The Five Strangers, page 4
“Jasper, my old friend,” I said, “would you like to come home with me and stay in one of the guest rooms at Cadbury House?”
“I can’t!” After he erupted, he settled quickly and seemed to grow secretive. “But I thank you kindly. All I need is to set the sun down for the night and then get myself inside. At night, locked up in my house, I’m safe. From her.”
I sat back, deep in thought, taking a bite of my grilled cheese sandwich. By that time it had gotten cold, but at least it was still crunchy. Neither of the other men said anything.
No, I couldn’t sort it out. Jasper was afraid to be at home, yet he’d go there and surrender to the helplessness of sleep. He felt safe in town, but that’s where Sheila Colson, commander of the attack tortoises, was. The working-man part I got, but that didn’t seem to be the operative part. He was afraid to be home, even on a Sunday when he didn’t have his truck for transportation and nobody expected him to show up for work. It was Jasper logic, and it was all screwed up.
“Well, the least I can do is give you a ride home tonight,” I said finally. I checked my watch and was surprised at the time. “You’ve got another hour or so before you need to go sing at the sun, so the timing’s just right.”
“Just as long as I’m inside before dark, and I do appreciate the ride. I’m all done in.”
“You could, of course, come home with me,” Ed surprised me by offering. Ed lived alone, and I knew for a fact that he liked it that way. “I live right on the beach. You could set the sun down from there just as easily as from your own house, and afterward you’d be quite safe locked up inside my house. I have a fairly sophisticated alarm system.”
Dusty was smiling around the table, touched at how we were rallying around our friend. I studied Dusty again.
For a man who’d been living on the road, I noticed he hadn’t attacked his hamburger with a ravenous appetite, and I wondered again if he was really the simple wandering minstrel he appeared to be. His table manners were perfect, almost dainty, and his accent was more genteel Southern than country Southern. His graying hair was neatly gathered into a ponytail, and his beard, though scraggly, was short, as if he shaved when he got the chance. Now that I could take the time to study his face, under the softening effect of a half-grown beard, it began to seem very attractive, though touchingly melancholy.
Things would have been perfect if we’d ended the consultation right there, but Ed was determined to drag in the hag theory again, and we found it necessary to order dessert, coffee, and a refill on the coffee before we could get him to drop it and let us give up the table.
When Ed finally let up on the hag, he sat back with a heavy sigh. “I suppose it’s just a simple, garden-variety curse,” he said with regret.
“Have you been just hoping for a case of hag-riding one of these days so you could test out a theory?” I asked.
He smirked a little. “You know me too well, Taylor. Just one check, Suzy, and I’ll take it,” he said before I realized we were getting the bill.
I would have fought for it, but I knew that he was going to write it off as a business expense anyway. And besides, he’d enjoyed himself, in his own peculiar way.
“So Jasper,” I said as we stood up from the booth. “Am I taking you home?”
“I thank you, ma’am, that’d be very kind of you.”
“You know, I come into town every Monday morning to look at the books over at Girlfriend’s. Can I pick you up tomorrow? Say a quarter of nine?”
“That’d suit me just fine, and I thank you again.”
Ed suddenly turned and held us up just inside the door, where there was a lot of traffic and I felt very much in the way.
“You know, this could be a case for Mother Shipton. The main mechanism may just be herbal. Love philters, of course, would not apply here, but Mother S. is often a go-to when it comes to less sophisticated interactions between individuals. You know, the usual envy, jealousy, or simple, garden-variety hatred. That first collision with all-consuming infatuation,” Ed mused with a shake of the head. “Juveniles in love for the very first time. They are as pillars of flame, scorching the very earth below and igniting the skies above. Nothing can convince them that what they’re feeling isn’t unique, or will ever come again . . . and perhaps again and again and again. Yes, the good Mother understood such things very well. Much moreso than technical researchers dealing in higher transactions – you know, alchemy, sorcery, the desire for dominance over a People rather than a single person.”
“Kings always had alchemists and sorcerers working for them,” Dusty supplied, nodding in agreement. “The common people just wanted love potions.”
“Indeed. What good it may have done those kings is problematic, but they were determined to use every asset available at the time. Yet I find myself more and more often consulting what few bona fide sources we have on Mother S. These days, interactions both aggressive and defensive are much more common amongst ordinary average people wanting to control one another. Leaders of nations seem to have abandoned the earlier, more nebulous methods for the more tangible results of modern weaponology. Still, in her own homespun way, Mother S. was phenomenal when it came to herbs. Results not to be sneered at, I assure you. I remember one time when I attempted her treatment for warts, lesions and goiters –”
“Ed!” I said sharply. “Let’s get out of the doorway.”
“Ah. Yes. Another time, perhaps.” He moved through the door but stopped us outside on the sidewalk. “Now, in your case, Jasper, I think we’re much more likely to be dealing with less sophisticated objectives than eternal-life, remote viewing, methods for winnowing-out pretenders –”
“Pretenders?” Jasper asked, even more confused than I was.
