“Well, you’ve focused on Hughes as your prime suspect, haven’t you? Don’t deny it. I saw that look in your eyes yesterday when he said winning was something he’d wanted for so long, he’d be willing to do almost anything to get it. Rang a bell for you, didn’t it?”
“Damn. How did you do that? I’ve been sitting here trying to think of what it was that’s been bothering me, and you just spit it out. That’s it, though. You’re right. The Elvis in the taxi at the concert said almost the same exact thing to the taxi driver. I thought I recognized him, so it must have been Hughes. He was the one on my van. I’m certain of it. Almost certain. And he was probably the one who tried to shove us off the road yesterday.”
Nana nodded in satisfaction. “So chickie, let’s go!”
“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” Nana said resentfully when they stood in the West Precinct waiting on Bobby to get off the phone. “I thought we’d do a little snooping on our own.”
“That leads to scary things. It’s better this way. Trust me.”
Nana snorted. “And here I thought you had pioneer spirit. You’re taking the easy way out.”
“I prefer to think of it as the safe way out. It’s a little unnerving being held hostage at gunpoint.”
“What’s wrong with being unnerved a time or two? Good for the blood. Gets it running.”
Before Harley could give her opinion on running blood and all the reasons being unnerved couldn’t possibly be good for a person, Bobby hung up the phone and beckoned for them.
Nana, looking like an old darling again in a print dress with lace collar, her hose rolled up and held by garters barely visible beneath the long skirt, and wearing plain, sensible shoes on her feet, took the first chair and settled into it with her white wicker purse in her lap. Minus Smitty.
“Did you find out anything about the car yesterday?” Harley asked Bobby when she sat down in the chair opposite his desk. “Did anyone get his plate number?”
“The car didn’t have any plates. We’re looking for it.” He looked over at Nana. “And how are you today, Mrs. McMullen?” he asked in a loud voice.
“Pretty pissed off at the moment. And it was my late husband who was deaf, not me. Do I get my gun back today?”
“I’m afraid not. We’re checking things out,” Bobby said in a more normal tone.
“My lawyer says you can’t keep it. I have a permit.”
“Then I’m sure it’ll be given back to you soon.”
“So why haven’t you caught this killer yet? Seems to me you should be glad of a little help instead of telling my granddaughter to stay out of it.”
Bobby blinked. Harley smiled. Apparently he’d forgotten about Nana McMullen and how blunt she could be.
Bobby leaned forward and said, “This is a police matter, Mrs. McMullen. While we’re always glad of citizens’ cooperation and information, any kind of interference in an ongoing investigation is discouraged.”
“Good Lord. Do you always talk like you’ve got a stick up your ass? I remember you, you know. You were a skinny little Italian kid with a swagger and more tricks than David Copperfield. And I remember that Fourth of July picnic when you used a toy bow and arrow to shoot a string of lit firecrackers up into the trees so that a flock of nesting blackbirds flew out and crapped all over our barbecue, too. Then there was a time you put a black snake in the Anderson’s swimming pool, and the time—”
“Yes, you’ve got an excellent memory, it seems,” Bobby interrupted while scowling at the officer sitting behind the next desk who was laughing so hard he kept snorting through his nose. “But we have rules. And laws. They’re designed to keep Memphis citizens safe. If everyone went around investigating carjackings, robberies, and murders, there’d be chaos. And mayhem. It needs to be left to the police.”
Nana looked like she was ready to say something guaranteed to put Bobby in a bad mood, so Harley quickly said, “I have information about Preston Hughes that might interest you.”
Bobby’s expression immediately changed to his cop-face. Harley couldn’t tell if the name was familiar to him or not.
“What information?” he asked.
She gave him the yellow sheet of legal paper with her pros and cons written on it. She’d updated it to include Hughes’s comments to the taxi driver. He scanned it and nodded. “Thanks.”
Harley stared at him. “Thanks? That’s it?”
“What, you expected flowers?”
“Something more flowery, maybe. Like, This will help, or Thanks for taking the time to make sure I got this information.”
