Death in the Cards (4 page)

I must have looked confused—which I was—because the young woman trailed off. Then she smiled, as if something bemused her, a private joke. “I'm Skylar Temple. Well, really, Skylar Smith. But for business, I took a pseudonym.”

She thrust out her hand. Her shake was surprisingly flimsy. “This is my mom, Karen Smith.”

I turned to the older woman, but she wasn't paying any attention to me. She was looking worriedly at her daughter. “Skylar, really, why do you tell people that about your last name? It ruins the whole effect.”

Skylar rolled her eyes. “My mother, my manager.”

I pushed back a laugh. Skylar would fit right in with Cherry and Sally and me, although I guessed Skylar to be in her early twenties. Cherry and Sally had finally shuffled up beside us.

“You know, you have the most beautiful hair.” Cherry's fingers waved near Skylar's hair. “It would be perfect in braids.”

Skylar lifted her eyebrows. “You're good with braids?”

I said, “She owns Paradise's only beauty salon. Braiding's her specialty—although she also does buns and blue heads.”

We all laughed, except Karen, who kept a fretting look on her face. “I am her manager. But she never pays any attention to me, even though I'm the one who discovered her talent, which she inherited from my mother, God rest her soul.”

“You're not a psychic?” I asked, surprised.

Karen gave a twittering laugh. “Oh no, not at all. But Skylar—well—Skylar has a gift with dream interpretation. She also does Tarot reading—”

“Ooh, Josie, here, got mugged with a palm reading and a dream interpretation, on her way in! From a Ginny Proffitt,” Cherry chimed in. “You all know her? We're hoping to find her. Or find out more about her.”

The Smiths went stonily silent again. Uh oh.

Then Karen turned to her daughter, “See? I told you. You should have protested your table assignment! But do you ever listen to me? Not about the brochures, not about that awful Ginny Proffitt! I hate that woman! I'm not psychic, but even I know this is going to be a disaster!”

With that, Karen stomped off toward the curtained area. She thrust aside the curtain so hard the whole structure wobbled. She was surprisingly strong for such a petite woman. Skylar stared after her mom, looking at once embarrassed and worried.

“What's behind the curtain?” Sally asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “The Wizard of Oz?”

Skylar looked back at us, regaining at least the appearance of composure with a quick laugh. “Right now, a bunch of boxes—participants' brochures, a few items for sale at the tables. By tomorrow afternoon, when the psychic fair opens, it'll be an area for specialty seminars. How to balance your chakras, things like that.”

Sally grunted. “I don't even know how to balance my checkbook.”

“Well, don't ask me about that—or about chakras. I know a little, but it's not my specialty.”

“Psychics have specialties?” said Cherry.

“Sure,” Skylar said, “like in most any profession. I mean, you do hair, but your real passion is braiding. My gift is in dream interpretation and Tarot reading, just like mom said. Ginny Proffitt focuses on palm and orb reading—”

“Orb?” Cherry said.

Skylar smiled. “What most people think of as a crystal ball. But Ginny also does dream-interpretation.”

“I take it you two are competitors in the dream interpretation department?” Sally asked.

Skylar's smile faded. “My mom and Ginny are competitors—ever since a psychic fair last spring in Illinois. Ginny's table was beside mine then, too, and she grabbed all the attention. I still did just fine—and I prefer a much more relaxed approach—but Ginny's a real self-promoter.”

She turned, pointing to the table that was next to hers. She and her mother had been blocking it from our view, and we'd been so focused on her mother's stomping off that we hadn't noticed the red tablecloth on the table next to Skylar's.

Now that Skylar had moved, we could also see the large clear crystal ball, on an ornate gold stand, with four dragons holding up the ball, displayed on a red tablecloth embroidered with gold stars, and the professionally printed display poster that read,
GINNY PROFFITT, SEER AND PROPHETESS
.

PALM AND ORB READINGS
. . .
DREAM INTERPRETATION
. . .

YOUR FUTURE REVEALED
! She also had a huge stack of full-color, promotional brochures.

I looked at the black-and-white, printed-at-the-local-copy-shop flyers on Skylar's plain, white tableclothed table. I
could see why Karen felt intimidated by Ginny, on her daughter's behalf.

