Slightly Psychic

“Sure we can.”

“It’s trespassing,” Lila insisted. “For your information, I have every intention of leaving the note on the door.”

“For your information, one can’t trespass on one’s own property. You might as well put the note inside, out of the weather.”

Lila squinted into the sun. “Out of what weather? It’s another glorious day.”

But Pepper wasn’t listening. “It isn’t locked. Aren’t you curious about how a man who killed his wife lives?”

“We don’t know he killed his wife.”

“We don’t know he didn’t. No one’s heard from Noreen McCaffrey in two years. Not even her own daughter. Not so much as a peep.”

“They haven’t found Noreen’s body,” Lila said. “Maybe she’s alive.”

“Then where is she?”

That was the million-dollar question.

Pepper went inside, her loose-fitting black summer slacks and tank fading into the shadows. Drawing the door closed, Lila taped the note to it and called through the screen in a nearby window, “What if he catches you?”

“He’s established his pattern.” Pepper’s voice grew muffled. “Every day he works on fences or buzzes through tree limbs or hauls away junk from nine in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon. And then he goes somewhere, and we don’t see his lights come on until the wee hours of the morning.”

Lila had to take Pepper’s word for that, because she’d been sound asleep at that time of the night. She used to be a night owl, but since her public disgrace on national television, she’d taken to going to bed early.

“There isn’t much in here,” Pepper called. “Just some old furniture and a stove right out of the dark ages.”

Lila knew better than to ask her what she’d expected. After listening to the local gossip on Saturday, they’d visited an old schoolhouse-turned-library where they’d discovered a vast though unorganized collection of newspaper and magazine articles regarding Noreen McCaffrey’s disappearance and the investigation that had followed. There were several quotes from highly respected people and some damning evidence pointing directly at Joe. Like most people, Pepper had a morbid fascination with it all. Staring at those grainy photographs had left Lila with the lingering feeling that she was looking at a part of someone’s life that should have remained private.

Although she’d seen Joe from a distance several times, they hadn’t come face-to-face since that initial meeting the morning after her arrival. Lila had spent her time since then either sleeping or getting acquainted with the animals and the farm. By Wednesday, she’d grown bored with long walks and decadent naps, and had aired the house and begun the arduous task of sorting through drawers and boxes of Myrtle Ann’s old letters, receipts and recipes. Much of it was tedious, but it kept her busy. Until her brief and humiliating jaunt into police identification work, she’d operated a counseling clinic where people came and went all day long. She’d never been rich, and her savings account was dwindling. She missed helping her patients discover ways to fix the problems in their lives. It was too bad she had no idea how to fix the problems in hers.

“Is something wrong?”

She could have handled the deep voice spoken so close to her ear, but the large hand on her shoulder sent Lila straight into the air. Heart pounding, she spun around and tried to breathe.

Joe McCaffrey stood between her and the sun, a muscle working in one cheek. Other than a small splash in the pond behind him, the early evening was quiet.

Lila could only imagine how this must look. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”

“I parked by the big house. I tried knocking. Now I know why you didn’t answer.”

“I was just leaving you a note.”

He reached for the sheet of stationery taped to his door, his forearm brushing her hair. He went perfectly still at the contact, his face two feet from hers, his gaze going from her eyes, to her mouth, and finally away.

He drew back far enough to open the note and scan it. Stuffing it into his back pocket, he said, “You might as well come in.”

He eased around her and gave the door a little push. If he noticed it hadn’t been latched, he didn’t mention it as he went in.

It was only after she followed him inside that she spared a thought for Pepper. From her position near the door, she could see most of the interior. The kitchen and living areas were separated by a wood-stove open to both rooms. Three doors led from the main area. One was closed, and the other two rooms appeared to be a rustic bathroom and a bedroom. There was no sign of Pepper anywhere.

Lila heard the clank of an old-fashioned refrigerator opening and closing. Moments later Joe returned with a two-quart jar in his hand.

