Outcast In Gray

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Reason?” Starnes offered.

  “More than that, but it is certainly that.”

  “Look, the way I have factored Aunt Jo into my life is that there are things out there in the world beyond reason, beyond comprehension for people like you and me. There are things which I will never understand. Aunt Jo happens to be one of them. So, that means you can either accept her wonderfully, eccentric, novel ways … or you can go about making yourself crazy by trying to make what she is a part of your rational world,” Starnes said.

  Aunt Jo returned at that moment with our tea.

  “My, oh my, you two seem to have continuing difficulty believing my gift.”

  “What do you call it?” I said to her as I took the cup and saucer from her tray.

  “Depends on what is happening while it is happening,” she said as she served Starnes and then took her cup. She sat down again on the couch.

  “Cryptic response,” I said.

  “Don’t mean to be cryptic, my dear, just trying to be honest with you. Some times I think what I have is a curse. I know things and there is nothing I can do about it. Other times, I know things and I can help folks.”

  “I would think that how other people respond to you would be the critical issue,” I said.

  “Well put, child, well put,” she sipped her tea.

  I took my first sip and enjoyed it. The raspberry addition not only gave it a lovely red color, but it was strong enough to give it a raspberry flavor.

  “And what does this particular blend of tea offer to a body?” I said.

  “A good drink,” Aunt Jo said.

  I smiled at her. She knew I was looking for something more complex. Intentionally or not, the lady was cunning to my way of thinking.

  “Besides delicious, what else does it offer?” I said.

  “Well, I have heard that the Indian sage leaf, which, by the way, is a rather new addition to my herb garden, purifies the blood and makes one’s immune system stronger,” she took another sip.

  “Well, I think it is great,” Starnes said. “I don’t care what it does for you, I like the flavor.”

  “Primal insight,” Aunt Jo said.

  “I noticed that you had a newer herb garden,” I said.

  “Oh my, yes. Is that new one not delightful? I planted it late winter. I had a rather strong impression that our weather for the spring was going to be warmer than usual, so I gave it a good fighting chance by planting by the full moon. You can see what it has done,” she said.

  “Late winter?” Starnes said. “This is the middle of February. Nothing late about this winter yet.”

  “You are quite correct. I could see what was to happen last year, so I planted the herbs during the first week of March.”

  “Okay, I’m a little confused here,” Starnes said. “Are you telling us that you somehow knew that this winter, this year, was to be a mild one so that you planted your herbs in March of last year?”

  “You are correct. When I became aware of the next winter, it was the perfect time to plant. It was the full moon, child. Plant by the full moon and then have a few rains with some warm weather thrown in, and there you have my devilish secret.”

  “And you couldn’t wait until the April full moon?” I asked.

  “No need to wait,” she said and drank some of her tea.

  “You live in the mountains,” I said, “were you not concerned that perhaps a cold snap might come through and destroy your young seedlings or plants?”

  “I knew that wouldn’t happen.”

  “I’d say you were quite lucky,” I said.

  “I do not believe in luck, Miss Clancy,” she finished off the last of her tea.

  “No chaos theory of the universe?” I said.

  “Oh, my, there is plenty a chaos in the world or universe, as you say, but it has nothing to do with luck. Forces of good and evil are doin’ battle, child, and the chaos comes from that. More tea?” she asked as she stood from the couch.

  Starnes and I both nodded. It really was good tea.

  She poured each of us another cupful from her flowered teapot, poured herself one as well, and then sat back down.

  “Now, you didn’t come all this way to see me to discuss herb tea, my harvesting techniques, nor the chaos theory of the universe.”

  “You don’t know why we have come?” I said, testing her once again. I couldn’t help myself. She was such a phenomenon that I had to keep doing this.

  She smiled at me. Sipped her tea and then sighed a little, not a heavy sigh, just a small one. Slight exasperation at my unbelief.

  “Miss Clancy, you know that I know why you have come. But oftentimes it is better for me to hear what you say first before I answer. It’s a more natural flow to the conversation. Besides that, it might make me come off as a know-it-all if I simply answer your questions before you ask them.”

  “But it might also mean that we need to ask you the right questions so we can receive the answers that will help us,” I said.

  Starnes stared at me.

  “She means no disrespect, Aunt Jo,” Starnes said while still frowning in my direction.

  “None taken,” she smiled again, ever so pleasant a smile. “Clancy Evans is a great puzzle solver. I like how her mind works. And she never trusts the obvious. I take no offense in her questions or insights. She’s actually a delight to have in my home. Besides, I know things that even Rogers, her computer with artificial intelligence, does not know.”

  She smiled at me over the top of her tea cup, then she took a long swallow.

  I was dumbfounded.

  25

  The fact that it had been several weeks since I had checked in with Rogers was not as potentially disturbing to me as Josephine Starling’s revelation regarding my unusual computer. The fact that I had been so caught up in this mysterious case and had not even remembered to call Rogers was nowhere as damaging as Aunt Jo’s knowledge of my computer. There were only three people in the world who knew the secret of my computer—Uncle Walters, Rosey, and me.

  Until now.