“To the throne. You know, by affixing swords in stones and so on. Before DNA it was a big problem, believe me. No, more than likely your situation comes down to something banal. The evil eye, perhaps, something straightforward that can be warded off with a string of beads. Or maybe she just hates you. Always a possibility. Anyway, we’ll start with simple things and move up the casting chain if necessary.”
Dusty was openly fascinated, but Jasper’s face was showing signs of desperation. I was in Jasper’s camp. It had been a while since I’d been treated to one of Ed’s lectures on paranormal theory and practice, and I’d forgotten how mind-numbing they could be. I took a deep breath and settled myself into the here and now.
“What do you say, Jasper,” I asked brightly. “Time to go home?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said very definitely.
It didn’t occur to me at the time to wonder where Dusty was off to next. I had my hands full with Jasper.
* * *
Getting Jasper home wasn’t going to take long, so I started right in making sure our little consultation had settled him down at least a little, and that he wasn’t too disoriented by Ed’s dissertation.
“I know Ed can be hard to follow when he gets going,” I said as I turned the corner onto Locust Street and headed for A1A. “Especially when he goes off on a tangent, like he did with the hag thing, but he’s really good at what he does. I’m sure he’s going to be a big help to you, so don’t you worry.”
“I appreciate that, ma’am,” he said dully. “I was a little doubtful about calling on him, but . . . .”
“Go ahead, Jasper. You can tell me. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“It’s such a beautiful world.” He was looking out the passenger window at the sea oats and the sparkling ocean and the string of pelicans working their way south in a long, disciplined line. “I love this world. I love everything in it. All the animals, all the people, even the damn gopher tortoises, pardon my French. Even when they’re throwing themselves at my front bumper, I love the damn things, you know?”
“Yes, Jasper, I know.”
“I don’t want to die and have to leave it all. Heaven’s probably a nice place, but I feel like it’s heaven right here.”
Well, what can you say to that? I tried to be comforting.
“You can count on Ed. And I’ll help all I can, too.”
We had arrived at his house by then, and I made a U-turn to park in front of his place. I was still worried about him, and somehow I didn’t want to let him go yet. After I’d parked the car, I turned to face him.
“Would you like me to come in and make sure everything is okay in there? Sit with you a while until you’re feeling better? I promise not to give you a lecture on casting spells.”
“No thank you, ma’am, you’ve done enough and I thank you for it, goodbye now,” he said, wrenching open the passenger door as if he were breaking out of jail.
“Jasper!” I said, calling after him before he slammed the car door and started to speedwalk up to his house.
“Well, of all the –” I said to myself, watching him fumble with his front door until he finally got it open and went inside. “The handyman’s front door is the last one that ever gets fixed,” I joked to myself, but I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. First I’m his best friend in the world, then he’s bailing out of my car and slamming the door in my face. I’d only been going to remind him that I was picking him up in the morning.
As I stared after him, I saw the curtain at the front window twitch aside slightly, just a split second after he’d closed the front door. He must have seen me staring back at him and quickly pulled his head in, like one of those damn gopher tortoises, pardon my French.
I put the car in gear and did another U-turn, finally heading for home.
What a strange day. I couldn’t wait to tell Michael all about it.
Chapter 4 – Home
Michael Utley is my own personal plus-one, and he lives with me on a sprawling estate more than large enough to accommodate the old lodge and the outbuildings that comprise my home and animal shelter, Orphans of the Storm.
Cadbury House is an old hunting lodge that was converted into a winter getaway for one of the robber barons of the last century. It comprises 1,500 acres of pristine Florida habitat at the edge of a river. No living member of the Cadbury family wanted the place, so they rented it to me with the proviso that the property be kept in order and the family cemetery be respected and maintained. For the minimal rent I paid, I was happy to do all of that.
I parked my SUV and went to check in at the kennel. After doing a once-around there, I went into the main lodge and looked around for Michael.
He was at the dinner table with a lot of papers spread out around him, working on his laptop. I thought for the umpteenth time that we were going to have to set up an office for him somewhere in the lodge. He was a retired lawyer who seemed to be hatching himself back out of retirement lately, and he still had an association with a small law firm in downtown Tropical Breeze. If I didn’t want him moving back into his old home-and-office downtown (and I didn’t), I was going to have to make him comfortable there at Cadbury House, and there was plenty of room for it.
I set my purse down on the kitchen counter and said hi to him. He looked over and smiled.
“You would not believe the day I’ve had,” I said, walking across the open space between the kitchen and the dining room. I sat down in the chair beside him.
He filed off whatever he’d been working on and said, “Tell me all about it. Were the crumpets nice and buttery?”
“Huh? Oh, the high tea. I’d forgotten all about it.”
“Seriously? You girls make such a big thing out of it. Where’s the tie-dyed dress, by the way.”
“I ditched it at Girlfriend’s. You knew it was a mistake all along, didn’t you?”
“I don’t mind you trying out a new look every now and then.”
I stared at him, and he finally broke down and chuckled. “It was a bit much, but it was all for fun. What did Jelly show up wearing?”
