by Tim Kehoe
“Yes! Yes! Yes! The colors special. Perfect. Do you want to get started right away?”
“Ah, yes. Please.”
“Perfect. Follow me,” she said as she took five steps toward what used to be the dining room. The walls were covered with posters of the human nervous system, astrological signs, and weird astrology charts.
“Please lie down.” Betty motioned to a table in the middle of the dining room.
“Excuse me?”
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, motioning again to the table.
I don’t know if it was her kind smile or the fact that I was exhausted from staying up all night with Emma, but I climbed onto the table and lay flat on my stomach.
“Oh, no. Please lie on your back,” Betty insisted. “I need to see your face.”
“I don’t understand,” I said as I slid nervously off the table back onto my feet.
“I need to see your face. It is a big part of your aura. The colors are usually brightest around the face.” She made a circular motion with her hands in front of my face.
“Aura?”
“Yes, dear. I need you on your back to read the colors of your aura,” Betty said. Both of us looked a little confused.
Aura colors? The fall colors special had to do with reading aura colors and nothing to do with leaf colors.
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but is there any way we can do this later? I’ve been on a bus all night and I’m exhausted.” I paused and decided to lie. “And unfortunately, I left my wallet on the bus and don’t have my driver’s license. But I do have cash.”
“Heavens!” she said as she clapped her hands. “You had me so worried. Your colors are awful dark. Awful dark. But if you’re tired, and have had such an unfortunate trip, that would certainly throw them off. Yes, let’s get you a room. We can do the reading later. When you’re brighter.”
“Thanks,” I said, sounding truly relieved.
Betty walked to a desk in the corner of the living room. “You’ll be staying until Friday?” she asked.
“How did you know that?”
“It’s what I do, dear,” Betty replied.
Was she referring to her experience as an innkeeper, or as some sort of fortuneteller?
Betty reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a clipboard. “What’s your birthday, hon?”
“January twenty-sixth,” I blurted out without thinking. That was my dad’s birthday. Why had I selected my dad’s birthday?
Betty said, “That’s strange. You don’t seem like an Aquarius.”
“Oh?” I replied. She was right. I wasn’t an Aquarius.
“Yeah. Aquarians are masculine. Tough-guy types. Aquarius is an air sign. I would have pegged you for an Earth sign. Probably a Taurus.”
Right again, I thought. My birthday is May seventeenth.
“All the same,” Betty said, “I’m going to put you in the Second House.”
“Second House?”
“Yes,” Betty replied. “The Second House is the house of Taurus. I got a feeling it’s what you need.”
“Okay by me.” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Okay, sweetie. Follow me.”
I followed Betty upstairs to a door that featured a large painted bull and a small brass plaque that read SECOND HOUSE.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Betty said as she touched my shoulder.
“Do I need a key?” I asked.
“No. No need for keys here.” She turned and walked back down the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
All four walls in the Second House had been painted emerald green and featured astrology symbols and hieroglyphic-like signs. Someone had painted the words WE OWN OUR EMOTIONS above the door. The only furniture in the Second House was a black futon bed and a dresser with three drawers. The top of the dresser had been covered with sand, a few smooth rocks, and a miniature rake made out of tree bark. I hung out in the Second House long enough to be polite. But the room absolutely gave me the creeps, and I needed to go find a phone.
Betty told me there was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the edge of town. She said she didn’t have a car and the Pig was only a thirty-minute walk for her. It seemed like the Pig was the best bet for buying a phone in Galena, so I headed out.
I took the bluff stairs down to Main Street and walked back to the highway. There were a few people still standing around the accident site, but traffic was flowing now and the hay bales had been removed. Just the same, I was glad to be walking north. I walked for a mile and came upon Galena Senior and Junior High School. Someone had spelled out GO PIRATES with plastic cups stuck through the holes in the chain-link fence surrounding the football field. Pirates? In the middle of the country? Someone had a sense of humor.
I found the Piggly Wiggly about a mile past the school. I picked out the cheapest phone, two seven-dollar T-shirts, and a bag of minidonuts for dinner. The bill came to $69.87. That left me with $234, and it was only Saturday. There were five more days until my dad’s book came out. Five days until I could tell the world that my dad’s new book was 100 percent true. That whatever happened in the book was actually happening in Galena. But there was no way I could stay in Galena for five more days on two hundred bucks. Not if I wanted to eat.
I walked back to Betty’s and closed the door to the Second House. I plugged in my new phone, and it chirped to life. I pulled up my dad’s website, entered the code, and read the next excerpt.
There were many aspects of Carson Kidd’s job that he would agree were difficult. Interrogating corrupt foreign officials was difficult. Running while wearing night-vision goggles was difficult. In the CIA, even the paperwork was difficult.
Carson Kidd could compile a long list of difficulties that came with his job, but spotting a trained killer, that was not one of them. That was easy. The CIA had volumes on the subject. They had entire manuals on assassin behavior. They had elaborate profiles, models, and statistics. And these weren’t your typical Harvard professor touchy-feely hunches about the relationship between bed-wetting and serial killers. No, these were tried and true facts collected by studying killers. By creating killers.
