Dead Sleeping Shaman by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page B

to feed them for free. Like it’s a contest and the biggest fool wins. But that big fool isn’t going to be me. Have to be blind not to see what’s going on out there. He’s doing nothing but breaking the law.”
    “No proof of anything wrong.” Dolly balled her fists and thudded them on the table. One thing she didn’t like was people telling her what was and what wasn’t against the law.
    Eugenia waved an angry hand and stood, turning to give me half the wattage of her usual greeting.
    “Who’s your new customer?” I nodded to the table the old woman had commandeered, spreading her wide skirt around her and plunking her elbows in the middle of the red Formica.
    Eugenia, who’d been too busy talking to notice the woman, looked over at her then back to me. Her mouth opened a little. Her drawn-on eyebrows elevated. I could see she was thinking hard. Finally she shrugged. “Striking woman. Looks like she could use a hot meal, don’t it?” She put her shoulders back, straightened the shoulder pads in her white blouse, and made straight for the somewhat familiar-looking woman’s table.
    Crystalline greeted me when I finally got to sit down across from her. Her face, free of makeup, was drawn and sober; her eyes puffed and tear-washed. The red hair that had seemed so alive before lay flat against her head, the pouf deflated, as if a force had been withdrawn.
    I leaned forward to whisper, “That woman over by the wall, at the table by herself, is she part of your group?”
    Crystalline squinted, found the woman, and shook her head. “Sure as hell looks like we do, I guess. Could be one of us. But she isn’t. Never seen her before.”
    We studied the menu. I was hoping for shrimp scampi or maybe a tuna steak but realistically considered the salad bar with cheese ball and crackers, or the meatloaf.
    “Eugenia puts on quite a feed,” Dolly said toward Crystalline.
    When Gloria came over, green order pad in hand, Crystalline ordered vegetable beef soup, which sounded good to me so I changed my order. Crystalline had to go to the bathroom then and stood, drawing her long red, silver-edged skirt around her. I watched her walk off, drawing every eye in the restaurant after her.
    I leaned toward Dolly, whispering to keep our conversation from the antenna ears beamed our way. “There wasn’t a thing about Marjory’s mother in the newspaper morgue. I went in this morning. Nothing. Nothing on a Paul Otis either. Old high school stuff on Arnold—debate captain. That’s all. Anything new on Marjory?”
    Dolly looked around the room, daring people to go on staring at us. “Strangled all right.”
    I shook my head. “I saw the rope …”
    “Compression of the trachea, pathologist said. Died of asphyxia. Rope. Ordinary rope.”
    “Does that mean no blood?”
    “It was there. Very little. Because her chin was down and that hat was over her face, you didn’t see it. Mark of the rope wasn’t deep, but well defined—bled in places. You missed the cyanosis in the face. Guess you weren’t looking for a dead lady with a red face.”
    “No question then.”
    Dolly nodded.
    “How’d anybody get her out there? Crystalline said she hated Deward, was even afraid of it. Any drugs in her system?”
    Dolly shook her head. “Don’t know yet. Too soon for toxicology to be back.”
    “God, this is frustrating,” I said. “When will those women from Toledo get here?”
    “By morning. We’ll go to the revival tonight—see the reverend if we can, then interview her friends. Somebody’s gotta know something.”
    When Crystalline came back, I told her I hadn’t found anything about Marjory Otis’ mother in the old newspapers. No mention of a missing woman, no death notice. Nothing that might help us.
    “I thought—because they were from an old family connected to Deward—that there would be something,” I added.
    Crystalline shrugged and sniffed back more tears. The food came. We were quiet as we ate. Something about