by Sharon Short
“Yep,” said Greta. “My mama swore by it for cuts and I do, too. It was in my medicine cabinet.”
“I’ll return the bottle tonight,” I said.
“No hurry,” said Greta. “I don’t plan on any cuts any time soon.” Then she cackled in glee at her joke. Skylar and I both smiled as she hurried back toward the kitchen.
“In a way, this motel gives service as good as a four star,” Skylar said. “Not that I’ve stayed at that many.” She eyed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide again. “For a cut, huh?”
“On my foot,” I said brightly.
I didn’t want to tell Skylar—or anyone just yet—that the hydrogen peroxide might help me figure out why Ginny had been killed.
17
I admit it; I didn’t have a cut on my foot. But if the hydrogen peroxide helped me figure out why Ginny’d been killed, I was pretty sure the Almighty would forgive my fib. At least, back in my motel room, as I carefully opened the bottle to do my little experiment, I prayed that He (or She) would.
See, on the drive back to Red Horse from Owen’s, I’d started thinking again about the now-stolen suitcase that Ginny had left with me, filled with the overalls that appeared to be paint spattered, as well as the handkerchief and its odd message. I turned my thoughts to the puzzle of the suitcase mostly as a way to distract myself from my worries over my relationship with Owen.
Ginny had left me a message that if anything happened to her, I should start at the end and work back to the beginning.
And I was trying to do that. Winnie was putting her fantastic skills as a researcher to use to find out more about Ginny’s background. And I was talking to people to find out as much as I could about her. We were, basically, starting at the end—Ginny’s death—and working back to the beginning of her life, as much as we could. Would something emerge from her life story to give us a clue about her death?
But Ginny had left me another clue besides the strange note. The white men’s-size overalls, that I’d assumed to be covered in paint. Why would she want me to have the overalls of some man who painted walls in shades of brown and blue and emerald green and yellow and purple and red?
Unless, it struck me on that drive back from Owen’s, there wasn’t just paint on the overalls and on the handkerchief.
What, I’d asked myself, was odd about the overalls and the handkerchief? Besides the fact Ginny’d left them with me . . . and written the odd note I was trying to obey on the handkerchief . . . and that someone had stolen the suitcase.
And what, I’d also asked myself, did the thief think when he, or she, opened the suitcase and discovered the handkerchief was missing, if he or she even knew it was in there? If the thief—who, I reckoned, was also Ginny’s killer or involved in her murder—knew the handkerchief was supposed to be in there, and saw it was missing, then that person would think that I still had it. That thought made me so uncomfortable that I’d been careful to not be alone all afternoon since arriving at Beeker’s Orchard, until I returned to my motel room after dinner with Skylar. And then I double-checked the locks on my motel room door.
Why would someone want paint-streaked old overalls and a handkerchief back?
What was odd about them?
And then, as I’d driven along, looked at the bright jeweled colors of the gorgeous afternoon—the reds and yellows and oranges—I’d realized what was wrong about the coveralls was the brown streaks.
If I remembered correctly, the brighter colors looked as if they could come from a wayward brush of a painter tired of laboring over other people’s walls all day.
But the dull brown was in much broader streaks, as if the painter had gotten that color on his hands, then wiped them off on the pants.
And, I’d remembered, there’d been the faint smell of earth about the pants and handkerchief, the tinge of dirt to them, mud around the frayed hems of the coveralls. Mud that had dried brown, but not the same shade of brown as the streaks I’d at first thought were dried paint.
And on my car ride, I’d wondered if they were something else. Like streaks of dried blood.
Blood dries to a dull reddish brown, and over time, loses the red cast.
But one thing gets out blood better than anything else.
Hydrogen peroxide.
Which is why, after my dinner with Skylar, I stood with the handkerchief and the bottle of hydrogen peroxide over the bathroom sink.
I studied the handkerchief in the bathroom light, glad for its garish glare, which made every speck on the handkerchief stand out. I didn’t want to harm any of the writing on the handkerchief. And I only wanted to test one of the stains, one near the edge.
