Jack Fell Down: Deluded Detective Book One (Deluded Detective Series 1) Read online

  Jack Fell Down

  Missing Children Mysteries Novella #1

  ∞

  Michelle Knowlden

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  An Excerpt from Sinking Ships: An Abishag’s First Mystery

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Before the blackout

  I swept back the embroidered gypsy scarf with bells that tinkled around my face. My earrings jangled. When I stretched my hands dramatically over the cards, the heavy bracelets clanked on the table.

  I was a veritable symphonic fortuneteller—no extra charge.

  The candle guttered as an evening breeze swept through my shabby 2nd Street office in Santa Ana. On the other side of the rickety table, the two sixteen-year-olds exchanged an apprehensive look. I didn’t need a sixth sense to read them: they wondered if ghosts, demons, or supernatural powers moved among us.

  Except for a get well card, I hadn’t heard from Vice-Principal Jimmy Bettaker since the accident 17 months ago. Yesterday, with no preliminary chitchat, he called about the lovebirds’ parents who were willing to pay good money to break up the kids. He talked as if we still lived in my pre-accident days when I was a high school science teacher always ready to play fortuneteller (or investigate lost causes) for the additional income. As if we were still friends after briefly dating four years earlier.

  Maybe we were. What I remembered since the accident was wrong more often than right.

  I shifted in my chair, and the girl pursed her lips worriedly. Good. First rule of fortunetelling: keep ‘em off-kilter. My Aunt Hill always added, “then traumatize them but good.”

  I shifted again, and this time the boy blinked. He’d been studying the room, from the scored wood floors to the half-filled bookshelves and the old desk that listed in the corner to the dusty rafters. Although I rarely needed an office, it often proved handy for working with troublesome children, researching cold cases, and random skullduggery.

  While the boy studied me, I couldn’t scratch the scar on my left leg: three, deep tiger scratches that ran from mid thigh almost to my knee. Last week it started itching again.

  The kids were cute. He had blonde curls, ruddy cheeks, and a linebacker’s build. She was a small, southeast-Asian exotic sporting a curve-hugging dress only worn by high school girls and hookers, turquoise polish on her nails, and dangerously high heels. She held his large right hand in both of hers while his left arm draped protectively over the back of her chair.

  When I’d talked to the boy’s parents, the dad sounded tentative, like he’d been steamrollered into sending his kid to the session tonight. The girl’s mother had the same reaction—why use a keg of dynamite when a few words of sense might separate them? Fortunately for my bank account, their spouses thought a supernatural look into the future would demolish their bond.

  Twenty years of teaching high school students had made me cynical. No level of stupidity, no dramatic extreme went untested by teenagers in love. Romeo and Juliet were pikers compared to the thousands who’d passed through my classroom.

  Hearing Jimmy’s coffee mug clatter down the hall, I decided the long silence had served its purpose. The kids looked rattled. I twitched a card from the spread facedown on the table, laid it before the boy—who sat across from me and to my left—and pretended a careful scrutiny of the Eight of Spades. I’d watched Aunt Hillary play parlor tricks a hundred times for family and friends. After adding a few flourishes of my own, I found it didn’t matter which card appeared. I could make it say anything.

  “Hey, that’s not a Tarot card,” the boy said. I’d forgotten his name. Something like lunchmeat. Capicola?

  “It’s not zee cards zat tell z’future,” I said in my gypsy accent. “It’s zee spirits speaking to me, Madame Pythagoras.” The bells on my scarf tinkled as I gestured to the sky darkening beyond the window.

  The girl Kirsten (I remembered her name because it’s the same as one of my nieces) cast a quick frightened look out the window. The boy’s—Liverwurst?—stare remained on me. “So what do the spirits say?” His tone was patronizing.

  I decided to go for broke. “Eight of Spades—zat is the card of destiny, zat is your destiny. In eight years, you’ll be an archeologist, traveling to distant lands, battling plagues, terrorists, desert heat, and spiders to unearth z’secrets of zee past.”

  I collapsed in my chair and watched their reaction from hooded eyes.

  “Like Indiana Jones?” the boy asked, his scornful attitude temporarily suspended. “Cool.”

