Father knows death, p.1
Father Knows Death, page 1
part #1 of Fair Witch Sisters Series
Father Knows Death
Christy Murphy
Copyright © 2018 by Christy Murphy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover designer, Priscilla Pantin, b
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Contents
1. A Hard Day’s Day
2. Stray Cat Strut
3. Private Eyes
4. Traffic Jam
5. Danger Zone
6. Semi-Charmed Life
7. Cheeseburgers in Not Quite Paradise
8. Hello Again
9. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It is?
10. You Can Do Magic
11. A Note from the Author (and her sister)
Also by Christy Murphy
A Hard Day’s Day
Two weeks ago, I turned thirty-five—old enough to be president. The idea that I could be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces juxtaposed against the reality that I was unemployed, under-insured, and still borrowed a vacuum cleaner from a neighbor, had inspired me to make a change.
Plus, there were a few medical things that had started since my birthday. Headaches, dizziness, and every once in a while, colored spots invaded my vision. It was like I'd been staring into a lightbulb and had looked away, except there was no lightbulb.
And that's why I was in the lobby of the Sherman Park Cinema Sixteen.
I needed to be responsible and get a job with better health insurance. I wanted the kind of wealth that meant I could go to a specialist without a referral. Then I'd work my way up the corporate ladder and feel like I could go for an ambulance ride and visit the emergency room with impunity.
I sighed and glanced at my watch. I'd arrived five minutes early and had been standing in the lobby trying to not look awkward for twenty minutes.
Maybe Didi, my twin sister, was right. She told me to look for something else. Of course, her reasoning was that I could do better. My reasoning was that I hadn't expected this to feel so awkward.
When I entered the theater, the usher—who looked twelve—seemed shocked that I was there for a job interview.
I peered at my reflection in a glass case holding a poster for a buddy cop movie and checked my long, black hair. Nothing looked like it was sticking up, but I smoothed it down anyway.
This job didn't pay well, but allegedly had top-tier health insurance and "advancement opportunities." To quote Meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad.
I'd flitted around the last few years (okay seventeen) and had hitched my wagon to a man who was less than hitch-worthy. And note I said "hitched my wagon" and not "married." No spousal support for me.
My ex was a filmmaker. I worked with him until his career took off last year, and he took off with it. And by "took off" I mean that literally and figuratively. He moved to New York with a younger woman, and I moved in with my twin sister whose divorce had been finalized a few years ago.
"Joy Fair?" a feminine voice behind me said.
"Yes," I said as I turned around and found a zygote-aged woman staring back at me.
"The manager sent me to tell you that we're sorry but we can't do the interview."
"Why not?" I knew I had the right time. There were two automated email confirmations.
"It's a group interview, and you're the only one who showed up," she said, as if that explained everything.
"Can't you just interview me?"
"There's roleplaying and stuff."
Was that the entirety of her explanation?
I figured I'd find out the time for the next set of group interviews, but before I could ask, the young woman smiled and walked away. "Sorry," she said with a wave, but she was walking away without so much as turning her head in my direction as she said it. Seriously!
My face heated with embarrassment. Yes, I should have been mad, and I was. But after years of my ex accusing me of overreacting, I'd adopted this horrible habit of not reacting at all.
I took the nearest exit, which led to the adjoining mall instead of the parking lot. The Sherman Park Mall was deep in the San Fernando Valley—the suburban sprawl portion of Los Angeles on the less hip side of the Santa Monica Mountains.
I'd chosen the least cool, least hip place to get my job hoping that no one I knew would catch me working there. Bright side. No danger of that happening now.
A wave of dizziness accompanied by a shortness of breath made me feel like I might pass out. I thought that it might be a blood sugar thing.
Blinking, I walked toward the mall directory sign. A halo of purple clouded my vision. I needed to get to the food court and eat.
A black man about my age and height with thinning, curly brown hair stood in front of me. As he walked away from the mall directory, something about him caught my eye. I thought maybe I knew him. But when I looked in his direction, the purplish blob blocked my vision.
Food. I needed food.
I turned back to the directory, glad to have a momentary lapse in purple-blobbed vision and discovered the food court was two floors above me on the third floor. My dizziness increasing, I rushed to the escalator.
I found myself just a few feet behind the curly-haired man again and realized that the purple spots in my vision had increased. It was as if they were following him.
I blinked. The man reached the top of the escalator, and the two of us continued through the little mall maze to the next escalator. Through my poor vision, I caught the man's expression. He looked like I felt—lost and depressed. Maybe that's why I thought he looked familiar. We sported the same "look."
