Fool's Moon, page 17
“Whew,” she muttered aloud once she was traveling on the main road again. “I was getting lightheaded breathing all that rarified rich people air. It’s good to be back in the bad part of town.”
As if in answer, an emergency siren abruptly sounded behind her. She pulled to the shoulder and waited as a West Palm Beach police car went flying past, followed by one of the county’s truck-like Fire Rescue ambulances, and then one of the department’s smaller fire trucks. Being a Friday night and the start of the weekend, between car wrecks and the obligatory gang shootings that ritual would probably be repeated a few more times before Monday morning.
She checked to make sure that no other emergency vehicles were behind those, then pulled back onto the road again. All she wanted to do now was get home and swap the gypsy fortune-teller duds for leggings and a big T-shirt. Then she’d pour a glass of white wine and scarf down the baggie of appetizers that Courtney had given her.
Though, of course, she’d share a couple of bites with Zuki and the black cats.
A few minutes later, she had turned the VW onto her narrow driveway and eased it into the tiny garage. She could hear Zuki’s excited bark from the courtyard, and she smiled. With the pit bull on the job—and Rosa’s reputation as a Santera well-known by a certain element—no way were any lowlifes going to mess with her or the Botanica.
But as the overhead door was closing behind the bug, and she was walking out the garage’s side door into the courtyard, she heard a thump and a rustle that made her whip around.
Had someone come into the garage from the street?
Just as quickly, though, she gave a relieved sigh as she felt soft fur wrapping itself around her ankles.
“It’s you two,” she said with a smile as Brandon and Ophelia ran figure eights between her feet. “Have you been waiting for me here by the door all night?”
Then, as she hefted her tote higher onto her shoulder, her smile widened into a grin.
“Or maybe it’s not me you’re happy to see. I bet all you want is that bag of tasty hors d’oeuvres you can smell. Don’t worry, you’ll get your share. You too, Zuki,” she added as the pit bull came bounding up through the shadows from the side yard. “C’mon, let’s go inside and snack.”
“You made it!” Zuki softly woofed as she followed Brandon and Ophelia back inside the house. Ruby had already rushed upstairs to change, so the kitchen was temporarily human-free. “I wasn’t sure you heard me tell you to ride with Ruby.”
“It was a great plan,” Brandon conceded, trotting closer to give the pit bull a quick lick of approval on her jaw. “We got to the main gate in plenty of time, and luckily she had the roof down on the bug car. We jumped right in.”
“Yeah,” Ophelia agreed. “Brandon said that if the roof was up, we would pretend to be surfers and hang onto the back of it by our claws.”
Zuki snickered at that, while the cat hopped onto the red kitchen table and balanced on her hind legs, front legs flapping as she pretended to “hang ten.” The playing came to a quick halt, however, when Ruby came downstairs again.
Ophelia leaped off the table and padded over to the pit bull. In a soft voice, she said, “We’ll tell you everything that happened as soon as Ruby goes back to her room.”
But the human didn’t look in any hurry to leave. She’d traded her fancy skirt with all the jingly things hanging off it for skinny pants and a big red T-shirt with a picture of a crown and white words on it. Ophelia silently sounded out the latter.
Kee-Pee Call-M and Boo-Gee On.
The phrase made no sense to her, but was probably something significant in human-speak. More important for now, however, was the clear plastic sack that Ruby pulled from her tote bag that she’d left on the kitchen counter. The mingled aromas of pork and fish came spilling out as she opened it up. Ophelia and Brandon gave appreciative sniffs, while Zuki’s big pink tongue lolled.
“Check this out,” Ruby exclaimed.
Grabbing a big yellow plate from one of the short closets hanging off the wall, she carried sack and plate over to the table. There, she dumped the contents of the former onto the latter.
“Talk about a haul! Prosciutto-wrapped scallops, bacon-wrapped dates, mini crab cakes, red peppers stuffed with goat cheese, some kind of flat bread thingies. Oh, and look, Courtney even wrapped up a couple of cheesecake bites, which are for me. But don’t worry, I’ll share the rest.”