I turned the handkerchief in my hand until I saw the perfect brown blotch to test, one in the corner, away from the writing.
I placed the handkerchief over the edge of the sink. Then I opened the hydrogen peroxide bottle and poured a little into the cap, willing my hands to be steady. They trembled anyway, and I sloshed some of the hydrogen peroxide into the sink, but none of it splashed onto the handkerchief.
Then I held the cap in my right hand, while picking up the handkerchief just below the corner of the stain I wanted to test. I draped most of the handkerchief over the sink’s edge, pinching the cloth just below the stain, so that all that peeked above my thumb and forefinger was the stain. Then I carefully poured the hydrogen peroxide from the cap over the brown splotch.
And watched the hydrogen peroxide start to fizz just a bit on the brown spot, and then begin to fade.
The exact chemical reaction of hydrogen peroxide to blood.
My heart tightened. Blood—old, dried blood from some long-ago accident . . . or, I wondered, from another murder? . . . was on the handkerchief and the overalls that Ginny had wanted me to have in case something happened to her.
I carefully folded up the handkerchief in a washcloth and put it in my tote bag and headed for the motel door. I was going straight to the police department with the handkerchief, and handing it over, whether Chief Worthy liked it or not. Just as I should have done on my first visit.
Of course, this time I had additional information that ought to get even Chief Worthy’s attention. At least, I hoped the fact of blood on the handkerchief and the stolen overalls would make him think again about his deduction that Ginny’s death was a suicide.
I had also written down on the Red Horse Motel scratch pad, word for word, the message from the handkerchief. I wanted to be able to read the message again, to see if any new interpretations came to mind about what Ginny meant about starting at the end and working to the beginning. After all, I’d made an assumption about the paint on the coveralls that hadn’t turned out to be right, as in the fact that the brown paint was really old, dried blood.
I shuddered as I let myself out of the motel room. Just whose old blood was I carrying around in my tote bag? Truth be told, I couldn’t wait to turn over the handkerchief to Chief Worthy.
My grim thoughts were interrupted by a delighted giggle that, I swear, came out as a definite “tee hee hee hee!”
I turned, and saw Cherry and Max Whitstone at the door of the room next to mine. Cherry saw me, waved, and “tee hee hee hee-ed” again. Max lifted his Stetson in brief acknowledgement that was, I reckoned, supposed to be gentlemanly. Or maybe just manly. In any case, it set off another round of Cherry’s “tee hee hees.”
I made sure my motel room was locked, put my motel room key in my purse, and went over to the duo, wondering as I walked just how thin the Red Horse walls were. I supposed I could always stuff toilet paper in my ears.
“Why, hello, there,” I said brightly. “Cherry, I wish I’d known your home as well as your business had been evacuated. You could stay with me!”
Not that I really relished an overnight with Cherry. But I could see it in her eyes. She was sure she’d finally speared the great white hunk who’d make her happy. And I could see the truth in the glint of his eyes. Bottom-feeding mud sucker.
Cherry’s voice fad
ed in mid tee hee. She cleared her throat, glared at me as she fluffed her hair with her fingertips. “Why yes, as it turns out, since my home’s on Plum Street, right behind Main, I’ve been turned out for the night. I came over here to see if there were any rooms but the Rhinegolds told me they were sold out. You must have gotten the last one.”
Cherry could have spent the night with one of the other hair stylists, especially with Lex or Danny. They wouldn’t turn out their boss, and they liked her, anyway. She’d come over here on the pretense of looking for a room, knowing in the primal depths of her mind—somewhere in the brain stem at the spot labeled “lust”—and in the depths of her misguided, lonely heart, that she’d hook up with Max.
She knew it. I knew it. Max, who’d left his room key dangling from the lock and who was now picking his teeth with a toothpick, probably knew it. (Ugh. Maybe Owen’s sin of poor communication wasn’t so bad, after all.) Max watched us in fascination. No doubt hoping for a full-scale, hairpulling, nail-scratching chick fight.
