Dead Sleeping Shaman (24 page)

I was late into
town, but so was he. At six o’clock my Deward fisherman walked in, surrounded by a retinue of men who turned out to be an aide, a publicist—or something like that—and an attorney.

There was no fly fishing hat and no leather vest, but I knew him immediately: the wire-rimmed glasses, that thick body, the slight air of condescension. My jaw dropped as he took my hand, pumped it a few times, and moved on to Officer Winston, then Lucky.

Arnold Otis, large in his expensive three-piece suit and navy tie with matching silk handkerchief in his jacket pocket, settled into a chair in front of Lucky’s desk, stretched his shoulders, undid the button straining over his stomach, and looked directly at me.

“Sorry I didn’t identify myself when we met at Deward.” He sounded unhappy. Even a little put out. “I thought you were some ghoul out there to see where Marjory died.”

I nodded, offering no explanation and no apology. If he’d been in town earlier, why hadn’t he let Lucky know?

Lucky caught on right away. “This the guy you were talking about? The one you saw at Deward?”

I nodded.

He gave the politician a dubious look. “Why in hell didn’t you tell us you were around? We’ve got a lot of questions. You could’ve been helpin’ …”

Arnold Otis shook his head and drew in a deep, sad breath. When he spoke he looked at the ceiling, as if needing a backup. “I required time alone. She was my sister, you know.”

Lucky looked uncomfortable, maybe a little embarrassed.

“I wanted a chance to go to where she died and see the place for myself. Without everyone”—he indicated me, Officer Winston, and Lucky—“in the way of my grief.”

Lucky said nothing for a minute, thinking over, as I was, the man’s need for solitude at a time when we were trying to find who killed his sister.

“Still,” Lucky started, sitting up and resting his finger-locked hands on the desktop. I knew where he was going and cheered him silently. This Arnold Otis was used to slippery situations or he wouldn’t be a politician. And he was used to talking himself out of anything. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. It was the type—the kind I’d come up against often in interviews and covered at trial. You could watch in awe as they squirmed and explained away even the plainest fact, but you also knew you would never turn your back on them, or take one whole sentence at face value without breaking it down—word by word. I was going to watch this man. Lucky, as cautious as he was, seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

“I’d think you’d be interested in catching the killer,” Lucky said.

“I am! I certainly am.” Here Arnold leaned forward and motioned toward the lawyer. “You step in here if you think I’m over my head.” The young attorney moved closer, to stand beside him.

To Lucky, Otis said, “I’m coming up to an election next month. Anything at all could be used against me—I mean my background, that my sister was into all that New Age business. Now her untimely death. I want her killer caught, but I’ve given up enough for my family. Jim, here, will stop the questioning at any time he thinks you’re going beyond your …” He indicated the lawyer.

Officer Winston sat forward. “Mr. Otis,” he said. “If I may. You are here to help us in the investigation into your sister’s death. Now, you can do that of your own free will … ask your attorney here if you need to … or we can work around you and make sure the press gets all of it.”

I looked at Officer Winston with new respect.

Arnold scoffed, and indicated me. “You’ve already let in the press …”

“Emily Kincaid works with us, very closely. We’re a tight-knit community. Nobody’s putting anything in the paper unless we give the go-ahead.”

I started to object—just a little—then figured whatever we had going was working for us, so I kept quiet.

Arnold looked at his attorney again. Jim nodded. He nodded back, and we were into the questions that had been stopping us short at every turn.

Lucky brought out the note Crystalline had found in the Tarot cards. It was encased in plastic now. He read it to Arnold, then asked if he was the brother, and who had written the note for him. The man sat in deep thought, tenting his fingers in front of his face. His eyes moved left then right, mind working hard.

Finally he lowered his hands and nodded.

“It was a friend of mine. Well, my aide here.” He indicated a tall young man. The man kept his head down but nodded. “I had George write to Marjory because I’d gotten a threatening letter, telling me that my brother, Paul, was found, that he was in Leetsville, and he was going to the newspapers about what our mother had done—when she ran away with the tractor salesman.”

“That might have made you look sympathetic.” Lucky leaned back, watching Arnold Otis.

