Death in the Cards (23 page)

“So I did a simple one-card tarot reading around that question, having Ginny shuffle the cards until she was ready for me to pull the top one. It was the Death card. I interpreted it to mean that a distinct change in action was needed—either for her, or for the person she was meeting with.” Skylar shook her head. “But Ginny took it more literally. The word in the psychic community is that she's been telling her clients specific outcomes, not potential paths or changes that might
be considered. I guess she's been doing that with her personal readings, too. Dangerous territory.”

I sucked in my breath at that. “So Ginny interpreted what you saw as being about her death?” And yet Ginny had run out of the psychic fair, with her crystal ball, to her death.

But Skylar was shaking her head. “I don't think so. She kind of went into a momentary trance, and said something to herself at the end of the reading, something like, ‘no, not again,' then snapped out of it and thanked me and ran out of the break area.”

At which point, I thought, lots of people—and possibly her killer—saw Ginny emerge from her conversation with Skylar, looking distraught, saw her look into her crystal ball, look even more distraught at whatever she saw there, then run out of the psychic fair, abandoning her many fans and clients.

“Do you think I should talk to the police about this?” Skylar asked.

“Yes. But I'd keep it simple and say that Ginny mentioned to you that she had an important meeting just before she ran out of the psychic fair. Tell them you're concerned that Ginny's killer might have seen that Ginny was talking to you and assumed Ginny told you about the meeting—she didn't tell you more than what you've already told me, did she?”

Skylar shook her head. She looked terrified. If she had known more, she would have told me.

“The suicide ruling won't be public for a few days, so the police should listen to you. The fact Ginny was planning a meeting—not something someone about to commit suicide would do—might get them to take another look at her case.” I thought about Chief Worthy and doubted it. “At least, you might get some protection from them, if they know you're scared.”

Skylar shook her head. “This whole fair has been a bust for me. I'm going to head home.”

”When do you think you'll go talk to the police?” I asked.

“Right away!” said Skylar. “Then my mother and I are going to stay put in the motel room and leave first thing in the morning.”

“You'll want to avoid mentioning to the police that you're talking to them as a result of having first talked with me,” I added.

Skylar lifted her eyebrows at that.

I grinned sheepishly. “Long story. Short version is that the chief and I have known each other all our lives. We dated for a while in high school, broke up, and he's never quite forgiven me since I was the one who did the breaking up.”

“Ah. You damaged his male ego,” Skylar said. “You must really watch your speedometer carefully when you're wheeling through town.”

I laughed, both at the truth of her comment and in relief at her being able to make a joke. She'd be all right, I told myself.

“You two doing okay?”

I looked up at the gruff voice of Greta, who had materialized at our booth, hands on her aproned hips. Greta looked worn out but happy. She'd always loved running the motel's restaurant until it no longer made sense to keep the restaurant open for anything other than a limited menu. Well, this weekend's menu was still pretty limited, but at least she had enough customers to cook for that it seemed like the good old days to her.

“Doing fine,” I said. “I told Skylar here you make the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world.”

Skylar, despite her worries, didn't miss a beat. “And she was right, Mrs. Rhinegold.”

Greta beamed. “Well, I'm right glad to hear that. Josie, I found what you were asking for.”

She pulled a brown bottle labeled
HYDROGEN PEROXIDE

out of her front apron pocket and put the bottle on the table. Skylar stared at it curiously.

“For a cut on my toe. It's a great disinfectant,” I said.

“Yep,” said Greta. “My mama swore by it for cuts and I do, too. It was in my medicine cabinet.”

“I'll return the bottle tonight,” I said.

“No hurry,” said Greta. “I don't plan on any cuts any time soon.” Then she cackled in glee at her joke. Skylar and I both smiled as she hurried back toward the kitchen.

“In a way, this motel gives service as good as a four star,” Skylar said. “Not that I've stayed at that many.” She eyed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide again. “For a cut, huh?”

“On my foot,” I said brightly.