“Bud Streeter drank his last paycheck again. His oldest boy sweeps floors and washes glasses at McCaffrey’s Tavern. He won’t let me give him money he hasn’t earned, but he takes the goats’ milk home to his two younger brothers. I planned to run it by you first, now that the place is yours.”

She had trouble talking around the lump that had formed in her throat. “That’s fine. Of course it’s fine.”

Neither of them seemed to know what else to say.

He finally gestured for her to precede him. Outside, he said, “Don’t worry about your friend. She sneaked out the back door while you were guarding the front.”

Lila stopped in her tracks. Joe didn’t stop at all.

Hurrying to catch up, she considered apologizing. Discarding several explanations, she finally opted for the simple facts. “Pepper and I will be gone for a few days.” She had to practically run to keep up. Wanting to explain, she said, “She’s convinced we both need a project. She’s researching a career change.”

If he spoke, it was lost in the breeze. After that, she conserved her energy for the fast trek. They went their separate ways where the driveway forked, she up her porch steps, he to his Jeep parked in the shade.

“Mr. McCaffrey?” she asked as he opened the Jeep’s door. “May I call you Joe?”

He turned to look at her, one foot on the ground, the other on the running board. Taking his pause as a yes, she said, “I think it’s nice, what you’re doing for that boy and his family.”

He seemed as surprised as he was uncomfortable with the praise. Just when she’d given up all expectation of receiving any kind of reply, he said, “I hope your friend’s career change doesn’t involve spy work or private investigation.”

For some reason, she smiled. “So do I.”

He glanced back the way they’d come before saying, “I would have locked the door if I’d wanted to keep people out.”

Obviously a man of few words, he got in and drove away.

Watching the trail of dust on the road, Lila thought about that goat’s milk and Joe’s unlocked doors. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she dared believe that actions spoke louder than words.

Joe wiped the pretzel crumbs and cigarette ashes off the counter, cringing slightly when he reached too far. The soreness in his arms and shoulders was almost welcome, for it gave him a focus other than the announcer’s voice booming over the TV.

The usual Thursday night crowd was here, a dozen in all. That number would double on Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday it would taper off to five or six. McCaffrey’s Tavern had been in Joe’s family for four generations, as much a tradition in Murray as the ball game droning from a high shelf behind the counter.

He’d grown up on the second bar stool from the left, his feet swinging as he slurped root beers and crunched on bar nuts, his eyes trained on the baseball players who’d seemed larger than life. He had precious few memories of his mother, who’d died when he was six. His father had raised him, and people used to say he’d done a damn good job of it. Opinions had a way of shifting overnight. Joe Sr. still helped out at the bar most afternoons, but these days his step was heavier and his shoulders stooped.

“Swing and a miss!” The announcer drew the call out the way announcers always did.

It never used to annoy Joe.

It was the bottom of the fourth. The Cougars were behind, and everyone in the tavern was grumbling about it.

A hush fell suddenly. Joe looked up, straight at the reason. Lila Delaney and her friend were sauntering toward him.

The next batter took a practice swing; the poker game continued at the back table, but Joe wasn’t fooled. Every person in the room kept one eye trained on the two women sidling up to the bar.

The blonde wore red, Lila beige chinos and a soft-looking knit shirt the color of walnut shells. Keeping her voice too low for anyone else to hear, she said, “Pepper has something she wants to say to you.”

Pepper Bartholomew leaned closer. “Lila wasn’t guarding the door. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice.”

Lila nudged her.

And Pepper said, “I owe you an apology. I’m sorry you caught me snooping.”

She winked, causing Joe to wonder if she was apologizing for snooping or for getting caught. If she hadn’t been so upper-crust, he would have called her expression sassy. She was taller than Lila and probably paid a small fortune for the clothes, the manicure, the platinum jewelry and that perfectly tousled hairstyle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bud Streeter said, doing something disgusting with his tongue. “Why don’t you bring a little of that honey down my way?”

