by Betsy Byars
She heard another footstep in the hall below. It was louder. The stranger was coming closer.
Herculeah waited. She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry.
If the footsteps started up the stairs, she decided, she would... Would what? What?
She looked around. On the hall table, there was a huge iron candlestick. Melted wax crusted the sides. Herculeah picked it up and tested it. It was hard and long, like a twisted iron baseball bat. It would have to do.
There were no sounds from below now, but Herculeah’s heart was pounding in her ears so hard that she wasn’t sure she would be able to hear anything. Someone could be halfway up the stairs by now.
She peered over the banister. There was no one on the stairs. That did not bring her any real relief. The person could be just out of sight—in the hallway.
Holding the candlestick in both hands, ready to strike, she moved to the head of the stairs.
She could see no one in the hall below. “Is there anybody down there?”
She went down one step. The old stair creaked under her weight. Another step. Another.
Now she could see that the front door was open in the entrance hall. She paused.
Hadn’t she closed that door when she came in? She wasn’t sure. She thought she remembered shoving it shut with her shoulder, but maybe not. The whole episode was beginning to take on the confusion of a dream—no, she corrected herself, a nightmare.
She would take the rest of the steps in a rush, she decided. And if anybody was stupid enough to try and stop her, she would swing the candlestick like Dave Justice. Then she would get out the door as fast as she could and run for her life.
She rushed down the stairs, her lips pulled back in a grimace of intensity, her hair flying out wildly behind her, the candlestick pulled back to strike.
At the bottom of the steps, she stopped. The hall was empty.
3
DEATH IN THE PARLOR
Herculeah looked around, puzzled.
“I wonder if that noise could have been the parrot,” Herculeah said to herself. “Tarot could have gotten off the perch and flown into something.” Her head lifted with sudden thought. “If that bird got out again...”
She went into the living room. The parrot was there, on his perch. “Beware! Beware!” he cried, ruffling his feathers.
Herculeah was still clutching the candlestick. She set it down on a table and flexed her fingers.
“Beware!”
“Don’t worry. That is exactly what I’m going to do. I am definitely going to beware.” Herculeah wasn’t sure whether she was talking to calm the parrot—or herself. “I’m going to call my mom. She’s a private investigator. Or maybe I should call my dad—he’s a police lieutenant. But he wouldn’t take this seriously. He thinks I have way too much imagination. Now, where’s the phone?”
The phone was on the buffet, half hidden by the family pictures. All the photographs were old and faded. There were no color shots of babies sitting on Santa’s lap or being hugged by the Easter Bunny.
The pictures were in disarray now. Some of them had fallen and lay facedown. Herculeah dialed her home number. She began to straighten the pictures as she waited for her mother to pick up.
She looked into the old faces. Here was a young one—Madame Rosa as a girl. Herculeah looked at the pretty girl in the peasant blouse and full skirt. Amazing how much she looked like herself as an adult. That’s what a big nose would do for you, Herculeah thought. Cheeks and eyes could change with age, but a nose...
And here was Madame Rosa with her sister. Herculeah had once asked if they were twins.
And somewhere there was a picture of Madame Rosa with a child. Herculeah had meant to ask if he was her son. She had a hard time imagining Madame Rosa as a mother.
Herculeah searched for that picture as she replaced the others. It didn’t seem to be there.
On the fourth ring, the phone was answered by her mother’s recorded voice, and Herculeah put down the picture she was holding. She sighed with disappointment.
“This is Mim Jones. I can’t take your call right now, but you can leave a message at the beep, and I’ll get back to you.”
At the beep, Herculeah said, “Mom, it’s me. I thought you’d be home by now. Well, I hoped so. I’m down at Madame Rosa’s and, Mom, she’s missing. I noticed that her front door was open and her parrot was outside—which was very strange. And her cloak’s here. You know she never goes out without that.
“As soon as you get home, Mom, please come down here. I’m going to sit out on the porch and wait. I’m scared to stay in the house by myself. I can’t exactly explain why, but, Mom, I just know something is terribly, terribly wrong. Please come!”
She hung up the phone and turned. She now stood at the arch that led to what Madame Rosa called her parlor.
The room was round and stuck off the side of the house. It held only the black-covered table and two chairs:
Herculeah noticed now that one of the chairs—the velvet chair that Madame Rosa always sat in—had been overturned. She went into the room to put it back where it belonged.
The chair was heavy. It was an old carved chair with a dark-red velvet seat and back. The arms of the chair were carved in the shape of lion’s claws. Madame Rosa had rubbed her hands over these claws so often that the finish had been worn away.
Herculeah picked up the chair and set it beside the table. She brushed her own fingers over the smooth wood, thinking of Madame Rosa’s hands.
She turned to go. Glancing down, she saw something sticking out from under the black cloth that was draped over the table.
She drew in a ragged breath. She felt suddenly dizzy, and she steadied herself with one hand on the table. She stayed like that, frozen with dread. Her heart began to pound.
It was a foot, a black, booted foot—a small one. The frayed shoelaces were tied neatly at the ankle.
Madame Rosa wore boots like this.
