The ride out to the shack that Wanda (Madam Zora) shared with her brother was a little ways out of town. Myrtle always knew she was getting closer because the church signs became more and more ominous as she approached. They started out with a heartfelt Jesus loves you, before moving on to the slightly more pointed Forbidden fruit creates many jams. By the time she finally puttered up to the turnoff for Wanda’s house, the last sign said Choose the bread of life or you are toast.
The small house where Crazy Dan and Wanda lived was entirely covered with hubcaps. The pair supposedly made their living from selling hubcaps, bait, and psychic readings. Myrtle had a feeling they probably received a little government help in the form of Social Security or disability pay, too.
Myrtle carefully maneuvered across the gravel of the driveway to the house and rapped her cane on the hubcaps. She noticed Wanda had a new sign duct taped to the metal: Madam Zora. Sykick. Tarro Card reeding. Crazy Dan poked his grizzled head out the door, a scowl on his leathery, stubble-covered features. “You again!”
“Hello to you, too, Crazy Dan,” said Myrtle pointedly. “It’s been months since I’ve been here. I’m not here to visit you, anyway. I want to see your sister.”
Still looking her in the eye, he hollered, “Wander…uh, Madam Zora! You gotta for-toon to tell!” With that, the wizened, dirty man disappeared into the dark recesses of his small house.
If Myrtle hadn’t met Wanda before, she’d have thought that Crazy Dan had just run into the back, put women’s clothes on, and joined her again. Like her brother, she was skin and bones, with nicotine stained hands, and five or six teeth missing. She seemed surprised to see Myrtle—and a little unsettled. “You always come back,” she muttered. “You come back, I warn you, and you never listen.”
“I listen!” protested Myrtle. She just didn’t heed it. She listened the whole time.
Wanda sucked in a deep, sustaining breath through her ruined lungs and grabbed Myrtle’s hand as if it were a hot potato. “No, no, no,” said Myrtle. “I don’t want my palm read this time. I want you to do the tarot cards. I want to hear your thoughts on what’s going on in my life.”
Wanda’s expression said that she really didn’t want to delve too far into the nether regions of Myrtle’s life. Grumbling, she yanked out a drawer and pulled out a disreputable looking deck of cards.
She slouched over to a rickety table, motioning Myrtle to follow her. She slapped the cards onto the table and examined them. “There’s a man,” she said. “He is close to you.”
“Yes, yes,” said Myrtle waving her hand in a circular motion. “Probably Red. What else?”
“He will help you.”
“Hmm. Not Red then. Must be Miles. Okay, so Miles will help me. What’s next?” This reading was not particularly helpful so far. “Can we use your crystal ball? I think we get better results with it.”
Madam Zora looked balefully at her as she snatched the crystal ball off a nearby table. Rubbing the ball for effect, she intoned, “There’s a woman. She’s been hurt. Very deeply.”
Myrtle rolled her eyes. “I’ll say. She’s dead.” Money down the drain.
“Not dead. But dead inside.”
That could apply to any number of women. Tammy hurt Kat, Prissy, Bootsie, Dina, and Agnes, too.
Wanda squinted at the dusty ball. “There’s another woman. She’s…” Wanda frowned. “Goin’ on a trip.” She seemed to sense Myrtle’s irritation and said in a grand voice, “But there is death nearby.”
Myrtle’s head hurt. This reading was a total let-down for details.
“Can you see the woman, Wanda? Because it seems to me that if you can tell she’s going on a trip, you ought to at least make out whether it’s an old woman or a tall one or something.”
“Madam Zora never sees faces,” croaked Wanda. “I just see suitcases.”
“How helpful,” gritted Myrtle between her teeth. She fumbled for her cane. “You know, I just remembered there’s something I need to do. I better go.” With her left hand she fumbled in her pocketbook until she pulled out two tens. She showed Wanda one of them, then stuffed it back in her purse. “Ten dollars now, and ten dollars if the faces or other details ever get in focus.”
Wanda nodded. Then she gave a resigned sigh and said, “Cards say yer in danger, too. Not that you care. Yer always in danger.”
“Yes, well, that’s fine. I don’t know how you even know it’s me that’s in danger, since you don’t see details.” Myrtle sniffed. “Take care, Wanda.”
She was almost to Miles’ car when she heard the door screeching open behind her and quickly turned around. “Yes? Did you see something else, Wanda?” She clutched her pocketbook tight in her excitement at further revelations.
“Could you “like” me on Facebook?” Wanda leaned against the doorframe as if needing its help to stand up.
Myrtle stared at her. “Facebook? You’re on Facebook? You have a computer?”
Wanda shook her head. “No computer. My cuzzin put me on the Facebook, though. Git lots of bizness that way.”
