“What profession? Paranormal Investigation? That’s your profession. I have a profession, I’m a teacher! And a pretty good one!”
“You’re shouting.” She was already heading for the door again.
“Where are you going?”
“To find her doctor, of course.”
But Rita’s doctor was at lunch.
Fortunately it was in the same small cafeteria where Rita was also having hers.
We almost passed the cafeteria window without seeing it. “Elliot--?”
We found Rita sitting alone at a small table, sans hospital johnnie, fully dressed and scarfing down a salad, cheeks pink, the picture of health. I hurried over to her.
“Rita!”
“Top ‘o the morning!”
“A-Are you okay? You look great! How do you feel?”
“Fit as a fiddle and ready for love, minus the slight headache. Have a seat. Hello, Katie.”
“Rita.”
We sat down across from my fiancée. I was pretty sure she was still my fiancée. Though the lack of an engagement ring on her finger wasn’t encouraging.
“You know us!”
“Well, of course, Elliot. Oh! The memory thing. Came back overnight. Clear as a bell now. You two getting enough sleep? Would you like to order something? Coffee?”
She saw me glance again at her naked finger. “It wasn’t stolen, Elliot. It’s in my purse.”
“Oh.” I nodded. Looked up again. “Well, you really look terrific! What does Dr. Svengali say?”
“That I look terrific. He even flirted with me. Seems he can find nothing the least bit wrong with me. Other than my not having the Lexus I drove into town with. That slight part of the amnesia remains, probably caused by my hitting the steering wheel, or so Dr. Scow deems. He said it should come back to me. Other than that, the paperwork’s done, I’m all checked out and free to go! Have some swamp water,” indicating the coffee carafe on the table, “it isn’t bad, considering.”
“You’re checked out of the clinic already?” Katie exclaimed.
“Yep! Heading back to the Lone Star State as soon as Deputy Olson delivers my car.” Rita consulted her watch. “Any minute now.”
I leaned forward. “They found the Lexus? Where?”
Rita picked at lettuce and sprouts. “Hell if I know. Some swamp road or other they said, not all that far from here. There’s a minor dent in the front fender where I apparently made friends with a tree, but they checked out the engine at the police garage and the car appears roadworthy. They even filled the tank for me. Gracious people, these swamp folk.”
I couldn’t believe our luck. “Did they find any footprints? I mean, do they know why you wandered off into the marsh?”
“You’d have to ask your handsome Sheriff Cormac that,” she said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin, “though he’ll probably try to convince you I’m a pothead. Frankly, I don’t care. They’re not pressing charges so I’m…” she glanced again at her watch, “…out of here.” She looked up at us, smiled brightly. “How was the night for you two? Trap any poltergeists!”
“Rita—“
“Oh! Before I forget!” She pulled her purse into the lap, extracted the engagement ring, held it out. To Katie. “Maybe you’d like to try this on for size? We’re about the same height and weight!”
Katie flustered. “I--thank you, no,” sitting back, giving me a weird look.
“No?” Rita slid the ring in my direction. “Too bad, honey, you’re passing up a very nice rock.” And to me: “Elliot--?”
I ignored the ring. “Rita. Please.”
“’Please’ yourself. Don’t act like you’re shocked. Either of you.”
“We came here,” Katie insisted, “to investigate a possible murder. Not run off and have an affair.”
My ex-fiancée smiled convivially. “Maybe that’s what you did, sweetie. But for old Elliot here, trust me, this is running away. And Elliot does not run away lightly. Elliot is pragmatic, Elliot is overly cautious, Elliot detests change and the impracticality of any kind of future not neatly nailed down. Just like me. Or at least he was until you came along.”
As if to underscore this, Garbanzo leapt from Rita’s lap and jumped into Katie’s, rubbing and purring. Katie lifted an automatic hand to pet him, then put it quickly down again.
Rita laughed lightly. “And scooped you both up, apparently! Go ahead, dear, pet the little beast, it’s obvious whom he prefers now.”
