Death in the Cards Read online

  MOTEL HELL

  For the first time in at least my twenty-nine-year life—and in probably a good deal longer than that—the “no” was lit beside the “vacancy” on the Rhinegolds’ Red Horse Motel sign. I was happy for the Rhinegolds, but the “no” didn’t portend well for me. I could always sleep in my van, I guessed. I envisioned myself curled up in the dark van, fetal-style, under a thin blanket that smelled of moth balls, all alone in my certainty that a murder had been committed. Nibbling on crab rangoons from my take-out box, my only comfort in a cruel world that had dished out in one day a disappearing boyfriend, a beloved cousin with health issues, and a shut-down, water-damaged business. While inside the Red Horse, throngs of other, much happier people received glorious predictions from the visiting psychics of health, wealth, and super sex lives.

  Meanwhile, the killer or killers would find out I was the lone voice questioning the verdict of suicide, attack me in my own van, and pummel me to death with packets of super-sized eternal life tracts. My last meal a semi-stale crab rangoon.

  My last thought: they’ll all be sorry now!

  Dedication

  To David, with whom life is a far greater joy than I could ever have predicted

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Paradise Advertiser-Gazette

  About the Author

  Also by Sharon Short

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Acknowledgments

  In the course of writing this novel, I was reminded by events in my personal life of the importance of a team. And so, I must thank a delightful team who helped make this book happen.

  Thanks to Ellen Geiger, agent, and Sarah Durand, editor, for wisely reminding me to “keep the whimsy!” And thanks to my family team: David (who has infinite patience), Katherine (who helps keep me organized), and Gwendolyn (who really does make the best grilled cheese sandwich ever).

  About the stain removal techinques in this book: I’ve tested each one but please know that what works on one type of fabric might not work on another. If you want to try them . . . Josie says, please test first in an inconspicuous area of the item you’re cleaning! That said, congratulations to the winners of Josie’s second “Stain Busters” Contest:

  • Louis Mackey, for fluffing rugs with salt in the wash tip

  • Barbara Heckart, Pat Smith, and Katherine Shephard for the rust stains removal tip

  • Karen Poe, Deb Hollister, and Linda Summers Posey for the blood removal tip

  1

  That there is a devil, there is no doubt. But is he trying to get in . . . or trying to get out?

  This was the only commentary my Aunt Clara Foersthoefel—may she rest in peace—ever made about religion, and she made it often until the Sunday she quit church.

  At least, she quit attending the Paradise Church of Almighty Revelations, a fundamentalist, nondenominational congregation that still meets in a log building on the outskirts of Paradise, Ohio, just down the road a piece from the Happy Trails Motor Home Court.

  Uncle Horace and I fancied sleeping in on Sundays, the only day our family-owned laundromat closed. But on that Sunday some fourteen years ago, when I was about fifteen, our slumber was shattered when Aunt Clara came slamming in the back door, proclaiming she’d quit her once-beloved church, and giving as her answer to our question of why: “that there is a devil, there is no doubt. But is he trying to get in . . . or trying to get out?”

  It was the last time she ever uttered that saying.

  Then Aunt Clara herself slept in for two Sundays in a row. The Sunday after that, she roused Uncle Horace and me from slumber, made us put on churchgoing clothes, and turned us all into demure Methodists, which I have been ever since.

  I never knew just where Aunt Clara’s devil saying came from. Was this Aunt Clara’s personal theory? Or a doctrine she’d heard the Almighty Revelations pastor, Dru Purcell, preach on some fine Sunday morning? Truth be told, I never quite understood it, either. All I know for certain is that it still gives me the willies.

  A few years after Aunt Clara uttered her saying one last time, Uncle Horace died. Aunt Clara passed on two years after that, and I inherited the laundromat. In the years since then, Aunt Clara’s devil saying slipped from my thoughts entirely.

