Touchy and Feely (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries) (24 page)

‘I see. So what time did you get to Paulie’s Aquarium?’

‘Around, um, nine thirty I guess.’

‘And this Rick Bristow . . . he can vouch that you were there?’

‘Nope. The aquarium was closed. There was no notice or nothing in the window to say why. I hung around for a while and then I drove back home.’

‘Did anybody see you outside Paulie’s Aquarium?’

‘I don’t know. I just sat in the van hoping that Rick was going to show up, but when he didn’t I drove back home. I stayed at home the rest of the day, finishing off my termite warren. Did you take a look at my termite warren, when you was looking around my house?’

Steve was doodling a laughing tree on the notepad in front of him. Loners and psychopaths, he hated them. They rarely had alibis, and they rarely had rational explanations for what they were doing. Yet he couldn’t lock them up just because they liked spiders, or guns, or pornography, and nobody saw their comings and goings, and they smelled.

He was still trying to think of something else to ask William Hain when Jim Bangs knocked on the door and beckoned him outside. He went out into the corridor, leaving the door two or three inches ajar, so that he could keep his eye on William Hain’s back.

‘We finished checking over the van,’ said Jim.

‘Don’t tell me. Nothing?’

‘Nothing to indicate that a firearm was discharged inside it, or that a firearm was ever carried around in it.’

‘Anything else suspicious?’

‘Mice droppings, shredded-up newspaper, empty orange-juice cartons, two copies of
Jugs
and oceans of peanut shells.’

‘
Jugs
? What’s that? A pottery magazine?’

‘There’s no forensic evidence that William Hain is your shooter, Steve.’

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It’s beginning to look like our witness may have been mistaken, at least about the time-frame.’

‘I’m sorry . . . but if there was only one single grain of gunpowder in that van, we would have found it.’

‘Thanks, Jim.’

‘What are you going to do? Let him go?’

‘I guess I don’t have very much choice. Besides, I wouldn’t want his spiders to go hungry.’

 

D
oreen came into headquarters at 10:07, bringing a box of assorted donuts from the Litchfield Home Bakery.

‘I’m trying to lose weight,’ Steve told her, picking out a caramel-frosted donut with sprinkles.

‘You should worry more.’

‘You think I’m not worried? I’ve just had to release the only suspect we had for shooting Ellen Mitchelson, and Alan’s still insisting that he’s guilty of sexual assault.’

‘You know he’s not guilty. That boy couldn’t sexually assault a fly.’

Steve pushed the rest of his donut into his mouth. ‘Frankly, Doreen, I don’t know what to do next.’

‘Have one of those cinnamon ones. They’re to die for.’

He was still clapping powdered sugar off his hands when Trooper Rudinstine came in. Trooper Rudinstine was tall, wide-shouldered, with scraped-back hair. Doreen always said that she really would have fancied her, if only she were a man.

‘Sir? There’s a woman downstairs who wants to see you. She says that she has some urgent information on the Mitchelson homicide.’

‘Oh, really? Did you get her name?’

Trooper Rudinstine checked the piece of paper she was holding. ‘Mrs Cecilia Sawyer.’

‘OK . . . what are your impressions?’

‘She’s a senior, sir.’

‘I see. And? You’re trying very hard not to smile, Rudinstine. There’s something else you’re not telling me.’

‘Nothing, sir. I guess you’d call her
individual
, that’s all.’

Steve’s head dropped forward onto his chest. ‘Just what I need. An individual senior with urgent information on a random homicide. They don’t teach you about this at detective school, believe me.’

Trooper Rudinstine ushered Sissy and Trevor into Steve’s office. She had been right about Sissy’s appearance. Steve didn’t know how many other sixtyish women were walking around Litchfield County in floor-length sable coats and hats that looked like upturned fire-buckets, but he guessed that they weren’t exactly thick on the ground. He stood up and shook Sissy and Trevor by the hand and offered them a seat, while Doreen stood in the corner with her mouth full of donut, smirking at him.

Sissy opened her black crocodile purse and took out Le Cocher Sans Coeur. She laid it on Steve’s desk, and said, ‘There.’

‘What’s this?’ said Steve, frowning at it but not picking it up.