  “Spiders?” Frowning, Kirsten twisted a strand of hair, now holding—Baloney’s?—hand in only one of hers.

  Hooked ‘em. Time to stir the pot. I extracted another card from the spread and laid it before the girl. Jack of Diamonds.

  “Fascinating,” I breathed. “Such wealth, such joy, and z’loss of every-ting teetering on z’knife edge of fate.” I exhaled hopelessness, and Kirsten shivered.

  The boy looked skeptical, but he also stared longingly at the adventure promised in his Eight of Spades. “What are you talking about?”

  I tapped one be-ringed finger on her card. “Jack, zee card of chance. For z’girl, all hinges on z’next card.”

  She shifted uncomfortably, and his arm dropped from her chair. “Let’s go, Devlin. I don’t like this.”

  Devlin. Deviled ham. My mother’s favorite sandwich. I knew it had something to do with lunchmeat.

  With feigned indifference, I shrugged and the earrings jangled. “Go if you like. Knowledge of zee future is not for everyone.”

  Winningly, Devlin squeezed Kirsten’s hand, his superior attitude gone. “We’ve got to see what happens next, babe. Don’t you want to know? She said you could be wealthy.”

  “She said there’d be plagues and snakes. And now this Jack thing? I’m done, Dev. Take me home.”

  Sweet. I relaxed in my chair, the only comfortable one in the office. I’d draped it with garish shawls for the evening’s performance. The headache that had been threatening all day—another constant since the accident—intensified. I’d have to wrap it up fast or I’d be calling Aunt Ivy to drive me home.

  An air of unreality flooded me, blurring the teenagers, turning their spat into gibberish. I gripped the armrests tightly. When my vision cleared, the room was silent, and they stared at me uneasily.

  “Z’spirits.” I waved vaguely, wondering why I hadn’t heard Jimmy in the hallway for awhile. “Zey grow impatient. You stay or you go. Decide now.”

  “We stay,” Devlin said, his arm encircling Kirsten and hugging her firmly. She wasn’t convinced, but said nothing. “Flip the card.” Devlin tapped the table as if he were in Vegas. Nothing says confidence like a varsity football player.

  I flipped the card. Hoping for hearts, but I could work with the Ten of Clubs I dealt.

  “Death,” I said.

  Kirsten yelped. Devlin frowned. “Death? You mean like digging up dead mummies?”

  I shook my head, which almost made me yelp too, headache red-lining. “Remember z’Jack? In z’desert, death stalks z’girl.”

  Kirsten burst into tears. “Your stupid mummies. I’m going to die because of your stupid astrology job in the desert. And you don’t care.”

  I didn’t bother correcting “astrology.” Devlin patted her arm tentatively. “I care, babe.” He shot me an accusing look. “What happened to the money?”

  “Jack of Diamonds,” I said. “Her future teeters on z’edge. Wealth and happiness on one side. Death in clubs on z’other.”

  “Told you.” K
irsten sullenly moved her chair out of his reach. “I stay with you in some crappy pyramid, I lose all my money, and then I die. You get to be a famous astronomer, and some hot star plays you in the movie about your life. How fair is that?”

  I couldn’t contain myself. “Not astronomer. Not astrologer. Archeologist.”

  “Whatever.” She sniffed and then narrowed her eyes. “What happened to your accent?”

  “Come on, Kirs. You’re not taking this seriously?” Devlin’s skepticism suddenly returned. “It’s a joke. It’s your parents and mine trying to break us up before we apply to colleges next year.”

  Maybe Lunchmeat wasn’t an idiot after all—which would have shaken my entire belief system if he hadn’t added, “Babe, you know my parents think you’re not smart enough to get into the universities scouting me. They think you’ll hold me back. Crazy, right?”

  Hello? I switched my attention to Kirsten.

  Kirsten’s tears evaporated, and the office temperature plummeted. “Really? My parents think you’re a loser jock who’ll flunk out first year in whatever loser school takes you. And she said …” She pointed at me. I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be paid for this session. A brutal breakup was acceptable, a broken heart expected, but God forbid anyone’s feelings get hurt.