“Something just as ridiculous, but she managed to pull it off, of course. And we did have tea and it was fun, like always. It was what happened after that that was weird. Ed and I picked up a wandering preacher on the beach and then I sat in on a conference between Ed and a new client at the diner.”
His mouth fell open. “Wait – Ed was there? And who did you pick up on the beach?”
“Dusty July.”
The look on his face made me realize just how strange it sounded, and I hastened to explain how it had all made sense at the time. But when I started putting the words together they didn’t sound sensible, even to me.
“That just happens to be his name. And he’s a really nice guy,” I said feebly. “You can tell right away. Everybody liked him.”
“Everybody? Like who?”
“Everybody on the beach. He drew a crowd. Passed them the good word and they all looked happier when he was done with them.”
He studied my face closely. “Were you happier, too?”
“Actually, I didn’t hear the good word. I was off to the side, talking to Ed. He’d been driving by to have a meeting with Jasper in town, and when he saw a guy on the beach that looked something like Jasper, he stopped.”
“And the Jasper-looking guy was actually a person named Dusty July?”
“That’s his actual name. According to him,” I added, realizing that this was the first time I even questioned it.
“Really, Michael, it all made sense at the time. Anyway, Ed was going into town to meet with Jasper, and somehow Dusty and I ended up coming along. The four of us ate together at Don’s Diner.”
He was sitting back now, still looking for signs that I was joking.
I got defensive:
“It’s only weird because of Jasper. He started it all. For some reason, he thinks the new shopkeeper in town is trying to kill him – put the evil eye on him or something – and he wants Ed to break the spell.”
“I see,” he said, sounding like he didn’t see. “And this Dusty July character came along just because he was hungry?”
“No – well, maybe he was hungry, but he was actually useful, as it turned out. He’s kind of easy to be around. You know, soothing. We needed a buffer between Ed and Jasper. You know how Ed is when he gets going, and Jasper is kind of a down-to-earth guy; he likes things simple. Dusty stepped in and kept Jasper talking about his problem while I kept a lid on Ed. I was glad Dusty was there, really.”
After a moment of deep thought, Michael said, “And you’re getting yourself involved in this situation how?”
“Oh, I’m not involved. I only drove Jasper home afterward. His truck is in the shop because he ran off the road because of a tortoise.”
“A tortoise. Well, that’s the only part of this saga that actually makes sense – I think. This was a situation on the road, while Jasper was driving his truck?”
I nodded.
“Did the tortoise make it?”
“The tortoise is fine.”
Unless it’s under the command of an evil sorceress, I thought, but at that point I didn’t dare make jokes.
My cat suddenly jumped up into my lap and demanded attention, staring into my face much the same way Michael had been.
Bastet is big, black and beautiful, with eyes exactly the same shade of green as my own. Her name had originally been Basket, but it wasn’t long before it morphed into that of the Egyptian goddess. She’s one of those regal cats, prone to posing and looking very self-assured. She has a way of getting what she wants exactly when she wants it, and the eerie tendency to listen to conversations like an extra human being who could join in and talk if she felt like it.
She also tended to pay more attention to me when things were about to go sideways, so this sudden interest was a bad sign. Ordinarily, Bastet was Michael’s cat, and with him she acted like a cat. With me, she acted more like she owned me, or even possessed me.
“I actually heard about the guy on the beach from Benny today,” Michael said at last. Benny is one of Michael’s golfing buddies. “I would have listened better if I’d known you were out there picking him up and taking him out for dinner.”
“Oh? What did Benny say?”
“Well, he wanted me to know about him because I’m on the City Council, and panhandling is not allowed on the beach. We’ve had to get pretty strict about it. Was this guy panhandling?”
“I saw somebody slip him some money, but he didn’t ask for it. He had a guitar with him, so maybe he played music for a while before I got there.”
“Street musicians need to stick to the streets, not the beach,” he said sternly.
“I know, I know. Like I said, I never actually heard him play; he was just talking. What did Benny say about whatever he was saying to the crowd?”
“He didn’t actually hear it. He was out golfing with me, remember? But when he got home one of his neighbors came over and told him all about it. He said his neighbor still had kind of a happy glow about her while she was telling him about it, and she’s the type that’s usually full of bad news.”
“Dusty seems like a really good guy, Michael. Everybody I saw had a happy glow after they walked away from him.”
The look on Michael’s face was extremely skeptical, and before I vouched for Dusty any further, I realized I’d better wait and see what he was going to turn out to be. I didn’t know the man. He was one of those people you take a liking to right away, but that’s true of every confidence trickster that’s ever been born.
Still, I had the stubborn feeling that Dusty was one of those special ones, a man who loved everybody and everything and was put here to open the hearts of the people around him just a little bit. He just happened to come in a tattered package and had been on the road a long time.
Chapter 5 – I Have Doubts
Along my way into town the next morning I picked up Jasper at 8:45 as promised, and he asked to be dropped off at Elton’s garage so he could check on his truck. Other than that, he was quiet, and he didn’t seem any happier than he’d been when I’d dropped him off the evening before.
