by Jane Tesh
The one treasure Fred had saved was his wife’s ring, which he’d insisted Camden give to Ellin.
“He had no family. Nothing.” Camden looked distracted. “I need to find something for him to wear.”
We went up to Fred’s room. Besides the twin bed, plain wooden dresser, and a straight chair, there were pictures of the planets and articles on the space shuttle. A model of the Enterprise balanced on the dresser next to a stack of Space Explorer and Discover magazines. An attempt had been made to brighten the little room, but no amount of cheer could take away the stale air of defeat. Life had given up on Fred years ago.
Camden looked through the closet. “I wish I had something better than these old sweaters and things. Maybe one of the shirts I got for Christmas.”
Since Fred in life was a wizened little troll, and Fred in death was probably even more shriveled, my clothes would be of no use. “We’ll buy something.”
“With what? I don’t know how I’m going to pay for even the simplest casket.” He sat down on the edge of the small bed. “Well, yes, I do.”
I knew, too. “Folly Harper.”
“Looks like I don’t have a choice.”
“At least she doesn’t want you to summon a dead relative. She only wants a few lucky numbers. You could make those up.”
Camden stared at the wall calendar. It was May, but Fred hadn’t changed the picture since February. I wondered if Camden was thinking of the father he’d never known, if Fred had been any sort of substitute. This was highly unlikely. If anything, Fred had been the aimless cousin no one wanted to claim.
“You did all you could,” I said. “He had a place to sleep, food, company if he wanted it. Hell, I hope you look after me when I get that destitute.”
There was the ghost of a smile. “What do you think I’m doing now?” Even this faint smile faded. “Damn it, Randall, I should have seen this coming. I was so wrapped up in my own problems—”
“Don’t start with that. Fred was sick and old, that’s all there is to it. You took care of him way better than anyone else would. End of story.”
He sighed. “Yeah. End of story.” He glanced once more around the room, pausing for a long look at one photograph. I realized it was the only black and white picture in the room, a photograph of a spiral galaxy.
A pattern of black and white. “You did see it coming.”
He stared at the photo a few more moments. “I suppose so.” He got up and looked in the dresser drawers. We found a reasonably new shirt. I convinced Camden we could find a suit somewhere that would look like an Armani compared to anything Fred owned and finally pried him from the depressing little bedroom.
***
We held a family council at the dinner table that evening. Rufus said he’d be glad to help out with funeral expenses, but there’d been a lot of rain this month and not much construction work. He couldn’t contribute a lot in the way of money. Angie expressed sympathy, but shook her huge head.
“Cam, honey, I’m scraping the bottom this month. Three people still owe me for alteration jobs from April. I’ll be lucky to have the rent.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You didn’t really know Fred, and I’ll admit he didn’t have the sunniest personality. I’ve decided to take Folly Harper’s offer. That way, I might have enough to do the right thing for Fred.”
Rufus’s brow was already low, but he managed to get it down a few more inches. “This Harper woman doesn’t have any dead relatives libel to pop up in you, does she?”
“She wants me to tell her lucky numbers.”
Kary reached across to pat his hand. “We know you don’t like doing that kind of thing, Cam, but this doesn’t look dangerous, does it?”
“No,” he said, “and it’s going to make Ellie deliriously happy.”
Everyone sat back as if relieved. “That can’t be a bad thing,” Rufus said. “Do your stuff, get some dough, everybody’s happy, and Fred’s taken care of.”
We had several visitors from the church that evening. I don’t think Fred ever darkened the door of Victory Holiness, but word got around that a friend of Camden’s had died, and that was a good enough excuse for church folks to descend bearing casseroles.
The smell of ham and cheese and the sight of carefully wrapped dishes made me think of my mother. Mom’s a New Yorker of Italian descent. She must have seemed like an exotic hothouse flower growing in the pale wheat and endless corn of Elbert Falls, Minnesota. But her overwhelming good nature won over the cautious farmers and their wives. She’d made pies and cakes for all the church socials, and whenever there was a wedding or funeral, she was first in the door with her offering of food.
My dad loved her. If they quarreled, I never heard it. But he had an eye for the ladies. When I was older, Dad told me his secret.
“It’s just sex, Davey. It doesn’t mean anything. You know I love your mother. She’s the one I come home to.”
Made sense to me. I never heard Mom criticize him, so I figured it made sense to her, too. Several years and two wives later, I began to perceive a flaw in this theory. Women wanted commitment. They wanted honesty. That did not mean screwing around on the side. So I had changed my ways.
Rufus stood with a group of men in the backyard, most of them chewing and spitting. Angie was in the kitchen, helping the church ladies organize all the trays, baking dishes, and plastic containers of food. I watched Kary as she put her arm around Camden’s shoulder and said comforting things. If she wasn’t an angel, she was the next best thing.
