Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic, Maria Swan [reading list TXT] 📗

while my heart bounced up and down in my chest like butter on a hot griddle.

Five minutes later I turned into our street.

Brenda’s porch light was on. She must be home. I didn’t see any car parked up front. Good. I drove to the back and into my garage. No sign of Max’s truck or Tommy’s motorcycle. With the coast clear, my mood improved and I knocked on Brenda’s back door. Dior barked me in.

“Okay, okay, down boy, I know you love me, I love you too.” The Great Dane acted like he hadn’t seen me in a million years.

“Does he need to go potty?” I asked Brenda who sat on her usual spot on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand, a pack of smokes on the coffee table next to an empty bag of potato chips, same brand she often reminded me not to eat. Brenda Baker, my ex-husband Tommy’s aunt and the only family I had this side of the ocean.

Just as nice and loving as before her hospital detour, except now she took up more space on the couch and her clothes looked like they had been run through the wrong dryer cycle. A couple of times I suggested she should get some new threads, at least for work. Brenda would look at me, without a word, a blank stare in her eyes, a reflection of the emptiness inside?

“Dior? No, he’s good. You hungry?” I noticed her television was on. The sound barely audible. Would she ever be the old Brenda she was before the accidental overdose?

“I stopped for happy hour with Kassandra. What are you watching?” I scratched the dog’s ears to keep him off me.

“Not sure, there isn’t much on,” she clicked from channel to channel, distracted by whatever her mind tackled between her long silences and her brief bursts of life.

“Wait, wait, what’s that? Go back,” I squealed.

She did, and turned to look at me, “What? That?” She pointed her TV control to the screen where the sketch of an older woman’s face stared back at us. “That’s the Jane Doe they fished out of the canal and...”

“The canal?” I babbled. “Miss Fortune.” It had to be her.

“I guess it is indeed, a misfortune for the poor woman and...”

“No, I mean her name is Miss Fortune, at least that’s what Kassandra said.”

“Kassandra — your office Kassandra? She knew the poor woman?”

“Please stop calling her poor woman, she is — was — a psychic, from Tucson.”

Brenda rested the wine glass on the coffee table and turned to stare at me. “The name sounds familiar — Miss Fortune.” She repeated slowly. “And you think she’s a psychic? You need to tell the authorities. They are showing the artist rendering hoping someone would recognize her. Maybe she came to town for the fair.”

“The fair? What fair? The cops already know. They came to the office and questioned Kassandra. Because of the bra.”

“Monica, how much happy do you drink at these happy hours?”

I should have been insulted but wasn’t, because for the first time in a long, long while Brenda’s eyes didn’t look like bottomless dark holes. They looked human.

“It’s true. I can’t figure out how they tracked Kassandra through a bra. It’s not DNA, at least Kassandra doesn’t think so, because she said the body was in the canal for a week?”

“Bra? Custom made maybe?”

“I asked, she said she buys them at Macy’s when they are on sale.”

“So, this — Miss Fortune — she knew Kassandra because of the Tarot cards? Or did they meet at the Psychic Fair?”

I blinked. “What’s with this Psychic Fair? Where is it? How do you know about it? I assumed the detectives questioned Kassandra because of the séance.”

“What séance?” She really perked up. I had no idea Brenda was interested in that kind of stuff. Anyway, this was getting complicated and boring. I couldn’t wait to go back to my place, the guesthouse in the back, and do my own investigating with the help of Google.

“A bunch of people got together and hired Miss Fortune to do a séance where you communicate with — the spirits?” I forgot. “Anyway, a few weeks ago the psychic came up from Tucson, by bus. Kassandra was to drop her off at the bus station the next morning, on her way to work. She spent the night in the home where the séance took place, but the man who owns the house tried to — you know—” I hesitated, my old Catholic up-bring kicking into high gear.

“Know what?”

“He tried to — have sex with Kassandra. So she grabbed her stuff and ran out of the house and drove away. She left her bra and Miss Fortune behind.”

“Oh. And you think the woman came back to town for the fair and decided to return the bra to the rightful owner?”

“After all this time?” I felt compelled to add. “It all happened before the Dumont’s housewarming party that we catered. Besides, I don’t know who found the bra Kassandra left behind. And I don’t remember Kassandra ever mentioning a local fair. How do you know about it?”

Brenda sipped her wine. “I read about it in the paper. I’m pretty sure they have events like that often, in large hotels, you know. Don’t take my word for it, you can probably find out on the Internet. It may even show the list of the psychics, astrologers, mediums who participated and probably the tarot readers.”

On the screen the reporter was interviewing an older man with a fishing pole. Must be the lucky soul who hooked the corpse. “I’m confused, how come I don’t know any of that stuff? It sounds sort of interesting. Do they tell you the future? Oh, I get it. You’re saying the psychic from Tucson was in town for the fair. When was it again?”

A car door slammed somewhere outside. Yikes! Were my pajama and TV plans about to be snuffed out? Soon followed a soft knock on Brenda’s front door. I