Authors: Maggie Toussaint
Though I wasn’t an aura reader, I could see them sometimes, like now. I glanced over at Gail’s pulsing aura. The sheriff’s aura remained constant, but Gail’s vibrated with zest. My dreamwalk held meaning to her.
“That’s right,” I said softly.
“Was this the same person you encountered in the morgue?” Gail asked.
“No.” I paused to reflect and changed my answer. “I don’t know. Both women had long dark hair. Both were emotionally distraught. I didn’t see the face of the victim in the morgue; both women were of similar body build, similar ages.”
“We were unable to identify the woman from the information you previously obtained,” Wayne said. “We need last names, hometowns, Social Security numbers.”
I shrugged. “I don’t control what the dead show me.”
“How do we know Baxley isn’t making this up?” Gail huffed out a breath of disgust. “Her psychobabble is muddying the waters of the homicide investigation.”
Her aura drew in. Interesting tell. She had something to hide. Two could play at the accusation game. “Yeah? Explain to the sheriff why the Native American aspect is so important. Tell him how it connects to this case.”
Her aura pulsed vibrantly. Satisfaction swelled within me. I smiled inwardly. Score another point for the backwoods psychic.
“That was a fluke.” Gail waved dismissively. “With the Native American protest, it was a lucky guess on your part.”
Her intonation sounded off. She was lying. I pressed my advantage. “The murder victim is Native American. Isn’t that correct?”
Gail’s face reddened. Her lips pursed tightly together. She turned to go, but Wayne caught her arm. “Is she right?”
She shook off his hand, eyes blazing. “Dead right. The victim has shovel-shaped incisors.”
Wayne made a so-what gesture with his hands. Anticipation mounted as I waited. This revelation was important to the coroner. She didn’t believe in my woo-woo powers, but now that her science had been confirmed by my dreamwalk, she couldn’t dismiss me as a complete fraud.
“Native Americans have a distinctive incisor pattern. There is no doubt. The woman, Lisa you told us before, is of Native American origin.”
I thought of Running Wolf and Gentle Dove. Also Jack Soaring Eagle and his companions outside. All had dark brown eyes. If the woman named Lisa whom I’d encountered in the morgue was the Angel I’d just dreamed, then we had a serious problem. Angel had the most unusual, most non-brown eyes I’d ever seen.
“What color are the victim’s eyes?” I asked.
Gail frowned. “How odd that you should ask about that.”
“Not so odd from my perspective.”
“They’re a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit.” The coroner barred her arms across her chest, her silver necklace, a fancy set of her initials, caught the light. She gave me her bug-under-the-microscope stare.
I allowed myself a faint hope that I was a full-fledged dream detective. “How’s that?”
“With the degradation of the corpse, along with the victim having been shot in the face, her eye color is undetermined. However, judging by the trace evidence at hand, I believe her eyes were not brown in color.”
“What about violet? Do you think her eyes may have been violet?”
Gail’s gaze turned speculative and cold again. “Could be.”
“You know something else, Baxley?” Wayne asked.
I edged to the door and freedom. “Working on it.”
“Jack Soaring Eagle posted bail for Running Wolf.” Mama pulled down more mismatched mugs from the kitchen cabinet. In the background, the weather station warned about a flood in the Mississippi delta. “Gentle Dove took her husband home and said she isn’t letting him out of her sight for a month of Sundays.”
“I understand her concern,” I said. The soup on the stove made my mouth water. It never ceased to amaze me how my mother knew when she’d have extras for dinner. “He’s not a young man, and dreamwalking is tiring. So is getting arrested.”
“You don’t seem tired.” Charlotte sat in the chair next to me. In her raspberry slacks suit with white trim on the collar and sleeves, she reminded me of a yummy sherbet and ice cream confection. Once she realized she’d missed the action by not following me inside the jailhouse, she’d stuck like glue. Plus, the television cameras hadn’t shown up for the protest. Sinclair County didn’t rate prime-time news coverage tonight. “You seem fired up.”
I stretched my arms high overhead and filled my lungs with the fragrant aroma of Mama’s vegetable soup. “I feel recharged. It’s as if, and I know this sounds corny, as if I was born to do this work. I’d have no qualms about this work if not for the crazy hair thing.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Mama said.
