Past Tense

by Samantha Hunter

  “Thanks. Are you always this nice to murder suspects?”

  “Only the pretty ones,” he said in a voice hoarse from a cough that set him back for the next minute or so. “Besides, Roger will tie my balls in a knot if I slip up here, ‘scuse my language. The sooner we get this done and he can see we haven’t beat a confession out of you, the better, huh? Better you offer one up on your own,” he said with a chuckle, but the humor didn’t extend to his eyes.

  Cops were a strange bunch. Sophie never would have predicted that she’d date a cop, let alone be engaged to one. She watched Pereski flip through his notes, biding his time. She’d always had the impression of him as squat and a little on the chubby side, but here in the small room he loomed, a big, barrel-chested man with hard blue eyes and a graying five o-clock shadow. Here, he had power, and he knew it.

  Sophie reined in her imagination. Just a guy Roger works with, she thought, loosening the knot in her chest.

  “You and Roger going to the fundraiser dance in May?”

  “I guess,” she said, momentarily thrown off. She attended the requisite dances and barbeques with Roger and his colleagues, but even so, she’d never felt like part of the group.

  “Beth is looking forward to it. Any excuse for a new dress.”

  “That’s nice,” Sophie said, unsure of what else to say.

  “Right. Okay. Well, this has been a tough night, I imagine,” he said with a contrived brand of sympathy that she didn’t buy into.

  Dating Roger had been an informal education in police methods, and she knew Pereski wanted her to feel comfortable with him. He’d work what little relationship they had so that she’d talk more easily. Roger had talked about interrogations from time to time, various techniques, the things that worked or didn’t.

  Sophie stayed quiet, still unsure what she was going to say. Besides, silence was the one thing no one could argue with, or so her father had once told her. She sipped the coffee, which cut an acidic river down the back of her throat, so she settled for wrapping her hands around the warm cup.

  “You spoke to the officer at the scene, but if you can run through what happened again, that would be good.”

  She took a deep breath, meeting him eye-to-eye. “Patrice Bledsoe has been a regular at the shop for quite a long time. She knew my aunt, they were friends. She took care of me after I was in the hospital. We were. . .close,” Sophie said painfully, her eyes burning. Clenching her fists, she fought back the wave of emotion, aware of how closely Pereski watched her.

  Patrice was dead. Killed right in front of her, for all practical purposes. She had to stay in control and help them figure out what happened.

  “Did you kill her, Sophie? Did something happen you want to talk about?”

  “No!” she objected vehemently for the second time that hour, shaking her head. ““There was no way I’d hurt her, no way in hell. Didn’t you hear what I said? She helped me. She was the one person who did back when everything was such a mess.”

  “So what else can you tell me?”

  “I did a tarot reading for her, that’s all. I told her she had some conflict in her life she needed to watch out for, and that she should trust her gut in making some important decisions.”

  “What kinds of decisions?”

  “She had a lot going on—she was thinking about her divorce, and she was getting rid of some old things, wanted to know if she was making the right decisions.”

  “She told you she was getting a divorce?”

  “Yes, but she hadn’t done any paperwork, she said. She and Alan had only talked about it. She said he didn’t take it well.”

  “I see,” he made another note. “What else?”

  “It was pretty straight-forward. She was looking to give away or sell some items her life coach had suggested she part with, to, uh, get rid of negative energy holding her back in life,” as she said it, she could see Pereski’s jaw slide to the side in disbelief, and she knew Roger was right. There was no way she could tell him about the man she’d seen.

  “We talked about that, and I wasn’t feeling well, I’ve had the flu and didn’t eat all day, so we tried to keep it short and sweet. My head hurt quite a bit, and things got foggy. She asked me what was wrong, and I think I must have passed out. I woke up when I heard Mags, Margaret, screaming, and that was it.”

  “You were sick. Have you seen a doctor? Go to the emergency room?”

  “Roger made me an appointment, but I didn’t have time. I went to bed and took cold meds. I’m fine.”

  “Right,” he said again in that aggravating tone, making a note on the paper in front of him. “Show me how it works,” he said, grabbing an unwrapped tarot deck from the box and pushing it across the table.

  “What?”

  “Show me how you read the cards for someone.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think-”

  “Humor me. Just one card. Let me see how you do it.”

  Puzzled, Sophie shrugged, feeling strange and hardly up to reading, but she wasn’t going to back away from the challenge in his eyes. She opened the deck, held it in her hands, letting her energy run through the new deck, a little ritual she always did.

  “Okay. Do you have anything you want to know in particular?”

  She picked up the deck, and he watched her hands—she realized he just wanted to get her prints on something, since they hadn’t booked her. Fine, she gripped the cards more firmly. He could have them.

  “Sure, tell me something about my golf game,” he said with a smirk, watching her closely.

  She shook her head raising her eyebrows briefly, but felt her mind slide into the rhythm of shuffling the cards as she looked him in the eye. She’d read for more mundane things than a golf game and tried to focus, placing the cards before them.

  “You need to think about your question and cut the cards.”

  He did so, but his skepticism was like a lead weight in the room. He expected her to botch it, which made her determined not to. She peeled off the first card.

