Drop Dead Beauty

by Wendy Roberts

  “Wait here,” Sadie told Dawn, and then she broke into a dead run.

  Unsurprisingly, even fueled by anger and the power of cucumber water, Sadie found she still wasn’t able to catch up with the over three-hundred-horsepower truck. Her goal had been to at least read the plate, but she only managed to watch it zoom away and get lost in traffic.

  It took the Seattle police less than two minutes to respond to the explosion in Jonelle’s parking lot. It took her brother-in-law, John, about fifteen.

  When John arrived he leapt from his sedan at the curb and ran to Dawn. He drew her into a bear hug and she sobbed against his chest, causing Sadie to ache with sadness for Dawn and self-pity for herself. Nobody would be hugging her anytime soon.

  Sadie was busy talking to an officer, but she saw Dawn get the clear to leave and then noticed John tuck her safely into the passenger seat of his car. Then her brother-in-law scanned the crowd, fixed his gaze on Sadie, and stormed over. His jaw was set, his eyes were slits, and his hands fisted at his sides as he stalked over to her and stepped in front of the officer who was questioning Sadie.

  “You are a menace!” he seethed, pointing an angry finger at Sadie.

  She flinched at his words.

  “It—it wasn’t my fault,” she protested lamely.

  “It’s never your fault!” He threw his hands up. “I know we are supposed to be family, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: You stay away from my wife until shit like this stops happening to you or until you start living a normal life!”

  Sadie swallowed and nodded weakly, then watched as he walked back to his car and drove away.

  “He’s just scared,” the officer said. “He’ll cool off.”

  Sadie sighed and shook her head. She’d met this particular police officer before, just like she’d gotten to know many of the Seattle PD because of various dangerous incidents she’d been involved in over the years.

  “Thing is,” Sadie said, “he’s right. I am a menace.” Her hand went protectively to her stomach. “Maybe it’s time to go back to teaching second graders.”

  “Surrounded by seven-year-olds all day?” The officer shuddered. “Give me crooks and murderers any day.”

  She told him about the dark Dodge Ram that had followed her a few times and that she suspected the same person of slashing her tires on both vehicles and breaking into her house.

  “The truck was right over there.” She pointed to the street corner.

  “For sure it was the same vehicle?”

  “I know there are thousands of Dodge Rams, but it has white paint scraped along the driver’s side rear quarter panel. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get the plate.”

  He wrote down what she told him, but the look on his face said that he’d need a helluva lot more than the description she’d given him.

  “And you weren’t able to catch a glimpse of the driver?”

  “No.”

  “If he followed you from Auburn and vandalized your van, your car, your home, and now, possibly, has blown up your sister’s car, then you need to be extra careful. If you see the vehicle again, call us right away. And try and make note of the plate number.”

  Sadie told him she would and then left the parking lot and the officers and firefighters, who were dealing with what was left of Dawn’s vehicle. Then she realized that on top of everything else, she still needed to get to work. She called for a cab and when it started to rain she went inside Jonelle’s to wait.

  “Wow. What the heck happened out there?” Zenia asked her.

  “My sister’s car blew up. Very lucky we weren’t inside it at the time.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Definitely not the highlight of my day,” Sadie agreed.

  She saw the taxi pull up to the door and started to leave. At the last minute she asked Zenia over her shoulder, “What kind of vehicle does Emilio drive?”

  “I think he drives a Prius. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  Sadie thanked Zenia for making sure Dawn got a tour of the spa and promised to be in touch soon about booking that imaginary spa day for all the bridesmaids. Then she walked out the door and jumped into her waiting taxi and gave the driver the house number on Brandon Street.

  “You’re lucky I was able to get here so quick,” the driver told Sadie as he pulled into traffic. “Something exploded behind the building and now traffic is blocked for a mile around.”

  “It was a car that blew up,” Sadie replied.

  “A car explosion?” The driver laughed himself into a smoker’s cough. Once he regained control of his lungs and voice he added, “Must’ve been some drug dealer or pimpmobile someone wanted to put out of business.”

  Sadie knew for certain Dawn was neither pimping nor selling crack. She was only guilty of hanging out with her sister, the trouble magnet.

  By the time she was dropped off at the split level on Brandon Street, Sadie was anxious to bury her troubles by cleaning up after the slaughter of four people. Some women might choose a different way to unwind instead, like reading a book or having a hot bath.

  Second-stage cleaning meant very little protective gear since dangerous bodily fluids had been mopped and sponged away and bone fragments and brain spatter had also been picked up, cut up, or hauled out. However, there was still lots to accomplish and Bill, the owner of the house, had left her a couple of pestering messages about her progress. She wanted to return the calls only when she could tell him she was officially done.

  The mechanic came and replaced Sadie’s destroyed tires with gently used ones at a fraction of the cost, and he gave her the name of a place to get the window fixed that would also be less pricey. His bill was still expensive since he also had to stop by her house. He’d use the spare key she gave him to enter the side entrance to the garage and fix the tires on the Corolla.

