“So who do you think ran us off the road?” Bitty asked while stirring her Bloody Mary with the celery stick. “I told the police I think it was Trina Madewell.”
“Does Trina drive a black truck?”
“Well, how should I know that?”
“It will be rather important to the police, I’m sure.” I took a sip of my drink and briefly reflected on how a bit of vodka can improve the taste of tomato juice, then said, “I don’t think it was Trina, somehow.”
“Why not?”
Bitty sounded indignant, so I thought about it a moment before I said, “She’s angry, but I don’t think she’s particularly angry at you. She has no reason to be angry with me or Rayna, so why would she want to hurt or kill us?”
“Maybe because she’s a bitter, malicious person. She always has been. Have you forgotten how she tried to steal The Cedars away from me? And after I went to all that trouble, too, taking muffins and jams out there to Mr. Sanders all the time.”
“But you did get The Cedars on the pilgrimage,” I reminded her. “And maybe she really did want to end your feud, or she wouldn’t have come to your luncheon no matter how much you begged.”
“Sometimes, Trinket, you think everybody has good motives just because you do. It isn’t that way anymore. If it ever was.”
I sighed. Really, she was right. It isn’t necessarily that I always have good motives, it’s more like I’m not clever enough to think of all the different ways people can trick each other. People do things that would never occur to me in a million years. I’m always amazed at how many different ways they can beat the system, cheat their friends, family, and the government, and still go on just as happy as a lark. There has to be something wrong with their internal wiring for them to be able to do that. Or maybe I spent too many years listening to Mama explain to us kids why and how we had to behave so that we would be acceptably social human beings. “No one lives as an island,” she used to say. “Everything we do has ripples of consequences that reach far beyond our own lives.”
I had only to look at the murder of Race Champion to realize the truth in that. He’d been murdered by someone angry at him for some misdeed. Then Naomi had been murdered because she was engaged to Race.
That thought struck me as important. It was that simple: Naomi died because of Race. He died because—he had cheated on the wrong woman? Despite what Bitty thought, Naomi wouldn’t have killed Race. I was sure of it. There had been genuine pride in her face when she’d shown us that engagement ring. But someone was angry enough and dangerous enough to kill them both.
Who else had Race Champion been dating?
“Give me your cell phone,” I said to Bitty, and she looked startled.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just thought of something. Give me your phone. I want to call Gaynelle and find out what the others have discovered.”
Bitty dug into her purse and pulled out her phone, and said as she handed it to me, “I don’t think I want to know. I’m out of the mood to care about all that now.”
“You better care,” I said as I dialed Gaynelle's number, “because you may end up the prime suspect in Naomi’s murder. As far as the police are concerned, you’re the only one known to have a feud with her.”
“If you’re trying to brighten my day, it’s not working.”
I made a face at her, and surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. My body was healing, and so was my brain. I put it down to the reviving effects of vodka and tomato juice. A miracle cure for the blahs has been found at last. I should really alert the medical community.
“Gaynelle,” I said when she answered, “we need to talk.”
****
“I was having fun,” said Bitty in a wistful tone. I looked over at her from the passenger seat of her Franklin Benz. We were almost back to Holly Springs. Bitty hadn’t wanted to leave The Peabody. Neither did I, really, but unless we had our driver’s licenses changed to reflect our new addresses, we would have to return eventually.
When I said as much to her, she sighed. “I know. It was just that we didn’t really have to do anything or think about anything but whether to have the Eggs Benedict again or the fresh croissants and fruit. Or if it was cool enough to go on the roof to listen to the band.”
“Bitty, that describes your entire life,” I said. “Your most difficult decision is usually something along the lines of which color car you want to buy.”
She looked over at me. “Not true. I have had lots of hard decisions to make, and you know it.”
“You’re right,” I said, because she was. “But you must admit that most of the time now you have very little to worry about except your boys.” A porcine snort from the wide front seat made me add, “And Chitling.”
“You sound like you want me to have to make hard decisions.”
“Of course not. I just want you to remember that no matter how difficult things might get at times, basically you are very well-prepared.”