“Not at this level—running for state senator. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The letter also said Paul had found our mother and she wanted to see me. Do you have any idea what kind of thing that would have been? My brother turned against me, and then my mother—God only knows where she’s been all these years and what she’s like now. Bad enough when we were small …

“And bad enough to derail me, here at the last minute. Wouldn’t my opponent be happy to blow the information up, into something much bigger than it is? I couldn’t take the chance.”

“The note said you were afraid …” I began.

“Of course I was. They could have ruined me.”

“That’s it? That’s why you had this man write to your sister?”

He nodded, then thought awhile. “Paul said she needed money. My mother. He said she would disappear if I gave her fifty thousand dollars.”

Lucky gave a low whistle.

“You were going to meet Marjory here?”

He nodded. “That was the plan but she never showed up. I went to her motel and she wasn’t there. I called. Nothing. By that time, I was afraid of being recognized, so I fled. The next thing I knew I got the call that she had been murdered out at Deward. And,” he held up a plump hand, “might I add, Marjory hated Deward. That was where our mother always went when one of her spells, or moods, or what have you, came on her. When she would leave for days on end, that’s where we found her. In a tent. Living like an animal. Even Marjory agreed that living with our aunt and uncle was at least a step up from living like our mom.”

He looked over at me. “None of this is for your newspaper.”

“Your bother, Paul? After so many years? Where’d he come from?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not a clue. I heard he was in a bad accident but that was the end of him. Never heard another word until that letter, saying he was here. I don’t think Marjory knew what happened either. He dropped out of sight.”

“Do you have this letter from the person who tried to get money out of you?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t keep it. Just having it around was unnerving; as I’m sure you can understand. I tore it into pieces and flushed it down the toilet.” He spread his hands. “Sorry. I thought I had handled everything. I hope I didn’t bring on her murder. I’ll … I’d … never forgive myself.”

I looked from Arnold Otis’ aide, George, to Otis, then back. “Did your aide also steal something from my car? I mean, he seems ready to do anything …”

Arnold Otis’ face turned an odd shade of white. “I beg your pardon. Are you insinuating, young woman, that I would have one of my people act unethically? I find your remark close to slander. Your editor had better watch …”

Officer Winston sat forward fast, deflecting the growing high dudgeon to come. “How are we going to tackle this one?” he asked Lucky. Lucky shrugged. “I don’t think it’s ours to tackle.”

Winston nodded, then turned to the still-simmering Arnold Otis. “You’re going to have to contact the police down where you live—is that around Jackson?”

“Flat Rock.”

“Contact them and tell them someone’s trying to extort money from you. It may take the FBI to find your mother, if she’s still alive …”

Arnold stood. The others stood with him, buttoning their suit jackets, taking a swipe at knife-creases in their city suits. “That’s all I have to offer. I will certainly contact the authorities, when I get back. But maybe not until after the election …”

“Aren’t you afraid your mother will come forward before then? That’s what the threat was …”

He put up a hand, stopping me. “I’ll have to take that chance. Just a few weeks to go. Then I’ll …”

“Years ago you told a group of young Republicans that your mother was dead.”

He gave what I took to be a sneer. “You’ve done your research, I see. If you had political aspirations, young lady, and at the same time had the background I have, wouldn’t you have tried to cover it up? That’s what I did.”

“Now your sister was murdered. You could be next. Whatever is going on …”

He stopped me again. “I’ll see to it. You can be assured of that. Once I am a senator I’ll have the means at my disposal to look into all of this. I know—” he smiled over at Winston and then at Lucky—“you’ll be relieved to be rid of this investigation. Probably have other far more pressing matters to look into. You can leave everything in my hands …”

Lucky’s face was a brand-new shade of red. Winston’s wasn’t much better. If I could have placed a bet right then, it was that Arnold Otis had made no friends in Leetsville tonight.

We all got up and followed Otis out to the parking lot. As I opened my car door he stepped in close and rested an arm over my door.

“Emily, could I buy you dinner here in town? I’d like to talk to you—you seem to have the wrong idea about who I am. And, maybe we could call those friends of Marjory’s? Have them meet us. I’d like to buy all of you ladies dinner. You’ve done so much … and I know Marjory’s friends loved her …”

The “ladies” part alone was enough to make every hair on my head stand on end and every pore on my body swell with indignation. The oily smile would have sealed it, but I thought fast. What I didn’t want to do was close a door on information this man might still have. I’d dealt with enough politicians to know getting under his protective radar wouldn’t be easy. Shying away from him was, in a way, cowardly. If there was anything more he knew, he might let his guard down over dinner; maybe with Marjory’s friends.

