Confound It

by Maggie Toussaint

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “There’s no such thing as putting the root on anyone.”

  “Sho ’nuf is,” Ronnie said. “Get yourself some of your mama’s herbs to wear around your neck.”

  Herbs around the neck. I knew something about that, only I couldn’t call it to mind because I was focused on this case. Dixon’s secrets may or may not be relevant to his neighbor’s death. The place was a meth lab. What parent raised a child in a meth lab, for goodness sake?

  “You believe in hoodoo, Ronnie?” Virg asked.

  “I believe in taking precautions. You should too.”

  Once again, the cops closed ranks, walking ahead of me. I limped along, unable to step on my left heel. Virg had said hoodoo, but I was sure he meant voodoo. I couldn’t put any credence in his remarks, but danged if I could dismiss them either. Until I knew more about what we were facing with this case, I’d keep my eyes and ears open.

  Chapter Eight

  Back at the Patterson home, the activity level had dropped from beehive frantic to good ole boy coffee klatch. All the Hazmat and fire people had their suits half peeled off. Most sat inside their air-conditioned vehicles drinking bottles of water. The sheriff, my father, Bubba Paxton, and Mayes were nowhere in sight.

  “Get your sweatbox suit on,” Virg said. “I’m sure the sheriff will want you inside.”

  “What about you?” I asked, eyeing the open boxes of Hazmat apparel under the nearest tree. From what I’d seen of the people suited up, these suits came in XL and XXL. I’d be swimming in one, that’s for sure.

  “Me and Ronnie is on crowd control, plus I gotta write up Screw Loose’s statement.”

  No stray people were watching the scene, but that didn’t mean a carload of folks wouldn’t drive by at any time. I understood the need for outside guys, but since I’d been excluded from the indoor team earlier, I was less certain about my odds of getting inside.

  I sat beside the tree, unlaced my boot, and checked out my left heel. No rocks in my shoe, nothing poking in my skin. Hmm. Was there a chance Ronnie had called it with voodoo? I’d ask around to find out if we had local practitioners, but only if the pain in my heel persisted. I assumed I’d stepped wrong and bruised my heel.

  Duct tape proved to be a necessary accessory to my protective gear. I taped the size XL suit to my rubber boots and gloves. Before I donned the respirator and the hoodie, I crossed the yard to stand beside the coroner’s gurney parked at the concrete-block stairs.

  “We’re back, and I’ve suited up. May I come inside?” I hollered through the doorway.

  I heard movement inside, then someone appeared at the door, carrying a crate of bagged evidence and a camera. Wayne placed the crate in the doorway, removed his respirator, and nodded at me. “Just give us a sec in here. What’d you find out next door?”

  “Mandy Patterson and her son Doodle live here. Mr. Dixon mostly ignored them except when the pot bellied pigs became an issue. He doesn’t care for the son at all. Loud music and lousy taste in friends were the reasons he gave.”

  “Virg writing it up?”

  “He is.”

  “Good deal.” He glanced over his shoulder and then grabbed the crate and moved toward me. “Here they come.”

  My father, Bubba Paxton, and Mayes walked out, carrying a black body bag. They laid it on the gurney, and as one, pulled their hoodies down, yanked off the respirators, and unzipped the suits. All three men were slick with sweat. Though it was late September, the temperature today was easily mid-eighties.

  “What’d y’all find out?” I asked, noticing a trickle of moisture already running down my spine.

  The men glanced at Wayne. “Our vic is a woman, most likely Mandy Patterson,” Wayne said. “We’ll need a medical examiner to give cause of death, but it appears there are no other obvious signs of trauma.”

  “The fire killed her? Why didn’t she run out the door?”

  “Until the ME completes the autopsy, we won’t know.”

  Virg and Ronnie ambled over. “Them pigs are missing,” Virg said. “And they’s a three-legged goat, too, someplace ’round here.”

  Wayne nodded and tried to hide a smile, but couldn’t. “I’m gonna take Powell through the place and then we’ll turn it back over to the firemen. Virg, you’re staying on crowd control. Ronnie, you’re on critter patrol. If Burnell Escoe from the GBI arrives, get him outfitted and point him in my direction.”

