I stared at Lurleen. “I thought we were going to a book club.”
“We are, but it’s a mystery book club, Ditie,” she said as she dramatically waved her black cape open and closed around her body. “And Halloween is only a week away. Stephanie didn’t plan the first meeting so close to Halloween by accident—she knew precisely what she was doing.”
“I think more likely she knew precisely what you would be doing,” I said. “I hope so anyway.”
Lurleen held her cape open and spun around so I could take in the full effect of her outfit underneath. Then she grinned at me, a bloody fang protruding from each side of her mouth.
Before I could say a word, Lucie and Jason burst into the living room.
“Oh, Lurleen, you look gucci,” Lucie said. Ever since Lucie had turned twelve the month before, she rarely spoke in words I could understand. Naturally it was no problem for Lurleen.
“Thank you, Luce. I feel gucci, and thank you, Jason, for buying an extra set of vampire teeth.”
Jason beamed, showing his own set of fangs.
“Too bad we didn’t get a third set for you, Ditie,” Lurleen said, “or at least a Sherlock Holmes cap so you wouldn’t feel left out.”
“Did I miss the memo?” I asked. “Is this a costume party?”
“No, no.” Lurleen laughed. “I just couldn’t resist.” She pulled her cape back and rested one hand on her hip as if she were a runway model, which she could easily have been. She was tall enough, slim enough and gorgeous. Then she paused to allow me to study what she was wearing underneath the cape: a black sheath that hugged her body with silver lines all over it looking like a spider web.
“You didn’t buy that anywhere, did you?” I asked.
“Of course not, it’s one of a kind. Lucie and Jason helped me create it—you know that day you had to stay late at the clinic. We had time on our hands, and you know what they say: idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” She grinned wickedly and the kids laughed.
Suddenly, I felt very underdressed in my slacks and turquoise sweater.
Lucie must have seen the expression on my face. “You look gucci too, Mama, no worries.”
“We’ll be early if we leave now,” Lurleen said. “Let’s sit a moment.”
We settled on the couch in the living room. My large yellow cat, Majestic, sidled up to Lurleen hoping he could get comfortable in her lap.
“Not today, big boy. If you were black I’d take you with me.”
Majestic seemed to understand and jumped into Lucie’s lap instead.
“Remind me how you know Stephanie and how it is I got invited to the book group,” I said.
“I’ve known Stephanie for almost a year,” Lurleen said. “We did some volunteer work at the Decatur library, and we became friends. I suppose what I like most about her is that she isn’t afraid of the occult—she embraces it. No offense, Ditie, but you have to see the evidence for everything before you take the plunge, and sometimes it’s refreshing to be around people who are a little looser about what they consider possible.”
“What do you mean by the occult?” I asked.
“I’m not part of some wiccan group if that’s what you’re worried about,” Lurleen said, “although I wouldn’t be surprised if Stephanie is. She has friends who do tarot card readings, and she said one of them was coming tonight. Crystal, I think her name is.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Have you had a reading, Lurleen?”
“It’s not like I believe in fortune telling,” Lurleen said. “The readings I’ve had are more like psychotherapy sessions. The person kind of pulls out of you what you’re worrying about.”
“Tarot cards strike me as New Age stuff,” I said. “Might be Crystal has the right name for that sort of thing.”
“Don’t dismiss it until you’ve tried it, Ditie,” Lurleen said. “As to why you were invited to the book club, I’m not entirely sure. We both read cozy mysteries, and this book club will be all about cozy mysteries, maybe with a ghost or two thrown in. Anyway, when Stephanie invited me, she asked if you could come along. She thought the two of us could give some insights into real murders we’ve investigated.”
“What did you tell her about us, Lurleen?”
“Not much, but she seemed to know all about our past cases.”
“Past cases?”
“Maybe I did show her a chapter or two from a book I’m writing, collecting our cases, kind of like what Dr. Watson did for Sherlock Holmes. She said they were really good, and I should keep working on them.”
“I want to read them,” Lucie said.
“You should, Luce,” Lurleen said. “You’re in a couple of them when you helped us solve a case. When I have polished the stories some more, I’ll show them to you.
Mason came downstairs before I could comment.
“I thought you had a book club tonight,” he said, “and I was on duty.”
“You are.” I looked at my watch. “We better get going.”
We stood and Lurleen opened her cape so Mason could see her outfit underneath.
“Wow, stunning!” Mason said. “You both look great!”
Sometimes I had to remind myself how wonderful it was to have Mason as my newly minted husband. Our wedding was three months ago, and in some ways it felt like years, as if we’d always been together. But in other ways, it seemed more like minutes, amazing minutes, and at times like this I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Mason made me feel beautiful every time he looked in my direction, every time he touched me.
We headed for the door with my dog getting in the mix. “Careful, Hermione,” Lurleen said, “I can’t have dog hairs on this outfit. Cat hairs might be okay—where did Majestic go?”