Myrtle was accelerating to a regal thirty-five miles an hour when suddenly the car made a clunking noise, the check engine light came on, and she realized the accelerator was as good as useless. After some choice words, she stopped on the side of the road and fumbled for her cell phone. “Miles, your car is broken.”
“Broken! What do you mean? Did you have a wreck?”
Myrtle said, “Of course not. But you could have told me it was broken.”
“But it wasn’t!”
“I’m going to need you to come and get me,” said Myrtle.
“Impossible. You’re in my car.”
“Oh, right. Well. Okay, I’ll call Red.” This wasn’t good. He’d wonder what she was doing out in the boonies in Miles’ car. And he wasn’t, for some reason, all that thrilled with her driving anymore. Who knew why?
Red arrived with Miles, who stayed with his car to wait for the tow truck. The drive back home was swift.
“Aren’t you driving a little fast? I think we just passed a speeding bullet.”
“Who’s going to pull me over?” demanded Red.
Being a police chief had its perks.
“Although I don’t know for the life of me what you’re doing out here in the country.”
Myrtle said, “I was proud of my renewed license and I wanted to get in some practice time behind the wheel. That’s all.”
They seemed to really be driving at a fair clip. Myrtle clutched the door of the car in an obvious manner.
“Just chill out, Mama. I’m not even going that fast. Although, compared to the way you putter around, I guess I am.”
“Sharper than a serpent’s tooth….”
“I’m not a thankless child and you’re not King Lear.”
His level tones only infuriated Myrtle more. “I’m writing you and your bad attitude out of my will.”
“Fine. All your worldly riches—or lack of them—won’t change things a bit.”
Myrtle ground her teeth. “Just so you know, I have plenty of worldly riches.”
“A widowed schoolteacher?”
“You’ve been really overstepping your boundaries,” she grumbled.
“And the retributive literature assignment?” grinned Red. Most of his childhood punishments involved Myrtle’s forcing him to read and be tested on the driest, most arcane texts. This somehow hadn’t killed his lifelong love of reading.
Myrtle considered. “All the chapters in Moby Dick that pertain to whale lines, darts, harpoons and general whale anatomy. Read them twelve times consecutively. Testing will be essay-style.” She gave a hint of a smile.
They drove in silence for a moment, then Myrtle said, “How’d you find time to run out here and rescue me with a murder investigation going on?”
“The state police are doing most of the work right now. Although I still have plenty, believe me,” said Red in a sour voice.
“What’s happening with the case?”
/>
He sighed. “Same as any other murder case, I guess. It’s just that I’m not usually working murder cases. But Perkins hasn’t solved Tammy’s murder either, so I shouldn’t feel bad that I haven’t.”
“What’ve they found out?”
“Nothing much. Mostly what you already know. Someone wearing gloves handled the murder weapon. The door to the Beauty Box wasn’t locked or broken into; somebody just walked right in. There were no signs of a struggle. Tammy had her back to the killer, who stabbed her and pushed her down the stairs. No one heard or saw anything. The main suspects have no alibis and DNA from half the town was present in the salon.”
Myrtle snorted. “No one saw anything? In this snoopy town? I think people know more than they want to let on. Or maybe they don’t know that they know something.”
Red pulled up into Myrtle’s driveway. “Oh, since you’re here,” she ignored Red’s groan, “Could you grab the basket I put together for the women’s shelter? Then you can drive me by the Beauty Box. I just can’t hold my cane and the basket at the same time.” She sounded as pitiful as she could. It was a good opportunity to try to talk to Dina Peters, too.
Red said, “I guess I have some time. Sure. Dina will be sorry to see me coming though; she does a frightened bunny act anytime I show up.”
“Well, you’re investigating her, after all. How do the others act?” asked Myrtle.
“About how you’d expect. Bootsie Davenport puts on a “lady of the manor” act with us. Kat Roberts is belligerent. Strange-looking girl, there. Let’s see—Agnes Walker is courteous, but not helpful. Connor’s defensive. And when we interview Prissy Daniels, I pack smelling salts in my pocket.”
“Prissy couldn’t be that bad,” scoffed Myrtle.
Red looked thoughtful. “She might be faking it. I’d swear she’s even tougher than Kat.” He went in for the basket.
It occurred to Myrtle that there was something else that needed to be delivered. Really, Miles was being completely absurd about the painting. He always complained that his out-of-town guests would stay too long anyway. He only had the one bedroom, so when he had guests he slept on a rollaway bed in his small office. She’d probably be doing him a good deed by leaving the painting for his guests to see it.
She hurried inside and grabbed the painting and Miles’ house key. Since Miles was safely away, she quickly let herself in, put the painting against the bedroom wall, and hurried out. The snatches of the hymn wafted through her head. Yes, this painting could be responsible for Miles getting rid of his company in a timely fashion.