Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (5 page)

My
parents popped out on the lawn as if spring-loaded. Mother, the size of a wiry
sparrow, pulled us from the car and kissed us hello. Dad made one lap around
the car's exterior and said, "What happened to your car? You should get
those dents in the rear fixed."

"Is
that all you can say to your daughter, Ben?" Mother chastised.

"Hi,
sugar." He gave me a chipper kiss on the cheek.

"Elmo,
precious, has your mommy endangered your life by driving all alone across the
country?" Mother asked the exhausted hound, who looked as if he might go
into a drool state from sheer fatigue. She towed Elmo up the steps. "Now,
none of us wants to miss tonight's news about Frank Anthony! He was set on
fire!" Mom nearly shouted.

"Is
that a euphemism for 'found God'?" I smiled at her.

"He
was torched!" Mother regurgitated the word being used by a reporter.
"He was shot once in the head and once in the chest, then set on
fire!"

"Once
in the head and once in the chest usually means we'd prefer this little
incident go un-discussed," my dad said with a dark humor I had grown to
appreciate more and more with time.

"You
should see if Mrs. Anthony will let you make a movie out of it. Frank Anthony
was a wonderfully kind man," Mother continued.

"Studios
don't want stories about wonderfully kind men. They want tits, ass, action, and
murder," I replied.

"Well,
maybe there's some of that too. Call Mrs. Anthony and talk to her," Mom
instructed me.

Maybe
she s right,
I thought.
Focusing
on someone else s murderer beats the hell out of focusing on the guy who tried
to be mine.
"I'll check it out," I said.

Dad
resumed his dinner, slamming down two hamburgers with four strips of bacon in
under five minutes, confirming my suspicion that I was descended from a pack of
wild dogs, and then he turned on the evening news. Deaf from a lifetime of oil
derricks and high-powered rifles, he cranked the volume up to atom-splitting
levels to hear the latest police bulletin. The police sergeant being
interviewed was none other than my old buddy Wade Garner, who looked
appropriately serious and competent as he told a reporter that the police now
believed Frank Anthony was killed by professional assassins. Police were asking
for the public's help in locating a dark green Lincoln Town Car with two men
inside. The broadcaster then noted that Mr. Anthony was an international
businessman with ties to many organizations, including Celluloid Partners, one
of the principal investors in some of Hollywood's biggest motion picture
studios.

"So
Frank Anthony suffered from fits of glitz," I mused.

"I
don't think he suffered from fits." Mother waved at Dad and mimed muting
the TV. Dad turned the sound down, and the effect was akin to having the
dentist take his drill out of my mouth. My body relaxed immediately. "Now,
my friend Callie Rivers could tell you if he suffered from fits, and she can
tell you whether you should pursue this Anthony story. She's a psychic
astrologer."

"You
go to a psychic?" I was slightly amused.

"I
don't go to a psychic. I know a psychic astrologer."

"And
I need to know her?" I said with just enough flippancy to set Mother off.

"Well,
maybe you don't!" Mother had her back up faster than a hound. I recognized
my error immediately and tried to calm her down, but Dad was grinning at me as
if to say I was in for it now.

"Maybe
you already know everyone you need to know, and maybe I don't know anyone who
would be of interest to someone from Los Angeles, but then maybe I do!"
She slapped her address book into my hand like forceps.

I
escaped to the den to make the call, thoroughly ashamed at how quickly I could
turn into a thirteen-year-old girl around my mother. I left my phone number on
Callie Rivers's answering machine, saying only that I was Lu Richfield's
daughter, and then I fell into line behind Elmo, who was already headed for the
guestroom. In one graceful gallump, he hoisted his huge frame onto the bed and
burrowed into the soft quilt. I was about to hoist him off when Mother appeared
in the doorway. "Leave him alone! He can't hurt that quilt. It needs
washing anyway." A graceful lie on her part. In minutes Elmo and I had
buried our heads into the quilt's downy folds and were asleep. We'd both
reached basset nirvana.