  Virg and Ronnie jostled their way back to the cruiser.

  I turned to Mayes. “What about you?”

  Mayes pointed to the cluster of emergency vehicles. “I want to talk with the fire guys. I may be able to expedite their sample processing with my upstate connections.”

  “They’d appreciate that,” I said.

  “We got what we came for,” my father said, “so we’ll head out. See you at dinner, Baxley.”

  “I could use a shower,” Bubba Paxton said as they walked away. “I’m soaked to the bone.”

  Dad and Bubba maneuvered the gurney over roots and around odd bits of trailer in the yard. “You can get a shower at our place,” my father said.

  “And then there were two,” I said when it was just the sheriff and me. “What’s your take on the inside?”

  “One room is mostly gone. I assume that’s where the fire started, probably the meth lab. We found the vic in the bathtub.”

  “In water?”

  “Not really. My guess is she was showering when the fire broke out. That would explain her lack of clothes. One wall collapsed over the tub, which saved her from a complete burn, but she lost a lot to the fire.”

  “Will I see her?”

  “Not like that, if I have anything to say about it. I gathered some of her belongings for you to do your touch test, so we should be good. I want you to see the layout before we leave. Step where I step. We know the floor is solid in certain places.”

  I felt giddy at not having to see the burnt woman’s body. “No sign of the son inside?”

  “Nope. No pigs or goats either.”

  My foot twinged again, and I drew in a quick breath. “Something wrong?”

  “Foot’s got a mind of its own today.” A bird called purty , purty , purty in the distance. I shifted most of my weight to my right foot. “You thinking arson or accident?”

  “It could go either way.”

  “If arson, I should examine the doors and windows.”

  “Not much left of them. We get inside and you see something you want, call it to my attention. I’ll bag and tag it. Any questions?”

  “I’m good.” We sealed our protective gear, and I followed him up the concrete-block steps. With a respirator on, my loud breathing sounded like Darth Vader’s. I remembered the sheriff ’s instructions to walk in his footsteps, so I watched his boots stir clouds of ash and debris. My heel still bothered me, so I walked on the tiptoes of my left foot.

  We stepped over a wire conduit and some PVC pipes. Wayne halted and made a sweeping arm gesture. I couldn’t understand his garbled speech, so I raised my gaze and saw the roof was totally gone. Blue sky domed above us, and the sun brightened the drab interior.

  God , it was hot in these suits. My shirt was soaked through. Judging by the charred appliances, the sink, and couch springs, this seemed to be a combination kitchen and living room. I could tell nothing about the people who lived here.

  Just yesterday, the lady of the house stood at this sink washing her dishes. She’d gone about her chores like it was any other day. But it wasn’t. What a difference a day made.

  A large bead of sweat rolled into my eye, blurring my vision. Wayne said something else to me, but the sound was far away. The room before me swirled in a circle and then took shape. White cabinets, white appliances, blue countertops. A woman in a faded floral robe puttered around the kitchen, tidying this, wiping that. Freshly brewed coffee perfumed the air, making my stomach rumble.

  She walked to the living room, adjusted the superhero throw pillo
ws on the couch, and squared up the magazines on the gleaming wooden coffee table. The top magazine had a familiar yellow border around the edge of the cover. The woman stood, rubbing her lower back, her amber eyes dull with pain.

  Uh-oh. I recognized that move. Her back hurt, or her kidneys, or she might have cramps. Either way, if it were me, I’d head to the shower for some relief. My thoughts gelled. That’s just what Mandy Patterson did, right before she died. I was being shown her last minutes on earth. A dreamwalk.

  “Mandy? Can you hear me?” I asked.

  No response. It was as if she didn’t see me at all. The vision was a loop from her past, a sequence of events she wanted me to see.

  Purposefully, I glanced around the room, hoping for some clue as to what had happened. My overwhelming sense was that of tidiness. There were no rumpled clothes in laundry baskets waiting to be folded. No dishes were stacked in the sink; no bills and catalogs cluttered the counter.