“Wow,” said Cherry. “Think I could get her to redesign the front window to my hair salon?” I resisted an eye roll. I swear, sometimes I think Cherry wouldn't know tacky if it jumped up in all its big-haired glory and bit her on her pierced (with just the tiniest of diamonds, I admit) nose.

“Does she come out wearing a turban?” Sally asked.

Skylar laughed again. “No. But she wears a specially made gold lamé robe. And she wanted a dry-ice machine. Fortunately, for this fair at least, Damon and Sienna nixed that idea. Rumor has it Ginny was furious.”

“But she seemed pretty down to earth when I met her,” I said. “Overly aggressive maybe, but not the gold-lamé-robe-type.” Although the warm-up suit had been pretty flashy, kind of like Dolly-Parton-does-step-aerobics.

“Yeah, but she forced a palm reading on you. And told you all about this dream you have repeatedly, about drowning in an orange bikini . . .” Sally said. I could tell she was still angry at Ginny on my behalf.

“Drowning can represent feeling overwhelmed,” Skylar interjected wisely. “Now the orange bikini—hmm. That's one I'll have to think about . . .”

“The orange bikini was my idea of what to wear in a drowning dream,” Cherry said. “Josie was wearing a navy one piece when she drowned in her dream.”

“Oh, well, that just represents being overly responsible,” said Skylar with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You know, the kind of person who's always looking out for other people, doesn't cut loose much . . .”

Well, thank you very much, I thought. And just what does it mean that I dream of my dead Junior High teacher giving me unwanted advice?

But out loud, I said, “Don't Ginny's tactics put off her customers, though? And wasn't everyone supposed to have white tablecloths?” I knew this because of my role in laundering the cloths.

Skylar smiled knowingly. “Ginny Proffitt is very popular. She has groupies, a discussion group on her Web site, and a self-published book of her philosophies that will sell hundreds of copies this weekend. She's the draw for this fair, and everyone knows it. That's why if she wants a red tablecloth, she gets it.”

“But no dry-ice machine,” I said. My gaze strayed back to the crystal ball. There was something very appealing about its perfect orb shape. Soothing. But all I saw through it was a distorted view of the brochures on the other side, kind of like looking through a warped magnifying glass. I wondered what someone like Ginny saw when she looked through it.

Skylar shrugged, fingering the Celtic cross she wore around her neck. “Damon and Sierra are brave souls. Like the rest of us, Ginny's self-promotion tactics make them nervous. She plays to all the stereotypes the rest of us are trying to overcome and she gives her clients specific predictions.”

“Isn't that what psychics are supposed to do?” Sally said.

“We see it more as giving impressions of possible challenges a client might face. And Jesse and Sienna have asked Ginny to keep her predictions to that level—not ‘your husband will die in a week,' but just saying if she senses ill health for a loved one. Damon even warned her that she'll be asked to leave if she gets too specific. At the Illinois fair, Ginny predicted just that—the husband dying—to a client, and the poor woman collapsed in hysteria. Of course, Damon's warning has angered Ginny, who is already spreading gossip on the psychic Internet list servs that Damon and Sienna don't really know what they're doing, this being their first fair.”

Cherry went behind the table and pointed at the crystal ball. “So she uses this crystal ball to see the future, huh, like that poor woman's hubby dying?” I shook my head. Cherry heard what she wanted to hear—and like a lot of people, what she wanted to hear was that there is some specific way to know the specific future. She tapped the ball with her long red fingernails. “Wake up, wake up! Am I gonna get back with DeWayne, or are we through for good?”

I gasped. Sally rolled her eyes. Skylar frowned and waved her hand over the top of the ball. “Don't do that, okay?”

Cherry jumped back, suddenly looking nervous. “What, is it bad luck or something? You know, I did feel a little zap when I touched it . . .”

“That was static electricity,” I said.

Skylar took us all in with a single glance—and I could read just what she was thinking. That the three of us were nuts. Great. Three native Paradisites had just managed to out-weirdo the so-called weirdos in less than ten minutes.

