I rounded out the grocery shopping with two kinds of chocolate chip cookie dough, a quart of Ben & Jerry's and enough chocolate covered pretzels to feed an army. About then I decided to head for the checkout line before I dove into a diabetic coma.
When I got home, Mary Lou Galbraith was out in my front yard tending to some newly potted plants.
Mary Lou was my neighbor and a horticultural major at Wayne State University who had an amazing talent for gardening. I'd met her when I first moved into the neighborhood, and she and I had become friendly. She lived in a duplex that she shared with another woman two doors over. One afternoon, after surveying my pitiful and very neglected front yard, Mary Lou had offered some gardening advice. I'd laughed and told her about my brown thumb. She in turn offered, at a very reasonable price, her horticultural skills, and I quickly accepted.
Mary Lou worked for a landscaper by day, and if there were any leftovers from the day's planting, the landscape company threw them away. She often rescued the discarded plants and brought them home, searching for any available space where she could give them a place to thrive. My house had conveniently provided a blank canvas to her creative horticultural genius.
"Hey there," I said, waving as I passed her in the car on the way to the garage.
"Hey, Abby, what do you think?" she asked, standing up and opening her arms wide to my newly acquired mums.
"Gorgeous, sugar. I'll be right there to take a look." I pulled into the garage, extracted the grocery bags and lugged them to my walkway, where Mary Lou was packing up her tools. She reminded me a little of myself when I was her age. She was about my height, with shoulder-length brown hair and a trim athletic body. She had an on-again off-again relationship with a young man I'd met once and instantly disliked named Chad. He tended to refer to himself in third person a lot, and I never really understood what Mary Lou saw in him.
"Wow! You've been busy," I said as I rounded the corner to admire her handiwork.
"Yeah. We were working on this office building today and we ran out of room. We had enough left over in every color, and I thought your walkway looked a little plain."
I thought my walkway looked like everything else not yet updated about the house—shabby. But at least now with the mums lining the cracked cement from sidewalk to front stoop it had a bit of shabby chic. "Yeah, I really like it. Great job, Mary Lou. What do I owe you?"
"How about you let me schedule an appointment with you and we'll call it even?" Mary Lou asked, lowering her eyes.
This was unexpected. Although Mary Lou knew I was a psychic and found stories of my readings rather entertaining, she had never shown a personal interest. Some people don't want to know what's around the corner, and others are just fearful of hearing something they won't be able to handle. I looked at her more closely, my intuitive phone humming in the distance, and my eyes strayed to her upper arm. There was a deep bruise that looked like it had been made when someone grabbed her a little too hard.
"Chad problems?" I asked, careful to keep the malice out of my voice. I hated men who abused women. I found them cowardly and the lowest form of scum.
"No, no, nothing like that…" Her voice trailed off as Liar, liar, pants on fire rang in my head. "He just, you know … we haven't really been getting along lately, and I'm thinking of telling him I want to break up with him."
"Mary Lou," I said in my softest voice, "you don't need a reading to find out that you are definitely worth so much more than someone like Chad."
The moment I said this I regretted it. Mary Lou's defenses shot up, and she squared her shoulders. "No, really, he's a great boyfriend. He buys me stuff and he gives me money and he takes me places. Really, he's got a good heart, he just gets around his friends and he sort of turns into another person. Really, he's a good guy."
Backing off, I said, "Okay, okay, you're probably right. How about you call me tomorrow at the office and I'll check my appointment book and get you in as soon as possible, all right?"
Without looking at me she said, "Yeah, okay," and I knew she had changed her mind. She gathered up her tools and buckets and pinkie-waved a good-bye to me. As I watched her amble across my lawn and head for her house, I fought the urge to run after her and tell her what a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful woman she was. But women like Mary Lou didn't listen to women like me. They only seemed to listen to men like Chad.
