Authors: Kelly Rey
She snorted. "Sure they will, when they get around to it. Haven't you heard about budget cuts and short-staffing?"
No, actually I hadn't. I avoided the news whenever possible. Too depressing.
"My mom and dad talk about it all the time," she said. "There are too few cops and too many bad guys. Trust me, they could use the help." She paused. "Besides, I've got fifth period study hall, and it's
death.
I need something to think about so I don't fall asleep. You get detention if you fall asleep." She snorted. "As if
that
makes sense. Everyone knows sleep is critical for a developing brain."
I thought Maizy's brain had done enough developing already.
"Besides," she added, "don't you want to know what happened?"
I already knew what happened. I wanted to know
less.
"Violent crime is an insult to humanity," she said solemnly. "Like Adam Sandler movies. Besides, we'll keep it just between us. No one has to know anything."
I sighed. "
We
don't know anything. And you're not getting involved in a murder case."
"We wouldn't actually be getting involved," she said. "More like sniffing around the edges. Filling in the blanks."
"Interfering in a criminal investigation."
"It's only interfering if you get in somebody's way," she pointed out. "Besides, they took our fingerprints. Are you comfortable with that? Big Brother's got us in the system now. God only knows what damage can be done by an overreaching government machine."
"You sure you weren't around in the '60s?" I asked.
"I wish," she said. "I know, I'll do a search for black SUVs."
"That's an awfully broad search," I told her.
"That's no reason not to do it," she said. "It's no big deal. It'd be a waste not to use study hall for something meaningful, right? If I can't sleep, I mean. And maybe it won't take us anywhere anyway."
Or maybe it would take us right to a stone-cold killer. Then I thought about how many black SUVs must be registered in the tri-state area and relaxed a little. The chances of Maizy actually finding out anything useful were infinitesimal. I liked those odds. "All right," I said. "But just a search, nothing else. I mean it, Maizy. You're not getting involved in this."
"I heard you the first time," she said.
"God.
You need to relax. I got this. This is gonna be
great
."
I'd heard that before, when I was sixteen, about becoming an adult. I was still waiting to see the proof.
* * *
My younger sister, Sherri, and I got together for lunch at the Lincoln Diner at least once a week. New Jersey had a diner on nearly every block, and they were all pretty much the same: a choice of counter service or booth, ginormous menu, and waitresses that called you "hon."
I found Sherri in a back booth, working her way through the breadbasket. Sherri and I were nothing alike. She'd inherited our mother's curves and stature and lust for marriage and motherhood, while I'd inherited our father's slim build and plain brown hair and love of sports. But nature had been kind in one respect. It had given me Curt, and it had given Sherri Wally.
I slid into the booth across from her. "I almost walked in on a murder last night."
Sherri blew out a long sigh. "Here we go. It's always about you." She slapped some butter onto a dinner roll. "Who was it this time?"
I took the last remaining slice of bread from the basket. Pumpernickel. I hated pumpernickel. "Never mind." I sounded peevish.
"Oh, come on," she said. "If it's important to you, it's important to me." She hesitated. "Is it important to you? Because I've had a lousy morning, and I wouldn't mind venting."
I stared at her. "Someone
died,
Sherri. And it could have been
me."
And Maizy, but I couldn't let myself go there.
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Let me hear about the latest dead body you've fallen over."
The waitress arrived to take our order and went away again, taking the menus with her before I could slap my sister with them.
"So." Sherri sat back, folding her arms. "Who got knocked off now?"
"Her name was Dorcas Beeber," I said. "She was a client. And a psychic."
"A psychic." Sherri blinked. "As in she talked to dead people?"
"As in she did readings for people."
"Oh. So she was a fraud."
I remembered Dorcas's remarks about death in the air. I wasn't so sure about the fraud part.
Sherri shook her head. "She claimed she could see the future, but she didn't see her own death coming? That's a pretty big miss, if you ask me. So what happened? She have a heart attack when Howard gave her his bill?"
"She was bashed in the head with her crystal ball," I said. "In her studio."
Sherri considered. "And you almost walked in on this."
I nodded.