‘Le Cocher Sans Coeur. The Coachman Without a Heart. He comes from the DeVane deck of fortune-telling cards, first printed in France in 1763.’

‘And this has exactly
what
to do with the Mitchelson homicide?’

‘This has nothing to do with the Mitchelson homicide
per se
. This is warning you about the next homicide to be committed by the same person.’

‘Oh, I see. The
next
homicide.’ Behind Sissy’s back, Doreen was almost choking.

Trevor leaned forward and said, ‘My mother has a gift, Detective. To tell you the truth, I always used to think that it was hocus-pocus. But last night I felt it too, and how. My wife wasn’t enthusiastic about me coming up here, she said I was suffering from displaced guilt because my mother doesn’t want to come to Florida with us for a winter vacation. But the force was so strong that I couldn’t resist it.’

‘The force? As in, “May the force be with you”? That kind of force?’

‘In a way, yes,’ said Sissy. ‘A collective unconscious, like Jung wrote about.’

‘OK,’ said Steve, cautiously. ‘So what is the card warning me about?’

‘It’s quite explicit,’ said Sissy. ‘The DeVane cards always are, if you know how to read them correctly. A man on a vehicle will be killed but the vehicle will keep on going, toward “Catastrophe.”’

‘And that’s going to be the next homicide, by the same person who killed Ellen Mitchelson?’

Sissy nodded. ‘I had to show you in person, because I don’t think you would have believed me, otherwise.’

Doreen gave a suppressed snort and donut crumbs blew out of her nose. She had to leave the room, but even when she had closed the door behind her, Steve could hear her laughing in the corridor. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling—so hard that he could taste blood.

Steve said, ‘I, ah—I think I can see what the card is telling me, but I’m not sure I understand where the force comes into it.’

Sissy made it obvious that she was trying her best to be patient. ‘Detective Wintergreen, any strong emotion causes a ripple in the collective unconscious. Anger, especially, and love; and I am very sensitive to both.’

‘So you felt—anger?’

‘Exactly. Yesterday—after Ellen Mitchelson was killed—I felt an irresistible compulsion to drive up to Canaan. Somebody in Canaan is harboring such rage and frustration that they feel the need to shoot innocent people to get their revenge. It could be a man or a woman, but I have the feeling that it’s probably a man.

‘I saw Ellen Mitchelson’s murder before it happened. This card, look, La Poupée Sans Tête. I’ve had several other warnings as well. I must beware a man locked in a chest. I must be careful of a trap.’

Steve looked at the cards and nodded and then he handed them back. ‘Ms Sawyer, I know that you have the very best intentions, and that you’re only trying to show how public-spirited you are, but you have to see this from my point of view.’

‘Oh, I
do
,’ said Sissy. ‘Good heavens above,
I’d
be skeptical, if I were in your shoes. Here you sit, trying to solve a homicide using all the latest techniques and sophisticated police methods, and some batty old broad comes into your office with a dogeared deck of cards and tells you that she knows who did it, and what they’re going to do next. I’m surprised you don’t give me the bum’s rush.’

Steve stared at Sissy, and Sissy stared back at him, and he saw something in her eyes that made him feel as if he had lost a minute of his life—as if the morning had subtly changed without him being aware of it.

‘You know who did it?’ he asked her.

‘There are three people involved—two male and one female—but only one of them is the prime mover. See this card? Les Trois Araignées, the Three Spiders, two white and one black. I’ve seen them, and I’m sure that they’re the right people. The force led me directly to the house where they live.

‘See this card? I saw one of the men chopping wood, outside the house, and he accidentally chopped his fingers while the other one laughed at him. It was almost an exact re-enactment of what you see in the picture.’

‘And this was yesterday, in Canaan?’

‘That’s right. They’re living in a house on Orchard Street. I don’t know what number it is, but it has an SUV outside, covered with a blue tarp.’

Trevor said, ‘You can go check, if you don’t believe her.’

Steve kept staring at her, turning his ballpen end-over-end. ‘It’s not really a question of not believing her, Mr Sawyer. It’s a question of resources.’