I went to bed that night feeling emotionally exhausted. I was thinking about my encounter with the two detectives from that morning and had to laugh at myself for not picking up that Dutch was a cop. I remembered telling him on our date that he had a badge all over his energy, but I'd just assumed it meant he might encounter a traffic ticket or something. Sometimes the obvious just isn't obvious to me.
I curled myself around Eggy, my eyelids feeling heavy, and thought that at least I didn't have to worry about misreading him anymore; chances were, once he figured out I had nothing to do with Nathaniel Davies we'd never see each other again. But as I drifted off to sleep my left side gave that conclusion a thick and heavy "no."
Chapter Four
Three days later I came home to a surprise from Dave. He stood in my foyer as I entered the house, beaming with pride. "You ready to cook in your own kitchen?" he asked.
"What? You've finished? Already?" I asked, setting down my purse and following him with anticipation to the kitchen.
"Ta-da!" he said, spreading his arms wide.
I stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene. It was beautiful. My new wood cabinets had been completely installed, the countertop was in place and the sink with its new nickel-plated faucets sparkled at me, begging to be used. "This is unbelievable, Dave! When I left this morning you weren't even close to being done. What happened?"'
"Well, we ran out of decaf this morning, so my old lady put regular in my thermos. I guess I just had a caffeine high all afternoon."
I laughed and gave him an impromptu hug. "You rock! Thank you so much, Dave. I love it!" It was the first time I'd really smiled in what felt like aeons.
I paid Dave for his time and shooed him out of the house, eager to cook in a real kitchen again. Quickly I doled out some food for Eggy, then got busy unloading the boxes under my table that held my kitchen appliances, dishes, and other assorted kitchen items. To keep myself company, I turned on the TV.
As I was putting away the last of my flatware a breaking news story came on during the commercial break of the sitcom I'd been watching. I turned to listen and watched as the anchorwoman gave the camera over to a reporter standing outside the Oakland County prosecutor's office.
The reporter began to speak in quick stop/start sentences, her fluctuations no doubt lending serious journalism to the story. "Yes, Linda. I'm here outside the Oakland County prosecutor's office where we have just learned that an arrest has been made in the Nathaniel Davies murder investigation. You recall that Nathaniel Davies, a four-year-old from Pontiac, was allegedly abducted two weeks ago from the Oakland Mall in Troy. We just learned that his body was recently discovered by police in an abandoned house on Lillian Street in downtown Pontiac. Officials kept the recovery of Nathaniel's body quiet so that their investigation wouldn't be compromised.
"I'm told that investigators from two states and all over metro Detroit helped crack this case. Royal Oak investigators apparently received an anonymous tip that led the police not only to Nathaniel's body but also to an uncle, Chester Davies. Davies had fled the state shortly after Nathaniel was abducted, and was living with extended family in Florida.
"We're told that detectives in Florida worked with Michigan police to apprehend Davies, who was working at his new job in a grocery store's meat department in Tampa. At this very moment he is being extradited back to Michigan to face murder charges.
"We have also discovered that Mr. Davies at one point worked as a security guard at Oakland Mall and would have had knowledge of the placement of those security cameras. Mr. Davies has a son who is very close to Nathaniel in age a
nd size, and on the day of the abduction Davies had custody of his son. Authorities suspect that Nathaniel was murdered prior to the staged abduction, and that it is actually Chester and his son on video at the Oakland Mall. We have been told that both Chester Davies and Nathaniel's mother, Tameka Davies, will be charged with first-degree murder. We will of course update you throughout the hour as this story develops; however, at this time it does look as if the entire taped abduction was staged and that Nathaniel's mother was in on the plan from the start. Back to you, Linda."
I watched the broadcast with mixed emotions. I was glad that Nathaniel's killers had been brought to justice, but troubled by the brutality of the crime. What had a four-year-old done to deserve such a tragic consequence? I was also rather surprised at the accuracy of my information and couldn't help but smirk a little at the mention of the "anonymous tip" that led police to find Nathaniel and those responsible. I wondered what the press would do if they knew that the tip had come from a psychic. "Probably have a field day," I said aloud to no one in particular. Shrugging my shoulders, I got back to putting things away.