  “The psychic said if I don’t marry you, I’d be happy and have scads of money. Come to think of it, she never said that you’d be rich or famous or happy. She said terrorists and plagues were your destiny.” Kirsten punched the air triumphantly.

  Devlin turned to me. “You didn’t say archeology would suck, right? Getting my destiny is good, isn’t it?”

  Nervously, I squirmed in my nest of shawls. “Strictly speaking psychics and fortunetellers aren’t precisely the same thing.”

  Kirsten’s lip curled. “You lost your accent again.”

  “Come on, Ms Graff, tell Kirsten my destiny rocks.”

  Jimmy had introduced me as Madame Pythagoras. Where had he learned my real name? I shook off my shawls, tremors and heat pouring through me.

  “How do you know me?” My voice shook like my hands and legs.

  Devlin’s eyes widened. God knows what he saw, but for me the office was capsizing. Unless something happened fast, I was going down. “You used to teach at my school, Ms Graff. I took your Physics for Athletes class, till—you know—you left.”

  Kirsten frowned. “You were a teacher before you became a psychic? Can you do that?”

  With every muscle stiffening, I couldn’t speak.

  Her narrowed eyes on Devlin, she said to me, “Is that your, what-do-you-call-it, your spirit guide channeling you? Can you ask it to inform my ex-boyfriend how he’s gonna die of a snake biting his neck, but not before his hair falls out.” She sneered. “My grandmother said you got all the signs of going bald before you’re thirty. Tell him, Ms. Graff.”

  That’s when I blacked out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  After the blackout

  I came to, not sprawled on the ground, but sitting sedately in my chair. All but one of the cards lay on the floor, my hand holding the remaining one aloft. I heard a faint buzzing and my hearing returned, humming at the edges. I could see Kirsten and Devlin clearly, front and center, huddled in their chairs, mouths gaping.

  Aware that my arm still strained upward, I slowly lowered it and risked taking a look. Hearts, a suit I could have used earlier. Jack of Hearts.

  I swallowed. “What happened?”

  Devlin glanced at Kirsten who said, “You had a fit or something. Do you have a tumor that makes you psychic? I saw a movie about that happening to a guy.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m not psychic. Did I say anything?” I hated asking them, but I kept hoping that the truth about my accident would come out in one of these episodes. I checked my watch, but couldn’t tell how long I’d been out. Where was Jimmy? He was supposed to be close enough to intervene if something like this happened.

  “It was weird, Ms Graff, like you were possessed or something. I recorded it on my iPhone if you want to watch.” Devlin studied me tentatively, looking ready to bolt if I had another “fit.”

  I nodded and winced at the shaft of pain. He gingerly keyed in the video and set the phone in front of me as I had set the Eight of Spades in front of him.

  It seemed as if he’d caught me in mid-prayer, which was odd as I don’t pray. My head bowed, I mumbled incomprehensible, guttural sounds. Suddenly Video Me leapt to her feet, and I heard an off-camera Kirsten squeal. Devlin swore and the camera joggled, showing me, from the neck down, sweep half the cards to my right, pluck one card from the remainder, and then sweep the rest of the cards to my left. The camera view shifted to my face, and I stifled a gasp. She wore my clothes, scarf, earrings, and bracelets, but I saw my Aunt Hillary’s face.

  Video Me jabbed the card skyward and spoke in one long, run-on sentence, “He’s missing, boy’s been missing since the accident, so many went missing that day.”

  “Jackson Galon, I’m writing his name …” Without looking down or lowering her right hand, Video Me plucked a pen from my jean pocket with her left. She wrote the name on the rickety table with such force, she’d carved it into the grain. Kirsten or Devlin or maybe both must have steadied the table. She’d pronounced it Collin, but it looked like a misspelling of gallon.

  “Find him, six years old he was then, nearly eight now. Find him, the first of the missing. Find him before it is too late.”

  Her face smoothed, grew younger, but something of Aunt Hill remained as she sat elegantly among the shawls and smiled at the iPhone. Without a trace of irony, she said, “Miss you, Pam,” just the way Hillary used to say. Then it was me again, eyes glassy, right hand still holding the Jack of Hearts aloft.