“It's just disrespectful,” Skylar said. “Even if I don't much like Ginny, either, I have to speak up for her personal effects. That's her orb for gazing, and it's tuned now to her own energy. Sort of like my Tarot cards are tuned to me.”

Cherry withdrew her hand. “Sorry,” she squeaked meekly, now staring at the ball as if it might take on a life of its own and attack her somehow.

“Josie! Josie, I need your help!” That was Damon, hollering as he bolted over to us from his booth. “There's no way that Sienna and I can lead today's tour!”

“Is she feeling poorly this morning?” I asked hopefully—which made Skylar give me a funny look—but I knew that Sienna and Damon were trying to have a child and not having any luck. The previous month she'd felt queasy two mornings in a row and was all excited that she was experiencing morning sickness. It turned out she had the flu.

Damon shook his head. “Nothing like that. It's our store! Someone must have broken in last night—the place has been trashed! Crystals, incense, amulets, books everywhere.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I don't understand. I'm sure we locked up and set the alarm like we always do. We wouldn't have known about it until Monday—” The Rising Star was closed for Friday and the weekend because of the psychic fair, where all of Damon's and Sienna's customers would be anyway. “—but she'd left her tour notes in the back office and went in to get them just a half hour ago . . .” Damon's voice trailed off shakily.

I patted his arm, Cherry swooped in for a bear hug that made Damon gasp, and Sally swatted her fist into her palm, muttering about what she'd do if she caught the jerks who'd messed with her friends.

“Is Sienna okay?” I asked.

“She's shaken up, but fine,” said Damon, pulling out of Cherry's hug. “But she's filing a police report with Chief Worthy, who isn't being all that helpful.”

That didn't surprise me. I'd overheard John Worthy at Sandy's Restaurant—a popular local diner across the street from my laundromat—complain that he feared the LeFevers' business would attract all kinds of weirdos who would do who knew what kind of vandalism. I'm not sure exactly how an interest in tarot cards or supernatural books makes someone a vandal. The only crime I'd known to happen because of their business up until now was that the first (and only) time I went in, my sense of smell was assaulted by the overwhelming fragrance of patchouli incense.

But now someone had vandalized their business. The poor LeFevers. I knew they'd put everything into their business, and had taken out pretty large loans, too.

“. . . and of course Chief Worthy wants Sienna to give an accounting of what may have been stolen, but she says the
place is such a mess that it's going to take hours for her to straighten out the inventory to figure out what's missing.” Damon put his hands to his head and moaned. “We'll have to cancel the tour and I just don't know how we can focus on making this fair a success with this . . .”

“Damon, you're not really going to cancel the tour, are you? I was really looking forward to it,” Skylar said. “Everyone was . . .” She trailed off as we all looked at her. “I'm sorry. I know how that sounds.” She looked at Damon. “I'm really sorry that happened to your business. But to miss Serpent Mound . . .” Skylar shook her head sadly.

“Serpent Mound is an important spiritual site. Visiting it was part of the draw for coming here for several of the psychics, especially Ginny Proffitt,” Damon explained to us. “We were all looking forward to attuning ourselves to the wise spirituality of the ancient ones who created it.”

Cherry started to giggle, but I elbowed her before Damon noticed.

“Everyone's going to be so disappointed,” Damon concluded, looking sad, in a little-boy-who-lost-his-puppy sort of way. It made me feel sorry for him, even though I wasn't quite sure what to make of his “attuning” and “ancient ones” talk.

Apparently, his sad face got to Sally, too, because she said, “Aw, hell, Damon, why don't you have Josie here lead the tour. She knows all about Serpent Mound.”

“What? What are you talking about?” I cried. “I don't know more than anyone else who's from around here.”

“Don't you recollect the project you did on Serpent Mound for eighth grade local history class?” Sally turned to Damon. “She even did a to-scale clay model.”

“Hey—I think I remember that,” said Cherry. “It was really cute. With little flags and all, identifying the important parts . . . like, you know. The head. The tail. The middle.”

I flinched. How had Cherry managed to pass anything other than beauty-school braiding?

“Yeah,” Sally said. “It even impressed old Mrs. Oglevee. And Josie never impressed her.”