Slightly Psychic

Pulling to a stop near the main house, Lila got out. She wondered if Pepper was right that Myrtle Ann Canfield had left everything to her for a reason. If so, what on earth could that reason be? Why not leave her beloved homestead to someone stronger, emotionally and physically? At the very least, why not leave it to someone with enough money to finish the clearing and mending?

Why her?

She tried to go to that place she used to go where the air held a low vibration and the universe made sense. Raising her gaze to the sky, she lowered it again, her inner voice mute and her heart beating too fast.

Insects flitted and a soft evening breeze fluttered weeds against her ankles. Spring had been stubborn about arriving in the northeast. Here it already felt like early summer. She stood in the fading twilight for a long time, staring at the house that was now hers. It was a sprawling two-story, its white paint peeling in places. Somebody had washed the windows and trimmed the rosebushes and planted flowers in front of the porch, as if in welcome. It was Lila’s second welcome to Murray.

She tried the bottom step. When it held her weight, she took the next one. At the top, she made a sweeping survey of every inch of The Meadows in plain view. It was nothing as she’d envisioned, and yet it was a peaceful place, and peace was all she wanted or needed.

Key in hand, Lila unlocked the door. Without saying another word, she and Pepper went in.

Joe McCaffrey had seen the lights in the main house last night. He supposed it was inevitable that the peace and quiet wouldn’t last, just as it was inevitable that the new owner would notice The Meadows had another resident.

He’d known Myrtle Ann had left the property to a woman from up north, a Yankee, she’d called her. That was all Myrtle Ann had had to say on the subject.

Seeing the new owner picking through boxes in her U-Haul trailer last night, he’d kept his lights off. This morning he faced the fact that he couldn’t keep his presence a secret indefinitely. Before she got spooked and called the police—that was all Joe needed—he washed up and changed. He even shaved, although why he bothered, he didn’t know. Evidently it was important to look his best while being evicted.

He’d been staying in this old cabin by the pond almost two years now. It had an antiquated refrigerator and stove, running hot and cold water, a huge monstrosity of a bed, one table, two chairs, one bathroom, one mirror, which was one mirror too many most days.

Staring at his reflection this morning, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, then held his right hand palm-side up, slowly squeezing his fingers into a fist around an imaginary ball. The tendons in his wrist tensed and the muscles in his forearms coiled in anticipation.

He could almost hear the fans, thousands of them. “J.J.,” they’d called him. His mother had called him Joe-Joe, short for Joseph John McCaffrey Jr. To everyone else who’d known him growing up in Murray, he’d always been Joe. Not just Joe. Joe-the-boy-wonder-McCaffrey, Murray High’s all-star pitcher. He’d starred in college, too, and then during a short stint in the minors, followed by his lifelong dream, the majors. One thing had led to everything, and everything was what he’d had: a beautiful wife, beguiling daughter, thriving career, home, hearth and happiness. It was all gone now, except his daughter, but she’d changed, too. Who could blame her? Murray, Virginia, wasn’t exactly a forgiving kind of town, and it sure as hell never forgot.

The signs marking yesterday’s parade route had gone up all over town a week ago. Signs were unnecessary. The route hadn’t changed in fifty years. But Murray was big on tradition, and it was a tradition to put up signs. The theme every year was the same, too. Peace in the valley. For a long time he’d been part of the tradition, riding in the parade with some of his old high school teammates when his schedule allowed.

He scowled, not because he’d lost his place in the limelight, but because he’d lost everything else. All because Noreen went missing one day. Husbands were always prime suspects in such cases. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t enough evidence for a trial. There wasn’t even a body. A trial wasn’t necessary in Murray, and living within spitting distance of the town’s suspicions was both his punishment and their comeuppance.

To hell with it and to hell with them.

Staring hard at his reflection, at his narrowed eyes and the furrow between them, at the grim line of his mouth and the stubborn set of his chin, he flung the towel over the bar and tucked in his shirt. Peace. His scowl deepened as he headed up to the main house to introduce himself.

Joe Schmoe.

