Whispers in the Wind

by Veronica Giolli

  Eva squinted her eyes. “Why can’t you and your daughter leave me and Jesse alone?”

  Sunny’s mouth flew open and her eyes widened. “You and Jesse? What are you talking about? There is no ‘you and Jesse.’ It’s not our fault Jesse doesn’t want to be with you, can’t you understand? He married your sister. It’s got nothing to do with us.”

  Eva’s voice cracked. “He was mine … until Gina came along. He’s the only one I ever loved.”

  Sunny noted the pained look on Eva’s face. She should have thought before speaking. It was obvious she’d cut Eva deeply. Even though we don’t like each other we’re both women and can relate to the pain of young love.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Of course you love him, and you were with him first. That was a long time ago. You have to remember—” Sunny lowered her voice. “—he married Gina because he was in love with her. Rita and I have no part in it.”

  Eva’s eyes filmed and her chin puckered. “He wants Rita.” Eva’s cat slithered through her legs, then circled round and did it again. “And you are always meddling. Stay away from me, both of you.”

  “Look, Eva, Rita doesn’t want Jesse. He was her good friend’s husband, so they were all three friends. Nothing more. She’d never betray Gina.” Sunny hoped she was right. “You did a lot of damage by spreading lies that they were having an affair.”

  “It wasn’t a lie. I followed them.”

  “You mean you stalked them, sneaking around, spying. And what did you ever see? Anything incriminating? No, because it never happened. Rita and Jesse were friends, not lovers.”

  “You don’t know,” sobbed Eva. “You don’t know.” She bent to pick up her cat and nuzzle him.

  “Nice cat.” Sunny changed the subject. “What’s his name?”

  “Pandora.”

  “Good name.” Sunny scratched the cat under the chin, then rested her hand on Eva’s shoulder. “You need to let it go, Eva. Otherwise, you’ll be miserable the rest of your life.”

  Eva pushed Sunny away and wiped the sleeve of her sweatshirt across her wet cheeks. “Just … go. Get the hell out of here!”

  As she pulled the front door open Sunny turned to Eva. “And what about Gerald? Are you being fair to him? Letting him think you care about him.”

  Her head snapped up. “Get out of here! Don’t worry about Gerald. Mind your own business, meddling bitch. Leave me the hell alone.”

  Sunny had enough and scooted out the door. Eva slammed it shut behind her. Sunny felt a little shaky and stood for a moment. “Well, that went well. Eva’s back to her old evil self.”

  The morning felt like a bust. Wrinkling her eyebrows, she headed back to Rita’s. She couldn’t figure Eva out. She needed to forget Jesse and continue her friendship with Gerald. Never happen. It would mean that Eva was mentally stable and Sunny didn’t think she ever would be. She was surprised that Gerald really didn’t know Eva. He just thought she was fun.

  Rita was still home when Sunny pulled in. “Well, how’d it go?” Rita asked.

  “Not good.” Sunny threw her car keys on the table. “Maybe I’m too hard on her. She is desperately in love with Jesse. Every breath she takes is with Jesse in mind. To see him with Gina every day must have been torture. Why would anyone put themselves through that every day. Eva wanted to be Gina, then and now. She wants Jesse! It’s going to drive her over the edge.”

  Rita poured hot chocolate into two cups. “Why are you siding with Eva now? It was her choice to hang out with Jesse and Gina and suffer, watching them together. She’s an adult.” Rita handed the steaming cup to her mother.

  “I know. I surprised myself. I actually felt sorry for her. We have our differences, but right then, I couldn’t help it.”

  Sunny nodded at Rita’s obvious confusion. “If she’s obsessed with Jesse, why is she with Gerald?” asked Rita.

  Sunny was just as shocked for her sudden empathy for Eva’s lonely and lost solution. “Better than nobody, I guess. Gerald knows how she is, so she’s his problem now. He’ll have to handle it himself.”

  “That’s it? Nothing else happened?”

  Sunny smiled. “Well, she has a big black cat. ‘Pandora.’”

  Rita smiled back. “Hence her nickname. Evil Eva.”

  “Oh yeah, she said it’s you that Jesse wants. That’s why she hates you so much.”

