Day Shift
Page 15

“Harvey, I’m coming,” Lenore Whitefield said, and hurried ahead of Olivia down the stairs. “You should have called me.”
“No problem,” Harvey said, though he was breathing heavily as if it pretty much had been a problem. “I should have parked in back and gone through the kitchen.”
His wife looked as though she wanted to know why he hadn’t done just that, but she took several bags from him to even out his load. She said, “Sorry, Miss Charity, I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for stopping by.”
Olivia said, “A pleasure to meet you, and thanks for taking me around.” She left out the double doors that led onto the sidewalk by the Davy highway. An ancient pickup truck was parked there; that must be Harvey Whitefield’s vehicle. Either he’d wanted his wife to see how hard he was working, or he’d wanted to get a look at Olivia, or he wasn’t bright at all. Maybe all of that.
She set out walking west briskly, as if she were going to Home Cookin. She glanced down the alley. There was a battered Ford Focus parked outside what had to be the doors to the kitchen, and there was also a beautiful shiny Escalade taking up the remaining room. Was Eva Culhane still there? If not, who owned the Escalade? It was way too deluxe for the long-unemployed Whitefields.
Olivia had no sense that she was being watched, but just in case, she kept on going. She crossed Witch Light Road to go back into the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon. Joe and Chuy looked up, surprised at her return. “I took the tour, and it’s really nice,” she said. “You should go see it. The couple running it is called Whitefield. Lenore and Harvey.”
Joe said, “Well, thanks for telling us.”
Chuy grinned. “The excitement just keeps on coming.”
She raised a hand in farewell. She strolled back to Midnight Pawn, going up a few steps to the door on the right of the building and entering there, turning right to go down to her apartment. She could have entered the pawnshop and spent some time talking to Bobo, but she wasn’t in the mood. She was fond of her landlord, but she found him a little boring. She still couldn’t believe he’d hidden those books that Lem had been looking for so hard and so long. Not that Bobo had done it maliciously; he hadn’t known the smelly old volumes were important to Lemuel.
But still.
In her silent apartment, she checked her special e-mail account, the one she used only for work. Her agent said, Everyone pleased.
That was his usual comment, and it meant the money had been transferred as they’d specified.
But he’d added another sentence. Other party collateral damage?
He meant Rachel Goldthorpe. She answered immediately, No. Coincidence. And natural?
Right after she hit “Send” she got up to turn on the television. But she heard the ping that indicated she had e-mail. Surprised, she returned to her desk. The response read, Sources tell me unnatural.
“Huh,” she said out loud. “But that’s a big complication.” Should she alert Manfred? On the whole, she thought not.
She was sorry two hours later when news crews rolled into Midnight.
Sorry she hadn’t left town.
6
Manfred was deep into work mode, which meant he was visiting all his websites, taking phone calls, and churning out advice and predictions to all his followers. Not that Manfred habitually thought of them as followers—he called them clients. He never thought of himself as a confidence man, since he was the real deal. But his talent did not always manifest at the time he needed it to, so sometimes, naturally, he had to fill in.
That was the way he looked at it.
When the first knock came at the door, he raised his head, annoyed. Who could it be? Most of the people of Midnight knew his schedule, and they wouldn’t come visiting during his work hours. A bit irritated, he went to the door and opened it. The click of a picture being taken, which reminded him of a cricket’s chirp, sounded several times.
“Mr. Bernardo, is it true that Rachel Goldthorpe was in your room at Vespers when she died?”
Don’t ever look furtive, his grandmother had always told him.
Manfred managed to control his pulse and his face, though inside he was scared as hell. “Yes, absolutely true,” he said. “She was a longtime client of mine. I was shocked and saddened by her death.” What was this all about?
“A client? For what service?” The newswoman, a junior one you’d send out if the story wasn’t that important, looked righteous as she demanded an answer.
“I’m a psychic, as you know,” Manfred said, rolling a lot of patience into his voice. And he added nothing else.
“And did Mrs. Goldthorpe discuss her jewelry with you?”
“Discuss? No,” Manfred said. “She said she’d hidden it. That was all she said.”
“Did you know that Lewis Goldthorpe is alleging that you stole his mother’s jewelry?”
“I have no idea why he would say something like that,” Manfred said. Aside from the fact that he’s a mentally ill son of a bitch. He could see a couple of people getting out of cars in front of the pawnshop. And heading his way. “This is a complete surprise to me. If you’ll excuse me, I must call my lawyer.” With that, he shut the door smartly and locked it for good measure. And made for his cell phone. While he punched in a number, he closed all the curtains, providing a cheerful miscellany of colors. (He hadn’t realized that curtains were supposed to match.) Manfred hated the resultant gloom, but he also didn’t know how far newspeople would go to get a picture.