Later that night I was paying bills at the kitchen table when a soft knock on my front door sent Eggy into gales of barking. Wondering who was dropping by my house at nine o'clock at night, I went to the door and peered through the peephole, but I saw only black. I flipped on the porch light and looked again. Still black. Weird.
Curious, I opened the door a crack and saw Dutch, standing on my front step and holding a finger over the peephole.
"Don't you know better than to open the door to someone you can't clearly see?" he asked.
"Don't you know better than to find ways to annoy people?" I responded, opening the door slightly wider. I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow.
"Got a minute?" he asked, warming up his smile.
"Got a warrant?" I replied, warming up my attitude.
"It's not that kind of a social visit."
The eyebrow held firm and my foot started to tap.
"I'm not here officially."
Eye roll, more foot tapping.
"I just want to talk."
I started to shut the door.
"Please, Abby?" he said, looking at me with puppy-dog eyes.
Damn. Why'd he have to use the eyes? "Fine. Whatever. It's your funeral," I said and walked away from the door. I heard it shut behind me and continued walking into the kitchen. I heard Dutch cooing to Eggy and turned to watch as he lifted him into the air and allowed Eggy to slobber him full on the lips. I told myself that this, of course, meant nothing. After all he'd let me do the very same thing.
Just then the phone rang and I thought about ignoring it but Dutch looked at it, cocked his head and looked at his watch as if to say, "Who could be calling at this hour?" I knew who it was and was faced with the annoying dilemma of not answering my sister's call and having her call every three minutes for the next hour or until she reached me, or answering it and letting Dutch know it wasn't some man who found me utterly irresistible. I gave Dutch a dirty look, snatched up the phone and walked toward the study where I might have some privacy.
"Hey! Where were you? What took you so long to pick up?" Cat asked.
"I was upstairs and the phone was downstairs. It took me a minute to find it. But I'm sort of in the middle of something here and I can't talk long."
"Oh? Like what? Or should I say like whom?" My sister had radar that at times rivaled my own.
"It's nothing. I was in the middle of uh…meditating." That was the best I could come up with? I rolled my eyes and hoped she'd go for it.
"Meditating? I thought you only did that at the office. Abby, talk to me. What's going on?"
Ugh. This was going to be tougher than I'd thought. "No, no, really it's nothing big, I just thought I might want to start taking up the practice. I thought it might help me relax. You know, it's been such a tough few weeks and all."
"Ohhhhh, honey you poor thing," she said, making little sympathetic mewing sounds. I thought if she didn't quit soon I'd throw up. "Did you want to talk about it?"
"Not really. Cat, listen, can I call you tomorrow? I'm sorry but I just really don't feel like talking tonight"
"Ah, I see," she said. Fabulous. Now I had offended her. I held back a frustrated sigh. "Well, Miss Dietrich, if you want to be alone, then I won't keep you. I just thought I'd check up on you, see how you were doing." I checked my watch. She had covered concern, offense and guilt in just over a minute—had to be a new record.
"Yes, Cat, and I love you for that. Really. It's nothing personal, I just wanted to center and focus my energy, that's all."
"Oh all right," she sighed. "I love you and call me tomorrow, okay?"
'First thing in the morning, I promise. Love you too."
We hung up and I shrugged my shoulders. Odds were that I'd hear about this later, but maybe I'd get lucky and she'd forget about it. Then again, who was I kidding? My sister had a memory that would put a herd of elephants to shame.
I put the phone on the desk in the study and padded back out to the living room. No Dutch. I looked at the front door to see if maybe he'd gone and saw that the bolt had been thrown from the inside. I hadn't locked it, so that meant that Dutch must have and he must be around here somewhere. Okay, so he was somewhere in my house. I felt a sudden wave of panic that maybe he'd decided to head upstairs and search through my panty drawer discovering the horrible pair of whities I reserved for that time of the month. I was about to head upstairs when I heard a faint clink coming from the back porch. I went through the kitchen and out to the sliding glass door and sure enough, there he was, comfortably seated at my card table spooning Ben and Jerry's Jubilee ice cream into his mouth.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, hands on my hips and the eyebrow back on duty.