  Once the mechanic was on his way to her house, Sadie locked up the Brandon Street house and took the Scene-2-Clean van to the nearest fast-food place for lunch. She returned to the house and put in four more hours with no breaks, except to pee, and then she officially declared the house completed. The only thing left would be allowing the ozone generators to clean the air, but first she needed to retrieve them from the suicide house in Auburn.

  She called Bill and notified him that her work was done but the ozone generators would remain on for a couple days to make the house smell as clean as it looked.

  “You can have workers come to replace the drywall and carpeting that I had to remove. It’s perfectly safe for them to work in there now. The ozone generators will be set up tomorrow, and then I’ll just pull them in a couple days.”

  “Finally!” Bill grumped. He was obviously pissed about having the SPD delay her cleaning by a day. “Are the cops still going to be snooping around the house too?” he asked. “Or did they take their cut of the money and run?”

  “I’m sure all that cash went straight into an evidence locker.”

  “If you’d called me, we could’ve split it,” he remarked. “It’s doing nobody any good being locked up as evidence.”

  “I don’t take things that don’t belong to me,” Sadie said coolly.

  “Is that kind of the trauma cleaner’s oath or something?”

  “No. It’s personal ethics.” She didn’t like Bill and was sick to death of him. “I’ll be sending my invoice to your insurance company, and once I’ve picked up the last of my equipment in a few days I’ll drop off the key to your house. Have a nice day.”

  Sadie hung up without waiting for Bill to reply because she was worried she might lose her cool and suggest he do something anatomically impossible.

  She packed her remaining supplies into the van and paused in the entrance of the house before she locked up. In her gut she knew there were spirits here who might be stuck at this house because Sadie wasn�
�t able to help them move on. Ghosts who had final requests or messages for loved ones. Her fingers clutched the conjure bag. For a second she debated pulling it off to see if she could help the ghosts left behind. Then she thought about the gruesome way they’d been shot up and knew she wouldn’t be able to endure that kind of pain.

  “If I can figure out a way to help you move on to the next dimension, I’ll be back,” she declared to the empty house. “You were killed violently and I would experience that myself if I tried to help you right now. I’ll try and find a way. I promise. If you’d all been taken down by, like, an ingrown toenail or something, I’d be all over this.”

  Once she’d locked up the house, Sadie drove to her storage unit and unloaded all the bins containing hazardous waste. She had a company come to collect the bins and dispose of their contents on a monthly basis. It was the cost of doing business. She stopped herself short as she hoisted a particularly heavy bin from the van. She couldn’t remember if the pregnancy book had said lifting was a bad idea or if it was a myth that it could hurt the fetus. She played it safe and shuffled and dragged the container across the floor.

  She was grimy and sweaty when she climbed back inside her vehicle and headed for Auburn to collect the air purifiers. Because the glass-repair shop recommended to her was on the way, she stopped and had the window fixed on her van just in time for the Seattle skies to do what they do best. It rained all the way to Auburn, where she got the air cleaners and continued all the way back to the house on Brandon Street.

  She set up the purifiers to help deal with the smell of decomp, and when she was leaving Bill showed up with a crew of workers.

  “Drywallers,” he said, nodding to the vehicle parked on the street behind his. Out came three large dudes wearing wifebeaters and sleeve tats, with looks that said trouble with a capital T, not drywall with a capital D.

  Sadie didn’t know what Bill was up to with his sleazy-looking gang and she didn’t want to find out. She left him to his house and made a hasty exit. She stopped at Safeway for groceries and loaded up on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that she hoped would cancel out the extra-large bag of Doritos and huge can of soda that she consumed on the drive home.

  She had just pulled the van into her garage when she got a phone call from Rudie Hernon.

  “I’ve put together a new conjure bag for you and was wondering if you wanted to take it for a spin,” he said.

  “A spin?”

  “Yeah. Test-drive it to see if it works for your intended purpose.”

  “You mean this one might allow me to go back to helping spirits while blocking out the pain of their deaths?” Sadie asked, excited.

  “That’s the plan, but of course nobody can tell if it works except you.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Sadie raced inside the house and found Dean sulking in the kitchen.

  “Here’s the scoop,” she told him. “Dawn’s brand-new SUV got blown up while we were making inquiries about Jane inside Jonelle’s Spa. I don’t know if that has something to do with you and Jane, or if this is strictly my own shit storm. I suspect whoever was drives a Dodge Ram pickup, and that isn’t Emilio because his car is a Prius. Maybe it’s about the suicide in Auburn. Or the home invasion on Brandon Street. All I know is that I’m off to see the wizard about a spell that will hopefully let me talk to spirits and not feel their deaths.”

  Dean waited a beat. “I have no idea what you just said,” he told her.

  “I’ll explain more to you later.”

  Sadie used the bathroom, then fed her rabbit and changed her clothes. She was parking directly outside the Pottery Hut twenty minutes later. She walked inside and once again there was a birthday party—and like before, it felt like the place was controlled chaos with short stuff Rudie running the show.

  Sadie waved at Rudie and he wove his way between the chairs and tables of twenty five-year-olds and their parents to meet with her.

  “Give me five minutes and they’ll all be packing up their stuff and heading home,” Rudie told her.

