Dead Sleeping Shaman (22 page)

The nice woman behind
the desk inside the nursing home offered to call the police for me. She was all apologies but “No,” she said, no one had come in to report anyone taking things from a car in the parking lot. Probably because who would think it suspicious, someone taking their own camera and a half dozen dead roses? I turned down the police. It was no use. Whoever had done it was far away. I could see stealing the camera—my fault, I never locked my car. Who would want the photos? And the dead flowers? The man at Deward kept flashing into my head. No one but that man could have known what I had with me. But why would he care about photos and dead roses? And he certainly couldn’t have followed me. His car had been elsewhere, upstream or downstream. He might have gotten my license number—still, what good would that do him? Could he have called someone? Nothing was probable and nothing improbable. It was all one huge scrambled mess.

I started my car, wondering who knew I was coming out to see Aunt Cecily. Dolly—would she tell anyone at the camp? Was Dolly my enemy now? I had to shake my head, driving south out of the parking lot. The thought of Dolly turning against me made me sick. There was no stopping what I had to do. I had to find out what had happened to my good friend, and then what had been done to Marjory Otis. Crystalline and the other women depended on me. I depended on me. I even had the feeling that Marjory depended on me.

The cost of a new camera hit me right in the gut. I’d paid five hundred for the one I’d just lost; probably well depreciated in the four years I’d been using it. I wondered if my homeowner’s policy would cover the cost of a new camera. Maybe, but if I remembered right I’d just upped my deductible to something like five hundred, to save money.

I’d buy used. Plenty of cameras on the Internet. I’d talk to Bill. Maybe there was a camera at the paper I could use, or buy. Nothing was insurmountable. No loss too great—I kept telling myself this as I thought about selling something I owned to cover a new camera, and not letting my shrinking bank account parade, like a TV crawl, through my head.

On the way home I stopped at EATS for coffee. I wanted to see if Dolly had been in and seen her family tree. If the paper was torn from the wall, I’d know Dolly had been around. But first, I wanted to drive by her house, see if she was there—though I didn’t know what she would be driving with no access to a patrol car. Dolly didn’t own a car of her own.

I drove past her house twice, going slow, seeing if I could spot anyone through the front windows. A car was parked in front, at the curb. An old white Oldsmobile with a rusted trunk. I figured maybe someone from the End Time cult was staying there, one of them who’d resisted Sy’s persuasive car “deals.” Many hadn’t resisted and newer cars bloomed along 131. Sy, the used car dealer, was banking on getting his money on October 27 precisely at twelve-o-one. He was betting against the cult. I guessed I was too; though, even if I considered myself a fairly intelligent and over-educated person, I was feeling the same unspoken fear I sensed creeping through town:
What if they’re right and I’m wrong? Won’t I have egg on my face when the fire balls start shooting?

With a sinking feeling, the thought hit me that Dolly might have signed over her house to the Reverend Fritch. Eugenia had said people did this kind of thing—a token of faith. There was never talk of what would happen if the world didn’t end on the twenty-seventh, I’d been told. I wondered if the reverend would be long gone before then or, like others before him, he’d simply announce a new date for destruction.

I had nothing to lose. I got out of my car, walked up the steep cement steps to her door, and knocked. Inside, a voice called out, “Dolly, someone’s here.” I heard footsteps crossing the living room. The door opened and Dolly stood there wrapped in her robe with the wide sleeves rolled back and the hood off her very bald head. Dolly’s little eyes, lost in all that pale skin, made her face look as if it were melting. This wasn’t an attractive look for Dolly, who needed all the help she could muster.

She nodded but said nothing. I stepped up and pushed her aside, since she wasn’t asking me in. While she took a few steps back, looking none too happy to see me, I got far enough into the living room so she wouldn’t be able to throw me out without help.

That help was standing in the arch leading to a small hallway going back to Dolly’s bedroom on one side and the kitchen on the other. Sister Sally, her robe more in order, looked from Dolly to me and then back. She folded her arms and waited to see what Dolly was going to do. There would be no conversation with Sally. I detested the smirky woman who, simply by her smug smile, made me feel like a lesser being.

I looked hard at Dolly. “So? What’s going on? You give your house to the cult yet?”

