Rituals

by Mary Anna Evans

  Was Myrna in danger now? Faye didn’t think Marlowe’s obstacles fared well in this world.

  Myrna was growing more frail by the day. Did her resistance matter to Gilbert Marlowe, when he knew that her heirs, Willow and Dara, would probably sell him anything he wanted after she was dead? The answer to that question depended on how long Gilbert Marlowe was willing to wait.

  ***

  Faye waited until the door closed behind Joe before she hissed, “How did it go?”

  He walked across the room and sat on her desk. Amande sat next to him. They both leaned down to put their mouths next to Faye’s ears, making it impossible for Samuel to overhear this impromptu company meeting.

  “What did he say? Was he pissed that I’d flown my mostly Creek husband up here to explain that, even in the absence of Europeans, civilization can be possible?”

  “You were there when he first saw me, before you disappeared into this room. He was very polite. He has some weird ideas, but he has good manners.”

  “Good. Because you certainly dressed to rub your not-European-ness in his face today.”

  Joe had made a new pair of moccasins for the occasion, and he’d stuck a feather in his braid. This was his version of formal business attire. On “Casual Fridays,” he went barefoot.

  Amande couldn’t contain herself. “So what did he say?”

  “He said the same stuff to me he’s been saying to your mother, and it ain’t nothing new. People have been talking about ancient dead ‘moundbuilder’ cultures since Columbus stepped off the boat. They didn’t want to believe that the people who were here waiting for him could possibly have built awesome things like mounds and pyramids. ‘Cause if they believed that, they would’ve had to think twice about treating them the way they did. Samuel still thinks that way. He wants our report to say that his artifacts prove that aliens came to upstate New York in ancient times.”

  “I think there are still plenty of aliens living here in Rosebower,” Amande muttered. “And some of them are ancient, themselves.”

  Faye covered Amande’s mouth with her hand so she would let her father talk. “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him the same stuff you’ve been telling him. The spaceman artifact is just a souvenir somebody brought home from a trip to Mexico. The Rosebower spear is made out of rock that looks local to me. His runestone is a piece of pottery. It ain’t rare and it’s also local.”

  “Did he blow you off, like he did me?”

  “Not exactly. I’m supposed to come back tomorrow with proof. He wants ‘authoritative’ sources, which to Samuel means books. I told him I couldn’t gather up all the books I needed that quick, but that I could do it if he would consider some Internet sources, too. Maybe he’ll listen. Maybe our problem’s solved.”

  Faye should have been happy that Joe had made progress with Samuel, but she was mostly pissed off. If Samuel had been willing to let her show him published proof, she could have done it a week ago. Instead, he’d spent quite a lot of money on bringing in Joe to tell him the same thing.

  Joe held up his hands in surrender. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe this guy only listens to men, but hey. We’re making some money off the deal.”

  If this statement was supposed to keep Faye from being angry, it missed the mark.

  ***

  Faye couldn’t believe it. The pile of shabby cardboard boxes waiting to be sorted was undeniably smaller. She leaned back in her desk chair, crossed her arms, and did nothing but look at it for a moment. She was glad she’d asked Avery to wait a day for the house tour, because three people working a full eight hours could do an impressive amount of work. Joe had to go back to Florida in a week but, at this pace, Faye had no doubt that she and Amande could finish this contract on schedule.

  “We’re off the clock now, right? Mom?” The unnatural glow of a computer screen reflected on Amande’s young skin.

  “Yes. You’re free to chat or web-surf or watch cat videos. You’ve earned the right to waste your time.”

  “Actually, I’m looking at aerial photos of Tilda’s and Myrna’s land and comparing them to a website on golf course design. I think Marlowe could squeeze a course onto their combined property, but he’d be better off if he had some of the other land around it, too.”

  Joe had gotten comfortable at some point in the day, so his moccasins had been kicked into the corner. He poked Faye in the calf with his bare toe. “She’s as nosy as you are.”

