The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery) (15 page)

“There we go,” Logan said. And he pointed across the street at a touristy French bistro called Café Vortex.

“That’s where you go for a burger?”

“Best in town. But if you’d rather have authentic local flavor, we could go to Smitty’s Grill here. I think the special of the day is salmonella.”

I glanced back at the diner. “Doesn’t look very vegetarian friendly.”

Logan nodded. “Even the coffee’s got grease in it.”

“Café Vortex it is.”

Café Vortex
didn’t even have hamburgers on the menu.

“I was going to take you to Smitty’s,” Logan said sheepishly, “but I changed my mind at the last second.”

“Because you were suddenly in the mood for
foie gras
?”

“Because I like the atmosphere here better.”

“It is charming. Very Euro.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Yeah. More touristy, too. Less eavesdroppy. The booths are so nice and cozy and private.”

Logan sighed a guilty-as-charged sigh. “I thought it was your mother who was supposed to be the psychic.”

“I keep telling you: Tarot readers aren’t psychic. We’re just highly intuitive.”

“Well, your intuition’s right.”

“You didn’t want to talk about Anthony Grandi in front of a bunch of locals.”

Logan nodded.

“Especially now that you’re running errands for him,” I went on. “Why couldn’t Grandi make it himself? Another drug dealer jump bail?”

“I’m not running errands for him,” Logan snapped.

I gave my inner bitch a whack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.
Down, girl! Remember—we like this guy.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You take me out to a nice restaurant and then I won’t let you explain…”

I started to say “why you’re making public appearances on behalf of a murder suspect.”

What can I say? My inner bitch is really poorly trained.

I tried to put a muzzle on her.

“…why you were at Celebrity Roast,” I said instead.

“Grandi called me this morning,” Logan said. “He and I had an agreement. He’d leave you alone and I wouldn’t have to charge him with assaulting an officer for breaking my hand with his face. So what was he supposed to do when
you
started harassing
him
?”

“He admitted that he’d been threatening me?”

“Not outright, no. He’s not dumb enough to do that. But we were able to talk around his non-denial denials and come to an understanding.”

“Well, I really appreciate the police brutality on my behalf, Detective, but—”

“And what do we think we’ll be having today?” said the waitress who came gliding up to our table, pad in hand.

Logan thought he’d be having steak frites.

I thought I’d be having the onion soup and the tarte du jour.

The waitress went gliding away.

“But,” I said, “there’s something pretty big I still don’t understand. Why was Grandi messing with me in the first place, and why hasn’t that made him your number-one suspect?”

“He’s not a suspect, number one or otherwise, because he has an airtight alibi—”

I rolled my eyes. As if a crooked bail bondsman wouldn’t know how to cook up a phony alibi.

“—and I know why he was messing with you, and it’s not because he killed your mother.”

I raised my eyebrows high.

“So,” Logan said, “you need to just steer clear of Anthony Grandi and leave the police work to the pro—

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

My eyebrows were still threatening to head north of my hairline.

“I’m frozen in the moment you said ‘I know why he was messing with you.’ I don’t think I can leave it till you explain.”

“It’s not a very flattering look, Alanis.”

“I know. What a tragedy if I had to walk around like this for the rest of my life.”

Logan sighed. “You know I’ve already bent all kinds of rules for you, and I don’t even know why.”

I reached up to my forehead and tried to tug my eyebrows down.

“Still…frozen,” I grunted.

“Fine. You win. Just get that dumb expression off your face.”

I smiled, and my eyebrows returned to the general vicinity of my eyes.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

“So talk.”

“All right, all right! Just promise me you’ll keep this to yourself.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Okay, here’s the deal. It’s not just your mother I’d been keeping tabs on. I’ve been investigating the Grandi family, too. Anthony’s the only one in the bail bonds business. The rest are fortunetellers. They have six shops in four counties—that I know of. And the Grandis aren’t like most of the psychics and aura readers and vortex guides around Berdache and Sedona. They’re more like your mother.”

“Con artists.”

