Death in the Cards (14 page)

Too true. I'd already spoken up in support of the LeFevers and the psychics and against Pastor Purcell. Some folks didn't think a woman ought to be a bar owner, though no one had the nerve to tell Sally that to her face. And Cherry—well. In Paradise's dictionary, Cherry's picture was in full color next to “wild woman.” Not that she minded. She played to the reputation.

“But I know they did meet out at Serpent Mound. And he was looking at her all tender,” I said.

“Woo-hoo! You think Pastor Purcell's doing the hanky-panky with a witchy woman he just met?” Cherry waggled her eyebrows.

I shook my head. “It wasn't like that. It was too tender, at least the way he was reacting to her. She looked like she was laughing at him. His look was the kind you can only have after you've known and cared about someone a long while.”

“You sure did pick up a lot with just one glance out a bus window,” Sally said.

“Josie is what psychics would call intuitive,” Cherry replied, sounding like an expert.

“Lover boy tell you that—or did he pass along that insider tidbit through some nonverbal exchange?” Now Sally waggled her eyebrows. Cherry frowned primly.

I put a half-eaten crab Rangoon back down on my plate and looked at Cherry. “What?” I demanded.

She tried to look virtuous. Difficult, given the dreamy look that softened her shimmery-blue-lidded eyes and the slow way her tongue traced her fuchsia-glossed lips. “Sally's just jealous because Max and me were a bit cozy at the Bar-None last night.”

Sally snorted. “Cozy? You and Max were so co-o-ozy that Bubba, Ronny, and Dewlap were taking bets on whether Max
and you'd wait to get back to the Red Horse, or just hop on the pool table.”

Cherry virtuously clasped the front of her low-cut, lime-green silk blouse. “Well, I never.”

“Not what I heard. How do you keep your lipstick from smearing with all that smooching?”

“What do you care? You never wear anything more than Chapstick!”

“Puh-lease,” I pled. “Suzy Fu's going to kick us out of here if you two get much louder. Nice, quiet families are staring.” I eyed the remaining mound of crab Rangoons and mentally bemoaned the “100% no doggy bags, no exceptions!” policy. “Cherry, how did you hook up with Max last night, what with the psychic fair going on?”

“We went to the Bar-None after the psychic fair was over.”

“You mean after you picked him up at the psychic fair,” Sally corrected.

“I went to the psychic fair for some advice,” Cherry sniffed. “Max just happened to be the psychic I saw last before the fair ended.”

“That was at what, 10:00
P.M
.?” I asked.

“Yeah, that's right. Why?”

“Well, Owen and I stumbled across Ginny's body at about 8:15 last night. She should have been at the psychic fair. Did you pick up any gossip about why she left?”

Cherry looked virtuous. “I was there for advice. And I don't gossip.” Sally snorted. I gave her a warning look.

“Cherry,” I said, “Ginny was murdered. You do know that Max and Ginny were lovers not that long ago, right?”

Cherry gasped. “You're not saying that Maxy—”

Sally chortled. “Maxy? You've nicknamed that cowboy
Maxy
?”

“I'm just saying that Ginny was shot through the left side of her head.” I shuddered, remembering. “So it would be real
helpful if you could remember, say, seeing Ginny leave and someone—”

“—like Dru Purcell,” Sally interjected.

“—like
anyone,
” I said, trying to be fair, and thinking of all the psychics who had reason to hate Ginny, “following out after her. Preferably mad. Knowing what happened at the psychic fair before Ginny left might help us figure out what happened to her
after
she left, maybe even give us a clue about her murder.”

Cherry forked up some carrot-raisin salad and chewed, looking thoughtful. “Well, I got there right at five, when the psychic fair opened—”

“You hung out at a psychic fair for five hours, just to pick up Max?” Sally groaned. “You've got it worse than I thought.”

Cherry kept right on talking as if Sally hadn't spoken. “—because I'm seeking life wisdom and advice. The place was pretty crowded. I saw a lot of people I didn't know but also quite a few people I did know. A few of them surprised me.” Cherry looked thoughtful again. “You know, I think I could really go for some of those steamed pork dumplings. With the soy sauce.”

