No Tears for Jack

Prologue

Thirty plus years earlier, the Psychic Queen of Cricket Falls had an uncanny ability to predict the exact date of death for six of her clients. Authorities assumed the psychic had to somehow be involved in their demise. How else could her predictions be so accurate? The day before the sheriff arrived to take her into custody, Zelda fled her trailer and went into hiding, vowing never again to predict anyone’s death. After ending up living in a small community secluded from city life, she remained under the radar of law enforcement, until the authorities forgot about her. Eventually, her failing health forced her to move into an assisted living facility. When the visions stopped, Zelda wondered if that was due to the medications she took each day. Of course, another possibility could be her age. Her brain was not what it used to be.

Then one day while sitting alone in her room, she had the most vivid vision she could ever recall in all of her 108 years on earth. A vision so clear was rare.

The young man would die way before his time without intervention. Although she had never met the man, she had heard of him years earlier. Unfortunately, her record for saving her client’s lives was not a good one. After giving each of her clients a warning, every single one of them still met their destiny on the exact date she had predicted they would perish. Although she had been blessed with a great gift, she felt like she had failed to use her psychic ability to save anyone from a tragic death.

Given one last chance to use her gift to save someone from an early death, she had no choice but to try. Her first problem would be to escape the assisted living facility. Breaking out of the joint required a plan. She shuffled through the front door in the early morning hours, around three-thirty, when the person manning the front desk took the mid-shift break. The rest of the staff was in the lounge playing cards or catching a few winks. But then there was the second problem. How long could she live without her medications? Hopefully, long enough to save a man’s life.

After making it two blocks to the bus stop, she sat on the bench and waited all alone. Except for one small street light located a few feet from where the bus would pull up and stop, darkness was all around her. The wait gave her time to think.

It would not be easy saving a man no one loved. Jack Lamont would be a difficult case, for sure. He was in trouble, in more ways than one. If she could save just one, she could die with the knowledge she had not been a complete failure.

Chapter 1

Jack Lamont made his way down the hallway to the station manager’s office. Although the first text message had read urgent, he delayed going to Harold’s office, until receiving the second message which read if I don’t see you in the next 30 seconds you’re fired.

He mentally counted up the number of times Harold had threatened to fire him over the past several months. Was it six or seven times? No, it had to be more than that.

Each evening, he and Janelle Jordan co-anchored the six o’clock news hour for a regional television station. Supposedly he and Janelle’s real job, but the station manager’s true passion for television content was the Wednesday morning show—You’re In The Spotlight With Jack and Janelle—an idea Harold came up with probably after taking a double dose of Xanex. From ten o’clock on Wednesday mornings until eleven o’clock he and Janelle hosted a program that focused on topics of local interest.

He and Janelle had gotten off to a great start ten years earlier when they were both new hires at the station. Young and energetic, their chemistry on the air increased viewership by fifty percent within six months. The main reason he’d stayed at station KWAK was Janelle. He’d had his chance to leave for a far better opportunity, but turned the offer down when CNN was not interested in bringing Janelle along with him. When told she was all glamour and no substance and couldn’t be part of the deal, he told the representative from CNN he had no interest in their offer.

Looking back, Janelle had probably been the right woman for him. Unfortunately, he had made the mistake of being honest with Janelle, when he told her he was not ready for marriage. Apparently, she was. Janelle moved on and a year later married a gynecologist originally from South Dakota. For crying out loud, what kind of woman marries a man who looks at other women’s vaginas five days a week?

Eight years had passed since her wedding. He and Janelle still worked together five days a week. While everything had changed in her life, a husband, children, her weight—she was expecting her third child—nothing had changed in his. He felt like he had no choice but to continue his same old monotonous routine week after week, until a better opportunity came his way. Whatever great accomplishment he was supposed to have in life continued to remain a mystery to him.

