"What on earth are you doing?" Sidra Smart yelled over the sounds of an electric drill boring a hole in the bottom of the eye sign.
The wizened man on the ladder glanced down at her standing there with her fists crammed into her hips, then switched off the drill. "Mornin' ma'am." His voice sounded like a rasp pulled across a two by four. "I'm hangin' this here sign."
She chuckled at the old man, but her irritation didn't budge. "I can see that. But who authorized you to do that work?" She slammed her car door and stepped up to the sidewalk, squinting in the bright morning sun.
"Why, Mr. Chadwick did right after hurricane Rita messed up the old one. I just had a lotta work piled up. Told him I'd get to it when I could. Today, I could."
"But didn't you hear that my brother--Mr. Chadwick--died in a car accident?"
Died. The word felt glib on her tongue, didn't anywhere near match the pain squeezing every drop of blood out of her heart.
"Yes'm, but ain't somebody else gonna run the business for poor Mr. Chadwick? Figured I'd jus' get it ready for 'em."
"No, somebody isn't. The business is for sale, or will be as soon as I can list it. I wish you'd checked with me before--before hanging a new sign."
"Yes'm, but..." The old man reached a finger into the hole he'd made and swiped out sawdust. "I reckon if he bought and paid for it, least I could do is finish the job, God rest his soul." He freed one hand, crossed himself then switched on the drill and made another hole, and in short order had the grotesque sign swinging in the breeze.
Beneath a giant blue eye, the sign read, The Third Eye, then in smaller letters, Intuitive Investigations.
"What the world is intuitive investigations?"
"Beats me," he shrugged. "They order it, I paint it." He climbed down, tossed the ladder and toolbox into a jalopy-of-a pickup then wiped his neck with a red kerchief and stuffed it into his pocket.
With a bow, he touched his fingertips to his forehead and smiled. "Demoiselle, with your permission I take my leave."
While Sid stood with her mouth open, he climbed into the truck and with a blast of exhaust, backed out and rattled off. She watched the truck until it turned the corner, taillights disappearing behind a building.
She sucked in a deep breath, turned and stared at the office door, her stomach a stampede of cattle charging over a cliff.
What had Warren been drinking--to leave her this business? She'd made it clear to him years ago--no way, Jose!
She reached in her pocket and pulled out the keychain his lawyer, slash, executor, had given her the day he'd read her the will. After several false attempts, she found the right key and unlocked the door.
It creaked open.
Stale, moldy air accosted her before she crossed the threshold. She ran her hand across the wall, flipped the light switch, and spied a can of air freshener on a desk. Grabbing it, she sprayed, shook the can a couple of times then dropped it in the trash basket.
A clay pot with a few brown sprigs of mint sat in the front window. She rummaged in her bag, pulled out a partial bottle of Evian and dumped the water into the flower pot. A sudden whiff of mint rose from the almost indestructible herb. At least something of Warren's still lived. Feeling more an intruder than the new owner, she explored the office like an alarm might go off if she touched the wrong thing.
Or land her in Oz.
One thing for sure, she certainly wasn't going back to Kansas. Some Baptist preacher's wives might spend their whole lives totally happy following along in the tight, narrow shadow of their husbands, but she wasn't one of them. She'd spent thirty years in the deep, deadening rut of being the perfect, submissive, unambiguous preacher's wife. Thirty years being pulled, stretched, molded like Play-Dough.
Just thinking about it made her ill, literally nauseous. She slumped onto the hearth of a small fireplace and waited for the queasiness to pass, forcing herself to think of something different.
The Third Eye--she remembered the day Warren had called, excited about the name he'd chosen for his new business, how it matched his philosophy of working with the whole person. She guessed that was why he'd added the wording to the sign.
Intuition--if she'd ever had any, it was long gone.
Her first job, the lawyer had advised, was to pay Warren's overdue bills. She forced herself into action. Rummaging in the desk, she found the checkbook and pulled it out. After sorting bills from junk mail, she stacked the bills, latest on bottom, oldest on top, and spent the next half hour writing, licking and sealing. By the time she finished, she was pleased the balance wasn't red, not black either, more a medium gray. But not nearly enough to keep her head above water until the business sold.
Next, she went through the huge pile of junk mail, tossing some, stacking others. At the bottom, she found a postcard addressed to Warren, but with no return address. She flipped it over. Scratchy tight letters, strung together, made one short sentence. An eye for an eye. Weird. She tucked it in her pocket.
But the storage closet gave her the creeps. Crime scene kits, cameras, recorders, binoculars, polygraph equipment, and listening devices--all these reminded her that it was an ugly business. Yet, she didn't have to run it, she told herself. She had no idea how to use any of the equipment and didn't care to learn. Damn Warren. She slammed the closet door.
Despite the lingering odor of air freshener, she still smelled Warren in the room. That bothered her more than anything. He seemed so near she thought she felt his hand on her arm, urging her forward.
