by Lisa Turner
Frankie felt her cheeks flush. Brad McDaniel had made a similar comment about her hair the first time they’d met for lunch. It took a while for her to realize how well he’d mastered the off-handed comment meant to undermine a person’s confidence. With any other man, she would have picked up on it, but for some reason Brad’s slick routine had flown under her radar.
She stood her ground with Mystica and handed over the list. “I need these herbs for a ewe, not extensions.”
Mystica instantly backed off the hard sales pitch. “You wish a purifying bath, yes? I understand.”
She disappeared through a beaded curtain and returned minutes later with several items in a basket. “I do not have the pata de gallina, romerillo, and salvadera. Those herbs must be fresh. They will ship from Puerto Rico in three days.”
“Maybe someone else in the city has them.” Frankie pulled the conjure bag out of her purse. “Do you know anyone who carries this bag? They might stock fresh herbs.”
Mystica turned the bag over and frowned. “It’s possible Señor Sergio—”
At the name, the old woman erupted in Spanish and rushed over to Mystica, shaking her rag. Mystica fired back in rapid Spanish, both of them shouting over each other. Frankie caught “stranger,” and she heard the woman call Mystica una tonta, a fool. The old woman wagged her finger at Frankie and stalked back to her bucket.
Mystica fumed and handed the bag back to Frankie. “I’m sorry. I cannot help you.”
The conversation might have ended there, but Frankie picked up on Mystica’s embarrassment at the reprimand. She leaned in and whispered, “I need this ewe today. It’s important.” She added a knowing nod, a silent communication between women.
“I understand,” the young woman said, and flipped her hair in defiance as she went to the back room and returned with a cloth pouch. She touched her own cheek. “I see what your man has done. I’ve had the same. This spell is powerful. Your man will think twice before he hurts you again.”
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Frankie said, stalling.
Mystica raised her voice for the shop full of women to hear, a surefire sales pitch. “We will teach a wife beater a lesson. His manhood will be limp as a flag on a calm day.
“Mix lemon juice, salt water, and cooking oil,” she whispered to Frankie. “Fry a live scorpion in the oil until it disintegrates. Add what’s in this bag. I will write instructions.” She wrote quickly, glancing at the old woman, who was still throwing nasty looks in their direction.
“This isn’t necessary,” Frankie said, embarrassed by Mystica’s pronouncement that she’d been beaten by her man.
Mystica folded the paper with a tight crease and shoved it in the bag. “Thank you for coming in. You will be pleased; I promise.” She winked.
Frankie paid and waited until she was outside the salon to look at the instructions. On the paper, Mystica had written a name and an address: Señor Sergio Ramos. Santero.
Chapter 11
Walking from Court Square to the barge, Billy remembered there wasn’t so much as a can of beans in the kitchen. He stopped at Jack’s Food for staples along with some sourdough bread, lettuce and tomatoes, and a package of Wright’s bacon—breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a bag.
Tomorrow he had a meeting at the Criminal Justice Complex, the CJC, with Deputy Chief of Investigative Services Bud Middlebrook. They were to discuss his return to duty. On the drive to Memphis, he’d decided to take a few days off before signing back on the force, give himself a chance to adjust to his sudden change in circumstances after the breakup.
He loved Mercy. He assumed she’d felt the same, but she’d lied to him. He was used to lies. People lie all the time to protect themselves or to get what they want. He should be able to forgive Mercy for that, but yesterday, when the truth came out, he’d found himself leaving so abruptly, so thoroughly, it made him wonder if she’d done them both a favor. Maybe leaving Atlanta had been in the back of his mind all along. Maybe he was the kind of guy who likes the concept of a relationship more than he likes being in one.
Some decisions you can’t come back from. He was in the process of making one of those now. Or maybe the decision had already been made. He wasn’t sure.
He put away the groceries and glanced around the living area of the barge. Whatever happened with Mercy, at least he was happy to see his place again.