Upon reaching the doorway of Harold’s office, he braced himself for another possible butt chewing. Over the course of the last several months, emails had inundated the KWAK Channel 5 inbox, praising Jack Lamont. While Janelle had developed a real fan base, he had not. That forced him to take action. All of the emails praising him were fakes. His fans had been generated by a software program written by a twelve-year-old kid. He paid the kid three hundred bucks a month to maintain the charade.

He stepped through the doorway hoping his boss hadn’t unraveled the email ruse.

What’s up?

Harold peered over the top of his computer monitor.

You and Janelle need to do a show about psychic readings.

What do psychic readings have to do with local interests? He rolled his eyes.

Wait, hear me out. Harold pointed to his computer screen. Apparently, it’s the rage now. Seventy-nine percent of your fans are requesting that you and Janelle do a show on psychic readings, and your fans, specifically, want to know what your future holds.

Wait a minute. He didn’t have any fans, at least not real ones. Those emails were all computer generated fakes. Uh-oh, the computer whiz kid must be retaliating for late payments. He made a mental note to put a check in the mail for six hundred dollars to get him caught up with the kid’s last two invoices.

Harold stood and moved to the front of this desk. Making eye contact, he said, I want you to seek out a fortune-teller and get a reading. Then report back to me with the results. We’ll work out the details for the show next week and do a run through the following week. I’ve already talked to Janelle and she’s on board with the idea.

She would be. Harold treated Janelle like a queen. Slim chance she’d tell Harold getting a psychic reading was a stupid idea. There had to be a way to kill this project. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d sabotaged one of Harold’s ideas for their Wednesday morning shows. Maybe if he made him think he was for it, Harold might get suspicious and have second thoughts.

There isn’t a fortune-teller alive who can outsmart me.

You want to bet? Harold grinned.

Sure, the usual, a hundred bucks?

They shook on it.

His station manager was zero for five, in betting against him. But the smirk on Harold’s face made him wonder if his boss had already funneled the life history of Jack Lamont to every psychic within a 100 mile radius of the television station. How else could an overweight fifty-eight-year-old bald headed twerp like Harold appear to be so confident? Making his boss look like a fool was one of life’s few great pleasures.

If he took time to research his options with psychics, he wouldn’t be able to go to the bar and have cocktails. Knowing how his boss was prone to cheat, he opted to skip the drinks and instead drove to the local library in case Harold had tapped into his office computer. Not one to play fair either, he decided to search the archives of the Colorado Mountain Times, with hopes of finding a palm reader outside of Harold’s reach. Basically, one who was no longer around to tell a different story than the fictional one he would create for Harold’s benefit.

Bingo. According to the thirty-two year-old newspaper article, available only on microfiche, The Psychic Queen of Cricket Falls lived and operated out of an old Airstream trailer from 1946 until her disappearance in 1979. The key word being disappearance, he had no intentions of getting an actual reading. According to the article, her antique trailer had been preserved in hopes of her return one day, but so far no one saw or heard from her again. This appeared promising. He continued to read the rest of the article.

A black and white photo, dated 1954, showed the psychic standing beside her small silver abode. Her fame came from her unique ability to accurately predict the date of a person’s death. When one of Zelda’s clients, a thirty-six-year-old house wife was killed on the exact date predicted, the victim’s husband demanded the charlatan be arrested and charged with conspiracy. When authorities arrived at the trailer to take her into custody, Zelda was nowhere to be found.

After he finished reading the article, and four subsequent ones written years later about the Psychic Queen of Cricket Falls, Colorado, he wondered what kind of person, in their right mind, would want to know the exact date they would die. If it turned out to be the next day, you wouldn’t have enough time to get ready for it. Apparently, at least six of her clients requested that information. All six came to their demise, in various ways, on the dates Zelda had given each of them.

Since no one had seen the missing psychic in over thirty years, it was reasonable to assume Harold wouldn’t to be able to find her, no matter how long he searched. Besides, the woman had to be dead by now.

