The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery)

by Steve Hockensmith

  “You think I’m joking with you?”

  “No, Lex. I don’t.”

  “You think I’m not serious?”

  “I think you’re very serious, Lex. I’d just like to know why. Come on, open up. What’s your beef with me? I’m a reasonable person. Help me see things from your perspective and maybe you’ll get what you want.”

  “Oh, I’m going to get what I want, all right. But you aren’t going to like how I get it.”

  “Really, Lex—again with the ominous insinuations? I thought we were beyond all that.”

  “You’re right. We are. No more insinuations. Just action. Starting tonight.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Lex, but what you just said? That was an insinuation.”

  Back to nothing.

  “Lex? You still there?”

  He wasn’t. He’d hung up. And just when I was going to switch from “Lex” to “Mr. Clean,” too. Damn.

  I hung up the phone and took a deep breath. What had I learned? Only this: I still had it. I could push fear down so deep it was like it wasn’t there at all. Biddle would have been proud.

  It wasn’t the kind of information I’d been angling for, but it was good to know.

  As long as I was feeling fearless, I decided to get another cup of coffee.

  Detective Logan had told me that Kathleen, the blond glaring death at me from behind the coffee shop espresso machine, was “the gossip queen of the county” with a thing for cops. As if it never occurred to him that I’d be back in the place within the hour to get all the local dish he’d been holding back. Silly man.

  Kathleen didn’t seem glad to see me.

  I smiled. “I thought I should come back and pay for a cup,” I said. “I noticed I got the last one free.”

  “Yeah. You did. Cappuccino again?”

  “Just black this time, please. Small.”

  Kathleen let me bask in a couple seconds of squinted contempt before turning away to grab a cup.

  “I don’t want to overdo it,” I said. “I’m kind of jittery already. You see, I was in here with Detective Logan to talk about…”

  Beat.

  Tighten throat.

  Moisten eyes.

  Go.

  “…my mother’s death.”

  A different Kathleen handed me my coffee. This one looked sympathetic, concerned, unthreatened. And curious.

  “My god. I’m sorry,” she said. “Listen—this one’s on the house, too.”

  “No, no. Thank you, but I really want to pay.”

  “I’m serious. Put that money away.”

  She talked me into it.

  There were no customers behind me in line—I’d made sure to come in when business was slow—so there was no rush for me to move.

  “You’re very kind,” I said. “Everyone has been. It’s been a pleasant surprise, actually, since…well, to be honest, my mom wasn’t always Miss Popularity.”

  Kathleen looked confused. Apparently, word that Athena Passalis’s daughter was in town had gotten around to my secret non-admirer but not to Her Royal Highness, the Queen of Gossip.

  Interesting.

  I told Kathleen who my mother was.

  “Oh, no! I am so sorry about what happened to your mom! That was just horrible! Does Josh—Detective Logan, I mean—does he have any leads?”

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but…”

  I glanced over one shoulder, then the other.

  Kathleen leaned toward me so far I was surprised she could stay upright.

  “There is someone Detective Logan’s interested in,” I whispered. “He described him to me. Middle-aged, gruff voice, bald, with some kind of connection to other fortunetellers in the area.”

  Kathleen gasped. “Anthony Grandi’s a suspect?”

  I nodded. “It would seem so.”

  “Oh. My. God. That’s—oh, hi, Tom.”

  One of Berdache’s finest was walking up behind me.

  I don’t like it when cops walk up behind me. It makes me wonder how I screwed up and where the nearest exit is.

  Old habits.

  “Thanks again,” I said to Kathleen.

  She looked sad to see me go.

  I took my first sip of my coffee as I headed out the door. It wasn’t bad.

  Good. I had a feeling I’d be back for more.

  I walked down the street to the law offices of Wheeler & Associates. I still didn’t see any associates. I didn’t see any clients either.

  “Change your mind about selling?” Eugene Wheeler asked. He looked like a kid about to open the biggest box under the Christmas tree.

  “Tell me about Anthony Grandi,” I said.

  Wheeler’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes lost their glow. The big box was full of wool socks.

  I threw in a candy cane.

  “You can bill me for your time. It’d be better if our conversations aren’t gratis anyway.”

  Wheeler sat up straight again, nodding knowingly.

  Now it was official. I wasn’t just a former client’s daughter, I was a client. Everything he told me or I told him would be confidential.

  Wheeler didn’t ask why that was important to me. He only asked about his rate.

  I agreed to it—why not? I’d just inherited $45,000—so he started talking.

  “Anthony Grandi,” he said, “is a scumbag. He has an office just a block south of here. Star Bail Bonds. Grandi’s the only bondsman in town and the worst; there is no best. He charges whatever you’re dumb enough and desperate enough to agree to, then he latches on like a leech and drains you dry. In the end, you’re lucky if he only ends up with all your money and not your house, too.”

  I nodded.

