Horoscope: The Astrology Murders (21 page)

All the workmen had left the house except the two painters who ran Ace Painting, Ed Murrin, who’d come today for the first time, and Peter, who’d painted and run the crew in Ed’s absence. Emerging from her office, Sarah saw Ed on the stairway, using a small paintbrush on the molding. She could see from the awkward way that he held his neck and head as he painted that he had arthritis. The last time Ed had painted her house was four
years ago, when Joe Heath, Peter’s father, was still working as Ed’s partner. Sarah didn’t remember Ed seeming old then, although he was in his 60s. There were times Sarah felt her father shouldn’t have retired from his contracting business, but seeing Ed in pain made her feel that maybe her father had been right to stop while he was still feeling well. And, of course, the fact that he had retired meant that he now had the time to devote to taking care of her mother.

Ed hadn’t made it to the house the day before because the job he’d been on had taken all day, but Sarah had been impressed to see that he was already there and busy painting in the morning when she’d arrived. It was clear from the meticulous way he painted that he was a master in his trade, and the look of pride Sarah saw on his face as he stood back to inspect his work told her that if he was still painting because he needed the income, he also still found satisfaction in it.

“How’s it going?” she asked him, walking to the foot of the stairs.

He turned and straightened up his stooped frame as best he could. “Fine. Just fine.”

“Would you like some water?”

He shook his head. “Just want you to know, tell your father thanks for the recommendation. We appreciate the work.”

Sarah smiled. “Well, I appreciate your work.”

“How’s your mother?” Ed asked her.

“She’s doing all right. I think she’ll be okay.”

Ed smiled. “I’m glad.”

Peter, on a ladder at the end of the hallway, painting the ceiling, spoke to Sarah as he wiped a blob of white paint off the front of his uncombed mane of blond hair. “We’ll be out of here as soon as we finish these touch-ups. Unless you see anything
else …”

Sarah stepped away from the staircase and surveyed the neatly painted hall. “Looks good,” she said. “When you’re done, come to my office and I’ll write you a check.”

Walking back to her office, she was certain she’d made the right decision to come to work that day. It gave her a sense of accomplishment to see how much had been done to restore the house in a mere twenty-four hours and that she was the one who had set the renewal process in motion; it made her feel that she would get over Kevin and that she was already starting a new and positive chapter in her life.

It had taken Kelly longer to dress than usual. She’d found herself thinking about her grandmother and memories she had of growing up in her grandmother’s care. Kelly had been the only child in her class at Rudolf Steiner who had been raised by a woman in her seventies and eighties, yet her grandma Irene had been as creative, interesting, and open-minded as any of the other children’s far younger parents. And she had been the only one who had taught the child she was raising about astrology; more important, through astrology, and through her own optimistic spirit, she had taught Kelly that life was a cycle and that death, which had claimed Kelly’s parents—her grandmother’s daughter and son-in-law—in a train accident, was part of that cycle. Her grandmother had explained that just as the cycle of each day included dawn and night and everything in between, so the cycle of each life included birth and death and everything in between.

Kelly had been grieving over the loss of her parents; for days she had stayed in bed, coming out for meals only at her grandmother’s and Emma’s insistence. Gradually, she had begun
spending time with her grandmother, whom she had always deeply loved, in the living room or the downstairs library, which was now Kelly’s office, or in her grandmother’s garden. All the while, her grandmother had talked to her. Slowly her words had begun to take root in Kelly’s consciousness, and Kelly had begun to believe that life wasn’t necessarily all bleak because something terrible had happened, to believe that one day she could find her spirit reborn, perhaps even find her grandmother’s optimism in herself.

She knew how very much her grandmother had loved her mother and father, and yet her grandmother was able to mourn them and, at the same time, to love life enough to take care of her and to encourage her to find delight in life again. In a very real way, Kelly felt that her grandmother had saved her life, and later she had made it possible for Kelly to survive her divorce, go back to school, and raise Jeff and Julie. Despite being in a wheelchair and unable to stand on her own, her grandmother had had the strength to teach Kelly to stand on her own, not just once, but twice.

As she started down the staircase from the third floor, Kelly was thinking about the interconnections between her grand-mother’s chart and her own. When her grandmother had taught her how to draw a chart, the first two charts Kelly had done by herself were her grandmother’s and hers. She had immediately seen how much they had in common and that the charts showed how they complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Like Kelly, her grandmother had been a Pisces with Aries rising—which made both of them emotional and intuitive as well as pioneering—but where Kelly had a moon in Capricorn, which made her reflective and focused, with a tendency toward fixed opinions, her grandmother’s moon was in Cancer, which made
her protective and nurturing. Their charts also showed that they had a deep connection in the fourth house, the house of family, where her grandmother’s moon conjuncted Kelly’s south node; they were profoundly bonded to each other like a mother and daughter on a soul level from a past life.

Kelly was thinking about her dream about her grandmother from the night before when she stepped down to the next step and felt herself slip on the runner and lose her balance. Disoriented, she slid down the staircase, each step hitting her back as she fell until her body hit the second-floor landing. She took stock of herself, saw that she was still in one piece, so at first she thought that the worst was over, that she was a bit shaken and her back might be bruised a little, but other than that she was okay. Then she tried to stand and fell to the floor again; the pain in her right ankle was excruciating.

She lifted herself on her hands to a sitting position and saw that King was running up the stairs toward her from the first floor. He padded onto the landing and howled softly as he approached her. “It’s all right, King,” she told him, patting his nose. “I just had a little fall.” She looked toward the first floor and called out, “Emma! Emma!” A moment later she heard footsteps in the first-floor hallway and looked down the stairs, expecting to see Emma, but instead she saw a gray-haired man in paint-spattered coveralls climbing the steps as quickly as his stiff legs could carry him. She remembered him from the last time she’d had the house painted.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, looking up the stairs toward her. “Hold tight.”