  Faye poked him back without actually acknowledging his “nosy” comment. “Why don’t you email those links to Avery, sweetie, then shut the computer down? I’m starving.”

  “Wait,” Joe said. This was uncharacteristic. Nobody in their family was known for turning down food, or even delaying it slightly.

  Then he walked out of the work room and checked to make sure the rest of the museum was empty. When he returned he said, “I want to talk about the golf course and the burnt house and all the things that go with them. And I want to do it here, where nobody will hear us.”

  Amande rose silently to check the closet. Faye heard the service door’s lock slide into place. Smart girl.

  “It seems to me that we learned some stuff today that changes everything. Marlowe is distracting people from the fact that he doesn’t have enough land to build the development that he’s trying to jam down their throats. The person who did own the land is dead, and the person who owns it now doesn’t look so good. Does any of this mean anything?”

  “It means that Marlowe had a motive for Tilda’s death, but it doesn’t give us anything to link him to the fire. Technically, it means that Myrna had a motive, since she could now sell Marlowe the property that Tilda wouldn’t sell him.

  “But that doesn’t add up, Mom, since we heard Myrna say she’d never sell it to him.”

  “True. But Marlowe seemed surprised by her refusal, didn’t you think? If a man killed a woman, believing that her sister would sell him what he wanted, then it would be an ugly surprise to find out that she wouldn’t sell.”

  “I think I know somebody else that’s surprised,” Joe said. “I think the red-haired psychic was real shocked to find out she wasn’t getting an inheritance. I saw how much she wanted that crystal ball this morning. Maybe she wanted the property that bad, too, so’s she could sell it to Marlowe. It would be a terrible thing to kill your own mother, then find out you weren’t going to inherit a fortune, after all.”

  “Or to kill your mother-in-law, only to find out that your wife has been disinherited,” Faye said, watching Amande pout at a suggestion of Willow’s guilt.

  Amande responded by changing the subject. “What about the crystal ball and the lemons and nails and pennies?”

  “The lemons and nails and pennies are a hex.” Joe said it matter-of-factly, as if everybody knew that walking over rotten citrus fruit would give a person bad luck. “I’ve heard of it. I’ve seen it done. Never tried it myself.”

  Faye hoped Joe never tried to hex her. She said, “So somebody who believes in hoodoo was trying to give the Armistead sisters some bad luck.”

  “It looks that way to me,” Joe said. “The crystal ball is different, though. I don’t think it was a hex. It wasn’t there nearly as long as those lemons—“

  “Yuck,” said Amande. “They were gross.”

  “—and the two of you sat in the same room with it on Monday night. It left the house right afterward, or Avery would have found it while she was searching through the ashes. I’d say that either Mrs. Armistead or her killer took it out of the house right after you left.”

  “Makes sense,” Faye said. “But which?”

  “Let’s start with the set-up you told me first—the killer nailed the séance room shut, thinking she was in there, but she wasn’t. She escaped from the burning house, but not before she breathed in enough smoke to die from smoke inhalation. T
he only way the killer comes away from that scenario with the crystal ball is by taking it before he thought Mrs. Armistead would go in the room. After that, the ball was nailed up in the room.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Faye said. “Tilda was so attached to her crystal ball. No one who knew her would be certain how she would behave if she opened the séance room door and saw that it was missing. Maybe she would go in to look for it, making it possible for the killer to nail the door shut behind her. But maybe she wouldn’t go in. Maybe she’d start searching the house for her crystal ball. Maybe she’d even leave the house to get help finding it.”

  “But if Tilda suspected something,” Faye said, “she might have gone in and gotten the ball before the killer even arrived. Maybe because she knew the killer wanted it?”

  Amande interrupted her again but, again, her observation was astute. “Or maybe she just wanted to be sure her prized possession was safe.”