So saying, she pulled out four small blue plates from the same closet and a fork from the drawer. While the cats and dog watched with interest, she slid a couple of scallops onto each plate. Then she used the fork to split one crab cake between two of the plates and put two of the cakes onto the third.
“Bon appétit,” she said and set the plates down in front of each of them, in turn.
Zuki polished off her share in two bites—being polite, as normally she could have cleaned her plate with a single swipe of her pink tongue. Ophelia and Brandon ate more slowly, gnawing quietly on each piece.
Well, except for Brandon. Ophelia rolled her eyes as she heard him making nom-nom noises while he chewed his portion.
Ruby, meanwhile, had poured a small glass of white wine from a box she had in the refrigerator. She returned to the table with her glass and put a sampling of all the snacks onto her own plate. To Ophelia’s amusement, she rushed through them with the same speed and sound effects as Zuki and Brandon had, then pushed her chair back from the table.
“I could eat like a rich person every day. And there’s even enough left for breakfast tomorrow.”
They all sat in companionable silence for a few minutes more while Ruby finished off her wine. Then, while Ophelia, Brandon, and Zuki lounged underfoot, Ruby made quick work of storing the leftovers and taking care of the dishes. That done, she reached for her tote bag and flipped off all the kitchen lights, save for the tiny lamp in the shape of a seashell sitting on the counter.
“All right, my furry ones, I’m headed upstairs for a little studying before bed time. Come up when you’re ready.”
Zuki gave a whine of agreement and wagged her whip-like tail. But all three remained sprawled beneath the table until the sound of Ruby’s footsteps on the stairs faded, and they could hear her shuffling around in the bedroom above them. At that, they rose and padded silently out the pet door into the courtyard, where they settled near the concrete table.
“So what happened?” Zuki asked with an eager pant. “Did you find Luciana?”
Brandon and Ophelia took turns explaining how they’d followed the housekeeper, only to see her get injured and the son discover her. And then there had been the introduction of the human female, Joan.
“But everything is all right,” Ophelia finished the story. “Even though the son was yelling, the Joan female took Luciana away from him and drove her to get her paw fixed. So maybe we don’t have to worry about Luciana anymore. Now tell us what happened to you … why was that PAWN human driving his truck too fast for us to jump in?”
Zuki shook her head. “I don’t know. When we parked inside the gate and he got out, he was whistling like he was happy. He went inside and was gone awhile. Then he came out, and his phone rang. I could hear him saying bad human words, like he was mad.
“Aaand?” Ophelia urged, waving a paw in a hurry up gesture.
Zuki furrowed her brow, obviously trying to recall. “And then he drove off.”
“That’s it?” Ophelia asked. “He just drove back to PAWN, and then you walked home again?”
“Not exactly. He drove fast, and I could barely hang on. It was scary.” The pit bull’s ears drooped as she added, “I had to run all the way home because he was gone so long. I barely got here before you did.”
Brandon gave the canine a reassuring purr. “You did just fine, and all the plans worked out. Even Ruby is happy. We’ll miss Luciana, but I don’t think we need to check up on her anymore.”
“Whew,” Ophelia said, flopping onto her side on the cool bricks. “I agree, it’s time for the humans to take care of themselves. But Luciana said she’d come back here to visit, so maybe we’ll see her again.”
“I hope so. I liked her,” the pit bull declared. Getting to her paws, she added, “I’m going upstairs to sit on the bed with Ruby. Anyone else?”
“Me too,” Brandon agreed. “Ophelia, are you coming?”
“In a minute.”
As soon as Zuki and her brother had pushed through the pet door, leaving her alone in the courtyard, she padded over to the koi pond. A quarter moon glowed through the branches hanging over it, so that the pool’s surface reflected back at her, black and shiny. Paws on the stone edging, Ophelia leaned in for a look.
“Philomena,” she whispered, “it’s me, Ophelia. I wanted to tell you that you were wrong. The human rat turned out to be nice after all.”
