by Dixie Cash
“I sure as hell do. What do you think D E stands for?”
Domestic Equalizers. Debbie Sue stopped that thought, though the very idea made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She simply would not buy into this ghost crap. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I know. D E stands for Debbie Sue and Edwina.”
Yikes! Debbie Sue hadn’t thought of that. A creepy feeling snaked through her. “Look, Ed, I know it’s a little eerie, but—”
“A little eerie? No, girlfriend, a magician pulling a live rabbit out of a hat is a little eerie. A tornado destroying everything in a house and leaving a cup and saucer untouched on a table is a little eerie. That message on Justin Sadler’s refrigerator was off-the-chart eerie.”
“Okay, okay.” Debbie Sue reversed, then turned her pickup in the opposite direction. “It was more than a little eerie. It was weird, but there has to be a logical explanation.”
“Why? Why does there have to be a logical explanation? I’m telling you, Debbie Sue, there’s shit in life that has no explanation. We have to accept some things on faith.”
“But I need an explanation, Ed.” Debbie Sue thrust out her palm for emphasis. “I can’t, just can’t, believe that some ghost came in and spelled a message on a refrigerator door while we sat in the living room ten feet away.”
“Keep your hands on the steering wheel,” Edwina said.
“You think some human snuck in and did it, right under our noses? Is that what you think?”
“No. But someone could’ve been hiding in the kitchen.”
“Well I’ll be damned. You won’t even consider that a lost spirit could be trying to communicate with us, or with Justin. But you’ll accept that a micro-midget was hid out in those three-foot high kitchen cabinets and waiting for a chance to send us a message with magnetic letters? Now that’s real logic.”
Debbie Sue knew she was losing this argument, not a position in which she often found herself. She heaved a sigh. “But, Ed, I’ve never seen anything remotely close to something like this before. I guess I’m at a loss for logic.”
Silence. Debbie Sue glanced across the pickup cab at Edwina, who was sitting there with her arms crossed and intently studying her. She knew from experience that her old friend and partner would have the last word as soon as she could come up with a good one.
“I’ve never seen God before, neither,” Edwina groused, “but I believe He’s up there.”
“Dammit, Ed, that’s not fair. And it’s not exactly a new idea. You’re playing the religious card. You’re an asshole to do that. You know it always makes me fold. You know I’m afraid that if I’m wrong, lightning will strike me or something.”
“Don’t cuss when we’re talking about heaven and hell. It’s sacrilegious.”
Debbie Sue sighed again and for the next ten minutes they rode in silence. As she neared the home where she had grown up and now shared with Buddy, she made a left turn and crossed her own cattle guard. “So I say we set up surveillance equipment and find the bastard that’s pulling this crap on Justin.”
Edwina shifted in her seat. “Or we could call up that Isabella Paredes in El Paso and ask for her help. She’s personally acquainted with ghosts.”
“Oh, forchristsake, I’m being serious.”
“So am I. Why couldn’t we do both? I’ll help with the surveillance and you agree to call the psychic. That way, if it turns out that a ghost is raising hell in Justin’s life, we could meet it on equal terms.”
“Hunh. I’ll let you explain that one to Justin. He’s the one who’s footing the bill.”
Debbie Sue came to a stop under the covered car shed and killed the motor. She looked earnestly at her friend. “I’ll go along with you, Ed. We’re partners. And I can see you’ve got your mind made up, but I can’t keep the goose bumps off your body. You’re the only one who can do that.”
Debbie Sue opened her door, slid out of the truck cab and started for the house. Edwina opened her door and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Don’t leave me out here! It’s getting dark!”
Justin sat on the sofa in his living room, fingering the blue afghan beside him. Rachel’s afghan. He had been sitting here ever since Debbie Sue and Edwina left. The idea his conscious mind had resisted, the hope he had pushed to his subconscious and never allowed to surface, was now full frontal, demanding his attention.
