The Turtle Mound Murder (17 page)

“I thought you were talking about a panic
room like the one in the film with Jodi Foster. I’m claustrophobic,
I can’t stand being confined.” Ruthie went to the kitchen and got a
glass of water. “Why do you call it a hurricane box?”

“You keep the stuff in a box so it’s easy to
carry in the event you have to evacuate.”

“Where would we go?” Ruthie groaned.

“If it’s only a Category One, I don’t think
we need to go anywhere. More than that, well …”

“There are shelters,” I said quickly,
remembering what I’d seen on the news in previous years. “Schools,
government buildings, hotels. We’d go to one of them.”

Ruthie sighed heavily. “Some vacation this
has turned out to be.”

Though Ruthie would not intentionally hurt a
fly, I could tell her remark cut Penny Sue deeply. But, she covered
her feelings so well in brazen bluster, it was sometimes easy to
forget Penny Sue had them at all. She did, and they ran deep.

“It has been an adventure,” I said brightly,
trying to salve my friend’s injured feelings. “A little
NASCAR-style driving, a hurricane, and an eccentric psychic sure
took my mind off the divorce.”

Penny Sue perked up. “Pauline may be
eccentric, but she was right. We did see Stinky at the bar
tonight.”

“She’s a hoot, all right,” I said. “Wouldn’t
you love to be a bug on the wall and hear Pauline’s conversations
with Alice?”

“She was pulling your leg, putting you in
your place. She heard your impudent remark about bat wings and eye
of newt,” Penny Sue said, back to her old, sassy self.

“I was kidding. Though, you have to admit
her place was a little ... strange,” I said. “It’s a shame we don’t
have an Alice to keep an eye on things for us. We could use some
help.”

Arching a brow, Ruthie smiled smugly. “I
know where we can get something just as good.”

* * *

“
A Furby?”

Penny Sue arrived at the tail end of our
conversation. It was eight o’clock on Friday morning. Ruthie and I
had been up for an hour, sipping coffee and watching the Weather
Channel. Strong westerly winds had knocked the top off Hurricane
Lizzie; it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Good news for
us and the party.

Penny Sue notched her red robe tighter and
shuffled to the kitchen for coffee. “So, what’s this stuff about a
Furby?”

Ruthie took a bite of toast. “I think we
should get one to watch the place.”

“This is a joke, right?” Penny Sue was
baffled. “A Furby is a furry little child’s toy.”

“That talks,” I added.

“That learns to talk,” Ruthie corrected. She
grinned smugly and picked up the newspaper, pretending to read.

Penny Sue sat at the bar, stirring her
coffee. “All right, I’ll bite. How can a Furby watch this
place?”

“Well,” Ruthie sat forward excitedly,
“Furbies are like children, they learn language by imitation. They
listen to the people around them and pick up phrases.”

“Don’t chant around it,” Penny Sue teased.
“You’ll have the poor thing completely confused.”

Ruthie turned the page of the paper noisily.
“Do you want to hear my idea or not?”

“I do.” She had me confused, that was for
sure.

“We’ll get a Furby and turn it on when we go
out. If anyone comes in and speaks, it will pick up their
conversation. That way we’ll know if someone was here.”

“Yes-s,” Penny Sue enthused after a moment’s
thought. “Let’s get one today, so we’ll have it for the party.
We’ll put it in the corner where it can eavesdrop on everyone.”

“That could be dangerous,” I cautioned. I
wasn’t sure Penny Sue was ready to hear everyone’s private
thoughts. I knew I wasn’t!

“Oh, it’s a joke. It’ll be fun—an ice
breaker.”

Pony Parties was a safer bet, especially
since I didn’t think the Furby idea had a chance of working. I
turned to Ruthie. “I’m not sure Furbies are on the market anymore.
Everything now is robotics.”

Ruthie waved off my objection. “I’ll bet
they have them at the discount stores. There’s a Dollar General
over by the movie theater.”

“I don’t believe Furbies truly learn. I know
they’re supposed to learn English, but it’s all pre-programmed. I’m
certain they don’t pick up words from their surroundings.”

“Sure they do,” Ruthie said. “Why else would
the NSA ban them from government offices? They were afraid they
would pick up classified information.”

“NSA?” Penny Sue asked.

“National Security Agency. You know, the
government’s super spies.”

I did remember hearing something about that
years ago. Yet the kids on my block had Furbies, and I’d never seen
signs of real intelligence. Of course, maybe that was more of a
comment on the kids than the Furbies. “I guess it couldn’t hurt,” I
said.