Sissy smiled at him. ‘It’s nothing to do with resources. The real problem is, you can’t think how to explain to your colleagues in Canaan that you’ve been given a hot tipoff by a fortune-teller. And suppose it turns out that the fortune-teller’s wrong? They’re still going to be jerking your chain about it at your retirement party, aren’t they? They’ll be calling you Gypsy Rose Wintergreen.’

‘OK,’ Steve admitted. ‘But you can see my difficulty. I can’t send troopers around to the house without reasonable cause.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Sissy. ‘Let me tell your fortune. If it’s one hundred percent accurate, you’ll agree to send officers round to the house on Orchard Street. If it’s wrong in any respect, Trevor and I won’t say another word, and we’ll go home.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this.’

‘What, you’re frightened that I might be right?’

‘No, Ms Sawyer, it’s just that I’m very busy with this case and I can’t justify spending any more time with you.’

Sissy shuffled the DeVane cards and held them out to him. ‘Go on, tap them.’

‘Ms Sawyer—’

‘Tap them, what do you have to lose?’

Steve hesitated for a moment. He glanced toward the door to make sure that Doreen wasn’t looking in, and then he reached over and gave the deck a sharp rap with his fingernails.

Sissy clasped the deck in both hands, and said, ‘Pictures of the world to be . . . I beg you now to speak to me.’

Steve raised an eyebrow at Trevor, but Trevor simply shrugged, as if to say, this is my momma, you’ll have to take her like she is.

Sissy immediately turned up a card showing a man in a dark tangly forest. He had reached a crossroads and there were at least a dozen direction signs, all pointing different ways. Each sign said ‘La Sepulchre’ but each sign had a different symbol on it. One, a fish. Another, a woman’s hand. Yet another, a dagger. The card itself was titled L’Énigme de la Tuerie.

‘This is your Ambience card,’ said Sissy. ‘This is you, trying to solve your homicide—“the Puzzle of the Killing.” Each sign gives you a clue, but only one clue is the correct one. The trouble is, each sign points to the grave.’

She turned up another card, and another. One showed a man arguing with a young boy, L’Héritier Ingrat. Another showed two people beating with their fists at a man’s front door while a young maiden with flowers in her hair was weeping next to a well. Les Parents en Colère, the Angry Parents.

The Predictor card showed a man pushing torn-off pieces of bread through the bars of a prison cell, although the convict inside the cell was making a show of ignoring him. La Nourriture Odieuse, the Hateful Food.

‘There,’ said Sissy.

Steve examined the cards closely. ‘This is my future? I’m going to lose my job with the state police and wind up as a prison warder?’

‘Of course not,’ Sissy told him. ‘The key to your future is this card, the Ungrateful Heir. This tells me that you and your son have been arguing, because you believe that he should show you respect, while he believes that you don’t really love him. No matter what he does, he thinks that you’re not interested in him, or that when you say you care about his feelings, you’re only pretending.

‘For some reason, he’s upset the parents of a young girl. Here they are, beating at your door demanding justice. Maybe the parents are under the impression that he’s taken advantage of her, or made her pregnant. But look at the girl, you can barely see it but there’s a tiny frog jumping out of her mouth, which means she’s lying.’

Steve leaned across his desk and picked up the Predictor card. ‘So what does this mean?’ he asked her, and he couldn’t disguise the fact that his hand was shaking.

‘It means your son will be punished, even if he was innocent. And no matter how much you try to give him material things to make up for the way that you’ve failed him, he will still despise you. He doesn’t want
things
, he wants
you
. Look—the man has a key, dangling from his belt, and the key has a heart-shaped top to it. The man might be pushing bread through the bars, to say that he’s sorry, but if only he realized it, he could unlock his son and let him out of prison in an instant.’

Sissy carefully took the card out of Steve’s hands and pushed it back into the deck. ‘This is what will happen to you, Detective Wintergreen, unless you make sure that it doesn’t.’

Steve stood up, and went over to the window. It was still snowing outside, and he could see his reflection in the darkness, like a ghost. At last he turned around and said, ‘I want to talk to some of my fellow officers about this. Maybe you could wait downstairs for me. Trooper Rudinstine will bring you some coffee, if you like.’