  “Okay, well, Five of Wands. You like the competition, but I think you have been fighting or had a fight with someone recently, probably another very competitive person, and it’s ruining your game. Things have gotten worse since that point.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

  She dealt another card. “Nine of Pentacles, oh,” she said, a picture clear in her mind and it made her grin. “I see now.”

  “What?”

  “It was a woman—a woman who I’d guess already makes more money than you, and she beat you at golf, too—you didn’t like it, and it really messed with your head. You’ve been screwing up your game ever since,” Sophie said, still smiling when she looked up from the cards. “You don’t like being bested by women, do you Matt?”

  His face infused with red and he leaned in pushing the cards to the side. “Cute. I suppose Roger told you about the tournament in Florida last month, so don’t think you’re fooling anyone.”

  Her smugness was short-lived when he pushed another card onto the table, this one in a plastic bag.

  “Tell me about that one. The report notes that all of the cards found on the table had similar imagery, the same backs, except for this one,” he pulled out a plastic bag and shoved it to the middle of the table. Sophie drew back, seeing the pink stains around its edge. “Why?”

  She shook her head. “I never dealt that card. It’s from the Thoth, and I was using the Morgan-Greer.”

  “What?”

  “There are different styles of tarot deck reflecting different styles, belief systems, or even personalities—that card came from a different deck.”

  “So?”

  “So it wasn’t mine. I wasn’t using it. Someone else had to put it there.”

  “Do you have the different decks in the store?”

  “Sure, but they’re sealed, and that one looks antique.”

  “It couldn’t have gotten mixed in at some previous time? An accident?”
r />   “No. I don’t know how it got there, but I didn’t deal that card in her reading.”

  “I thought you couldn’t remember anything?” he asked, honing in.

  “I passed out, and I don’t remember the time in which I blacked out, but I remember what happened just before that. I remember the cards I dealt for Patrice.”

  “I see.”

  She couldn’t stop staring at the Thoth card. “It’s not my card. It’s either a reproduction or very old, for one thing. It might be from a well-used or antique deck. Couldn’t there be fingerprints on the card?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Thanks, Nancy Drew, we’ll look into it,” he said with a sarcastic sneer that made her want to kick him. “Everything is being dusted, you can count on that. Maybe you saw the card and don’t remember it, or the card got thrown there in some kind of scuffle or argument. . . .”

  “There was no scuffle or argument. Patrice and I had nothing to argue about.”

  He leaned forward on the table. “Sophie, you can be straight with me. Things happen. I understand the instinctive thing to do is protect yourself, but it would be easier for you in the long run. You can change your mind and get a lawyer in here before you answer, if you want.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” Sophie said, refusing a second time through her teeth, her arms crossed tightly in front, her jaw clenched tight. “I didn’t do anything. I thought I was being brought in here to tell you what I know so you could find the actual killer, not harass an innocent citizen!”

  “It is my job to find the real killer, Sophie, and let’s just say it’s very strange for someone to be present at one homicide let alone three.”

  “Three? What are you talking about?”

  “Sophie, you have to think about how this looks, right? Three homicides in your store and you are right there, and each time your memory is conveniently compromised. . . ..”

  His point hit her square between the eyes, and she saw red. “Are you seriously trying to imply that I killed my family too? I wasn’t alone when my family was killed – there was the person with the gun who shot them, remember?”

  She knew she should shut up, but she couldn’t do it. “Oh, and I suppose I went back upstairs and threw myself down twenty stairs, breaking my arm and crushing my knee? How clever of me! I almost killed myself in order to have an alibi!”

  “I’ve seen stranger things, believe it or not. That’s a lot of death happening in one place and always when you’re around.”

  “Fuck you, Matt,” she said, leveling him a stubborn look. “You have nothing on me, and I didn’t do anything, so stop being such a jerk. I came here in good conscience to help, not to be insulted and harassed. Someone did something terrible to Patrice, and the killer could walk away because you have your head up your ass, wasting time trying to get me to confess something that didn’t happen. Why don’t you go do your job, you know?”

  “Watch it, Sophie.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Unless you can charge me, I’m done,” she said belligerently.

  Pereski’s eyes cooled several degrees as he looked down at his files. “Guess that remains to be seen,” he said with a threatening sense of promise.

  Sophie responded with a glare.

  “You know the drill. Don’t talk about the investigation to anyone, especially the press, don’t leave town. If you think of anything, let us know. I may need to talk to you again, depending on what we find. You may want to consult a lawyer.”

  She kept quiet, still pissed. In fact, she had a feeling she’d be pissed for a very long time, but it was helping her deal with the other mass of emotions and fears she didn’t want to think about.

  She wanted to run for the door, but masked her urgency by putting her things back in her bag with great care. He still watched her with that snakelike gaze, and she realized she’d underestimated Matt Pereski. He held the door for her, and she didn’t bother saying good-bye as she left.

  * * *

  Sophie woke up the next morning in Roger’s bed with sore eyes and an aching head. In fact, her body ached like it had been pummeled.