“Charlotte’s coming to clean this afternoon.
I need to pick up a few things for the party anyway, so we can run
by Dollar General for some Furbies. It’s worth a try. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained,” Penny Sue said.

“Do you believe someone has been in here?” I
asked Ruthie, following up on her earlier comment.

“I’m certain I put the pole in the track to
the sliding glass door before we left yesterday.”

That had bothered me, too. Though, I’d tried
to write it off as Penny Sue sneaking out for a cigarette when we
weren’t looking. “Have you noticed anything else?” I asked.

She glanced up from the paper and thought.
“Nothing specific, it’s just a feeling.”

“That’s the negativity you sensed before,”
Penny Sue said, pulling bagels from the freezer. “We never did
smudge this place. We should do that as soon as we finish eating; I
don’t want any bad vibes for the party. We’ve got to clear it all
out. Now, ladies, how about some melon and a bagel?”

I clicked off the television, and Ruthie
brought her newspaper to the counter as Penny Sue dished up the
food. The melon was good, a refreshing contrast to the heavy
appetizers from the night before.

“The Pierson student will be allowed to wear
a dress to homecoming after all,” Ruthie said. “The superintendent
reversed the principal’s decision.”

“A dress? What’s wrong with a dress?” Penny
Sue asked.

We filled her in on the controversy
surrounding the gay student.

“The county attorney told the superintendent
they were on shaky legal ground,” Ruthie said.

“Quicksand is more like it,” I remarked.

“He’s going to wear a red gown with
spaghetti straps.”

“Red? That reminds me,” Penny Sue said
between bites of bagel. “Marie’s leather halter top was cute. Let’s
look for one while we’re out.”

“You’re not going to wear a leather bra to
the party, are you?” I asked. “Remember, the whole point of the
shindig is to show people that you’re normal.”

Penny Sue rolled her eyes. “Marie’s normal.
Her husband’s a bank president for godssakes.”

“Don’t do it, Penny Sue,” I warned.

She took a cigarette from her purse and
headed for the deck. “We’ll see.”

While Penny Sue smoked a cigarette, Ruthie
and I prepared to smoke up the house. We pulled out the smudging
instructions Pauline had given us. As Ruthie unwrapped the candles
and other paraphernalia, I read.

“Hmm, native American people burn herbs to
cleanse the energy,” I read out loud. “The botanical name for sage
is Salvia, which means ‘to heal.’ It’s used to drive out bad
feelings and negativity. Some tribes spread it on the ground in the
sweat lodge.”

“Have you ever been to a sweat lodge
ceremony with all the drumming?” Ruthie asked as she unwrapped one
of the smudge bundles.

I once chaperoned a Cub Scout outing where
the kids danced around a campfire with tom-toms, but I didn’t
suppose that counted. “No, have you?”

“A retreat at Stone Mountain. It was a
powerful experience—really puts you in touch with your inner
goddess.”

Which deity was that? All that came to mind
was the chubby comedienne with her Domestic Goddess skit. After
twenty-odd years of marriage, I’d had a lot of experience with that
Muse. Too much. My Domestic Goddess was one sleeping dog I hoped
would slip into a coma.

“Cedar is burned while praying,” I continued
reading, “its smoke carries wishes to heaven. Indians in the
Pacific Northwest believe it attracts positive energy. Sweetgrass
also draws good influences and benevolent spirits.

“The procedure is to burn the smudge stick,
and let the smoke permeate our auras first; that makes us a pure
channel for the good energy. Then, we take the smudge stick all
around the place, making sure the smoke gets in every nook and
cranny. Finally, we flood the condo with candle light, to light up
the place, so to speak.

“As we’re doing all this, we should pray
silently ... or aloud. It doesn’t matter.” I personally opted for
silence.

Ruthie thought otherwise. “Chanting is a
form of prayer. I know y’all think I’m crazy, but I’m going to do
it. Sounds are important, they set up sympathetic vibrations. After
all, the Mozart Effect has pretty much been proven.”

I glanced sidelong at her. “What’s that?” I
asked, almost dreading the answer.

“You know, classical music. Music therapy.
Psychiatrists have used it for decades. Upbeat music stimulates
depressed patients. Soothing music can calm hyped-up types and rap
music actually creates a predisposition to violence, drug
addiction, and materialism. Universities have done studies on it
and found that classical music, particularly Mozart, synchronizes
brain waves. It also seems to have a beneficial affect on Attention
Deficit Disorder.”

