Death in the Cards (2 page)

I swayed a little.

“You okay?” the woman asked.

“Sure, fine,” I said. I wasn't about to tell her that the contrast of her outfit with the autumn colors around us was making me nauseated. “But on the pavement . . . you weren't breathing . . . .”

“Self-induced deep meditation. My breathing is extremely shallow in that state. It's my automatic response to trauma. And a self-healing technique. I became an expert in it in the 1960s—when that kind of thing was more popular and I was in my open-minded twenties.”

I was surprised—the woman didn't look a day past 50. I made a note to myself to look into meditation.

“So, tell me why you ran into me,” the woman added.

“What? We ran into each other! I admit, I was distracted by the beauty of the day, but you must not have been paying attention to where you were going, either. I mean, with my big laundry bag, I should have been pretty noticeable. What was distracting
you?
”

I eyed the laundry bag, a bulky lump to our left on the Rhinegolds' motel parking lot. Thank the good Lord the contents hadn't spilled to the pavement.

When I looked back at the woman, her eyes were hard and narrow, and for a moment that chilly, creepy feeling I'd had
before edged toward me. But suddenly the woman laughed, a great hearty laugh.

“You're kinda feisty. I like that,” the woman said, giving me an appraising look. “Wouldn't have expected it, though.”

Gee, thanks, I thought, starting toward my laundry bag.

“I was on my way to a meeting.”

I looked at her. “What?”

“You asked what was distracting me. I have a meeting I'm going to—”

“Me, too,” I said. After dropping off the laundry with the Rhinegolds, I planned to meet my friends Cherry Feinster and Sally Toadfern (who's also my cousin) for coffee and gossip before a rare Friday morning outing. “I'm running late.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Really,” she said. I gulped, feeling unaccountably guilty at my white lie. I wasn't running late; as usual, I was running a bit early, but I wanted to get away from this woman.

“It's time we met properly,” the woman said. “My name's Ginny Proffitt. I'm here for the psychic fair. As one of the psychics.”

I gulped again. Great, I thought. With my luck, she was probably the only one who really could read minds.

I knew about the psychic fair, of course. For one thing, Paradise has a population of just fewer than three thousand, and not much happens without everyone knowing. For another, a few months ago I'd rented the spare apartment on the second story over my laundromat—I live in the other apartment—to Damon and Sienna LeFever. They were a twenty-something couple from Paradise who moved out to California for a few years, then returned a few months ago to open their new business: Rising Star Bookshop and Psychic Readings, just down the street from my laundromat. They sold New Age books and did tarot card readings and they
were hosting a psychic fair at Paradise's only motel, the Red Horse.

In the
Columbus Dispatch,
I'd seen ads for Columbus-area psychic fairs, gatherings of psychics who do readings and balance chakras (I wasn't quite sure what that meant) and sell crystals. But this would be Paradise's first.

And Ginny Proffitt was the first psychic I'd ever met, with the exception of Great-Aunt Noreen Toadfern, who was said to be gifted with dreams that foretold calamitous events. Great-Aunt Noreen had looked like a loon. Ginny looked well tended. Neither one looked like my idea of a psychic.

Ginny smiled at me. “Don't worry,” she said. “Most people are surprised when they find out I'm a psychic. I guess they expect gypsy skirts and loopy earrings.”

I forced myself not to gasp. She'd just described my expectation. “I'm Josie Toadfern.”

“The laundromat owner,” she said.

I glanced at my laundry bag on the pavement. It definitely didn't take a psychic to figure that out. “I was just dropping off the Rhinegolds' weekly linens.”

“They told me about you when I asked about laundry facilities,” she said. “I just got here a few hours ago, but I'm sorry to say I didn't have time to do my laundry before I came. So I packed a suitcase of dirty clothes, thinking I could do my laundry once I got here.”

I kept my face still while thinking
ew.
I didn't want to be interested in this woman or her story. But my natural curiosity took over. (My school-years nickname was Nosey Josie, but I prefer to think of myself as inquisitively gifted.) Who packs dirty clothes on purpose? Who is so busy they can't even wash a few clothes before traveling?

