Death in the Cards (24 page)

“Nope.”

Cherry grinned up at him admiringly. I wasn't sure why. She couldn't want him for his masterful command of language. Then he flashed a grin at her, flexed his muscles under his cowboy shirt as he resettled his hat, and I thought, oh yeah. Cherry was only interested in Max's body language.

Which didn't translate for me, but there you have it. No accounting for taste.

“Did you see anyone come to Ginny's room yesterday afternoon, before the psychic fair? Either while she was here, or while she wasn't?”

“Nope,” Max said. But this time his eyes slid away from mine and his shoulder slumped, just a little. Aha. Maybe his body language did translate for me, after all. This message I was clearly getting was: “I'm lying.”

“I need to talk to Cherry. Alone,” I said.

“Oh, uh, sure,” Max replied, and opened his motel room. He stepped in, leaving the door ajar.

I grabbed Cherry's arm and pulled her back toward my room. She jerked away. She was glaring at me, I could tell, even though night had mostly fallen and the only light we had came from the parking lot.

“Just what do you think you're doing?” Cherry hissed.

“Trying to save you from some heartache!” I said. “If you really need a place to stay, just share the motel room with me.”

“No!” Cherry snapped. “Max offered for me to stay the night with him. He's being a real gentleman about it. Got a rollaway cot from the Rhinegolds.”

“Oh, like you're really going to sleep all night on a cot. How thoughtful of him.”

“No, he's going to spend the night on the cot,” Cherry huffed. “I get the bed. At most, we'll just smooch.”

“Cherry, you really expect me to think you're gonna spend the night on the bed, and he's gonna stay on the rollaway cot?”

Silence. Then Cherry grinned. “Well, we'll start in those positions. Who knows what position we'll end up in. Tee hee . . .”

I groaned. Her tee hees ceased. “Josie, you are such a prude,” she pouted.

“That's one way of looking at it. Listen, I can tell you right now, this guy's trouble. He just now lied to me about not seeing anyone come to Ginny's motel room.”

“How do you know he lied?”

“I just could tell,” I said exasperated. “Kinda like the way you can tell a rattler's dangerous when it starts rattling.”

“Josie, there are no rattlers in southern Ohio. You've only ever seen them in the Cincinnati Zoo, like on the field trip we took with Mrs. Oglevee back in Junior High.”

“What?” I shook my head. Cherry could upset a line of logic faster than a broken track line could derail a freight train.

“Come to think of it, you tried to ruin my fun then, too, telling Mrs. O about me and Fredo at the back of the bus.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Wasn't his nickname Fredo Feel-up? He's probably working in some boring job now, sweating in tacky business suits, still trying to feel-up all the females.”

“Oh, so now you're trying to ruin my memories of the first time I ever—”

I put my hand over her mouth. I absolutely, totally, completely did not want to know what she did the first time with Fredo Feel-up.

Cherry bit my palm.

“Ouch,” I said, jerking my hand away. I looked at my palm. At least she hadn't drawn blood. Amazing, what with her tiny little raccoon teeth. “Look, you're a grownup now, so whatever you do is your business.”

“Why, thank you,” Cherry said with exaggerated politeness.

“Just do me two favors.”

“What?” She stared back at Max's room, as if she were afraid he might leave without her. Which, eventually, he would—but there was no point in telling her that.

“One, find out if you can who Max saw come to Ginny's room, if Ginny was there, if he overheard anything—”

“I got it, I got it. What else?”

“If you need to, just come to my room, okay?”

Cherry didn't say anything. She looked at me for a moment, and then headed back toward Max's room. But just before she turned, I caught a glimpse of her expression turning just a little sad, and a little grateful.

I was fuming to myself as I crossed the interior courtyard, a shortcut to the road I'd have to cross to retrieve my van from
the grassy parking area in front of Beeker's Orchard. I was so lost in my own thoughts, I almost didn't hear the quiet sobbing, but then I caught it, soft and almost lost under the waning fall chorus of bugs.

