A Body to Spare (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) (10 page)

twelve

An hour later, I
opened my door to Emma Whitecastle.

Even though I hadn’t wanted to drive to Studio City today, I offered to meet Emma in Pasadena, where she told me she lived. But instead, she offered to come to my home, especially after I told her that the police thought the body had been put into my trunk while the car was parked in the carport.

“You really didn’t have to rush down here,” I told her, showing her in. Very tall and slim, with a glowing complexion, Emma Whitecastle was just as lovely in person as in her photos. From her bio online, I knew she was in her late forties, and she had the fine lines around her eyes to prove it. Even though it was none of my business, I was happy to see she hadn’t had any plastic surgery to tweak them like most TV celebrities. Still, I was very glad I’d showered earlier and had even slapped on some makeup after we’d hung up from our call.

“It was no problem,” she told me. “I was about to leave for San Diego for the weekend, so I’ll just head there from here.”

“My husband and I love San Diego,” I told her. “We go quite often. Is this a special weekend?”

“My fiancé has a condo there,” she explained, taking a seat after I directed her to the sofa. “I live up here and he lives down there, and we both have homes in Julian, which is where we usually spend our weekends. This weekend, however, we have to attend a charity event on Saturday night in San Diego, so we’ll stay there.”

“Julian is another place Greg and I love.” I sat on the edge of the recliner. “We go every year for the apple festival.”

Emma and I politely smiled at each other. I got the feeling she was trying to look
into
me. I, on the other hand, was trying not to let my nerves get the best of me. Until an hour ago, I’d only vaguely known this woman from Hollywood gossip shows and magazines when she was going through a very messy public divorce. Now I knew she was a famous medium with her own TV show. I didn’t know which Emma Whitecastle made me more nervous.

“Relax, Odelia,” Emma said with a smile. “I’m not going to bite.” She shrugged off her leather bomber jacket and laid it neatly on the sofa next to her. Muffin came out from one of her many hiding places to greet the visitor.

“Hi, cutie pie,” Emma said to the cat, scooping her up to pet her. Muffin was in kitty nirvana. She loved guests.

A nervous laugh escaped my lips. “Can you see the future?”

Emma responded with a laugh of her own as she continued stroking Muffin, but unlike mine, it was confident and not the least bit self-conscious. “It’s complicated, kind of like the body you found. I don’t tell fortunes, if that’s what you mean, but sometimes spirits tell me things and sometimes I can sense things that might happen. Working with spirits is not exact.”

“In your gut?” I asked. “You get a lot of gut feelings?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I work a lot on my gut instincts, mingled with what I gather from the spirits.”

“Then tell me, Emma,” I said, leaning forward, “when I kill my mother tonight, will I get off with a plea of insanity?”

She tilted her head back and laughed heartily, then said, “Grace was just concerned about you and thought I might be able to help.”

“So is it the dead guy who is trying to contact me through you?” I asked, still unsure of what to expect. “You said you felt someone was trying to connect with me.”

She nodded and put Muffin down on the floor. “I’m not sure who it is, but I sense his spirit is here with us now.” She was still and tilted her chin up. It reminded me of Wainwright when he’s checking for scents borne on the air, but in her case she seemed to be listening, not smelling. “But I don’t think this is the man found in your trunk. This man passed over a few years ago, not recently.” She tilted her head to her left. “He says his name is Horten.”

I nearly peed my pants, then remembered that she could have researched me as easily as I did her.

“That’s your father, isn’t it?” she asked.

I nodded. “But that’s public record.”

She gave me another warm smile. “I can see, Horten, that we have a tough customer here.” She was still again, then told me, “He says he’s sorry about the pig.” She looked at me, puzzled. “Did you have a pet pig?”

I shook my head.

“Not a pet,” she continued, her chin tilted again, “but a plastic pig. A pink plastic pig that your father…no, someone named Gigi gave you as a gift.”

I held my breath. I had turned fifty shortly after my father died. For my birthday, my evil stepmother Gigi had given me a pink plastic pig that went into the fridge and oinked when you opened the door. I despised the thing and had smashed it to smithereens with a mallet. But I didn’t let on to Emma that she’d hit a bull’s eye.

