by CeCe Osgood
"It was dark, and it happened so fast, so yes, maybe I did imagine a shadow or maybe it was George turning off the light."
Lulu's upper lip twitched. "Sounds to me like you've got a fog in your noggin. I can help you blow that fog away so you can remember everything. Be at my house at twilight."
Caught by surprise, Abby squawked, "What? No. I'm fixing dinner for—"
"Dinner? That's your concern? Have a heart, Abby Little. A man is dead. This is more important than food. You and me, we have to find out if George was murdered."
Chapter Five
"Murdered!" shouted the mayor, standing within earshot at the curb. "Nonsense. It was an accident. The sheriff says so, the coroner says so, and I say so. Moon Water is a quiet, peaceful community and we don't have murders here. Get that preposterous idea out of your muddled mind."
She fired back. "My mind is as clear as a crystal."
Holcombe roared. "Then stop maligning this town. I'm spending day and night trying to make Moon Water more prosperous, and I don't need you circulating these ludicrous suspicions about murder. You'll scare off the tourists, Lulu."
"That's Mrs. Dupree to you, Holcombe."
"Well, Mrs. Dupree, you put a stop to this slander or-or I'll sue you."
Lulu's head swiveled to Abby. "You heard him. That was a threat, wasn't it?
Abby gaped at her and said nothing. No way she was getting between these two.
Lulu clucked at the mayor. "Try it, and I'll take you to court with this young one here as a witness.”
Holcombe tried to solicit Abby to his side. "Don't listen to a word out of her. She's got a screw loose and likes to entertain herself by causing trouble."
"Kiss my buttery grits, Hank Holcombe. For all I know, you did it. You killed George. You were always at his throat."
"That's a lie, you old nutcase." The mayor stalked back to the street, angrily muttering as he jogged off.
Lulu called out to his retreating figure. "You can run, Holcombe, but you can't hide from me.”
She turned back to Abby, snickering, "My money's on him. He did it. Now we have to prove it."
Her upper lip twitched again. "Come over at twilight. You and me, we're gonna get to the bottom of this, Abby Little."
Tiny silver ballet shoes shuffled back across the street to Lulu's brick foursquare, which had been painted lavender with a mustard yellow trim.
"Whew," Abby muttered as she shut the front door. "This town must breed the loons. No way I'm going to that woman's house."
Seated in a cane-back chair, Abby sipped her ginger tea and glanced around Lulu's solarium. She'd given in to her curiosity—something she was prone to doing—in order to find out what Lulu meant when she said she could blow that fog away and Abby would remember everything from the night she found George's body.
How could she do that? The question had bounced inside her head until twilight when she found herself crossing the street.
Now seated in Lulu's solarium, she mused on the utter anguish an architect must feel upon seeing Lulu’s add-on extension, which completely destroyed the boxy design of the traditional foursquare.
Still, the room was sort of pleasant, with a large single skylight and a wall of casement windows. Hanging baskets of begonias took advantage of the light.
An open window allowed a cool, brisk breeze in. Abby shivered slightly and sipped the warm 'winter lemonade' Lulu had served her when she first arrived. The old lady then disappeared into another room.
She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes she'd been waiting. A glance out the window told her twilight was fading into night.
From another room came the faint tinkle of music, soft and soothing. Then Lulu, her head encased in a silky black turban, entered the solarium and eased into the other cane-backed chair across from Abby. "Like the beverage?"
"I do. It's delicious."
"George gave me a truckload of honeyberries which I keep in the freezer. I boil the berries into a syrup to use instead of honey or sugar. You should do that too."
Her warm eyes sharpened into beady dark rocks. "Now, we have work to do."
Lulu leaned toward a side table and pulled open a drawer. "This," she said removing an object, "will help us reach your subconscious mind."
Abby startled and almost sloshed the tea on herself. "Pardon?"
"It's a very simple process which allows me to probe for a particular memory."
"Probe?" Abby's voice hitched up a knot. She did not like the sound of this.