The self-propelled barge had been bought by a speculator at auction and converted into the Old Man River Bar and Grill. Its new owner had tied up at the cobblestone landing next to the river tour paddle wheeler, the Memphis Queen II, a great location, but the bar had run into trouble from the start. The owner had put his son in charge and then left town. His son, who had a raging crank habit, cleaned out the cash drawer nightly. The owner returned to find the business sinking under debt and his son in the office, blacked out from a near overdose.
Disgusted, the owner closed the bar, added a shower, turned the small office into a bedroom, and put the place up for rent. The commercial kitchen with its stainless-steel counters stayed. The aft deck had a great view of the sunset. Billy had walked through and signed a two-year lease.
He thought about last August when Mercy had knocked on his door with a sack in her hand that contained potential evidence in her sister’s disappearance. During the two-week investigation of her sister’s case, their uneasy alliance had developed into trust, then love or at least the possibility of it. Her sister’s case took a difficult turn. At the end, especially after Lou’s death, he had wanted a fresh start.
Mercy owned a successful bakery in Atlanta. He moved there, hoping to find work in law enforcement and make a go of it with her. They had agreed that, if he didn’t find a cop job before his nine-month leave was up, she would consider relocating her bakery to Memphis. When the time came, they would make the decision together.
That hadn’t happened. Yesterday she’d come home early from the morning shift to tell him she had signed a contract a month ago that expanded the bakery and tied her to Atlanta indefinitely. She admitted she didn’t want to live in Memphis and had never intended to move. She wanted him to stay in Atlanta to help her run her business.
He now took a six-pack from under the sink and shoved it into the refrigerator. He was a cop, damn it. Did she expect him to spend his life working in a cream-puff factory? He was getting angry all over again. Best thing to do was check out the barge and get his mind on something else.
The Internet connection worked, but his TV screen was blue. The Cards played the Braves at seven P.M. He would walk to Bardog, have a couple of beers and a plate of meatballs, and catch the game. Until then, he had plenty of work to do setting up a case file on Red.
First thing, he pulled out the staff paper and the photo of the girl that looked to him like a promo shot someone had cut down to fit the frame. The camera loved her. The profile shot revealed a hint of full lips and pronounced cheekbones. Judging by the slenderness of her back and the sheen of her long hair, she was in her mid- to late teens.
The back of the frame popped off easily. He expected to find the name of a club or a photographer’s logo stamped on the back. It was blank. She could be a model, Red’s daughter, or possibly a musician from a club where Red and Little Man ahd played. Or the photo could have no meaning, a shot of a fantasy girl Davis and Lacy had kept to remind themselves of better days.
He searched around and found a large mailing envelope to slip the staff paper and photo inside for protection.
Next he spread the jacket on the table, a beautiful piece of goods with carved-bone buttons and a silk lining still in immaculate condition. Slipping the three-by-five photographs from the inner breast pocket, he noticed something he’d missed before—tiny curls of thread along the pocket’s edge. Someone had stitched the pocket closed and then clipped it open. The pocket on the opposite side had been treated the same. Had there been a second batch of photos that were now missing, or had something else been hidden in the pocket?
Putting the pictures aside, he flipped up the jacket’s collar. Monogrammed in gold thread were the initials L.G. He leafed through the photos to one of the man in the jacket. Bernard, who made the jacket, might recall the client if he were shown the photo and given the initials.
In a search of the Commercial Appeal’s archives, an article about the tailor’s colorful career surfaced, but there was an obituary, too. Bernard had developed Alzheimer’s disease and passed away recently.
He scanned his notes about the loan Augie had made to Red. Red used to be a big star. Was there a recording contract in the works and Red had planned to pay Augie back with the advance? He and Little man were living on canned ravioli. Red had been flat broke at the train depot. What had he done with the money? They’d fought poverty and racism and pretty much won that battle when Katrina hit. He understood that alcohol was a factor, but Red and Little Man could have recovered their sense of self-worth and some financial stability just by playing club dates. How had they ended up living in a condemned building, frightened to death by curses?