“Oh. Well, I used to be prepared. Now I’m broke. Unless I can figure out a way to get my homeowner’s insurance to support me until Jackson Lee finds a loophole in those damn papers, I’ll have to stand on street corners and beg for spare change.”
I patted her on the arm with my left hand. “I’ll buy you coffee at Budgie’s every day.” To my surprise, big tears rolled from her eyes. “Hey, I was just joking. You know everything is going to be fine. Don’t cry, Bitty. I can’t stand to see you cry.”
“I can’t help it. These past few days have been so nice because I could pretend it was like always, but now I’m going home where I’ll be reminded every minute that I’m as poor as Job’s whiskey.”
Her metaphor perplexed me, but I said, “You are not poor. You are just having a temporary cash flow . . . er . . . blockage.”
“That’s
it
!” Bitty suddenly put on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder of 78 Highway. A semi behind us laid on his air horn and rattled our car windows as he passed us at seventy miles per hour. The movement of the passing truck made the heavy Benz rock like a baby cradle.
I’d grabbed hold of the dashboard with my left hand and braced for a crash, and when it didn’t happen, I let go of the breath I had been holding. “Fawww!” I said.
Bitty ignored me. She unbuckled her seatbelt, grabbed her purse and pug, and opened the car door. “Don’t just sit there, Trinket. Come on.”
Come on? Where? We were on the shoulder of 78 Highway, not at a mall. It took me a moment to figure out what she was doing; then I saw the neon sign above a house trailer that backed up to the highway:
Psychic.
It glowed in a bright red, and on a painted yellow sign next to it: $5.
When I didn’t open my door and get out of the car, Bitty came around and opened it for me. “Get out and come with me. You might as well, because you know I’m going to do this.”
She was right. I knew Bitty would visit the psychic come hell or high water. I still had to protest: “How good can she be if she lives in a house trailer on the side of 78 Highway?”
My protest went unheeded, as I figured it would. I got out of the car only because the quicker I cooperated, the faster we would get home.
Grass was knee-high on the verge and in the ditch that lay between the shoulder of the highway and the backyard of the house trailer. I had on sandals. By the time we got up to the wooden porch off the back of the trailer, I had cockleburs between two of my toes. And probably a family of deer ticks nestled happily in the cuff of my Lee jeans. Hello, Lyme disease.
Bitty knocked on the door, and we waited for someone to answer. “If she was any good at all,” I muttered as I dug at the cockleburs, “she would have known we were coming and met us at the door.”
“Be quiet. I hear someone coming.”
I’m not quite sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t the ordinary looking woman who answered the door. “Come in,’ she said, and motioned us to follow her, so we went into the trailer that smelled like tomatoes and oregano. We’d entered the small kitchen, where she had a huge pot on the stove and something simmering.
When she gestured, we sat at the round kitchen table flanked by four chairs. She went to the stove and stirred the pot a couple times.
I couldn’t help myself. I put two fingers of my left hand to my forehead, closed my eyes for a second and said, “I see . . . spaghetti sauce in your future.”
Bitty was irritated and tried to kick me, but I’d anticipated her and moved my feet. Fortunately, the woman at the stove looked over her shoulder and laughed.
“You must be psychic.”
“Not in the least. But thank you.”
“You may call me Gypsy,” she said when she pulled out a chair to sit down with us at the small table. “It is not my name in this world, but I prefer it.”
In this world?
Great. We were sitting in an ordinary house trailer with perfectly ordinary furniture, and talking to a crazy person. I felt right at home.
“First I must tell you,” said Gypsy, “that the regular psychic was called away today. I will be glad to answer your questions and give you a reading, but if you prefer to come back, I will not be insulted.”
“So, you’re a substitute psychic?” I looked over at Bitty, who narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s up to you,” I said. “I’m just along for the ride.”
Gypsy smiled. When Bitty said she would be honored to have a reading by her, the psychic got up to lower the window blinds and light candles. With it darker in the kitchen, it seemed less prosaic and a bit more mysterious. She crossed into the living area and dimmed the lights, then disappeared into the room beyond.
Bitty leaned forward. “Don’t ruin this for me!”
