I take a deep breath and begin. “A little over a year ago, I discovered I have a sort of psychic gift. I can read people, and see things.”
She straightens up and is very still, except for a trembling in her jaw.
I continue, finding it easier as I go, to simply tell the truth. Her eyes are wide as I tell her about Newt's messages from beyond the grave, and when I ask her if I can question her about what she saw the day of the murder, I swear she stops breathing.
Everything is still, and I wave my hand in front of her face, worried for a moment I've frozen time.
She leans back, rocking her head into the back of the sofa, and tears begin streaming down her cheeks. “I don't remember what happened that day. I was at work, and then I don't know. I don't know how I even got home. Oh, Zan, what if I did it? What if I shot that poor old man?”
“Do you own a gun?”
She sniffs. “No.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
“Around. At The Bean and the other restaurants, around lunch. I knew who he was. I saw him that morning, on the way into work, and he asked why I was dressed as Cinderella and not as Pocahontas. He made me really mad.”
“Mad enough to shoot him?”
She wipes at her cheeks and coughs out a tiny laugh. “If I'd had a gun in my hand at the moment, yes. But only once, and in the foot.”
“I don't know if it's going to work, but I can try to help you remember what happened in the afternoon. I know I just hit you with the whole psychic powers thing, but there's more. There are witches in Spiritdell, and they erase memories. I have a theory that you saw the killer, but had your memory erased.”
Crystal shakes her head. Her beautiful dark hair is matted in chunks. “I need a good night's sleep,” she says. “I got some sleeping pills today, so I can make it through the night. This will all make more sense if I could get some rest.”
“It'll just take a second. If you give me your hand.” I hold out my palm to her.
She clutches her hands to her chest. Her voice stretched-out and low, she says, “I think you'd better go.”
“I want to help you,” I plead.
“Just go!” she yells. “Get out of here!”
I jump up. “You didn't do anything wrong. If you change your mind, you can—”
“GO!”
She picks up a lamp, so I make a dash for the door before she can test its use as a projectile. This is not normal behavior for Crystal. Not normal at all.
I make it out the front door injury-free and jog up to the end of the block to clear my head. I keep running until I reach the playground attached to the local elementary school, where I take a seat on one of the swings.
As I pump my legs, swinging higher and higher, the dizziness up in my brain feels good. When I swing back, the wind rushes along the sides of my cheeks, but when I swing forward, there's no wind, and I'm floating. There must be a mild breeze, blowing at my back. I could be in outer space when I swing forward, weightless.
Now Crystal knows my secret, and what did revealing that information get me? She'll probably tell Gran, and I'll have a lot of explaining to do. I hope I can get Gran to believe I'm not possessed by a demon before her church people hold me down and douse me with holy water or whatever it is they might do. If they put half the effort into exorcising that they do singing, I'll be in big trouble.
Still swinging back and forth, pleasantly dizzy, bordering on nauseated, I search through my pockets for ideas. There's the ring, which is cool but hasn't told me anything useful. And there's the business card Detective Wrong gave me on Halloween, after she took my statement.
I'm in over my head, and I can't do this on my own. I thought having a psychic power would make things so easy, wrapped up in an hour like one of those paranormal TV shows, but nothing in life is easy, it seems.
I should have picked up Solving Murders for Dummies at the book store.
With no other options, I pull out my phone, planning to call Detective Wrong, when I look up and see a familiar car. It's her. She's driving past me, in the direction of Crystal's house.
I jump off the swing at its apex, landing stealthily, and lope down the street back to Crystal's house. The lights are off in Crystal's house and I watch Detective Wrong shift impatiently on the step as nobody comes to the door.
I find myself crossing the street, boldly drawn to the police officer. “Hello,” I call out in a very friendly and non-threatening, non-shooting-worthy manner.
Please don't let her recognize me as the boy who was running across lawns yesterday.
She gives me a scathing look that removes any hope I had she didn't know it was me. “And, YOU YOUNG MAN,” she says, her voice bordering on yelling, but not quite. “What is the nature of your interest in an ongoing police investigation?”
“Can we talk for a few minutes?” I ask her.
She raps on the door again, but still there's no answer.
“Do you have, like, a warrant?” I ask.
“Mr. Nosy! No, I do not have a warrant, young man, though I can't imagine what business it is of yours.”
“Well, you said to call you if I thought of anything.”
“If you remembered anything. Did you?”
I scratch my temple and try to look innocent. “No, but I was hoping we could pool our resources. I could help you with your investigation.”
She taps her hand on her gun holster. “You?” She shakes her head and starts walking back to her unmarked police car.
I follow her, and when she gets to the door of her car, she says, “Are you going to spill now, or do I have to take you down to the station? If this is all a ploy to get a ride in my new car, it's not happening.”
“If I get you the name of a potential witness, do you think you could share some details with me?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Officially? No. Unofficially, you have my number.” She gets in the car and slams the door, then rolls down the window to say, “Don't waste my time.”
“No, Ma'am, I won't.”
