Echoes of Other Times Read online

Glinda, an expression of relief on her face, nodded at Abigail. Glinda had to talk to Vanessa Krantz first. The last thing she wanted was Myrtle also sitting in on her session with the woman. Then the whole town would know every little thing by evening; and perhaps before the parties involved would want some of that information to be public. Abigail she could trust to remain silent, but not Myrtle. Myrtle was a blabbermouth. Lovable, but still a blabbermouth. That and Myrtle would want to barge into the case. She’d probably want to start investigating and searching for the missing man herself. She didn’t need to be doing that.

  “Good luck.” Myrtle patted Abigail’s hand again. “But I know whatever you decide to paint that fancy art gallery will love it. You’ll sell every painting like you always do.”

  Myrtle finished her roll and coffee and, snatching up her cane, got up to leave the table.

  “You got your electric scooter fully charged, Auntie?” Glinda asked.

  “I sure do. The little light is on the far right and bright green. It’ll last me the whole day.”

  “Well, be careful on your way,” Glinda told her. “No speeding.” A tiny smile slipped from between Glinda’s lips.

  “Ha, ha, Niece.” Myrtle made a comical face. “Yeah, I’m a speed demon all right at three and a half miles an hour. Won’t break no speed limits, I’d say.”

  “Got your cell phone?”

  “Got it,” Myrtle quipped.

  “Is it charged up, too?”

  “It is.” Myrtle pulled her cell phone from her pants pocket and shook it in front of Glinda’s face. “Learned my lesson about that a long time ago. Next time I fall in a creek, I don’t want to be without it or want it to be out of juice. No way. I always charge it every night now.”

  “And don’t forget to put on your sunglasses and cap when you leave,” Glinda gently reminded her. “We don’t want you to get sunburned.”

  Myrtle made another face, but did as Glinda had asked. She put her sunglasses and ball cap on.

  Glinda and Abigail accompanied the old woman into the garage, watched her unplug the scooter from the wall, and get on the machine.

  Because of the rain the night before, Glinda advised Myrtle to take the road into town and not the short-cut through the woods. “You don’t want to end up stuck in a mud puddle or a bog somewhere.”

  On that Myrtle agreed. “I already figured that out. No short cuts for me. Besides it’s a beautiful morning, and I don’t mind taking the long way into town.” With a jaunty wave back at them, Myrtle scooted down the driveway to the road.

  As Glinda and Abigail watched the old woman and machine bounce down the road in the sunlight, Abigail muttered, “I worry about her more and more. She’s really too old to be wandering all alone everywhere. If something were to happen to her, how would we know?”

  “As you heard, I made sure she had her cell phone. Anyway, she has friends all over town who would look out for her. And, more importantly, how would we stop her? She’s a stubborn old thing. She won’t stop moving until she’s in the ground. You know that, Abigail.”

  Abigail expelled a sigh. “I know that. I still worry about her. I have never met a person as old as she is, that does as much as she does. It’s astounding to me. You know, I don’t think I have ever learned how old Myrtle really is? The old woman has always been evasive on that issue. Do you happen to know?”

  “Her age?” Glinda chortled good-naturedly. “Somewhere between eighty-five and a hundred...but she won’t tell me, either. I’ve tried to pry or trick it out of her, but to no avail. She’s too crafty. Her authentic age is one of her few vanities. She gets indignant if you ask her. It isn’t worth the fight to make her tell it.”

  “Nevertheless,” Abigail confessed, “I admire her and hope I’m as active, as involved with life and other people, when I get as old, however old that is, as she is.”

  “I hope the same thing. I’m not even half her age and can barely do some of the things she can.”

  The two women reentered the house. Glinda got another cup of tea, and led Abigail in to her séance parlor; switched on the lights and gradually dimmed their intensity to capture the full eerie ambiance that the room was capable of.

  As Glinda seated herself at the round table with the lace tablecloth, Abigail pulled her cell phone from her pocket and took a series of photos of the psychic and her surroundings. She requested Glinda light the candles, and the younger woman did. After some minutes, Abigail announced, “That should do it. I have enough. I’m sure I can get a good painting from these. Thanks Glinda.”