“How can I not worry? A big chunk of my hair turned white almost overnight.”
“Power does that to a person,” Mama added.
“Power? What kind of power?” Charlotte reached for her notepad.
My palm smacked against the table. “If you write about my hair in the paper, you will no longer be my friend.”
She grabbed her notebook anyway. “I need to write this down to understand it. It isn’t for the paper, just for my own personal reference. Please continue.”
“Nothing else to tell,” Mama said. “When Baxley accepted who she was, her body responded. That’s it, pure and simple.”
Charlotte tapped her ink pen against her plump cheek. “She did this to herself?”
“It’s a sign. A tangible and visible sign.” Mama distributed mugs of steaming tea all around.
I touched my gleaming widow’s peak. “It’s a nuisance and an embarrassment.”
“Nonsense. Nesbitts, for generations past, have had the white streak. All of the strong dreamwalkers, that is.”
My jaw dropped. “I don’t believe you.”
“Ask your father to show you the old family photos.”
Her words vibrated with the sure ring of truth. If this white streak was hereditary, would my daughter exhibit it next? I felt an urgent need to see her. “When will Daddy and Larissa get back from their walk?”
Mama nodded toward the open door. “Directly.”
Great. Directly could mean now or anytime in the future.
“I want to know about the murder case,” Mama said. “Dr. Bergeron’s press release surprised me. You said the bodies were early settlers.”
“It’s confusing because I dug up two graves. The first batch of bones, out by Misery Road, is early settlers. That grave held a mom with her two kids. However, the female in the Mallow foundation plantings is a Native American.”
“And you figured that out in a dreamwalk?”
I eyed Charlotte’s swiftly moving pen with growing suspicion. Prudence tempered my tongue. “I saw it, but the coroner confirmed it scientifically. The woman’s identity is still a mystery.”
“It will come in time.” Mama had a benign smile. “I’m so proud of you.”
I sipped my tea. Warmth flowed down my throat and radiated from my core to my extremities. This was exactly what I needed and where I wanted to be. Funny how life worked out. “Thanks.”
“I’m confused,” Charlotte said. “Are you a murder suspect or a police consultant?”
I waggled my eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Right now, I’m both.”
“Who killed the woman at Mallow?” Charlotte persisted. “Is there a killer running wild in Sinclair County?”
I rubbed my temples, which had begun to throb. “There’s a killer running wild somewhere, but we’re closing in. I can feel it.”
I’d been surprised by two baskets full of fresh produce on the back steps when Larissa and I returned home at dusk. After walking Precious and Muffin, we enjoyed a low-key dinner of steamed vegetables and Mama’s delicious soup. The relaxed sensation stayed with me all evening, through a dreamless night, and into the next day. I walked Larissa to the school bus with the dogs and then thought about my plan for the day as I ambled back up the driveway.
At the top of my list was identifying who killed Angel/Lisa. Was it someone I knew? In the beginning I’d thought the killer might be building foreman Duke Quigley, or realtor Buster Glassman, or even my client, Carolina Byrd. They each had unrestricted access to the property, but in truth Mallow wasn’t secured.
Or it hadn’t been until recently.
Anyone could have dumped a body there. Anyone was a pretty big subject pool. If I went by folks who had been in trouble with the law recently, then the suspect pool expanded to our ousted coroner, to Running Wolf, and to me. I had no way of narrowing the suspect pool, except for taking my name off the list. I hadn’t killed anyone.
Even if my dreamwalks were the gospel truth, elements of them didn’t track. Angel and Lisa weren’t even close to the same names. And the killer’s gender might be female. Angel had insisted that an evil woman knew her secrets. Any way you cut it, betrayal caused strong emotions. This Jay whom Angel/Lisa had been with was the third leg of the love triangle. The killer was the missing side. Which brought me back to Jay. According to Angel/Lisa he was dead. Where was he buried?
I didn’t own a computer, but the library had some I could use. An online search for Jay and Angel/Lisa might yield some information. I’d like to visit Mallow again to see if I could sense more about the killer, but I didn’t want to be arrested like Running Wolf. I’d have to figure out how to do that in stealth mode.
First up was that trip to the library and selecting a hat to wear with my green jeans and white T-shirt. I tried my favorite, my Life is Good ball cap. As soon as I got my ponytail pulled through the opening in the back and tugged the hat down over the offending white streak, my head started pounding.
