Death in the Cards
Read Death in the Cards Online
Authors: Sharon Short
MOTEL HELL
For the first time in at least my twenty-nine-year lifeâand in probably a good deal longer than thatâthe “no” was lit beside the “vacancy” on the Rhinegolds' Red Horse Motel sign. I was happy for the Rhinegolds, but the “no” didn't portend well for me. I could always sleep in my van, I guessed. I envisioned myself curled up in the dark van, fetal-style, under a thin blanket that smelled of moth balls, all alone in my certainty that a murder had been committed. Nibbling on crab rangoons from my take-out box, my only comfort in a cruel world that had dished out in one day a disappearing boyfriend, a beloved cousin with health issues, and a shut-down, water-damaged business. While inside the Red Horse, throngs of other, much happier people received glorious predictions from the visiting psychics of health, wealth, and super sex lives.
Meanwhile, the killer or killers would find out I was the lone voice questioning the verdict of suicide, attack me in my own van, and pummel me to death with packets of super-sized eternal life tracts. My last meal a semi-stale crab rangoon.
My last thought: they'll all be sorry now!
To David, with whom life is a far greater joy than I could ever have predicted
Contents
In the course of writing this novel, I was reminded by events in my personal life of the importance of a team. And so, I must thank a delightful team who helped make this book happen.
Thanks to Ellen Geiger, agent, and Sarah Durand, editor, for wisely reminding me to “keep the whimsy!” And thanks to my family team: David (who has infinite patience), Katherine (who helps keep me organized), and Gwendolyn (who really does make the best grilled cheese sandwich ever).
About the stain removal techinques in this book: I've tested each one but please know that what works on one type of fabric might not work on another. If you want to try them . . . Josie says, please test first in an inconspicuous area of the item you're cleaning! That said, congratulations to the winners of Josie's second “Stain Busters” Contest:
  Â
⢠Louis Mackey, for fluffing rugs with salt in the wash tip
  Â
⢠Barbara Heckart, Pat Smith, and Katherine Shephard for the rust stains removal tip
  Â
⢠Karen Poe, Deb Hollister, and Linda Summers Posey for the blood removal tip
That there is a devil, there is no doubt. But is he trying to get in . . . or trying to get out?
This was the only commentary my Aunt Clara Foersthoefelâmay she rest in peaceâever made about religion, and she made it often until the Sunday she quit church.
At least, she quit attending the Paradise Church of Almighty Revelations, a fundamentalist, nondenominational congregation that still meets in a log building on the outskirts of Paradise, Ohio, just down the road a piece from the Happy Trails Motor Home Court.
Uncle Horace and I fancied sleeping in on Sundays, the only day our family-owned laundromat closed. But on that Sunday some fourteen years ago, when I was about fifteen, our slumber was shattered when Aunt Clara came slamming in the back door, proclaiming she'd quit her once-beloved church, and giving as her answer to our question of why: “that there is a devil, there is no doubt. But is he trying to get in . . . or trying to get out?”
It was the last time she ever uttered that saying.
Then Aunt Clara herself slept in for two Sundays in a row. The Sunday after that, she roused Uncle Horace and me from slumber, made us put on churchgoing clothes, and turned us all into demure Methodists, which I have been ever since.
I never knew just where Aunt Clara's devil saying came from. Was this Aunt Clara's personal theory? Or a doctrine she'd heard the Almighty Revelations pastor, Dru Purcell, preach on some fine Sunday morning? Truth be told, I never quite understood it, either. All I know for certain is that it still gives me the willies.
A few years after Aunt Clara uttered her saying one last time, Uncle Horace died. Aunt Clara passed on two years after that, and I inherited the laundromat. In the years since then, Aunt Clara's devil saying slipped from my thoughts entirely.
Until the morning a few weeks ago, back in late October, when I met Ginny Proffitt, and suddenly Aunt Clara's adage seemed like more than just a scary old saying.
It seemed like prophecy.
I'm Josie Toadfern, owner of Toadfern's Laundromat, and a stain expert. Self-taught and proud of it. Best stain expert in Paradise, Ohio. Or in Mason County. Or in Ohio. Maybe even in all of the United States.
After my aunt died, I took over the laundromat that had been my uncle's (my aunt helped with the laundromat but worked full-time at a local pie company) and eventually renamed it Toadfern's. I also took over the guardianship of my aunt and uncle's only son, Guy Foersthoefel, an adult with autism who lives at Stillwater Farms, a residential home fifteen miles north of Paradise. My life has been plenty busy in the nine years since I took over the laundromat (I'm twenty-nine now). I didn't have much time to dwell on the past or contemplate the distant futureâmy thoughts and actions
were firmly embedded in the present and near future, and I liked it that way.