“Exactly. They convince people to give them money and valuables and bank account numbers. They make them think that they’re cursed and that only a lot of mumbo jumbo—very expensive mumbo jumbo—can save them. They string them along with promises of love or better health or a better life right around the corner, and they get away with it because they know their limits. They don’t take a victim for everything she’s worth; instead, they take a lot of victims for a little bit at a time, and it adds up.”

I was nodding.

“It makes sense,” I said. “My mother used to have friends, air quote–air quote, who liked to keep a bent bondsman on the payroll for worst-case scenarios. What could be better than having one in the family? And I assume they don’t like me because I spread it around that I’m reopening the White Magic Five & Dime. Not only would I be competition—or so they’d assume—if I wasn’t as careful as them, I could bring heat down on every operator in the area. Which sounds like it would be a bunch of Grandis.”

“Wow,” Logan marveled. “‘Bring heat down on every operator in the area’? Are you sure you’re not a criminal yourself?”

“Ninety-nine percent.” I thought it over a moment. “Maybe ninety-eight. But wait. I still don’t see why Grandi’s not a suspect, alibi or not. His family had good reason to want my mother gone.”

“Gone but not murdered. I’ve spent the last year building up a case against the Grandis, and they must know it. Now’s not the best time to start bumping off rivals.”

“Maybe they thought my mom was helping you somehow. You said you used to drop in on her from time to time to let her know you were watching. Grandi could have gotten the wrong idea.”

“It’s obvious I don’t know con artists as well as you do, Alanis. But would one help a cop take down another while running the same scams in the same town?”

“Probably not. Unless the cop was crooked, too.”

Logan shot me an exasperated look. “Let’s assume he’s not.”

“Then no.”

“Well, wouldn’t the Grandis know that?”

“Probably. If they’re smart.”

“They’ve been operators around here for fifteen years without getting busted once.”

“Okay, so they’re smart. Sometimes nasty trumps that, though.”

“Alanis. Forget the Grandis. Those names I gave you—focus on those. Do whatever penance you’ve got to do on your mom’s behalf and leave the investigating to me.”

“I got started on the penance yesterday. It went well.”

“Good.”

“I learned a lot.”

Logan’s shoulders slumped.

“You weren’t supposed to be learning,” he said. “You were supposed to be spreading sunshine and love.”

“I can multitask. Don’t you want to hear what I found out?”

“I—”

“First off, there’s William Riggs. He went to the police after his wife, Marsha, dropped a bundle on my mom for tarot card marriage counseling. Very creepy vibe in the Riggs home. Personally, I don’t think Marsha needs counseling. She needs luggage and a ticket to Anywhere Else. Her husband’s got quite the temper, according to her. Got thrown out of the army for it. Used to mix it up with MPs a lot.”

“So maybe—”

“Right. We don’t know if he’s ever used a sleeper hold on anyone, but there’s a fair chance he’s seen one in action—on himself. I’d say there’s no better way to find out how effective they can be.”

“But—”

“Then there’s Victor Castellanos. My mom talked his mom out of the family jewels, and he’s had some pretty ugly things to say about it, apparently. And guess what he does over at the high school?”

“Isn’t—?”

“Exactly. He’s a gym teacher—and he coaches the wrestling squad. Last and definitely least, but I’ll mention him anyway, is Kenneth Meldon, another man with a temper. He’s had more than one run-in with the police over the years, and though he acted like he didn’t even know my mother was dead, his mind is so fuzzy I could almost believe it if he’d—”

“Wait. Stop. Isn’t Kenneth Meldon in a
nursing home
?”

“Right, okay, you got me. I shouldn’t have brought him up. But the other two are worth looking at.”

“Alanis, I gave you those names because those people had complained to the police—to
me
—about your mother. Do you really think someone would do that and then decide to murder her?”

“Sure…if the police didn’t do anything about her.”

Logan made another pained face and turned away from me. “When is that damn steak coming?”

“One more thing.”

“We should’ve gone to Smitty’s…”

“Who would you take semi-hot jewelry to around here?”

“Oh god. Are you planning a heist now? What have I gotten myself into?”