I reached the third floor about a half a dozen steps behind him. He glanced around, and we both headed in the same direction. I assumed he'd spotted the food court, too.
Then, he picked up speed. I noticed he was making a beeline for an opening between several of the large potted plants near the railing. His urgency disturbed me. Something about it wasn't right.
A panicky feeling burned in my chest, and I found myself chasing after him. I got within arm's reach of the man just as he put his two hands on the railing and swung his right leg over the side.
The purple dots in my vision merged together into a thick fog that almost blinded me. It seemed to me like he planned to throw himself over the railing. I blindly threw my hands in front of me and grabbed at what I hoped was his leg.
My dress shoes slipped on the tiled mall floor, and I fell on my butt yanking the man's leg in the process. He pulled his leg back, but I held on.
"Ow!" he yelled as we played tug of war with his leg.
Looking up at him from the ground, the mall skylight made everything seem very yellow. But my vision had cleared somewhat, and I took the opportunity to grab his arm as well.
"Let go of me!" he yelled, putting his stomach on the railing in what I assumed was an attempt to use gravity to his advantage.
"You have everything to live for," I heard myself saying as I attempted to maneuver my feet to the base of the railing to get leverage.
"You don't know me, and no one has everything to live for anyway," he said.
I couldn't find a way to turn my body. "That's not true," I said.
"Give me one thing you have to live for," he said, pulling his leg and arm away even harder.
My butt slid against the mall floor. I could only imagine how dusty my black pants were getting. It made it hard for me to focus on his question. He must've mistook my silence as my answer.
"Come over the railing with me," he said. "It'll be so random. People will talk about it for years."
"My sister! And my mom," I said, feeling ridiculous that I hadn't thought of them immediately.
"You had to think about it. It doesn't count."
"I'm under duress. I couldn't think," I said, tugging back hard on his arm. My body shifted slightly as I rolled onto my side. Was that pop I just heard my shoulder?
"You're hurting me!" the man said.
"Not as much as it's going to hurt splatting on the mall tile."
"But that will only be for a second! And then, I'll be dead!"
I kicked my feet to trying to turn my body some more, my feet getting closer to the base of the railing.
"Help!" the man yelled.
"I am helping!" I said, continuing to pull.
"This woman is crazy!" he yelled as he forced his other leg over the rail. My butt slid all the way to the railing, and he got so much heavier.
A crowd gathered, and I worried that people might not understand that I was trying to save this guy from jumping.
"You have everything to live for!" I grunted again as I tried to keep him from going over.
"You already said that, and you don't even know me!"
My cell phone rang, which surprised me, because I rarely ever get calls.
"You should get that. I'll wait."
"You should stop trying to throw yourself over this railing!"
"Let me die already!"
Now, with my butt right up against the base of the
"I'll jump really quick and everybody can get back to shopping," he grunted.
"You might not even die. You might just hurt yourself. Do you know how much that could cost?" I said, finally managing to straighten my bent legs all the way. His body jerked over to my side of the railing. His feet hadn't reached the floor, but the immediate danger had been averted.
"I can't afford that. My health insurance is about to expire."
Mall security arrived. "We've called the paramedics and the police."
"Call them back, I'm fine," the man yelled at the security guard.
"You've got everything to live for, buddy," the guard said.
I looked over my shoulder and saw an overweight man with a flattop haircut and a mousy mustache.
"I already told him that," I said, still on the floor.
"Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to step away from the man. I'll take it from here," the security guard said. For the record, the pudgy security guard was several yards away and in no position, figuratively or literally, to say that.
I didn't like the security guard at all. It was like he wanted to take credit for saving this guy while I was the one pulling every muscle in her shoulders to keep this man from going over.
One of the jumper's legs hovered back onto my side of the rail. I grabbed it and pulled it. I got the one leg almost to the floor. The security guard stepped forward.
"Don't come near me!" the would-be jumper said.
I scrambled to get off the dirty floor and used the man's arm and legs for leverage to pulled myself up. I stood right next to him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
He leaned closer to me and whispered. "I don't like that guy."
"Me neither," I whispered back.
"We were doing fine before he got here," the jumper said, allowing me to pull him more over onto my side of the railing. He kept one hand and one leg half over the railing. The two of us looked over to the guard.
He had his walkie-talkie out, and he was instructing the crowd to stand back. The crowd wasn't even that close.
"It's like he thinks he's in some sort of movie of the week," I said.
"You can't be old enough to remember those!"
"I'm thirty-five."
"Really? That's incredible. You look so young."
I smiled at the compliment and then looked out at the crowd of people staring at us. "We should get out of here. An ambulance ride will cost a fortune."