I gave him Crystalline’s number and directions to EATS. He got in his big black car, said good-bye to his entourage, and gave me the high sign that he was ready to go.

The half hour I
sat with Arnold Otis in EATS waiting for Marjory’s friends was awkward. From the moment we walked into the restaurant, the few people there, at this late supper hour of seven o’clock, eyed him. One of the old farmers I’d met at the Feed and Seed leaned back and waggled a finger toward Arnold as we made our way to a back booth. “I sure as hell know you, don’t I? Seen you on the TV. Am I right?” he demanded.

Arnold switched into celebrity mode, agreeing that the man probably knew him: “Running for senator. Not in this district, but don’t forget to vote next month.” He shook the man’s hand, then the hand of everyone at their table. He nodded left and right and all around him, then came to where Flora Coy, the town bird lady, sat. She gave him a look that wasn’t the friendliest.

“I know you.”

“Grew up in Leetsville, Ma’am.”

She shook her head.

“You’ve been around.”

He nodded. “That I have.”

“You drive an old red Chevy?”

Arnold threw his head back and laughed. “Not that I recall.”

He glanced over to see if I was enjoying this as much as he was.

He patted Flora on the shoulder and pushed on, leaving her to straighten her large, pink-framed glasses and turn to complain in a bird-like voice that she knew him from somewhere.

By the time the restaurant had settled down from having a celebrity in their midst, and we’d ordered—Arnold going with the wedge of lettuce, French dressing, and a cup of coffee—Crystalline, Felicia, and Sonia walked in.

Arnold, ever the gracious gentleman, stood and nodded the three women to seats, then grabbed an unused chair from another table, set it at the end of the booth, and sat down. He said how happy he was to meet them and offered menus, telling them to order anything. “Anything at all. I’m paying. The least I can do for Marjory’s friends.”

Nobody seemed hungry. Crystalline and Felicia ordered coffee. Sonia ordered a diet Coke. Arnold clucked at this, telling them that lovely women such as they were didn’t need to watch their weight—surely. He threw back his large head—one hand up to hold his glasses in place—then urged them again to order. “A steak. Chicken. Whatever you want.” He accepted their rejection with bad grace, saying how he wanted to do something for his sister’s good friends.

This time Sonia muttered that it was too bad he hadn’t done more for Marjory while she was alive. Arnold chose to ignore her and turned to Crystalline.

“I was hoping to discuss Marjory’s funeral with you.” He spread his hands. “There’s nobody else to go to.”

“We were talking about that,” Crystalline said, glancing over at the other two.

“Have you come to any decision?”

Crystalline frowned and pushed her flaming red hair back from her colorful face. “We kind of thought it was up to you. As her only … well, one of her relatives.”

He nodded. “What I’d like to suggest then is that I leave it in your hands. I’ll pay for everything. But, seeing that I’m the only relative, I’d like it done quickly. I thought cremation. Maybe internment in a mausoleum, down there in Toledo …”

Felicia, who’d been looking at Arnold long and hard, snorted. “No ceremony? No memorial service? Marjory deserves better than that …” She stopped to stare at him harder. “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got a bad aura?”

He frowned at her and turned to say something to Crystalline.

“You see it?” Felicia turned to Sonia. Sonia nodded.

“Too red,” Felicia said.

Sonia nodded again.

“Could be about Marjory.”

Felicia made a face. “I don’t know. Red aura with flashes of white. You ever seen anything like it?”

Sonia slowly shook her head. Arnold, who hadn’t been fascinated up to that point, lost patience.

“I need this taken care of right away. I don’t want it hanging on. There’s an election coming up …”

“And your brother?”

“You mean Paul? I seriously doubt he’d care. I don’t know where he is …”

“He wrote to Marjory. Or someone wrote for him.”

“That was me. I had a friend write her. There were problems …”

“Really? I don’t think Marjory thought …”

“Someone trying to extort money from me.”

Crystalline shook her head slowly.

“Even if Paul is really still alive, I’m afraid the problems he had when I last saw him would have worsened.”