“It was actually Ginny Proffitt’s room,” I said. “The Rhinegolds had to call the police to have it released.”
“Ew,” Cherry said, wrinkling up her pert nose cutely. Max grinned at her around his toothpick. “How can you sleep in a dead woman’s room?”
I started to make some comment about why my sleeping arrangements were better than hers, and then took a deep breath. No cat fights. It would please Max too much.
I looked at him. “Ginny left the psychic fair suddenly last night. Did she say anything to you about why?”
“Nope,” Max said. “We weren’t exactly on speaking terms.”
“You didn’t speak at all yesterday, coming and going to your rooms?”
“Nope.”
Cherry grinned up at him admiringly. I wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t want him for his masterful command of language. Then he flashed a grin at her, flexed his muscles under his cowboy shirt as he resettled his hat, and I thought, oh yeah. Cherry was only interested in Max’s body language.
Which didn’t translate for me, but there you have it. No accounting for taste.
“Did you see anyone come to Ginny’s room yesterday afternoon, before the psychic fair? Either while she was here, or while she wasn’t?”
“Nope,” Max said. But this time his eyes slid away from mine and his shoulder slumped, just a little. Aha. Maybe his body language did translate for me, after all. This message I was clearly getting was: “I’m lying.”
“I need to talk to Cherry. Alone,” I said.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Max replied, and opened his motel room. He stepped in, leaving the door ajar.
I grabbed Cherry’s arm and pulled her back toward my room. She jerked away. She was glaring at me, I could tell, even though night had mostly fallen and the only light we had came from the parking lot.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Cherry hissed.
“Trying to save you from some heartache!” I said. “If you really need a place to stay, just share the motel room with me.”
“No!” Cherry snapped. “Max offered for me to stay the night with him. He’s being a real gentleman about it. Got a rollaway cot from the Rhinegolds.”
“Oh, like you’re really going to sleep all night on a cot. How thoughtful of him.”
“No, he’s going to spend the night on the cot,” Cherry huffed. “I get the bed. At most, we’ll just smooch.”
“Cherry, you really expect me to think you’re gonna spend the night on the bed, and he’s gonna stay on the rollaway cot?”
Silence. Then Cherry grinned. “Well, we’ll start in those positions. Who knows what position we’ll end up in. Tee hee . . .”
I groaned. Her tee hees ceased. “Josie, you are such a prude,” she pouted.
“That’s one way of looking at it. Listen, I can tell you right now, this guy’s trouble. He just now lied to me about not seeing anyone come to Ginny’s motel room.”
“How do you know he lied?”
“I just could tell,” I said exasperated. “Kinda like the way you can tell a rattler’s dangerous when it starts rattling.”
“Josie, there are no rattlers in southern Ohio. You’ve only ever seen them in the Cincinnati Zoo, like on the field trip we took with Mrs. Oglevee back in Junior High.”
“What?” I shook my head. Cherry could upset a line of logic faster than a broken track line could derail a freight train.
“Come to think of it, you tried to ruin my fun then, too, telling Mrs. O about me and Fredo at the back of the bus.”
“Yeah,” I said, “Wasn’t his nickname Fredo Feel-up? He’s probably working in some boring job now, sweating in tacky business suits, still trying to feel-up all the females.”
“Oh, so now you’re trying to ruin my memories of the first time I ever—”
I put my hand over her mouth. I absolutely, totally, completely did not want to know what she did the first time with Fredo Feel-up.
Cherry bit my palm.
“Ouch,” I said, jerking my hand away. I looked at my palm. At least she hadn’t drawn blood. Amazing, what with her tiny little raccoon teeth. “Look, you’re a grownup now, so whatever you do is your business.”
“Why, thank you,” Cherry said with exaggerated politeness.
“Just do me two favors.”
“What?” She stared back at Max’s room, as if she were afraid he might leave without her. Which, eventually, he would—but there was no point in telling her that.
“One, find out if you can who Max saw come to Ginny’s room, if Ginny was there, if he overheard anything—”
“I got it, I got it. What else?”