“He says he’s sorry,” Emma continued, “and doesn’t blame you for destroying it.”

“He saw that, did he?” I asked, not sure what to believe. It was then that I noticed Muffin cautiously walking toward the area off to Emma’s left. Her sharp little nose was close to the ground, and she was wary but not frightened or defensive.

“Yes,” Emma answered. “He says he was here when you did it.” She paused and tilted her head again. “He also says that he’s glad you found Grace, and he’s very sorry he didn’t help you do it years earlier. That’s what he wanted me to say to you—he wanted me to apologize to you for that. And he said you’re to stick close to Grace. She may not tell you, but she loves you and needs you, and you need her. She’ll be your strength when you need her the most.”

I sniffed and widened my eyes in an attempt to stem the tears that were threatening to gush. I loved my father and had been close to him. When he died, I was crushed. I glanced at Muffin. She was now lying on the floor and showing her tummy to whatever was over there. It was a gesture of trust and greeting she often made to good friends of ours. This time it was really freaking me out.

“He’s fading, Odelia,” Emma told me. “Do you have anything quick you want to ask him?”

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to walk down a painful memory lane. “Who put the dead guy in my trunk? Was Dad hanging around then?”

Emma glanced over to her left and asked the empty air about the body in my trunk. After a few moments she turned back to me. “He said he didn’t see anything about the body,” she relayed. “But he wants you to be very careful. He’s worried about your safety and Greg’s.”

Join the crowd.

“He also said he probably won’t be back.”

“What?” I asked with surprise. “This was a one-time offer?”
I didn’t know what to believe, and it was starting to make me angry. “You’re saying my father popped in and is now gone for good?”

“It’s not uncommon, Odelia,” Emma explained, “for a spirit to take its leave permanently once he or she has said what they’ve been waiting to say.”

I slouched in the recliner like my bones had disintegrated into dust. Mentally and emotionally I was exhausted and not understanding anything that had just happened. I didn’t know whether to believe this hooey or to thank Emma for passing along the message like a note in school.

Muffin had gotten to her feet and was inspecting the area again. Only Greg and I knew about my smashing that pig. There was no way Emma Whitecastle could know that. Not even the know-all, see-all Marigold would know that. Either my home had been under surveillance or Dad had been hanging around at the time like Emma claimed. I laughed inwardly. Wainwright knew I’d done the deed. Maybe he squealed like that dog in the baked beans commercial on TV. It was the only logical explanation, and it was ridiculous.

I pointed at Muffin. “Could she see him?”

Emma smiled at the little animal. “Most animals are very sensitive to spirits. If Muffin didn’t see him, she at least knew he was there. Our dog senses spirits all the time and tries to get them to play with him.”

I ran a hand through my hair, dislodging the headband. “I honestly don’t know what to make of this, Emma. I’m torn between thanking you and asking you to leave my home.”

“That’s not an unusual response.”

Emma sat on my sofa calmly and patiently, obviously used to scenarios like this. I, however, was not. Should I offer her coffee or punch her lights out? I liked the idea of my father hovering about from time to time—at least I hoped it was only from time to time. It was comforting to think about. But I didn’t like the idea that now that I had had a taste of his company, he was gone—
w
hoosh—
like he’d never been there at all. A sense of loss was creeping over me as if he’d died a second time. I tried my best to shake it off and turn my attention back to Emma.

“So now what?” I asked. I sat up straight like a grown-up, deciding that throwing a punch was not the way to go.

Emma shrugged and looked at her watch. “I still have time before I have to head down to San Diego. How about you showing me where the body was left? Maybe I can pick up something.”

I got out of the recliner and showed Emma the way out through the sliders to the patio. Unlocking the back gate, I led the way to the carport.

“Is this the car?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, “that’s a rental. The police are holding my car, but it was parked right here when the police think the body was dumped.”

Emma closed her eyes and took several deep breaths as if absorbing the energy in the air.

“Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” I asked when she opened her eyes.