I didn't want to tell Skylar—or anyone just yet—that the hydrogen peroxide might help me figure out why Ginny had been killed.

17

I admit it; I didn't have a cut on my foot. But if the hydrogen peroxide helped me figure out why Ginny'd been killed, I was pretty sure the Almighty would forgive my fib. At least, back in my motel room, as I carefully opened the bottle to do my little experiment, I prayed that He (or She) would.

See, on the drive back to Red Horse from Owen's, I'd started thinking again about the now-stolen suitcase that Ginny had left with me, filled with the overalls that appeared to be paint spattered, as well as the handkerchief and its odd message. I turned my thoughts to the puzzle of the suitcase mostly as a way to distract myself from my worries over my relationship with Owen.

Ginny had left me a message that if anything happened to her, I should start at the end and work back to the beginning.

And I was trying to do that. Winnie was putting her fantastic skills as a researcher to use to find out more about Ginny's background. And I was talking to people to find out as much as I could about her. We were, basically, starting at the end—Ginny's death—and working back to the beginning of her
life, as much as we could. Would something emerge from her life story to give us a clue about her death?

But Ginny had left me another clue besides the strange note. The white men's-size overalls, that I'd assumed to be covered in paint. Why would she want me to have the overalls of some man who painted walls in shades of brown and blue and emerald green and yellow and purple and red?

Unless, it struck me on that drive back from Owen's, there wasn't just paint on the overalls and on the handkerchief.

What, I'd asked myself, was odd about the overalls and the handkerchief? Besides the fact Ginny'd left them with me . . . and written the odd note I was trying to obey on the handkerchief . . . and that someone had stolen the suitcase.

And what, I'd also asked myself, did the thief think when he, or she, opened the suitcase and discovered the handkerchief was missing, if he or she even knew it was in there? If the thief—who, I reckoned, was also Ginny's killer or involved in her murder—knew the handkerchief was supposed to be in there, and saw it was missing, then that person would think that I still had it. That thought made me so uncomfortable that I'd been careful to not be alone all afternoon since arriving at Beeker's Orchard, until I returned to my motel room after dinner with Skylar. And then I double-checked the locks on my motel room door.

Why would someone want paint-streaked old overalls and a handkerchief back?

What was odd about them?

And then, as I'd driven along, looked at the bright jeweled colors of the gorgeous afternoon—the reds and yellows and oranges—I'd realized what was wrong about the coveralls was the brown streaks.

If I remembered correctly, the brighter colors looked as if they could come from a wayward brush of a painter tired of laboring over other people's walls all day.

But the dull brown was in much broader streaks, as if the painter had gotten that color on his hands, then wiped them off on the pants.

And, I'd remembered, there'd been the faint smell of earth about the pants and handkerchief, the tinge of dirt to them, mud around the frayed hems of the coveralls. Mud that had dried brown, but not the same shade of brown as the streaks I'd at first thought were dried paint.

And on my car ride, I'd wondered if they were something else. Like streaks of dried blood.

Blood dries to a dull reddish brown, and over time, loses the red cast.

But one thing gets out blood better than anything else.

Hydrogen peroxide.

Which is why, after my dinner with Skylar, I stood with the handkerchief and the bottle of hydrogen peroxide over the bathroom sink.

I studied the handkerchief in the bathroom light, glad for its garish glare, which made every speck on the handkerchief stand out. I didn't want to harm any of the writing on the handkerchief. And I only wanted to test one of the stains, one near the edge.

I turned the handkerchief in my hand until I saw the perfect brown blotch to test, one in the corner, away from the writing.

I placed the handkerchief over the edge of the sink. Then I opened the hydrogen peroxide bottle and poured a little into the cap, willing my hands to be steady. They trembled anyway, and I sloshed some of the hydrogen peroxide into the sink, but none of it splashed onto the handkerchief.

Then I held the cap in my right hand, while picking up the handkerchief just below the corner of the stain I wanted to test. I draped most of the handkerchief over the sink's edge, pinching the cloth just below the stain, so that all that peeked
above my thumb and forefinger was the stain. Then I carefully poured the hydrogen peroxide from the cap over the brown splotch.