The house full of well-meaning strangers carrying food brought back a lot of memories I wanted to forget, but Camden was having a harder time. It took my thick head a while to realize he probably hadn’t gone through this delightful little ritual before. His foster parents had died while he was out traveling the country. His birth mother was still alive, but lived in Richmond. He didn’t know anything about his father. This was the first close relative to die—if he thought of Fred as a relative. Fred was something, though, and Camden had taken care of him. When the women moved into the island to admire the array of flowers one of the neighbors had sent, I found Camden at the back window looking out as if he were on a spaceship and his home planet had exploded.
I stood beside him. “Pretty weird, huh?”
“I don’t understand. Things are backwards. People keep coming up, telling me how sorry they are Fred’s gone, and I have to make them feel better. They want me to tell the story over and over, how sick he was, how the police found him.”
“Yep, they want all the gory details.”
He gave me a look full of compassion. “It must have been hell for you, Randall.”
“Still is, pal. Come on. Enough comforting.” I steered him out the back door. “Kary’s doing a great job with the guests. Let’s take a walk.”
He didn’t argue. We walked down the sidewalk. Neither of us said anything for a long while until Camden asked how my cases were coming along.
“Already found George Mark McMillan. Case solved.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“Hey, I’m good. Want me to get rid of this telekinesis for you?”
“Oh, that. Sure. Why not?”
We reached the corner of Grace. To the right up Park Street past Temple would take us to Food Row, which was noisy and full of traffic, so we turned left to take the quiet route around the block. “Are you going to tell Ellin?” I asked.
“I keep hoping it will go away.”
“Well, all I have to do now is get Charlie and Taffy back together.”
“I didn’t think that was a problem.”
“I thought it was their usual quarrel, too, but there’s a Spaniard in the works.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“It’ll take at least another block.”
We walked the rest of
the way down Park Street, turned left again and started up Willow, a street similar to Grace, but with fewer trees. No willows, though.
“I followed Taffy today and found her coming out of the Spider’s Web nightclub on Main and Meade,” I said. “She’d had an audition there. She sang one of her songs for me, and it’s a whole lot worse than I imagined. Seems she’s taking a songwriting course at PCC. The instructor’s a dashing Latino who thinks Taffy has special talent. You can take it from there.”
“Does Charlie know this?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s going to explode.”
“Probably.” We sidestepped three trashcans left on the walk. “It would be different if Taffy’s songs were good.”
“You heard only one. Maybe the others aren’t so bad.”
“Even if they’re all horrible—and I’m pretty sure they are—he could pretend to like them. Hell, I’ve made all sorts of sacrifices for women. So have you.”
“Yes, but there’s a limit. You know how Ellie is about having me as a permanent member of the PSN team. That’s one thing I won’t do.”
We made the next left onto Meadow Street, which always makes me wonder if there really was once a meadow in the neighborhood. There are a lot of empty houses on Meadow, grass and vines reclaiming the land. Maybe one day, it’ll be a meadow again.
I pointed out a little fact to Camden. “You’re going to help Folly Harper.”
“That’s different.”
“That’s one step closer to TV fame.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Welcome to our newest PSN program, ‘Camden’s Corner.’ No psychic request denied. No question too stupid.”
He punched my arm. “Shut up.”
I punched him back. “You shut up.”
We made the last left turn back onto Grace. Most of church ladies’ cars were gone. We went up the front steps. Camden sat down in the porch swing. I took one of the rocking chairs.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem.”
Moths danced and bumped against the porch lights, and high in one corner, a fat gray spider worked on her web. Camden watched the spider for a while and then looked off toward the park where tomorrow Oscar would sit in his regular spot and wonder where his sparring partner was. Then he looked out on Grace Street, the light from the street lamps gleaming through the leaves of the oak trees. Change. Upheaval. He didn’t like it, but nobody could control it. We all had to deal with it sooner or later.
Chapter Ten
“That’s all the time you’ve got.”
Early Monday morning, I finally got in touch with the third Dahlia. She was indeed Viola’s cousin, and she apologized for being so hard to reach.
“I’ve been in Europe for three weeks and returned home yesterday. The police were here all day about Viola. I don’t know what I could tell you that I haven’t told them already. I have every confidence they can find her murderer, so I will not require your services, although I thank you for the offer.”
There was a stiffness in her tone that told me she considered me an ambulance chaser. “Mrs. Mitchell, I realize this is a personal matter, but my friend found your cousin, and I’d like to help solve this crime.”
“Then you’ll do it on your own time and pay your own expenses. I can’t afford to hire you, and quite frankly, I don’t know what I could tell you that would be of any use. Viola and I were not close. She spent an inordinate amount of time with amateur theatricals, and the one play I saw was not to my taste at all. I’m afraid that choosing to associate with people of such loose morals was her undoing.”
Dahlia appeared to be as old-fashioned as her name. “Was that the last time you saw her?”
“Yes, and I haven’t time to answer any more of your impertinent questions. Good day.”
With a decisive click, she hung up. No cell phone for Dahlia. Probably had one of those wooden boxes hanging on the wall.
Camden came to my door. “No luck, huh?”
“She was not impressed by my charm or my professionalism and believes Viola’s theatrical career led her astray. What do you know about Arsenic and Old Lace? Is it filled with sex and nudity?”