Lulu went on as if she hadn't heard the dismay in Abby's voice. "I will confine my questions to that particular night and to that moment you saw someone in George's cottage."
"But I'm not sure if I did see—"
"Sshh. Set your cup on the side table. There's an abalone coaster right there for you, then put your lips together and keep quiet."
Sheesh. What a bossy old lady. Abby set the cup down, turned back to Lulu who was now dangling a delicate silver chain with a thin wooden medallion sporting a painted eye. "This will work only if you keep your eyes on this eye and listen to my voice."
Ah. So that's what this probing means. She thinks she can hypnotize me. No way, lady. "Lulu, I can't be—"Abby started to say.
"Sshh." Lulu cut her off. "No negatives in your words or in your mind. Keep quiet and keep your eyes on the eye, not on me."
"But I can't be hypnotized. I was brought up on a stage once at a nightclub and the guy tried it and he couldn't do it."
Lulu bristled. "Of course, it didn't work with a piddly-diddly stage hypnotist. I'm the real deal. I have a certificate from The Kyle Krillion Hypnotic Institute in Sedona. Now, let's get started. My intuition is telling me Hank Holcombe could be the culprit. Your subconscious might recognize him."
She ticked the medallion back and forth. "All you need to do is put your full attention on the eye and listen to my voice. Let the words flow like a calm river into your mind."
Abby sighed. Resisting will merely prolong this ordeal. I'll just shut up and let her see for herself.
The pendant moved slowly side to side, side to side. The only sound was the faint tinkle of New Age music from another room.
LuLu began to speak in a low voice, stretching out the vowels to create a soothing, calming monotone. "You are in an elevator, a polished stainless steel exceedingly clean elevator. You feel comfortable in this elevator, which is descending slowly, ever so slowly. You are relaxed and comfortable. You inhale deeply and count down from one hundred as the elevator continues to descend floor by floor."
Abby kept her eyes on the pendant. Her shoulders stayed tight and constricted, not at all relaxed.
Lulu's voice droned on. "The elevator door opens, and you walk out. In front of you there's a lovely moonlit beach with the tide gently flowing in and out, in and out. You feel calm and at peace. Now, you are walking in the sand and listening to the ocean's waves ebb and flow, ebb and flow..."
Abby's eyelids began to grow heavy. Lulu kept repeating the words until Abby's head drooped.
She could still hear the light tinkle of music and then there was silence. She was not quite asleep but close, so close, when a word began to appear in the darkness of her mind. The first letter was a 'w' and then followed an 'i' and a 't' and…
Her breathing shifted into loud whimpering pants. A quiver shook her entire body, her eyes popped open. "No. I can't do this."
"You're not under?"
Abby glowered. "I told you. I can't be hypnotized. The guy on the stage told me—"
"Forget him! I can do it. Stop fighting it. We'll try it again."
Abby started to push out of the chair. "No. We won't."
Lulu raised a defensive hand. "Okay, okay. Take it easy, Abby. Have it your way. Sit back down. C'mon."
Abby obeyed, irritated but also amused. Age hadn't dimmed the old lady's vim and vigor.
Lulu raised her arms, took a long deep breath and wriggled her fingers then waved them like she was a hulu dancer. "Do t
his."
Abby tried it and did not find it relaxing. Lulu stood up, lifted her knee and held her hands in what Abby sort of recognized as a Tai Chi pose. Abby stood up too, mimicking Lulu's pose. They stayed like that until Lulu said, "Now, are you feeling more relaxed?"
"Some."
"Good. We'll try again." Lulu reached for the pendant.
Abby folded her arms across her chest to emphasize her "not gonna happen" response. They stared at each other having reached an impasse.
Finally, Lulu sat back down. Abby did too.
Lulu leaned back in her chair. "George and I became friends after his wife passed away. See, I've lost my husbands, all three, and I knew the grief he was feeling. I walked across the street with cookies, and I made him take them. Every day for a week, I did that. Then he brought his little dog, Winston, over here with him, and the three of us would sit and watch the stars." Her voice turned soft and earnest. "I would like to know what happened to him."