“It’s not a cult. The reverend doesn’t take houses or money.”

“Bull shit!” I wasn’t there to play games or listen to excuses.

Dolly shook her head and closed the door—since it seemed I wasn’t leaving immediately—then walked around me, brushing so close I felt the hard material of the robe against the back of my hand.

“Listen, Dolly. I think I’m owed an explanation here. I don’t get what’s going on. Officer Winston is coming to see Lucky tomorrow, probably to take the investigation away from us. Lucky can’t see to town business and be working on Marjory Otis’ death too, not all by himself. I’ve got no official standing. I think there’s something out at Deward that has to be looked into. I took photos—remember when we were there the day I found her? Now somebody out at the nursing home in Bellaire, where the aunt is living, stole my camera, the photos, and … .” I looked at Sister Sally, who stood behind me, listening. “Something else. When I was out there I found …” I was just too uncomfortable, standing between them. I couldn’t finish what I wanted Dolly to know.

I changed tactics. “You’d better get over to the station tomorrow afternoon, be there to talk to Winston. If you don’t, well, I guess that’s all I need to know.” I took one step away, uncomfortable to be the sandwich filling between these two.

“What’d you find?” Dolly leaned back on the heels of her shoes and lifted her chin, challenging me—to what I couldn’t fathom.

“Come to the meeting and you’ll know. Only don’t bring her.” I pointed at Sister Sally. It was rude but I didn’t care. Dolly had turned against everything in her life because of this woman. I owed her nothing, except maybe a damned good fight for Dolly’s soul. Which side I was on—angel or devil—didn’t matter. I might not be the most religious person on earth, but I knew good from evil and had seen plenty of both in my life. Sally and the reverend and Brother Righteous—they weren’t on the side of the angels. So I guessed that would have to be me. I stood straighter and faced Sally.

“I don’t know what the hell you’ve been feeding Dolly. She’s always been a vulnerable person—needing family. You’re not it. None of you. I’ll tell you one thing: I can’t wait until the twenty-seventh and the twenty-eighth when the bunch of you slink out of town, dragging your forked tails… ”

“Emily,” Dolly demanded, “leave Sally out of this. She’s only trying to help …”

“Like you need help. What about the law? You’re willing to let a murderer get away?”

Dolly slowly shook her head. “There will be a time soon …”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, and pushed past her. “Yeah, after the world ends and you’ll be sitting up there on a cloud laughing at all the writhing bodies being tortured down below. Nice group you’ve joined, Dolly.”

I got to the door and opened it, seething. I wanted to slam the damned door so hard the whole house would shake, and maybe shake some sense into Dolly’s head.

“You better be at the station for that meeting. I don’t know if it will be a help or not, Officer Winston seeing you like this.” I indicated the robe and bald head. “But you’d better be ready to go to work, or we’ve lost it. And I’ve worked hard. I know a lot more than we did, even might be close to the murderer. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not saying a word in front of her.” I indicated Sally. “What you do with the information afterwards is up to you. You’ll probably tell her. That’s how much I don’t trust you, Dolly. And that’s how sad I am that you used to be my friend.”

I slammed the door, but there was weather stripping or something in the way. The effect was weak.

The next afternoon I stopped at EATS for a pot of tea before going to see Lucky and Officer Winston. I was still fuming at Dolly. I even welcomed Cate, the old lady in the string gloves and open knit sweater over a green silk blouse, to come sit with me.

She slid into the booth.

“I think she’s already signed over her house,” I said.

She frowned and clucked. Eugenia brought a cup of fresh coffee to the table for her, bowing as she slid it into place. She offered to fill the creamer. Cate shook her head.

“I’d like to talk to her,” she said to me.

“Dolly? Why would she listen to you? You mean because of what happened to your daughter? I think Dolly’s too far gone for cautionary tales at this point.”

“Still, somebody’s got to do something.”

I agreed with that. Somebody should be doing something. But what? I had no illusion that Dolly would show up at the police station. And no illusion that we were still friends. That last thought made me sadder than the first. We’d always argued and complained about each other, but beneath that had been respect—me for her doggedness and ability to ferret out criminals, and I think she respected me because I had the education and experience she would like to have, but never had the opportunity to go after. Whatever it was, our friendship had been fun. Now, here was this bald, anonymous person I didn’t know, and didn’t want to know.