  “I think that’s our answer,” Faye said. “Tilda managed to get out of the room—but not the house— in the tiny window of time before her killer came, and she took the ball with her. The killer nailed an empty room shut and set the house on fire. Tilda escaped, but the hot smoke had already ruined her lungs. I lean toward this scenario because it explains the hiding place of the ball. Why would the killer have left it behind after going to the trouble of stealing it from Tilda’s? And remember what Tilda said when she was dying? She said she tried to wake Myrna. I think she saved herself and the ball from the fire, then ran across the street to wake up her sister. The ball was heavy, so she hid it under Myrna’s house.”

  Joe and Amande both liked this logic. Their satisfied smiles were so alike that Faye would have sworn they were blood-kin.

  “But Mom, none of this explains why Tilda came to you. That’s been bothering me all week. She hasn’t left town in years, but she crawled behind the wheel of her car to come to you for help. Don’t take this the wrong way, but she hardly knew you.”

  “I didn’t understand it then, but five more days in this town has answered that question. Think about it. Who would Tilda have gone to for help?”

  “She tried to get to Myrna and couldn’t,” Amande said. “I’m not sure if she trusted anybody else.”

  “Exactly. She wasn’t on speaking terms with Willow and Dara. Samuel told me himself that they weren’t close. He said she wasn’t close to their neighbors, either. Sister Mama would have been no help, and I wouldn’t trust Ennis as far as I could throw him. Most people would call 911, but we’ve seen how her sister feels about doctors. Tilda probably felt the same way about any emergency responder. Besides, who would that responder be? A call to 911 might bring someone who hated her for the way she voted at council meetings. Tilda must have felt her only choice was to turn to a friendly stranger. Of course I would help her. Why wouldn’t I? More importantly, I had no reason to hurt her.”

  “I see what you’re saying, but Mom. It’s horrible. Other than Myrna, there was no one in Rosebower that Tilda could trust.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  There are few things more awkward than gossiping about someone, then finding yourself face-to-face with her. Faye had just spent ten minutes dissecting Dara like a laboratory specimen. Her husband and daughter had listened while Faye dumped on her for feuding with her mother. She’d made catty comments about Dara’s faux-red hair, smug in the knowledge that her own hair was still black and her grandmother’s hair had stayed black until she was eighty. She’d rolled her eyes at the way the woman failed to turn off her theatrical mannerisms after the curtain had dropped. Then the three of them had walked out the museum door, only to see Dara hurrying toward them.

  “I’m so glad I caught you before you went home.”

  Faye had done the mocking, but the other two had egged her on. The fact that Dara couldn’t read their shame-faced auras spoke against any claim she might make for telepathic powers.

  “I can’t sleep tonight without trying to contact my mother again. She was with us this morning, but Willow ruined everything. Now I’ve disturbed her without giving her peace. My mother and I must reconcile, or neither of us will ever rest. Can you find it in yourselves to help me again? Tonight?”

  “Now?” Faye asked, trying not to form the thought, What a drama queen! And failing. “Do you mean that you want all six of us at the table again, with Joe watching and Willow taking notes? Before bedtime?”

  Amande butted in. “Forget before bedtime. You have a show tonight. Are you saying you want to do this tonight before curtain time? It’s not possible.”

  “We’re not doing a show tonight. Maybe not ever again. Willow and I have split. He doesn’t believe in what I do. Never has. He wants me to cheat. Nags me into it, every night. He thinks I threw that bowl at his head, but it wasn’t me. It was my mother. She was controlling my body.”

  She ran the shaking fingers of her hands through her hair. Her rings snagged on the abundant curls and she yanked both hands free, letting single orange strands fall to the ground. “My mother. She knew what Willow was. She told me, years ago, and still I let him come between us. If I ask her tonight, without cheating and without Willow, she will come. She will.”

  Faye repeated her question. “Do you need all of us? Everybody who was there this morning? I’m not sure Sister Mama is up to it.” Faye wasn’t sure she was up to it either. Surely Dara had noticed that none of them had said yes, not yet.

  “No. We’ll be four at the table. You, your daughter, me, and my aunt. I don’t need an assistant. Willow made me include him so that he could knock on the walls and stir up smelly breezes. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be rid of him.”