"Which means you were going to a psychic. Were you delivering legal papers?"
"Curt's niece wanted to get a reading."
She was quiet for a few minutes, during which every expression of disquiet I'd ever seen on my mother's face played out across hers. I could practically hear my mother asking when I was going to get a job with less exposure to nutcases. Finally Sherri said, "You know what I think?"
"You think I should get another job."
"What?" Her nose wrinkled. "No. That's your business. I think that snotty little nineteen-year-old that bought the $700 Versace knockoff this morning should've bought the $1600 Vera Wang instead."
That's the way it was with Sherri. You only had her attention for so long. Even so, I wasn't interested in discussing designer wedding gowns. "Let me ask you something," I said, "If you don't care about Wally, why don't you just break up with him?"
She shrugged. "He's a lawyer. And he has a BMW."
"Maybe you're the one who should quit your job," I said. "It makes you crazy."
"I can't quit," she said. "I get a thirty percent discount. I'm going to need that if anyone ever proposes."
That was starting to look like a long shot. Sherri was thirty-one, and even though her husband requirements were minimal—male and blond—she had no real prospects. Since her goal of snagging a husband by age thirty hadn't worked out so well, her standards got lower every year. Which brought us to Sherri's kryptonite, Frankie Ritter. Frankie Ritter was 300 pounds of tattoos and skeeviness who frequented stripper bars and favored X-rated movies. Even I would pick Wally over Frankie Ritter.
"Wally thinks you're cheating on him," I told her. "Is he right?"
She wouldn't look at me.
I put down the bread. "Don't tell me."
"Frankie's not so bad," she said. "He's lost a little weight. He looks pretty good. See?" She shoved her cell phone at me. Frankie leered at me from the tiny screen. His hair was black with blond tips. His face was pink and round. He'd added a nose ring and eyebrow ring since I'd last seen him.
I pushed it away. "What's with the new hardware?"
"Isn't it sexy?" She studied the screen adoringly. "He did it for me. He's thinking of piercing—"
"You need to be honest with Wally," I cut in. "He really cares about you."
She grinned. "I was kinda thinking I could have them both."
Wrong. I had no intention of helping her juggle Mutt and Jeff as long as I had to work with Jeff. "That's not fair," I said. "Wally's not a bad guy. If you don't think he's the one, you should tell him, so he can move on." I crossed my fingers in my lap. "But I think he's got marriage on his mind."
That got her. "Really? Did he say something?"
Wally said lots of things, few of them interesting. I sifted through our earlier conversation to find something marriage-related. "He said he'd like to have a man-to-man discussion." I swallowed. "With Dad."
"With Dad?" She clutched the phone to her chest, Frankie Ritter all but forgotten. "Like asking for Dad's blessing?"
I shrugged. "Could be." Could be I was getting myself into a lot of trouble. If I wormed out of this one, I'd never tell another fib. Well, maybe a fib was okay, but no whoppers. I just had to peel Sherri away from Frankie Ritter, even if it meant throwing Wally under the bridal limousine to do it.
"Oh. My. God." She shoved the empty breadbasket to the side as the waitress arrived with our food. Mini meat ravioli with garlic bread for me. Meatloaf with gravy and mashed potatoes for her. And yet I looked like this, and she looked like that.
She was practically bouncing up and down. "Did he buy me a ring? Did you see a ring?"
"He didn't show me any ring." Her face fell. "But he probably wouldn't," I added quickly. "He'd be afraid I'd ruin the surprise."
"You
are
ruining the surprise."
I speared a ravioli. "I thought he wasn't your kind of guy."
"Well, he did dye his hair for me. But he's not very manly."
"What does that mean?"
"He doesn't have enough…" She hesitated. "…
man
in him. He
cries."
She shuddered. "And he spends an awful lot of time at work. Or talking about work. Or texting Howard about work. At least Frankie has all day to spend with me."
"That's because he's unemployed," I told her.
"He's not unemployed. He's started an Internet business." She pushed her meatloaf around in the gravy. "He's gonna become the Roger Ebert of skin flicks."
Eww.
I was surprised to hear myself say, "Just give Wally a little more time. He might surprise you."