A feeling of nausea washed over Herculeah like a wave. She could barely stand. Her knees began to tremble. She sank down into Madame Rosa’s chair. She swallowed, but something in her throat wouldn’t go down.
She reached out one unsteady hand and drew back the worn velvet cloth. She gasped.
Madame Rosa lay crumpled under the table, curled on her side. One hand was flung out as if offering something to someone. The other was curved at her chest.
Her long hair had come loose from the golden combs that usually held it and hung over her face. Herculeah was glad she couldn’t see Madame Rosa’s expression, whatever it might be.
Herculeah’s eyes drifted downward. One of Madame Rosa’s hands, the fingers curved at her chest, circled the blade of a knife.
She saw the bloodstains that spread out on either side of the body like wings, darkening the pale Persian carpet. She choked on the thick scent of blood that suddenly filled her nostrils.
Herculeah began to tremble violently. She, knew she shouldn’t touch anything, but she had to make sure Madame Rosa was dead. She might still be alive. It was possible.
Herculeah reached for Madame Rosa’s outstretched hand. She touched her fingers to the thin wrist. She waited, and the brief moment of hope faded.
There was no pulse at all. The skin was cool. The living warmth had drained from her body.
Herculeah’s mind seemed to move so slowly toward the fact of Madame Rosa’s death that she wondered if it would ever catch up with her emotions. Would this slow mind ever allow her to get up, to act?
Slowly, unsteadily, she got to her feet. She rested against the table for a moment, glancing down at the closed book on the table.
Then, with tears filling her eyes, Herculeah went again to the phone.
4
A CRY FOR HELP
“Police Department, Zone Three. This is Captain Morrison. Can I help you?”
“Is Chico J-Jones there?” Herculeah said. Her teeth chattered with nervousness. “It’s important. I’m Herculeah, hi
s daughter, but I’m calling on official police business.”
“Hold on.”
The shock of finding Madame Rosa’s body rolled over her again, like the aftershock of an earthquake. She waited tensely for her father to come on the line. The phone trembled in her hand.
The smell of the blood that had seeped onto the pale carpet still choked her. She wondered that she hadn’t noticed the smell when she first came in. Now it seemed overpowering.
She felt as if she was going to gag, and she pulled her hair across her face and inhaled the clean, familiar scent of lemon verbena shampoo.
“Hello, Chico Jones here.”
“Dad?”
“Hey, how’s my favorite daughter?”
“Not too good.”
“Oh? Something wrong at school?”
“No. ”
“Your mom?”
“Mom’s fine.”
“Then what? Don’t let’s play games. I’m a busy man.”
“This is no game.” She swallowed. “Dad, I just found a body.”
There was a silence.
“Another one?” her father asked.
“This is d-different. This is not like Dead Oaks. This is somebody I know, somebody I like. Dad, I really need help.”
“Where is this body?” There was a different tone to his voice now. He was official. She could imagine him picking up a pencil, pulling that yellow legal pad toward him.
“Dad, do you remember that house down the street from Mom and me? It’s a big old house with a s-sign out in front shaped like a hand? Madame Rosa—Palmist—Walk-ins Welcome. I’m sure I’ve told you about her. I take care of her parrot.”
“Is that where you found the body? At the palmist’s house?”
“Yes.”
“And the body?”
“It’s hers, Dad. Madame Rosa’s.”
She choked back a sob and took a few steps away from the room where the body lay. Again, she took a whiff of her hair.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m there. At her house. I’m in the living room. I can see her foot sticking out from under the—”
“I’m on my way,” her father interrupted.
Herculeah could hear him push back his chair and get to his feet. She should feel relief, she thought, but she glanced around uneasily.
“I’m going to wait for you out on the porch. I don’t feel safe at all.”
“All right, but don’t touch anything.”
“I already have.” She kept talking because suddenly she couldn’t bear to let her father go. “I straightened pictures and the parrot stand and Madame Rosa’s chair and a candlestick and I turned on the lamp and turned off the stove and—”
“Is there anything you didn’t touch?” her father interrupted dryly.
“Yes,” Herculeah said. “The knife in Madame Rosa’s chest.”
5
A RING FOR MADAME ROSA
Herculeah shook her head back and forth. “I’m sorry!” she told Meat. “I can’t talk about it! I just can’t talk about it!”
Meat and Herculeah were in Herculeah’s living room. Herculeah was on the sofa, slumped forward. Her father had sent her home, saying, “I’ll be over to get you when we’re through here.” “Through here,” Herculeah knew, meant when the body was removed.
“Just tell me if it’s Madame Rosa who’s dead. I don’t even know that much.”
“Yes, it’s Madame Rosa!”
“Well, you don’t have to yell at me. I didn’t do it.”
Meat turned back to the window and watched the scene across the street. There were three police cars and an ambulance parked at the curb in front of Madame Rosa’s. All the vehicles had their roof lights flashing, but there was no action that he could see, so he filled in the silence by saying, “I once consulted her.”
Herculeah didn’t answer, so he cleared his throat and said, “Did you hear what I said? I once consulted Madame Rosa.”
This time he got Herculeah’s attention. “You?”
He nodded.
“About what?”
“Something personal.”
She waited.