  Faye was thinking of a different kind of assistance. If she had been nervous enough that morning to ask Joe to stand guard, she was doubly so tonight. “Avery can help Joe stand watch. She’s trained and she’s armed.”

  It crossed Faye’s mind that Dara accepted the need for guards very easily. She wasn’t supposed to know that her mother’s death was due to arson, but she had already commented on Avery’s prolonged investigation.

  “Invite Avery? Good idea. If she’s still hanging onto my mother’s crystal ball as evidence, instead of doing the right thing by giving it to my aunt, I’ll bet I can talk her into bringing it. I’m not stupid enough to think that Avery would still be here if my mother died in a simple house fire. If she wants information, she should like the notion of this séance because, basically, we’re restaging the night of the fire even more closely than we did this morning. The only difference is that I’ll be sitting in my mother’s chair.

  “And there will be two people standing guard,” Faye said.

  Dara nodded. “Even the house is virtually identical. I know that Mother has things to reveal. Tonight, she’ll come back to me from the other side. She will.”

  ***

  Toni pulled the wig over her head. Her own hair, coiled on her crown, fit under it snugly. The wig was the same color as her natural hair, making it possible for her to tug out a few short locks. Teased and combed over the wig’s edge, they gave a more natural-looking hairline. She held up a hand-mirror to check the result from all angles, and she saw that she’d achieved the desired look. Her head looked like it belonged to an aging man who liked to wait a little too long between haircuts.

  She was the first to admit that she owned far too much makeup. Creams to change the skin tone, powders to emphasize brows, pencils to create wrinkles that she didn’t have yet—she loved them the way an artist loves charcoals and pastels. Smoothing concealer over her lips, she changed them to a color that was less pink and more mannish. With the sweep of a powder-laden brush, she gave herself a five-o’clock shadow. A bit of stippling with a fine black pencil made that shadow still more believable. Contouring powder made her brow more pronounced and her jaw firmer.

  After strategic application of three colors of foundation makeup,
her hands now looked less soft and more sun-damaged. When she was satisfied with her manly looks, she slid the camera watch over a newly rugged hand. If Willow, Dara, or anybody at their show, recognized her tonight, then she would know that the magic had left her life for good. It would be her sign that it was time to walk away from illusion. It would be time to really retire.

  But not now. Right now, Toni felt the familiar rush of pre-performance adrenaline. She was ready to do some magician’s espionage and get video of two fakers in action. She was ready to have some fun.

  ***

  If Joe’s over-analytical wife had ever said that she would someday be willing to submit to three séances in a week, he would have called her nuts. Yet here she was, doing it again.

  He watched Myrna bustle around her parlor. Dara had refused to allow her enough time to brew tea, saying, “Sunset is approaching and we all know that it is the best time to reach the spirit world, other than dawn and midnight.”

  Joe wasn’t sure he agreed with her, but he saw no need to argue. It wasn’t his business to watch for spirits tonight. He intended to stand watch for three-dimensional people who might want to hurt his wife and his child and these other nice people. If any spirits happened by, he would alert the observant Spiritualist after she finished consulting her mother’s crystal ball.

  Deprived of her teapot, Myrna was still driven to play hostess, so she circulated through the room, handing out candy. Even before he smelled it, Joe could see by the look on his wife’s face that it was licorice. He rather liked licorice, so he held out an unobtrusive hand and Faye slid her piece of candy into it with the stealth of a stage magician. He knew Amande felt the same way, so they performed an identical act of sleight-of-hand. Now he had three big pieces of licorice to keep him company while he watched for evildoers. Score!

  Joe and Avery had divided their duties sensibly, based on the fact that she had a gun and he didn’t. He was back in his chair in the front doorway. People in Rosebower kept their front yards manicured, so he had a good line-of-sight up and down Main and Walnut Streets. If anybody wanted to come from any of those directions to set this house on fire, they’d see Joe and they’d know he saw them. He doubted any of them would risk it. If they did, Avery and her gun were within earshot, if he should call for her.