She waited a few moments to see if the fish would surface for a rebuttal or maybe a new prediction. All she saw, however, was a thin, silvery stream of bubbles rising from somewhere very deep in the pond.
Ophelia snorted.
Last time I listen to you, silly fish, she thought, wondering if the koi could hear what she was saying inside her head. Which, if she was psychic like Zuki had said she was, the fish should have been able to do. But since she didn’t pop out of the water to make one of her rhymes, that had to mean she wasn’t that clever. Ophelia snorted again. Even Ruby was better at predicting the future than Philomena was, no matter that she was the oldest fish Ophelia had ever heard of … and even though the koi supposedly liked her best.
But, next morning, Ophelia couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about having made fun of the fish. After all, Philomena had been right about Brandon. And everyone—even a koi—was allowed to make a mistake once in a while. Maybe she should apologize.
Though, of course, that would have to wait until she was alone with Philomena. Ruby and Zuki had long since taken their walk while Ophelia and Brandon got in a few extra ZZZZs. Now all of them were sitting near the concrete table while Ruby ate her breakfast (the furry members of the family and the roosters already having had their food). As promised, they’d had some of last night’s snacks again as a treat.
Along with her appetizers, Ruby had her computer with her—so she could do what she called “homework” before she opened the store. But right now, she was doing what she called “surfing”—looking at pictures, mostly of canines and felines doing silly things—and so all three furs had decided to indulge in an early morning nap.
Ophelia had just drifted off to dreams of boundless crunchy shrimp tails when she heard a sudden gasp from Ruby. Her green eyes flew open to see the human staring at her computer, her mouth round as the koi’s was when she blew bubbles. Ruby’s eyes behind her black glasses were round, too. She whispered “oh no” and kept staring.
Maybe she’d seen a bad picture, Ophelia thought. Sometimes the computer had pictures of hurt humans and hurt animals that made Ruby sad when she saw them.
She was trying to decide if it was worth jumping up for a look—sometimes those pictures made her sad, too—when Ruby’s phone began playing a song sung by a scratchy-voiced human male talking about having friends. Ophelia had heard that song enough times to know that it meant Ruby’s friend, JoJo, was calling.
Ruby answered the call, though she was still staring at the computer.
“Hi, JoJo … yeah, it went great. Thanks for setting it up. No, it really did go good. It’s just that I … I just now had some bad news.”
She paused, and Ophelia flicked her ears. Something was obviously going on with the human, and she intended to know what that was.
“No, the family’s fine,” Ruby went on. “It has to do with one of my new Tarot clients, Luciana Torres. I was reading the local headlines on my homepage on my laptop when I saw a story … ”
She trailed off for a moment, and then said in a rush, “The woman, Luciana … she—she was killed last night.”
Sixteen
“I still can’t believe it. I mean, I was just talking to Luciana two days ago, and now she’s dead.”
Ruby stabbed her straw at the icy remains of her sweet tea that she’d been nursing since noon. It was almost 12:30 now at the New Yawk Deli, a trendy little hole-in-the-wall restaurant not far from JoJo’s downtown condo building. She and JoJo were finishing their lunches.
Or, rather, JoJo was. The blonde had already downed one of the deli’s signature sky-high Reuben sandwiches and had turned her attention to the dill pickle spears and potato chips that accompanied it. Ruby’s turkey version of the same menu item still lay on her plate, with only a single bite missing. She’d not really been all that keen on doing lunch, but her friend had insisted. Look, Rubes, I’m sure the cats and Zuki are good listeners and all, but with something like this you really need to talk it out with a human. And, yes, even though I’m an attorney, I do qualify.
That last had been designed to make Ruby laugh, and so she’d obliged with a halfhearted chuckle and agreed to meet JoJo at the deli later. In the interim, she’d split her time between customers and refreshing the news websites trying to learn more about Luciana’s death.
Frustratingly, the details had been sparse.