“Rita, I want to come home with you!” I blurted.
If I expected either of them to look surprised I was disappointed. Katie just looked at the tablecloth, Rita at her salad, forking a mushroom. “Not to sound like a churlish prom queen, but really, Elliot, I think you had your chance. Even had the night to think it over.”
“I overslept! I’m sorry!”
Rita snorted lightly. “Your body overslept, dear, your mind was…” she glanced at Katie, “…elsewhere.”
Katie pushed back her chair. “I’ll let you two sort this out—“
Rita shook her head, pushed her salad plate across to Katie. “Don’t be silly, dear, there’s nothing to sort out! Here, finish this disgusting thing for me, you look a bit drawn. Keeping late hours?”
And she handed Katie her fork.
To my astonishment, Katie took it, dived in. “Thanks. I’m starving.”
“Not at all. Elliot? Something from the vast clinic kitchen? On me, of course. Shall I order for you?”
“You can order yourself down off your high horse, Rita and quit acting like you’re not upset. I want to come back home. I mean it.”
“You know, it’s the funniest thing…I’m not all that upset. Surprised, yes, and—given my supposed knowledge of what I thought was the real Elliot Bledsoe--maybe a little astonished. But here’s the thing, Elliot, I simply don’t trust you anymore.”
“Look—“
“—and that’s maybe not even the most important part of it. It’s that you don’t trust yourself, don’t know what you really want. Aside from Miss Bracken and her adorable pussy.”
Katie looked up from the salad. Rita looked down at her lap. They both looked down at Garbanzo, curled there.
“Rita,” I began, “you’ve been through a terrible ordeal…you’re not in your right—“
“Elliot. Please. Grant me at least the lack of your usual patronizing attitude. My mind has never been righter. Okay, I don’t remember the exact details of hitting the tree, but I’d never have hit it at all if you’d showed up at my motel that morning.”
“I told you, I--”
“Overslept, yes.” Rita smiled wryly. “on or off Miss Bracken? Never mind, matters not!”
“We are not,” Katie began, “having an af—“
“Look, I don’t care what the hell you’re having,” Rita waved her off, “or what you choose to call it. In the end, you’ll get tired of boffing each other anyway, like all couples. It’s that other thing I’m afraid you won’t get tired of.”
“What…other thing?” I said.
Rita turned to me, the companionable smile dying…a trace of wistfulness replacing it. “Miss Bracken knows. Don’t you, Miss Bracken?”
Katie stared at her salad. “This is between you two,” she replied softly.
Rita gazed at her a moment, no malice or envy behind her eyes, just a strange kind of confidence. “No dear, it’s between you two now. Take him, Katie, make a new man of him if that’s what he needs. Frankly, I never saw two people less inclined to make a relationship work. You’re…polar opposites. But hey, what do I know? Opposites attract, they say.”
“Is that what they say?” I offered.
“I believe so, like magnets. Unless, of course, they repel each other. Anyway, it’s your lives now, here comes my chauffeur…”
Deputy Olson approached the table.
“He’s going to escort me to the main highway, aren’t you, Deputy?--fend off any reptiles along the way and put me on the right path again.�
�
Rita turned to me. I might imagined the beginnings of a mist behind her eyes. “Good-bye, Elliot! There’s a campus full of trusting kids awaiting me! High time I attended to them!”
She stood, pushed the air down before me when I tried to rise.
She lifted her coffee cup as if in toast.
“Here’s to the comforting reassurance of daily routine…” she smiled, looked down at the two of us, “…and what the hell--to things that go bump in the night!”
* * *
We drove from the clinic in silence.
Stayed that way for several miles.
I stared at the road.
Katie stared out the side window at the passing wetlands.
Finally, still not looking at me: “Do you think she’s right?”
“Who? Rita?”
“No, Britney Spears.”
“Right about what?”