"I'll give him a month," she said firmly. "If he doesn't ask for Dad's blessing in a month, I'm cutting him off."
That was good enough for me. It would stop Wally's sniffle fest and give me plenty of time to get Frankie Ritter out of the picture.
Maizy was waiting for me at the office when I got back, huddled inside a poofy black coat with her scarf looped around her neck like a hangman's noose. Her blue hair cloud was jammed up under a lumpy knit cap. Her legs were crossed, her Doc Martens bouncing up and down with impatience. She jumped up when I came in. "I have to show you something."
I glanced at the clock. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
She snorted, "Why?" and shoved her cell phone at me. Her fingernails were green with tiny red crystals sprayed across the tips. Festive. "Read this."
I squinted at the screen. I could tell from the headline it was a newspaper article about Dorcas's murder. But my eyes were no match for the tiny print. At this rate, in another ten years I wouldn't be able to find the refrigerator. "I can't," I told her. "What does it say?"
Maizy snatched the phone. "What's your e-mail address?" I told her, and her fingers flew across the screen, sending me the article. She pointed at my computer. "Go read it on the Jumbotron."
I sat down at my desk and pulled up my e-mail while she stood behind my right shoulder, vibrating with energy. I didn't have any privacy issues about my e-mail, mostly because my in-box was full of spam and phishing attempts. Which explained why I have no social media presence at all. I'd die of embarrassment if the world knew about my erectile dysfunction.
The article was the generic sort that you saw after the murder of any non-celebrity, light on personal details, heavy on supposition. There was a thumbnail-sized photo of Dorcas, along with a larger photo of the Destinies with Dorcas building, looking even more pathetic in print than it had in real life. Crime scene tape stretched across the door.
And there it was, tucked somewhere in the middle of the third paragraph:
The body of the deceased psychic medium was discovered by a local woman, Jamie Winters.
I looked up in alarm. "This is not good."
"Tell me about it." Maizy crossed her arms over her chest. "It's as if
I
wasn't even there."
I rolled my eyes. "You don't get it. Now everyone knows I was. I don't want that!"
She sucked in a breath. "You mean everyone including the killer."
"Exactly." I closed my e-mail, my chest tight. "What if he thinks I know something? I don't know anything!"
Maizy's eyes went wide. "I saw this exact thing in a movie once. This woman happened to walk past a storefront when a murder was taking place, and the killer thought for sure she'd seen him through the window and went after her next. I think he even followed her into where she worked."
We both looked at the front door.
"Of course, she worked at a massage parlor," Maizy said. "There were lots of people around. They were all undressed, but they were around. Not like here." She glanced over my shoulder. "Does anyone else work here?"
That was open for debate. I nodded anyway. "Six other people."
"Good. Six is good." Maizy hesitated. "Why are they so quiet?"
Probably because they were all at lunch, leaving me alone behind an unlocked front door that may or may not have a crazed killer on the other side of it. The thought sent a chill shivering up my spine. I didn't want to be at the office alone. I barely wanted to be there when the entire staff was there with me.
"We have to find that SUV," I told her.
"Yeah, I've been working on that." She hesitated, biting her lip. "Little problem. Turns out there are a
lot
of SUVs in this state, and we don't have a license plate number." Her eyebrows lifted. "Do we have a license plate number?"
I shook my head. "Well, it was a good idea," I said.
"It's still a good idea. We just need to narrow down the search a little. Do you know what make that behemoth was?"
"Not a clue," I said. "It was too dark." And I was hardly an expert on SUVs. All behemoths looked alike to me. "It was black," I added.
"Ninety-seven percent of them are black." Her voice took on an edge. "It's as if everyone's in the Secret Service or something."
Not sure I wanted to know what database she hacked to get her information. "It was a long shot," I told her. "Needle in a haystack. I didn't really expect it to work."
"Hey, I know." She stuck her hands in her coat pockets, dropped her chin, and gave me a look of deep purity from wide innocent eyes. "I could drive around to some different SUV dealerships, sort of check out the lots. See if I could find our model. You know, so you don't have to waste your time."