fairly specific piece of information.”

George drummed his fingers on his chair's armrest. “Come on, Robin. This is a small town. Maybe Humphrey knows one of your neighbors. Maybe you guys have a mutual friend. You've been written up in local papers. Maybe they mentioned James there. Or maybe you mentioned James to her in your conversation and you've forgotten that you did.”

I thought back. I was fairly positive I hadn't, but I could be wrong.

“That's the way people like her operate,” George continued. “She's good at remembering what other people say. She's also good at reading people cold, reading their body language. It's a knack.” He stifled a yawn. “Good salesmen have it. So do con artists. I read that some professor even teaches a college course on how to do it. He calls it debunking psychics.”

“Still...” I began when George pushed his chair back and stood up.

“You want a beer?” he asked.

“I'll stick with scotch, thanks.” I enjoyed watching him walk into my kitchen, the way he strolled along. When he came out a moment later, he had a beer in one hand and the picture of the Mexican family in the other. I'd left it on the counter by the sink.

“Who is this?” he asked.

I reached up and took it. “Just a photo I picked up somewhere,” I lied, the words flowing out while prickles of guilt blossomed in my gut.

I hadn't told George about the man lying in the hospital. I hadn't told him about having to get tested for TB, either. Maybe I should have. But we weren't married, I rationalized. Therefore, I didn't have to tell him everything. Of course, I hadn't done that even when I was married, but that was beside the point. Anyway, it had been a long day, and I wasn't in the mood for the argument I was sure would ensue.

George sat back down. “You want me to ask Paul to run Humphrey's name for you?”

“Think he can leave the golf course long enough to do it?”

George frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I'll ask him.”

Paul was a friend of George's. At the moment, George was going for his Ph.D. in medieval history, but when I'd met him, he'd been a cop, and he still had lots of friends on and off the force. Paul was one of them. He'd recently opened a security agency, and so, even though I didn't like the guy too much, any kind of checking that had to be done, I threw his way. It wasn't worth it not to. That's the thing with relationships—they always involve compromises.

Half an hour later, after George had finished his second beer, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Come on,” he said, kissing me, his hand lingering on my hip. “Let's get a little action going here.”

I kissed him back.

“Let's go upstairs.”

My hand went to his waistband. “It's too hot upstairs, let's stay down here.”

He kissed the side of my neck. “I don't think so.”

“How come you're so conservative?”

“How come you're so reckless?”

We compromised on the living-room sofa.

 

 

After George left, I went back into the garden. I smoked another cigarette and sipped my scotch and pondered the last two days. Watching Zsa Zsa and James playing hide-and-seek, I thought about ghosts and spirits and whether I believed in them or not. By the time I was ready to go to bed, I'd convinced myself that George was right, that what I'd seen that afternoon was a fluke. Pat Humphrey was an exceptionally talented con artist. Nothing more. I could understand why Hillary and her sister and brother were so upset, why they'd wanted to hire me. I'd want to hire me, too, if I were them.

That night, I dreamed about Murphy, something I hadn't done in years. I woke up before my alarm went off to Zsa Zsa licking the tears off my cheeks. The dream had had something to do with a green skeleton that turned into a straw mat that became a cluster of blue and yellow butterflies. I tried to remember more and failed as I dragged myself out of bed, stood under the shower, got dressed, and drove off to Noah's Ark. But the dream had become lodged in my mind like a cinder in your eye. I couldn't get rid of it.

I was still trying at ten-thirty in the morning when a man walked through the shop door. Zsa Zsa immediately ran out from behind the counter and started barking. Looking at him, I figured two things. One: He wasn't a customer. And two: He wasn't from around here. His clothes, expensive, casual, pressed khakis and a dark green polo shirt with an Izod logo, marked him suburban. And then I caught sight of his car and amended the suburban to rich.

“Nice ride,” I said, indicating the Mercedes parked by the curb after telling Zsa Zsa to stuff a sock in it.

Actually, now that I'd taken a closer look at him, he wasn't so bad, either. Attractive rather than handsome. Tall, loose-knit body. Clean-shaven. A chin a shade too narrow, a nose a little too big for his face, eyes that never seemed to come to rest, but somehow together the features worked.

He grinned, revealing a set of prominent canines. “Personally, I like the Jag better.”

“Personally, I like the old MGBs.”

“Me, too.” He winked. “I'm trying to get the boss to buy one. I spotted a beauty down in Tully the other day.”

“So what are you? A chauffeur?”

He cracked his knuckles. “Something like that.”

“It must be nice to have that kind of money.”

His grin grew wide enough to split his face. “I think so.” He planted an elbow on the counter and leaned toward me. I caught a whiff of his aftershave. “Here.” He pressed a small envelope into my palm. “This is for you.”

“Who's it from?”

“The boss lady.”

“And that would be?”

“Rose Taylor.”

“Rose Taylor?” Hillary's mom. I lifted an eyebrow.

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“Not at all.” Well, that hadn't taken long. Maybe George had been right about Humphrey knowing who I was. I flushed, thinking about what a fool I must have looked like.

“Nice place you have here,” he said, looking around the shop as I absentmindedly tapped the edge of the envelope on the counter. “Although your air conditioning could use a little help.”

“I know. I've been trying to get the repair guy on the phone for the past two days.”

He pointed to one of the saltwater fish tanks alongside the left wall. “Are those hard to keep going?”

“They're not recommended for beginners.”

“Pity. That's the story of my life.”

“What is?”

“Always wanting things above my ability.” He clasped his hands together, straightened them, and popped his knuckles. “So aren't you going to open it?” He indicated the envelope with his chin.

“Sorry.” I loosened the flap and slid the card out. It was the expensive kind, the kind made out of vellum, the kind with the embossed black letters. I flipped it open. Rose Taylor was inviting me to cocktails at five-thirty that evening. Her handwriting was precise and even. She'd written the invitation out with a fountain pen in bright blue ink.

“I didn't think people drank cocktails anymore.”

“Most people don't use fountain pens either,” the chauffeur observed.

“Why does she want to see me?”

He shrugged. “She didn't say. Can I tell her you're coming?”

Watching him, I got the feeling that no one refused Rose Taylor. “And if I say no?”

The chauffeur smoothed out the logo on his shirt. “You'll miss a good martini.”

“I prefer manhattans.”

“We have those, too.” His smile was positively wolfish. “I'll even have the maid put a cherry in your glass.” He leaned forward. “You like cherries, don't you?”

“Doesn't everyone?”

“Good. I'll have her put in two. It's a great house. You'll like it. Oh,” he said, turning when he reached the door. “One more thing. Try to be on time. She hates it when anyone is late.”

“Don't we all.”

After he left, I picked up the card Rose Taylor had sent me and studied it. Amy had said her mother was rich. The card and the car confirmed that. They also told me something else. They told me that not only did Rose Taylor have money; she wanted people to know that she had it. Given the way her children had acted, I had a feeling she wasn't above using it to get what she wanted.