Ginny Proffitt smiled and answered the question I hadn't asked out loud. “I'm in the process of closing down my business and selling it off. Had some last-minute details to take
care of and couldn't get to the laundromat.” She plucked at the arm of her warm-up suit. “This is clean, though.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Josie.”

I took her hand. “And you.” We exchanged a firm handshake, and I started to pull away, but Ginny held on to my hand.

“The least I can do after all this is give you a complimentary palm reading,” she said.

I resisted an eye roll, remembering Great-Aunt Noreen holding forth at the Toadfern family reunion every year, telling the kids about how she'd dreamt only the night before of someone drowning. Our reunions were held at the man-made Licking Creek Lake State Park, shelter B, by the shore.

“I really am in a hurry—” I started.

“Nonsense,” said Ginny, firmly turning my hand in hers, so that my palm faced up. She stared into it. “I know the LeFevers did the best they could recruiting people, and of course everyone's always drawn to the tarot readers because of the colorful cards, but between you and me, I'm the only real psychic here. Oh, the others get occasional vibrations, I'm sure, but for a real reading, I'm the one to see. I do palm and crystal orb readings, plus dream interpretation. This reading will be quick since we're both in a hurry—” with that she glanced up with a knowing smirk, and I flushed—“but come by later for an in-depth consultation.”

I tugged my hand, but she held on firmly. “You know, I appreciate your offer, really, but—”

Ginny stroked the center of my palm with her forefinger. “Ah. Long lifeline. That's nice.”

I gave in to my earlier impulse and eye-rolled, since Ginny was staring at my palm. What else would psychics say? Hey, kid, you're gonna die soon? They wouldn't get too many repeat customers that way.

“Hmm. But I see some problems in the near future. You're going to be worried about someone very dear to you . . .”

Who doesn't worry about their loved ones?

“Health may be an issue soon for someone you care about . . .”

Flu season's just around the corner, I thought.

“A time of turmoil and turbulence is coming . . .”

Bet she says that to everyone a month before Thanksgiving. Family get-togethers have that effect on a lot of people.

“But you'll find the strength to work through it.”

Pumpkin pie leftovers can do that.

“An issue that's been bothering you will become more important to you . . .”

Gee, could we get any more vague?

“Do you have a boyfriend who's hidden important facts about his life from you in the past?”

What? I rolled my eyes to a standstill and stared at Ginny.

Ginny looked up at me. “Hmm. Stay open-minded but protect yourself, dear.”

I relaxed. I bet she said that to all the single women, and she could guess my single status from my lack of wedding band.

“That's about all I see . . .”

Thank the good Lord!

“Except . . .”

Ginny's grasp tightened. “Oh my! You have a spirit guide!”

Time to start eye rolling again. Let me guess, for only $29.95 I could come to her booth later and find out how to harness the energy . . .

“A teacher . . . not just now, but a teacher from your past. You dream of her. A Mrs. Aaa . . . No! A Mrs. O, something. Mrs. Ogdon, Ogmore . . . I can't quite get the name. Doesn't matter,” Ginny said. Her eyes were distant, as if drawn to something only she could see, her voice awed, but not, I
thought, with what she was saying, more as if she never stopped being surprised by her own ability to probe a stranger's psyche. My psyche.

“When she comes to you in dreams, you want to dismiss her as just a figment of your imagination. But Mrs. O was important to you in ways you didn't realize when she was living, and she's more important to you than you want to realize now, and . . .”

Ginny's mouth kept moving, but suddenly I couldn't hear any of her words. I could only stare into her cool gray eyes.

And I could only hear Aunt Clara, as if she stood behind me, muttering . . .

“That there is a devil there is no doubt . . . but is he trying to get in or trying to get out?”

2

“Girlfriend, you look like you've seen a ghost,” said Sally Toadfern, one of my twenty-seven first cousins on my daddy's side, and the only one I count as a close friend. She took another long drink from her coffee cup and eyed me thoughtfully.

“Maybe she's reacting to something she ate,” Cherry said. “Or smelled. Once in Junior High Home Ec class, when Mrs. Oglevee was showing us how to steam broccoli, Josie went pale like that right before she threw up—”

I blanched at the mention of Mrs. Oglevee. Cherry and Sally swayed away from me. I was sitting between them at the bar at the back of the Red Horse Motel's restaurant.