  “What a crock o’ shit! He played around a lot, and I guess he flirted with me some, but I never took it seriously. I don’t think he did either,” said Rita. “But I guess Eva did.”

  Sunny took out her notebook and listed all the events as they’d happened at Eva’s house. She was aware that Eva hadn’t denied doing all the things she’d accused her of. “I want to talk to everyone at the party, including Jesse.” Sunny was back in investigator mode.

  “Do you think someone else gave Gina a reason to shoot herself?” Rita said.

  “I’m still not completely convinced she did. I’ll see, after I’ve talked to everyone. You know how it is with me. The side of my neck gets hot when I’m around certain people. It’s hard to tell why. I have suspicions about different things, but I want to be sure before I say anything.” Sunny searched in her purse. “Do you have Madam Carmen’s card? I can’t find mine.”

  “I think so.” Rita rummaged in her handbag. “Here. Are you sure you want to see her again?”

  Sunny took the card. “I’m positive. I need to know if Gina is with me. Also, I hope she can help me understand why she killed herself, if she did. Or, if it was something else. And what exactly happened to her.” Sunny hurried to the hall table and dialed Madam Carmen’s number.

  Rita whispered, “Tell her you’ll meet her at the salon.”

  Sunny talked to the fortune teller for a moment. “How about five thirty, at the beauty salon? … Good, see you then.”

  WEDNESDAY EVENING

  They were a half hour early for their meeting with Madam Carmen. The employees had left. An eerie feeling permeated the place. Twisted images of streetlights shadow-danced around the inside walls. Rita stepped in and flipped the light switch, chasing away the shadows.

  “I’ll put the coffee on. It’s cold out there,” said Rita. “I don’t remember March being this cold.”

  She was pouring coffee when the door opened and Madam Carmen walked in, wearing a long licorice-colored dress under a black wool cape. A lilac plastic comb held her hair up. Around her neck, a plum-and-turquoise knitted scarf hung almost to her ankles. Her kerchief was so colorful, she reminded Sunny of a peacock. Her large felt hat covered half of her Guatemalan face.

  “Hello.” Sunny stood, shook her hand, and motioned for her to sit.

  Rita moved the manicuring table between them and hung Madam Carmen’s cape on the wall peg.

  “Hola,” said Madam Carmen as she sat on the black stool.

  Rita brought in the coffee and handed her mom and the fortune teller each a piping hot mug.

  Madam Carmen held it in both hands and let the steam flow over her face. She gulped the whole cup and returned it to a surprised Rita.

  She took her tarot cards out of a large cloth bag, unwrapped the silk scarf enfolding them, and laid them in front of Sunny. “Cut them into thirds, like last time. Who you ask about?”

  Sunny had planned to ask simple questions and to stay composed, but she was in too much pain about her friend. She blurted out, “I want to know about Gina. What can you tell me about her death?”

  Madam Carmen shuffled the cards and looked harder into Sunny’s eyes. “She comes to you. Many times, you talk to her. She hear you. Mira. Mira las cartas.”

  Sunny looked where Madam Carmen pointed, but didn’t know how to interpret the mystical cards.

  “Look, they say it. Gina say she with you. You feel her? Many times, right there—” she pointed “—over your right shoulder. When you love a person, and they love you, they be with you behind your right shoulder. If you no love, you have nothing.”

 
Sunny put her head down and whispered, “She knew I loved her. But when we had our argument … I thought she would hate me and stay away.”

  She shook her head. “Argumento no es importante.”

  Sunny looked at the cards, then at the fortune teller. “I’m so confused. Why would she kill herself? What would cause her to do something like that?”

  Madam Carmen cleared her throat. “She talk to you. ¡Escucha! She tell you, She no leave boys. Listen! Yes? She tell you, she no kill self.”

  Sunny and Rita gasped. “Oh my God! Who would do that? What happened?”

  “See, the cards. They show; you have what you need.”

  Sunny kept her head down. “Maybe it’s in the papers I found. I have to be right before I can do anything. It can’t be a guess.”