“I said semi-hot, Logan. I’m not talking about stuff that’s been outright stolen. Just stuff you don’t want to answer any questions about. Stuff you wouldn’t want to waste on a below-the-radar fence.”

“Just tell me
you
aren’t trying to sell this stuff.”

“No. But I think my mom did.”

“And you’re going to get it back?”

“Possibly.”

I also wanted to find out who else had been looking for it and what their disposition had been.

This I did not say.

“All right, fine,” Logan groaned. “In Berdache, you’d go to the Fourth Street Pawn Shop. If you went a little farther afield—”

“The smart move.”

“—you might go to the Westside Gold and Jewelry Exchange in Sedona or Jones Pawn & Loan up in Flagstaff.”

“I assume you’ve already checked with all of them about the electronics that were stolen from the White Magic Five & Dime.”

“Thank you for assuming I’m not a total idiot.”

“Was a camcorder on the list of things you were looking for?”

“Yes.”

“How about a bunch of missing tapes?”

Logan frowned. “No. Clarice didn’t say anything about that. Should she have?”

“Well, it’s not the kind of thing anyone would pawn. But yeah, she should have mentioned it. I think my mother was secretly recording some of her readings.”

“Blackmail?”

“I don’t think it was for
America’s Funniest Home Videos
. And
someone
wanted those tapes.”

Logan nodded slowly, his expression going from exasperated to pensive.

He wasn’t looking for his steak anymore.

“You know,” he said, “you’d actually make a pretty good cop.”

I snorted. I’d never heard that one before.

“I wouldn’t pass the background check,” I said. “So how’d
you
get into it? You don’t strike me as the usual cop material.”

“Oh? What kind of material am I?”

I looked him over.

Male model?

Actor?

Singer?

“Rodeo clown,” I said.

“
Rodeo clown
?”

“Yeah. Rodeo clown. You’re just as tough as the other cowboys, but you don’t feel the need to flaunt it.”

“Uhhh…thanks.”

“It’s a compliment.”

“I don’t know if my dad would say so. He’s the reason I’m a cop.”

“Let me guess: he was a cop.”

Logan nodded. “Arizona Highway Patrol.”

He was suddenly beaming at the thought of his old man. Just the slightest encouragement, I knew, and he’d tell me more, everything, his whole life story. It would take a while and it would have nothing to do with what I’d come to Berdache to accomplish.

Head junk
, Biddle would have called it. Useless information.

I saw the waitress finally heading our way with our food.

My stomach started growling.

My
soul
was growling, too.

Feed me
, they were both saying.

I smiled at Logan.

“Tell me about him,” I said.

The conversation
was good. The food was good. Life felt good.

“Oh yeah—I meant to remind you,” Logan said as we left. “You
really
need to call the medical examiner’s office about your mother.”

Poof.
Life felt like life again. Not so good.

“What’s there to talk about?” I said. “All they have to do is put a stake through her heart and bury her at a crossroads and that’s that.”

“Look, Alanis, I know how this works. You’re going to get stuck with the ashes and a bill for the cremation no matter what. You may as well have a say in how it all goes down.”

“You know what I did the one and only time I had a say in anything to do with my mother?”

“No.”

I opened my mouth.

I’d just spent the last thirty minutes hearing about Logan’s saintly cop father, and now I was about to say things about my mother that would make a sailor not just blush but sick to his stomach?

No. Not now. Not yet.

Maybe later…when I know you’re really ready, Josh Logan. When I know
I’m
really ready
.

I forced myself to smile again.

“Thanks for lunch,” I said.

I went
to the White Magic Five & Dime and spent the next two hours looking for jewelry and camcorder cassettes. I found dust bunnies, three fat rolls of hundred-dollar bills, and the bottle of Boone’s Farm Clarice had stashed in her underwear drawer.

And I found pictures. Seven of them, decades old, hidden in the pages of a Gideon Bible.

So my mother had looked back sometimes, too. She’d missed something. Longed for something.
Felt
something.

What do you know? She actually had a soul after all.