  With a sigh, the woman ambled down the hall, turning left at the first doorway. The bathroom. Mandy closed the door, turned on the shower, and disrobed. As the water warmed, she sat on the side of the tub and chewed her fingernails. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of nails on any finger, but she gnawed on her index finger just the same.

  What was going through her head? All I could hear was the sound of my breathing and the flowing water. If she had any last thoughts, she wasn’t sharing them with me. Finally, the water temperature suited her, and she climbed in, drawing the white shower curtain closed behind her. The spray pounded on Mandy’s lower back, and her eyes closed. Been there, done that. What wasn’t I seeing? Her bath products were bargain brands, same as in my shower. Her skin was flawless. There were no piercings, no tattoos. She looked to be about five feet four, and maybe a hundred twenty pounds or so. Her hair was closely cropped, giving her a stylish, no-nonsense look.

  The only touch of femininity I observed in her entire home was the floral robe. Everything else seemed utilitarian, as if frills had no place in her life. How did she come to be so rigidly disciplined, so compulsively neat?

  I tried to reach her again. “Mandy? I’m Baxley Powell, the Dreamwalker. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

  The vision flickered, like the end of a movie reel. A loud explosion sounded, knocking Mandy down. She fell and stared at me with sightless eyes. Flaming pieces of the ceiling and roof landed on her. I hovered closer, desperate for even a hint of what caused the explosion.

  A rattling from her chest had me reaching for her hand. Though she had already passed on, her death felt like it was occurring right this minute. “It’s okay, Mandy,” I said. “Death’s not so bad. Just let go.”

  Her fingers tightened around mine as the fire roared around us. Two words came out on her last sigh. “Tell them.”

  Chapter Nine

  Wayne tugged on my arm, and I came back to full consciousness. I’d had a vision without holding anything of the victim’s in my hand. Being in her house was all it took for me to see Mandy Patterson. How was that possible?

  The sheriff ’s respirator face plate hovered right in front of mine. He said something again, garbled through the protective clothing, and I assumed he asked me if I was okay. I nodded my head, which put him at ease.

  We trekked into two other tiny rooms. Each held a metal bed frame and lots of wall and ceiling debris. The hall ended abruptly as if a dinosaur had munched off the end of the mobile home. From the mini-crater in the adjacent soil, I judged this might have been ground zero for the explosion that caused the fire. Metal creaked and ash stirred as we walked, but no more ghostly visions waylaid me. Wayne pointed out the bathroom. Curious, I went off script, not following his footsteps, to venture into the room. A small sink and a toilet were on one side, the three-quarter-length tub on the other. All were charred with soot and dusted with ash. Sunlight flooded the entire space.

  Mandy Patterson died here. She’d shown me that final scene for a reason. What was important about this room? Did she expect me to notice something here after the fire? Not likely. The ceramic fixtures survived, but the fire took care of the walls and any personal items.

  The showerhead pipe was still in place, as were the water control knobs. I wanted to touch the blackened tub, and if not the tub, then one of those knobs. I pointed to them and stated my request as clearly as I could, given the respirator I wore.

  Wayne shook his head and pointed to the door. I got the message. He wanted me out of there. I followed his arm gestures and headed outside because I was hot, tired, and thirsty. He kept a gloved hand on my shoulder the entire way. Guess he didn’t want me to make another detour.

  Once we reached the decon station, Wayne ripped his full face respirator off and whirled me around. “What part of follow-in-my-footsteps didn’t you understand? What did you think you were doing in there?”

  His face looked red and angry. I fumbled to pull my respirator off, getting it caught in the hoodie part of my suit. Mayes came to my rescue and untangled the hoodie and the respirator. “Thanks,” I told him.

  I unzipped my suit and felt some of the humidity inside escape. My clothes were plastered to my skin, my hair, a soppy mess. How did astronauts do this for weeks and months at a time? I accepted a bottle of water from Mayes and took a long swig. Then I turned to Wayne, who was still steaming like a bull in the ring.

  “I was doing my job.”

