“To Sandra? We open at seven, and Marie usually pops in next door around eight. Sandra was already dead, from what I heard.”
“Did Marie say anything about the scene?”
One of the dryers from down the line beeped as its cycle finished.
Jazz asked with a note of wariness, “What do you mean?”
“Like, what she saw.”
“She saw a dead body, man.”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
I was nearly out the door when he called, “Hey, how’d you know to come here?”
I glanced back inside. My shirt was plastered to my chest, practically translucent with sweat, and I tugged at it uncomfortably. “Rose and Harmony.”
Jazz perked like a predator who’d caught the sight of prey on the horizon.
Had I been that thirsty at his age? God, I hoped not. It was embarrassing.
“You know Harmony?”
“Sure. We go way back,” I lied.
“Yeah?”
“I know you two got a thing.”
Jazz finally cracked an amused smile. “What are you, fifty?”
“No, just married.”
“It’s not athing. We’re hanging out. Keeping it casual.”
“Netflix and chilling. Got it.” I turned again.
Jazz stumbled over himself to say, “I mean—unless—did she say something else?”
I looked at him and merely shrugged.
“Don’t be like that.” He fanned himself with the collar of his T-shirt and said, “That detective—Radcliff, I think—he asked me and my dad if we’d seen anything suspicious Monday night.”
“And did you?”
“No. We close at seven. Seven to seven. Sandra stays open until midnight. Midtown Mediums does too. Harmony says the bar scene pays well.”
I knew it.
“When we locked up Monday night,” Jazz continued, “I remember seeing her through the window at the table, giving a reading. Nothing seemed off the next morning either.”
“You didn’t notice her slumped over the table with a knife in her neck?”
Jazz’s expression twisted into one of disgust, but he shook his head. “God, no. I’d have called 911. The lights were off. I swear I didn’t see anything.”
Between 7:00 p.m. and midnight on Monday, someone had entered Readings by Madam Sandra, killed her while she was on the clock—given she was found at her table—and then flipped the lights and locked the door on their way out. The fact that Sandra had been killed without any—at least no reported—scuffle or fight led me to believe it was premeditated. Which made Rose’s suggestion of an upset taxi driver seem less and less likely by the second. A disgruntled client was a hell of a lot harder to rule out, because besides those false one-stars left by Rose, Sandradidhave a few disappointed patrons peppered throughout those Yelp reviews….
So the killer had entered with the spiritoscope in-hand, which meant they knew they planned to set a scene, which only further reinforced the idea of premeditation. Someone wanted to not only kill Sandra, but humiliate her. Even in death, strip her of the success she’d fostered as a medium by leaving a tangible reminder that her career was built on lies and deception. I was certain the cops had questioned Marie Yang about the spiritoscope. And she would have told them she’d never seen it before, was certain it didn’t belong to Sandra.
