Twisted at the Root--A Jane Lawless Mystery Read online

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  For J. M. Redmann,

  with admiration and great affection

  Cast of Characters

  Jane Lawless:

  Owner of the Lyme House restaurant in Minneapolis. Part-time P.I. Peter’s sister.

  Cordelia Thorn:

  Creative Director at the Thorn-Lester Playhouse in Minneapolis. Hattie’s aunt.

  Raymond Lawless:

  Criminal defense attorney in the Twin Cities. Jane and Peter’s father.

  Gideon Wise:

  Corporate attorney. Marlo’s father. Rashad’s husband.

  Rashad May:

  Senior vice president of sales at MRTL. Gideon’s husband.

  Marlo Wise:

  Owner of SwankyNotes greeting card company. George’s wife. Gideon’s daughter.

  George Krochak:

  Men’s clothing salesman. Marlo’s husband.

  Eli Chenoweth:

  Fine Art Consultant at the J.H. Chenoweth Gallery. J.H. Chenoweth’s son.

  Kit Lipton-Chenoweth:

  Fine Art Consultant at the J.H. Chenoweth Gallery. John Henry’s wife.

  Peter Lawless:

  Documentary filmmaker. Jane’s brother.

  J. H. Chenoweth (John Henry):

  Owner of the J.H. Chenoweth gallery. Married to Kit. Eli’s father.

  Charles (Chuck) Atchison:

  Lawyer. Marlo’s cousin.

  Harper Tillman:

  Hotel receptionist. Eli’s girlfriend.

  Dr. Julia Martinsen:

  Jane’s girlfriend.

  1

  It was during that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s, when few really wanted to be at work, when most everyone was still in a party mood and rarely made an effort to get anything done, that Marlo Wise left her business early and headed for a coffeehouse not far from her midtown condo.

  As twilight settled over the city, she sat by a tall window, nursing her macchiato and watching fat snowflakes flutter down onto the parked cars along Nicollet Avenue. Less than an inch had fallen in the last couple of hours, and yet it was enough to slow the rush hour traffic outside to a crawl. It wasn’t hard to read the aggravation in the faces of the drivers, which made her glad that she could retreat from the pre-New-Year’s hurly-burly for a few minutes. She wished she could retreat from her thoughts as easily.

  A bright turquoise-and-yellow neon sign in a second-story window across the street advertised MELINDA’S PSYCHIC READINGS. Over the years, Marlo had watched many strangers enter an odd little door sandwiched between a Vietnamese dentist’s office and a donut shop. She’d often laughed to herself, wondering how stupid someone had to be to pay good money to such an obvious charlatan. Except that now here she was, thinking of doing exactly that.

  Marlo was frustrated. She’d been married for exactly three years and nine months to a man she adored, and yet, in all that time, she’d failed to conceive. She wanted a child more than just about anything on earth, but month after month, year after year, it didn’t happen. She hadn’t been able to share this frustration with her husband, George, because, to be honest, she feared rocking the boat. Her marriage wasn’t exactly conventional. If George felt pressured to do something he wasn’t completely comfortable with, he might jump ship. Then again, he’d once commented that his first wife had never wanted children. When he’d made the statement, he’d seemed sad. Marlo had taken it as a sign that there was hope.

  Marlo wasn’t usually so passive/aggressive about her life, and yet, in this instance, it seemed the only way to move forward. George was a beautiful, elegant man who looked and sounded like a British aristocrat. He wasn’t an aristocrat, of course—though he did have an upper-class British accent. Over the past few years, Marlo had been amazed by how many Americans conflated the two. She could have said George was an ambassador and nobody would have batted an eye.

  Marlo, on the other hand, while reasonably attractive—with luxurious dark blond hair her best feature—wasn’t in the same league. Fashion challenged, plus-sized, and tomboyish, she felt deeply put upon if she had to wear anything other than jeans and a sweatshirt. In contrast, her husband dressed like a GQ model. George was seventeen years older and sold clothing at an upscale men’s store. He had no degree. Wasn’t ambitious. He hadn’t even owned a car when she first met him. But he was a catch. Everyone said so. She also assumed that people looked at him, then looked at her, and wondered what the hell he was doing dating such an obvious frump.

  Marlo recognized the disparities in her marriage but generally ignored them because she brought something of value to the union herself. She was a graphic artist who’d begun creating a line of artistic/humorous greeting cards right out of college and had parlayed it into a successful and growing business. More to the point, she was the beneficiary of a sizable inheritance from her father, part of which was a penthouse condo in the heart of the city. As far as she was concerned, she and George were pretty much equal. Well, except for one important fact: Marlo loved George more than he loved her.