As she drives away, I feel a glimmer of hope. If I'm not mistaken, she might be a good ally. Imagine that: me, working with a real cop. I have to get her a name, though, and the only other person I know who's involved in witchcraft is the woman who worked at the store in Chinatown.
I'll go there first thing tomorrow, instead of school, although I'll miss my test in Chemistry. Oh well, school can wait. As of tomorrow, I'm down to four days to solve the case, then life will go back to normal. Or complete disaster. What could the dire consequences be?
Back inside my house, I phone James and ask if he wants to pull a Ferris Bueller tomorrow.
He says yes.
Plan on.
* * *
As I brush my teeth, I ponder the many mysteries of the universe, including the big question: how can bees help me solve a murder? Are bees available for hiring? How would I pay them? In flowers?
Bees could be used to spy on people, becoming a “fly on the wall,” if they don't object to such a term. They'd probably not like the comparison, of course. Bees, who snack on pretty flowers, are way cooler than flies, who eat garbage. Silly flies.
Huddled in my bed again, I pull The Care of Bees, Real and Unreal out from under my mattress and flip through, looking for anything to do with spying, though I do take a moment to appreciate Naked Bee-Birthing Lady from the waist up.
Toward the back of the book, an illustration of a person with two bees in place of eyes seems promising, so I read the text from the neighboring page:
How to focus the compound eye of many and its inputs into the human's eye, of vastly differing physiology, requires the dedication of nine years plus ninety. A human operator might sooner master every instrument in the orchestra as to completely control and reign in the desire of the bee while stealing its sunlight and thoughts.
The student must focus soul and mind, as though playing the violin while straining to empty the bowels and force a mountain through the
eye of a needle. Close one human eye while keeping the other human eye open. The student may use fingertips if not in possession of such muscular controls, but should take care not to poke or pinch out the eye that shall become the overlay of the bee input, thus incurring injury.
I put the book down and focus on the striped wallpaper above my headboard. Some of that last passage almost made sense. Holy crap, I think I just learned something from this crazy book. If I keep one eye open and one eye closed, I might be able to see what a bee sees. The part about straining as though pooping does give me some concern, but what the heck, I'll try anything once.
Keeping one eye open on my wallpaper, I sit on the edge of my bed and tense my stomach muscles, bearing down, but not actually trying to go. My insides feel tingly.
My closed eye isn't seeing anything. I switch the closed side. Nothing.
BEE BEE BEE, I repeat in my head.
Nothing.
I remember my precious ring and dig it out of my jeans to put on my pinkie finger. This feels right, so I close one eye and try again.
This time, my guts are more than tingly. I feel sweet and liquid, like I'm made of hot chocolate and marshmallows on the inside. With my right eye shut, I burp, and out comes a bee.
The bee doesn't sting me, but bobs up and down, seemingly looking at me. Why's the bee looking at me? I guess it's that dopey look on my face, with one goofy eye shut. Man, my ears really stick out!
My ears. I'm seeing myself. I'm looking at the bee, but also seeing myself, through the bee.
I open my right eye in surprise, and the bee charges straight at me, stinging me between the eyes. I slap it away, but too late. Now I've got a stinging welt and a dead bee.
And I'm so tired.
A powdery clump of gray dust, like the ash from a cigarette, sits in my hand where the bee was. I blow on my hand and the ash disintegrates.
The time on my clock radio surprises me. Two in the morning! No wonder I'm so tired.
I fall back on the bed, and it's all I can muster to pull my feet up off the floor. Gotta rest. Tomorrow's going to be epic. Magical teas and more await at the herbalist's shop.
Chapter Fifteen
In the morning, I tell Gran I don't feel well, and the ironic part is my stress over lying is causing an actual stomach ache. I cough pathetically a few times.
“If you miss school, you'll have to miss karate too,” she says.
“Of course.” Cough.
“Your face does look puffy. Try a bath, good and hot. Sweat the fever out.”
I agree to try the bath later and stumble back to bed, where I wait for her to leave for work.
It's wrong to lie about being sick, but Ferris Bueller did it, and he's practically a hero. I've watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off with James about a hundred times, and I'm not exaggerating. He played the DVD every day for almost four months, for a blog project he was doing in celebration of '80s movies. He was picked up by a few nerdy news sites and his traffic increased ten-fold. By that I mean he now has twenty fans.
I've suggested he diversify by reviewing new movies, but James doesn't like modern movies because he says special effects and Hollywood's obsessions with sure things and sequels have ruined storytelling.
I phone James and tell him the coast's clear for him to come pick me up. Julie declined to join us, citing a lack of interest in singing on a parade float, going to a museum, or impersonating the sausage king, Abe Froman.
* * *
When James and I get to Chinatown, we have a difficult time locating the herbalist I went to during the summer. This shouldn't be so difficult, because Spiritdell's Chinatown is only three blocks long.
We park the Jeep and go looking on foot, asking people about the place.
At first, I only ask Asian-looking people, but then I clue in that might be offensive, so I ask black people and white people too.
“It had a neon light on the front, for palm reading,” I tell a man who looks like Jason Schwartz but with more moles.
He points across the street to a construction site. “I know the place well, it was right there,” he says. “All gone now. Future condos. Progress. What're you gonna do?”