I pushed back a sigh. Cherry was the center of attention and had the information I wanted. “Sally, could you please go get Cherry some of those steamed pork dumplings?”

“With the soy sauce,” Cherry added, smiling beatifically.

Sally grunted, but got up and headed for the buffet.

“So who'd you see there that surprised you?”

“Missy Purcell, for one. Oh, she was passing out Bible tracts, but I could tell she was real curious about what was going on. She kept staring at Ginny, too. She even had a Tarot reading at Skylar's table, I think so she could glare at Ginny. I overheard her witnessing to Skylar, to try to make it look like that's why she was really there, but I also saw from her
facial expression that she was really taking in everything Skylar was saying.” Sally chuckled. “When she started witnessing loudly, so everyone could hear, Skylar pointed to the cross she wears, but Missy kept going on. Until Skylar's mom appeared from out of nowhere and started giving Missy grief. Then Missy left, and Karen stayed behind the table with Skylar.

“The other big surprise appearance—well, the mayor was there and several business owners who'd said it would be so awful if the LeFevers opened their bookshop, all trying to act like they were just there to, you know, observe. Anyway, I was surprised to see Maureen Crowley there. I thought she was spending all of her time down at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati?”

I frowned. “I thought so, too.”

Sally came back with a heaping plate of steamed pork dumplings for Cherry, an egg roll for herself, and a bowl of banana pudding—the kind made with vanilla wafers—for me. I was full of crab Rangoons. So what. I picked up a spoon (Suzy Fu's is strictly a BYOC—bring your own chopsticks—kind of place) and dug in.

“What about Maureen Crowley?” Sally asked.

“She was at the psychic fair last night,” Cherry said, around a mouthful of steamed pork dumpling. “And Josie and I thought she was spending most all of her time down at Children's in Cinci.”

“She didn't want to come to the chili-spaghetti fundraiser last weekend,” I said. “But she did put in an appearance.”

“Yeah. For about half an hour,” Sally said. But all the sadness in her voice was for Maureen. I knew she was thinking about how awful she'd feel if Harry, Barry, or Larry became ill. And I knew all too well how I felt, knowing Guy might be ill. “Word that night was that Ricky's treatment isn't going nearly as well as the Crowleys had hoped.”

“So why would she, a week later, take time away from her son to go to the psychic fair?” I mused. It seemed beside the point of trying to figure out clues about Ginny Proffitt's murder, but I was still curious.

“She wanted to see Ginny Proffitt,” Cherry said. “In fact, she cut into the front of the line. Several women at the front—not folks from around Paradise—were pretty unhappy about it. Maureen shouted at them to shut up, that she had a bigger need than them.”

“That doesn't sound like Maureen. Not the psychic fair or the shouting,” Sally said.

“Well, Ginny must have said something, because they settled down. Then Ginny and Maureen went off for a few minutes behind the curtained area. When they came back out, Maureen was a lot calmer, but by then Hugh Crowley was there wanting her to come home with him. I didn't hear what was said, but it's a good bet she wanted to stay and he wanted her to go, because when he took her by the arm, she pulled away from him. He looked unhappy, and kept looking nervously at Ginny. Finally, Ginny leaned forward and whispered something to Maureen, and Maureen left quietly with Hugh, but neither of them looked very happy.”

“You saw all this, just standing around at the psychic fair?” Sally said.

“I wasn't just standing around,” Cherry said, sounding a bit miffed. “I was in line to see Ginny Proffitt.”

“She had a
line
?” I said.

“And you were
waiting
in it?” Sally said.

Cherry is notoriously impatient about line waiting. She's been known to go through the quickie checkout twice with eight items instead of going through the regular checkout with sixteen items just to save five minutes.

“Ginny Proffitt has—well,
had
—quite a great reputation as a seer,” said Cherry, sounding even more miffed. Or at
least, a little defensive. “I talked to one lady who lives in Pennsylvania and goes to see Ginny any chance she gets. Went all the way to Oregon once at a psychic fair there to see her. And I met some other folks from Michigan and Indiana and Tennessee. Ginny is a big draw because she's quite insightful. The lady from Pennsylvania said Ginny kind of goes into a half-trance as she stares into the crystal ball and then she gives the most amazing advice and predictions.”