But Kidd didn’t need any of those studies to identify the killer standing in front of him now. He knew this guy was a killer, because they had been trained together. Anton and Kidd had become killers together.
Kidd was about to cross the street and approach Anton when Anton suddenly stopped and knocked on the front door of Cannova’s Pizzeria. An Italian-looking man with long black hair opened the door and had a brief conversation with Anton. And then they both disappeared into the restaurant.
Kidd stood and stared. Did Anton know the guy in the restaurant? Was this part of Anton’s cover?
And then Kidd remembered his training and realized he was standing still in the middle of a public sidewalk. He was drawing attention to himself. Kidd started walking slowly down the sidewalk, trying to blend in. He wondered if he would blow Anton’s cover if he tried to connect with him in public. But as he pushed open the door to Cannova’s Pizzeria, he figured he would pretend to not know Anton until Anton made it clear it was okay to talk.
Kidd stood in the doorway and lowered his left hand. It brushed against his hip. It was a subconscious move. He did it every few minutes without realizing. He only noticed the move when the bump from his faithful sidearm, his SIG, was missing. But it was there now and Kidd subconsciously felt safe as he walked into the restaurant looking for his coworker.
The pizzeria was one small room with a dozen linen-covered tables and brick walls. It looked nice. It looked like the kind of place Kidd would have enjoyed. Like the kind of place that would know how to make good gnocchi. He loved good gnocchi.
Kidd took a few steps into the restaurant. The floor creaked. He paused.
“Hello,” a woman said as she walked out of the kitchen. “We don’t open until noon, but I can bend the rules a little.” She smiled.
/> “Oh, excuse me,” Kidd said. “I thought I saw people coming in.”
“Nope, just the staff. But you’re welcome to stay. Or grab an apron and help out.” She smiled again.
“Ah, that’s okay. I’ll just stop back later,” Kidd said, heading toward the door. He stopped and turned. “How’s your gnocchi?”
“The best in town.”
“Perfect. I’ll be back for dinner.”
“We fill up this time of year. I’d be happy to make you a reservation.” She walked to the podium by the door.
“Thank you. I’m serious about my gnocchi,” Kidd said. “I like to enjoy dinner without a lot of people around. What time does it quiet down around here?”
“Our latest reservation is nine o’clock,” she said, “but we’re usually dead after eight.”
“Nine would be perfect, then,” Kidd said, thinking it might give him a chance to quietly connect with Anton.
“For one?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You won’t be disappointed. Our gnocchi is out of this world. We have a wonderful new chef. He’s Sicilian!”
“Sicilian?” Kidd asked. “What a coincidence. I know a guy from Sicily.”
“And your name?” she asked.
“Carter Kenney,” Kidd lied. “My name is Carter Kenney.”
“Ah, your name sounds a little Irish,” she said.
“More than a little.” Kidd laughed.
“We’ll see you tonight.” She smiled again and set down the pencil.
Carter Kenney was not an alias Kidd had ever used before, but he hadn’t missed a beat when asked. It was an old CIA alliteration trick. When making up a false identity, use your actual initials. It makes the alias easier to remember. It was the same advice the FBI gave to families entering the witness protection program. Heidi Strauss becomes Helen Stassen. Over the years, Carson Kidd had gone by hundreds of names but, for the rest of this trip, he would now be Carter Kenney.
Kidd had no idea what alias Anton was using, but he knew his real name. His name was Amado Anton. Kidd knew just about everything there was to know about Anton. He knew Anton was born in the Philippines and moved to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia when he was twelve. Kidd knew that Anton had joined the navy when he was eighteen and was quickly recruited into the navy’s most elite fighting force, known as SEAL Team Six. He knew they both had been trained at The Farm. And as recently as two weeks ago, they were both members of the CIA. But what he didn’t know was what Anton was doing here and who Anton had been talking to. Was the guy with the long hair the new Sicilian chef? Was he the Sicilian? Had Anton actually managed to find and get close to the Sicilian? If so, why hadn’t he killed him yet? The kitchen at an Italian restaurant should have offered many opportunities to kill him. If, indeed, the man was the Sicilian.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
I lay on the bed thinking about my mom having to come to this town to confront a killer. According to my dad’s book, a world-class killer. The best killer. I’d always known she was tough. But I’d had no idea how tough she truly was.
I wondered if the Sicilian killed my mom. I wanted to skip to the end of the novel and see what happened to her. But according to my dad’s book, Anton and the Sicilian both specialized in making assassinations look like accidents. I assumed that Anton, like my mom, was killed here in Galena. And I assumed that accidents like hot water heaters killing people and hay balers chewing people up and spitting them out hinted at the fact that the Sicilian was still here and still working his way down the list of witness protection rats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
I woke up feeling better than I had in a long time. Maybe it was the magical effects of the Second House. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t slept on a bus. I glanced out the window. It looked perfect outside. I reached down to open the window when I noticed white sand, or salt, piled an inch high on the windowsill. I left it alone. Maybe there was something to Betty’s crazy voodoo. I did feel great, after all.
I checked my dad’s website, and there were two new excerpts available. I was starving and figured I’d read the first one over breakfast.