Meat shrugged. “Well, I guess nobody ever consults a palmist about something impersonal.”
“No,” Herculeah agreed.
“I was going to tell you about it one time, but when I brought up Madame Rosa’s name, you started making fun of people who go to have their palms read, and I stopped.”
“I didn’t make fun.”
“Yes you did. You said that fortune-tellers don’t really look at your hands, they watch your face for reactions. Like if the palmist says, ‘I see a dark-haired man in your life,’ and you frown, then the palmist quickly adds, ‘but a fair-haired man will be the love of your life.’ You acted it out. I remember it perfectly.”
“Well, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Herculeah’s gray eyes suddenly seemed to focus on Meat for the first time. “So why did you consult her?”
“About my dad.”
“You wanted her to help find your dad?”
He nodded. “Well, actually, I just wanted any information I could get. I don’t know where my dad is, what he does, anything. It’s terrible not to know who your father is. He could be anybody—a criminal, that homeless guy that directs traffic, that mime who’s all the time bothering me. I saw him today. I had to cross the street.”
“Your dad is not the mime. The mime is closer to our age.”
“He could be somebody just as bad.”
“What did Madame Rosa tell you?”
“Well, first she said she needed something that had belonged to him. So I went home and I looked and looked. I didn’t know what I was looking for until finally, way down in my mom’s stocking drawer, I found one stocking with some things tied in the toe. Can you believe that my mom would hide things in the toe of a stocking?”
“Like what?”
“Jewelry and stuff, some old coins. The main item was a man’s wedding ring, and inside was the date May 17, 1975, which is the day they got married.
“I went back to Madame Rosa and gave her the ring. She held the ring in her hands like this.” Meat made a gesture as if he were washing his hands. He closed his eyes.
“She said, ‘This is a wedding ring.’ I thought, Well sure. That is real brilliant. I don’t need a fortune-teller to tell me that, bur I kept my mouth shut, which was not easy, because this was going to cost me ten dollars.
“Then she said, ‘Your father wore this ring,’ only she said, ‘Yo fadda wore dis ring.’ You know how she talks—talked.”
Tears filled Herculeah’s eyes, and she blotted them on the sleeve of her shirt.
“I better stop telling you this,” Meat said. “I only brought it up to take your mind off the—off what happened, and now I’ve made you cry.”
“No, I want you to go on. I’m interested.”
“Oh, all right.” Meat gave one quick glance out the window to make sure nothing was happening at Madame Rosa’s before he continued. “Madame Rosa was still doing her hands like this”—more washing movements—“and then she got very still and said, ‘I hear music.’ I was thrilled. I suddenly got this great image of my father as Leonard Bernstein, hair falling all over everywhere, like a god, commanding music from everyday mortals.”
Herculeah tried to smile.
“ ‘A conductor,’ I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. It was the realest thing I ever saw in my life. I was ready to run out and start going to concerts so I could find him.”
“And you were right?”
Meat’s animation drained away. “Of course not. Madame Rosa shook her head. ‘No conductor.’
“I said, ‘He played in an orchestra?’ That was the next best thing I could think of. ‘Violin?’ I could live with that. Again she shook her head. Her eyes were closed, and then she opened them and looked at me so hard I thought she could see into my brain. She said, ‘I see shoes.’ ”
“Shoes?” Herculea
h asked.
“That’s what, I said. ‘Shoes? My father sold shoes?’ I thought of that awful old man in the shoe department at Belk’s. But she shook her head again. And then she said the most surprising thing of all. ‘Your fadda danced.’ ”
“Danced? Your father danced?”
“That’s what she said.”
“I can’t imagine you with a father who danced.”
Meat looked at her to see if this was an insult, but Herculeah looked back with her clear gray eyes, and he was satisfied.
“To be honest, I can’t either.”
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing. That was all. Another customer came, and I had been a walk-in. I pulled out my ten dollars, but she wouldn’t take it. She said, ‘You come back. I work on this some more.’
“I went home. I was very upset. My mother was talking on the telephone. I said, ‘Madame Rosa says my father was a dancer.’ My mother slammed down the phone. I don’t even know who she had been talking to. She looked up at me. Her eyes got very little. She stood up. She went out the door. I followed. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ She said, ‘To tell that witch to mind her own business. I could kill that woman.’ ”
Meat broke off his narrative and pressed his face against the window. “Oh, the paramedics are getting the stretcher out of the ambulance. They’re going up the steps. They’re in the house.... Nothing’s happening.... Oh, they’re coming out. There’s a body on the stretcher. They’re sliding it in the ambulance. They’re closing the doors. They’re getting in.”
There was a silence and then Meat said, “There’s your dad. He’s got on that jacket that doesn’t match his pants and that tie that doesn’t match anything. Now the ambulance is driving away.”
He turned away from the window. “You know what I found out? You know how on TV they’re always putting plastic bags on the victim’s hands—to keep the clues in? Well, in real life, they use paper bags. Ask your dad if you don’t believe me. So right now, Madame Rosa’s hands—”
“My dad’s probably coming to get me,” Herculeah said abruptly, as if to shut him up. She got to her feet. “He wants me to go through the house.”