He appeared as if by magic. Lurleen was the only person I knew who could call for him and he would come. She scooped him up, kissed him on his nose and set him back down again. A cat whisperer for sure, but that was only one of her magic powers.
As my best friend since I moved back to Atlanta, Lurleen could do a million magic tricks without waving any kind of wand. My brother, Tommy, could do his share but his were the more standard kinds of magic, a quarter behind an ear, a card trick.
For Lurleen, the magic just happened. When she entered a room the whole space brightened. She saw someone who needed comforting and soon they were feeling better. Almost all her magic was for good, but occasionally it could be disturbing. Lurleen had an uncanny ability to sniff out murders and an unsettling determination to find the killers involved. I often got carried along for the ride.
That wasn’t quite fair because I was just as curious as Lurleen. We were both determined to right the wrongs of the world, but I had other responsibilities like my work in the refugee clinic, my need to care for and protect my children and, of course, making sure I had time for Mason.
Lucie and Jason had been through more trauma than anyone deserved. Their mom, my childhood friend Ellie, had been murdered. I promised her I’d look after her kids if anything should happen to her and I’d kept that promise. They were now my adopted children, and I couldn’t imagine life without them. As for Mason, I met him at the same time Ellie was killed. He was a kind and caring Atlanta city police detective, and as the saying goes, the rest is history.
We were a huddled mass at our front door, hugging and kissing as if Lurleen and I would be gone for days and not for a couple of hours.
Lurleen looked at her watch. “We’ll be late.”
I ran to the kitchen, grabbed my plate of pumpkin spice cookies and headed out the door to Lurleen’s yellow Citroen. It was a tiny car and I wasn’t sure how Lurleen’s long legs fit inside but they did. I had to do a little more squishing with my round body and plate full of cookies to get comfortable, but she’d been insistent on taking her car. “We can’t arrive in your old Toyota, no offense, but it would ruin my entire look.”
I didn’t protest. Lurleen knew where we were going and the people who would be there. I hadn’t met any of them, and I asked at least a dozen times if they knew I was coming.
“They know,” Lurleen said. “They know we are real-life detectives, and they can’t wait to meet you.”
“Lurleen, what stories have you told them?”
“Nothing but the truth. Maybe I added a little color to what we’d done but not much.”
“Do you know who else is coming?” I asked.
“Stephanie mentioned a few names but I haven’t met most of them either,” Lurleen said. “It’s a small group, I think. Let’s see—there’s Crystal who will do some tarot card readings if we want her to, Nicole, whom Stephanie has known for a long time and Stephanie’s Aunt Josie. I think there might be a few more: Adeline someone and a neighbor who loves cozy mysteries and begged to be included.”
The ride was remarkably short. Stephanie lived a mile away, close to the heart of the Virginia-Highland neighborhood with all its shops and restaurants. Lurleen lived five minutes from me but in the opposite direction.
“Why did Stephanie want to start a book club?” I asked.
“I think she doesn’t have enough to do even with volunteering. Her husband, Jonathan, works for the Centers for Disease Control, and she says he’s never around. Frankly, I think she’s lonely. She had a tarot card reading with Crystal that said she needed to make more friends. I suggested a mystery book club because Stephanie and I both love to read mysteries, the spooky kind but not thrillers. Those are way too scary. The one for tonight, A Ghost Around Every Corner, seemed super appropriate for this time of year without being too frightening.”
She looked at me. “Did you finish it? I know how busy you’ve been lately.”
“Of course I did, Lurleen.”
Lurleen smiled. “Don’t get your feathers in a huff. I know you follow through on every commitment you make.”
“My feathers in a huff?”
“You know what I mean. ‘Ne te dérange pas’.”
Lurleen had a love affair with all things French, and that was probably part of what attracted her to Danny, her live-in boyfriend. He’d studied French in college and liked to share what he knew with Lurleen. She’d been happy to use her own version of the language, but bit by bit Danny was teaching her more standard phrases like the one she just used—don’t disturb yourself.
“I’m not disturbed,” I said. “I enjoyed the book.”
I didn’t have time to say more.
We pulled up to Stephanie’s house, a white colonial with what appeared to be lighted candles in the downstairs windows. The rest of the house looked dark. We parked behind two cars in the driveway and had barely gotten out of Lurleen’s Citroen when the front door of the house flew open.
“Oh my goodness,” a woman called. “Thank heavens you’re here. We need a doctor—if it’s not too late for that.”
The woman had to be Stephanie. She looked a little younger than me, in her early thirties I’d guess, a tall woman, slender verging on thin. She was dressed in a black sweater and skirt with her dark hair flying in every direction. She could easily have passed for a witch, one who looked sightly unhinged, but that was probably because of whatever was going on in her house.
I grabbed my medical bag, the spare one I carried with me, mainly so I’d always have access to an Epipen, and ran into the house with Lurleen close behind.