I found a copy of the Galena Gazette outside my door. I picked it up and walked downstairs. Betty was sitting at the small round table in the middle of the living room. The crystal ball was gone, and the table was now covered with tarot cards.
“Good morning, dear,” Betty said, appearing to be deep in thought.
“Good morning.”
“Say, honey, in all the excitement yesterday, I forgot to ask your name.”
“I, ah—” I quickly tried to think of a name. I remembered Carson Kidd’s advice about keeping your actual initials when making up an alias and, before I could stop myself, I blurted out “Finbar Jennings.”
“Finbar? Well, that’s an unusual name,” Betty said.
“Yes, it is,” I agreed.
I finally got a chance to try living with a different name and I came up with Finbar? Not Fred or Frank, but Finbar? I had gone to school with a Finbar for a while when my mom and I were in Ireland. For whatever reason, his name just came out. Stupid brain.
“Well, it is a lovely name. And, oh, you look so much brighter today. I told you, the House of Taurus was what you needed.”
“The room was great, thank you,” I said. I was just about out the door when I heard Betty call my name. Well, actually, Finbar’s name.
“Yeah?” I responded.
“I know it is none of my business, but is everything all right?” Betty asked.
“Yeah. The room was perfect.”
“No, I mean with you. Sometimes these cards are wrong, but . . .” Betty’s voice trailed off as she looked back down at the tarot cards.
“Never better,” I lied. “I’ll see you in a bit.” I quickly closed the door behind me on the off chance that my aura changed colors when I lied.
It was a perfect day outside. Not a cloud in the sky. I walked down High Street and took the stairs to Main Street. It was 8:30 a.m. and Main Street was already crowded with tourists. I grabbed a booth at a little diner and ordered eggs and a Coke.
I unfolded the Gazette. There was a small photo of Senator White and Attorney General Como along with a story about a recent presidential debate. According to the headline, Como had bested White and was one step closer to becoming the next president of the United States. But most of the Galena Gazette was devoted to the farm accident. There was a large color photo of the victims, Carl and Lily Freiburger. Apparently the Freiburgers had been new residents of Galena. And the story was quick to point out they were new to farming as well. Somehow they both wound up in the farm’s hay baler. But no one was quite sure how. Although everyone interviewed agreed that hay balers were among the most dangerous pieces of equipment on a farm, and several farmers in the area had lost a finger or, in Joe McDermott’s case, an entire arm to a baler, no one had ever heard of a baler taking two whole bodies. Of course, no one, including me, had ever met the Sicilian.
The story went on to remind farmers to use extra care when baling this fall and listed some online resources for additional baling safety instructions.
I set the paper down as the waitress brought over my eggs. I wished I hadn’t seen the picture of the Freiburgers. Looking at Lily’s picture, I knew I had seen her eyes, or eye, before. I pushed my food away. I hated the way my photographic mind worked. All I could see now was Lily’s eye resting in the bloodred hay.
The shrinks had called it eidetic memory. And it was just one more term in a long list of terms that had been assigned to me over the years. An army doctor in Germany thought it was tied to my ADHD. He said that eidetic memory went hand in hand with autism, too. He was darn near giddy when he told me. Like he had discovered something really cool and the connection would excite me, too. It didn’t. I hated the fact that I had very little control over my mind. I didn’t want to remember every single thing I had ever seen. Who w
ould? The shrink may have called it eidetic memory, but I mostly called it a curse.
But for now, Lily’s eye would not leave. I pushed the eggs around the plate, but I couldn’t eat. I decided to walk down to the river and get some fresh air. Maybe I could find a place to sit and read the latest Carson Kidd excerpt on my phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
I found a bench near Grant Park, next to the river. Ulysses S. Grant had lived in this small town for, like, ten minutes when he was a boy, and they were trying to claim him as their own. Whatever it takes to pull in the tourist dollars, I guess.
I pulled out my phone and started reading.
Carson Kidd went back to the DeSoto House Hotel and forced himself to sleep. It was a trick he’d learned over the years. You take sleep whenever, and wherever, you can get it. In his line of work, you never knew when the opportunity would arise again. He set the alarm for 8:45 p.m. and closed his eyes.
The alarm woke him several hours later. But it wasn’t the alarm on the nightstand. This alarm was much louder. It was a fire alarm. Kidd got up and went to the window. It was dark now. There were a couple of tourists still down on Main Street. They were staring up at the DeSoto.
Carson moved to the door and his hand subconsciously brushed his hip. Once again he didn’t notice the move, because his SIG was there.
Kidd took the stairs one flight down to the lobby.
“What’s going on?” he asked one of the employees who was directing hotel guests toward the front door.
“Oh, I’m sure it is just some kid pulling a prank. I apologize for the inconvenience. We should have this straightened out in a few minutes. Please, feel free to visit Cannova’s across the street and have a glass of wine on us,” she said.
Kidd stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked across the street. Cannova’s was packed with hotel guests. So much for the dinner reservation. And so much for quietly connecting with Anton. There were way too many people around. He decided he’d walk along the river. Maybe he’d stroll past Ulysses S. Grant’s house and wait for the crowd to die down.