Drop Dead Sexy(66)

The Granny Witch led us across the worn hardwood floor and motioned for us to have a seat on a lumpy looking couch with a seventies design. I couldn’t help stopping to wonder how the hell furniture was delivered out here.

“My name’s Holden Mains. What’s yours?”

“Olive Thornhill.”

I smiled. “What a small world. My name is Olivia.”

Olive didn’t seem to appreciate the similarities of our names quite like I had. She eased down into a creaky rocking chair next to the fire. “When did Randy die?”

“He was found three days ago.”

After nodding, Olive asked, “So what happened to him?”

“He was poisoned,” Catcher answered. I tried to hide my surprise at his response. I figured he must be playing some kind of mind game with her to see what kind of information he could get.

“Why you lie to me boy?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and I both know Randy wasn’t pizened. He was shot.” Of course, it took me a minute to decode pizened in her dialect to mean poisoned.

Catcher shot straight up off the couch. “How could you have possibly known that?”

Olive narrowed her eyes at him. “I done tole ya I seen it in the tea leaves.”

As the hair on my arms tweaked up, I started to feel like Catcher and I had stumbled into an episode of the Twilight Zone. I mean, it wasn’t like we hadn’t already experienced weird with Randy and two dicks, not to mention crazy snake handlers.

After swiping his hand across his face, Catcher eased back down on the sofa. “Do excuse my doubt, Mrs. Thornhill. I’ve been a GBI agent for eight years, and I have yet to ever come across anyone who read tea leaves.”

A pleased smile crept on Olive’s face. “That’s ‘cause it’s a dyin’ art. Not everyone has the gift, and if you do, you has to be acceptin’ of it.”

“The tea leaves actually showed you Randy?” I asked curiously.

“It showed me an ‘R’ with a dagger. The dagger in tea leaves means harm, so I figured harm was a comin’ to Randy.”

“Fascinating,” I murmured.

Olive cocked her brows at me. “You two want a reading?”

Catcher and I exchanged a glance. Call me a pansy, but I was scared to death of what the bottom of Olive’s tea cup might reveal. Thankfully, Catcher let us both off the hook when he said, “We better stick to the facts involving Randy’s murder.”

“Whatever,” Olive replied as she shifted in her rocking chair. “But before I answer anymore questions, I wanna know how you knew about me.”

“One of Randy’s clients said he once referenced getting some of his knowledge from the Granny Witch.”

Olive shook her head. “Randy shoulda knowed better than to be runnin’ his mouth about me. I tole him what we did was to be a secret. Our knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous. You’d a thought with him drinkin’ an antidote for poison on a daily basis fer twenty-five years he woulda knowd that better than anyone.”

“Why would he have the need to take a poison preventative?” Catcher asked.

“Because he was afraid of being pizened,” Olive answered matter-of-factly like Catcher was the biggest dumbass in the world not to know that.

Catcher leaned forward on the couch. “Excuse me for it not being obvious, Mrs. Thornhill, but why would anyone need to take an antidote every day?”

“Randy needed it cuz he feared the man who was a lookin’ for him might try to pizen him.”

“Randy had someone after him?”

Olive nodded. “Fir over twenty-five years.” She shifted in the rocking chair, causing the wood to groan. “I guess I better start at the beginnin’.”

“That would be good,” Catcher said.

“Randy grew up down the mountain in town. His daddy was the president of the bank, and his mama owned the dress shop. They done way better than most families after Dubya Dubya Two. When he was seventeen, his daddy done fell over dead at his desk from a heart attack. Five years later, Randy’s mama got the cancer. That’s when Randy come to see me.”

“He wanted you to cast a spell to cure his mother?” I asked.

Olive scowled at me. “Girlie, Imma God fearin’ woman. I ain’t never cast no spells.”

I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. It’s just since they call you Granny Witch, I assumed you did some kind of witchcraft.”

She gave a disappointed shake of her head. “You sure got yur idies messed up ‘bout what a Granny Witch is. We practice hillfolk hoodoo, not voodoo. Ain’t no spells cast.”

“Forgive my ignorance, but just what is hoodoo?” Catcher asked.

“Fir starters, it ain’t no dark magic or tied to a religion. It’s about usin’ the gifts of the earth that God give us. It’s been passed down from generation to generation, and it come over with our ancestors from Ireland and Scotland. Then it got mixed in a little when we were a intermarryin’ with the Tsalgi’s.”

“The who?” I asked.

“The Cherokees.”

I nodded. “Ah. I see. So it’s a cross-cultural thing.”

“I guess you could say that. Anyways, when Randy come to see me, I’s able to make a yarb for his mama that give her another year. But I ain’t the good Lord, so I couldn’t save her.”