Joe wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of Pepper’s arctic glare. Not that Bud didn’t deserve worse.

“Would either of you ladies care for a drink?” Joe asked, quietly diverting their attention. “On the house.”

“Perhaps another time,” Pepper said before steering Lila back the way they’d come.

At the door, Lila looked over her shoulder at Joe. The smile she gave him felt like a small act of kindness in a vicious world.

As talk resumed throughout the bar, Bud slid his empty glass across the counter. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a couple’a new pieces of ass to choose from.”

“Watch it, Bud,” one of the women patrons warned through a haze of cigarette smoke.

Bud’s laugh was derogatory and grating. “The blonde’s flashier. Probably be fun to ride. But the brunette’s got a bigger rack. That one looks familiar.” He bit into a pretzel. “Don’t that one look familiar? Where have I seen her?”

Drunk or sober, Bud Streeter was a mean man. Joe would have liked to ban him from the bar, but at least when Bud was here, he wasn’t getting trashed in front of the television in his trailer and yelling obscenities at his three boys. If it hadn’t been for those three innocent kids, Joe wouldn’t have blamed Bud’s wife for leaving him.

Picturing his own little girl in his mind, Joe felt a pang of remorse and regret. Chloe was thirteen, and he hardly knew her anymore. A bar was no place to raise a daughter. She was better off with her friends, her teachers and the headmistress at her boarding school in Philadelphia. She would probably grow up sophisticated and smart, and none of the credit would be his.

Joe looked around McCaffrey’s. The room was long and narrow, with low ceilings, dark-paneled walls and darker corners. The clientele paid cash and didn’t tip. They hadn’t been impressed when he’d made the majors, and they didn’t care what people said about him now any more than they cared about anything else. It wasn’t that they were down on their luck. Most had jobs; some had families. What they lacked was life.

This damn sure wasn’t the life he’d chosen.

Once, he’d had dreams. These days, his contribution to society was putting up with snide comments from the biggest loser in town.

The notion made him pause. When had he stopped thinking of himself as the biggest loser in town?

Something warm and wet grazed Joe’s neck.

Fighting his way through layers of sleep, he rolled over, the sheet tangling around his legs. As he did every night after work, he’d driven back to the cabin and stood in the shower, letting the warm water carry the secondhand cigarette smoke and grime down the drain. Leaving the low window open by his bed, he’d crawled naked between the sheets, seeking oblivion.

Again, warm lips nuzzled his neck.

Easing away from those soft kisses, he groaned. Although daylight was trying to penetrate his eyelids, he wasn’t ready to wake up. He turned away from another wet kiss, then slipped back to sleep, wondering who’d sneaked into his hotel room this time. It must have been one hell of a game, because his whole body hurt. He always ached after a game, his pitching arm and shoulder especially. The party afterward must have been intense, because he couldn’t even remember who they’d played.

Whoever was in his bed with him was persistent.

“Sorry, honey,” he mumbled. “I’m married.”

Damn groupies, anyway.

Reality landed hard in his mind. Bolting upright, he clambered out of bed so fast the tangled sheet came with him. One of Myrtle Ann’s goats watched from the open window.

“Damn it, Curly!”

The stupid goat licked the windowsill, and Joe cursed again. Erasing from his mind all memory of the erotic dream from hell, he reached for his boots and jeans.

Lila was closing the gate when she noticed Joe leading the last missing goat by a leash fashioned from his belt. “Thank goodness you found her,” she said. “I managed to get these three back in the corral and was wondering where that one had gone.”

He put the goat with those already inside the enclosure. The others frolicked, but the white one nuzzled Joe, who moved away, out of its reach.

“I think she has a crush on you.”

He mumbled something unintelligible under his breath then clamped his mouth shut. An awkward silence followed.

Finally, she said, “Pepper and I got back late last night. Neither of her business ventures turned out as she’d hoped.”

“She had two?”

