The First Time I Fell

by Joanne Macgregor

  “That’s Kennick Carter, Laini’s brother,” Judy whispered to my mother. “Poor thing, he looks devastated.”

  “Oh, my!” Mom craned around Judy’s midriff to get a good look, but the man had his back to us again. “And is he from the South?”

  “Could be. His accent sounds like a little bit of everywhere.”

  “He looks nice — what I can see of him,” Mom said.

  “All you can see of him is his back,” I pointed out.

  Talking to my mother, Judy said, “He’s attractive from the front, too, in a rakish kind of way.”

  “Rakish? What is he, a pirate?”

  A calculating look came over my mother’s face. “Do you know if he’s married?”

  “Mom,” I said in a warning tone.

  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried to find a beau for me. She still believed a new romance could fill the hole left by the loss of my first love.

  She was wrong.

  “How long is he in town for, Judy?” she asked, sending the man another evaluating glance.

  “Dunno. Would you like me to ask him for you, Garnet?” Judy said with an evil smile.

  “No, I would not,” I snapped, irritation rising along with a dull flush.

  “Your loss,” she told me.

  “Please make me a hot beef on toasted rye and a tuna salad, both to go. On the sandwich, hold the pickle, and on the salad, hold the salad and the dressing.”

  “So, basically, you want a tub of plain tuna?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your money,” she said, giving me a look that clearly conveyed she thought I was cracked before heading back to the kitchen.

  “Well, now, where were we?” my mother asked.

  “Quite far down the rabbit hole,” I said and took a sip of the coffee. It was almost too hot and almost too bitter — just perfect.

  “No, I think we were talking about EVPs.”

  “Mom, let me tell you a story. There’s this huge astronomical observatory in Australia that has an enormous radio telescope which picked up strange signals for seventeen years. No one could figure out what they were. The scientists — and these were genius-level astrophysicists, mind you — were baffled. The best explanations they could come up with for the mystery signals were that they were due to distant lightning, or” — I paused dramatically — “to radio signals coming from a distant galaxy.”

  My mother’s eyes widened in anticipation. I took another slug of coffee.

  “Of course, those explanations didn’t account for why the signals were only detected during the daytime,” I said. “Anyway, they were convinced it came from the earth’s atmosphere or way beyond.”

  “Signals from outer space!”

  “Not so fast,” I said. “A couple of years back, a doctoral student figured out that the radio signals were interference coming from the microwave in the staff kitchen.” My mother’s face crumpled in disappointment. “When the staff, who only worked there in the daytime, used it to heat their lunch or coffee, and opened it while it was still cooking, it caused the strange signal which the telescope detected if it happened to be facing the kitchen at that moment. Voila! Mystery solved.”

  “Well, that’s very interesting, dear, but what’s that got to do with the price of cheese in China?”

  “The signal wasn’t what they thought it was, it was interference. Just like on your E-recorders.”

  “EVPs.”

  “The human brain has evolved to recognize patterns even when none exist.”

  “They do exist!”

  “Plus, there’s a psychological phenomenon called priming. People who believe in — what did you call them? Discarnate entities — well, those people hope and even expect to hear speech, and so they do. But it’s not really there.” My mother took an indignant breath, but before she could speak, I added, “And I’ll bet they always hear the words in their own language. They do, don’t they? That’s because they’re imagining it!”

  “It’s not imagination, it’s proof! It’s science. Thomas Edison came up with the idea, and he was one of the brightest minds ever.”

  I downed the last of my coffee. “Yeah, well, I’m not spending $1500 on a defective voice recorder, no matter what old Edison thought.”

  “Maybe you could try using the recorder on your cell phone?” Mom said, sounding doubtful.

  Judy came to our table just then, made a fuss of setting my mother’s food down for her, and dropped the wrapped sandwich and a can of tuna in front of me. “Can I bring you another Irish coffee, with a double shot of whiskey? If you like, I could hold the coffee.”

  She was gone before I could reply, even though I was feeling better — which just proved the whiskey had been purely medicinal — and would’ve liked to order something to eat.

  After a few minutes of alternating her attention between her popover (“This is delicious — you’re missing out, dear!”) and Laini’s brother (“Poor fellow, he’s not eating either, and he looks like he could use a square meal and a good woman to take care of him,”) my mother announced, “I’ve just had a brilliant idea.”

  “An even better one than the EVP?”

  “You could offer to help him.”

  “Help who?”

  “Your father’s worried about you, you know?” Mom pointed an accusing fork at me. “He says you need to start earning a living. I mean, you’re almost thirty!”

  “I’ve just turned twenty-eight.”

  “And when you finish your thesis, they’ll want the assistant’s job at the psychology department back, won’t they? To give to a student who’s still registered. And then how are you going to provide for yourself?”

  It was something I’d been worrying about, too.

  “He might even be willing to pay you a fee.”

  “Who, Dad?”

  “No, Laini’s brother.” She shot another glance at the man, who was tucking a couple of bills into the check folder.

  “Pay me for what?”

  “For helping him!”

  Was she suggesting I get a job as a companion to console and feed the bereaved? “Mom, I’m lost.”

