The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery) (4 page)

She was
reluctant, but I was the new landlord and she obviously wanted to stay. So it only took a little wheedling to get the girl to talk.

“I’d been out with friends,” she said. “Just hanging, goofing around. I got in really late and came in the back way, like always. And I noticed that the light was on in the reading room. That was weird. Athena never had anyone in after nine. She might stay up messing around on the computer, but she wasn’t in the office when I came in, and it wasn’t like her to leave lights on after she went upstairs for the night. She was always so particular—so anal. So I went down the hall to check it out. She’d been kind of extra-moody lately, and I thought maybe…well…I don’t know what I thought.”

“And you found her.”

Clarice nodded.

“I freaked out. Screamed, ran outside, called the police. It was obvious someone had killed her. Her eyes were…”

The girl’s words trailed off, and her jaw clenched tight.

Then she shivered and swallowed and started again.

“Her eyes were all bugged out, and I could see bruises around her neck. So far as I knew, the guy might still be inside. When the cops came, they checked the place out, but he was gone.”

“How’d he get in?”

“Through the window in the office, they think. The front and back doors were both locked—I had to let myself in with a key. And the window was cracked open, so there you go. The guy didn’t take much. Just some money and whatever electronic stuff he could grab from downstairs. The police think I probably missed him by, like, thirty minutes.”

“And they let you stay here after that?”

“Oh, god no. They kicked me out. Can’t have some kid messing up a crime scene. So I stayed with friends and then snuck back in a couple days later. I figured they’d already done their
CSI
thing in the Five & Dime, so what would it matter if I’m up here? It’s not like they were going to come back and find some new clue that would crack the case open. Naw. It’s gonna be some druggie saying, ‘Hey, man—wanna buy a camcorder? I killed a lady for it’ to a scumbag friend. And then the friend gets arrested for possession and tells his lawyer, like, ‘Hey, I know something the cops’ll want to hear.’ I think that’s how these things usually work out. Or maybe that’s just the way it looks on
Law & Order
.”

“Were there cards on the table?” I asked.

“What?”

“On the table. In the reading room. Were there any tarot cards?”

“I guess. There’s always a deck on that table.”

“But were they spread out? Like for a reading?”

“I didn’t stop to check. I was a little distracted—you know,
by the body
.”

“Try to remember. It could be important.”

The girl’s bearing—her aura, Josette might have said—suddenly changed. Her face turned hard; her eyes darted.

She was going fight-or-flight on me.

“I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. Who are you, anyway? You claim you just bought this place, but then you call Athena ‘Barbra’ and start asking questions like a cop.”

“I didn’t say I bought the building. I said I own it.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Eugene Wheeler never spoke to you? You don’t know anything about the will?”

“What will?”

“My mother’s will.”

“Your—?”

Clarice’s eyes widened.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Athena was your mother?”

“Yes.”

“And she left everything to you?”

“Yes.”

Clarice looked away. She shook her head. She started to laugh though she looked like she wanted to cry.

“That bitch,” she muttered. “That goddamn bitch.”

Not the most tactful thing to say to a grieving daughter, but I couldn’t argue.

“Look,” I began.

I was going to tell her she wasn’t getting kicked out. I didn’t know what I’d be doing with the place, but until I decided, she was welcome to stay.

I didn’t have to bother, though.

“Bitch!” Clarice shrieked, and the tears finally broke through as she ran to her room.

She had to kick dirty clothes out of the way, but after a few seconds she was able to give the door a nice loud slam.

What a
very special woman my mother was. Dead and gone, she could still make people cry.

I’ve never had any desire to be a mom myself and have always acted accordingly. There are many, many reasons for this, and here’s one: I don’t like the idea of a teenager screaming “bitch!” at me as she runs to her room in tears. And here it was happening anyway.

Old news: life’s not fair.

I stood
there a minute feeling stupid. Should I knock on Clarice’s door and ask if she was all right? It would be a dumb question. I could hear her sobbing. What could I do about it?

No one ever taught me how to console someone. No one ever taught me to care. I’d spent the last two decades trying to teach myself, but it was still a work in progress.
I
was a work in progress.

Eventually I just went back downstairs without saying anything.

I headed to the front of the store and turned on the big neon sign in the window. Then I walked to the display case and pulled out a copy of the tarot-reading book—
Infinite Roads to Knowing
by someone called Miss Chance.

I started reading.

Open yourself to new ideas and new people, and you could be like the High Priestess—a reader of minds and diviner of dark secrets. Just look into those eyes. They’re already looking into
you
.

Miss Chance,
Infinite Roads to Knowing

It didn’t
take me long to decide that Miss Chance was full of crap. Her introduction I skipped. Ditto the history of tarot cards and “divinatory” readings. I wanted to get straight to the how-to:
You see this card, you say that. You see that card, you say this. That’s all a “guide to the tarot” needs to be, right?