Bobby stood up. All she ever saw him in these days were suits, when once he’d been the tee shirt and scruffy Levi’s type. Oddly enough, both styles looked good on him. Not only could she understand her friend Cami’s attraction to him, occasionally she remembered their brief fling with a fond smile.
Not today, however. Today, she remembered with satisfaction the time she’d beat him to a pulp when she was fifteen because he’d pushed Eric down. No one shoved her little brother around except her. That was the cardinal rule. Of course, if she’d known Mr. Baroni would give Bobby another whipping when he got home, maybe she wouldn’t have done it. That didn’t seem quite fair.
Bobby said, “Okay, thanks for taking the time to make sure I got this information. If it leads to an arrest, I’ll make sure you get the Crimestoppers cash. Is that better?”
Feeling slightly guilty when she recalled causing Bobby trouble a long time ago, she said, “Much better. Only give the cash to Nana. She’s really the one who remembered what he said.”
Nana beamed. “Hot damn!”
The greedy gleam in Nana’s eyes promised a trip to the casinos in her future, and Harley just smiled. Sometimes things worked out fairly well.
“So, you really think Hughes is the one?” Nana asked on their way home, and Harley gave a shrug.
“He’s the most likely one. All the murders except Lydia’s are related to the competition.”
Nana was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “So I wonder why he killed Lydia?”
“She must have known him. Seen him on the buses before, or maybe even at one of the big competitions.”
“And that’s why he tried to kill you and run us off the road?”
Harley shivered. “Must be.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
Nana turned in the seat as much as the seat belt would allow and looked at her. “There are all those tourists on these buses, yet the only two witnesses the killer seems worried about is the two of you. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. Probably because he thinks we paid more attention and can identify him. Poor Lydia.”
“Wasn’t there a third bus driver? What about her?”
“The police are keeping an eye on her, and she has a big strong husband hanging around the house. I imagine the killer’s not as anxious to tackle all that.”
Nana went quiet for a moment. Then she shook her head.
“Still, it doesn’t quite add up. I’ll think about it a while, then let you know what it is.”
“So now you’re not so sure it’s Hughes?”
“He seemed right, but now I’ve been thinking about baking ingredients.”
“Baking ingredients?” Harley wondered if Nana’s meds had stopped working again.
“Yep, like in a cake. A little too much of this, not enough of that, and you’ve got a cake as flat as a fritter and hard as a brick. I’m wondering if Hughes is a fritter.”
“You’re just worried you won’t get your Crimestoppers cash.”
“Maybe. It sure would come in handy at the casino.” Nana seemed sad about that, so Harley changed the subject to Aunt Darcy and her girls, since that always gave her something to talk
about.
When they got back to Whispering Pines, Nana insisted upon introducing Harley to her friends and acquaintances. There were quite a few of them. Nana obviously had a full social schedule. Jogging around the indoor track in the mornings, playing cards or shuffleboard, a swim in the indoor pool, trips in the Whispering Pines vans to the local shopping malls, movies, doctor appointments, and down to the Tunica casinos, were just a few of the daily activities. Plus three meals a day served in the dining room or taken to their own apartments. Not a bad life. Old age obviously had its perks.
When Harley mentioned that, Nana agreed. “Definitely. Not as expensive as you might think, either. Though drawing pensions from three dead husbands helps out a lot.”
Holding glasses of iced tea, they sat on the screened porch with Sam. Harley lay in the lounge chair, while Nana sat in her favorite wicker rocker with fat cushions. Sam was glued to window screens watching the birds. He’d hardly touched his food. Apparently, there were some things he liked better than flaked tuna bits in sauce.
“Of course,” Nana added reflectively, “it took me a long time to get here. And it wasn’t always fun. Not that I minded the bad times so much. Made the good ones that much better.”
“Were there ever times you wondered if the bad outweighed the good?”