  Until the morning a few weeks ago, back in late October, when I met Ginny Proffitt, and suddenly Aunt Clara’s adage seemed like more than just a scary old saying.

  It seemed like prophecy.

  I’m Josie Toadfern, owner of Toadfern’s Laundromat, and a stain expert. Self-taught and proud of it. Best stain expert in Paradise, Ohio. Or in Mason County. Or in Ohio. Maybe even in all of the United States.

  After my aunt died, I took over the laundromat that had been my uncle’s (my aunt helped with the laundromat but worked full-time at a local pie company) and eventually renamed it Toadfern’s. I also took over the guardianship of my aunt and uncle’s only son, Guy Foersthoefel, an adult with autism who lives at Stillwater Farms, a residential home fifteen miles north of Paradise. My life has been plenty busy in the nine years since I took over the laundromat (I’m twenty-nine now). I didn’t have much time to dwell on the past or contemplate the distant future—my thoughts and actions were firmly embedded in the present and near future, and I liked it that way.

  At least, that’s how I felt just a few weeks ago on a Friday morning in late October. I was happily anticipating the weekend. That evening, I was going on a date with my boyfriend, Owen Collins, to a local “haunted” corn maze, and I planned to relax with him Saturday evening after working in my laundromat all day. Sunday, after church, I’d tutor my literacy student, Hugh Crowley, and after that, I’d visit my cousin Guy at Stillwater Farms. For Sunday night, I envisioned more snuggling with Owen. This pleasant rhythm would be accented with chats with my best friends—Winnie, Cherry, and Sally—or by reading a good book.

  As I contemplated my upcoming calm weekend, I staggered across the parking lot of the Rhinegolds’ Red Horse Motel, my gait awkward because I embraced a large laundry bag overstuffed with fluffy ecru towels and washcloths.

  But my load didn’t stop me from letting my thoughts drift from the pleasures in my immediate future to the perfection of the autumn morning. The pleasantly crisp air. The cloudless sky blue with a hue that can only come in autumn, as if it’s taken the heat of an entire summer to burnish the sky into deep cobalt. The huge oak tree that grew right out of the asphalt by the motel’s entrance, my ultimate destination.

  I love that tree and the fact that the Rhinegolds paved around it back when it was a sapling and have never cut it down. The tree was a brilliant orange red, the perfect counterpoint to the vibrancy of the sky.

  The autumn colors were, ironically, made more vibrant by the fact that we’d suffered a long spell of drought from late summer into autumn.

  Across from the Red Horse was Beeker’s Orchard, acres of apple trees laden with Jonathans and Red Delicious and Winesaps. Just a glimpse of the orchard made my mouth water from the taste-memory of hand-pressed cider and homemade applesauce.
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  With all that sensory input, who could blame me for gazing around, taking it in—and not seeing the woman crossing the parking lot?

  The woman herself, it turned out.

  We ran smack into each other. She bounced off the front of my laundry bag with a loud “oof!” I dropped the bag and staggered around, stunned from the surprise impact.

  I regained my balance and took a good look at the woman, sprawled on the asphalt, knocked out cold right by the sign proclaiming, RED HORSE MOTEL, VACANCY, COLOR TV, POOL, AIR CONDITIONING, an ultramodern amenity when the sign was put up in the 1950s.

  I ran over to the woman and knelt beside her. She wasn’t breathing and her eyes were closed. I held my hand over her face and didn’t feel any breath. My heart started racing, my throat tightening. Oh Lord, I thought. I’ve killed her!

  I told myself to stay calm, to remember the steps for CPR I’d learned in a Red Cross training class. I’d checked her breathing; now I needed to check for a pulse. I started to move the sapphire-studded gold watch on her wrist.

  But my fingers had barely brushed the watch when the woman jerked back to life, sitting up so suddenly she nearly butted heads with me, grabbing my wrist before I could say a word. Then she twisted my arm back, pinning me, right side down, to the asphalt lot. She knelt down, put her face by mine. I looked at her with just my left eye, the right one being squished closed. All I could manage in protest was a gargleysounding “Hey!”