The
phone rang at midnight, awakening me. A voice on the other end sounded so
bright and chipper that I had to check the clock to make sure it wasn't
morning. "Teague? Did I wake you? Sorry, I always assume everyone keeps my
hours. This is Callie Rivers. Your mother's friend," she said, and there
was something in her voice that made me feel as if a hand had gently swept the
back of my neck, causing my hair to stand on end.

"Why
don't you come over?" she asked.

"Now?"

"My
days are pretty booked." She recited her address and hung up before I
could object.

I
stared at the phone and shook my head like Elmo when he's baffled or disturbed.
"I can go back to bed, and toss and turn and analyze her call, or I can do
as the lady asks and show up," I said to Elmo. "I've done crazier
things. Maybe she'll tell me who tried to kill Barrett and me, or who killed
Frank Anthony, or maybe she'll tell me when I'll meet my true love." Elmo
yawned, letting me know he was particularly bored with the last topic.

I
crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, still
rationalizing my behavior to Elmo, who hated his nights interrupted. "I
might as well go tonight, because God knows, I'd rather face killers in the
front yard than have Mother ask me one more freaking time if I've called her
friend Callie Rivers." I ran a brush through my hair. "How weird is
this appointment time? But a lot of older people can't sleep at night. Maybe
Callie Rivers is just an insomniac and she's making it pay off for her by
scheduling late-night appointments. It's something about her voice. I feel like
I know her from somewhere." I checked myself out in the mirror. "If
she's wearing bones around her neck, I'll bring you one." I chucked Elmo
under the chin and he groaned, indicating I should turn out the light.

I
drove west toward the river, where a pair of high-rise condos punctured the
heavens. I parked directly in front of the entrance, entered the ornate marble
lobby, and waited for the gold-encrusted elevator doors to open and take me up
to the twelfth floor. Once upstairs, the doors opened to face a beautiful gold
and black bull's-eye mirror hanging over an antique marble table supporting a
vase of fresh mauve tulips.
Not a bad place to live,
I thought, and rang
the bell to apartment 1201.

The
door swung open to reveal a drop-dead gorgeous blonde. Her hair swept back off
her fabulous features as if some heavenly wind blew it in that direction as she
sailed across the sky on angel wings. Her pale and perfect skin and ethereal
blue eyes almost stopped my heart.

"You're
Callie Rivers?" I asked breathlessly.

"And
you're Teague." She hugged me, pressing her soft cheek against mine, and
to my delight bumped me ever so lightly with her pelvis, the kind of bump that
could have been accidental, or not.

"Come
in, please." I followed her trail of orgasmic perfume, pretending to check
out the floor-to-ceiling glass that provided a nice view of the river, and the
beamed ceilings and white walls that gave the place the airiness of a chapel,
but mostly I was checking out her fabulously small, tight ass and wondering how
any one woman could have such a diminutive derriere and such voluptuous breasts
both at the same time. What an amazing package! The sexual tension on my part was
palpable. For the first time in my life, I understood how it felt to be a
teenage boy. I didn't care if she were the biggest psychic airhead on the
planet or if she could conjugate a verb, I just wanted to take her to bed right
now and make love to her, or fuck her, or both. The room felt full of her, and
that fullness danced around me like electricity.

"That's
a very unusual ring." She took my right hand, and I hoped she'd never let
go.

"It
was a gift I bought myself after selling my first script," I said to
impress her. It was a wide band of gold with diamonds of varying sizes set
alongside ruby and aquamarine teardrops. She studied it for a moment, her mind
somewhere in the past.

"Lu
said you wanted to know about the Anthony murder. Should you pursue the story,
right? What time is it?"

I
told her it was 12:47 a.m. She moved to a bank of computers, punched in some
data, along with the time, 12:47, and hit a button. A moment later a strange
circular wheel covered in astrological symbols rolled off the printer.

