From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  “You don’t believe a word I’m saying.”

  By then the waiter had reappeared with the Jamaican Moscow Mule I had ordered. I took a sip.

  What the hell is in this thing? my inner voice wanted to know.

  I read the table tent—fresh muddled lime, organic vodka, Jamaican ginger beer, fresh mint. I nudged the drink away.

  That’ll teach you to read the small print.

  “Kayla,” I said, “I’m trying to understand. Three days ago, as far as I was concerned, physics and mediums and ghosts and messages from the dead were the stuff of horror movies like The Dead Zone and The Sixth Sense and The Conjuring.”

  “Don’t forget Hamlet.”

  “Hamlet? That’s right. The king comes back from the dead and orders his son to wreak vengeance upon his uncle Claudius for killing him, seizing his throne, and marrying his wife, Gertrude, who was also Hamlet’s mother.”

  Jesus, you’re living a Shakespeare play.

  “My point is,” I said aloud, “I was never asked to believe it was real until now.”

  “I understand, McKenzie. Believe me. I asked my family to believe it was real. You know, they still send me Bibles. I have about thirty of them.”

  “What happened?”

  “What usually happens when you go against your family’s beliefs? You’re asked to leave the family until you agree to live your life exactly the way they want you to. I don’t suppose it’s any different than coming out that you’re gay. Or a liberal Democrat. It’s hard. I love my family. But hiding who I am, that’s harder.”

  “When did you decide to come out?”

  “What do you mean?” Kayla asked.

  “When did you start doing readings?”

  “Oh. When my money started running out. I’m a student, McKenzie. I’m studying sociology at Macalester. I have a half-ride scholarship and a low-interest student loan, but that only goes so far, and this is a pretty expensive school. I’m not getting help from my family, so to make some extra money, I’ve been doing readings, just a couple a week. My roommate and a few friends have been encouraging me. They all think I should do this for a living. Only I haven’t had the training. I’ve taken a few classes, but like I said, I’m a full-time student. I really don’t have the time or the money. Maybe after I graduate …

  “For now—I’m still learning my craft, so I’m trying to stay low-key. I don’t do ambush readings. I don’t go up to people on the street and tell them I have a message from their dead uncle even if their dead uncle wants me to deliver a message. I’m not sure anyone does that except for the mediums on TV.

  “I try to be as honest as I can, as professional as I can,” Kayla said. “This thing with Ryan Hayes, though … I shouldn’t have told him what I did. Now a man is dead and I’m not sure why. The police officers that talked to me weren’t very forthcoming. One of them, the woman—”

  “Jean Shipman?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s kind of mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or was that an act, like in the movies? Good cop, bad cop?”

  “No, she can be mean.”

  “Honestly, McKenzie, I’m frightened that somehow I’m to blame for all of this.”

  “You can’t fault yourself for what people do with the information you give them.”

  “I keep telling myself that.”

  “Besides, if anyone is to blame, it’s me.”

  “You?” Kayla asked.

  “For involving myself in all of this. There’s a lot to be said for staying home and reading a good book.”

  Kayla took a sip of the drink in front of her. She was underage, so I didn’t think it was alcoholic—probably a colorless soft drink with a twist of lime, which must have cost her at least a Lincoln in a joint like that. I decided to pick up the tab, having been a poor college kid myself at one time.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “Have you told anyone else about Leland Hayes and Ryan and the money?”

  “No. Well…”

  “Well?”

  “I told a few friends.”

  “The friends that are encouraging you to make use of your gifts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that include the man sitting at the bar?”

  Kayla’s head twisted toward the bar and back at me so quickly I was amazed she didn’t suffer whiplash.

  “I spotted him the moment I walked through the door,” I said.

  “You have gifts, too.”

  “Does he know the topic of our conversation?”

  Kayla nodded.

  “Wave him over,” I said.

  She did.

  I called him a man and technically he was, but seeing him up close I decided that he couldn’t have been much older than Kayla.

  “I’m McKenzie.”

  I offered my hand and he shook it. His grip wasn’t particularly firm, but he was watching Kayla at the time, so …

  “Join us,” I said.

  He waited until Kayla nodded her head before pulling a chair from an empty table and sliding it in front of ours.

  “And you are?” I asked.

  “Kyle Kershey.” He spoke his name as if he didn’t expect me to believe him.

  “You kids know each other well?”

  Kershey actually blushed at the question.

  “We met on campus,” Kayla said.

  “You’re going to Macalester, too?”

  “I’m a junior,” Kershey said.

  “What are you studying?”

  “Anthropology.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “No, no, no.” Kershey told me that I would be surprised at the job opportunities and listed a dozen.

  I was surprised, too, especially when he mentioned foreign service officer and social media analyst in the same breath. I told him that I had always thought of anthropologists as the guys who dug up old bones.

  He said anthropology was the science of human beings regardless of when they lived.

  I flashed on Leland Hayes.

  “How ’bout twenty-two years ago?” I asked.