  “You learn more. Be careful. Many not-good people there. Muy Malo. Danger! ¡El peligroso! She gone now. She be back. She protect you and want to help you.”

  The fortune teller stood, the reading obviously over. Sunny paid Madam Carmen, who wrapped the cards in silk and repacked them in her large bag. Before she left the salon, Madam Carmen said, “Please be careful, very careful. Gina tried to tell you that you are in danger.”

  She pushed open the door and left. She made Sunny think of a sorcerer moving along the damp street, entering and then being swallowed up by fog.

  Sunny and Rita looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Rita laughed. “Is it my imagination or did she just speak perfect English?”

  Sunny smiled. “Yes, she sure did. Is she conning us? Now I don’t know if we should believe everything, or is it all bullshit? All of this is so confusing. That surprised me.”

  Rita nodded. “What should we believe? Do you follow your instincts or not?”

  Sunny shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I believe with my heart, but with my head it’s a different story.”

  Rita turned out the lights, leaving only the streetlights through the windows to dance in the shadows.

  “Let’s go get a pizza and go home, Mom. I’ll buy.”

  Sunny shivered. She was spent, worn to the bone, scared of the unexplained. She also felt in some way she was letting Gina down. She wasn’t able to help any more tonight. “Sounds good. Then we can talk.”

  Sunny took the flat square box and cokes into the living room and plopped the pizza down on the large maple coffee table. She scooped up a piece of pizza. Folding it, one of the pepperoni slices dropped. “Everything Madam Carmen said comes back to ‘danger.’”

  “If we can believe her.” Rita started a fire and turned on the table lamp to give a soft glow. Sunny was tired and wanted to relax. She ate slowly. She tried to digest not only the food, but also what they had learned.

  Sunny thought about the hang-ups and their car being rammed by a mystery driver, possibly Eva. Who else? She also wondered if she should believe the fortune teller. “She’s said the same thing before. Now I will be careful. But who can I trust?”

  “We have to know if or why Gina killed herself.” Rita sucked on the straw in her coke. “We do have to be careful now.”

  “There is no ‘we’. It’s me. You’re to stay completely out of this. Understand?”

  Rita tapped her foot and nodded. “Can’t I at least go with you to see what the people at Gina’s party have to say? It’s not such a hot idea for you to go alone either.”

  “Well, maybe you could go with me to talk to Patty and Mike Fielding. I know they were there. Then we’ll go over to Frank Allen’s. He’s the one who called the police after the boys found her. I’ll see them before I meet with Jesse.”

  “Good. I’ll go put on a sweater. Be ready in a sec.”

  “But they’re the only ones you can go see with me,” Sunny shouted after her, flopping her half-eaten pizza back in its box. She’d lost her appetite.

  Sunny had her coat on. Rita hurried after her.

  “I called Patty while you were changing and explained a little of what I wanted. She was fine with us coming over at this hour.”

  “Mom, it’s only seven fifteen.”

  “Well, it feels later to me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  They traveled back to the reservation and across Fourth Street to the Fieldings’ house. It looked like the rest of the houses in the neighborhood—beige with brown shutters. A small yard with aged chain-link fencing to hold in kids and animals.

  The night air was cold and damp. They found the stairs, thanks to the porch light. The television was blaring Punky Brewster. She knocked hard. “I hope someone can hear me.” She knocked a little harder.

  This time the door was opened. Patty stood looking down at Sunny and Rita. She was a large woman, attractive, with short black hair and dark tanned skin. “Haw-uh.” She invited them in, turned off the TV, and shooed her two little girls into their room, telling them “Put your pajamas on.”

  “Sorry. Please sit down,” Patty offered. “I’ll be with you as soon as I put the girls to bed. Mike had an emergency at work. The power’s off somewhere.”

  “Did he used to work with Gina?” asked Rita.

  Patty stopped and glanced at them. “We both did.”

  “Mommy?” The call came again from the girls’ bedroom.

  Patty hustled around the small room. “There’s coffee on the counter. Please help yourselves. I’ll only be a minute.”