  If she had to be honest, she’d never been entirely certain that he loved her at all, not the way a husband normally loves a wife. The marital arrangement they’d agreed upon didn’t require it. To be sure, they were good friends. More than that, they were willing lovers and companions. Still, she desperately wanted a child—a child with him. She berated herself for being such a wuss, for conniving behind his back—for tossing out her birth control pills and forgetting to mention it. She was a bad person. Naughty, naughty Marlo, as George often said. He didn’t know how right he was.

  Doctors had informed Marlo, much to her relief, that she was fully capable of conceiving. Perhaps, as one doctor suggested, George was the problem. If he was, then that was the end of it. Or was it? She’d recently concluded that she wanted a child a tiny bit more than she wanted George, and thus, she was willing to gamble and even connive. The doctor had urged her to stop stressing about it and relax. He offered some practical advice and then sent her on her way. Time, he’d assured her, as his parting shot, was her friend.

  Time, in Marlo’s opinion, had never been anybody’s friend.

  The neon sign across the street glowed even more brightly as the winter’s early twilight faded to night. Steeling herself for what she was about to do, Marlo rose, lifting her puffy parka from the back of the chair. On her way to the light at the corner of the block, she was seized once again by the feeling that she was being ridiculous. Did she really think she’d learn anything by consulting a crystal-ball gazer?

  Standing in front of the door, she hesitated. What was the worst that could happen? She might be wasting a few bucks, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Turning the handle and pushing the door in, she proceeded up a dismally dark, narrow stairway that smelled of onions and decades of accumulated dust. Just perfect, she huffed. The psychic didn’t
even have the foresight to realize she could be sued if someone fell because they couldn’t see the steps.

  At the top, she found another door. Next to it was a sign:

  MELINDA DEYASI

  PSYCHIC HEALING

  READINGS AVAILABLE BY APPOINTMENT

  Rats. She didn’t have an appointment. She knocked on the door and waited, digging a fingernail into the palm of her hand. It didn’t take long before the door drew back and a middle-aged woman in glasses and a fringed flowery shawl stood peering at her. She cradled a black cat in her arms. Right out of central casting, thought Marlo acidly.

  “Can I help you?” asked the woman.

  “Are you—” Marlo looked back at the sign.

  “Melinda Deyasi,” said the woman. “Rhymes with sassy.”

  “I’d like to talk to you. To … get … you know, a reading?”

  “Of course,” the woman said, stepping back to reveal a somewhat cluttered living room. The furniture straddled the line between junk and genuine antique.

  “Have a seat and I’ll be right with you.” The psychic walked over to the corner of the room and deposited the cat at the top of a tall cat tree. Two other felines adorned the lower branches.

  Marlo lowered herself onto a lumpy couch cushion.

  After adjusting her shawl, Melinda sat down next to her.

  “So, how do we do this?” asked Marlo, inching away. She didn’t like people who violated her personal space. “Do I pay you up front?”

  The woman explained that her fees depended on how much time she spent with each client. If she couldn’t “connect,” as she called it, she simply charged a flat fee of twenty-five dollars.

  Marlo doubted the oracle ever had trouble “connecting.”

  “So, how can I help you?”

  “Well,” said Marlo, glancing down at her wedding ring. “My husband and I desperately want a baby, but … we’re having trouble conceiving.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Almost four years. Can you look into my future and tell me if I’ll ever have a child?”

  “Possibly.”

  Marlo felt her face grow warm. She might as well have found herself a gypsy at some tacky carnival and had her palms read. Every instinct she had told her to get up and run.

  “Give me your hand,” said Melinda.

  Marlo’s expression must have betrayed her thoughts because the woman face softened and she said, “I won’t hurt you. I promise. I must have your left hand. It’s closer to your heart.”

  “Um, okay.”

  The psychic closed her eyes. Marlo wondered if she should shut hers, but before she’d come to a firm conclusion, the woman let out a cry and dropped the hand as if it were a burning cinder.

  The cats jumped off their jungle gym and fled into the kitchen.

  “What?” asked Marlo.

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m sorry, but I need you to leave.”

  The woman was clearly shaken. Was this part of the act? “You must have seen something. Just tell me. Do you see a child in my future?”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t continue.”

  Maybe the oracle’s “clients” liked this sort of cheap melodrama. Marlo didn’t. “Come on, Melinda. If nothing else, you could at least lie.”

  The woman seemed shocked by the comment. “I don’t lie. I never lie in my readings. All I do is explain what I see.”

  “So tell me,” said Marlo, her voice dripping sarcasm, “What was in your vision?”

  Melinda seemed to take the question as a challenge. “All right. I saw darkness. Blood. Violence. It surrounded you. Swirled like a fog. I saw no children.”

  Marlo stared at her. And then a thought occurred: The psychic was probably talking about the death of Marlo’s dad. He’d been the victim of a homicide and, yes, it had been bloody. But for the psychic to pick up on that meant that she really was … psychic. “A relative of mine died a few years ago. You’re probably seeing that.”