I looked over at the old woman with silly makeup running every which way on her face, and decided to trust her.

“Why don’t you come with me to the police station, just in case Dolly shows up?”

The woman nodded.

“If she doesn’t come, you can wait in the lobby and I’ll bring you back here when we’re done.”

“And if she does?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.”

We had an agreement. I gave up trying to drink my tea and we left. Eugenia gave me a thumbs-up as I paid. “You’ll be surprised what that woman can do for you,” she whispered toward me.

I leaned in over the counter. “She never pays. She’s here all the time. What’s going on, Eugenia?”

Eugenia looked at the woman, then shook her head at me. “I’ll let you know soon. It was … well … her idea to do things this way.”

“She’s probably scamming all of us, you realize that?”

Eugenia moved her head until her blond hair bounced and fell in tight tendrils across her forehead. “No. It’s just … well … some day you’ll understand.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, wondering what had happened to all these people I knew in Leetsville. Everyone was changed. They were on edge. It had to be the end of the world coming. I supposed that would make anyone bite a few nails until the threat was over.

“You hear?” Eugenia leaned back then forth, hugging herself with news. “I’m having a big ‘clean out your refrigerator’ dinner the night of the twenty-sixth. We’re gonna get together and I’ll cook whatever people bring in. No use letting all that food go to waste.” She threw back her head and laughed, gathered herself together, and went on. “The night of the twenty-seventh I’m planning a big ‘Whew, we made it’ celebration. You got anything to donate to either dinner, bring it on in, but don’t wait until the last minute. I gotta plan the menu.”

Wednesday, October 21

6 days left

When I called Lucky’s
name he yelled from back in his office. I took Cate with me to meet him and told him why she was there. He stood and bent forward over his desk, offering Cate his hand. They shook and she pulled her long skirt around her, then took a chair.

Lucky looked at me. “She’s not staying for our discussion with Officer Winston, is she?” He turned back to Cate. “Sorry, Ma’am, but this is police business.”

“She’ll wait in the lobby. I’m not sure Dolly’s coming …”

Lucky gave me a forlorn look.

“But if she does, Cate would like to speak to her. Her daughter got caught in a cult, over in France. Cate thinks maybe Dolly will listen.”

Lucky nodded. “Hope it works. This Dolly I’m dealing with isn’t anybody I ever knew. The law used to be the most important thing in her life. You ever know Dolly to make a move that wasn’t right up to the oath she took as a law enforcement officer?”

I shook my head.

“You ever know her not to follow through on a case?”

I didn’t bother shaking my head.

“Me either,” he said, then looked beyond me.

There was a throat-clearing from the doorway. Officer Winston stood there, waiting to be acknowledged. Here was my spit-and-polish guy with the buzzed head, hat tucked under his arm, back straight. The little square-bodied officer was the picture of officialdom; the consummate cop.

He walked to the desk, introduced himself to Lucky, and bent, with a military snap of his heels, to shake hands. He nodded at me and glanced toward Cate, his eyes narrowing a little.

“This a good time …?” He looked back at Lucky.

Cate rose, knowing her part in the plan. I walked her to the lobby and saw that she was comfortable. “Might be all for nothing,” I warned. “I don’t think she’ll come.”

“I’ll be here,” was all Cate said as she settled her Gucci-shod feet beneath the old oak chair and thumped her hands in her lap.

First we had to deal with the Dolly thing. Lucky told Winston Dolly had taken some time off, but that he was still on the case.

“Can you handle it, Chief? You’ve got the rest of town business to take care of.”

Lucky shook his head. “Leetsville people don’t break the law. And if somebody does, everybody knows it and the shame’s worse than anything I can do to them. What we mostly have trouble with here, is people passing through. Tourists ripping off the gas station, leaving EATS without paying—that kind of thing. Some teenagers—
always got them acting up. You know: smashing mailboxes, ringing the doorbell and leaving a bag of burning shit on the porch so the homeowner comes out and stomps out the flames, drinking over to Sandy Lake, open liquor in a car, speeding through town.”

Winston nodded. “That’s what I meant. You’ve got your hands full as it is.”