  “You think you can rob me here in broad daylight?” the woman demanded. Her eyes were a pale gray. It’s hard to imagine eyes that color blazing, but they did. Her reaction to our situation was so over the top that normally I’d find it funny. Me, trying to rob someone? I don’t look like I could pull off a heist at a church rummage sale even with the pastor’s blessing.

  But there was something about those pale gray eyes burning with a cold fury—and about my twisted arm starting to throb in her viselike grip—that made this a definitely not-funny situation.

  Then, suddenly, the woman’s eyes softened into a normal gaze and she released my arm. I rolled to my back, sat up, and started butt-scooting away. “What was that all about? I wasn’t trying to rob you—”

  “Aw, sorry about that,” the woman said gruffly. She jumped up nimbly and brushed herself off. I stopped scooting. “Got mugged twice in the same month in L.A. Twitchy about that kind of thing ever since. Kinda like a posttraumatic disorder but just for muggings.”

  I smiled a little at the woman’s attempt at humor as she reached a hand down to help me up. I studied the hand she offered instead of taking it right away—after all, she’d just twisted my arm with it. Her hand was broad and manly, despite the carefully polished hot-pink nails and the sparkly rings adorning every finger. No wonder she’d been mugged, if she went around like that in big cities.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to take this woman’s hand—my arm was still hurting where she’d twisted it. Then again, I was a little unsteady and there was something very insistent about that hand, so I took it. The woman gave a strong, easy yank, and I came back up on my feet lightly.

  I studied the woman. She was about my height—just shy of five feet three—but, unlike me, athletic-looking even though she was wearing a warm-up suit. Usually people who wear those haven’t warmed up for years to do anything more strenuous than a channel-surfing marathon, but this woman’s arms were folded tight across a flat abdomen. Even her jawline looked toned, a pretty good clue that the rest of her was in shape.

  Her athletic aura was at odds, though, with the rest of her appearance: artfully applied makeup, gold jewelry, tanning salon tan, and a perfect brunette bob. She was so coiffed, she looked allergic to sweat.

  And that warm-up suit. Both pants and jacket were a patchwork of turquoise and hot pink, each triangle distinguished from the other by gold brocade. And she wore matching hot-pink, high-top sneakers.

  I swayed a little.

  “You okay?” the woman asked.

  “Sure, fine,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell her that the contrast of her outfit with the autumn colors around us was making me nauseated. “But on the pavement . . . you weren’t breathing . . . .”

  “Self-induced deep meditation. My breathing is extremely shallow in that state. It’s my automatic response to trauma. And a self-healing technique. I became an expert in it in the 1960s—when that kind of thing was more popular and I was in my open-minded twenties.”

  I was surprised—the woman didn’t look a day past 50. I made a note to myself to look into meditation.

  “So, tell me why you ran into me,” the woman added.

  “What? We ran into each other! I admit, I was distracted by the beauty of the day, but you must not have been paying attention to where you were going, either. I mean, with my big laundry bag, I should have been pretty noticeable. What was distracting you?”

  I eyed the laundry bag, a bulky lump to our left on the Rhinegolds’ motel parking lot. Thank the good Lord the contents hadn’t spilled to the pavement.

  When I looked back at the woman, her eyes were hard and narrow, and for a moment that chilly, creepy feeling I’d had before edged toward me. But suddenly the woman laughed, a great hearty laugh.

  “You’re kinda feisty. I like that,” the woman said, giving me an appraising look. “Wouldn’t have expected it, though.”

  Gee, thanks, I thought, starting toward my laundry bag.

  “I was on my way to a meeting.”