“Did you have to mention that?” I asked Cherry.

Cherry runs Cherry's Chat N Curl, located right next to my laundromat, and she has a memory for details—which customer prefers the green apple-scented shampoo, which one needs a wee more ash blond in her tint to keep from going bluish. And Cherry has a way of putting her gift for recollection to use by recalling my most embarrassing
memories better than I do, and sharing them with everyone in vivid detail.

“Josie hasn't liked steamed broccoli since,” Cherry went on. “Come to think of it, neither have I.”

“She's never been much on ghosts—or ghost stories,” Sally said.

“Which is why you told them to me every chance you got,” I snapped at Sally.

Though we were only sipping innocent cups of coffee, we were seated at the bar because the dining room behind us was being rearranged for the psychic fair.

Sally was chuckling. “Yeah, I did, didn't I? But my stories never seemed to bother you as much as when Great-Aunt Noreen would tell us her freaky dreams about us all drowning at the family reunions . . .”

“Quit it, both of you! I'm fine.”

Sally stopped chuckling and cracked her knuckles. Cherry puffed her glossy red lips up into a precious pout. Both of them gave me hurt little glances.

I was lying about being fine, and they knew it. If I told them that Ginny Proffitt had seriously spooked me, they'd probably tease me. Not that I'd blame them. It was the kind of thing that invited teasing. But I wasn't in the mood for it.

You see, most of Ginny's “reading” of my palm had been generic fluff, but somehow she'd tapped into a truth I hadn't ever told these two, or my friend Winnie, or my boyfriend Owen: I do, in fact, have dreams in which I am visited by Mrs. Oglevee, my Junior High history and home-ec teacher. Mrs. Oglevee died four years after retiring and one week before she was supposed to go on a luxury Riviera cruise, for which she'd saved from her meager teacher's pay and by substitute teaching after retirement. As you might imagine, Mrs. Oglevee is not in a good mood in my dreams. But she
does love to give me much unwanted advice and criticism. Just as she did in real life.

I've always chalked up these dreams to simple explanations, like enjoying a fried garlic-bologna sandwich too close to bedtime. But how could I explain away a total stranger like Ginny Proffitt knowing about my dreams, when I'd never mentioned them to anyone? I pushed the question to the back of my mind while pushing a smile to my face.

“So, tell me what's new with the two of you,” I said brightly.

“The triple-threats have stopped eating everyone's glue, but rumor has it their teacher is still considering a career switch to sales,” Sally said, referring to her sons'—Harry, Barry, and Larry—kindergarten experience so far. She shrugged and added flatly, “I have a kitchen cabinet install this weekend.” Sally owned the Bar-None bar on the edge of town—having just bought it from her ex-mother-in-law—but she also did odd carpentry jobs when she could. She struggled, but got by as a single mom. (Her ex-husband Waylon Hinckie, a.k.a. the Rat, had taken off with a honey on a Harley when potty training the triplets got to be too much for him.)

“No date for me tonight,” Cherry said, sighing. Sally and I cut each other a look. We thought it was just as well Cherry had broken up with DeWayne Forrester, her most recent beau. His idea of a romantic date was going to the Burrito Barn for the double-wide burrito special. Plus he'd been two-timing her with Robin Seales. But Cherry hates to be without a fella.

“I guess I'll go over to her place for line dancing,” Cherry added, jerking a thumb at Sally.

Then Cherry and Sally went silent and glared at me. I knew what this was—emotional blackmail—and I wanted to
throttle them for it. Both of them would normally be talking over the top of each other with a lot more info than that.

They thought I couldn't bear their stony silence.

And they were right. I broke down right away.

“All right,” I said, “I'll tell you what's bothering me. I was more or less mugged, right out in the parking lot.”

“What? Mugged? Oh my God, we need to call the police!” Cherry dug into her big purse, which was silk-screened with a black-and-white photo of Marilyn Monroe, Cherry's hero, never mind that Marilyn died a decade and a half before Cherry was born. Sally and I had gone in on the bag for Cherry's thirtieth birthday party, held after hours at the Bar-None. That—and a lot of bourbon—had helped make up for the fact that we'd teased her unmercifully about turning thirty a year before us.