  Starnes cut her eyes at me and her mouth offered up a small opening. For Starnes this was tantamount to fainting or simply falling over with shocked surprise at Aunt Jo’s comment.

  “Your secret is safe in this home,” Aunt Jo finally said after the several minutes had passed when I couldn’t even speak.

  Starnes’ mouth closed but I read the questions in her eyes clearly.

  “What on earth is she talking about?” Starnes said to me.

  “You tell her, Aunt Jo. I am curious concerning the extent of your knowledge.”

  “Clancy Evans is a brilliant detective with remarkable deductive skills,” she began, “but you are not her real partner, my dear.”

  “I know that. We’re friends who happen to work a few cases together. We generally work from different fronts,” Starnes said.

  Aunt Jo smiled and sipped her tea.

  “Clancy was given a gift several years ago by someone close, a computer. Well, the truth is, she and her Uncle Walters worked on this computer together and created something unique. It is a remarkable computer. The brain that drives this machine is what is called artificial intelligence, delightfully humorous name, I might add. There is nothing artificial about Rogers’ intelligence. It is, in a few words, quite collective, quite extensive, and quite charming.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet. From time to time, Starnes would glance at me and then back at Aunt Jo. Aunt Jo continued to sip her tea between insights about Rogers, all the while Starnes’ tea cup and saucer remained in her lap undisturbed. The conversation was sufficient stimulant for her at the moment. Either that or mesmerizing.

  “There are many things I could say to you about Rogers,” I said, “but charming would not be one of the adjectives I would use.”

  “I think your adversarial relationship with a machine is amusing,” Aunt Jo said.

  “Tell me, Josephine Starling, is there anything that
you do not know?” I said in utter frankness and open dismay. I think I was a little ticked at her knowledge of my private life as well.

  “I am not omniscient, child. Even people with a gift have limitations. I only know what I know because of my access to you.”

  “Access?” I said.

  “Well, call it a closeness or the fact that we have met and talked.”

  “Like proximity to my aura or ambience?”

  She smiled at me. She was such a pleasant person; it was difficult to maintain any degree of anger towards this woman. I also had to remember that she had been a major help in solving a case a few years back.

  “That’s one way to express it,” she said.

  “So you also know things about my father and mother?”

  “Some things.”

  “This is disarming.”

  “I think Starnes has told you that my ability is used for good.”

  “That would be a judgment call, correct?”

  “It could be,” she said.

  “And you’re the judge,” I said.

  “As well as you are. You can judge for yourself as to the usage of my gift. This is not our first time together, child.”

  I sipped my tea. It was cold. Ugh. I watched Aunt Jo carefully. She continued to drink her tea and to smile. Starnes was stoic and unmoving. I think she was still in shock. I was mulling over the fact that Starnes now knew my secret and the fact that my tea was cold.

  “Let me warm that up for you,” Aunt Jo said as she approached with her decorative tea pot. I held my cup up for her. “You like my tea?”

  I nodded.

  “Starnes, may I freshen your cup?”

  Starnes didn’t answer. She must have been mulling over the startling revelation. I stared into Aunt Jo’s eyes to see if I could read her. Her face seemed to be full of kindness as well as a smattering of radiance. Her deep black eyes seemed to be sparkling. Or maybe the tea I was consuming was creating some illusion for me. Either way, I couldn’t read more than a favorable impression regarding Aunt Jo. There was nothing threatening about her that I could ascertain.

  “Let’s talk about Mamie Shelton,” Aunt Jo said as she placed the tea pot on the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down. “She really did see something, ladies. If you can get her to lay aside the fear, she would make a credible witness for you.”

  “How do you know she saw something?” I said.

  Aunt Jo smiled over the top of her tea cup. She sipped it a few times while I watched her eyes dance. It seemed to me that the sparkling had intensified. It was like looking into another dimension, another world, or perhaps another universe. The sparkling lights within the blackness of her piercing eyes gave the impression of small stars.

  “I saw what she saw. And I heard what she heard,” Aunt Jo said and sipped her tea softly.

  26

  The fact that Starnes and I had discovered three gruesome killings in McAdams County covered in a veritable shroud of dark mystery was more than enough to satiate my penchant for solving crimes. The fact that out of the three slayings we had only one witness and she was given to visions and religious fervor that made any testimony she might offer suspect only drove our investigation into further doubt. And now, with Aunt Jo telling my friend a secret about my life that I had desperately been guarding for years, my confusion was rampant. My mind was racing, but going nowhere in particular.

  “More tea?” Aunt Jo asked.

  “My blood has been purified sufficiently,” I said and put my half-empty tea cup on the tray resting on the coffee table in front of us.

  “What did you see, Aunt Jo?” Starnes said finally breaking her pensiveness after several minutes had passed.

  “It was the day following the night of a new moon,” she began. “Mamie was heading to Ponder’s place to buy some bread, peanut butter, and milk. It was midday. She stopped to listen to the river running rapidly nearby. It was after the few days of heavy rains. River was high. Lots of sound coming from the rushing waters. She paused, listening, wondering.”

  “About the water?” I said.