“Problems?” I asked, getting involved again.

“Much like my mother’s problems. Paul was mentally ill. Even hospitalized for a while. Last I heard he was hurt in an accident. At first I thought he had died. I tried to find him but by the time I got to the hospital where he’d been, he was gone. There’s no telling … mental home again. Or dead. If Paul’s alive he could easily have killed Marjory. The mental illness, you know? Another thing I wish wouldn’t get out to the newspapers.” He looked pointedly at me.

“I’m not into muckraking,” I said, bristling. It seemed this man was in the habit of directing reporters as to what they could or could not print about him. If he hadn’t yet heard of freedom of the press, I hoped to get a moment or two to instruct him.

“The world’s ending in a few days, you know,” Crystalline said. “Maybe that should come first.”

“What are you talking about?” He frowned as if exasperation with all of us was finally doing him in.

“One of the reasons Marjory said she was coming here—to settle something about this End of the World cult.”

“I saw them in town,” he said. “Why would such a thing interest Marjory? I really doubt …”

“She told me there was something she had to take care of with them.”

“What?” he demanded.

Crystalline shrugged. “No clue. That’s all she said. But I figure we’ve got to find out what it was. And your mother—there’s a question there, too. Emily, here, has more questions.”

“Could you please tell me why you can’t go back where you came from and see to Marjory’s funeral? I’ve offered …” Arnold let his disgust show. He was finished with us.

Crystalline reared back, nose going into the air. “We’re not going to be a party to hurrying what Emily and that chief of police are doing. Doesn’t seem you care as much as they do about who murdered Marjory.”

He shook his head. “They’re not involved anymore. It’s all taken care of. I’m bringing in other authorities. The FBI might need to be called …”

“You know she was strangled,” I asked, it just hitting me that he’d asked no questions about how Marjory died.

“I heard. A rope, wasn’t it? A piece of white, cotton rope? Has anyone gotten a piece of the rope those cult people use for belts?”

I nodded. “Common rope. Could’ve been bought anywhere. Lucky didn’t think …”

“Yes, that’s a problem, isn’t it? That Lucky doesn’t think? I’ll feel a great deal better when I have my own people working on poor Marjory’s death. She deserves the best minds.” He sniffed and looked over my head.

“That was one of the first things I noticed,” he went on. “Those people and their end of the world business—they’re kooks. Could have been any one of them. Perhaps because of that shamanism of hers. Religious people don’t take kindly to things like that.”

Crystalline looked as if she’d swallowed something sour. The other two mumbled and examined their thumbnails.

“I’m getting the FBI in on this right away …”

Crystalline looked over at me. “Tomorrow might settle everything, right, Emily? I mean, if you find something out there …”

“Out where?” Arnold demanded, looking from Crystalline to me.

“Deward,” she answered. “The digging.”

“Digging? Oh, my God! No.” He moaned his surprise. “What’s this about now? I thought it was settled. Lucky Barnard and that Officer Winston are out of the picture. They’d better not be messing with any evidence the FBI might want to see. What do you mean, ‘digging’? Where? What I think is happening here is you and the chief of police have gone off the deep end.” He stopped, staring hard at each of us, and stood.

He put his hands flat on the table and pushed the salad Gloria had just delivered aside. He looked menacingly toward each one of us. “I can see you people are determined to hurt my reputation. From what I’m hearing, I’d say maybe you’re nothing but a bunch of Democrats. Or somebody’s gotten to you; paying you to make my life a living hell. I’m going to say this one time. You get it? One time only. Leave me and my family alone. Take my offer to pay for Marjory’s cremation, interment—whatever you want. I want it over. Behind me. If you keep getting in the way I promise you—every one of you.” He looked hard at me. “You’re going to regret it.”

He walked off, cell phone already to his ear, angrily brushing away a proffered hand held out to shake his.

Crystalline, watching him go, called after him, “Marjory’s getting a big funeral. She’s got a lot of friends in Toledo. You’ll see it in all the papers …”

She smirked over at me.

“And keep your money, you son of a bitch!” Sonia called toward his retreating back.

A buzz ran through the restaurant. Eugenia, behind her glass counter, fly swatter in her hand, glowered after the wannabe senator as if she wanted to take a swat at him.

I paid for all of us, since the good politician had forgotten his promise.