"I'm sorry, but I've told you. I can't be hypnotized."
Lulu's face clouded. "Well, I guess you're the one."
"The one what?"
"Most people are able to enter a trance easily, but then there's always the one"—she flicked a finger at Abby—"the one who will not go under because something is blocking the mind, the memory, the river of deeper consciousness. You're the one."
Abby shrugged. "Fine. I'm the one."
Lulu rose. "Wait here." Lulu's tiny ballet shoes shuffled across the slate tiles of the solarium as she left the room.
Abby sat waiting. Why am I doing this? Go home. The mayor's right. Lulu is a nutcase.
Lulu reappeared with a plate of what looked like cookies. Abby eyed them with suspicion. Could this be some clandestine way to hypnotize me? Some herb slipped into a cookie to relax me?
"Have one," Lulu said pleasantly. They're oatmeal raisin with walnuts and a touch of ginger. George loved them." She plucked a cookie out of the plate and bit into it.
Abby picked up one and visually inspected the cookie, which looked normal enough. She sniffed it too. No strange odor.
Lulu, her eyes fixed on Abby, chortled. "Good grief. It's only a cookie. I needed a little pick-me-up."
Abby cautiously nibbled on the cookie.
Lulu popped another one in her mouth and as she chewed she adjusted the silky black turban on her head. "All right, I admit it. You were right, and I was wrong. You can't be hypnotized."
She sat silent for a moment then heaved a loud sigh. "I guess we'll never know if there was someone there that night."
Abby knew what Lulu was doing. Playing on her sympathies. Still hoping to try hypnosis again. It wasn't going to work. She pushed out the chair. "I guess we won't."
Chapter Six
Lulu's door clicked shut as Abby walked outside. It was a balmy, beautiful night with a mild breeze stirring the treetops. She crossed the street with a few worrisome thoughts nipping at her.
Was Lulu right? Was her mind blocking what or who she'd seen that night? If she could dredge up the memory, would she be able to identify the person?
I'm being an idiot listening to anything she says. The best thing is to avoid her from now on.
Something rustled in the nearby honeyberry bush startling her, and then she laughed at herself when a bird fluttered from the bush and soared into the sky.
Relieved, she glanced at the bush again and thought of the dog, the mini-Dachshund.
The sheriff said there were no paw prints on the dirt path. How could that be right? They found my shoe prints.
Raising her right hand, Abby examined the palm. It looked normal. Now.
But on two separate occasions back in Martindale, this very same palm had spit out blue sparks like a Roman candle.
It had happened once when she was driving after an infuriating phone conversation with her conniving ex-husband, Charles.
The second time was more intense because she had a psycho killer about to pounce on her.
Abby's heart began to pound. If the blue sparks hadn't coalesced into a laser-like beam of energy and shot out of her fingers to neutralize the killer, she wouldn't have survived.
Of course, she'd kept what actually happened a secret. Who would believe her? Certainly not the cops who arrived and found the killer on the floor, out cold.
Logic told her it could not have happened that way. People don't have sparks coming out of their hands. "Normal people don't, that's for sure. And I'm normal."
Logic told her it was all due to stress, and she refused to think it could be anything else. Or she had until she found the mysterious velvety black book in the trunk of her car as they drove from Martindale to Moon Water.
Now, she hadn't seen the book since they arrived at the cottage. It wasn't in the trunk of her car or in the house. Jill knew nothing about it.
Absent-mindedly, she nibbled on a cookie. Lulu had given her some to take home. "The mayor's right about you, Lulu. You're was losing her grip on reality, and I don't need exposure to that. Mine is wobbly enough as is."
And yet, why had Lulu said that about a memory block?
Returning to her cottage, she checked on Jill. "Have you seen that black book with the swirly gold design on the cover?"
"It's not mine. I haven't seen it," Jill said, yawning as she got ready for bed.
A quick search of her own bedroom turned up nothing. Where was it? Back in Martindale, it had taken her a while to decipher the title, Tick Tock. A Memory Block, embedded in a swirly cursive design on the cover.