CHAPTER 3

Joe knocked on the front door, the side and the back. Cradling his sore knuckles, he backed up, oh for three.

He was trying to do the right thing. The car and trailer were parked in the driveway. Where was she?

When Myrtle Ann was alive, he’d always rapped twice before entering. She’d never locked her doors, and knocking had simply been a courtesy, for despite waning eyesight and an increasing dependence on her canes, the old woman always knew he was there. Said she could smell him the way she could smell an approaching storm.

Myrtle Ann Canfield had been a cagey old bird, an odd duck by Murray standards, a case of the pot calling the kettle black if there ever was one. Old age had shrunk her body and lined her face so deeply she’d looked a hundred for as long as Joe had known her. She’d never been one for gossip, preferring quiet companionship to idle chatter. Every once in a while she’d let something personal slip. Looking back, he realized those instances had been more carefully orchestrated than he’d realized at the time. She’d buried her husband fifty years ago and never seen fit to remarry. She and Joe had understood one another there. She hadn’t had an easy life, but she’d once said it had suited her.

He hadn’t expected to miss her.

But she was gone, and some law firm in Rhode Island had commissioned the local locksmith to change the locks in the main house when someone new inherited the old place. Joe had most likely already overstayed his welcome. No matter what they said about possession being nine-tenths of the law, the cabin by the pond wasn’t his.

Hoofs clattered up the steps, and the world’s most ornery goat butted Joe from behind. Giving the animal a guiding shove, he said, “Get off the porch, Nanny. Go on. You know better.”

“So her name’s Nanny.”

The soft, plaintive sound drew Joe around. The woman stood in the doorway, her light brown hair hanging past her shoulders. He couldn’t tell how old she was, mid- to late thirties, maybe. She was barefoot and sleepy-looking, her dress long and loose and the color of burnished copper. Over her shoulders she wore a sweater that was severely wrinkled, as if she’d just pulled it from a packing crate. Slipping her arms into the sleeves, she said, “She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Who?” he asked.

“The goat. You called her Nanny.”

He found himself staring at the open door, puzzled. “That old relic is solid mahogany and has been sticking for years. How did you open it soundlessly?”

“Some things respond best to a gentle touch.”

Something erotic seared the back of his mind. Dousing it at the source, he looked at her again.

She pulled the door shut as quietly as she’d opened it and joined him on the side porch. “What are the others’ names?”

“The others?” he asked.

She motioned to the goats.

His father had been telling him he was becoming a hermit. Obviously, Joe had lost whatever paltry conversational skills he’d once had. He sure wasn’t following her very well. But he tried. “That big one there? He’s the only male. His name is Buck. The other two are Mo and Curly. Myrtle Ann’s doings, not mine.”

She seemed to take her time absorbing that. “Is there a Larry?”

He shook his head. They’d gotten off track. Drawing himself up and slightly away—how he’d gotten so close, he didn’t know—he said, “I’m Joe McCaffrey. I’ve been looking after the place and feeding the animals for Myrtle Ann the past few years.”

She nodded slowly without taking her eyes off him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

He wouldn’t have thought it was a difficult question, but she swallowed and took her sweet time replying. “Just really, really tired, so please don’t feel obligated to kill me with kindness.”

Kill her? Something inside Joe curled up like a sail furled inward. Did she know who he was? What people said? What it had cost him?

“It was a bad joke, Mr. McCaffrey.”

The flatness was gone from her voice. In its place was a soreness he recognized all too well.

“I didn’t mean to insult you by implying you’re an ax murderer. I don’t think Myrtle Ann would have let someone she didn’t trust feed her animals.”

A lot of people believed differently. Uneasy, he backed up a little more. Did she know or didn’t she? She continued watching him, her hazel eyes guileless, causing him to wonder what, if anything, was going on behind them. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not a murderer, either.”

The notion hadn’t occurred to him. “That takes a load off my mind, ma’am.”