  “You’re welcome. What time is it?”

  Glancing at her cell phone, Glinda sat down in a chair besides her friend. “Eleven o’clock on the money.”

  The doorbell rang. Glinda got up and went to answer it.

  Chapter 3

  Glinda opened the door and found a middle-aged woman, tall, thin, with long prematurely gray hair, and nervous ice blue eyes, on her porch. She was dressed in slacks, and a long-sleeved shirt that seemed a little too warm for the season. Eyes full of pain and sorrow. And, hidden deep in their depths, anger.

  The odd thing about the woman was the condition her face was in. Both eyes were blackened, the woman’s bottom lip was split; swollen twice its size. There were bruises and cuts along the right side of her face. Otherwise, she might have been pretty. Lovely, even.

  Glinda could have asked her what had happened to cause such injuries, why she was wearing fall clothes in the summer, but didn’t. The woman would tell her if she had a mind to. Yet the psychic sensed Vanessa Krantz had a horrible secret. Maybe more than one. Her secrets were hidden well, though, behind her pale eyes.

  “Vanessa?”

  “Yes. Glinda? You’re the psychic?”

  “I am. Come on in.” Glinda stepped aside and allowed the other woman to enter, then led her into the parlor.

  Vanessa hesitated when she spied Abigail, sitting at the table, and glanced at Glinda. “You have an associate then? There are two of you?”

  “She’s someone,” Glinda spoke in a gentle voice, “who might also be able to help you. I asked her to come and listen in. Her name is Abigail.”

  “All right. I guess it’ll be okay.” Vanessa came into the room and took a seat across from Abigail. “I’ll take any help I can get.”

  Glinda settled herself at the third point of the human triangle. She had to give Abigail credit. Abigail only stared at Vanessa’s face for a fraction of a second, with no visible reaction, before her eyes slid away.

  Glinda reached out for her tarot cards and gathered them into her hands. She’d already snuffed out the candles. She gazed at Vanessa. “What can I do to help you? Why are you here today?”

  The woman with the black eyes lowered her head. Her shoulders were quivering. “As I told you on the phone...my husband, Derek, is missing. I don’t know where he is, and he hasn’t answered any of my phone messages or calls. That’s not like him. He didn’t leave a note or anything.”

  “You said your husband has been missing two days?” Glinda shuffled the cards, and lifted her gaze to meet her client’s eyes.

  “Yes, two days. He drove off the night before last and hasn’t come home since. Hasn’t contacted me in any way. He always calls; lets me know where he is, and when he’ll be home. I haven’t heard a word. I’m so worried.”

  “Have you checked with other members of his family, his employer, his co-workers, his friends, to see if any of them have seen him, or if he might be staying with one of them?” Glinda kept her voice as soothing as she could. It seemed like the woman was disturbed enough; her nerves already jangled. The woman’s clasped hands were shaking. Her body trembling.

  “He got demoted at his job a few months ago. Only works part time now.

  “I’ve called everyone I can think of. No one has seen him. No one has heard from him. Not a word.” Vanessa had begun to cry soundlessly, as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  “Did you two have a fight or something th
at night...before he left?” Glinda held the other woman’s attention by not letting her gaze waver, the tarot cards motionless in her hands.

  Vanessa didn’t respond immediately. She paused. A long nervous pause. Then she mumbled, “Not exactly. I mean...we did have some words...not actually a fight. He was mad, I’ll say that. But he’s always mad. Angry at something or other.”

  “Do you recall what he was angry at on that night?”

  Vanessa’s fingers went to her swollen lip and lightly skimmed them across it. “Everything, as usual. Someone had disrespected him, that’s what he always calls it, at work that day. Someone had said the wrong thing to him at the wrong time. He was in a foul mood. He works at that large pump factory–they make pumps of all kinds and send them all over the world–in Chalmers; has for ten years now. He despises his job and the place. He thinks he’s worth more than what they pay him; and they don’t treat him right. I knew when he got home that he was spoiling for a fight.”