"If they get me in a hospital, they'll make sure I live long enough to pay for it."
"We should go," I said, not knowing how that would work. Would Joe Security Guard try to stop us? Could someone think I was involved in the suicide in some bad way?
"Are you a fast runner?" the jumper asked.
"Not really, but I think I could outrun the guard."
He looked at the guard and then back to me and nodded. "We'll run to the escalator and go downstairs."
It's seemed like a good plan. And down would make it harder for him to jump to his death. But to be safe, I decided I wouldn't let go of the man's hand.
"On three?" I asked.
"That always throws me off, because I want to go a beat after three when people want to go on three. How about one, two, three, and then run, and we go on the word run?"
I'd always thought there was a beat afterward, too, but that had changed after my ex yelled at me when they were lifting a couch. He'd pulled a groin muscle, which I'd felt bad about at the time, but not so much in hindsight.
"Hello!" the jumper said, waving his free hand in my face.
"Sorry," I said. The crowd had gotten larger and much closer. And then I noticed the man's leg was back over the railing. "Hey!" I said to him with a harsh whisper, pulling him back.
He pulled back against my arms and he almost lost his balance and went even further over the rail. "Stop it!" he hissed. "You almost made me fall!"
I gave him a look. He was the one with his legs over a mall railing.
"I want to jump to my death, not fall. That's a whole different thing. Falling is less empowering."
Point taken.
"Ready to run for it?" he asked prepping his leg to come back onto my side of the rail.
"One, two, run!"
The jumper's jumbled instructions confused me. I was expecting the equivalent of a four counts, so when he hurled his body back toward the mall floor while I was holding his hand, I jerked him back as I fell forward. The two of us tumbled onto the tile knocking over an elderly lady.
"Sorry," the jumper said to the lady.
"Sorry," I mumbled as well. The two of us scrambled to our feet and dashed to the escalator.
"It was supposed to be one, two, three, and then run," I said through gritted teeth as I ran behind the suicidal man.
"I got frazzled," he said. "I thought I saw the paramedics."
I glanced back toward the crowd. "Where?"
"The glass elevator," he said pointing to the other side of the mall. Sure enough there were two EMTs with a stretcher riding up to the third floor. I would've thought they'd dashed up the escalator. But maybe the elevator was closer.
We reached the escalator and slowed down.
"These things make me dizzy," the man said, taking each step one at a time. "I never knew how people could just rush down them."
I pushed my way in front of him and dragged him down the escalator faster. But when we got close to the bottom, two elderly women blocked us. I didn't want to be rude and push them out of the way so I waited.
"Don't you feel silly now. You're like that rude driver in traffic," he said in my ear.
He was right, but the moment we hit the tile, we both ran to get in front of them. We headed for the next set of escalators.
"There they are!" a voice shouted out.
The two of us looked up to see the security guard leaned over the railing and pointing down at us. The EMTs and a police officer stood next to him.
I looked over to the department store and figured it would be better to not be in full view.
"Follow me," I said and rushed into the store. His hand slipped from mine as we ran. I turned back to see if he was still following me, and was relieved to find he was. When I turned forward again, a woman stepped right in front of me. I almost barreled straight into her, but she didn't even take so much as a step to get out of my way.
"Do you want to try our new fragrance?" she asked.
"No, thank you," I said, but I'd made the horrible mistake of pausing and making eye contact. In the same way dogs smell fear, sales people smelled my pushover-ness.
"My wife has terrible gas and that little bottle isn't going to be a match for it," my new companion said, grabbing my hand. "We need to get outside."
"Oh!" the saleswoman said with a frown, putting her hand over her nose and stepping out of the way.
"Which way?" he demanded. The urgency in his voice almost made me believe I had gas. She pointed to the escalator by the pantyhose display.
We dashed to the store's escalator and after a few wrong turns, found ourselves outside the mall.
The jumper laughed. "Did you see her face when I said you had gas?"
"That was brilliant," I said, catching my breath.
The piercing sound of a nearby siren silenced us. A moment later a police car whizzed toward the other entrance of the mall.
"Which way is the movie theater?" I asked. Exiting from a different entrance disoriented me. And, for the record, yes, I'm not good with direction.
"Do you want to duck into a movie?" he asked.
"My car. I'm parked by there."
He nodded. "It's that way," he said, pointing in the exact direction the police car was headed.
I sighed. Another police car entered the parking lot but sped in the opposite direction.
"Oh my God, we're surrounded!" he said. My new suicidal friend had a flair for the dramatic, which made sense considering how we'd met.
But the cops were creeping closer. And even though I doubted I'd broken the law, I didn't want to risk it.