  He leaned into my personal space. “Your job is to follow my lead. It’s too hot to be trapped in these suits for one of your dreamwalks. I wanted you to see the floorplan and to get a feel for the place. That’s it. My guys can haul whatever pieces we need to the office, and you can examine them in the air conditioning.”

  Reading between the lines, I realized he’d intended to sit in the air conditioning while I worked. “For your information, I saw something in there.” Once the words escaped my lips, I winced. Wayne did not need to know that my abilities had expanded. I was better off letting him believe I had only one paranormal gear. Wayne had already blabbed about my dreamwalking to all his sheriff buddies. Letting him know anything extra about me was the equivalent of telling gossip central.

  My words had the effect of a bucket of ice water thrown on his temper. As if he were an alchemist, his anger transformed into a different element. His eyes narrowed into a laser-like tractor beam. “Tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you because I’m a team player, not because you asked me so nicely.” I drained the rest of the water bottle, then wiggled out of the suit. If I ever needed to drop five pounds in ten minutes, this was the way to go.

  “Powell, you’re trying my patience.”

  “Don’t you want to wait to get back to the air conditioning for a report, Sheriff?” I asked in a saccharine-sweet tone.

  “I want answers.”

  “Then let me give them to you. Mandy died in that tub. She was taking a shower when the explosion happened. In that instant, she was surprised and frightened and worried.”

  “She told you this?”

  “I saw it. I saw her last moments. Heard the roar. Saw her face for the millisecond before the ceiling fell on her, and her skin caught fire.”

  Wayne’s features morphed into his stony cop face, the one where I couldn’t read his expression, the one he turned on his criminal suspects. I didn’t like it at all.

  I sensed Mayes hovering at my elbow, waiting to leap to my rescue. While I appreciated the gesture, I could handle Wayne.

  “You were supposed to wait,” Wayne said.

  “You think I control when the dreams come? Think again.”

  Silence rang around us. Not a trace of air moved back here in these pine woods. It felt cloying and itchy and uncomfortable. I was too hot. I was freezing. The world started to spin. I tried to brace my legs, but they refused to cooperate. I might as well have been trying to balance on a pine cone.

  Strong arms closed around me, and the daylight winked out.

  Chapter Ten

  A cool
cloth caressed my brow. The air was easier to breathe. I felt cradled and cherished. I floated into consciousness reluctantly, burrowing into the strong arms that held me. He smelled nice, like home and woods and safety. Another gentle stroke from the crown of my head down my neck. Oh, it felt so good to be held. A murmur of contentment welled in my throat.

  “She awake?” a man said.

  I knew that voice. Wayne.

  “Getting there,” another man whispered.

  The right man. Mayes. I fought the rising tide of wakefulness, knowing everything would change when I opened my eyes. I savored the tender touches he gave me, each one a beautiful memory to store forever, as I drifted through a wonderful lucid dream.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Wayne asked.

  “Dehydration and denial.”

  “The first I get, but the second?”

  “Complicated.”

  “Don’t mess with my Dreamwalker.”

  His arms tightened around me, sending a jolt of his irritation and more through every nerve ending. My breath caught as I careened back to reality.

  “She’s not yours,” Mayes said simply.

  “Not yours either,” the sheriff countered. “She’s married.”

  The vista beyond my eyelids brightened considerably. I became aware of an engine running. The sheriff ’s Jeep. Of cool air brushing against my skin, filling my lungs. Air conditioning. Of being a steamy mess. Of my personal body odor. That did it.

  My eyes flickered open. Just as I’d thought. Mayes held me in the backseat of the sheriff’s Jeep.

  “Morning,” Mayes said.

  “Morning.” I pushed against him, trying to rise, but his steely arms didn’t give an inch. “I’m okay.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Belatedly, it occurred to me that Mayes had been using my close proximity to transfer his energy into me. He’d taught me how to do that during our last case at Stony Creek Lake. We shared similar paranormal skill sets, and even though he claimed I was the stronger of the two of us, I had a feeling he didn’t have a clue as to his true potential.

  I gazed up into his brown eyes. “Did you ….”