  “Now we’re talking ancient history,” the kid said.

  If only, my inner voice said.

  “This thing with Leland and Ryan Hayes and all that money—is this a topic of conversation between you and your friends?” I asked.

  “Not a topic,” Kershey said. “Kayla told us what happened and that she went to meet with you, to warn you. She was afraid that she broke the rules that psychics are supposed to follow.”

  And then broke the rules some more while she discussed breaking the rules.

  “When the cops showed up at the dorm, we talked about that, too,” he added.

  “Whose idea was it that she and I should meet here?” I asked. “Instead of talking on the phone?”

  “I prefer to speak to people in person,” Kayla said.

  “So you can read them?”

  She nodded.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “Your girlfriend…”

  Kershey blushed again, but I guessed the term was accurate, because Kayla reached across the table and took his hand.

  “I’m guessing you’re here to protect her,” I said. “Neither of you know me, and you want to make sure your girlfriend is okay. Think wingman on a blind date, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only you’re not doing Kayla any favors sitting on the other side of the room. How are you going to keep me from reaching ’cross the table and grabbing your girl by the throat?”

  “McKenzie,” Kayla said.

  “Instead, you want to be sitting next to her. Your presence alone might discourage me from doing something foolish.”

  “She wanted to speak to you in private,” Kershey said.

  “Fine. You sit here until I arrive, introduce yourself, and excuse yourself to the bar. My knowing that you’re near might also keep me from doing something
foolish. I tell you this because”—I gestured at Kayla—“if you’re going to do readings of people you don’t know, you need to be careful. Do I have to tell you that?”

  Kayla continued to hold Kershey’s hand while she reached across the table with her other hand and grabbed mine. I smiled and shook her hand free before it became creepy and stood up. I reached into my pocket, grabbed a twenty, and dropped it on the table.

  “On me,” I said.

  “McKenzie, no,” Kayla said.

  I grabbed my coat off the back of the chair.

  “Keep in touch,” I said. “Let me know if you run into Ryan Hayes again.”

  “I will,” Kayla said.

  “Take care, you guys.”

  “See you later,” Kershey said.

  I turned and headed for the door, telling myself that “See you later” was such a Minnesotan thing to say. At the same time, it made me flash on everything else Kershey had told me, especially the part about how anthropologists analyze social media. It reminded me that Karl Anderson’s website claimed that he provided expert social media research and analysis.

  I wonder if that’s the same thing, my inner voice said.

  * * *

  My Mustang was parked on Grand Avenue. I put on my gloves against the ten-degree temperature as I walked to it, climbed inside, started the engine, and eased it into the traffic. I passed several other parked cars as I accelerated. One of them was started, moved onto Grand, and began following me. A sudden shiver rippled through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

  I drove east along the border of the Macalester campus toward Snelling Avenue, telling myself that I was just being paranoid. Even so, as I slowed to a stop because of the traffic light, I unzipped my leather jacket so I would have easy access to the SIG.

  I watched carefully to see if the driver attempted to move parallel to me—like the driver who had killed Frank Fogelberg. He didn’t. Instead, his turn signal told me that he intended to follow me south on Snelling, and when the light changed, that’s exactly what he did, staying three cars lengths behind me.

  My cell phone began playing Louis Armstrong’s opening cadenza to “West End Blues.” I refused to answer, letting the call roll over to voice mail while I concentrated on the vehicle behind me. I couldn’t identify it in the dark, although I was pretty sure that it wasn’t Anderson’s Chevy Tahoe.

  When we reached St. Clair, I hung a sharp right. The trailing vehicle kept going straight. That didn’t exactly set my mind at ease, however. I continued along St. Clair until I hit South Vernon Street and hung another right, this time without signaling. Vernon took me into an area of St. Paul we called Tangletown because the streets had no rhyme or reason to them. It was as if they were laid out by a particularly creative child playing with an Etch A Sketch. I drove them carefully. If someone was still following me, I would have known it.

  Unless they tagged your car again.

  I returned to the garage beneath my building and searched the Mustang with my hand-cranked flashlight. This time I didn’t find anything, and believe me, I looked real hard.

  * * *

  I didn’t think to listen to my voice mail until I was alone in the condominium. I accessed it even before I took off my jacket. The message was from Esti Braaten; I remembered that I had given her a card with my phone number.

  “Mr. McKenzie, my daughter and I have just suffered through a very unpleasant police interrogation.”

  In the background, I heard Hannah’s voice say, “Really, Mom? Interrogation?”

  “We would like to discuss the matter with you as soon as possible. Would it be convenient for you to meet us at eleven tomorrow morning at the Twin Cities Psychic and Healing Festival? Hannah will be giving a lecture at ten and won’t be available until after that. You can find us at her booth near the wall on your right when you enter.”

  “Why not?” I said aloud, although there was no one to hear me.

  I dropped the cell back into my inside jacket pocket and glanced down at the hockey bag and sticks still resting next to the desk.

  Ahh, what the hell, my inner voice said.