Abby's curiosity shook itself like a lazy cat as it stretched out its feet. Was it a coincidence that the book's title was so close to what Lulu said tonight about her memory being blocked?
The next day she searched the cottage for the book and her frustration grew until she gave up. "Oh, forget it. It doesn't matter."
But her curiosity told her otherwise. It did matter. It was too much of a coincidence: Lulu's mentioning a memory block and the book's title.
With a sigh issuing out of her, she finally admitted to herself that deep inside she felt something tick, tick, ticking.
Chapter Seven
Abby glanced at her watch. It was after dark, and Jill wasn't home yet. Still, it was to be expected as this was her first field assignment as a member of the equestrian club.
Along with two other members of the club, she would spend a few hours after school working at her assigned ranch, and then the mini-bus would pick her up at the ranch and drop her off at home around seven. "It's only five after seven," Abby quibbled.
The door knob rattled, and Jill bounded inside, holding up a hand. "I know, I know. I smell bad," she said with a laugh. "That's what working on a ranch does for you."
Abby loved that the kid was so buoyant and cheerful. "How was it?"
Jill set her backpack on the floor. "Gotta shower first, talk later."
When she returned with wet hair and fresh clothes, she bubbled with excitement. "I mucked out a stall for two hours. That's what newbies get to do."
She angled her cellphone to show her mother the pics she'd taken. "For the next four weeks, I'll be mucking out stalls for this filly. Her name's Coconut."
Abby peered at the chestnut horse with the flaxen mane and tail. "She's pretty. What ranch did you get?"
"Pine Ridge."
A small smile tipped Abby's lips. "I met the owner. Jay Browder."
"Yeah, that's him. He gave us a list of instructions to follow."
She clicked on another pic. "This is the 'before' picture of Coconut's stall."
"Yuck."
"And this"—Jill brought up another pic—"is after I cleaned it."
"Good job, kiddo. I guess cleaning up your room won't be such a big deal now, huh?"
Jill squinted daggers at her then acknowledged her mother's gibe. "Yeah, I guess after this, I'll have to quit whining."
Abby pinched Jill's cheek. "You are the perfect daughter."
"Finally, you noticed. So, what's for
dinner?"
"Tuna casserole. I ate already. It's in the oven."
Abby walked back to the dimly lit living room to retrieve her laptop and glimpsed at the blinking orange light signaling the battery needed to be charged.
She knelt down to connect the charger to the wall outlet and as she started to rise something whizzed by her. "What the—"
Her eyes darted around the living room and stopped when her brain registered what she was seeing near the fireplace.
A dog. A black and tan mini-Dachshund.
Absolutely certain it was the same dog who'd led her to George's body, she cooed, "Where’d you come from, pup? And how did you get inside this house?"
She patted her thigh, entreating the dog to come to her. "Come on."
It didn't work. The pup lowered its rump to the floor and sat staring at her with slightly glistening intelligent eyes.
"Looks like you're gonna stay put, huh?"
"Who are you talking to?" Jill walked in from the kitchen forking into a bowl of tuna casserole.
"The dog by the fireplace."
Jill glanced at the fireplace. "What dog?"
"Don't joke." Abby's gaze strayed back to the Doxie who was staring up at her.
Jill peeked at the fireplace, shook her head. "There's no dog there, Momma," she said slowly, her tone edged with concern.
Abby cocked her head, looked at Jill, who looked somber, and slid her eyes to the dog by the fireplace.
Her gaze veered back to Jill. "You don't see the dog?"
A slow shake of Jill's head was accompanied by a frown. She switched on a table lamp, brightening the room then nodded at the fireplace. "There's no dog."
Abby gave her daughter a cheesy grin to cover her own confusion then peeked at the fireplace. The dog wasn't there.
Chapter Eight
Abby slowed her run to a walk as she drew near the cottage. The exercise was helping. Her shoulders weren't as tight; she felt more relaxed and less worried. Well, that last part wasn't all that totally true. Worries still plagued her, but she wasn't seeing things.