Everyone has weaknesses. Lou Nevers had a crack in him the size of the Grand Canyon. And what about Billy’s own flaws? He’d seen people take a wrong turn, make a bad choice, and dig a hole they couldn’t get out of. Mercy loved her bakery. She’d made a choice to get what she wanted. He was making a choice. He couldn’t see himself doing anything but what he was doing right at that moment. Was walking away from Mercy showing a lack of character, or had he done the righteous thing for both of them?
Suddenly he wanted to call her, hear her voice. Instead, he walked out onto the aft deck, leaving his phone inside so he wouldn’t be tempted. Across the water an enormous tree was being swept down the channel, its root system exposed. The tree looked healthy, but the river must have been more powerful and undermined its grip on the earth. Birds hung in the branches as it floated along, wondering what the hell had happened to their universe.
The urge to call Mercy passed. The light on the river turned gold. He went back inside. Back to work.
And ol’ man river just kept rolling along.
Chapter 12
The brick houses with their oversize hardwood trees in the front yards made up the neighborhood, typical of the aging suburban tracts built in Memphis during the boom years following World War II. The homes beamed with the fastidiousness of retired couples who obsessively weed flower beds and sweep walks.
However, the ranch-style house that interested Frankie wasn’t one of those. The bland house that had her attention had turned itself away from the neighborhood, its energy compressed behind shaded windows.
She pulled to the curb, engine left running in the late-afternoon humidity. A bank of clouds blocked the sun as it dropped toward the horizon. Frankie glanced through police reports concerning the owner of the house, a Señor Sergio Ramos. Complaints lodged by neighbors alleged loud parties in the backyard with drumming and chanting. Some reports hinted at animal sacrifice. Señor Ramos was a U.S. citizen of Cuban descent and a practicing santero. She knew what the neighbors thought were wild parties were actually initiations into the faith, rituals she had witnessed as a child in Key West. The complaints didn’t interest her. She wanted to know if this Ramos character had the capability of making a death curse. If he did, she wanted the name of the person he’d sold it to. Ramos would be cautious. Posing as a customer was the only way she would get past his wariness.
In Key West she’d written a lot of parking tickets and handled dozens of domestic disputes. Investigating a possible homicide was a new experience for her. And while she was armed, she was walking into an unauthorized situation without backup. If Able knew what she was about to do, he’d stop her. If her watch commander found out, she could kiss her detective slot good-bye. She shut down the engine anyway and walked up the driveway.
Mimosa trees bordered the right side of the drive, their roots breaking up the concrete and making it almost impassable for vehicles. A breeze dropped pink blossoms, a carpet of them having accumulated into a decaying slick under her feet.
A traditional Cuban household only uses the front door for the delivery of monumental announcements such as the death of a family member. Having once made the mistake of knocking on a Cuban’s front door, she had no intention of starting out on the wrong foot with this man.
The yard didn’t appear to be fenced, so she continued along the side of the house and turned the corner. Trees shaded the backyard. At the far end of the property was a freestanding garage. In this setup, the garage would be the shrine to the orishas and the place where a santero performed the initiation rituals. If animals were sacrificed—a part of so many Santerían observances—that’s where it would take place.
She stepped onto the terra-cotta patio that ran the length of the house. A potbellied cauldron sat in a fire pit at the center of the patio. The smell of rendered fat and cooling charcoal hung in the air. The odor would be one of the trouble spots for the neighbors. Concrete steps with an iron handrail led up to the back entrance of the house. Typical of a santero, a mirror hung in the eaves over the back door to keep the Evils from entering.
As she started for the steps, a white German shepherd, asleep beneath a tree across the yard, scrambled to its feet. It didn’t bark, a bad sign. She wasn’t afraid of dogs, but this one locked its eyes on her with an unnerving intelligence that stopped her in place. Suddenly the dog sprinted toward her, leaping onto the far side of the patio with the metal chain hooked to its collar clinking as it ran.