She smiled at me. “A cup of coffee would be nice. I take it black, no sugar.” She studied the area, then added, “It’s not too chilly out, so how about we have it out here on the patio just in case a spirit presents itself. Sometimes they linger near the place where they died.”

I had taken a step back toward the house but stopped and turned toward her. “The police don’t know exactly where he died. He could have been killed and his corpse left here.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But I think he died here or shortly before he got here.”

Not for the first time, a cold river ran through my veins. Without a word, I headed into the house to make the coffee. When I returned, Emma had taken a seat at our patio table. She’d propped the gate open and was seated so she could see into the carport. I placed the two mugs of coffee on the table. I had slipped into a thick hoodie and had Emma’s jacket slung over one arm. “You might need this,” I said, handing her the jacket.

“Thank you. I was just about to go in and fetch it.” She slipped into her jacket and wrapped her hands around the coffee. Before taking a sip, she asked, “So you didn’t know your mother watches my show?”

“Not a clue,” I said after sipping some hot coffee. “But no surprise there. Mom keeps her private life pretty close to her chest. She’s on a senior citizen tour to one of the Indian casinos right now. Neither my brother or I knew she’d taken them before, but apparently she does and just didn’t say. She’s always been secretive like that.”

Emma took a drink of her own coffee. “It’s too bad I won’t get to meet her.”

“Serves her right for pulling a sneaky stunt like this and not telling me.”

We sipped our coffee companionably. I wanted to ask Emma a bushel of questions but didn’t want to disturb whatever vibes people like her got, if that was even how all this mumbo jumbo worked.

“Grace didn’t tell me anything about the man who died,” Emma finally said, breaking the silence, “but I get the sense that he was quite young.”

“She really told you nothing?” I asked with surprise.

“Not a word, except that it was a male. But I think he was young and lost for a long time.” She looked at me, holding my eyes with hers. “And newsworthy, more than just the usual dead body. Am I correct?”

“You got all that from just sitting here?” I closed one eye, giving Emma my dead-eye stare.

“Not the newsworthy part,” she answered. “I got that just by my own summation. Grace didn’t say who he was. Neither did you, even though I’m pretty sure you know his identity. The police also have not given that information to the media yet. Whoever this young man is, it’s going to be a big news story.”

“Yes,” I said, releasing the breath I was holding and relaxing my closed eye. “A huge story, but we’re not at liberty to talk about it on orders of the police and the FBI.”

“The FBI,” Emma said with surprise. She’d been about to take another sip of coffee but stopped and turned her eyes again toward the carport. “Very interesting.” We went back to silently sipping our coffee again, but Emma never took her eyes off the carport, almost willing it to cough up its secrets.

My mug was empty and so was Emma’s when she turned her attention back to me. “Would you like more coffee?” I offered.

“No, thank you.” Her words were pleasant and polite, but her face was clouded. “I have to be going, but there is something I need to tell you.”

I leaned in closer, almost abandoning my skepticism of earlier.

“You’ve heard the phrase ‘killing two birds with one stone’?” she asked.

“Of course,” I answered. “It basically means getting two things accomplished with only one action.”

“Exactly,” she confirmed. “That phrase—killing two birds with one stone—is going around and around in my head. But here’s the really odd thing.”

The really odd thing?
This whole encounter was surreal.

“I’m getting the feeling that this man’s name has something to do with birds. Maybe his name is Robin or Sparrow or something like that.”

Or Finch.

She looked at me for confirmation, but I forced my face to remain still and my mouth closed—an amazing feat for me on both counts.

“But whatever his name,” Emma continued, “the phrase ‘killing two birds with one stone’ doesn’t refer to his name. I think it refers to the reason the body was left here.”

“What?” I squeaked out.

“I may be wrong,” Emma said. “Sometimes messages are hazy or cloaked in multiple meanings, but I definitely think whoever killed this person was taking care of more than one problem.”

“You mean the killer was multitasking?” I snorted at the absurdity of it, yet inside I was burning what Emma had said into my memory for later reflection.

“Yes,” she said with a finality that signaled it was time for her to leave.