I pulled the hat off, loosened the band, and tried again. No good. Even though the hat was non-constricting, it gave me a fierce headache. I tried a floppy, oversized gardening hat left over from my grandmother. Same deal.
Tossing the hats aside, I redid my ponytail, studying my reflection in the hat rack mirror. It seemed as if my hair didn’t want to be covered, but hair didn’t have feelings. I cared. I wished the whole world wouldn’t see my freaky white hair, but I wouldn’t wear a bag over my head. I had standards.
While I hung up my hats, Precious barked at the front door and Muffin joined in. I shushed the dogs and looked out the living room window. No cars in the driveway. No one standing on my front porch. Must have been an animal noise that spooked ’em.
I stuffed a notebook and some pens in my old bookbag and headed out. A flock of blackbirds settled in the treeline north of my property, chattering away in a loud cacophony. A flutter of something sinister ruffled the fine hairs of my neck once I stepped off the porch stairs. Instantly I stopped, my brain and senses at odds over my sudden need for caution in my backyard.
If the dogs heard an intruder on the property, I was vulnerable. With a killer on the loose, this was no time to take chances. My dog alarm had gone off, and my intuition was flagging something. I had a problem.
Weapons. I had a gun in the truck and one in the kitchen. The kitchen was closer. I pivoted on my heel and retrieved Roland’s Glock. The dogs circled around me as if I’d been gone for hours. I thought about turning them loose outside to see what they’d find, but if they ran off, I’d have twice the trouble. Too risky.
I was on my own.
I tried extending my senses out to see if I located anyone nearby, but I was so nervous, I couldn’t focus. Why would someone come after me? Had I actually turned up a useful clue in the murder investigation?
Or, was it the watcher? My heart raced as a third idea presented itself. Was Roland out there? Would I finally learn what kept him away?
Standing in my house wasn’t solving anything. Time to get down to business. I could go out in a fighter’s crouch,
Charlie’s Angels’
style, or I could pretend I normally walked around with a pistol in my hand.
Strange as that sounded, I preferred the latter. With the gun in my right hand, I locked the kitchen door and started down the steps. The blackbirds had moved on, and the woods were silent. I expanded my senses again, but I didn’t pick anyone up on my extrasensory radar.
This was crazy. I was in my backyard. There was no visible threat. But I couldn’t calm my nerves. My terror seemed elemental, instinctive. A few more steps and I’d be safe inside my truck. Unlocking the door, I swung my backpack around to rest on the passenger seat. I climbed in holding the Glock. I didn’t want to let go of it, but I couldn’t drive holding the gun. I’d shoot myself for sure. I should put it somewhere—the glove box, under the seat, or in my backpack.
On my next inhalation, I became aware of an odd smell. A musky smell. Concurrently, I realized the passenger side window was rolled down because a strong cross breeze flowed through the truck since I hadn’t closed my door. I hadn’t left that window down. Someone had done that. Someone had been in my truck.
I should have come out in a tight crouch, shooting off random shots into the air. Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw movement. Bright patterns of color. Then I heard an ominous rattle. Automatically, I fired at the threat.
Snake guts exploded in the truck as the rattlesnake’s triangular head came off. Bullets pierced the floorboard. I leapt out the driver’s side door and listened for more rattles. Sure enough, I heard the dreaded sound. My stomach sank.
Inside my house, the dogs barked incessantly.
My legs trembled so badly I could hardly stand. Snakes. And not just any snakes. Rattlesnakes. Duke Quigley’s scowling face popped into my head. I hadn’t forgotten that threat he’d made in my house a few days back. He blamed me for Carolina’s withholding his final payments.
“Not funny, Duke.” I stepped away from the truck, circled it, listening all the while for Duke Quigley in my woods. “Come and get your snakes or I swear to God, I’ll shoot every last one of them.”
My front tire was flat. A bullet must have caught the tire after it passed through the floorboard. I stared at the deflated tire with disbelief. This day had gone from promising to majorly messed up in a matter of minutes.
How many snakes were in my truck? Did I even have a spare tire? Where the hell was it?
One thing at a time. I had to get the dead snake out of my truck. The live ones, too.