“There’s an arena football team for sale in South Carolina and an alpaca ranch for sale right here in Virginia.”

“Does she know anything about football or alpacas?”

“Well, no, but that never stopped her in the past. Clinically, she’s the spoiled daughter of extremely wealthy parents. She has two perfect older sisters, a workaholic father, a perfectionist mother and a controlling grandfather.”

“Just your average all-American family.”

Lila was tempted to smile. The sun had burned off the fog here, but it swirled in the foothills in the distance, filtering light and obscuring the mountains from view.

Resting his forearms on the fence he’d recently mended, Joe said, “A few nights ago, Bud Streeter recognized you. I didn’t tell him he was right, but I thought you should know. Word’s out.”

“It isn’t exactly a secret. The media made sure of that. How long have you known?”

“It took me a few days to place where I’d seen you. I catch a lot of late-night TV at the tavern.”

“It seems we’re both famous,” she said.

“More like infamous.”

They looked at each other, both curious, but neither willing to voice their questions out loud.

Eventually, Joe said, “Not much happens in small towns, but what you hear makes up for it.”

“This is my first exposure to life in a small town. Myrtle Ann must have seen me on television. Pepper thinks that’s why she left The Meadows to me. You cared for her and this property. I don’t understand why she didn’t leave it to you.”

“I don’t need it. Noreen’s disappearance cost me my reputation, my concentration and my future, but I’m far from destitute.”

Turning her back on the animals, Lila surveyed her new home. The rising sun backlit the uneven lines of the house and accentuated the sag in the porch roof. The imperfections made the house look almost human, like lines on a wizened old woman’s face. Standing near the fence, the breeze in her hair and dew wicking into her canvas shoes, she’d never been so appreciative of someone she’d never met. “Thanks to Myrtle Ann, I’m not destitute, either.”

“Still,” he said, “now that people know who you are, they’re going to talk. The former psychic and the burned-out baseball player suspected of killing his wife.”

After another awkward silence, Lila said, “As long as it’s just idle gossip.”

Why that struck either of them as funny, she didn’t know, but she started to laugh, and so did he. Once they started, neither could stop. She snorted embarrassingly. He roared, even more out of practice than she was. They were bad at laughing. It made them laugh harder, until they were holding their stomachs, chests heaving, guffawing until they hurt. Oh, it felt good.

Lila had often counseled patients through grief and despair. How many times had she reassured them that one day they would be able to laugh again and mean it?

“My mother is going to be happy to hear I’ve taken my own advice,” she said, drying her cheeks with her fingertips.

She wound up telling Joe about the times her mother had stood up to obnoxious reporters and Lila’s former patients who’d threatened to sue. Looking back, she didn’t know how she would have gotten though the ridicule and media circus without her fierce, slight, eccentric mother.

Lila had read the newspaper accounts of Joe’s baseball career and his volatile relationship with his wife. She knew he had a daughter, but she didn’t recall reading anything about any extended family. As a counselor, and as an only child, she was always curious about families. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Just my dad and my daughter. Neither of them are one hundred percent certain I didn’t do it.”

She could have done quite well without that particular bit of information. She must have looked at him for a long time, because he glanced nervously at her, prompting her to ask the question on her mind. “Why did you move here?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“You have a beautiful house in Murray. From what I hear, it has every imaginable luxury.”

He stared across the meadows, past the fruit trees and the pond, to the mountains, more visible now. “Noreen had to have that house, so I had it built for her. There’s nothing for me there. Besides, it doesn’t have this.”

Lila was looking at him, not the view. “There’s no peace there,” she said quietly.

A muscle worked in his jaw. “That’s right, there isn’t.”

She understood, and it should have scared her. The fact that it didn’t should have sent her sprinting back to the house. Instead, she watched him walk away.

It didn’t take him long to reach the pond. He picked up a stone on his way by, and with a flick of his wrist that was probably second nature, he sent it skipping across the water. Strangely, he didn’t stick around to count the skips or watch it sink.