  Sunny and Rita looked around the living room. They sat together on a brown overstuffed sofa. The matching chair across the room faced the television. On both sides were small shelves holding beautiful black-and-turquoise Indian pottery. On the small coffee table, an ashtray filled with cigarette butts gave off the scent of stale tobacco. Next to it stood a jar of peppermint candy. Rita pointed to the large painting, on the other wall, showing three tipis with fire glowing through the skins of their walls. A blue mist surrounded the entire area, making an intriguing picture.

  Patty returned. “Before we start, could I get you anything? Something to eat?”

  Together they answered, “No thanks.”

  “We ate right before we came,” said Sunny.

  “What is it you want to know?” Patty asked, sitting in the chair opposite the sofa, “I don’t know how helpful I’ll be. We’d already left the party when this terrible thing happened.”

  Sunny took out her trusty notebook, ready to write. “Just tell me what went on at the party. Whatever you remember.”

  Patty rubbed her forehead. “At first, nothing much. We sat around drinking, acting Indian, like we do, cutting each other down and telling crazy stories. We were laughing and carrying on, while Eva kept bugging Gina about how she can’t drink like her big sister. At first Gina didn’t care, but Eva kept bugging her to drink up. So Gina finally did.”

  “Did Gina get mad?” asked Rita.

  “Was Jesse there?” asked Sunny.

  “Yes, to both questions. Jesse told Eva to knock it off, and then Gina and Jesse got into an argument.”

  Sunny continued making notes. “About what?”

  Patty watched Sunny as she wrote. “Jesse wanted her to quit drinking. She told him to mind his own business. I think there was more to it ’cause Gina said, ‘Why are you interested now in what I do?’ She got up and went toward her bedroom and Jesse followed. In the meantime, Eva’s boyfriend told her to knock it off and she got pissed. There seemed to be tension among all of them. By this time, Mike and I were buzzing and decided to go home. When arguments start, fights always follow. We know when to get the heck out.”

  “You said something about ‘more to it.’ What do you think it was?” asked Sunny.

  Patty linked her fingers together. “I don’t really know, just the way they acted toward each other. I felt they’d had a big argument earlier. And the way she said ‘now.’ Like it meant something.”

  “So that’s when you both left? That’s all you saw?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Wish I could help you more. It was a terrible thing.”

  “Yes, it was. If y
ou think of anything, please get a hold of me,” Sunny said.

  Patty scrunched up her face, as if straining to recall anything else, but then shrugged. “Sorry.” Sunny got up and Rita followed. Sunny put her notebook back in her purse. Patty walked them to the door. “Good to see you, Sunny. Haven’t seen you in ages. You’re still looking good.”

  “You too. Thanks for seeing us this late.”

  Rita rolled her eyes. Sunny felt withered and ancient, as if she’d been up all night, losing a battle she could never win. Not a quitter—good or bad—she wasn’t about to give up on Gina.

  Driving back to Rita’s they discussed what Patty told them. Sunny spoke up. “I don’t know if it’s anything new or the same as what we heard before. I wish I knew what Gina and Jesse’s fight was about.”

  Rita said compassionately, “You have others to interview; maybe you’ll learn something else from them.”

  Sunny felt distracted; she was thinking about what Madam Carmen said. “Ah-huh. Madam Carmen said danger is all around. She said I could be in danger, and maybe you too.”

  “You could. We all could. But can we trust Madam Carmen? We still don’t know who to trust. We just have to keep on keepin’ on. Who do we see next?”

  “I told you, there’s no ‘we.’ I’m going to call and see if I can talk to Frank Allen.”

  “You already said I could go there with you.”

  “What about the salon?”

  “I’ll work around your schedule. That’s the advantage of being the owner.”

  “All right, but that’s all. And please keep quiet. Not like you did at Patty’s.”

  Rita playfully saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Sunny smiled. “I gave birth to a smart-ass.”

  When they got home Rita checked the answering machine. “One from Victor, one from Barry, and four hang-ups.”

  Reminded of the warning from Madam Carmen, Sunny called Barry, but there was no answer. “Maybe he went to sleep early and turned the ringtone down,” she said to Rita, but her thoughts went elsewhere. She silently prayed, Please don’t let him be drinking. Drinking would surely ruin their marriage. It was possible that it was already too late.