“Thanks,” Kelly said. “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

“That’s okay. What happened?” he asked as he reached the landing.

“I must’ve tripped on the carpet.”

He extended his hand toward her to help her up. She took hold of his hand and was surprised to find that he had the strength to pull her to her feet.

“Now take hold of my arm,” he instructed, “and lean on me. We’ll get you someplace where you can sit down.”

Kelly held on to his arm. So far she was putting all her weight on her left foot; now she tried to put some weight on her right foot, but the pain was too great.

“Be careful,” he told her. “It might be broken. You’ve got to have someone look at it.”

She nodded and did as she was told, leaning on him as he slowly led her into Jeff’s room. She sat down on the bed and looked up as Sarah came in.

Sarah’s eyes went to Kelly’s right foot, which she saw Kelly was barely letting touch the floor. “What is it, Kelly?” Sarah asked worriedly.

“I was clumsy and I fell. That’s all.” Kelly tried to keep the pain out of her voice. “I didn’t know you were coming in today. I thought you were staying home to take care of yourself.”

“I didn’t need to stay home,” Sarah told her. “Is it your leg or your ankle?”

Kelly felt like a fool; she wished she’d paid more attention as she’d gone down the stairs so she wouldn’t have tripped. “I think it’s my ankle,” she said.

“I was just telling her she has to go to a doctor,” Ed told Sarah; then he turned to Kelly. “I’ll drive you to the emergency room if you like.”

Sarah glanced at Kelly and saw that she was looking down at her ankle; to Ed it might look as if the pain had drawn her attention to it, but Sarah knew Kelly was looking down to avoid his
eyes, so he wouldn’t see how tense his suggestion of going to the hospital had made her. Going to the hospital would mean leaving the house, and Kelly couldn’t do that.

Sarah answered before Kelly could come up with a reason not to go. “I appreciate it, Ed,” Sarah said. “But I know you have to leave for your next job. I’ll stay with Kelly and make sure she sees someone.”

Kelly was looking at Ed now. “Thank you again for helping me, and for your offer. It’s very kind of you.”

“My pleasure, Dr. York. You just get that ankle healed soon.” He was already out the door.

Kelly listened to his footsteps in the hallway heading toward the staircase and then descending the steps. When she could no longer hear them, she said to Sarah: “You really don’t have to be here. You should be home.”

“It would be depressing to stay home,” Sarah said. “I could practice for a few hours, but I’ll be doing that later anyway. The rest of the time, what am I going to do? Sit around thinking about Kevin? What’s the point of that?” She looked at Kelly with an expression that told her she meant what she was saying. “I’ll get over it. I have the concert coming up. And I have at least another fifty years to live. I’m not going to be one of those women who spends her life pining over a man. Now, what are we going to do about your ankle?”

Kelly moved to the edge of the bed and let some of her weight fall onto her right foot. The pain was just as sharp and intolerable as it had been when she’d tried standing up on the landing. She looked up at Sarah. “If you don’t mind, please call Michelle. Ask her if it’s possible for her to come by today to examine it.”

Sarah met Kelly’s eyes. She sensed that Kelly was avoiding making the call herself because she hadn’t yet told Michelle
about her agoraphobia, and she wanted to leave it up to Sarah to make up a reason why she needed Michelle to come to the house instead of her going to Michelle’s office.

“Of course I’ll call her,” Sarah said. “In the meantime, I’ll get you some ice.”

“Thanks. I feel like an idiot for being so clumsy.”

“You’re not an idiot. You’re just human.”

She looked at Kelly a moment longer to make sure that she was okay; then she left the room.

Kelly removed her shoes, pulled her legs up on the bed, and leaned back against the pillows. Taking off her right shoe hurt her ankle, and so did the pressure of her right foot coming up onto the bed. The pain made her feel incredibly vulnerable. She had already been feeling emotionally vulnerable; now she was physically unable to walk, which made her feel even more vulnerable. She hated it. She looked around Jeff’s room, her eyes focusing on a photograph of him in his high school football uniform, standing with her and Julie on the football field. She loved seeing the three of them enjoying each other’s company; it made her think about how they would all be together again on Thanksgiving and how far away Thanksgiving suddenly seemed. She picked up the telephone on Jeff’s night table, put it on her lap, and punched in his cell phone number. It was already ringing when she noticed that it was only ten fifteen a.m., which meant that it was seven fifteen in Los Angeles. She was thinking about hanging up when her son answered.

“Oh, Jeff,” she said apologetically, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I’m already up and dressed, Mom. I’ve got an eight-thirty class. Biology. The teacher’s terrific.”

She was glad to hear that his voice sounded strong and happy.

“How come you’re calling during the week?” he asked her.
“You usually only call on weekends.”

Kelly was still gazing at the photograph of Jeff in his football uniform with herself and Julie. “No particular reason,” she said. “I missed you, so I thought I’d give you a call.”

He laughed. “Between clients, of course. I know how busy you are. When’s your last appointment today, six o’clock?”

“Six o’clock, that’s right,” Kelly responded. She was lying again, but she didn’t want to tell him the truth, not about her agoraphobia or the man who had been stalking her on the telephone or even about her ankle. She didn’t want him to worry about her. “How are you, honey?” she asked him.

“Working hard, just like you,” he said. “No matter what you hear, it’s not all parties at this place. I haven’t put on a toga in days.”

She broke into a smile; her son always managed to make her smile. He was referring to the toga fraternity parties in
Animal House
, of course; they’d rented the DVD and watched it with Julie before he’d gone off to college. “I hope you’re going to some parties, at least,” she said.