“So stuff appears in the crystal ball? Like flying monkeys?” Sally snorted with laughter, until I kicked her under the table.

Cherry rolled her eyes. “Gazing into the crystal ball's purity helped her clear her mind of distractions, then focus on the energy of the person she was reading.”

“You get that out of some crystal ball 101 textbook?” Sally said. I kicked Sally again. This time Sally kicked back. Hard. I winced, and then ate the last bite of my banana pudding. It's comfort food, true, but my shin still throbbed.

“The lady from Pennsylvania told me,” Cherry said.

“Please tell me you asked Ginny what the conference between her and Maureen was all about.”

“That would be confidential. Just like between a doctor and patient. Or pastor and parishioner,” Cherry said.

“C'mon, Cherry, Ginny has been murdered.”

Sally's eyes widened. “You think Maureen killed Ginny over something she said?”

“Besides, I thought your theory was that Ginny's meeting with Dru Purcell had something to do with her death.”

It was my turn to eye roll, but, virtuously, I resisted. “No. I think anything Ginny said or did”—like leave an ancient suitcase of dirty old overalls at my laundromat with a cryptic message on a handkerchief, but I hadn't shared that tidbit of info with them just yet—“might give us some clue about why she was killed.”

“Us?” Cherry asked.

“We're investigating this death now?” Sally asked.

“Let's not call it investigating. I think, as concerned citizens, we could do a bit of poking around,” I said. I could use the distraction until the coming Monday, when I'd take Guy to the doctor. Otherwise, I'd spend my time fretting about him. “If we turn up anything that might be useful, we can let Chief Worthy know. Unless you're not interested?”

“I'm in,” Cherry said quickly.

“Me, too,” said Sally. Then she laughed. Cherry and I gave her a look. “Sorry,” she said. “Ginny's murder isn't funny, but I just remembered something about Josie.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Back in our junior high Sunday School class. Remember, we had Mrs. Trimbach. We had to draw each other's names and say what spiritual gift we thought the person had. So we said things about each other like, the gift of prayer, or the gift of witnessing, you know, stuff that sounded like what Mrs. Trimbach would want to hear,” Sally said. “But we had an odd number of kids, so Mrs. Trimbach had to participate. She pulled Josie's name. She looked stumped, then finally stuttered out—‘Josie has the gift of questioning!' “

Cherry laughed.

I considered for a moment. “Yeah, I remember now. At the time, I felt horrible. The gift of questioning? That's not in the Bible, I recollect thinking. Now that sounds pretty good.” I turned the idea over in my mind, then turned the phrase over again on my tongue, “The gift of questioning. Hmm. I like that.”

Cherry looked at me. “You sure that's a spiritual gift?”

I shrugged. “One spirit, many gifts. Why not?” Plus, the gift of questioning sounded better than Nosey Josie.

“All right,” I said, in the assured manner befitting my gift. “We know what we have to do. I'll get Winnie and Owen to help, too.”

“Speaking of Owen—” Sally started.

“We weren't,” I cut her off. “We were seeing if Cherry had asked Ginny about her conversation with Maureen.”

Cherry shook her head, and her high-piled puff of blond swayed a little. “Right in the middle of her consultation with the lady from Pennsylvania, Ginny stood up abruptly and left.”

“Just—left?”

“The Pennsylvania lady was sitting at Ginny's table. I was standing several feet back—my turn would have been next—so I couldn't hear what Ginny was saying. Damon LeFever had come by Ginny's table several times to make sure the line stayed back so Ginny and the current client would have privacy. But I could see Ginny's face. She had a serene expression as she stared into the ball, like a trance. Then all of a sudden, her face scrunched up something awful, as if she'd seen something just horrifying.”

“But I thought you said she didn't see images in the ball?” Sally protested.

“Well, all I can tell you is that her face scrunched up, she went pale, and she screamed, ‘Oh my God—no! No!' The poor Pennsylvania lady just about fell out of her chair.”

Sally laughed. I bit my lip. Cherry frowned. “It's not funny. The poor lady was really scared. But then Ginny said—loudly enough that several of us could hear her—‘no, dear, you'll be fine and so will Henry—'”