He went to his car and programmed his GPS unit for directions to Cricket Falls. He decided to take a chance Zelda wouldn’t be home when he arrived at the old Airstream trailer that had been preserved in its original location and now used as the only tourist attraction in the town of 126 inhabitants. He would simply pick up one of the tourist brochures to prove he had indeed gone to see a psychic. Harold, who rarely left the city limits, would never drive that far in hopes of disproving whatever fabricated story he decided to tell Harold.

* * *

The location of the trailer was not the easiest place to find at night, on a dirt road, but once there, he was pleased to find the lights were still on, and the place open for business. To be a small dot on the map, the town apparently knew how to put on a tourist attraction. The lights turned out to be a few burning candles.

You're an idiot, the elderly woman, who claimed to be Zelda, in the flesh, said to him.

He stared at her closed eyelids and expressionless face. Unfortunately, he had to agree with her. Who else would drive 129 miles, turn onto a dirt road, and then drive eight more miles to an Airstream trailer with a large human palm painted on the side with the words PALMs READ written across it. Apparently, someone had decided to set up shop in the old trailer. Whoever the woman was, she certainly looked the part dressed in a 1960’s vintage purple dress. In addition, the woman had assorted scarves around her head and neck covering everything but her deeply wrinkled face.

He hoped it didn’t take another ten-minute trance to get the next response out of her.

Tell me something I don’t know.

You should have married LeAnn Walensaper.

Startled, he almost fell out of his chair. How could the old bat know anything about LeAnn? The skinny-faced woman, who looked to be at least a hundred years old and barely among the living, had gotten his attention. He took in a deep breath. No one could possibly know about their love affair. It was a secret between the two of them. He needed to get to the bottom of this.

How do you know about LeAnn? He hadn’t seen his first girlfriend since they were in the second grade when her parents decided to leave town and move to Oregon.

"Who told you about her?

You really are an idiot, she whispered.

Something about a woman with her eyes closed calling him an idiot verged on getting him upset. Surely, I’m going to get something other than being called an idiot for my hundred dollars.

More than a man like you can handle, she said a bit louder.

Exactly what is it you think I can’t handle?

Give me four hundred dollars and I will tell you.

I believe you said the price for a reading was a hundred.

What I can tell you is worth far more than a hundred dollars.

I bet. I’m here only because my boss told me to get a reading from a psychic.

Your boss, is he a believer?

He believes in getting even. I came here to get my palm read and you haven’t even looked at my face much less my hand. Now would you please get on with it?

They were seated in an alcove of the trailer barely large enough for two people. He wanted to find out how she knew about LeAnn. If he played his hand right, no pun intended, he hoped she might clue him in. Having a change of heart about getting a real reading, hee shoved his palm across the small round table that separated them.

Very well, Mr. Lamont, let me take a look.

The psychic, who appeared to be old enough to pass for Methuselah’s older sister opened her eyes, grabbed his palm, took one quick glance and released it.

You are a rude and an obnoxious man.

Look lady.

Please call me Zelda.

Look, Zelda. I’ve had about enough of your crap.

And I should add foul mouthed, she said raising her voice a tad.

I can’t go to my boss and co-anchor and report all I got from you is I’m a rude obnoxious man.

There is no need to tell them. They are both well aware of that fact.

Okay, give me my hundred dollars back, and I’m out of here. I’ll find another fortune-teller. One who is smarter, far more considerate, and a lot younger looking.

Did you not read the fine print?

What fine print?

No refunds, it is written above the wheel well, the one near the right rear tire. Without a magnifying glass, it is difficult to read.

"Cut the jokes. It’s eight in the evening and I’ve got a long drive back ahead of me.

I never joke.

He couldn’t let a hundred-year-old woman outsmart him. Besides, he doubted anyone at the TV station would drive to Zelda’s remote location and ask her what she’d told him, which brought him back to thinking about LeAnn. He decided to throw something out to get the palm reader back on track.

The reason I didn’t get married is because I haven’t found a woman I thought I could stay in love with for the rest of my life.

Like I said, you’re an idiot.

Would you get off the idiot kick, and move on to something else?

She gazed at him and said, You did not get married because you are afraid to be a father.

How could