Saying that made me a little queasy. Would winning have mattered enough to one of them that he or she resorted to murder? It did seem unlikely. In fact it seemed ridiculous. Because wouldn’t a normal person assume that a murder would bring the whole contest to a screeching halt?
I turned to Lorenzo. “Why does a guy decide to become a drag queen?”
“That’s a big question,” said Miss Gloria, patting his hand. “He’s going to need another cup of tea. Is there dessert?”
“I bought some cookies at Coles Peace,” I said and got up to put the kettle back on. I filled a plate with the mango triangles, coconut almond macaroons, brownies, and oatmeal raisin cookies, and brought it to the table along with a fresh pot of tea.
“That looks like death to my waistline,” said Lorenzo, as he stroked my rumbling Evinrude, who was now draped across his lap like a striped cummerbund.
He went on: “It is a big question. And probably as many answers as there are queens. Some of us just want to make a living. I’ve met some who had a terrible time as kids—they were bullied and harassed all through school. Performing fills an emptiness that was left in their lives by those negative experiences. And some of us feel pretty all dressed up and we love expressing our creativity that way.” He smiled and nibbled on one of the macaroons. “Swoon.” He patted his lips with a paper napkin. “Why do you ask?”
“Is it possible that a guy could feel trapped in that world? Desperate to rise out of it?”
Lorenzo shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know anyone who feels like that, not consciously anyway.”
I shrugged. Time to drop my improbable theory about Randy as killer. I really had not a shred of evidence to go on. One slip of someone’s tongue and that unsubstantiated rumor would be all over town.
“Who is this Rizzoli?” asked Miss Gloria.
“He owned a lot of property on the island and he had a reputation for skewing his decisions toward his own interests,” I said. “For weeks, the Citizen’s Voice column has been full of comments from town residents who sounded like they’d have been delighted to see him dead.”
“That’s awful,” said Miss Gloria. “Was he that bad?”
Lorenzo said nothing, but frowning again, he glanced at his watch. “This has been so lovely. You ladies have cheered up a perfectly gloomy day. I have to be off in a minute, but I brought my cards.” He arched his carefully shaped eyebrows.
Miss Gloria’s face lit up. “Oh would you? I’ve never had a reading. How does this work?”
“You shuffle the cards, and that sends your energy into the reading. I simply deal them out and talk about what I see.” He touched a finger to his nose. “And trust me”—he shrugged as if she might not believe him—“what comes out of my mouth amazes me on my side of the table as much as it amazes you. Sometimes the universe is trying to get a message through to someone and they aren’t getting it. But then the cards make it real.”
We finished clearing the table. I clattered the dishes into the sink, then shook out the paisley cloth, folded it up and put it in a drawer below the counter. Lorenzo had Miss Gloria shuffle his deck and then he dealt three cards out on the pink Formica—he turned over the Death card, the Wheel of Fortune, and the Four of Wands.
I couldn’t help flinching when I saw the knight on a horse stepping over a dead body, but Miss Gloria didn’t seem to realize that she’d drawn death. I took my friend’s hand and squeezed. Lorenzo smiled reassuringly and then looked deep into Miss Gloria’s eyes.
“The first card represents the conflicts in your past,” he said to her, and placed one of his hands on hers. “People get frightened when they see that they’ve chosen the Death card, but it shouldn’t be taken at face value. Probably you’ve had some conflict rooted in a time of intense change. And most people don’t like change. But if we look at this card the way a child looks at death, it means change—and change can offer a time of positive transformation.”
Miss Gloria pressed her palms together and blinked. “Last year my son began to insist I move to an old people’s home near him in Michigan. I know he only wanted the best for me. He wanted to be near enough to help if I had medical problems—or needed anything. But he didn’t understand that I would have dried up and died if I had to spend the last years of my life in a nursing home.”
She glanced around the living area, eyes bright with tears. “All my treasured memories are here. Hayley saved the day on that one when she agreed to move in.”