And watched the hydrogen peroxide start to fizz just a bit on the brown spot, and then begin to fade.

The exact chemical reaction of hydrogen peroxide to blood.

My heart tightened. Blood—old, dried blood from some long-ago accident . . . or, I wondered, from another murder? . . . was on the handkerchief and the overalls that Ginny had wanted me to have in case something happened to her.

I carefully folded up the handkerchief in a washcloth and put it in my tote bag and headed for the motel door. I was going straight to the police department with the handkerchief, and handing it over, whether Chief Worthy liked it or not. Just as I should have done on my first visit.

Of course, this time I had additional information that ought to get even Chief Worthy's attention. At least, I hoped the fact of blood on the handkerchief and the stolen overalls would make him think again about his deduction that Ginny's death was a suicide.

I had also written down on the Red Horse Motel scratch pad, word for word, the message from the handkerchief. I wanted to be able to read the message again, to see if any new interpretations came to mind about what Ginny meant about starting at the end and working to the beginning. After all, I'd made an assumption about the paint on the coveralls that hadn't turned out to be right, as in the fact that the brown paint was really old, dried blood.

I shuddered as I let myself out of the motel room. Just whose old blood was I carrying around in my tote bag? Truth be told, I couldn't wait to turn over the handkerchief to Chief Worthy.

My grim thoughts were interrupted by a delighted giggle that, I swear, came out as a definite “tee hee hee hee!”

I turned, and saw Cherry and Max Whitstone at the door of the room next to mine. Cherry saw me, waved, and “tee hee hee hee-ed” again. Max lifted his Stetson in brief acknowledgement that was, I reckoned, supposed to be gentlemanly. Or maybe just manly. In any case, it set off another round of Cherry's “tee hee hees.”

I made sure my motel room was locked, put my motel room key in my purse, and went over to the duo, wondering as I walked just how thin the Red Horse walls were. I supposed I could always stuff toilet paper in my ears.

“Why, hello, there,” I said brightly. “Cherry, I wish I'd known your home as well as your business had been evacuated. You could stay with me!”

Not that I really relished an overnight with Cherry. But I could see it in her eyes. She was sure
she'd finally speared the great white hunk who'd make her happy. And I could see the truth in the glint of his eyes. Bottom-feeding mud sucker.

Cherry's voice faded in mid tee hee. She cleared her throat, glared at me as she fluffed her hair with her fingertips. “Why yes, as it turns out, since my home's on Plum Street, right behind Main, I've been turned out for the night. I came over here to see if there were any rooms but the Rhinegolds told me they were sold out. You must have gotten the last one.”

Cherry could have spent the night with one of the other hair stylists, especially with Lex or Danny. They wouldn't turn out their boss, and they liked her, anyway. She'd come over here on the pretense of looking for a room, knowing in the primal depths of her mind—somewhere in the brain stem at the spot labeled “lust”—and in the depths of her misguided, lonely heart, that she'd hook up with Max.

She knew it. I knew it. Max, who'd left his room key dangling from the lock and who was now picking his teeth with a
toothpick, probably knew it. (Ugh. Maybe Owen's sin of poor communication wasn't so bad, after all.) Max watched us in fascination. No doubt hoping for a full-scale, hairpulling, nail-scratching chick fight.

“It was actually Ginny Proffitt's room,” I said. “The Rhinegolds had to call the police to have it released.”

“Ew,” Cherry said, wrinkling up her pert nose cutely. Max grinned at her around his toothpick. “How can you sleep in a dead woman's room?”

I started to make some comment about why my sleeping arrangements were better than hers, and then took a deep breath. No cat fights. It would please Max too much.

I looked at him. “Ginny left the psychic fair suddenly last night. Did she say anything to you about why?”

“Nope,” Max said. “We weren't exactly on speaking terms.”

“You didn't speak at all yesterday, coming and going to your rooms?”