"You didn't have any beer, so I thought this would be the next best thing. I got you some too, so take a seat."
Flustered, and not knowing what to say, I sat down in the chair next to him and saw that in fact he had scooped some ice cream out for me—although his portion looked considerably larger. Without touching the ice cream I turned to face him and asked, "What do you want, Detective?"
"First I'd like you to eat your ice cream, Abby, and then I'd like to chitchat for a little bit. How's that for a plan?" He said this with his eyes on his bowl and a small smirk on his face.
I rolled my eyes and took up the spoon, not really knowing what else to do. I swirled it over the two scoops in my bowl, but didn't eat any just yet. What can I say? I'm a rebel. "I saw that you arrested Tameka and Chester Davies today," I said, making small talk.
Dutch smiled but continued to look either at his ice cream or at my backyard. Dusk was falling, bathing my backyard in soft purple and orange hues. "Yeah. We wouldn't have nailed him if you hadn't pointed us in the right direction. Oh, and the cop who tracked him down in Tampa? He had blond hair."
"Told you so."
"Yes. Yes, you did, Abby, and that's what's so…" His voice trailed off as he searched for a word.
"Strange? Bizarre? Freakish?" I supplied, suddenly struggling to keep the hurt from my voice.
"Unusual," Dutch said, smiling some more. "I've never believed in fortune-tellers, and truth be told, I'd pretty much made up my mind that you were all a bunch of con artists relieving the gullible of their money."
I sighed, and a sharp little pain stuck me right in the heart. It always hurt to be stereotyped. "Uh-huh," I said dully.
"And then on our date you blew me away. I thought I'd been set up by one of the guys in the department, that maybe someone had found out I posted my profile and they'd conned you into this crazy story about being a psychic and knowing all this personal stuff about me."
"Mmmm," I said, now eating my ice cream.
"And then you started talking about Nathaniel, which was a case that had just come into the department that afternoon. It wasn't our jurisdiction, of course, but all police departments in Oakland County had b
een put on alert due to the high visibility of the case. Nathaniel was one cute kid, and a lot of people were out looking for him. So when you started talking about how Nathaniel was dead and the mother was to blame, I thought you were involved somehow. Maybe you'd been able to find out who I was and dug up some stuff on me and snookered me into a date because you wanted to relieve your conscience."
"Well, of course!" I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "That makes total sense. I posted my profile on an obscure Web site knowing full well that you would choose me out of the thousands of postings. Then when you actually contacted me, I went around to all your friends and family asking silly questions about your personal life—which somehow never got back to you—and in the middle of dinner, I decided I couldn't take the guilt anymore so I unloaded my conscience about Nathaniel. Yes, Dutch it was all part of my giant master plan!" I was glaring hard at him, my chest heaving because I'd said all that without taking a breath.
"Yeah, well, it made sense at the time," Dutch said, looking sheepishly into his bowl.
"Agh! Men!" I said and went back to eating my ice cream.
"What I needed, Abby, was a little time to think it through and maybe run a background check and see if there wasn't something else there. I filled Milo in on everything you'd said, and we took it to our captain, who got permission from the Troy police to run with it. While I chased down leads on Nathaniel, Milo kept an eye on you. We started with Tameka's family, and it turned out she had a brother who just so happened to have once worked security at the mall. Oakland Mall hasn't updated its video equipment in about ten years, so the quality of the video was pretty crummy. Chester knew that. Then we discovered that Chester had picked his four-year-old son up on the afternoon of the abduction, and Chester's son looks a lot like Nathaniel. When we analyzed the video a couple of times we noticed that the little boy on the tape went over to the man in the footage a little too quickly. We also looked closely at Tameka, and the more we watched her on video, the more convinced we were that she's one hell of a bad actress.