“Never. Not to say there weren’t those times when I’d be thinking the good better hurry up and come along before I got too squirrelly, but it eventually did. Always does. You just have to recognize it when it gets there. A lot of folks I’ve known are so busy whining about how unfair life has been that they never even see all the good things they’ve got. I might feel sorry for them if it didn’t make me so blamed impatient. Foolishness.” Harley thought about that. She wondered if Nana was talking about Grandmother Eaton. Or maybe Darcy’s daughters, Madelyn and Amanda.
“One of the things I learned,” Nana said, “is if you’re going to let past heartbreaks and disappointments ruin your present, you’re not going to have a future that’s worth spit.”
“You’re a wise woman, Nana.”
“Yeah? Tell that to my stockbroker. But then, he wanted me to invest in Enron.”
“So why aren’t you wearing a dress?” Nana looked Tootsie up and down. “Harley tells me you’re prettier than most women she’s ever known.”
Tootsie smiled. “I knew I couldn’t outshine you, so I didn’t even try.”
“Bullshit,” Nana said, but looked pleased.
Since Nana had a poker game waiting on her in the recreation hall, Harley and Tootsie went out onto the community’s covered front porch to sit in the big wooden rockers.
“How’s hard time at the home going?” Tootsie asked with a grin.
“Better than I expected. Although I’ve discovered that people in their eighties are far too frisky for me. Jogging, cards, shuffleboard, swimming—I can’t keep up with them. I’m beginning to think they’re really the Undead who never have to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“My grandmother was like that until the last few years of her life. No one can say she didn’t know how to live. I still miss her.”
Harley nodded sympathetically. Tootsie’s grandmother had died several years before and left him a modest inheritance and a house in Midtown. Harley hadn’t known him then, and he’d only mentioned her a few times, always with great affection.
“How’s business?” Harley asked, even though she already knew.
“Down by forty percent.” Tootsie looked glum. “Even with security guards on every van—and your friend Bubba gave us a great deal, thanks—we don’t have nearly what we should this time of year.”
“Look, I know you said you’d pay me even when I wasn’t there, but don’t. I don’t need it. I still have money in savings since I decided that a decadent trip to the Caribbean isn’t wise right now. See? And Diva thinks I never listen to her.”
Tootsie laughed. “You don’t. Not when you should, anyway. So, has she had any vibes on this thing? Who the killer might be? Why he’s only doing this on our vans?”
“Go see her. If she can tell you anything, she will. Just keep in mind it’s not like Ask Jeeves or Google. You might not get the answer you want, or even at all.”
“Then it’s just like Ask Jeeves or Google.” Tootsie sat thoughtfully for a moment. “You know, I think that’s a very good idea. Will you call and ask her when would be a good time?”
“Yep. And even better, I’ll go with you. Since we’re both involved, she might get some really good vibes.”
It ended up that Tootsie, Harley, and Nana all went to see Diva. A nice afternoon outing to visit your family psychic. Only recently had Diva started allowing people to come to her home for a reading, and only people recommended by someone she knew. Usually, her tarot card readings were done at the monthly flea market. She said too many readings drained her of energy and bruised her chi, or something like that. As many years as she’d been listening to it, Harley could never keep all those things straight. Mantra, Tantric, chakra, chi, all blended together in a litany of inexplicable terms that she never let register. That was Diva’s thing, not hers—a disappointment to her mother and, she suspected, a relief to her father.
Diva’s ecological statement was in full bloom, leggy weeds and trailing vincas straggling over the sidewalk and along the fence in front. It could have looked like someone had not taken the time to mow, but somehow, the pretty wildflowers looked more like a meadow, albeit one enclosed by concrete and unpainted pickets. Wind chimes hung on the porch stretching across the front of the house and tinkled in a light breeze, a welcoming sound. White concrete pillars stood sentinel on each side of the three steps up to the porch where Diva waited in a ladder-back chair painted with astrology signs, suns, moons, stars, and the planets. A similar chair stood on the other side of a small table draped with heavy tapestry cloth in muted jewel tones. Impressive. The paintings on the chairs were no doubt Eric’s work. He was really talented when he wasn’t being a total slug.