More than fear, he felt puzzlement and awe. He had no clue about the world beyond. Until the last few weeks he hadn’t believed it existed. Now he wondered, did spirits come and go at will? Were they on a timetable that allowed only so much earth time before being required to check back in to wherever ghosts reside? Could his sweet Rachel have been trying to reach out to him from the other side?
He left the sofa, stood in the middle of the living room and made a slow circle. “Rach?…Honey, is that you?…Is there something you want to tell me, babe?”
The only sound he heard was the mantel clock’s ticking. No voice. No whisper. Nothing. If Rachel wanted to reach him, if she thought he needed help, why didn’t she answer him now?
Should he call his brother-in-law and tell him that his kid sister might be trying to talk from the grave? John Patrick had always been supportive and understanding, but how would he react to hearing that information?
These were the kinds of thoughts, if revealed, that could leave people whispering about you and your sanity all of your life and beyond. Justin thought of his parents in Midland. How would they react to a rumor that their only son, their pride and joy, was a kook who talked to ghosts?
The one thing supporting this extreme notion was that two women who were professional detectives had seen the same thing he had. They wouldn’t, couldn’t discredit him without casting a shadow on themselves. He would wait for their phone call tonight and hope they wanted to help. At this point, what other option did he have?
He walked back into the kitchen and looked again at the refrigerator door. The message was still there. Not a letter out of place.
D E PLZ HLP JUSTIN
D E. Domestic Equalizers? Was the message directed to the two women detectives? “Damn, Rach,” he half whispered, moisture stinging his eyes. “You always thought about what was best for me. Are you still doing it?”
five
Inside Debbie Sue’s kitchen, she sat at her yellow, cracked-ice Formica kitchen table, phone in hand, trying to locate Isabella Paredes, whose last known whereabouts, according to Edwina, was El Paso. A hastily thrown together tuna casserole baked in the oven. Buddy would be home soon and Debbie Sue was mindful that he might have had nothing to eat all day but fast food.
Edwina sat on the opposite side of the table with a game of solitaire laid out before her. She sharply snapped three cards from the deck that rested in her palm, careful to protect the stars-and-stripes paint job on her talon-like acrylic nails. As many years as Debbie Sue had watched Edwina at work in the beauty salon, she still hadn’t figured out how she ever got anything done with those fingernails.
“Can you spell that, please,” a voice in the phone said, recapturing Debbie Sue’s attention. Debbie Sue was more impatient than a hornet in a bonnet, but she managed to speak slowly, “P-A-R-E-D-E-S.” Covering the receiver with her hand, she said to Edwina, “Where in the hell do they get these people? I can’t understand her, she can’t understand me. I might as well be calling Yugo-fuckin’-slavia.”
The operator came on the line again and glory be, she had the number for Isabella Paredes.
“Yes, ma’am,” Debbie Sue said, turning her attention back to the business at hand and jotting the number on a notepad.
“Thank you. Yes, you have a good day too.” Disconnecting, she waved the piece of notepaper in the air triumphantly.
“Got it!”
Concentrating on her game, Edwina barely looked up. Her lack of enthusiasm was damned annoying. “Ed, did you hear me?”
“I’m not deaf,” Edwina said, moving cards from one stack to another with the tip
s of her fingernails.
“She’s there. In El Paso. Or at least, she has a number there.
“That doesn’t mean she’s still alive. Even if she is, she must be in her eighties.”
“Calling her was your idea, wasn’t it? You keep running hot and cold on this. Why is that?”
Edwina looked up from her card game, an earnest expression on her face. “I don’t know. I get excited thinking about the case, but then I start worrying.”
Debbie Sue knitted her brow. She left her chair, moved to a chair adjacent to Edwina’s and took the cards from her hand. “Look at me, Ed. Are you afraid she might tell you something personal again?”
Edwina returned her gaze. “Maybe.” She relaxed against her chair’s padded back and sighed. “My life’s never been as good as it is now, Debbie Sue. You know that better than anybody. And you know what I’ve been through. Hell, if the women in my family weren’t stronger than bleach and if I hadn’t inherited their genes, I’d probably be locked up in some asylum by now.”