  She waved the fork at me again, dropping a piece of egg onto the table. “You’re being deliberately obtuse! Lawdy, if there ever was a donkey as obstinate as you, I never met him. I mean, of course, that you could help him solve the mystery of his sister’s death.”

  “Ohhh,” I said, finally getting what she was on about. She wasn’t matchmaking after all, at least, not in any romantic kind of way. “Oh, no way!”

  “With great talent comes great responsibility, Garnet, and you have the second sight in spades.”

  “No. Way,” I repeated.

  “You could turn it into a business, like a private eye.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “I can see it now” — she wrote big letters in the air — “McGee Paranormal Investigations. No, wait, I’ve got it! Garnet McGee — Psychic Detective!”

  Laini’s brother stood up to leave, and to my horror, my mother waylaid him as he passed our table.

  “Mr. Carter? I’m Crystal McGee, and this is my daughter, Garnet.”

  He looked a bit bewildered but shook her hand.

  “I wanted to give you my condolences on the sad loss of your sister. She was a wonderful woman.”

  As far as I knew, my mother had never even met Laini Carter.

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  “It must be so difficult not knowing exactly what happened.”

  “Mom,” I warned.

  “But my daughter here could help you with that — she’s a psychic detective.”

  “Mom!”

  “She solved a murder here in Pitchford last Christmas.”

  Kennick Carter blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Please ignore her,” I told him. “She’s not right in the head.”

  “She has the second sight, you know,” my mother continued, unperturbed. “She gets message
s from beyond the veil, and sometimes when she touches objects, she gets readings. And she’s had visions about your sister.”

  “Mom, stop talking now,” I told her fiercely, my face hot with anger and embarrassment. To Carter, I said, “I’m so sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Here, let me.” My mother slid the folded newspaper right out from under his arm and scribbled something on a margin. “This is her name and number, in case you want to make use of her services.”

  I hid my face in my hands and shook my head. When I looked up again, Carter had gone.

  “I have never been so embarrassed in my entire life,” I said. “That poor guy must think we’re nuts.”

  But my mother had a very satisfied expression on her face. “I think you’ll be getting a call from him,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah? You think he’s the sort to contact random weirdos, do you?”

  “I think he’s the sort who likes to take a chance. Didn’t you see what he was reading?”

  “Uh, the newspaper?”

  “The horse-racing results.”

  – 13 –

  I had checked the laundry basket, my drawers and under the bed, and was feeling around the drum of the dryer for a missing pair of panties — my favorite white lace ones — when my phone rang.

  I grabbed it off the counter and answered, “Garnet speaking.”

  “Hi, this is Kennick Carter. We met yesterday at Dillon’s Café in Main Street?” His voice was deep, with a slight Southern lilt.

  “Oh! Hi. Look, can I just apologize for my mother ambushing you like that. It was rude. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what she said, though. Can we meet and discuss whether you could possibly help me?”

  “Really?” I said, taken aback. “I mean, okay, sure. When? Where?”

  “Would now work for you? I don’t know this town very well, but how about that Tavern place at the bottom of the hill, near the pond?”

  “Give me a few minutes to finish what I’m doing.” Translation: give me a few minutes to change out of my scruffy sweatpants and stick some makeup on my face. “I’ll meet you there at two-fifteen.”

  I gave up the underwear search — clearly my panties had joined that black hole of lost socks and hair ties that lurked in the ether — and got dressed. I was in two minds about taking this gig. On the one hand, I was curious to learn more about Laini Carter’s life and death, and to check out the man Ryan said would be the chief suspect if her death had been a murder. On the other, I was terrified of falling into my mother’s loopy world of foolishness and never being able to climb back out. For now, curiosity was leading by a nose.

  When I arrived at the Tuppenny Tavern, Kennick Carter was already waiting, leaning up against a black BMW. I studied him as I walked over. He was tall, with a thin face and the same black hair and pale skin as his sister. He wore a long, beautifully tailored camelhair coat that I immediately coveted, and expensive-looking leather shoes, but I could see why Judy had called him rakish. The too-long hair, the dark shadows under his eyes — and the world-weary expression in them — and the way he held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, gave him a slightly dissipated look. He looked like a modern-day Byron, only with a mole high on his left cheek where the poet might have worn a beauty patch.

  His gaze flicked between my eyes, but he made no comment on their mismatched colors, and he didn’t offer to shake hands. Interesting. He wasn’t wearing gloves, so was he a germaphobe or just lacking in manners? Or was he wary of making skin-to-skin contact with me given what my mother had told him about my getting psychic impressions from touch?

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He pinched his cigarette out between his fingers and tossed the butt in a trashcan. A muscle worked in his cheek.

  “Should we go inside to talk?” I asked.

  “It’s too crowded and noisy in there. I’d like a little more privacy for this,” Kennick said, giving me a strange sideways smile, his face turned away but his eyes still on mine. “How about down there?” He indicated the elevated pier that stretched over the beach and jutted a good thirty or forty yards into the pond.