The “ma’am” must have done it. Her eyes widened, and he saw a lighting in them. Maybe she was just tired. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t want him living in the cabin now that she owned the place.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“Everybody has a name, Mr. McCaffrey.” She was looking at Myrtle Ann’s goats as if she’d never seen farm animals up close.

Again, he waited. Finally, he decided to try another tack. “Have you had a chance to get acquainted with your own private piece of paradise?”

“I’m trying not to rush it.”

She was teasing him. He had to look closely, but it showed in the softening of her mouth and the gentling of her expression.

A rooster crowed from the roof of a Studebaker nearly covered with vines. When the woman glanced at her watch, Joe felt compelled to explain. “That’s Louie. His internal clock’s a little off.”

This time she smiled. “That sounds like my old college roommate. She’s sleeping inside, still on Paris time. I take it you’re also responsible for mending the fences and stacking that wood?”

He couldn’t bring himself to ask her to consider letting him continue. To beg. A man had his pride. So instead, he went down the remaining steps and asked, “What are your plans?”

The question brought Lila up short. It occurred to her that she probably should have asked for some identification. Joe McCaffrey didn’t look untrustworthy, and it was obvious that he was trying to keep a respectable distance between them. Extremely polite, he wore battered work boots and blue jeans faded nearly white at the major stress points: knees, seat and fly. His T-shirt was gray, his cropped hair the color of freshly ground coffee beans. There were three lines across his forehead and two more framing his upper lip. The lower half of his face was shiny, as if he’d shaved before coming over. He’d taken some trouble with his appearance before meeting her. That said something about him. She wasn’t sure what.

How did people do this? How did they make assessments, judgments and decisions without the universe’s input?

Lila had come to Virginia to learn.

“My plans?” she asked, wondering how long it had been since he’d asked the question.

“What are you going to do with the place now that it’s yours?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Myrtle Ann Canfield was a generous woman.”

“Yes, she was,” Joe said quietly.

They stared at each other. He was the first to shift awkwardly, drawing away.

One of the goats butted a post. The chickens clucked nearby and the rooster crowed again in the distance. Lila felt overwhelmed. “I’m a city girl.”

“Not anymore.”

She pondered that. From here she could see much of her property. There was a stand of pines to the west and a cabin near a pond, and a rowboat was tied to a dock. The grass had been mowed around the cabin just as it had been around the main house. Despite the recent improvements, orderliness began and ended there. She’d envisioned a gentleman’s farm with painted white barns and fields of grain swaying in the breeze and perhaps a small garden where vegetables grew in neat rows and hills where fruit trees stood watch like guards of the property. Instead, The Meadows was overgrown and unkempt, animals roamed freely and a rooster crowed long past dawn. She wasn’t quite sure what part Joe McCaffrey played in all of this. He seemed standoffish and emotionally wounded. But who wasn’t?

“I have no idea how to care for these animals.”

“It isn’t difficult.”

“Would you show me?” she asked.

A muscle worked in his cheek. “Before I clear out, you mean?”

“Clear out?”

He gestured to the cabin. “I’ve been living there almost two years now.”

She stored the information. This inheritance may have been a godsend, but it hadn’t come without responsibilities. The trip had exhausted her, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next. She tried to go to that place she used to go where white energy radiated and the universe was orderly and systematic and she simply knew. When she’d lost her intuitive abilities and they’d declared her a fraud, the late-night television moguls had joked that there was a hole in her cosmos.

Maybe there was.

“I need help.”

“Do you need a doctor?” Joe asked.

Feeling herself blushing, she wondered how long she’d zoned out this time. “Not that kind of help.” Goodness, she was going to scare him away. Suddenly she was terrified she already had. “I was referring to the animals and all the rest.”

He studied her, causing her to remember she hadn’t combed her hair. She only hoped he could see past her bare feet and dishevelment.

“I would appreciate it if you would consider continuing whatever arrangement you had with Myrtle Ann.” When he said nothing, she prodded, “Would you?”

“You aren’t asking me to leave?”

“You don’t want to leave?”

She held her breath.

He held her gaze.