“If you need to, just come to my room, okay?”
Cherry didn’t say anything. She looked at me for a moment, and then headed back toward Max’s room. But just before she turned, I caught a glimpse of her expression turning just a little sad, and a little grateful.
I was fuming to myself as I crossed the interior courtyard, a shortcut to the road I’d have to cross to retrieve my van from the grassy parking area in front of Beeker’s Orchard. I was so lost in my own thoughts, I almost didn’t hear the quiet sobbing, but then I caught it, soft and almost lost under the waning fall chorus of bugs.
The lampposts that had lit the pool for night swimming were still there, now lighting the courtyard. Near one, just out of reach of its direct light, I could see a figure sitting in one of the plastic chairs, hunched forward over its knees. The crying was steady, rhythmic, as if born up from a deep well in the person’s soul.
I wavered. This person was caught up in an intensely personal moment. Something overwhelming must have caused such a reaction, maybe a reading at the psychic fair that was frightening or disappointing. But no, I didn’t think so. I noticed most of the people leaving their readings feeling upbeat or thoughtful, but not distraught.
Except for Ginny.
And except for this person.
Whatever the person was keening over was none of my business, but still. I couldn’t just walk past without at least trying to offer some concern, some comfort.
I started over, and as I got closer, realized I recognized the person: Maureen Crowley.
“Maureen?” I said softly.
The crying didn’t end at once, but tapered off slowly as Maureen looked up at me. “Josie Toadfern?” she said.
“Yes.” We’d met each other just a few times, in the course of her Uncle Hugh’s tutoring and the fundraisers for her son, Ricky. “Are you okay?”
“I just wanted to find a healer . . . a healer . . .” Maureen said quietly. She started rocking back and forth in her chair. I knelt down beside her.
“Are you sick? Do you need me to get help?” I glanced around. A brisk wind sharpened the night air. Maureen and I were the only people in the courtyard. I didn’t want to leave her alone. Maybe she could come with me to find help. I gently took ahold of her elbow. “Come on, let’s go inside—”
She jerked away from
me and kept rocking. “I just wanted a healer for him, someone who could really help him . . .”
I realized two things: that she was talking about finding a healer for her son and that she wasn’t really talking to me. She was lost in a trance of her own worries and fears about Ricky. My heart clenched. I felt both sorrow and understanding for her as my thoughts turned briefly to Guy and my own mixed sense of hope and helplessness.
“Maureen, let’s get inside where it’s warmer. It’ll be okay, you’ll see—”
Maureen stood up suddenly. I lost my balance and almost plunged from kneeling to sprawling. Then I stood up, too. Maureen glared at me.
“It’ll be okay? Okay?” she said in a mocking, angry tone. “That’s what I’ve been hearing for nearly seven months now. That Ricky will be okay. That things will work out. But he’s getting worse, worse damn it! Prayer chains, second opinions, this treatment and that, and he’s still sick!”
Maureen put her hands to her face, covering eyes, nose, and mouth. I could barely make out her next words. “But she was a healer. A healer with special powers . . .”
I realized who she must have been talking about. None of the other psychics at the fair claimed to be healers . . . only Ginny, long ago. And again, recently, but just for her own illness.
Still, I ventured her name. “Ginny Proffitt? Is that who you’re talking about, Maureen?” I asked gently.
“She said she was returning to her roots, getting back to her true God-given talent, that she should never have abandoned that in the first place,” Maureen moaned. “But now she’s gone and I need to find another healer—”
“Maureen!”
The deep voice snapped suddenly from the other side of the courtyard, startling both of us. We looked up in its direction and watched the man walking toward us. Then he came into the light. It was Hugh Crowley.
“Maureen,” he said again, more gently as he stopped beside us. Like me, he knelt down by Maureen’s chair. “Your mama wants you to come home, honey,” he said. “She needs you to come home. She’s worried about Ricky, too. We all are. She wants you to come back to the house. We can pray together—”