But, dear sweet brother, I don't want to go there, she thought. She'd wither and die in a town like Orange, Texas. Besides, private detective wasn't a job for an ex-preacher's wife, at least not one her age.
Okay, what should she do? Sell the business? Burn the building to the ground?
Or busy your butt learning the detective business!
She had no idea where those words came from, but she quickly shoved them out of her brain, for that was not an option.
She'd noticed another PI office on Sixteenth Street. Perhaps the owner would buy Warren's caseload--if you could sell such a thing.
The front door opened, but preoccupied with her misery, the squeak didn't register in her brain until after the woman spoke.
"Excuse me Ma'am. Can you help me?"
Sid whirled around, startled. "What?"
A young woman, seven shades of white, stood so close to Sid she felt the woman's fear prickle the hair on her own arms.
"Are you okay?"
"He killed her! I know he did!" The blonde woman came at Sid like she was the sole flotation device between breathing and drowning. Instinctively, Sid stepped back, half-expecting an attack.
"Do you work here? I'm looking for Mr. Chadwick." The woman patted her heart while she talked. "Is he in today?"
Sid grabbed the woman's elbow, deposited her in a chair, and asked again. "Are you sure you're okay?"
The woman nodded. "It's just that coming back to this town scares the hell out of me."
"I'll get you some water." Sid yanked a paper cup off the water dispenser, filled it and offered it to the other. She waited until the woman drained the cup before answering her earlier question. "No, I don't work here."
The woman's expression tumbled further than Sid thought possible.
"My name is Sidra Smart, yours?"
"Jewell Stone." She offered a limp hand.
When Sid hesitated, a sickly smile played across Jewell's face. "Yeah, I know, but it's not an alias, honest. I married into the last name. At the time, I took it as a sign." She shrugged and a short, sad laugh slipped out of her throat. "I guess it was."
Sid looked away. Of late, her own roller-coaster-life left no energy for another person's problems. "It's Sunday, you didn't have an appointment with Mr. Chadwick today did you?" She hoped her question sounded aloof. She wanted to keep her distance.
Jewell's words erupted like rapid-fire ammunition. "Not an appointment, but I was hoping to catch him. He told me he often worked weekends. I'm a new client of his. I used to live here when I was a kid." She glanced out both windows before turning her gaze back to Sid. "I live in Goose Creek now." She pointed south with a bright red fingernail that had a thin white stripe painted diagonally across it.
Jewell stood and paced the room. "But, if you don't work here," she turned back to Sid, "where the hell is Mr. Chadwick?"
"He's dead--" Sid paused, half-expecting the young woman to feign sympathy, but none came forth.
"Dead? Oh. I hadn't heard." Jewell's face crumpled, tears welled in her eyes. "What happened?"
Sid got the distinct impression Jewell's tears were for herself, more than for Warren. "My brother was in a car accident." She cringed over the words, hating them more every time she said them. "Let me see if I can find a file on you." She strode over to a metal file cabinet and tugged on the top drawer. Thumbing through several records she located a folder with Jewell's name. "Here it is." She pulled out the file and with a push of her hip, the drawer banged shut.
Flipping through several pages, she looked up at Jewell. "It looks like he'd barely gotten started, just your contract, intake form, that sort of stuff." She closed the file and dropped it on the desk. "I'll reimburse you the retainer. There's another detective agency on 16th Street. You might try them." The desk drawer screeched open as Sid retrieved the checkbook, opened it, and grabbed a pen.
"I don't want my money back, I want answers. Why can't you help me?"
Speechless, Sid stared at her.
The woman stared back while tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her jaw. After a moment of visual standoff, Sid marched to the door.
"I truly am sorry, Ms. Stone, but I don't know anything about this business. You'll have to find someone else to help you." She held the door open. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."
)
Sidra Smart, rookie private eye, struggles to survive her own internal conflicts as she plunges into a surreal world of passion and murder? This mystery/suspense novel transports the reader to the exotic land where Texas and Louisiana meet in the middle of alligator-infested swamps, a land once inhabited by cannibalistic Indians, Jim Bowie, and Jean Lafitte, and where, today, Cajuns and cowboys are king and setting itself becomes character. Fifty-year-old Sidra Smart is not your ordinary rookie private eye. A recently divorced preacher's wife, she knows zip about running the private detective business she's just inherited from her brother. A lifetime spent up on a pedestal, inside a fishbowl before her husband's congregation has left Sid ill prepared to face the dark world of criminal investigation. But face it she does when her first client bursts in with vague flashbacks of a grisly thirty-year-old murder committed by the woman's father. Soon, Sid plunges into a surreal world of danger and intrigue where passion burns as hot as the memories of child abuse, arson and murder. The interaction between Sid, meddlesome Aunt Annie, and Cajun-speaking, rot-gut drinking mentor, George Leger, forms the core of this character-driven novel.