For the first time she noticed that his eyes were brown. All three lines in his forehead were engaged in his scowl.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, he said, “I’ll stay.” And then, more quietly, “For now.”

Relief rained down on her. Before she started laughing uncontrollably, she turned toward the door, but changed her mind. Instead of going inside, she eased around the corner of the house and back onto the side porch where she could watch him walk away.

“Mr. McCaffrey?” she called after some time had passed.

Turning, he faced her, feet apart, hands on his hips.

“Since I can’t restore order to the universe, I’m going to restore it to The Meadows. This was once a working farm. I think it needs to be again. Do you think Myrtle Ann would mind?”

“She left it to you, didn’t she?”

“I hope that hasn’t caused problems for you.”

“Believe me, it was no skin off my nose.”

She stared at him, and Joe found it unnerving. The breeze fluttered the hem of her skirt and lifted her hair away from her face. She looked like someone from one of the old legends that abounded in the valley. He was pretty sure she was smiling.

“I’m very glad to be here,” she said, “And I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She slipped soundlessly out of sight around the corner of the house before he thought to mention that he still didn’t know her name. By then it was too late. He should have told her about the rumors. It was too late for that, too. Besides, it was only a matter of time before she went into town and heard them for herself. Wondering if she would still want him living in her cabin then, he continued on toward the pond. For the hell of it, he picked up a stone and flung it, sending it skipping across the surface on his way by. He heard it skip across the water, but he didn’t stick around to count the ripples or watch the stone sink.

The old-fashioned screen door bounced as it closed behind him. Looking around, he caught his reflection in the mirror inside. After a time, he shrugged, for it was official. The new owner of The Meadows of Murray was a loon.

She was going to fit right in.

“So you’re the new owner of The Meadows.”

It was the third time it had been said in exactly that way, the third time Lila and Pepper exchanged a quick look, the third time Lila nodded.

The cashier at the grocery store had watched them closely as she’d said, “I heard somebody new was moving in.”

The attendant at the gas station where she’d dropped off the U-Haul trailer and filled up her gas tank had asked what she planned to do with the place. Like the others, the waitress leaning in to take their orders right now said, “Have you met Joe yet?”

Pepper’s sharp kick under the table kept Lila from replying.

“Lila and I don’t quite know what to make of him.”

“Then you’ve heard.”

Pepper smiled encouragingly at the waitress. Again, Lila felt a sharp nudge under the table.

Joe McCaffrey had unloaded the trailer while Pepper slept. After a brief discussion, he and Lila had decided that he would stack everything except the garden statues on the back porch until she made room in the house. He hadn’t come inside, and Pepper hadn’t ventured out.

“Nobody wanted to believe it at first,” the waitress exclaimed. “Not of one of our own.”

Pepper shook her head. “I can only imagine how you must have felt.”

While Lila pulled a face, one of the other customers called, “Trudy, can I get a refill up here?”

The heavyset waitress tucked her pencil over her ear and said, “I’ll be right back.”

Rubbing her sore shin, Lila waited until Trudy was out of hearing range to whisper, “You haven’t met Joe.”

“Trudy doesn’t know that.” Pepper had slept hard. Despite the crease still lining one cheek and the traces of jet lag in her voice, she was suddenly wide awake. “She’s dying to tell us something. Who are we to deny her?”

Lila felt a vague sense of unease. She didn’t like gossip, but Pepper was right about one thing. Everyone they’d encountered seemed to want to tell them something about Joe.

She and Pepper had found this little diner on Rebellion Street in the middle block of the downtown district of Murray. The courthouse claimed the most prominent position at the head of the town square, the post office and usual law and insurance offices nearby. Evidently, the chains hadn’t made it this deep into the Valley, for there wasn’t a Starbucks or Baby Gap to be found. Instead, there was a charming old-fashioned five-and-dime, a card and gift shop, a bookstore, three bars, a dress boutique and a huge antique store. Lila would have enjoyed browsing, but Pepper had needed coffee, industrial strength, which reminded Lila. “You haven’t touched your latte.”

Pepper took a cursory sip. “Here she comes. Let me handle this.”