“I don’t think they have asylums anymore, Ed,” Debbie Sue said.
“Whatever. Isabella Paredes told me something before that changed everything for me. What if she does it again?”
Debbie Sue bit back the urge to repeat what she had already said: that the money in the boot toe had been a lucky guess or maybe the Paredes woman had capitalized on something mentioned to her in an earlier session with Edwina’s mother-in-law and it most likely wouldn’t happen again. “But don’t you see, Ed? What she told you before did change your life, but it was for the better. If the woman really has psychic powers, she would’ve known that. She probably doesn’t make it a practice to just blurt out bad news unsolicited.”
Edwina seemed to be working that idea through her head as Debbie Sue waited and watched. “I think you’re right,” she finally said. “If I don’t ask her any questions, she won’t tell me any bad news.”
“Perfect.” Debbie Sue slapped Edwina’s shoulder. “Now, here’s the plan.”
She spent the next hour discussing the plan for helping Justin with his problem. They would install cameras and listening equipment in strategic places. They would operate and oversee surveillance of his home and its surroundings. And since Edwina feared a ghost might be the culprit, to appease her, they would go ahead and call the psychic in El Paso to tie up any loose ends—all with Justin’s approval and agreement to pay for a psychic, of course. Debbie Sue picked up the phone again and started pressing keys.
Edwina’s hand came out and clutched her forearm, stopping her before she finished the number. “It’s six thirty. You’re calling her now?”
“I have to, Ed. I have to find out how much she’ll charge before I can pitch the plan to Justin, don’t I?”
Edwina released her grip “Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But listen, don’t tell her I’m here.”
“Hell, Ed, after twenty years, she probably won’t even remember you. But if she does and if she’s even a half-assed psychic, she’ll probably know you’re here.” Debbie Sue pushed the last digit and looked at her friend.
“Super,” Edwina muttered. “Now all I have to worry about is what she’s not telling me.”
As Sophia wrestled with the antiquated lock on the front door of the modest home she had shared with her grandmother, she heard the phone ringing inside. She had just returned from a couple of job interviews. Maybe one of the interviewers was calling her back. Part of her hoped that was the case, but another part wished it wouldn’t be. The interviews had gone well enough. She had been confident, but soft-spoken and polite, emphasizing that she wanted employment for the summer only. The need for extra income had been an acceptable explanation for why she wanted the job.
Only one thing was wrong. Instead of looking at her as a job applicant and a prospective employee, both interviewers had leered as if she were a dessert item on their menus. They had been so obvious she was embarrassed for them. She liked men and their company a lot, but she didn’t enjoy feeling like the flavor of the day.
Pushing the front door open at last, she grabbed for the receiver on the fourth ring, answering breathlessly.
A woman’s voice came across the line. “Is this the home of Isabella Paredes?”
Sophia found going into the details of her Gran Bella’s demise with a total stranger over the phone too painful. Easier to just agree.
“May I speak to her?”
A tingling sensation crawled across Sophia’s scalp. A twitch in her left eye gave her a clue that this was something she needed to take care of. “Uh, she’s out right now. I can speak for her.” Sophia told herself this wasn’t really a lie. “I’m her granddaughter, Sophia Paredes,” she added.
The voice on the other end of the line hurried on, leaving no openings for a response. “Ma’am, my partner and I run a private investigative service out of Salt Lick, Texas, called the Domestic Equalizers. We understand that Senora Paredes is a psychic. We have a complicated case we think she could help us with.”
The caller knew of Gran Bella and her reputation? Sophia’s grip tightened on the receiver.
“I was hoping to speak to her about her services,” the woman on the phone continued. “We’d like to know her fee for traveling to Salt Lick for a few days.”