The screen door bounced three times, but Lila didn’t take her eyes off the pond. The water glinted in the morning sunshine, the surface now rippling in five places, spreading outward in a perfect, silent rhythm, propelled by a force too gentle to feel and too powerful to control. By the time the ripples touched the grassy edges on all sides, the middle was smooth again. Like those ripples, Joe was a power unto himself, too. Maybe everyone was.

She came out of her stupor to see that Pepper was on the porch. Tall, svelte and sleepy-looking, her friend stared toward the cabin, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders, both hands around a cup of steaming coffee. “There went one fine specimen of a man. It almost wouldn’t matter if he did it.”

“I don’t think he did.”

Pepper turned her head slowly, her short blond hair sticking up on one side. “Oh no?”

Not one to waste precious energy on pretense, Lila only shrugged.

“You’re falling for him,” Pepper said.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Think about it, Lila. He has nothing to offer you, at least nothing except heartache, and maybe an early death.”

“It’s not as if I’m planning to propose. Believe me, Alex cured me of the very idea of marriage. I just don’t think Joe hurt his wife.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Pepper said. “No, wait, the police already did.”

“And he said he didn’t kill Noreen.”

“I’d say that, too,” Pepper grumbled.

“I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Oh, God.”

Lila shrugged all over again.

“He’s dangerous, Lila.”

She didn’t think so. What’s more, for the first time in months, she felt revived and regenerated, not in a psychic sense, but in a living, breathing, female sense. “If you believe he killed Noreen, why are you still here?” she asked, joining Pepper on the porch. “Why aren’t you afraid?”

Pepper didn’t seem to know what to say.

“That’s what I thought,” Lila said. “Besides, you’re the one who told me I needed a project.”

Letting the quilt slip from her shoulders, Pepper said, “So take up knitting or go back to school. If anything happens to you, your mother is going to have me drawn and quartered.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.” Scooping up the quilt and handing it back to Pepper, Lila added, “You’re staying, then?”

Pepper followed her inside, muttering all the way to the kitchen where she topped off her coffee. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. It seems I’m, or rather, I’m not, um, let’s just say I’ve run into a little difficulty regarding my finances.”

“What sort of difficulty?”

Pepper pulled a face. “My family has cut me off.”

“You mean financially? What did they do? Freeze access to your trust fund? And you didn’t tell me?”

Sighing, Pepper said, “You have enough problems of your own. Besides, it’s only until I agree to assume my rightful place in the bowels of monotony. I told my grandfather not to hold his breath, and he told me to stop acting like a spoiled little heiress. At that point, I probably shouldn’t have reminded him that I’ve been taller than him since I was thirteen.”

Oh dear. Pepper’s grandfather had a very serious Napoleon complex. “He really froze access to your trust fund unless you do as he says?”

“And my dad’s backing him up. My mother doesn’t like it, but everyone knows Grandfather and Daddy run that show.”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to, but I have to remind you I don’t have much money, either.”

“I know. I have a little money left in my emergency fund, but it’s going fast. This may sound drastic,” Pepper said, “But I think I’m going to have to get a job.”

“You’re going to go to work?”

“It isn’t as if I don’t want to work,” Pepper said, justifiably defensive. “It’s just that Kelly Rippa already has my dream job.”

Lila made a clicking sound with her tongue. “There is no justice. But don’t worry, we’ll think of something.” Suddenly this felt like old times, and she added, “We’re in for an interesting summer, there’s no doubt about that.”

“If we’re lucky,” Pepper said drolly, “we might even both live to tell about it.”

“I don’t believe in luck.”

“I know. You believe in destiny.” Pepper sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “If we’re destined to spend our summer here, we’re going to need more information about Noreen McCaffrey.”

We? Lila nudged her friend away from the coffeepot and helped herself to a cup.

Pepper’s expression was composed as she focused her attention on the situation. And Lila knew that even this early in the morning, Pepper was formulating a plan.

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