The waitress returned, topping off their water glasses and spreading the cutlery. “Where was I?”

“You were telling us how nobody could believe it about Joe.” Pepper’s tone invited trust.

Falling for it, Trudy said, “It may have been a crime of passion, but murder is murder, isn’t it?”

Not even Pepper could form a coherent reply.

Trudy didn’t seem to need one. “We all assumed he would leave town after, well, you know, after the body never turned up. Instead, Myrtle Ann asked him to come live at The Meadows. The place went to seed for more than twenty years. Stone walls crumbled and more limbs fell with every passing storm. Out of the blue, she asked Joe to start clearing the pastures. Some people think she knew she was dying. Went to her maker on her way back from the mailbox. Folks still find pieces of her mail spread far and wide by the wind that day. It was junk mail mostly, beggin’ letters, she used to call them. She must have sent a donation to every charitable organization on the planet. A lot of people wondered if she’d have any money left.” Trudy looked at Lila shrewdly. “Are you a relative of Myrtle Ann’s?”

Lila floundered. How could she tell this woman that she’d never even met Myrtle Ann Canfield? It was Pepper who finally answered. “Lila has an interesting family tree, but at least her family doesn’t treat her like a puppet on a string the way mine does. Getting back to Joe, why do you suppose Myrtle Ann asked him to start clearing the pastures?”

“You know how old people get,” Trudy said. “Joe took good care of her, I’ll give him that.”

“Joe McCaffrey, a suspected murderer.” Pepper made a tsk, tsk sound. “I’ve read that a lot of serial killers are good to their mothers. Ow. I mean, ooh la la.” It was Pepper’s turn to rub her sore shin.

Trudy peered in both directions before lowering her voice, but even her whisper was strong enough to penetrate steel. “They say he hasn’t set foot in his house since it happened.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” Pepper asked.

“Guilt, most likely. The police finally took down the yellow tape they’d strung around his big, fancy house just west of town. Poor Chloe. Her mother missing and her father the prime suspect in the case.” Trudy shook her head. “She must be thirteen now. Hardly ever comes home from that fancy boarding school Noreen sent her to before she disappeared. Can’t say I ever liked the woman myself. That doesn’t make it right, does it? It’s always the husband, though, isn’t it? It’s a shame, such a shame. He was our star, too. Had an arm on him like nobody else. Man, that boy could pitch. Went pro practically right out of college. He always did have a temper. Guess it got the best of him.”

Someone called Trudy’s name, and the waitress was forced to get back to work. Stirring more cream into her coffee, Pepper all but gloated. Lila didn’t like what her friend was thinking, and it had nothing to do with psychic awareness.

“I believe we’ve just stumbled upon Pearl Ann’s string.”

Although it went against her better judgment, Lila said, “Her name was Myrtle Ann, not Pearl Ann.”

Pepper patted her mouth with her napkin. “A burned-out baseball player with a missing wife and an intuitionist who needed a place to go. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m not an intuitionist anymore. What good could I be to a man suspected of killing his wife?” Lila felt a heavy, sinking feeling, as if she were being sucked into something she couldn’t control or foresee.

“Gretel Ann was brilliant.”

“Myrtle Ann was brilliant, you mean.”

Pepper smiled, victorious. Picking up her coffee again, Pepper had the good sense to wipe the grin off her face.

It saved Lila the trouble.

CHAPTER 4

“Pepper, what are you doing?”

“I’m checking to see if Joe’s cabin’s locked. What does it look like I’m doing?”

Lila glanced nervously over her shoulder because that was exactly what it looked like Pepper was doing. “Did you hear something?” She wished she hadn’t kept her voice so quiet. It made her feel like a conspirator.

“Relax,” Pepper said. “Joe isn’t home, remember?”

Relax? On each of the five days since their arrival, Lila had taken relaxing walks through the orchard, along the lane and into the back pasture. She wasn’t sure why she’d refrained from making the pond and cabin a destination, but she most certainly was not relaxed about what Pepper was proposing. “We can’t go inside.”

“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?”