ADD, I’d often wondered if that could be
part of Penny Sue’s problem, the way she flitted around at a
million miles per hour. I thought of our trip to New Smyrna Beach
on the interstate. Perhaps we should buy a Mozart CD before we
started home. It couldn’t hurt. “If you want to chant, it’s fine
with me. I just don’t know any—”

“Vowel sounds.” Penny Sue strode in from the
deck holding a feather, having purified her system with tobacco.
“Plain old vowel sounds are as good as anything. Deepak Chopra said
so.”

Penny Sue knew about chanting? How did I
miss it? Where had I been? In a depressed funk, I guess. Made me
wonder what else I’d missed. “Vowel sounds? You mean A, E, I, O, U,
and som-metim-mes Y-Y-Y,” I crooned, mimicking her jibe about Tom
Jones.

Penny Sue poked my arm as she breezed into
the kitchen for a diet soda. “Not sometimes Y, smarty. Just A, E,
I, O, U. Deepak says it will harmonize your chi, revitalize your
body. So, where do we start?”

Ruthie raked an armload of candles off the
counter and started placing them around the condo.

Penny Sue pulled out a pack of matches.
“Which candles are jasmine and sandalwood? Pauline said they worked
on the pituitary or something. I think we want that stimulated
before we start. Doesn’t hurt to have the old MoJo working,” she
said, wiggling her fanny.

I wasn’t sure whether the heinie action had
to do with her reference to MoJo, pituitary, or stimulate. In any
event, I decided against an anatomy discussion. Who knew where
Penny Sue’s pituitary might be. Ruthie, busy distributing our
prodigious stock of waxware, was oblivious to the whole thing. She
merely pointed to candles on the coffee table and an étagère beside
the front door.

“We have to visualize a white light around
this place,” Penny Sue called out as she lit the taper in the hall.
“And, be sure to keep a pure mind.”

A pure mind? That from Ms.
Leather-Bra-Swishy-Butt. If the exercise depended on her thoughts,
we were doomed. Hopefully, Ruthie was sufficiently imbued with “The
Force” to compensate.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Penny Sue called.

We gathered in the living room and held
hands. I glanced out the window at the walkway to the beach.

“Wait,” I said. “I don’t think we want
anyone to see this. We’re trying to look normal, remember?” I ran
around the condo and closed the blinds. Except for the flickering
flames of two candles and a few shards of sunlight which slanted
through the shades, the place was completely dark. Eerily so, for
nine o’clock in the morning.

We joined hands again. Ruthie gave a brief
invocation, then nodded at Penny Sue to light the smudge wand. I
intoned A-A-A-A.

“Hold it,” Penny Sue broke the spell. “Which
end do I light? The pointed side or the fat one?”

She handed the straw bundle to Ruthie who
shrugged ignorance and passed it to me. I took a whiff of each
extremity and pointed to the blunt-cut end, which seemed more
fragrant. We bowed our heads solemnly and started over. Penny Sue
lit the smudge stick and fanned it with the feather. Ruthie and I
started chanting the vowels. The smoke curled around our circle,
spiraling up, up ... my nose. I whirled away, sneezing.

“Darn,” I exclaimed. “That stuff smells like
marijuana. We’ll stink up the whole place.”

Penny Sue sniffed the air. “It does, doesn’t
it? Do you suppose it’ll make us high?”

I couldn’t tell if she hoped for a yes or no
response to the question.

Ruthie interrupted, “It’s the sweetgrass
you’re smelling. Burning grass is burning grass; the scent’s pretty
much the same for all of them.”

I watched the smoke coil toward the ceiling.
“Do you think we should continue? We’re in enough trouble without
people thinking we smoke dope. All we need is to be raided for
drugs! Your daddy would be real thrilled with that.”

Penny Sue bit her bottom lip, considering.
“No, let’s keep going. Pauline said it would help. We’ll air the
place out later. We’re going to burn all the scented candles to
light up the place, anyway.”

So we smudged. AA-A, EE-E, II-I, OO-O,
UU-UUU. A conga line of middle-aged women, we snaked through the
apartment, chanting softly and fanning smoke into all the corners.
After everything had been thoroughly smoked, including ourselves,
we assembled in the kitchen and ceremoniously plunged the
smoldering wand into a beer mug of water. The straw hissed and
sizzled, and Ruthie let out a loud OOM-MMM.