  Sadie looked over at a nearby table of children bent at artistically painting vases and plates.

  “No problem,” Sadie told him. “I used to be a grade school teacher. I’ll blend in.”

  A clump of wet clay sailed across the room and hit Sadie on the cheek with a thwack.

  “Or maybe I’ll just wait in my car,” she told him. “Text me when you’re done.”

  Sadie walked outside just as a dark Dodge Ram rumbled past. Her nerves pinged and when the vehicle turned the corner she could see white paint on the fender. She jumped into her car and took off after the truck. She was on his bumper and reciting the digits on the plate out loud to try and memorize them. Just a block over the truck cornered onto Second and pulled to the curb in front of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Sadie pulled right in behind the truck. She began rummaging in her purse for her can of pepper spray, and once she had it Sadie climbed out of her car and slowly approached the truck. Suddenly the driver opened the door and Sadie watched while a short, round woman in her eighties hopped out. The woman moved slowly and painfully like someone whose knees had seen better days. She went around to the other side of the truck and opened the passenger door for a boy of about ten. The two walked hand in hand up the sidewalk and at one point the woman looked over her shoulder at Sadie, who was still holding a can of pepper spray in her hand. Sheepishly Sadie stuffed the can back in her purse and climbed back inside her car.

  “I’m losing my mind,” Sadie muttered to herself. “I was about to pepper spray a grandma while she took her grandson to church. First I’m going crazy and then I’m going to hell.”

  She got back in her Corolla and composed herself. Then she made a U-turn and drove back to the Pottery Hut. She waited in her car for Rudie to let her know the parents and brats had left the party. Her cell phone chirped twice. First message was from Owen. If you won’t meet with me at least call me.

  The second message was from Rudie, texting her that the coast was clear.

  Sadie thought for a second and then replied to Owen with I’ll call you later.

  She went inside the Pottery Hut and found Rudie wiping down the little tables. Sadie grabbed a damp rag and began to help out.

  “I don’t know how you handle having birthday parties in here all the time,” she remarked. “Don’t they all drive you crazy?”

  “A little, but then I remember that the parents are paying me a couple hundred dollars plus the price of pottery to allow the hooligans to torture me and I feel a lot better.” He scraped a clump of clay off a shelf. “I still hold private classes for adults on occasion, but when the economy is tight people spend more money on their kids than they do on themselves.” He straightened to his full short stature and pointed in the direction of the back. “Let’s head upstairs.”

  Once they were up in his apartment he wasted no time bringing Sadie into the small room. The large black cauldron on the table had been replaced by a horrific table mirror that had a pewter frame with a carved female face in an openmouthed scream and hundreds of writhing snakes decorating the edges.

  “Whoa,” Sadie said, pointing. “What the hell kind of mirror is that and why would you even want to look into something that scary?” She shuddered.

  “It’s my Medusa scrying mirror.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s not everyone’s taste.”

  Rudie opened a box on one of the shelves and pulled out a pink flannel bag and handed it to her.

  “I’ve already enchanted it with power. What I’ve tried to do here is to combine herbs for banishment and pain but also a spell to allow vision.”

  “It smells like Christmas.”

  “That would be the cinnamon and cloves, but make no mistake—it’s strong enough to kill you,” Rudie warned.

  Sadie dropped it on the table next to the ugly mirror.
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  “I’m pregnant, remember,” she stated. “I don’t want anything that will hurt me or the baby.”

  “It’s strong enough to kill you only if you eat it,” he corrected. “It’s not going to hurt anyone unless the herbs are ingested.”

  “Why would I eat it?”

  “I have no idea why my clients do what they do. You won’t believe the kind of stuff that some people try. Just last week I had a troll who routinely uses austromancy come to me for a potion to relieve his cold, but instead of rubbing it on his chest he snorted it and now he’s got a wart the size of an apple on the end of his nose. He thinks it’s all my fault.” Rudie shook his head.

  Sadie just stared at him openmouthed.

  “I know, right?” Rudie laughed. “What a crazy thing for him to do! Like I’m supposed to guess that he’d snort a potion.”

  “So, um, is your ex-wife always around you, like, twenty-four/seven?”

  “I don’t really know. I never take my conjure bag off because I don’t want to take the chance.”

  “But what if she’s long since left you alone and you’re wearing it for nothing?” she asked.

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Rudie said.

  He picked up Sadie’s new conjure bag and tossed it to her.

  “So just to be on the safe side, you’ll want to wear both of your conjure bags together. Unless you’re feeling edgy and want to go just with this one?”

  “I’m edgy enough these days.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Rudie led the way back out of the room and locked it behind them.

  “How much do I owe you?” Sadie asked.

  “Nothing yet. This one isn’t proven, so no charge unless it works. If it does, five hundred. If it doesn’t, you bring it back and I’ll tweak it.”

  “That’s fair. Thank you.”

  “So, you got a ghost you can check on?”

  She told him there was no lack of ghosts to check on in her line of work, and when Sadie left, she called Maeva to ask if they could hang out in her neighbor’s pantry for a few minutes. If she was going to test-drive a ghost repellent, she needed to have a psychic nearby in case things went wrong.