“You're sure that's the spot?”
“Yes! I bought many herbal remedies there. Not for my penis, though. Nothing like that.”
“Did they move the business elsewhere?”
“Nope. Liquidated everything. Had a death in the family and decided to retire.”
I thank him, and James and I cross the street to look at the construction site where my hot lead was supposed to be.
James peers through a square cut in the plywood hoarding along the sidewalk. “Man! Don't you want to drive one of those little bucket trucks?”
I squeeze in next to him for a peek. They must be putting in a lot of parking, because the hole in the ground is several stories deep. The ground beneath my feet trembles, or rather, suddenly becomes less stable in my mental model of it, now that I know there's nothing holding us from falling into the pit except for top pressure and a thin spray-coat of cement.
“Ner, ner. Boop boop,” James says, pretending to pull levers back and forth while he watches the trucks at work.
“So much for my big idea,” I say.
James stands back. “Sea town vest,” he says.
“What?”
He repeats himself, but the words don't make any sense until he points at the signage and I turn to read the name of the construction project: C-town West.
“C-town?” I say. “That's not very ... culturally appropriate. Is it? Man. That sounds wrong. C-Town.”
“Kinda catchy,” he says, looking over the artist's rendering on the signage. “Ooh, dumbwaiters. The two story townhomes have dumbwaiters.”
“You're a dumbwaiter,” I grumble as we head back to the Jeep.
“C-Town will restore your vim,” James says.
“Saywhatnow?”
“It's their slogan.” James laughs and takes a photo with his cell phone to send to Julie, who's probably taking a Chemistry test right about now.
I put on my seat belt and consider my leads, or lack thereof. We could go see Heidi again and try to get more out of her, if I can handle the beating.
James asks, “Wanna go somewhere fancy and order hot water and ketchup?”
“Not really.”
He squeals the tires pulling out onto the street. “The usual, then?”
I can't think of anything better, so I agree.
Ten minutes later, we pull up to a convenience store, where we get an assortment of candies, chocolate bars and chips. Then we drive all the way out to the marsh at the end of the airport's runway, where we park near the edge of the fence. Despite the chilly breeze, we take down the top of the Jeep for a better view and stuff our faces with chips and candy as airplanes rip by overhead.
“I never see adults out here,” James says.
“Me neither.”
“Let's promise we'll never grow up.”
“I don't know if that's optional,” I say. “Wait, are you having a Cameron moment? Do I need to get you to a therapist?”
“You know Cameron's the true protagonist of Ferris Bueller. He's the only one with a character arc.”
I throw a handful of white cheddar popcorn at James, which he hates the smell of. “Not again with the Ferris-is-an-imaginary-friend theory.”
“I'm telling you. It was the original Fight Club.”
“Okay. Point by point. Break it down for me.” I put my feet up on the dashboard and toss some Gobstoppers in my mouth.
James tells me all about his theory. There are clues peppered throughout the movie, and if you know what to look for, it makes perfect sense.
I wish he'd put that keen intellect to use on solving Newt's murder. There must be something I've overlooked, something I haven't tried.
I should talk to Shad's girlfriend, Rosemary, at school. She could poke me in the belly button, and I could have a look around through her eyes.
Then I'd see … what? Crystal coming into the pawn shop dressed as Cinderella, Shad Miller giving Rosemary a bracelet, and then Shad Miller naked, giving her more than a bracelet. Yikes.
There has to be another way.
* * *
As we're coming down from the sugar rush, each trying to convince the other one he should drive, my phone buzzes with an incoming text message.
“You get that,” I mumble to James.
“Mm-I-can't-even-moo-my-jaw.”
“That last Red Vine gave me diabetes. What does diabetes feel like?”
“Not-funny-at-all.” He laughs anyway.
I somehow manage to liberate my phone from the embrace of my pocket. I can hardly believe my eyes when I read the good news. “It's Austin, she's back in town already!”
James pretends to snore.
“Come on, let's go by her place and surprise her. She thinks I'm at school.”
“Five-more-minutes,” James grumbles, swatting at me.
“Come on, let's go get her. Two guys, one girl. Perfect. We can go to a museum. We'll totally have a Ferris Bueller moment. You can lie on the bench.”
James sits up straight and pulls his seat upright. “Austin's hair is short. And she's a blonde. She's no Sloane, but she is hot. So, as long as you don't mind me pretending to have a crush on her, then okay.”
“You think my girlfriend's hot?”
He puts the Jeep in drive and clears the junk food bags off the dash by swiping them into the back seat. “On a scale of one to hot, she's hot.”
“Hearing you talk about her makes me want to punch you in the mouth,” I say.
“Maybe it's the testosterone. You're hitting second puberty. You seem larger today.”
“Second puberty? Shut up.”
“Did you take your photo this week and compare it to, say, a month ago? I'm serious. You're getting huge.”
“I'll take that under advisement.” Actually, I don't think I did take my photo this week, and I don't recall if I did last week, either. I've been taking the pictures regularly to make a video montage of my face morphing as I grow up, but I guess I've forgotten about that project recently.
Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries Page 138