The lampposts that had lit the pool for night swimming were still there, now lighting the courtyard. Near one, just out of reach of its direct light, I could see a figure sitting in one of the plastic chairs, hunched forward over its knees. The crying was steady, rhythmic, as if born up from a deep well in the person's soul.

I wavered. This person was caught up in an intensely personal moment. Something overwhelming must have caused such a reaction, maybe a reading at the psychic fair that was frightening or disappointing. But no, I didn't think so. I noticed most of the people leaving their readings feeling upbeat or thoughtful, but not distraught.

Except for Ginny.

And except for this person.

Whatever the person was keening over was none of my business, but still. I couldn't just walk past without at least trying to offer some concern, some comfort.

I started over, and as I got closer, realized I recognized the person: Maureen Crowley.

“Maureen?” I said softly.

The crying didn't end at once, but tapered off slowly as Maureen looked up at me. “Josie Toadfern?” she said.

“Yes.” We'd met each other just a few times, in the course of her Uncle Hugh's tutoring and the fundraisers for her son, Ricky. “Are you okay?”

“I just wanted to find a healer . . . a healer . . .” Maureen said quietly. She started rocking back and forth in her chair. I knelt down beside her.

“Are you sick? Do you need me to get help?” I glanced around. A brisk wind sharpened the night air. Maureen and I
were the only people in the courtyard. I didn't want to leave her alone. Maybe she could come with me to find help. I gently took ahold of her elbow. “Come on, let's go inside—”

She jerked away from me and kept rocking. “I just wanted a healer for him, someone who could really help him . . .”

I realized two things: that she was talking about finding a healer for her son and that she wasn't really talking to me. She was lost in a trance of her own worries and fears about Ricky. My heart clenched. I felt both sorrow and understanding for her as my thoughts turned briefly to Guy and my own mixed sense of hope and helplessness.

“Maureen, let's get inside where it's warmer. It'll be okay, you'll see—”

Maureen stood up suddenly. I lost my balance and almost plunged from kneeling to sprawling. Then I stood up, too. Maureen glared at me.

“It'll be okay? Okay?” she said in a mocking, angry tone. “That's what I've been hearing for nearly seven months now. That Ricky will be okay. That things will work out. But he's getting worse, worse damn it! Prayer chains, second opinions, this treatment and that, and he's still sick!”

Maureen put her hands to her face, covering eyes, nose, and mouth. I could barely make out her next words. “But she was a healer. A healer with special powers . . .”

I realized who she must have been talking about. None of the other psychics at the fair claimed to be healers . . . only Ginny, long ago. And again, recently, but just for her own illness.

Still, I ventured her name. “Ginny Proffitt? Is that who you're talking about, Maureen?” I asked gently.

“She said she was returning to her roots, getting back to her true God-given talent, that she should never have abandoned that in the first place,” Maureen moaned. “But now she's gone and I need to find another healer—”

“Maureen!”

The deep voice snapped suddenly from the other side of the courtyard, startling both of us. We looked up in its direction and watched the man walking toward us. Then he came into the light. It was Hugh Crowley.

“Maureen,” he said again, more gently as he stopped beside us. Like me, he knelt down by Maureen's chair. “Your mama wants you to come home, honey,” he said. “She needs you to come home. She's worried about Ricky, too. We all are. She wants you to come back to the house. We can pray together—”

“Prayers! Hopes! Doctors! None of it's doing a bit of good,” Maureen said. Her voice was a thin, high-pitched moan. Tears pricked my eyes. Her pain was so strong, so desperate that it thickened the night around us.

“You know this fool's errand you're on won't do a bit of good, either,” Hugh snapped. “And you know what we think of this.” He threw out an arm, taking in the courtyard, but meaning, I understood at once, the psychic fair that was going on inside the Red Horse Motel.

Maureen laughed bitterly. “Oh, I know, all right. Psychic healing, foretelling, all of this is of the devil. But mama turned to it quick enough for Little Ed's sake, didn't she?”

What? I thought. I'd never heard of Little Ed. Who was Maureen talking about? I looked quizzically at Hugh, but his gaze was intent on Maureen. I wasn't even sure he was aware of my presence.

“That's history,” said Hugh. “Best forgotten.”