  Rubbing the name carved in wood, I shouted at the door cracked slightly open, “Jimmy Bettaker!”

  Kirsten and Devlin gulped, and something crashed far down the second floor hallway. Blinking furiously, Jimmy appeared in the doorway, holding a scuffed iPad that still displayed a role-playing game in Steampunk gray and black.

  “She had a fit.” Devlin told Jimmy before I could say anything.

  Jimmy swallowed apprehensively, no doubt picturing a litigation nightmare.

  “While you battled Zeppelins,” I said. “I finished traumatizing these two and am now leaving. You take it from here?”

  He nodded uncertainly as I grabbed my purse and keys and escaped. Halfway to the stairs, I had a thought. I returned to the office to hear Devlin say, “Seriously, Mr. Bettaker, we’re fine. Ms Graff put on a good show.”

  “Yeah, we were about over anyway. Mostly hanging together ‘cause it bugged our …” Kirsten stalled wide-eyed when I stalked into the office.

  I grabbed Devlin’s iPhone from Jimmy who’d been watching the video, emailed the recording to my address, then deleted message from the phone’s sent folder and the video itself. I’d narrowly escaped it being posted on YouTube.

  I handed the iPhone back to Devlin, and ignoring their wary looks, I said, “Lock the office when you leave.”

  Erasing the video from my thoughts wasn’t as easy. I made it to the stairs and out the old brick office building, automatically scanning the parking lot for hoodlums till I was in my car. When I arrived at my townhouse, clamoring questions drove me to the medicine cabinet. After being seizure-free for six months, had they returned for good? Had my dead aunt really taken possession of me or was I hallucinating? Had Jimmy blown out the candles before leaving the office?

  I was in a nightshirt and bed when the phone started ringing. The pill and earplugs did their job, and I was sleeping dreamlessly after the third ring.

  Sometime after 9:00 am, I woke and dragged myself to the Keurig. Fortified with a bold breakfast brew, I deleted three phone messages: two from Jimmy and one from the bank about the transfer I received monthly since the accident. Then I made calls to a friend with legal connections and three doctors.

  A half hour later, I was sitting
in my neurologist’s waiting room with two other patients. Except for a saltwater aquarium of lionfish with a backdrop of aqua and gold, the waiting room was decorated in the color of sand—sand-colored chairs with sand-colored pillows, a sand-colored carpet, and sand-colored walls with hanging tapestries woven in shades of sand from Mojave beige to Sahara tan.

  The weight of all that neutral color. The measure of lost memories and delusions. The scale of family, students, and past boyfriends waiting for my recovery. Some days I didn’t think I could bear it.

  A policeman friend once told me about a case concerning a banker wanted for fraud who vanished after Hurricane Katrina. “Lots of people disappear after catastrophes.” He winked. “Family thinks they’ve been washed away in a flood or killed in an explosion or fallen into a volcano, but really they’ve walked out of one life and into another.”

  Maybe I’d never remember what had happened in the accident, but sometimes I wished for something other than sitting in doctors’ offices or taking small jobs from those who pity me or shaking my head when someone asks if I’ve recovered. Rustling cattle or sorting screws in Bend had to be better than wondering what was real and what was not. Did a policeman really tell me about a banker disappearing in the hurricane? Did my dead aunt speak through me last night about a lost child named Jackson?

  Video Me said Jackson was the first to go missing on the day of my accident. Which made me wonder if a disaster happened on that day, something of epic proportions where children disappeared and left me brutally damaged. A catastrophe that no one reported.

  My psychiatrist would mark this as deluded thinking, the hallmarks of my damaged brain. What did it mean when my delusions made more sense than reality?

  Blackouts will get you into the doctor’s office without an appointment. Speaking in your dead Aunt’s voice will get a psychiatric follow-up the same day. While the lionfish in the aquarium furled and unfurled their fins, I studied the two other patients waiting with me. One was an angular brunette with a 4-inch gauze bandage behind her left ear, her hair carefully styled to cover the shaved area with moderate success. Probably a brain tumor … although it might have been a gunshot.