At least, that's how I felt just a few weeks ago on a Friday morning in late October. I was happily anticipating the weekend. That evening, I was going on a date with my boyfriend, Owen Collins, to a local “haunted” corn maze, and I planned to relax with him Saturday evening after working in my laundromat all day. Sunday, after church, I'd tutor my literacy student, Hugh Crowley, and after that, I'd visit my cousin Guy at Stillwater Farms. For Sunday night, I envisioned more snuggling with Owen. This pleasant rhythm would be accented with chats with my best friendsâWinnie, Cherry, and Sallyâor by reading a good book.
As I contemplated my upcoming calm weekend, I staggered across the parking lot of the Rhinegolds' Red Horse Motel, my gait awkward because I embraced a large laundry bag overstuffed with fluffy ecru towels and washcloths.
But my load didn't stop me from letting my thoughts drift from the pleasures in my immediate future to the perfection of the autumn morning. The pleasantly crisp air. The cloudless sky blue with a hue that can only come in autumn, as if it's taken the heat of an entire summer to burnish the sky into deep cobalt. The huge oak tree that grew right out of the asphalt by the motel's entrance, my ultimate destination.
I love that tree and the fact that the Rhinegolds paved around it back when it was a sapling and have never cut it down. The tree was a brilliant orange red, the perfect counterpoint to the vibrancy of the sky.
The autumn colors were, ironically, made more vibrant by the fact that we'd suffered a long spell of drought from late summer into autumn.
Across from the Red Horse was Beeker's Orchard, acres of apple trees laden with Jonathans and Red Delicious and Winesaps. Just a glimpse of the orchard made my mouth water from the taste-memory of hand-pressed cider and homemade applesauce.
With all that sensory input, who could blame me for gazing around, taking it inâand not seeing the woman crossing the parking lot?
The woman herself, it turned out.
We ran smack into each other. She bounced off the front of my laundry bag with a loud “oof!” I dropped the bag and staggered around, stunned from the surprise impact.
I regained my balance and took a good look at the woman, sprawled on the asphalt, knocked out cold right by the sign proclaiming,
RED HORSE MOTEL
,
VACANCY
,
COLOR TV
,
POOL
,
AIR CONDITIONING
, an ultramodern amenity when the sign was put up in the 1950s.
I ran over to the woman and knelt beside her. She wasn't breathing and her eyes were closed. I held my hand over her face and didn't feel any breath. My heart started racing, my throat tightening. Oh Lord, I thought. I've killed her!
I told myself to stay calm, to remember the steps for CPR I'd learned in a Red Cross training class. I'd checked her breathing; now I needed to check for a pulse. I started to move the sapphire-studded gold watch on her wrist.
But my fingers had barely brushed the watch when the woman jerked back to life, sitting up so suddenly she nearly butted heads with me, grabbing my wrist before I could say a word. Then she twisted my arm back, pinning me, right side down, to the asphalt lot. She knelt down, put her face by mine. I looked at her with just my left eye, the right one being squished closed. All I could manage in protest was a gargleysounding “Hey!”
“You think you can rob me here in broad daylight?” the woman demanded. Her eyes were a pale gray. It's hard to imagine eyes that color blazing, but they did. Her reaction to our situation was so over the top that normally I'd find it
funny. Me, trying to rob someone? I don't look like I could pull off a heist at a church rummage sale even with the pastor's blessing.
But there was something about those pale gray eyes burning with a cold furyâand about my twisted arm starting to throb in her viselike gripâthat made this a definitely not-funny situation.
Then, suddenly, the woman's eyes softened into a normal gaze and she released my arm. I rolled to my back, sat up, and started butt-scooting away. “What was that all about? I wasn't trying to rob youâ”
“Aw, sorry about that,” the woman said gruffly. She jumped up nimbly and brushed herself off. I stopped scooting. “Got mugged twice in the same month in L.A. Twitchy about that kind of thing ever since. Kinda like a posttraumatic disorder but just for muggings.”
I smiled a little at the woman's attempt at humor as she reached a hand down to help me up. I studied the hand she offered instead of taking it right awayâafter all, she'd just twisted my arm with it. Her hand was broad and manly, despite the carefully polished hot-pink nails and the sparkly rings adorning every finger. No wonder she'd been mugged, if she went around like that in big cities.
I wasn't sure I wanted to take this woman's handâmy arm was still hurting where she'd twisted it. Then again, I was a little unsteady and there was something very insistent about that hand, so I took it. The woman gave a strong, easy yank, and I came back up on my feet lightly.
I studied the woman. She was about my heightâjust shy of five feet threeâbut, unlike me, athletic-looking even though she was wearing a warm-up suit. Usually people who wear those haven't warmed up for years to do anything more strenuous than a channel-surfing marathon, but this woman's arms were folded tight across a flat abdomen. Even her
jawline looked toned, a pretty good clue that the rest of her was in shape.
Her athletic aura was at odds, though, with the rest of her appearance: artfully applied makeup, gold jewelry, tanning salon tan, and a perfect brunette bob. She was so coiffed, she looked allergic to sweat.
And that warm-up suit. Both pants and jacket were a patchwork of turquoise and hot pink, each triangle distinguished from the other by gold brocade. And she wore matching hot-pink, high-top sneakers.