“No sign with a big red palm in the window?” Harley teased, and her mother smiled.
“Not yet. I’ve always thought those were tacky anyway. Hello, Nana. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
As Diva got up to hug her grandmother, Harley noticed the glass globe in the center of the table. How nice. She’d bought that for her mother from Aunt Darcy’s design shop, receiving the usual family discount of five percent. It hadn’t done much for the hefty price tag, but the gift had pleased Diva enormously when Harley gave it to her.
Harley introduced Tootsie to Diva, and they shook hands. Her mother held his a little longer than necessary. She looked deeply into his eyes, one of those steady gazes that had always paralyzed Harley since childhood. It was like Diva saw all the soul’s secrets, though she said that wasn’t true at all.
“Hello, Thomas,” Diva said, even though Harley had introduced him as Tootsie. “You’re very welcome here.”
Releasing his hand at last, she motioned for him to sit down across from her. Harley took Nana by the arm and suggested they go inside, but Tootsie looked up and said, “No, I want you to stay. You need to hear this, too, and like you said, both of us together may help.”
Diva smiled. Picking up the tarot cards, she began shuffling them, then laying them out in what Harley recognized as some kind of Celtic Cross spread. Without looking at the cards, Diva spoke softly, her eyes closed so she couldn’t even see Tootsie. That was always spooky to Harley. She’d wondered more than once if her mother had somehow marked the cards, but always felt disloyal when she did.
The first part of the reading sounded like a hundred others to Harley, with the chariot indicating a journey and swords indicating business problems, and the wheel of fortune promising it would soon be behind him. Then she abandoned the cards altogether.
In a husky voice that somehow sounded otherwo
rldly, Diva said, “The past is following you, but it’s not your past. You’re caught in between. Elvis isn’t dead, he’s hiding. He finds you in the candlelight . . . but it’s not really you . . . I can’t quite see . . . ”
She opened her eyes abruptly. “It’s gone. Impressions and images can be so confusing. Sometimes I don’t know what they mean. Do you?”
Tootsie shook his head. “Not all of them. The Elvis thing makes sense. The impersonator who’s been killing the others has to be hiding. As for the past, I don’t know what that would have to do with me if it’s not my past.”
“Perhaps it will come to me. Often it does, in my dreams or just out of the blue,” Diva said with a shake of her head. “It’s not always convenient.”
“And sometimes it’s just enough information to get you in trouble,” Harley said, and her mother nodded.
“That’s true. There are times when things come to me so clearly, and then other times it’s in a collage of images I can’t interpret, because often they aren’t what they seem to be.”
“Damn spooky,” Nana said, “if a psychic doesn’t even know what she sees.”
Diva laughed. “Nana, you’re right, as usual.” Nana smiled.
“Wait a minute,” Harley said. “When you tell me that it’s up to me to figure out what it is I’m supposed to do, that’s only because you can’t figure it out?” Diva’s serene smile masked duplicity. Harley shook her head. “I’ve been suckered in, haven’t I.”
“All your life,” Diva said, and laughed again.
“I’m crushed,” said Harley, and flopped onto one of the porch chairs Yogi had purchased at a flea market and Eric had decorated with bright colors and designs. “But much wiser.”
All in all, it wasn’t a bad day. Nana and Diva laughed and talked over herbal tea, while Tootsie and Harley helped Yogi construct one of his windmill contraptions to sell at the next flea market. It was elephant shaped, and the trunk and tail spun with the wind. Yogi had also done another Eiffel Tower windmill—miniature, of course, only about four feet tall—and some flamingos and other birds. The one Harley liked best was the Elvis windmill. It was his last one, since the others had sold out, and when the wind blew hard enough, Elvis gyrated and his guitar spun. In his way, Yogi was an artist. That must be where Eric got his talent, though he didn’t use it the way he should. Painting purple Picasso style body parts on their lime green van didn’t really count. It did make Vanna distinctive, however. The vehicle was recognized all over Memphis.
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