“What’s Lieutenant Brent say? He think Gaylord should take it back?”

Winston sniffed. “Brent’s impressed with the progress you’ve made.”

“That’s all Emily,” the chief said, nodding toward me. “She’s been working on this. First it was with Dolly but since Dolly … eh … got sick, Emily’s been looking into things. She’s a reporter, but she’s reporting everything she finds to me first.”

Winston turned his tight, square body my way. He didn’t seem able to turn his head without turning everything. When he blinked I noticed the tic in his left eye was back. Tic. Tic. Tic. I smiled as if waiting to be congratulated.

He turned to Lucky. “This officer, Dolly Wakowski, she’s done some really good work in the past, I’ve heard.”

Lucky nodded.

“And her reason for taking time off right now is … ?”

“Personal reasons. Maybe not feeling up to par.”

Winston nodded and was about to say something when we heard voices from the lobby. The chief listened, thinking he had to get out there and take care of whoever had come in. I listened too, recognizing Cate’s voice, and then Dolly’s mumble as she made her way past Cate.

Seeing Dolly there, in her old surroundings where she’d been so much in charge of herself and so much an upholder of the law, was like a kick in the stomach. She had her hood back and her hands up the sleeves of her robe. She looked like a gay monk—womanly but stripped down to nothing.

Winston jumped to his feet, turned, and snapped off a head-bow in her direction.

Dolly kind of bowed back but seemed confused. She looked Winston up and down—from the perfectly polished black shoes to the buzz-cut head. I could hear her draw in a sharp breath and hold it, then open her mouth to speak. She stopped. A look came over Dolly’s face I’d never seen before. Maybe I would call it consternation. Maybe—since I liked words and relished what I was watching—I’d call it chagrin. Whatever it was, Dolly reached up and ran a hand over her shaved head, then pulled the hood of her robe forward. Red crept across Dolly’s cheeks—chin to forehead. She nodded again at Officer Winston and took a chair next to Lucky’s desk. Winston’s eyes were on her, his flat face maybe astonished or—let’s see: confused? I enjoyed the heck out of this encounter, thinking maybe I was in on the one thing that would bring Dolly back to her senses.

I nodded at Dolly who nodded back at me, face blank. Her hood slipped and she grabbed it before it slid off and showed her bald head again. I got the idea that at some time or other Dolly had passed a mirror and knew what a cue ball she looked like.

I launched into what I’d discovered so far—touching on the two brothers: Arnold and Paul. I pulled the note from Marjory’s Tarot cards and passed it around.

“Came to see her brother?” Officer Winston said, and passed the note to Dolly.

Lucky broke in to say Arnold Otis would be there the next day, after the meeting in Traverse City. “He’s coming to talk to us. From the looks of this note, he might clear up a lot of things. Said he wants to see his sister’s friends, too. Something about the funeral, I think. Seems a nice enough fellow. Willing to talk about the family history, he said. Just as long as it’s relevant to his sister’s murder. I guess, being in the public eye and up for election, he’s got to be careful.”

I went on about Marjory’s friends and why they were in town. I got to the tractor salesman—how that theory was blown out of the water, unless whoever had spread the rumor got the job wrong and it was a fertilizer salesman or a pots-and-pans salesman.

I told them about the photos I’d taken, getting a stern frown from Winston, who opened his mouth but snapped it shut without talking.

Next came my gathering dead roses out at Deward, while there to check something I’d seen in my photos. Then, though I didn’t like to admit leaving my car unlocked, I told them about the theft of my camera, the photos, and the roses while I was inside the Bellaire nursing home.

“Who’d know you had them with you? Think somebody from that cult’s keeping an eye on you?”

I shuddered at the thought. “I’ve got no idea.”

I ticked off other things I’d learned, like Paul Otis still being alive despite a bad accident a few years back. I told them what Marjory had told her friends; about her coming here having something to do with the End Timers in town, and helping someone.

“What was in the photograph?” Dolly asked, leaning forward.

“It looked like something there, close to where I found Marjory.”

“Like what?”

