Rituals

by Mary Anna Evans

  “Look at her. She can barely help herself.”

  “I know, but I’d feel the same way in her shoes. Do you think it’s possible that someone wanted them both dead?”

  Avery gestured at the folding camp chair beneath her. It looked insubstantial under her powerful legs and trunk. “I could type up my notes a lot easier if I went back to my office and worked on a computer with a real keyboard. But you see that I’m sitting here. Also, my house is a lot closer to Rosebower than that place where you and your daughter are staying, yet you’re commuting in every day and I’m not. There’s no logical reason I can’t drive home when I finish working this afternoon. Why do you think I’m sleeping over there again tonight?” She pointed at Rosebower’s overpriced inn.

  “So you can keep an eye on Myrna?”

  Avery nodded. “I’ve spent the last couple of days sitting here, watching who walks up and down these sidewalks. When I checked into the inn, I asked for a corner room that overlooks Walnut and Main. It gives me a view of everything that goes on late at night in metropolitan Rosebower.”

  “I’m guessing that nothing goes on here late at night. Look at the demographics. There’s no work for young people, so they’re all gone. This is, for all intents, a retirement community.”

  “That makes my job easy.” Avery extended her hands slightly to the left and right, encompassing the length of the sleepy little street in front of her. “If I see any activity at all on this street late at night—in this neighborhood, actually—it’s automatically suspect. I didn’t sleep a lot last night. I saw exactly nothing.”

  “Thank you for looking out after Myrna. She’s special.”

  Avery nodded again, but held her silence. She seemed to be waiting for Faye. Faye must have looked as clueless as she felt, because Avery prompted her. “There was one unusual thing happening in Rosebower this week, even before the fire.”

  It took a second for Faye’s cluelessness to fall away. “We’re unusual. Amande and me.”

  Avery still didn’t speak, so Faye knew she needed to dig deeper. “In this town…on this street…everything we do is noticeable.” What was the link Avery wanted her to find? “We stick out. People know who we are and they notice what we’re doing. Someone almost certainly saw us go to dinner at Tilda’s, and maybe they told somebody else. Maybe that somebody told somebody else.”

  Avery’s meaning came clear, and it was so obvious that Faye knew she’d been hiding it from herself. “The arsonist thought Tilda was in the séance room. He or she had every reason to believe that Myrna was in there, too, because she’s in there every night after dinner. And in a little town, gossip is a way of life. It’s entirely possible that the arsonist thought Amande and I were still in that room, too.”

  The image of someone nailing Amande into a room and trying to burn her alive drove reason away. “Somebody may have been trying to kill my daughter and me. Or maybe the arsonist just didn’t care what happened to us, not if the goal of killing Tilda or Myrna or both of them was important enough.”

  Finally, Avery’s unveiled eyes said that Faye had reached the right conclusion. “How long have you two been in town? Hardly more than a week. That’s not much time to make enemies, but I heard you got crosswise with Ennis yesterday. Do you make a habit of confronting strangers?”

  “No! Well, sometimes…anyway, we’ve hardly spoken to anybody but Myrna and Tilda and Samuel. And that retired physics teacher, Toni, and the elder from the church and Dara and Willow. And yeah, Ennis and Sister Mama…which means that everybody who saw Amande stand up to Ennis knows who we are, but I think they’re on our side. Everybody likes Sister Mama and nobody seems to like Ennis. So maybe we have met a lot of people, but it’s not hard. These people are bored with each other, and there’s no point in talking to a tourist who’s going home tomorrow. Amande and I stand out.”

  “It’s just such a coincidence….” Avery mused.

  “You’re not thinking we had anything to do with the fire?”

  Avery shook her head. “Myrna told me the clock was striking eight as you left, and that’s such a poetically old lady thing for her to remember that it’s gotta be true. We have you on video getting gas at 8:07. Julie remembered serving you and your beautiful daughter ice cream just after that, so we know you’re telling the truth about what you did between the gas station and the hotel.”