A hit-and-run, the police were calling it—car versus pedestrian, to be more precise. According to initial reports, Luciana had been on foot near downtown West Palm Beach and apparently tried to cross one of the busier streets against the light. Unfortunately, she’d stepped into the path of a speeding vehicle—a small, dark pickup, according to one eyewitness—whose driver had fled without stopping.
Based on the timeline given in the police report, the accident had happened not long before she, Ruby, had been driving back from her party. Reading that, Ruby had shuddered a little as she recalled the emergency vehicles that had gone flying past her. Given the hour and the proximity, those likely had been the first responders to Luciana’s accident. Had she followed them, she might have ended up at the scene of the woman’s death.
“Listen, Ruby,” JoJo said now as she finished off her chips. “What happened to Luciana was awful, but you can’t take it to heart. All you did was read the Tarot cards for her, and that had nothing to do with how she died.”
“I’m not so sure. The cards that Ophe—I mean, that I drew as clarifiers to the original reading indicated something bad was coming her way. I should have tried harder to warn her.”
She hesitated, recalling in particular the image of the Tower card with its lightning bolt—the literal bolt from the blue—blasting apart the tower and sending the people inside it flying. The hit-and-run accident, with the death vehicle barreling down the road as randomly as any lightning bolt, was an unsettling parallel to that violent scenario.
JoJo, meanwhile, was raising her empty tea glass in the bus boy’s direction to indicate her need for a refill. That done, she returned her attention to Ruby.
“I know you’re really into this whole Tarot thing, but you’ve told me a hundred times it isn’t fortune-telling. And even if she thought it was, you don’t have any legal obligation to warn her about bad luck and juju and all that. In fact, you know the laws about fraud and so-called psychic services. The only way you’d be in trouble is if you were telling her bad stuff was going to happen and accepting money for getting rid of her bad luck.”
Before Ruby could reply, she went on. “And it might seem callous, but Luciana holds some responsibility for what happened to her. Technically, she was jaywalking, crossing against traffic in the middle of the street when she got hit.”
“That’s what doesn’t make sense. She has a car, so why was she on foot after dark? And why was she walking around there, of all places?”
“There’s all kinds of things to be had in that part of West Palm,” her friend pointed out. “Drugs, booze, guns, and all that. It’s one-stop shopping out there.”
“I can’t believe Luciana would be into any of that. She’s not that type of person.”
“Are you sure?” JoJo took a swallow from her refilled tea and persisted. “I understand that you care, Ruby, I really do. And that’s what I love about you. But remember that you talked to this woman for, what, an hour total? Bottom line is that you really don’t know anything about her.”
The words hung between them for a few moments as JoJo grabbed the last pickle … which deli staple, Ruby absently noted, perfectly matched the color of other woman’s military-style blouse and matching green capris. By contrast, Ruby was wearing one of her official Tarot outfits, a white silk blouse topped by a long paisley vest in jewel tones (vintage, of course) and worn over a yellow broomstick skirt.
But fashion wasn’t on her mind right now. Instead, she pressed her lips tight in a stubborn line. What her friend said made absolute sense, but she couldn’t agree. Along with her growing skills with the Tarot cards, she’d developed a knack for analyzing people. And her instincts told her that Luciana wouldn’t wander that part of town alone and on foot … at least, not voluntarily.
But while her death was a crime, it obviously had nothing to do with those suspicions about Mrs. Givens’s death that she’d come to Ruby about.
“I suppose I have to let it go,” she finally replied, which was as far as she would concede the issue. Glancing at her phone, she added, “I’d better get back to the shop. Saturdays are busy, and I’ve been gone almost an hour.”
“Well, at least get a to-go box for that sandwich. I’m sure Zuki will eat it even if you won’t.”
They settled up their mutual bills; then, bidding goodbye to her friend (JoJo’s next stop was a cake-tasting with Blake), Ruby walked the half block to where her VW as parked. But rather than head straight back to the Botanica, as she had planned, she found herself making a small detour and instead driving to the scene of Luciana Torres’s death.