Yeah, maybe. But apparently Miss Chance didn’t feel that way. Each and every card got its own chapter: as many as eight pages devoted to one little drawing that looked like it came from some weird-ass medieval comic book.

And what was on those eight pages? Stuff like this:

If in the four suits we see the four elements that the ancients believed make up all things—earth (Pentacles), air (Swords), fire (Wands), water (Cups)—then in the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana (the Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, and so on) we see something separate from and beyond the trumps and, consequently, separate from and beyond the material realm. Looked at like this, the cards of the Minor Arcana (the Queen of Pentacles, the Ace of Swords, the Eight of Wands, the Two of Cups, etc.) are depictions of the physical realities that surround us—our world and the things we do in it—while in the Major Arcana (Latin for “big secrets,” remember) we find reflections and refractions of the archetypes that can define human identity and act as signposts on the road to knowing.

Miss Chance didn’t just lay it on a little thick. She backed up the BS truck and poured it out by the ton.

Eventually, however, with much perseverance, I was able to find passages that seemed to be written in English. A few I even understood. Kind of.

I found a pen and started underlining.

I was putting a star next to a particularly sane sentence when the front door opened.

“That isn’t going to fill customers with confidence,” someone said.

I looked up.

A man stood in the doorway. He was tall, dark, and handsome. (His hair and clothes were dark, anyway. He was a white guy, so he could only get so dark without being sunburned.)

He was smirking at the tarot book.

“I’m just looking for typos,” I said. “I wrote it, and there’s a new edition coming out next year. Are you here for a reading? I’m the new proprietor. Returning clients get half off their first session.”

The man’s smirk grew smirkier.

“No. I never got my fortune told here, although I did always come with a lot of questions.”

He pulled his black leather jacket aside to reveal a badge clipped to his belt.

“Now it looks like I’ve got questions for you,” he said.

I stifled a sigh and walked to the window and turned the sign off again. It had been on for all of twenty minutes.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

His name
was Josh Logan, and he was the head of the Berdache Police Department’s detective division.

He was also the entire staff. The Berdache Police Department had seven employees, and he was the only investigator in the bunch.

His smirk disappeared fast when he found out who I was.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know Athena had any children. When I saw the sign was on, I just assumed some crony of hers was trying to pick up where she left off.”

“I look like a crony to you?”

Logan winced.

“An associate. A colleague,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, actually. And where exactly is it that you think my mother might have left off with one?”

Logan took a few strides in silence. We were walking up Berdache’s main street, Furnier Avenue, which doubles as a short stretch of Highway 179. Every quarter block or so, someone would say “hey, Josh” or “afternoon, Officer.” From their smiles, I took it Detective Logan was a popular man. Given his looks, I wasn’t surprised. He was like a taller, younger George Clooney, only not so homely.

“So you’re a fortuneteller, too,” he finally said to me.

“Not really.”

“But you said you wrote a book about—”

Logan cut himself off with a snort and a shake of the head. I knew what he was thinking.

Like mother, like daughter.

“Look,” I said, “I hadn’t spoken to my mom in a long, long time. I can’t imagine she changed much, though. That’s part of the reason I came to Berdache. If she hurt anyone here, I want to find out who. To do that, I need to connect with her clients—particularly the most vulnerable ones. The most gullible. Do you think that’s something you could help me with?”

“You want me to round up your mother’s dumbest customers for you?”

“I didn’t say dumb. I said vulnerable and gullible.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Why? Because I say I want to track down the people my mom swindled and make amends? You find that so hard to believe?”

Logan said nothing.

“It’s because I look like a crony, isn’t it?” I said.

Logan gave me a long look.

I batted my eyes at him.

I do not look like a crony. I look like a 4-H beauty pageant runner-up. Not tall or thin or blond enough to win, but the big brown eyes and sweet smile would knock the judges dead in the Q&A.

That’s why I used to make such a good crony.

“There must have been some complaints,” I said. “I assume all those questions you wanted to ask my mom weren’t about your love life.”

Logan gave me another sideways look. He held it for seven or eight steps, glancing away just in time to glide around a lamppost. It was as if he had every inch of Berdache memorized.

“Maybe I can help you, maybe not,” he said. “Why don’t we see if you can help
me
first?”

I couldn’t.

He asked about my mother’s methods, her tricks, her partners. And though I could have told him stories all afternoon—not that I
ever
told those stories—none of it would have done any good.

“I’m not denying it: my mom was a con artist back when I knew her,” I said. “But I have no idea when or how she got into the fortunetelling thing. We didn’t even have a Magic 8 Ball when I was a kid, let alone tarot cards.”

“‘Back when I knew her’? That’s a weird way to talk about your mom.”

“Not when you haven’t spoken to her in twenty years.”