  So. A crooked bondsman. Good. That was just the kind of sleaze Mom would get tangled up with. Hello, prime suspect.

  I was doing okay for someone whose previous experience with police work involved running away.

  “Sounds like you’ve had mutual clients,” I said.

  “We used to. If I have a client in that kind of trouble now, I tell them to call Sweet Freedom Bail Bonds in Sedona. You might not get out of jail as fast, but you won’t have a bloodsucker on your back either. Sometimes people don’t take my advice. Then they’re not my clients anymore. Usually they listen, though.”

  “Grandi must love you.”

  Wheeler shrugged. “He wouldn’t go out of his way to pull me out of a wood chipper.”

  “Would he go out of his way to push you in?”

  “If he thought he could get away with it. But it wouldn’t be out of spite. Everything with him is about money.”

  “Do you know if he ever did any business with my mother?”

  “No idea.”

  “Would he have had some reason not to like her?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “What if I told you he’d been making threatening phone calls?”

  “To you?”

  “Yes.”

  “To your cell phone?”

  “To my mother’s place. From pay phones.”

  “And you’re sure it’s him?”

  “Does he sound like Moe the bartender with laryngitis?”

  “What?”

  “Does Grandi have a rough, gravelly voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s him.”

  “In that case, I would advise you to go to the police immediately.”

  “I did that, kinda sorta.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I mentioned it, but that’s as far as I want to go.”

  “You didn’t file a report?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not my style.”

  Wheeler raised his thic
k, graying eyebrows.

  I didn’t elaborate.

  “Okay,” Wheeler said. “Then I think you should consider this: Arizona has some of the most liberal gun laws in the country. And by liberal I mean anything goes. You could be packing heat within the hour.”

  “‘Packing heat’ isn’t my style either.”

  “Maybe you should think less about your style and more about your safety.”

  “My style is my safety.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No police reports. No guns. Any other advice?”

  “Well, if you won’t take steps to protect yourself, then you should probably find a new place to stay.”

  “Run away?”

  “Remove yourself from harm’s way. Don’t forget, though: Grandi’s a bail bondsman. He knows how to find people…and get at them. I don’t know what kind of threats he’s been making, but unless you go far, far away, you are going to find out whether or not he means them.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “I’m trying to warn you.”

  “Hmm.”

  I spent a moment sizing up Wheeler again. He looked like every Kiwanis member you’ve ever met: a big, doughy pillar of the community.

  A lot of those pillars are rotten inside, though. Believe me. I’ve seen “respectable” people do things that would shock Genghis Khan.

  Wheeler knew I was Athena Passalis’s daughter. He knew I was staying at the White Magic Five & Dime. He wanted me to sell the place and cut him in for a slice of the price. And (according to him, anyway) he’d had business dealings with a ruthless scumbag who’d started sending me RSVPs to my own murder.

  Yeah. Hmm was right.

  “Change of subject,” I said. “What do you know about Clarice Stewart?”

  “Absolutely nothing…including who she is.”

  “That’s weird. She’s a sixteen-year-old kid. Apparently she’d been living with my mother for years now.”

  “As a lodger?”

  “More like a housemate.”

  “Athena never mentioned it to me.”

  “So there’s nothing about Clarice in the will?”

  “No. Like I’ve been telling you, everything went to you.”

  I hmmed again.

  “It’s not that out of the ordinary,” Wheeler said. “I’ve seen it a million times. Someone’s nephew forgets to send a Christmas card, and wham—he’s out of the will. Or your best friend keeps that jet ski he borrowed just a little too long, so he’s not your best friend anymore. And then when you dive drunk into Apache Lake and never come up for air, the houseboat goes to your cousin twice removed instead of him. You hadn’t seen your mother in years, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, maybe that’s why she suddenly decided she needed a will. She and this Clarice had some kind of falling out, and she wanted to make sure the girl didn’t get anything if she died. Maybe she was even afraid Clarice would—”

  Wheeler cut himself off.

  “There’s really no use speculating,” he said.

  “Let’s keep going anyway. Just for one more second. Do you think my mother told anyone about the will?”

  “I have no way of knowing. She never indicated one way or another.”

  “Okay. Thank you. Now there’s no use speculating.”

  I got up to go.

  “We’re not done yet,” Wheeler said. “We still have unfinished business.”

  “Can’t you just bill me? All I’ve got on me is twenty bucks.”

  Wheeler pouted. I guess I’d hurt his feelings. Who knew lawyers had any?

  “We never finalized plans for your mother,” he said.

  “Oh. That. What’s the rush? She’s not going anywhere.”

  “Actually, she is. To a crematorium picked by the county. Unless you make other arrangements.”

  “They can’t fire up the oven till the autopsy’s done, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I’ve still got time to think about it. You can’t rush these things, you know. What to do with your mother’s remains is a big decision.”

  I tapped my lower lip and looked thoughtful as I walked out of Wheeler’s office.