  Faye wasn’t sure she remembered as much about her evening as Avery knew, even thought she had lived it. It was profoundly disconcerting to be interesting enough, in a law enforcement sense, for an investigator to compile a timeline of her activities. And knowing that video existed that showed her obliviously pumping gas creeped her out completely.

  Avery continued cataloging Faye’s activities. “So, let’s figure fifteen minutes for ice cream and forty minutes for driving. Your 911 call came through at 8:59, so maybe you sped a little. There’s no way you had enough time to burn down a house with somebody inside.”

  “But somebody did. Where was everybody else in Rosebower at eight o’clock?”

  “There’s no doubt about where the tourists were. Dara and Willow start their show at seven sharp, and they finish at nine sharp every night. I’m told you can set a clock by the traffic leaving their parking lot.”

  “That gives Dara and Willow an alibi.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I suppose I’m the alibi for the convenience store clerk. And for Julie. I don’t remember whether we saw anybody else.”

  “The convenience store clerk doesn’t need your help. We have him on video for the entire evening. Julie’s alibi is decent. I don’t think she would have had time to run over to Tilda’s and set the fire after you left. Even if she had, her boss has vouched for her.”

  “And she’s vouched for the boss?”

  “Dwight? Yeah. Not airtight alibis for either of them but, like I said, decent.”

  “Samuel told me he was home alone, so no alibi for him. I don’t think Myrna could hold a hammer, much less nail the door shut, and no one could make me believe she would do anything to harm Tilda. Sister Mama couldn’t get her wheelchair up Tilda’s porch stairs if she tried, so she hardly needs an alibi. Ennis, on the other hand…”

  “Ennis has no alibi. None. His aunt was asleep. I do give him credit for not trying to get his aunt to alibi him, though God only knows whether she can still keep track of time well enough to be a credible witness. He can’t even show that he was on the Internet or on the phone at any time that evening. He says he was watching TV, and maybe he was.”

  Faye started to speak, but Avery held up a hand to quiet her. “I’m going out on a limb to share these things with you, but you already knew everything you did that evening, and it’s not hard to speculate about alibis in a town where most of the citizens were in bed when all hell broke loose. You’re an important witness and you think like an investigator, so I may come back to you with questions, but I have to maintain the integrity of my investigation.”

  “I understand. If there’s any way I can help, I will. Tilda was my friend. But this is your job.”

  “You seem to know your way around an arson investigation.” Avery held up a hand to shield her face from the bright sunshine. She and Faye had been talking so long that the sun had begun its afternoon dip, clearing the canopy of their shade tree. “Do you want to tell me why?”

  “I survived a house fire a few years back, and I helped out informally in the investigation. Archaeology is a lot like arson detection, in some ways. You find clues, you take samples, you send the samples to a lab and hope they tell you what you want to know. In the process, you destroy a little piece of the evidence and you can never get it back.”

  “I never thought about it that way. You’re an investigator and, in my way, I’m an archaeologist. I dig through ashes, looking for the truth about the past.”

  “That’s why your work intere
sts me so much,” Faye said. “Besides, the last time I watched an arson investigation, a friend of mine had died, so I was personally involved. That’s true again this time. Helping with that other investigation helped me deal with my friend Carmen’s death.”

  “And you’re thinking it might work that way this time.” Avery handed Faye her card. “Well, I can’t promise to say much back, but I can listen.” Her eyes followed Faye’s hands as she tucked the card into her wallet. “I’m trying to watch over Myrna while I do my job, but I’m only one person. I can’t follow you and your daughter everywhere you go. There are things going on here that I don’t understand. Yet. Please be careful, Faye.”

  ***

  Amande wondered if Ennis had ever in his life been alone with a woman. The man just would not stop talking, even though he was still standing half a room away from her. It was entirely possible that he was more scared of her than she was of him. This was saying something, since she was still clutching a weapon in her lap.