“God forbid. I’ll behave. Witch’s honor.” I made a solemn sign in the air that earned a bark from Chen Ling. Until then, I’d forgotten the little beggar was still with us. She was in her usual sling, peering out from Bitty’s chest like some wayward gnome.
Gypsy returned, wearing a shimmering shawl over her head and around her shoulders. For some reason, it seemed to change her entire appearance. Before, she’d been an ordinary looking woman with brown hair and regular features; now she looked suddenly exotic and other-worldly. Maybe I’m just suggestible. I’m positive Bitty is.
She had a pack of badly worn cards with her. Strange symbols were on them, like nothing I’d seen before. She shuffled them expertly, halved them, then set them out in three separate stacks of almost equal size. Without speaking, she motioned for Bitty to re-stack them. Bitty did, unusually silent as if caught up in a spell. Even Chen Ling was quiet, and I thought that if nothing else, that was remarkable.
Then Gypsy picked up the cards and dealt them on the table in an intricate pattern like a gigantic cross. She started talking in a different language, more to the cards than to Bitty or even herself. I couldn’t understand a word of it, and I doubted Bitty could either. After a couple minutes, Gypsy reached out in an abrupt movement and scattered the cards. She looked up at Bitty with a frown.
“The cards are not talking today. There is no charge.”
Bitty looked as confused as I felt. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
Gypsy stood up, then bent over and blew out the candles. “I am not the regular person who does this. Perhaps I do not do it well. Come back another time.”
“But—maybe I can ask some questions first? There are things I need to know that you can help me with, if you—”
“I cannot help you. You must help yourself.” Gypsy looked straight into Bitty’s eyes. “But I tell you this—One who is good, is not. There is darkness inside the light.”
In what seemed like only an instant, we stood outside on the wooden porch off the back of the trailer. The door shut behind us with a firm click. Bitty and I looked at each other.
“Well,” I said, “I think that was her way of telling you to carry a flashlight.”
“Funny,” Bitty said, and went down the stairs and out into the grassy yard. “Now what do I do? I was just sure she could tell us who killed Race and Naomi. And I wanted to know some lottery numbers, too.”
“Bitty, if she knew the winning lottery numbers, do you think she’d be living in a trailer?”
“But she doesn’t live there. She said so. She was just filling in.”
“She probably lives in the trailer next door. I knew this was a bad idea, but you never listen to me. You’re so hard-headed and always have to be right—”
Bitty hit the remote on her car keys and the horn beeped, engine started, and lights flashed. “It’s not that far to Holly Springs from here, Trinket. If you walk fast, you should be there before dark.”
“Have I ever told you how pretty you look in that color pink? It really sets off the tone of your complexion. Peaches and cream. Yep. Very flattering.”
“That’s better. Do get in, dearest cousin, and I’ll turn the air up just for you.”
We both laughed. I love the way Bitty gets over some things so easily.
By the time we got to Six Chimneys and took in our overnight bags, the workmen were quitting for lunch. It was amazing what they’d gotten done in such a short time. There was no trace of the smoke that had darkened white molding and painted walls, and no burned smell in the air. While it did have the scent of fresh paint and sawdust, it wasn’t unpleasant. New granite countertops replaced the ones scorched by fire, and there was a new vent and stovetop as well. Only the floorboards in front of the stove had been charred, and Bitty had chosen to have them sanded and refinished rather than taken out, since they were original to the house. She was lucky the entire house hadn’t gone up in flames like a paper airplane. Antebellum homes are hardly flame-retardant.
All the furniture had been removed to be cleaned, and canvas drop cloths lay over the floors. The house looked odd without the furniture, like it belonged to someone else.
“I’ll be glad when the furniture comes back,” Bitty said with that instinct she has for knowing what I’m thinking. “It looks so empty in here.”
“Well, there’s still the basement and upstairs. There’s furniture there.”
“Bless Jackson Lee. He took care of getting all this done for me, handling the insurance company and all.”
“Don’t forget that your boys helped, too.”
“Oh, I haven’t. I’ve been thinking about them a lot, and thanking my lucky stars that their trust funds weren’t affected by my stupidity. They’ll be fine. They can still go to Ole Miss, still have everything they need. I just won’t be able to help them any.”