  “Stuffed or bronzed?” I muttered. “Stuffed or bronzed? Stuffed or bronzed…?”

  I was halfway back to the White Magic Five & Dime when Fiona Apple started wailing in my handbag. My ringtone. “Criminal,” of course. What can I say? A chick starts her twenties in the nineties and certain things stick.

  I fished out my cell and saw that the call was from LOGAN BPD.

  I took the call.

  “Tell me you’ve got those names I wanted.”

  “Uhhh, hello,” Logan said. “Names?”

  “Oh my god. You’re that kind of guy? Disgruntled customers. From my mom’s shop. You said you were going to look into it. Is that what happens when you say, ‘I’ll call you, babe’?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot all about that. I got busy with something else.”

  Logan sounded somber, subdued. The “something else” was bad news.

  “What is it?”

  “The autopsy report’s in, and…everything’s not as straightforward as we would have liked.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The medical examiner says cause of death was strangulation, like we thought. But the killer wasn’t facing your mother, and he didn’t use his hands. He was behind her, and he probably used his forearm wrapped around her neck. It’s sometimes called a sleeper hold.”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Then maybe I don’t need to tell you it gives us less to go on. Bruises from his hands would have told us a lot, but now I don’t even know if I should be calling him him. And it’s harder to fight off someone who’s behind you like that, so it’s a lot less likely the killer ended up with wounds we can look for now. I’d been hoping the ME would give me enough for a warrant. We could have had this wrapped up by the end of the day, if we were lucky. Unfortunately, we weren’t.”

  “So the autopsy’s a dead end.”

  “Pretty much.”

  I wondered for a second why none of this bothered me. A second was all it took.

  I hadn’t been counting on the autopsy to wrap everything up nice and neat anyway. This was my mother. There wasn’t going to be anything nice and neat about it.

  “Thanks for letting me know, Detective,” I said. “Now do you think you could get me those names?”

  Logan sighed.

  “There’s one more thing—something else the ME found. It doesn’t help me any, but I thought you’d want to hear it.”

  “She had i heart my daughter tattooed on her ass?” I almost said.

  I went with “all right” instead.

  “There were signs of recent weight loss and jaundice, so the ME expanded the scope of his examination. Just to be thorough.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “It looks like your mother had pancreatic cancer,” Logan said. “If the killer had just waited a few months, it would have done the job for him.”

  Is the woman closing the lion’s mouth, opening it, or giving the lion a handful of tuna Pounce? You decide. What’s important is that even the King of the Jungle is just a big pussycat if you approach him without fear. warning: This applies to metaphorical lions only. The author of this book is not responsible for attempts to give real live lions handfuls of tuna Pounce.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  Detective Logan kept talking. Next of kin, the deceased, cremation, state law, a decision, today, sorry. I heard it and I didn’t.

  Mom had cancer. Which meant the killer actually did us both a favor. No long, drawn-out, agonizing death for her and—bonus!—no stack of unpaid hospital bills for me.

&n
bsp; So why was I upset?

  “Thanks,” I said, and I hung up though Logan wasn’t done talking.

  My phone rang again almost immediately.

  I didn’t answer.

  It’s not like I’d have wanted my mother to contact me. She handled it just right, actually.

  I’ll call you when I’m dead.

  Then I could be there for her. Not before.

  So I told myself it was just my pride that was wounded. The hidden pills in the bathroom, the change in dress size, the sudden desire to make out a will. I should’ve seen it coming.

  And now my theory was all messed up, too. I’d pictured the killer lunging across the reading table to grab my mother by the throat. A crime of passion of the how-dare-you-bitch variety. But no. She was strangled from behind, and the killer didn’t even use his/her/its hands.

  It seemed colder. Calmer. Less spontaneous. More businesslike.

  That’s what was bothering me. Yeah, sure.

  I noticed a sign across the street.

  STAR BAIL BONDS

  Anthony Grandi’s office. Perfect.

  When life gives you lemons, Biddle used to say, steal some sugar and make lemonade.

  Screw this feelings crap. I had work to do.

  The star on the sign had a tip pointed straight down, pentagram- style. You’d think that’d be a tip-off. deals with the devil our specialty! Then again, most of Anthony Grandi’s potential customers wouldn’t be walk-ins and they wouldn’t be choosy.

  It had been a long, long time since I’d been in a bondsman’s office. Ahhh, good times. I felt all warm and fuzzy. Then all clammy and nauseous. The memories were hitting me like a plate of bad oysters.

  I went inside anyway.

  A round-faced, red-haired young woman sat slumped over the front desk, texting. She glanced up at me with heavy-lidded eyes, found me nothing worth waking up for, then turned her attention back to her phone. It looked like she was sending an urgent message to her narcolepsy support group.

  “Is Mr. Grandi in?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know when he might be back?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “I need to speak to him about Athena Passalis.”

  “Who?”

  She wasn’t bluffing. Contemptuous disinterest that profound is almost impossible to fake.