  She now knew that after thirteen years of on-again-off-again parenting, his mother had chosen drugs over him and disappeared. Since her mother had only taken a year to make that decision, Amande thought she was the winner in the shitty-birth-mother contest. She wondered if he’d figured out yet that when shitty people leave a person’s life, they make room for someone wonderful to come in. And this took her full-circle to the question of whether Ennis appreciated that Sister Mama was wonderful for stepping into his life when his shitty birth mother stepped out.

  She’d also learned that the only thing Ennis had gleaned from his expensive private school education was that rich people could be as shitty as poor people. Since it took him a while to explain this, she’d had plenty of time to wonder whether she should alert the Nobel people so they could fly him to Oslo to accept his Peace Prize.

  Ennis had made sure she knew how good he was at running his aunt’s business. As best Amande could tell from his rambling monologue, his management skills were not nearly as fabulous as he thought they were. His understanding of the concepts of “accounts receivable” and “profit margin” seemed to be about as vague as her father’s, which is why Faye had the final financial word on their family’s business and its finances.

  Amande did give Ennis credit for one important skill, maybe the most important one in his line of work. He could sell things. In person, his twitchy personality would scare the bejesus out of customers, but he must be doing something right online. Ennis had been quite believable as he described how quickly he was building his great-aunt’s business.

  Sister Mama’s hoodoo products apparently brought in way more cash than Ennis spent making and shipping them. Thus, the amount of money retained in the company’s bank account grew every month. This was all Ennis knew about their financial status, and it seemed to be all he wanted to know.

  It occurred to Amande that a business could coast for a very long time on good sales, even if its manager was a total idiot. The day would come, though, when the sales dipped or an unexpected expense loomed. That was when a good manager would save the day. She hoped Sister Mama was still in good enough shape to deal with the next crisis when it came, because her heir apparent didn’t seem up to it.

  Ennis must have run out of things to say, so he took a step forward and said, “Hey,” just as he’d done when he first arrived. Amande didn’t know whether she wanted him to come closer or not. In a panic, she decided that she didn’t. She reached for a pencil with her left hand, signaling that she needed to get back to work and that it was time for him to leave. In her lap, she shifted her grip on the weapon. Suddenly, his nervous head twitched in the direction of the window behind her, and his whole body was in motion.

  This was the moment Amande had feared when she had palmed the spear-point, but something wasn’t right. He was running faster than she’d have ever suspected such an awkward man could move—evidently his twitchiness also expressed itself in terms of quick reflexes—but he wasn’t moving toward her.

  He bypassed her desk and disappeared into the closet in under a second. She knew by the slamming sound of the service door that he was out of the building a heartbeat later. Two heartbeats after that, Amande was absolutely not surprised to see her mother enter through the usual door. If Ennis’ courageous exit, triggered by the approach of a scrawny middle-aged woman, was intended to make her feel undying attraction, it wasn’t working.

  Ennis was sharp enough to know that the incident at the diner would not endear him to her mother. Rather than try to change Faye’s mind about him, he hadn’t stuck around long enough to do what a normal man would have done—shake her hand and charm her in preparation for the day when he might want to ask her daughter out. But why should she expect Ennis to do what a normal man would do? Any fool could see that he wasn’t normal. And any fool could see that Amande would be an idiot to go out with him, although that’s what he seemed to want.

  Amande saw no need to worry her mother with this knowledge.

  ***

  Faye settled herself at her worktable, proud to see how focused Amande was on her work. She wanted badly to ask her how far she’d gotten with the transcription of the Armistead letter, but she held her tongue. Parenting a toddler was so vastly different from parenting a young adult that they might as well be two different activities. Two-year-olds were tiny people with a death wish. If parents didn’t meddle with their every desire, they might not live to see three. Michael’s recent encounter with a sharp stick was proof of that.