  “How exactly was he acting?”

  Vanessa’s eyes shifted to a corner of the room and then returned to rest on Glinda. “Volatile. Say one wrong word and he’s exploding. I can’t talk to him when he’s like that. I try to stay out of his way when he’s like that.”

  It was at that moment Abigail decided to speak up. Glinda figured she finally couldn’t resist saying something. “You didn’t stay out of his way this time, though, did you?”

  Under her bruises and cuts, Vanessa’s face seemed suddenly redder, but she didn’t answer Abigail’s question. Glinda, as she was sure Abigail was doing, was waiting for Vanessa to tell them how she’d gotten her bruises. Offer it up freely. Apparently, the woman wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” Glinda had reached out and taken Vanessa’s hand. It was like ice. She was waiting to feel, sense, something about what had happened to Vanessa’s husband. Where he was. If he was alive or dead. But she sensed nothing. Felt nothing. Saw nothing. Nothing. That, alone, was strange.

  “No. I’m just really worried about him. Martha told me that you were good at finding missing things, missing persons. Can you help me find him?”

  “Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. So far,” Glinda let go of Vanessa’s hand, “I don’t see or feel anything. We’ll see what the cards say.”

  Glinda noticed how Abigail was observing Vanessa; how she had leaned back into her chair, her face falling into shadow. Her body appeared tense. Then moving forward again towards Vanessa, she struck, her voice barely a whisper. “Vanessa, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get those black eyes, those bruises?”

  Glinda gave credit to Abigail for addressing the ghost in the room. At first, she didn’t think Vanessa would answer, then she did. The woman put her hand up to cover the worst part of her face. “He didn’t mean to do it,” she mumbled. “I said the wrong thing, when I should have kept quiet; got mad when I shouldn’t have. I should have known better, and–” There was intense shame in her words. And then there again, that flash of almost uncontained rage; hidden swiftly.

  “No one should hit another person for what they say or don’t say,” Abigail alleged. “You didn’t deserve that. No one does. Your husband has a problem. Him, not you.”

  The look Vanessa sent Abigail was one of deep thankfulness. The woman almost smiled. “I know. I’ve tried for years for him to get help for his...temper. Get some sort of anger counseling. But he refuses to go. He always says it’s my problem...because I push him too far.” The woman hung her head, looking away from them for a few seconds. Again, Glinda had the feeling Vanessa was hiding something, and had shrewdly turned away to keep them from seeing it.

  A ripple of unease flowed through Glinda’s body. But who it was for, Vanessa or her missing husband, she had no idea.

  The three women exchanged glances and an understanding passed between them. They all knew what being a woman in what was still a man’s world meant. Glinda, though, couldn’t help but pity Vanessa. It was easy to see she still loved her husband, no matter what he’d done to her. It was the war going on inside of her. Love and hate, side by side. Glinda had seen many abused women just like her. Too many. Their husbands ill-treated them and because the women loved the men, they took it sometimes for years. It left scars, physical and emotional, though.

  “I’m going to read your tarot cards now, Vanessa,” Glinda gravely asserted. “We might learn something from them. I want you to take the cards from me, and shuffle them thoroughly, and cut them three times.” She handed the other woman the deck so she could do what Glinda wanted of her. Then Vanessa gave Glinda the deck back.

  Taking her time, Glinda laid and spread out the cards on the table, studying them. She bit her lip, frowning.

  “What is it?” Vanessa bent towards her. “What do you see? Is my husband all right? Do you know where he is? Is he...still alive?”

  The psychic, laying down and examining the final two cards, moved her hand over and briefly touched the other woman’s hand again as a gesture of comfort. That’s when the vision stole into her mind and as swiftly out again. A man...somewhere someplace dank and dark. He wasn’t moving. It was so fleeting, she could see nothing else. It was the only image she got. Merely that brief flash, and it was gone. She couldn’t tell if the man was alive, ill, or dead, but she knew pretty much without a doubt that the cards had called forth the vision and it was connected to the woman she was reading them for. She reported to Vanessa what she’d seen. Vanessa hung her head, saying nothing, as if she were absorbing the information.

