Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

gathered them up without even seeming to pay much attention, certainly not taking time to contemplate, just took them up, nodding to herself.
    “You seem okay,” she said. “But I think we should leave the content of the meeting out of this. If Chris wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”
    “You read the Tarot?” I asked, rather redundantly.
    “Yes.”
    “I mean … um … professionally?”
    She nodded. “Would you like a reading?”
    I looked at my watch. “Thanks, but not right now. I’ve got to get back to work. When did Chris leave exactly?”
    “Exactly isn’t my cup of tea, exactly. Ten-thirty, I guess. Something like that. I was too tranced out to notice. Sometimes I get like that— good thing I don’t have a car.”
    “A car?” Why had she mentioned a car if she didn’t know what was going on?
    “I’d probably be a menace in one.” Was she watching me, trying to see if she’d hit a nerve? I decided I was being paranoid.
    “I wonder if you could give me the names and addresses of the other people who were here last night.”
    “I think you should get them from Chris.”
    “But she told me specifically to see them. Somehow, I got the idea she didn’t know their last names.” Rosalie closed her eyes for a minute, scowling almost. Finally she opened them and said, “I think it’s best. She’s in too much trouble to take this lightly. And we have to move fast.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I really couldn’t tell you.” Just those few words and then a serious clam-up. But she hesitated once again, as if she’d have loved to tell me, actually, but didn’t see the point. Maybe she was in touch with some garrulous ETs. I didn’t think so, though— I’d never heard of them being invisible.
    “Just a second,” she said, and disappeared. She came back with a piece of paper that had three names on it, along with addresses and phone numbers: Ivan Shensky; Moonblood Seacrystal; and Tanesha Johnson.
    “Do you know where they work?” I said. “I’d like to go see them now.”
    “Ivan’s a night worker. He’ll be home. Tanesha works for the Bank of America, in the B. of A. building downtown. Moonblood’s a carpenter— you never know where she’ll be from one day to the next. Or she might be between jobs. But her roommate’s an artist— she’s always home; she’d probably be able to point you in the right direction.” I tried to imagine what the roommate’s name might be. Spiderweb Riverbed Shalecliff Earthnurture? But nothing I thought of surpassed Moonblood Seacrystal— some things just can’t be satirized.
    Moonblood lived in Noe Valley, and as I drove over, I found myself profoundly uncomfortable. So far I had Chris arriving “about” the time of the murder (if that was what it was). But Chris might have been late— I didn’t even know where McKendrick had been killed, how her arrival might fit the time frame.
    Next I had a potential witness who couldn’t be bothered looking at clocks, who consorted with people named Moonblood, who got too “tranced out” to notice little things like arrivals and departures, and who closed her eyes and screwed up her face before answering certain questions— that is, if she didn’t whip out a Tarot deck. I had to hope at least one of the three others at the “meeting” would show up a little better in court. And if that person was Moonblood, I had to hope she had a nickname.
    Moonblood lived in a cottage behind a larger house, a dollhouse almost, barely big enough for one, much less two and canvases. The yard was beautifully kept, boasting an elaborate herb border, flagstones, even a hammock. A lot of love and effort had gone into it, which boded well, I thought. A completely crazy person couldn’t have designed it. Folk music of some sort, guitars and women’s voices, blared from the cottage. I was about to knock on the newly painted dark green door when a voice behind me said, “Can I help you?” The woman who’d spoken was short and compact, wearing overalls over a T-shirt. She had biceps that looked as if they’d driven many a nail, and a buzz haircut with a minute semblance of a curl over one eye— something like James Bond’s comma of black hair except that it was light brown and too short to punctuate a sentence. She was somewhere in her thirties, I thought.
    “Are you Moonblood Seacrystal?” I hoped I was keeping a straight face.
    “You got a problem with that?”
    “A problem? No, I just … I