  I shivered. The afternoon was white with cold. Icicles dripped from the roof eaves, and a thick mist ghosted in off Plover Pond. I would have welcomed the cozy interior of the tavern and something hot to drink, but the customer is king and all that, so I merely fell into step beside him.

  “Your mother says you have second sight?” He spoke without any hesitation or doubtful inflection, like he thought her claim was entirely credible.

  “Look, I should warn you, she exaggerates horribly. I’m not a licensed private investigator. I’m not even sure I’m a psychic. I sometimes see and hear things, but I really have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “She said you’d had a vision about my sister.”

  “Yeah, a couple, I think. At the quarry, I got a strong feeling that she’d been there with somebody, and that they were arguing. I don’t know who it was, or what they were talking about, but I felt … I think she was pushed.” I glanced across to gauge his reaction, but he said nothing. “And then yesterday I had another vision.”

  “What was that one about?”

  “Your sister had a necklace. I think it was given to her by her boyfriend.”

  Kennick shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “Oh, I was hoping you could tell me more about it. It had a very unusual design.”

  I described the wagon-wheel shape of the diamond pendant.

  “That sounds like a chakra,” he said.

  “Aren’t those supposedly energy zones in the body?”

  For all my mother’s ramblings about chakras, I still had no very clear idea what they actually were.

  “The wagon wheel — usually with sixteen spokes, sometimes with eight — is the emblem of the Roma. It symbolizes constant movement and progress. It resembles the Hindu chakra wheel as a nod back to the Roma people’s Indian origins.”

  “The Roma people?”

  “The Romany. The people who disrespectfully get called ‘gypsies.’”

  “Laini liked Romany things?”

  “Sure. She was Romany after all.”

  “What, like literally?”

  “Yes. Well, she was born Romany, but hasn’t — hadn’t — lived that life for many years. I guess hardline Romany would have considered her a gorger, or gadji.” At my blank stare, he added, “Non-Romany.”

  “Wow.”

  We’d reached the end of the pier, and we both looked out over the pond. The surface was a lattice of thin, fractured ice floating on water as dark as death. Gripping the handrail, I pulled my gaze away from the water and stared instead in the direction of the far bank, now lost in the drifting mist.

  “Tell me about your sister. Who was she?”

  “We come from a long line of circus folk. My father ran a circus, Carter and Cooper, which mostly worked the southern circuit — Georgia, Louisiana, the Carolinas, though once we went all the way through Tennessee and Kentucky to Illinois. Never again — too cold.” He shivered at the memory. “Laini rode the ponies until she grew too tall. Then she did the poodle act and juggling. It didn’t really matter what she did, though. She was so beautiful that people came just to watch her, rather than the act.”

  “What did you do?” I couldn’t resist asking.

  “I was no good in the ring, but I had a good gig with a shell game in a side tent.” He gave me that odd sideways smile. “As a little boy I had such a cute, innocent face that it was hard for the rubes to realize I was cheating. When I grew older, I manned the ticket office. By then, my father was grooming Laini to become ringmaster. I think he wanted her to take over the business eventually.”

  “Not you?” I asked. He was, after all, the older brother. “Or your mother?”

  “She died when we were young.” He tapped a cigarette out of a crumpled packet and lit up. “But being a circus boss wasn’t in L
aini’s nature. Or maybe it was too much in her nature, because she never wanted to be tied down to one thing. She was a good kid, but as she got older, she got … restless. Even packing up the tent and moving to the next town wasn’t enough change for her, because the circus and its people stayed the same, you know?”

  I nodded. I might not know about an itinerant lifestyle, but I knew about having to pack up, leave the past behind and start afresh someplace new.

  “She left when she was nineteen, did a couple of years at college,” Kennick said.

  “Studying what?”

  “Marketing, but she didn’t finish her degree. Every now and then she’d come back to the life for a year, maybe two, and then she’d skip off again. When my dad died and we finally wound down the circus, she moved to New Orleans with me. Got a job running promotions for the big aquarium there. She did very well for herself, too — she had a good head for business, and she could sell ice to an Eskimo. But after a few years she got restless and ran off with a cattle baron from Colorado to play at being a rancher’s woman for a while.”

  I brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “How’d she wind up in Vermont?”

  Both the land and the culture of New England seemed about a million miles away from balancing on a pony in a Louisiana circus.

  “She knew Bethany Ford — the owner of the syrup business where she worked? — from when they were kids. They got in contact again a couple of years ago, and Bethany offered her the marketing position at Sweet and Smoky. So Laini shed her chaps and leathers, put on a business suit, and came up to this godforsaken frozen neck of the woods you call Pitchford.”

  “Is this where she met her boyfriend — Carl, I think his name is?”

  “Carl Mendez, yeah, I think so.”

  “They weren’t married?”

  “No, she wasn’t the marrying type.” Kennick took a long drag on his cigarette, blew it out sideways from the corner of his mouth. “Laini was … like a butterfly, flitting from bloom to bloom, drinking life’s nectar. She didn’t want to be caught and pinned down in anybody’s collection.”

  “Like a butterfly,” I repeated softly, feeling like I was finally getting a sense of who the dead woman had been.