  “Does your husband have longish dark hair?” Glinda wanted to know.

  “Derek’s hair is sort of long and it’s dark brown. Was it wavy?”

  “It was. Was he wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt when you saw him last?”

  The woman seemed to mull that over. “I believe he was.”

  Vanessa shut her eyes. “But you couldn’t see if he was alive or dead?”

  Glinda couldn’t sense what the woman, sitting so motionless, was thinking or feeling. Not even a vague impression. She couldn’t read Vanessa at all...and that was also unusual. “I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell. But I did feel something was very wrong. I felt he needs help.”

  “Is that all you saw?” Vanessa’s fingers were rubbing her closed eyes.

  “So far. But I might receive something else...in time. It often happens like that. My psychic insights take their good old time coming to me. I’ll tell you if I do get anything else.”

  Vanessa stopped rubbing her eyes, and again opened them. Her look was dazed. “What should I do now?”

  Glinda caught the conflicting emotions racing across the woman’s battered face, and felt sorry for her. If Kyle would ever go missing and she didn’t know where he was, or what had happened to him, Glinda pondered with a tinge of alarm, she knew it would destroy her.

  It was Abigail who spoke up and advised Vanessa what she should do. “Mrs. Krantz, I know you don’t want to hear this. You should call the sheriff and report your husband missing. Two days. Forty-eight hours is all it needs to be to file a missing person’s report. It’s time. The police need to be brought into this so they can start looking for him. If he’s alive and needs help, he needs to be found, the sooner the better. He won’t be found if no one is looking for him.”

  Vanessa didn’t answer. She was staring into space; her face and thoughts unreadable. She was no longer trembling. Glinda assumed she was in shock.

  Abigail took that moment to add something else. “I know what you’re going through now, how hard it is to file that report, and this might help. Filing it makes it real. My husband, Frank Lester, works with the sheriff. Part-time. It’s one of his work days today so he’s already gone into the police station, but I could call him, and he’d drive over.

  “You could talk to him,” Abigail spoke in a coaxing voice. “Report your husband missing, and give him all the details, so the sheriff’s department can begin searching for him.
I promise, my husband is a sympathetic man, and a good listener. He’s been a police officer for a long time and he's seen everything. He can answer all your questions.”

  “He’ll see my face. The bruises. The black eyes,” Vanessa whispered, shame filling her eyes. “What will he think of me?”

  “He won’t jump to any conclusions, if that is what you’re asking. What he will care most about is looking for and finding your husband,” Glinda told her. “That’s his job.”

  Vanessa pressed her head into her hands, and began to cry softly. “All right,” she mumbled from between her fingers. “Call him. I know it’s time. Time we find my husband.”

  Abigail brought out her cell phone and called Frank. When she got off the phone, she relayed what she’d found out to the other two women. “He’s out on a call with Sheriff Mearl, but the dispatcher promises to give him the message as soon as they return to the office. She didn’t think they’d be out too long. It was what she described as a nuisance call. They rarely take long to clear up. I’m sure Frank will telephone me back as soon as he gets my message.”

  “Vanessa, while we wait for Frank to get here, could I get you a cup of coffee or tea?” Glinda offered the woman. “Something to eat?”

  “That’s kind of you. I’m not hungry,” Vanessa said in a flat tone. “But tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  Abigail stood up. “I’ll make the tea, Glinda. You stay in here with Mrs. Krantz.”

  Glinda watched Abigail leave the room. She was aware that the session had unsettled her friend. Abigail had too many bad memories of when her own husband years past had originally gone missing, and how so many years later that story had concluded. A woman never forgot a missing husband who ended up dead.

  Abigail returned within minutes with the tea, and the three women conversed in low voices about anything else Vanessa could remember that would help them find her missing husband; as they waited for Frank to call Abigail back.

  Glinda watched Vanessa closely the whole time. The woman puzzled her. Glinda couldn’t get a reading on her. Couldn’t feel anything coming from her. So strange.