"This
is a horary chart. You like documentation. Read this page," she commanded,
handing me a thick book on horary astrology.

I
tried to read what was on the page. Something about ancient civilizations
employing crude forms of horary astrology to answer questions of import, like
who will win the battle at dawn, but I was too distracted by her to care about
battles at dawn unless they involved Callie Rivers and took place on clean
sheets.

"The
king would call in his priests and ask the question. They would draw up a chart
at the moment the question was asked, because that was the moment of greatest
emotional intensity. The priests would interpret the chart and give the king
his answer," Callie explained.

"So
if they were right, they lived and prospered. If they were wrong, they were
dead wrong. Hollywood should employ that practice during pilot season." I
wanted her to think I was funny, but it didn't seem to be working.

She
studied the astrology chart carefully, picked up a pen and drew a few
foreign-looking symbols on it, then sank back onto a white leather couch.
"This is huge! Frank Anthony had something on someone. Oh, look at this,
Mars Combust the Sun."

I
feigned interest in the chart so I could join her on the couch. "So, what
does that mean exactly?"

"Murder
by fire, maybe? Well, that's really not the question, is it? I would say you
should drop the story if you're easily frightened." She leaned in to study
it more closely. Only a moment before, she had appeared to be a golden flea,
flitting across the room; now she took on an aura of light and strength.

"No,
you can't avoid it. Mercury is retrograding toward Mars Combust the Sun. There
will be something explosive about this story. The Fourth House Cusp represents
the end of the matter. In this case, the Fourth House Cusp is ruled by Mars.
The Moon, co-ruler of the Ascendant, representing you, the querent, is conjunct
Mars. Moon, Mars, and Sun are all quincunx Pluto in Sagittarius in the Twelfth
House. Sagittarius being a fire sign, Twelfth House being in secret. To me it
signifies death by fire behind the scenes. Here's something interesting, Jupiter
at zero degrees Gemini in the Fifth House of creativity means the story will be
big." She paused and glanced heavenward. "You have something they
want. I feel that psychically. Expertise maybe, although it feels like
something tangible."

My
head had started to hum and my body was tingling. I felt as if I'd been
pleasantly drugged. I stared at her, not hearing a word she said, just
wondering how anyone this gorgeous could be here with me. "Are you
married?" I interrupted her.

She
smiled at me. "Right now you need to know about the Anthony murder.
Mercury is conjunct Venus. Conjunct, within a five-degree orb, let's say, for
argument's sake. And in this instance, that conjunction would seem to indicate
a beneficial relationship between you and a woman. Maybe you'll be protected by
a woman, because that conjunction falls in your Seventh House of partnerships
and/or open enemies. Nonetheless, it's all quincunx Pluto in your Twelfth
House, which again could indicate hidden danger." She looked up and caught
me staring hopelessly into her eyes.

"We'd
work well together. Good energy." She smiled at me. "You're shy.
People don't know that about you. And you live in your head a lot." She
gave me a sly grin.

I
felt the heat of embarrassment rising up around my collar, as if she could see
every sexual fantasy that had ever gone through my head.

"You
need to know that in relation to this Anthony murder, I see someone who has
been very, very frightened.. .unable to sleep nights. This person phoned the
dead man just before he died."

It
was evident to her that I wasn't paying attention, and that no amount of
schooling in the art of astrology was going to take place tonight. I was
hopeless.

Callie
sat back on the couch and took a deep breath, silent for a while, as if
deciding whether or not to confide in me. "What am I going to do about
you?" she said softly, looking at me with eyes that were on fire.

"Anything
you want," I breathed.

"You
were promised to me, Teague," she said quietly.

I
felt my groin tighten with exquisite pain. "Promised to you?"

"Through
my dreams. A partner is coming into my life. You're five foot seven, aren't
you? And you wear only Italian shoes, you brush your hair up off your face, and
you never take off that unusual ring." She was so spectacularly beautiful
that I wondered if she was crazy, the wrong ratio of sexiness to synapses.