“I’m not familiar with the play, but the Little Theater wouldn’t do anything x-rated.”
“Dahlia was scandalized. Maybe one of the actresses showed an ankle. Damn, I really wanted to solve this case.”
Camden came in and sat down in the chair I have for clients. “I’ll hire you.”
“Seriously?”
“Except for one uninterested cousin, Viola doesn’t have any family. I can relate. Despite all her pets, there was a great deal of loneliness in her house. And she took in all those animals. How could you not like someone who rescues animals?”
“Can you afford to pay my extravagant fee?”
“Let’s see. I could waive your rent until you solve the mystery.”
“That might not encourage me to work very hard.”
“Except you owe me for two months already, so get busy.”
I reached across the desk to shake his hand. “Deal.”
He had a sudden worried look. “Speaking of animals, who’s looking after Viola’s pets now? I hope they weren’t taken to the pound.”
I took out my phone. “An excellent reason to call Jordan.”
Jordan sounded gruffer than usual. “We are in charge of this case, Randall. You don’t have a dog in this fight.”
“Odd you should mention animals. Camden wants to know if anyone’s taking care of Viola’s pets.”
There was a brief pause, and I imaged the noise I heard was steam hissing from Jordan’s ears. “You win, Randall. That’s the flimsiest excuse ever.”
“Oh, and he’s hired me to find Viola’s killer.”
“Who’s hired you? Cam? Now you’re really pushing it. Let me have a word with him.”
I handed my phone to Camden. “You might want to hold this away from your ear.”
Camden listened, occasionally saying things like, “Yes, I did,” and “No, it was my idea,” and “I promise he won’t get in the way,” which we all knew was a big fat lie.
“Ask him if we can have another look in her house,” I said.
“Could we have another look in Viola’s house? I might be able to pick up some more clues.” He listened. “There was a ‘sold’ sign at the house. What did the realtor say? And what about the animals? Oh, okay, thanks. No, we’ll be careful, I promise. You want to talk to Randall?” He glanced at me and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll tell him. Maybe not in those words, exactly.” He returned my phone. “Jordan said the neighbor is taking care of the pets, and that you are a pain in the ass.”
“That makes it official. I’m on the case. What about the house?”
“The buyer’s still interested in it, even though the realtor explained about the murder.”
“Then we need to have another look before they move in and spread their vibes all over.”
“Let me call Folly Harper and see what I can do for her and get that out of the way.”
Camden called Folly Harper and asked her to come over whenever it was convenient. She was on the doorstep before we’d finished breakfast. She wasn’t so excited that she forgot to offer her sympathies. Being a true Southern woman, she had to hear all the details, but once this was taken care of, she was ready to get down to business.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am you’ve reconsidered. So what do we do? How does this work?” She was fluttering around like a peach-colored hen.
Camden drank the last of his tea and suggested they go out to the porch. I had funeral ham biscuits and a handful of potato chips to eat, so I brought my plate with me to the porch.
Camden offered Mrs. Harper a seat in one of the rocking chairs and sat down on the porch swing. “It’s
really very simple, Mrs. Harper. I’ll hold your hand a few minutes, and we’ll see what comes up. Now, you’re specifically looking for some numbers?”
“Yes, dear. Very important numbers.”
“Okay.”
He took her plump little hand and was off somewhere beyond, his blue eyes zeroing in on whatever it is he sees. After a while, he came back. “I see thirty-six, eighteen, twenty, and two. Do any of those mean anything to you?”
Folly Harper scrabbled in her purse for pencil and paper. “Thirty-six, eighteen, twenty, and two. This is wonderful! And you were so fast! Let me write those down. Did you see any others?”
Another long moment of silence. “Just those.”
I knew he wasn’t lying, but it would be ridiculously simple to make up a string of numbers, take the money and run. Folly Harper would have believed anything he told her.
She beamed at him. “That’s wonderful. I can’t tell you how helpful this will be! But we didn’t settle on a price. How many readings would you be willing to give me for, say, five hundred dollars?”
Five hundred bucks! As many as you want.
Camden looked as surprised as I was. “That’s way too much—”
“Now, now, dear, don’t be modest. Why don’t we start with five hundred, and if these numbers are as good as I’m sure they are, we’ll go up from there?”
“Mrs. Harper—”
“Folly, dear. You’re the first person to take me seriously about this, and I appreciate it.”
Camden tried one more time. “I take everyone’s request seriously.”
“I’m sure you do.” Her windswept hair leaned toward him, her hand on his arm. “Dear, I know you and Ellin are getting married, and newlyweds need lots of things. Let’s not argue about money. Here’s five hundred. Take it.” She practically slapped the bills into his hand.
Camden gulped. “Thank you.”
“No, no, thank you, dear. I can’t wait to get home and try out my numbers.”
I waited until she had driven off before making any comment. “Okay, I give up. What is she doing with those numbers?”
He was still sitting in the swing with the money in his hand. “I don’t know. I thought she might be working out a horoscope or something.”