“Like Ricky will be forgotten, if he dies? Because God knows, we can't talk about pain in our family, we can only just pray for deliverance—”

Hugh stood swiftly, grabbing Maureen's arm as he did so, pulling her up so hard that she gasped, and I gasped, too. I'd never known Hugh to be anything but gentle.

“No one's going to forget Ricky,” Hugh said. “And medicine has made a lot of progress since—” he swallowed, hard. “—since Little Ed died.”

For a long moment, Hugh and Maureen stared at each other. Hugh still held Maureen's arm, at an uncomfortable angle. Truth be told, I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't know Hugh to be a violent man, but he clearly was intent on forcing Maureen to go home, and she seemed just as intent on staying at the psychic fair. And Maureen was a grown woman. Whatever her mama and her uncle thought of the fair, she had every right to choose to stay. Or go.

But then Maureen let out a long sigh. “Oh, Uncle Hugh,” she said simply.

Hugh let go of her arm, and Maureen put her head to his chest. Hugh put his arms around her and Maureen finally released the sobs that had been building up in her.

I stood up, walked away from them. Maureen would be okay with her Uncle Hugh. And they needed no witnesses to their private conflict, to the pain that the Crowleys all masked behind tense smiles and tight nods of appreciation in public, at fundraisers and church services and even just coming into my laundromat.

And I needed to deliver to the police department the handkerchief as well as my knowledge that it and the pants in Ginny's stolen suitcase were stained with blood.

So I walked away from Hugh and Maureen Crowley, toward the break in the row of motel rooms that opened to the parking lot, moving at a fast pace.

Until I heard loud, angry shouts coming from the parking lot, and suddenly became aware of the smell of something—leaves? paper?—burning.

Then I took off running toward the motel parking lot.

18

Dru and Missy Purcell were backlit by the Red Horse Motel sign, and its flickering neon red
NO.

Near them were gathered about twenty of their faithful followers, carrying signs as they had before, but this time their placards read
NO WITCHES IN PARADISE
! and
PSYCHIC DEVILS
,
BACK TO HELL
!

Before them the fire's flickering flames cast dancing shadows on the faces of Dru and Missy and their protestors, its primal light at odds with the harsh neon behind them.

As I pushed to the front of the crowd, to the edge of the fire, I gasped.

Someone had made a fire ring, a circle of stones, in front of the Red Horse Motel sign, then laid the kindling and logs for a fire, which now crackled and leapt, feeding itself on books. My stomach turned. I swallowed hard to keep myself from being sick. I grabbed a stick on the edge of the fire circle, and used it to prod toward me two books that lay just outside the fire. I knelt. The edges of the books were smoking. But their
titles were still readable:
A History of and Some Speculations about Serpent Mound.
And:
Magick and Healing.

I had to swallow again. These were titles I'd seen at the LeFevers' bookstore. Which had been broken into just the day before.

I stood up, stared across the fire at Dru.

“These tomes of the devil burn tonight just as those who follow their evil teaching will also surely burn,” Dru chanted.

“Amen!” shouted one of his followers. I heard a less certain “Amen” echo from the crowd and saw it came from Elroy, who owned the gas station just outside of town. Sickness gripped my stomach. Elroy was a good man. A man who was fair to his customers, who was sincerely concerned about the future of Paradise and shared that concern at every Paradise Chamber of Commerce meeting. A man who put his goodness into action at every chance. Such as helping with the chili-spaghetti fundraiser for the Crowleys the previous weekend.

He wanted to do, and be, right. But I could see in his face that while he wasn't sure that going along with Dru was right, he wasn't sure that not going along was right, either.

The problem with wanting to be right, wanting to see things as either absolutely right or absolutely wrong, is that the impulse to be right can make even people like Elroy forget the value of tolerating a different view, of knowing that faith means trusting in the ultimate rightness of the universe even though you don't have—can't possibly have—all of the answers.

I could see that conflict in Elroy's face. I looked at the fire, at the two books I'd rescued. I didn't know if I would agree with their contents. In fact, I didn't buy into much of what the psychics and their devotees believed. But then, I didn't buy into everything that my church taught, either.