Sophia knew her grandmother’s fee for a lengthy involvement, and it was as much or more than she would make waiting tables part-time through the summer. Sophia possessed the same psychic powers as her dear departed grandmother, but only Sophia and Gran Bella knew it. Her eye twitched again, a sure sign that her financial troubles might be reaching a resolution, that her prayers might be answered.
Possibilities began to filter through Sophia’s mind. Having long kept her own psychic powers under wraps, she wouldn’t consider using them except under dire circumstances. From her bank balance to the stack of unpaid bills on her dining table, she could think of nothing more dire than her current situation. She had no choice.
“Hello? You still there?” The caller’s voice brought her back from her thoughts. “Hello? Hellloooo.” The woman’s tone held a sharper edge. “Hell,” she said away from the receiver but still audible to Sophia, “I think we got disconnected.”
“No,” Sophia said quickly. “I’m here. Please don’t hang up. I’m here.”
“Oh, I thought I’d lost you.”
“No, I’m sorry. Uh, my grandmother just came in and I was explaining the call to her.”
There, it was done. The lie had begun. Sophia was committed to the decision she had hastily made.
“Maybe I should speak to her directly,” the voice on the phone said.
“Oh, that is not necessary. Gran Bella is, uh, she has gone to the bathroom.” On a shaky breath Sophia took the plunge.
“Senora Paredes’s fee is three hundred and fifty dollars a day. Or two thousand dollars for a full week of her service. The fee is non-negotiable. The money must be paid up front. Also, she would need to have her round-trip airfare paid as well as have transportation and lodging provided.”
Sophia heard no response. For a moment, she considered that they had been disconnected or the caller had hung up in disgust. She heard distant conversation, as if the caller were speaking to someone else, a different voice with a pronounced West Texas twang. “Damn, she gets three fifty a day? We charge fifty and feel bad about it.”
Sophia held her breath. At least the caller was interested enough to discuss it with someone. Then the voice came back on the line. “Look, let me talk to our client and see if he’s willing to pay that much. May I call you back tomorrow?”
“Absolutely. I’ll, uh…I mean, we’ll be here.”
“Super. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Oh, thank you, Debbie Sue. I hope we can do business together.”
Sophia hung up, her thought pattern veering off in a new direction.
It was amazing how when you thought you saw no prospect in sight, life could turn a corner. Gran Bella had told her that many times. Sh
e had also said, “Be careful what you pray for, Sophia.”
Stunned, Debbie Sue turned to Edwina, the receiver still in hand.
“What’d she say?” Edwina asked. “Did she say she’d come? What’s the fee you were talking about?”
Debbie Sue found herself blank for a moment.
“What’s the matter with you?” Edwina asked, moving closer, peering into Debbie Sue’s eyes. “Lord, woman, you look like you just saw Jesus.”
“She appears to be willing. So I told her I’ll call her tomorrow after I talk to Justin.” Debbie Sue’s voice sounded distant and dreamlike in her own ears. “I was talking to Isabella’s granddaughter. Her name’s Sophia. She sounded real nice.”
Edwina thrust out her left arm and rapidly rubbed her forearm up and down. “Dammit, those goose bumps are back. Just look at my arm. I’ll bet I just put on twenty pounds’ worth of goose bumps.”
“Ed, don’t you get it? She called me Debbie Sue.”
“So? That’s not exactly earth-shattering news. Everybody I know calls you that.”
“I didn’t tell her my name, Ed. I didn’t mention my name at all. All I said was the Domestic Equalizers. How could she know my name?”
“Geez, this is creepy,” Edwina mumbled, rubbing her forearm again. “You know, I heard somebody say once, ‘Be careful what you pray for.’”
six
$3,000, give or take…
Justin disconnected from the call from Debbie Sue and drew another block around the note he had written on the scratch pad by the phone on the end of the kitchen counter. He had traced it so many times his pen had cut through the paper to the next page.
He hadn’t expected to hear from Debbie Sue and Edwina so soon. They had been gone from his house no more than a couple of hours. He tried to decide if Debbie Sue calling back this quickly meant they were a little bit too eager to take the case.