I got yet another of Logan’s long looks as we continued up the sidewalk. It was a miracle he hadn’t steamrolled a tourist.

“You go all that time without contact of any kind, then you just waltz into your mother’s place and take over after she dies?”

I shrugged. “There was a will. I was in it.”

“I doubt if it’s that simple.”

“Then you’re smart. Don’t make it too complicated, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean
there was a will. I was in it.
I assume I’m your number- one suspect now. And I shouldn’t be.”

“Hold on. I didn’t say anything like—”

“I can put you in touch with my boss. He’ll tell you I was at work in beautiful Lombard, Illinois, the day my mother was murdered and the day after, too.”

“Whoa, whoa!”

Logan finally stopped walking. We were at the edge of town by now. The rocky red bluffs in the distance darkened as twilight approached, and the clouds over the desert turned purple. The Lone Ranger wasn’t riding off into the sunset over Logan’s shoulder, but he should have been.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” Logan said. “You are not a suspect.”

“Why not? I ought to be.”

“You just said you shouldn’t be.”

“I meant I didn’t do it, not that you shouldn’t wonder if I’d done it.”

“Um, okay. I take it back. You
are
a suspect.”

“Good. I’d hate to think you weren’t being thorough.”

“I am being thorough.”

“Then you can tell me who your other suspects are.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Because you don’t have any?”

“
Because I can’t
.”

“All right. ‘Can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.’ I get it. I mean, I’m next of kin, not
60 Minutes
, but okay. You’ve got rules to follow. If they say to keep a brokenhearted daughter in the dark, keep a brokenhearted daughter in the dark. Why should you talk to me about any progress you might have made? I’m all alone here in town—in the world, really—but you don’t know who I might go blabbing to. You can’t violate confidentiality just to offer a little comfort to
me
.”

When I was done, Logan was wincing.

I’d been hoping for a grimace.

“Look, I’m sorry, but—”

“I mean it, Detective. No need to apologize. Really. I’m just trying to make some sense of my mother’s murder, but hey—protocols are protocols. They’re more important than people, right?”

I got my grimace.

“I tell you what,” I said. “Forget the suspects. Just tell me who I should avoid here. I’ll be sticking around a while, and I’m guessing my mom had enemies.”

“Well…
enemies
is a strong word.”

“Rivals, then. Competitors. People who didn’t care for my mother.”

Suspects, in other words.

Logan cocked his head and squinted at me. He was catching on.

Not every small-town cop is a rube. Unfortunately.

I turned away and pointed back up the street.

“How about her? The old hippie chick who runs the House of Arcana.”

“Josette Berg? She and Athena weren’t BFFs, I can tell you that. Josette’s one of the true believers. She isn’t fond of opportunists and frauds. No offense.”

“None taken.”

And I meant it. I’d been raised to think opportunists and frauds were the smart ones. Everyone else was a sucker—especially the true believers.

“So who else is Josette unhappy with?” I said.

“It’d be better if you never get to know them, Miss McLachlan. Staying in Berdache is something I wouldn’t advise.”

“Why is that? Are you saying I’m in danger? Does that mean you’re not so sure my mother was killed by a burglar?”

Logan winced again.

How come
she’s
the one asking all the questions?
he seemed to be thinking.

“You know what?” he said. “I should probably get you back to the White Magic Five & Dime. I’d hate for you to miss the evening rush.”

On the
way back, Logan said he’d talk to my boss after all. Just so I could be sure he was being thorough.

I gave him the number and the name of the place and who to ask for.

“Innovative Sales Solutions?” he said as he typed it into his BlackBerry. “Sounds like a telemarketing firm.”

“For good reason.”

“You’re a telemarketer?”

“Employee of the Month fifty months running.”

“What do you sell?”

“What do you got?”

Logan grunted out a gruff chuckle. “You’re really something, you know that?”

I did. The question was: what?

I’d been asking myself that for a long, long time.

“Oh,” Logan said, “can you give me a number for you, too? In case I have follow-up questions.”

“And what if
I
have follow-up questions?”

“I have a feeling that’s less a
what if
than a
when
.”

“You’re probably right.”

Logan sighed. But he gave me his card anyway.

Clarice was
standing in front of the White Magic Five & Dime when we walked up.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said to me.

“I had some things to discuss with Detective Logan here. I assume you two know each other?”

“Hello, Clarice.”

“Hello,” the girl replied coolly. Too coolly. It was the kind of cool you only get with effort. “Have you found out anything new?”

“A little,” Logan said. “I think I’m making progress.”

“Good.”

“Well, thanks for the welcome to Berdache, Detective,” I said. “I hope we’ll be staying in touch in the days ahead.”

Logan just smiled tightly and said goodbye.

I glanced back at him as Clarice and I went inside. Logan was glancing back, too.
Glowering
back. At both of us.

Was I really one of his suspects? Maybe.

But the girl beside me? Definitely.