  By contrast, meddling with an adolescent’s every desire was a virtual guarantee that one’s child would head for the hills at age eighteen, never to be seen again.

  Nope. Faye wasn’t going to fall into that trap. Amande was a responsible young woman. She’d have her job completed by the end of the day and Faye would hear about it then. Faye nodded in her general direction and set to work on her own tasks.

  ***

  Amande took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. If her mother had come snooping at her desk, she’d have realized that not a single word of the Armistead letter had been transcribed while she was gone. This would have triggered a barrage of questions about what she’d been doing or, worse, a long reproachful look. Amande hated Faye’s reproachful looks.

  Grateful to have dodged both those bullets, she squinted at her computer’s clock and felt encouraged. She could absolutely finish this letter before the end of the workday. Thus, she could safely keep Ennis and his unsettling visit to herself.

  This was good. If Faye were privy to any knowledge of this visit, the barrage of questions might last until her twenty-first birthday, unless Amande cracked and committed matricide. Since she loved her mother and wanted to keep her alive, Amande focused on transcribing the letter and on keeping her mouth shut until quitting time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Faye couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a white-haired lady, decked out in a polka-dotted dress and pearls, bawling out a middle-aged man who was taking his punishment with his head held high. Probably she’d seen her grandmother bless out a wayward plumber or two, but this man wasn’t dressed like he was ready to unstop a drain. He was wearing a suit and tie, and neither was cheap.

  “Miss Myrna…” he was saying, “Miss Myrna, you know I grew up in this town. I’d never do anything that wouldn’t make you proud.”

  Faye couldn’t say exactly what emotion she saw on Myrna’s face, but she was pretty sure Myrna wasn’t proud of this man and whatever it was he was planning to do. Amande stood speechless at Faye’s left elbow.

  At one point in her tirade, Myrna gathered herself well enough to leave aside Victorian ejaculations like “Well, I never...” and “You are no gentleman,” and construct a sentence of her own. She did this with style. “Gilbert Marlowe, my ancestors are rolling over in their graves right this minute. If Tilda were here, she could tell you what they thought, but I can guess right wel
l. I don’t have her talents for talking to the departed, but I know what they’d tell me if I did. They’d say to tell you, ‘No.’”

  Marlowe seemed to be waiting until she finished venting. He didn’t look like he made a habit of listening to opinions that differed from his own, but he stood his ground, silent. Eventually, he seemed to decide that he had listened to Myrna sputter things like, “The very idea!” and “How dare you suggest such a thing?” for a respectful amount of time. Saying simply, “I hope you know how sorry I am for your loss,” he took his leave and returned to his waiting limousine. Limos did have a way of catching the eye, even for people like Faye who had no burning desire to ever ride in one.

  Myrna fired her parting shot at both the fleeing man and his companion, unrecognizable through the darkened glass of the limousine’s rear window.

  “Tell your chauffeur to drive that fancy car back to Pittsburgh, and for the love of God, take this week’s hussy with you. I have yet to meet one who was fit to cross my threshold.”

  As the limousine pulled away from the curb, Faye and Amande ushered Myrna across that threshold and waited for her to quit talking long enough to catch her breath. After the limo had receded into the distance, Myrna was still sputtering. “Can you imagine? It would be like…like Disneyland…with little mechanical things dressed up like our ancestors. And Tilda not cold in her grave.”

  It took two cups of tea, which Myrna insisted on brewing herself, to find out what the man had said that was so upsetting. Gilbert Marlowe had made a career in Pittsburgh as a developer, and a successful one, but he wanted to come home to build the development that would cap his career. Resort hotels, an Ayurvedic spa, a huge theater for Spiritualist meetings and speakers, a golf course, a children’s museum complete with carnival rides…if there was a way to separate metaphysics-minded tourists from their money, this man was planning it for Rosebower. If he had come to Myrna hoping for the Armistead family’s stamp of approval, he had undoubtedly left without it.