She thought a moment. “That all couples eventually wear out.”
“Is that what she said?”
“I think she used the phrase, eventually stop boffing each other.”
I sighed. “I wouldn’t know. I never got to eventually.”
Katie pulled back a curl the warm breeze had lifted, tucked it behind her ear. “What about the tree? Do you think she really hit one?”
“Well…unless the Sheriff’s office is lying, and I don’t think Jimmy would do that.”
“You don’t think someone might have…run her off the road?”
I’d thought about it, certainly. “I don’t know. I guess no one will know until Rita gets her whole memory back.”
Katie leaned her head on her arm. “Dr. Scow might know. If he really took that blood sample.”
I reached into my coat jacket, handed the results Scow had given me before we left the clinic. Katie glanced at them quickly, tossed them between us and went back to her window. “Already read that.”
“Then you know no hallucinogens were found in Rita’s blood.”
“I know that’s what Scow wrote.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning maybe Scow’s in on it.”
I looked at her. “On what?”
She shrugged, sighed. “I don’t know. God, I’m sick of this humidity.”
We drove awhile.
“Are you going back to Austin, Elliot?”
“To what? Rita made her feelings clear in the cafeteria, even without the help of a bullhorn.”
“She hasn’t had enough time be clear about anything. Least of all you.”
“You don’t know Rita. She’s clear. Clear as a bar of used Neutrogena. Besides, I’ve no place to stay. The condo belonged to her. I lost my 401’s and CD’s in the recession, and the engagement ring pretty well wiped me out. Austin’s not exactly an inexpensive town.”
“It’s where your job is, Elliot, at the university.”
“For which I’m more than a little tardy.”
“They’ll relent. Rap your knuckles maybe but always take back the adorable Professor Bledsoe.”
“Maybe. If it’s what I really wanted.”
She was silent a time. “What do you really want?”
“At this moment? To stick around Manchac, Louisiana for a while.”
She closed her eyes to rushing the wind. “Because of me?”
I watched the road a moment. “Because of Amy.”
We drove on.
“So where are we going now?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “the sheriff’s office? I’d like to talk to Jimmy Olson again. Maybe I can lure him aside while you distract Cormac.”
“Jimmy’s escorting your fiancée out of town right now.”
“After lunch, then. That salad couldn’t have been enough for you after Rita was done with it. What was it like, anyway?”
“After Rita was done with it? Mostly vinegar…”
* * *
We had burgers in town at Lotta Eats—“Awful Good Food.”
Katie munched thoughtfully, distracted.
“What are you thinking about?”
She washed down burger with Coke. “What we’ve got so far.”
She wiped her mouth and began ticking off the fingers of her left hand. “Amy Robichou disappears. Twenty years ago. Her older brother Roger dies last week. Of an overdose—maybe an accident, maybe not. His mother Angel, finds Amy’s locket in Roger’s dead hand…”
“So far so good.”
She looked at me. “You really think? What’s good about it?”
“Just an expression, go on.”
She bit into burger-and-cheese, chewed hugely. “Dianne goes to Roger’s crypt, ostensibly to find the source of Roger’s post-mortem funds. Shortly afterward, she’s murdered. Two down, unless you include Amy. Next, Dean Robichou—Amy’s and Roger’s father—pays a visit to the crypt, apparently to gather funds for his wife’s bail. He’s found dead--maybe accident, maybe not—and the money is found not to be there. Also, Dean now ends up with Amy’s locket in his dead hand, maybe from his own pocket—“
“—maybe not. What else?”
“According to Mr. Breedlove, Dean’s sickly attorney, Dean Robichou never paid his daughter’s ransom. “
“Unless he was delirious. The attorney, I mean. He thought that I was Dean, remember?”
Katie chewed, rolled it over, finally nodded. “Dementia.”
“What else?”
She shrugged, swallowed. “That’s about all, I guess.”
She put down the burger, wiped her mouth sullenly. “Not much, huh?”