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “You asked what was distracting me. I have a meeting I’m going to—”

  “Me, too,” I said. After dropping off the laundry with the Rhinegolds, I planned to meet my friends Cherry Feinster and Sally Toadfern (who’s also my cousin) for coffee and gossip before a rare Friday morning outing. “I’m running late.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Really,” she said. I gulped, feeling unaccountably guilty at my white lie. I wasn’t running late; as usual, I was running a bit early, but I wanted to get away from this woman.

  “It’s time we met properly,” the woman said. “My name’s Ginny Proffitt. I’m here for the psychic fair. As one of the psychics.”

  I gulped again. Great, I thought. With my luck, she was probably the only one who really could read minds.

  I knew about the psychic fair, of course. For one thing, Paradise has a population of just fewer than three thousand, and not much happens without everyone knowing. For another, a few months ago I’d rented the spare apartment on the second story over my laundromat—I live in the other apartment—to Damon and Sienna LeFever. They were a twenty-something couple from Paradise who moved out to California for a few years, then returned a few months ago to open their new business: Rising Star Bookshop and Psychic Readings, just down the street from my laundromat. They sold New Age books and did tarot card readings and they were hosting a psychic fair at Paradise’s only motel, the Red Horse.

  In the Columbus Dispatch, I’d seen ads for Columbus-area psychic fairs, gatherings of psychics who do readings and balance chakras (I wasn’t quite sure what that meant) and sell crystals. But this would be Paradise’s first.

  And Ginny Proffitt was the first psychic I’d ever met, with the exception of Great-Aunt Noreen Toadfern, who was said to be gifted with dreams that foretold calamitous events. Great-Aunt Noreen had looked like a loon. Ginny looked well tended. Neither one looked like my idea of a psychic.

  Ginny smiled at me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Most people are surprised when they find out I’m a psychic. I guess they expect gypsy skirts and loopy earrings.”

  I forced myself not to gasp. She’d just described my expectation. “I’m Josie Toadfern.”

  “The laundromat owner,” she said.

  I glanced at my laundry bag on the pavement. It definitely didn’t take a psychic to figure that out. “I was just dropping off the Rhinegolds’ weekly linens.”

  “They told me about you when I asked about laundry facilities,” she said. “I just
got here a few hours ago, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t have time to do my laundry before I came. So I packed a suitcase of dirty clothes, thinking I could do my laundry once I got here.”

  I kept my face still while thinking ew. I didn’t want to be interested in this woman or her story. But my natural curiosity took over. (My school-years nickname was Nosey Josie, but I prefer to think of myself as inquisitively gifted.) Who packs dirty clothes on purpose? Who is so busy they can’t even wash a few clothes before traveling?

  Ginny Proffitt smiled and answered the question I hadn’t asked out loud. “I’m in the process of closing down my business and selling it off. Had some last-minute details to take care of and couldn’t get to the laundromat.” She plucked at the arm of her warm-up suit. “This is clean, though.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Josie.”

  I took her hand. “And you.” We exchanged a firm handshake, and I started to pull away, but Ginny held on to my hand.

  “The least I can do after all this is give you a complimentary palm reading,” she said.

  I resisted an eye roll, remembering Great-Aunt Noreen holding forth at the Toadfern family reunion every year, telling the kids about how she’d dreamt only the night before of someone drowning. Our reunions were held at the man-made Licking Creek Lake State Park, shelter B, by the shore.

  “I really am in a hurry—” I started.

  “Nonsense,” said Ginny, firmly turning my hand in hers, so that my palm faced up. She stared into it. “I know the LeFevers did the best they could recruiting people, and of course everyone’s always drawn to the tarot readers because of the colorful cards, but between you and me, I’m the only real psychic here. Oh, the others get occasional vibrations, I’m sure, but for a real reading, I’m the one to see. I do palm and crystal orb readings, plus dream interpretation. This reading will be quick since we’re both in a hurry—” with that she glanced up with a knowing smirk, and I flushed—“but come by later for an in-depth consultation.”

  I tugged my hand, but she held on firmly. “You know, I appreciate your offer, really, but—”