“Yes, what?” Winston echoed Dolly’s question and tone. He drew his faint eyebrows together. “I looked at our photos. I didn’t see anything. You mean something we overlooked? Didn’t collect? I find it hard to believe that we …”

I shook my head at Dolly and at Winston. “The shadows were different in my pictures. Shadows outlined something. It’s a sunken rectangle. All filled in with gnarled dirt—like … I don’t know. Just gnarled-up clumps of earth. And leaves. And bits of underbrush. The shape is a rectangle. Maybe I’m nuts, but it looks like a grave to me. You know, the kind you see in old cemeteries.”

Dolly moved uncomfortably back and forth, as if she was having trouble sitting still. Two halves of Dolly were at war right in front of us. For just a second, I got a glimpse of the old Dolly, wanting to fire off questions and cut through the crap, straight into the heart of what we were talking about. She snapped her lips shut. I could see she was in pain, wanting more information, maybe even to take on Winston. She squirmed in her hard chair while we watched, then eventually hung her head, shook it, and stood to leave.

This was beyond me. I got up and grabbed her arm, getting her to face me. I made her look me in the eye and tell me why she was turning her back on the law and her whole life.

“What’s this about, Dolly?” I gave up and yelled directly into her face, so close I could see the tiny veins in her pale blue eyes, the one eye wandering slowly off to look at something else. “What in hell’s going on? Is this some split personality thing? Are there a couple of other Dollies in there?”

Lucky was up and around the desk, pulling me away from her. She looked at him sadly, then hurried from the room. All I could hope, watching her flee, was that Cate would grab her on the way out and wrestle her to the floor.

Winston sat up straight and tight, eyes away from me, and on Lucky.

“So that’s what your officer’s doing,” he said.

Lucky nodded.

“It has something to do with this end of the world business I’ve heard about?”

Lucky nodded again.

“Hmm.” Winston leaned back, tented his fingers at his squared-off chest, and considered. “From what I’ve heard, Dolly Wakowski is a fine officer. Someone to admire. Has it occurred to you this might be part of her investigation?”

“You mean Dolly undercover?” I asked, grabbing on to the hope.

He nodded, then shrugged. “No doubt Lucky, here, would be in on it. Now, about that thing you saw in your photos …”

Winston got us directly back to the rectangle at Deward and off the spectacle that was Dolly. I mentioned the dead roses again, and how they’d been stolen, too. I brought up the fisherman.

“You get his name?” Winston asked.

I had to shake my head. No name.

“Lots of people fish out there. Manistee’s good fly fishing,” Lucky said, seconded by Winston. Then they were off, the way northern men could take right off when hunting or fishing came up.

“Fish the Au Sable?” Lucky wanted to know.

Winston’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. You try the pheasant tail? Good strikes on that one.”

Lucky, smiling and nodding now, “Used the peacock. How ’bout the hare’s ear … ?”

“Should we meet out at Deward?” I spoke up, figuring I’d be up to my eyeballs in fly fishing soon. “So you can take a look at what I found? I could pull more photos off my computer …”

The men looked at me as if I’d hit them in the head. Lucky, the first to recover from their trip into the fantasy land of fly fishing, blinked. “Not necessary. We’ll go see. Right, Officer Winston? Let’s meet out there—tomorrow morning, before Arnold Otis comes to town. Sound good?”

Winston agreed but was bothered by something. His bland face, with blue eyes set a little too close, his nose a little too squashed, twisted up with a question.

“What do you think’s the deal with the roses?”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “But … I’d rather wait until we get out there …”

He nodded. “Roses don’t grow in Deward?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe somebody put them in the place where Marjory Otis died, then an animal got them and …”

I shook my head harder. “Odd animal, that would pick up flowers and carry them a couple of yards away to drop. More like they were put there on purpose—on this place in the ground.”

“How about those friends of hers? The ones you said came to town? Think they might have gone there, maybe didn’t know the exact … ?”

“These were old roses, Officer. Dried. They’d been there a lot longer than a week or two.”

We agreed on a time to meet the next morning and I went out to rescue Cate, who said she’d tried to hold on to Dolly, but that Dolly ran out before she could stop her.

The question of who was in charge of the investigation hadn’t come up. I guessed it would be the three of us. Winston might be officious, he might be unbending, he might be cranky, he might be rude—but I was used to all of that.