  “Partially.”

  “You heard it, too,” Starnes said.

  “Indeed. Nature is rather loud some days, if a body listens. You know, you have to pay attention. You can’t just walk by a bush and not listen to it.”

  I looked at Starnes, but she didn’t return my glance. She was watching Josephine Starling closely. It crossed my mind that this was the first time that Starnes Carver had truly realized the extraordinary nature of Aunt Jo’s sight.

  “Will you tell us what you saw, what Mamie Shelton saw?” I said.

  “When she arrived at Hack’s place, she heard chomping sounds. It’s the sound that animals make when they eat. It was coming from inside the store.”

  “So, she didn’t enter the store,” I said.

  “Oh, heavens no. The sounds coming from inside were severe, and quite loud as you might imagine. She walked cautiously, almost fearfully, toward the side of the building. She moved slowly around the corner, kept her body close to the building, and then carefully looked through the screen door, trying to get some idea of what was making that sound coming from inside the store. Fear was already gripping her heart, just about ready to consume her.”

  Peripherally I spotted Starnes looking at me. I cut my eyes to her and raised my eyebrows. We read each other and then looked back almost immediately at Aunt Jo. We waited for Aunt Jo to continue.

  “What do you mean consume her?” I asked.

  “I think I want to brew some more tea. This blend invigorates me,” she said as she stood and left us sitting spellbound in her living room.

  She was gone from us before we could respond. For an elderly woman, she moved cat-quick, but it was always smooth and graceful. She never gave the appearance of being in a hurry, nor were her motions jerky and syncopated. She flowed from place to place, room to room. If there was such a thing as ethereal walking, then that would be what you might call Aunt Jo’s movements.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” Starnes said to me. She was staring now and her eyes were full of questions.

  “What, you don’t have secrets from me?”

  “Not like that,” she said.

  “Well, you have to admit that it’s a pretty major secret that a person might not want to go blabbing about. Besides, can you imagine what would happen if this became public knowledge? My life as I presently know it would be over with.”

  “I get that. But … we’re friends. We’ve worked together, years now. You could have at least given me some …” she paused, searching for some word to fill that vacant slot.

  “Clue? Tease you with some morsel of a clue to the prowess of Rogers? Right.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it, I do. I need some time to process this,” she said.

  “I imagine you do. It took me a few months, maybe longer. In fact, some days I still have to pinch myself when I realize what Rogers can do. So far, I have not discovered the limits of her abilities except brewing coffee. She can’t do that yet.”

  “Cute. Just build her some hands, you know, like a robot and then, well, presto. She could make your coffee. Seems a bit over the top, though.”

  “My point is that I still struggle with her capacity for knowing things and coming up with ideas on her own.”

  “Well, then gimme a break. I have a right to think and ask some more questions.”

  “You do.”

  “It’s hard to swallow, you know,” Starnes said.

  “My secrecy about it or Rogers herself?”

  “Both.”

  “Tea will be ready in a few minutes,” Aunt Jo said as she flowed back into our presence.

  “You were telling us what Mamie Shelton saw on that new moon evening,” I baited her.

  “Actually, child, I was tellin’ you what I saw.”

  Aunt Jo smiled at me.

  “But I saw what she saw. I was lookin’ through her eyes, so to speak.”
>
  “So to speak,” I said.

  “It was a large animal eating the body of Hack Ponder.”

  “What animal?” Starnes said.

  “She didn’t look long enough to know what it was, just larger than what she might have imagined if she had imagined anything. I do not think her imagination was active at the moment she peered through the screen door into the store. Fear might have been restraining her imaginative abilities.”

  “Did you see it long enough to know what it was?” I said.

  “I saw what Mamie Shelton saw. It was a brief glance, just a flicker of an image before I felt the fear that Mamie felt,” Aunt Jo said.

  “Bear, mountain lion, dog,” Starnes suggested.

  “More dog-like, it seems.”

  “Anything else?” I said.

  “Ladies, I am trying to tell you everything I can about Mamie’s vision, what she saw. Brief, too brief to know exactly what, and she was so afraid that if she had stayed there watching, the fear itself could have destroyed her. But when she peeked through that screen door opening and glanced in at the horrid sight, whatever it was that was devouring old Hack Ponder turned quickly and looked directly into Mamie Shelton’s eyes. I saw the eyes that Mamie saw.”

  “Wow,” I said. “No wonder she was frightened. So she ran?”

  “Mamie doesn’t know what happened next. As far as Mamie is concerned, she remembers nothing. There is no way she can tell you what she saw except by way of a vision, a revelation she would call it,” Aunt Jo said.

  “But you saw her and what she did?” Starnes said.

  “No, child. I saw what she saw. I saw the roaring river water. She was staring at it over by the edge of the parking area. I thought she might jump into the rushing waters. I could feel the fear take a hold of her.”

  “She didn’t jump,” Starnes said.

  “No. She just stood there, frozen-like, by the river.”

  “The animal never bothered her,” I surmised.

  “Came close. I could feel something behind her, but Mamie never took her eyes off the river and never moved from that spot until the law officers arrived hours later.”