  “Perhaps,” said Melinda. “But much of what I see isn’t in your past. It’s in your future.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The psychic stood, pulling the shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I want you to go. Please.”

  “But you can’t just leave it at that. I need details.” Marlo reached out her hand. Melinda shrank back.

  “If something terrible is going to happen, I have to know what it is. You can’t just drop a bomb like that and then push me out the door.”

  “I’m sorry. When I see this kind of malevolence, I have to withdraw. I made a promise to myself long ago.”

  Marlo studied the woman’s face. It had to be an act. “Fine. You want more money? Is that it?”

  “All I want is for you to leave,” said Melinda, walking over to the door and yanking it open. She stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact with Marlo.

  “This is a ploy, isn’t it,” said Marlo. “Your dramatic way of getting me to come back.”

  The woman said nothing, merely stood by the door, her hand on the knob.

  “Fine, Melinda Deyasi, rhymes with sassy. I’ll go. Just don’t expect a good review on Yelp.” Marlo snatched up her gloves and swept past the woman. It was just as she’d expected. A total waste of time.

  2

  Tuesday

  Four Nights Later

  New Year’s Eve was an extra busy night at the Lyme House, Jane Lawless’s restaurant in south Minneapolis. By five-thirty, the second-floor dining room was already packed with customers hoping to get an early start on their evening. This was also the night her best friend—Cordelia Thorn—gave her biggest bash of the year.

  Cordelia invited everybody in her vast orbit, which included employees from her theater in downtown Minneapolis, neighbors from every part of the city she’d ever lived in, a couple of her favorite massage therapists, her gardener, every bookstore owner in the metro area, a beloved veterinary assistant, old high school and college chums, her favorite local drag queens, as well as the mayor, the governor, various local TV personalities and celebrities, well-known writers, actors, artists—anyone and everyone she knew who might be traveling through town and happened to be in need of some serious New Year’s Eve glitter. For Jane, it was a command performance.

  Cordelia had phoned around five to ask her to bring over an extra case or two of champagne, just in case. Jane was happy to help out and had carried the boxes to her new—used—truck, a Honda Ridgeline, placing them in the rear seat of the cab. By the time it was needed, the frigid night air would have chilled it to a perfect temperature. Cordelia was experiencing her usual pre-party meltdown. The event was catered, though when it came to entertaining, Cordelia was a micromanager. Jane was happy to be missing the drama.

  She’d just shut down her computer and was about to run up the back stairs from her office to the kitchen to check in one last time with her executive chef and her night manager, when her cell phone buzzed. Assuming it was Cordelia again with some new crisis, she fished it out of her back pocket and said, “What now?”

  “Jane? Hello? Is that you?”

  Oops. Not Cordelia. Instead, the voice belonged to Sigrid, Jane’s sister-in-law. “Sorry. I figured you were someone else.” Sitting back down, she offered a cheery, “Happy New Year.”

  Silence. Then, “Yeah, same to you.”

  Sigrid, Jane’s younger brother, Peter, and Sigrid and Peter’s daughter, Mia, had all moved out of the country several years back, first to live and work in Brazil. Peter, a documentary filmmaker, had been hired to shoot the footage there for a piece on South America’s shifting political winds. After his work was complete, the family moved to England, where Sigrid managed to snag a terrific job that allowed her to apply for a work visa. She’d been a family therapist for many years, but this was something new for her. Moving to London gave her the opportunity to learn from an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy, a professor she’d met somewher
e along the line—Jane didn’t have all the details. This man not only wanted to hire her for his practice, but was also instrumental in getting her into a cutting-edge program at King’s College. While Sigrid was busy with her new life, Peter had been off shooting another documentary in Eastern Europe. Jane kept in contact with them, though because of schedules and the time difference, it was somewhat sporadic.

  “How are you?” asked Jane, leaning back in her chair.

  Another pause. “Actually, not good.”

  “Really? What’s going on?”

  “Listen, Jane, have you heard from Peter?”

  “No, not recently. Why?”

  “He … he left our flat three nights ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Isn’t he still shooting that documentary?”

  She cleared her throat. “No. It’s … a long story. He’s been home for a while.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “We had a fight. When he left he was really upset. He won’t answer my calls, won’t respond to texts. It’s bad, Jane. We’ve had fights before, but nothing like this. He usually goes away for a few hours, blows off steam, and comes home. But he didn’t this time. I get it, I do. We have some stuff to work out. But I’m worried that something may have happened to him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. A car crash. A mugging. I called around to the local hospitals, but … nothing. I phoned friends. Nobody’s seen or heard from him.”

  If Sigrid was calling hospitals, it really was serious.

  “He was so angry, Jane. I blame myself. It’s all my fault.”

  Jane’s mind began to race.

  “Do you think he could have called your dad?”

  Peter and Jane were both close to their father, less close these days with each other. “He might have, if you want to call him.”