  The police had taken over the store searching for evidence and the media was swarming. Roger had taken her straight to his place and she hadn’t had the energy to argue. She’d passed out curled up next to him, fully dressed, and it wasn’t until near morning that nightmares came.

  Instead of seeing Patrice’s body, she saw the ghost—or the man, or the hallucination, or whatever he was—and the blood. She tried to wipe the blood from Patrice’s shirt, but as she did, more appeared in its place.

  In her nightmare, she’d been in the reading room with the man. They stood together, staring at Patrice’s still form, slumped over the table. She’d turned to ask the man a question, but he was gone, and when she held her hands up, they were covered in blood.

  When she woke up, gazing across the soft pillow in the sunlight, it wasn’t Roger she saw at first, but his face, the ghost.

  “Who are you?” she cried, flinging herself backward against the headboard, frantic. Then Roger was there, holding her until the world became right again. He’d asked what was wrong, but she couldn’t tell him about the ghost. Some part of her knew to hold that back now, even from him. A tiny dagger of doubt had also started to embed itself in her brain—was she losing her mind? Had Patrice’s murder driven her over some invisible edge that everyone else could see and she couldn’t?

  “C’mon – shower, clothes, and you’ll feel better,” Roger said, pulling her off the bed and pushing her gently ahead of him into the bathroom. He’d been taking care of her for so long. He’d visited her regularly in the hospital after the attacks, though she’d thought his interest was purely professional. It became apparent, when he’d checked on her at Patrice’s, and then came around the store, later, that he was more personally involved. Eventually they’d started dating, and he was her support system when she’d gone through more knee surgeries that finally culminated in a full replacement. They’d had an unusual start, but it brought them close, quickly. They’d just snapped into place, and stayed that way.

  While she was showering, Roger went to get food. She did feel more normal as she cleaned up and dressed in some of the clothes she kept there. They’d been together for over ten years, but they’d never moved in together, though they spent enough time at each other’s places that it was more like living together in two places. They kidded about each having a “vacation home” in each other’s living space.

  She knew his friends made comments, but it was just what worked for them. His hours were crazy, and she needed to be at the store. He’d practically moved in when she’d come home from the hospital, and she often spent weekends at his place. Still, he wouldn’t move into the store apartment permanently, and she wouldn’t move away from it.

  Or, she hadn’t been able to until now. Soon, it would all be Margaret’s. She and Roger would be finding a new home of their own. How would it feel to be together, twenty-four seven, in a new house somewhere?

  Rubbing the soft edges of the plain white towel in her fingers and taking in the sparse male décor, she wondered how they’d make that transition. Did she care what color towels hung in the bathroom or what plates they used? Would it bother him that she would keep tarot cards in her desk drawer? Making her way to the kitchen, she looked for some aspirin but couldn’t find anything. Roger was always disgustingly healthy.

  Coffee was made, thank God, and she heard a thump on the door that startled her, before she realized it was the paper delivery. She opened the door, grabbing it, the headline in the morning another reminder: WEALTHY BOSTONITE MURDERED; TAROT READER PRIME SUSPECT.

  She put down the coffee, her appetite evaporating.

  Patrice was gone, and seeing her picture there in the paper drove home the reality of it. She sat heavily in the nearest chair, wishing she could cry it out, but it was like her emotions were all clogged up, too thick to emerge. Everything was stuck, except for her mind, which kept spi
nning around the same questions, seeing the same face, her ghost.

  What hadhappened? Who would want to hurt Patrice? She was a good person, a generous person with a giving heart. Who was the man in her mind? Why was he in Sophie’s head? Was he the killer? Had she somehow made him unreal, a coping mechanism, like Roger said?

  She looked at how the pretty if modest diamond on her left ring finger sparkled in sunlight coming through the window. The light dimmed and her diamond stopped shining, her hand falling back to her side.

  Just clouds, she reassured herself silently, but a steady thrum of fear in her belly said something else. Everything had changed, and she wasn’t even sure how or why yet, but she could feel it.

  The door burst open and she jumped again as Roger came in, one hand with a bagful of food, the other holding a sack with what she hoped was some orange juice and aspirin as he kicked the door shut behind him. Settling back, she took him in, shifting her focus. When she was with him, everything felt so normal. Grounded and real, much like the man himself. It was maybe what she’d always loved about him, that he could take her crazy life and make it a little bit like everyone else’s.

  Straight, sandy brown-blond hair fell over his high brow, like he might be more at home on the beach than carrying a gun, but Roger was a cop through and through. At thirty-three, he was only four years older than she was, but he carried the experiences from his job with him all the time. They showed in the depths of warm hazel eyes that had seen a lot. In many ways, like her, he’d seen too much. That bonded them, too.

  “Hey, you look better. Good,” he said, tossing the bomber jacket she’d given him for his birthday four years ago over a chair. She loved the way he looked in it. He ran the Boston and New York Marathons as well as smaller races routinely, he was an avid rock-climber, and it all did marvelous things for what was under the jacket. She knew the small St. Christopher’s medal that he’d worn since he was a child, and always had on, would be warm against his throat under his shirt. So many little things glued them together. What did towels or addresses matter?