“Sit!” she yelled, standing her ground. She gave the “down” signal with her hand. The dog kept coming, head low, tongue lolling. Just as her resolve began to crumble, a man stepped out onto the porch.
“Dante . . . para!” he shouted.
The dog skidded to a halt a few feet from Frankie. It huffed and watched her with unreadable eyes. Frankie blew out a breath and regarded the man on the steps. He wore a loose white shirt, white pants, and dark glasses. He looked to be in his early forties, had a masculine jaw, and a lean, strong body, his forearms roped with muscle.
“Señor Ramos?” she said.
“I’m Ramos. Are you afraid of dogs?”
“Not at all.” Then she realized her heart was pumping faster than usual.
Ramos padded down the steps, the mirror in the eaves flashing behind him, his fingers lightly touching the rail. “Dante means no harm. I promised her someone would take her for a car ride today. Come here, Dante.” He bent to run his hand over the dog’s coat and unclipped the chain from the collar. “Go apologize to the lady.”
The big dog trotted to Frankie, sat at her feet, and lifted a thick paw. Frankie started to bend down to shake the dog’s paw, then stopped. She hadn’t come to participate in dog tricks.
“I’m Frankie Malone. Mystica Arnaz gave me your address. I didn’t have a number, so I couldn’t call. Is this a good time?”
“I’m expecting a client soon, but Mystica called ahead and described what you need. The cost is twenty dollars. Is that agreeable?”
“Fine,” she said. The transaction was moving too fast. She needed time to look around the house. A gust of wind swept across the patio and raindrops the size of half-dollars smacked onto the tiles.
A drop struck Sergio’s outstretched palm. “We must step inside, please.”
He led the way up the steps and held the door for her and the dog as the rain pelted down. Her concern over entering the house had lessened. In fact, there was something vulnerable about Ramos that she couldn’t place.
They walked through a spotless kitchen with stacks of oversize stainless-steel bowls on the counter and several knife blocks holding carving and butcher knives, a reminder of the rituals that must take place in the garage.
“Follow me,” he said. His fingers brushed the door frames and chair backs as if he were keeping in touch with his surroundings as he showed her into the next room. His sunglasses stayed in place even though the storm had darkened the room.
The room off the kitchen was a botánica stocked with spiritual candles, fiberglass statues of Catholic saints, and wood-carved roosters. Shelves lined the walls with an array of ceramic and iron pots meant for collecting the blood of animals sacrificed during rituals. Blood feeds the saints of Santería, the orishas. Offerings of fresh flowers, candy, and lit candles flanked the urns and tureens used as shrines to the saints.
This wasn’t the kitsch she’d seen at the salon. This was the real deal.
She noticed the hallway to the right. Somewhere in this house was a room similar to a pharmacy that would contain fresh herbs and sacred oils, along with strange items such as mules’ teeth, owl feathers, and dirt from graveyards, all the elements needed to produce complex ewes and ebbos. As healers, santeros have extensive knowledge of plants and their powerful impact on the body. Unfortunately, some santeros use their position to fleece their “godchildren,” or believers, to enrich themselves. It was dangerous business. Monies and gifts given to santeros are tributes that belong to the orishas. The saints are quick to punish anyone who would dare steal their fees.
“I’m so relieved you have the herbs,” she said. “The woman who raised me practiced Santería. She made the ewe for me.” Her throat closed with emotion. She hadn’t spoken Amitee’s name in years, the one person who had loved her unconditionally.
Sergio waved to a chair by the window. “Have a seat, watch the rainfall. I have Mystica’s list. You were right to ask for this ewe. It will dispel the distress you’ve been experiencing.”
His insight unnerved her until she remembered that the ewe she’d requested was meant to release negative energies. Naturally, he would assume she was stressed.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a santero’s farmacia,” she said.