  I picked up my equipment and headed for the door.

  ELEVEN

  The Twin Cities Psychic and Healing Festival was held in a hotel in a suburb just south of Minneapolis not far from the airport. I was surprised by its size—the festival’s, not the hotel. A twelve-dollar ticket bought me access to well over fifty vendors operating out of booths in an enormous ballroom, plying a dizzying array of products designed to improve my health and/or soothe my soul, including jewelry, crystals, pendulums, essential oils, diffusers, candles, incense, aromatherapy products, makeup, organic skincare products, and self-improvement courses.

  They also offered me holistic means of improving my health; guidance and spiritual healing through meditations, lessons, affirmations, and spiritual coaching; products to provide me with cellular detoxification; an aura reading designed to give me insight into my personality traits, relationships, career choices, true life purpose, and areas of personal growth; cranial sacral therapy, whatever the hell that was; and a reflexology session whereby a woman, using gentle pressure with her thumb and fingers on the reflex-pressure-point areas of my feet and hands, would reduce my stress, induce deep relaxation, improve circulation, boost energy levels, and rebalance all my major health systems.

  You should do that last one, my inner voice told me, but I ignored it.

  I discovered a Crystal Master who used “sound healing modalities, light, and all elements of the universe” to bring peace and light to everyone she encountered at a rate of $75 for a twenty-five-minute session and $140 for fifty minutes.

  Another woman claimed to be able to channel the highest spiritual guidance and healing possible to bring clients powerful, practical healing and comfort for $110.

  Still another promised to help individuals seek guidance from their Light Entourage, which included their Higher Selves, Guides, Angels, and even at times their passed-on loved ones, all for a ridiculously low price of $33 for twenty-five minutes.

  A psychic who went by one name, like Madonna, offered to help me achieve a greater sense of inner freedom and self-worthiness, peace, and personal power through a combination of Energy Healing, Pranic Crystal Healing, Intuitive Scanning, Personalized Meditations, and Customized Affirmations, as well as EFT tapping.

  A Reiki Master provided Norse Runes readings.

  A Brazilian shaman offered readings with Avalon cards, Peruvian coca leaves, and Afro-Brazilian tarot.

  A man who looked like Bobby Dunston’s father was not only a Certified Master Hypnotherapist, Reiki Master, ThetaHealer, and Alternative Medicine Practitioner but also claimed to be an exceptional palm reader.

  Still another woman who went only by her first name believed that her integrated palmistry/tarot readings were the clearest way to give me both broad and specific peeks into my destiny.

  And then there were the dozen or so straight-up psychic mediums who all promised to connect me with loved ones who had passed over and, in most cases, to bring healing messages from the spirit world. They were scattered throughout the ballroom, each manning a booth that included a slightly out-of-the-way sitting area where they could meet with those clients that reserved time on their sign-up sheets. No two were side by side, and in most cases they were separated by several booths.

  They all seemed to market themselves differently.

  I walked up one aisle and found a psychic medium blessed with insight of intuition, clairvoyant, clairsentient, and clairaudient abilities who said that she had studied for a lifetime. Another claimed that she had forty years of experience traveling the world and doing energy work, readings, and ghostbusting. Another claimed to be “naturally gifted.” Yet another boasted that she was one of the most admired psychic mediums by those in the know.

  Walking down the next aisle, I found a woman—the majority of psychic mediums were women, I noticed—who dipped into her “spiritua
l toolbox” that included psychic, empathic, and mediumship abilities to best serve her clients; a woman with a direct and honest style that allowed clients to navigate through the fluff; and a woman who provided five-star integrity and an objective approach.

  Across from them was a booth where two men worked as a team to provide clients with satisfying answers. Twenty yards to their left were three women who combined their individual gifts to give powerful and meaningful messages that would enlighten my journey.

  I came close to laughing out loud a half-dozen times. Why wouldn’t I? This was a universe of which I had no practical knowledge or experience, and because of that it was easy for me to dismiss it out of hand. Yet the place was packed with people both young and old. They couldn’t all be crazy, could they?

  I wandered around until I found a stand that served French beignets. I bought a couple and wandered some more.

  Hannah Braaten had a booth just where Esti said it would be, except it was empty. My watch told me that she was still giving her lecture. The program I picked up at the door said that the festival offered three different fifty-minute-long lectures and workshops every hour on the hour. Hannah’s was called “Spiritual Protection and Psychic Self-Defense: How to Protect Yourself in Daily Life.” The title made me wonder if there might be something to all those movies I’ve seen over the years where the ghost hunters were attacked by the ghosts, a thought that would never have invaded my consciousness if Shelby Dunston hadn’t insisted on telling me that a dead man had put a price on my head.

  I finished the beignets and dropped the empty bag in a trash bin. Eventually the hall began filling with people who had just come from the lecture halls. The volume had already been high, the noise of a couple hundred people talking and moving about amplified by the walls and high ceiling of the ballroom. Now it shimmered with newfound excitement.