“It’s a whole lot, actually. It just isn’t very much about Amy, the reason Mrs. Robichou called us down here in the first place.”
Katie was staring off into space. “Or maybe it’s a whole lot about Amy...”
We looked at each other.
* * *
After lunch we drove to the sheriff’s office.
Cormac’s newly washed, shiny patrol car was just leaving the lot, the sheriff behind the wheel.
I hung back with the T-Bird until his taillights winked around corner at the end of the street. “Well, Cormac’s out of the way, maybe we’ll catch a break today yet…”
Jimmy Olson looked up from behind his computer as we entered the office.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You two okay?”
“Fine. What about my fian—what about Rita?”
“Got her on the highway safe and sound, no worries. And don’t worry about the car either, I checked the Lexus over myself. The vehicle’s in almost as good a shape as Miss Blaine.”
I smiled thanks. “Appreciate that, Jimmy.”
“Not a problem, want some coffee? I just made some.”
“Tank’s full, thanks.”
“The Sheriff’s out for a while, I’m afraid.”
“We saw. How long a while?”
“Jimmy turned further away from his computer. “What can I do for you folks?”
“I think,” Katie replied hesitantly, “that depends on what you will do for us.”
Jimmy’s expression was passive. But he waved us over to his desk. “Come have a seat.”
We scooted in across from him.
“Sure about that coffee?”
“We’re sure.”
He turned back to his screen; it was displaying his PC’s wallpaper, a shot of a Polar Bear he may or may not have clicked up quickly the second he saw us walk in.
“Keeps me cool in the summer months,” he said.
Kept staring at the screen and added: “Not quite there, huh?”
“Quite where?” from Katie.
“With me. Your pursuit of trusting me.”
It caught us both off-guard.
“We trust you,” I said at length.
Jimmy smiled softly, finally turned from the polar bear. “You guys are paranormal investigators, right? Not psychics?”
“Not psychics,” Katie said.
Jimmy sat back in his chair, closed his eyes. “Al
low me to take a stab at it, then.”
He touched his temple with two fingers, a theatrical histrionic gesture, like Johnny Carson doing his old Karnac routine. “I see two people. One is full of questions…”
“What’s the other one?” Katie asked.
“Stacked.”
She smiled.
“These people are very intelligent…at least about most things.”
“What aren’t they intelligent about?” I inquired.
“Their relationship.”
Katie smiled again.
“These people are also very frustrated in their searching…”
“Searching for what?”
“The truth. They have come to this place to find it, to this office. Yet they feel they are no closer. Fear they’ve lost their perspective. Would like to see the effects of the really deceased Dean Robichou…but are afraid to ask, after that little tiff with Cormac.”
Jimmy opened his eyes. “How’m I doin’?”
“Not bad,” from Katie. “I believe I’m getting a vision too…a young man in the wrong business…”
Jimmy grinned. “Do you know what quid pro quo means?”
“Latin,” Katie answered, “’something for something.’”
“Right.”
“So the real question is, what can we do for you?” she said, “that right?”
Jimmy watched her a moment, sat forward in his chair. “Not really. You don’t have to tell me anything. But I think you’re stuck with your investigation and I want you to know you can trust me. Confide in me. About anything.” He reached into the top drawer of his desk, withdrew a large manila envelope with a button tie-string and tossed it between us.
Katie caught it in mid-air, unwound the string, dumped the contents on the edge of Jimmy’s desk.
“Dean’s effects?”
“Yes.”
She moved her fingers through them: some change, a small black comb, half-gone plug of tobacco, a prescription vial for heart medicine, the key to the crypt, Dean’s worn, leather wallet. No gold locket.
Katie looked up at the deputy. “Is that all?”
“That it. All of it.”
Katie picked up the wallet, cracked it, peeked inside.
“There was no money,” Jimmy told her, “Dean didn’t trust banks, kept his finances hidden.”
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 31