“No. Our marriage is fine. Can you do a spirit reading, or should I assume that’ll be as accurate as your view on my romance?”
“You need to clear yourself of these negative thoughts, or no spirit will want to communicate with you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m only an interpreter,” Rose explained, once more using animated hand gestures as she seamlessly rolled into the next topic of conversation. “And even though you are a skeptic, Mr. Snow, you need to have positive intentions and not be resistant to the experience. Trust me, give me your full attention, and understand that while some messages may not be what you want to hear, or even understand, they are what the spirits deem you in need of.”
“Now that we’ve covered the terms and conditions.”
Rose remained standing behind the layers of hanging tapestry, a dark shadow of clichéd flowing skirts and some kind of loose peasantry top. She raised both hands, and again the bracelets around her wrists clinked together with the movement. “There’s a woman.”
“That’ll be a first.”
“A matriarch.”
Despite not believing one word of the crap Rose was flinging, I couldn’t help but think of my own family at that moment. My mother had walked out on me and my dad when I was only six years old. For “complicated adult reasons,” I remember being told, but I think, in all honesty, she hadn’t ever wanted to be a mother and hadn’t been honest about that with my father, whodiddesperately want to have children. And when their bundle of joy turned out to have “learning disabilities”—which was not the case, it just took all of the adults in my life a hot minute to realize I was blind as a bat—I think she’d mentally and emotionally tapped out. She didn’t want to deal with the limitations I was presenting to her life. So she’d left. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since, and I don’t think Pop had either. It didn’t hurt me, which sounds unbelievable, but I’d been young enough to not really understand the situation at the time, and by then was more emotionally attached to my dad than her, so I think I turned out okay. Don’t get me wrong, though… the woman was dead to me. She’d ditched Pop—broke his heart, left a small child in his care without any secondary financial or familial support, and clearly, after nearly thirty years, hadn’t ever once felt an iota of regret for the choice she’d made.
What was really setting off my bullshit detector, though, was the fact that I’d never had a relationship to speak of with my maternal grandparents—didn’t even know when they’d passed, to be honest—and on my father’s side, they were both gone before I’d reached third grade, so not much of a connection there either. Pop was an only child too, which meant no aunts or older cousins who could be this matriarchal figure Rose claimed wanted to relay a message to me, so come on. Was it my elementary school librarian or something? Give me a break.
“She’s showing me pain in her head—did you know someone who passed from an injury to their head or neck?”
“No.”
Rose didn’t takenofor an answer. “She’s very insistent. It could be brain cancer, Alzheimer’s—”
That’s when I went in for the kill. “A knife to the jugular?”
Rose lowered her hands slightly, her dark shape turning toward me. “That would certainly do it.”
“I bet her name’s Sandra Habel.”
“Who are you?”
“A busybody.”
“You’re not a cop?”
“No.”
“Then get out of here,” Rose answered, dropping the medium act all together.
“You knew Sandra Habel.”
“I haven’t any idea—”
“Sure you do,” I interrupted. “That’s how niche communities work. Everyone knows everyone. And sometimes you know their dirt… or sometimes you invent their dirt. Isn’t that right, Rosie D?”
She didn’t move from behind the curtains. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your Yelp reviews. ‘A fraud, a con artist, a bitch, stealing business from legitimate psychics.’” I leaned back in the chair and crossed a leg over the other knee. “You really had it out for Sandra, as recently as Monday. And she was found dead Tuesday morning. The papers are calling her murderer the Ouija Killer.”
Rose made a sudden movement forward, seemed to think better of it at the last second, and instead remained opposite me behind the flowy gauze. “Jesus Christ,” she swore, and her tone dipped an octave lower, the Mystifying Rose voice turning out to be as legit as the rest of her shtick. “I didn’t kill Sandra.”
“You already knew she was dead?”
“It’s like you said, niche community. Her cleaner ran to the Wash & Fold next door for help. The owner’s son hooks up with Harmony now and then. He called Harmony, Harmony told us here at Midtown.”
“So by lunch everyone in the psychic business knew Sandra was dead?” I concluded.
