He sat down and unfolded his napkin. He was suddenly aware that Rhoda was staring at him.
"Is everything all right?" he asked her. "I don't have salsa on my chin, do I?"
"No, no, everything's fine." Although she still looked as if she had seen something that disturbed her.
"I could eat an elephant," Hicks said, rubbing his hands in relish.
Rhoda said, "Would you like to say grace, Lieutenant?" "Hey, please. Call me Decker."
Rhoda gave him the tightest of smiles. "Decker," she repeated.
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"Are you sure everything's okay?" he asked her. She definitely looked uneasy.
"Yes. Great. I've had a busy day with Daisy, that's all."
Decker clasped his hands together and closed his eyes. He hesitated for a moment and then he said, "Oh, Lord, thank You for this food, and thank You for bringing us together to share it. We pray for Your guidance and Your protection, and most of all we pray that You open our eyes so that we can see our way to bring justice to those who cry out for it."
"Amen," Hicks said, looking at him in surprise.
"What?" Decker said.
"It was just that—well, that was quite some prayer."
Decker helped himself to a chicken thigh. "I'm not embarrassed to call on the Almighty for extra assistance. Just like I'm not embarrassed to call on the FBI."
"Wine?" Hicks asked. "It's only Wal-Mart Red, I'm afraid."
"Sure, why not? This chicken is great, Rhoda. Just like my mother can't make. She can never get the fried to stay on the chicken."
They ate and drank in silence for a while. Decker noticed that Rhoda didn't seem to have much of an appetite. She prodded at her potatoes but never actually ate any of them.
"Not hungry?" he asked her.
She looked up and said, "How's it going? This investigation?"
"Well, I don't usually like to talk shop at the supper table, but we're following up one or two interesting leads. Hicks here—Tim—he's had some very creative ideas."
Rhoda put down her fork. "It's just that—ever since Tim came home last week and said that you'd been assigned to the Maitland homicide, I've had a really strange feeling."
"Rhoda?" Hicks said, with his mouth full. "You never told me nothing about this."
"I didn't want to upset you, that's all."
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"I know you've been under the weather, but I thought that was just because you were homesick."
"What kind of a feeling?" Decker asked.
"Maybe it's stupid, but I keep thinking that something really terrible is going to happen."
"Something terrible like what?" Hicks asked her, frowning.
"It's hard to describe. I've had a feeling that lots more people are going to die, and that Tim's in danger. I didn't want to tell him, because I know it's his job and I didn't want him to be looking over his shoulder all the time just because of me and some fool premonition."
Hicks said, "Honey . . . you should have said something. Nothing's going to happen to me, you know that."
"I keep trying to tell myself that, but the feeling won't go away. It's like—I don't know—it's like when you're lying in the dark and you think there's something in the room with you. Something that wants to do you harm."
Decker took hold of her hand. "Rhoda—these homicides we're investigating, they're very unusual and they're very scary. You're bound to feel frightened, it's only natural. You think that I'm not frightened? But we're well trained and we're well armed and we believe that we could be making some progress. Tim and me, we're going to catch this guy, whoever he is, and then you won't have anything more to be frightened about."
Rhoda shook her head. "It's not like any feeling I've ever had before. It's like a real dread. And when we sat down tonight I had it again, only much, much stronger, and I still have it now. I can't ignore it, Lieutenant. It's like a kind of darkness, all around us, and I'm scared."
"When you say darkness—"
"It's real. I can see it. It isn't my imagination. I can see it now, all around us, and it's especially dark around you. It's like there's a shadow falling across you."
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Hicks put down the chicken leg he had been eating and sat back in his chair. He said, as if he were admitting that there was hereditary weak-mindedness in the family, "Rhoda's grandmother, Rhoda's mother, Rhoda . . . they all claim to be sensitives."
"Sensitives? You mean like mediums?"
"Kind of like that, yes. They say they can sense a storm coming, or when somebody's going to die. They say they can hear voices from the spirit world."
"And this is what you're feeling now?" Decker asked her.
Rhoda nodded. "It's so strong it's like standing in the ocean when the tide's pulling out and you think that you're going to get dragged away."
"Do you have any idea what could be causing it?"
"I don't know. But I started to feel it on the day that Alison Maitland was killed. I felt it even before Tim came home and told me about it."
She hesitated, twisting her napkin, and then she said, "I heard a noise in the nursery and I went up to make sure that Daisy was okay. There's a long mirror on the landing and as I came up the stairs I saw somebody. Only for a split second. But it was like the mirror was an open doorway instead of a mirror and somebody walked across it, so quick that I couldn't see who it was."
Hicks said, "Honey . . . the lieutenant's right. This is a really gruesome case and you're letting your imagination run away with you."
"But this happened before I even knew about it."
"Come on, honey, what you saw in the mirror, it was a trick of the light." Hicks stood up and put his arm around her. "There was nobody there, was there?"
"I saw somebody, I swear it."
"And how about this darkness that's falling on me?" Decker asked. "Can you still see that?"
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"It's not just the Maitland case. It's something that happened to you a long time ago. Something that you never allow yourself to remember."
"What, specifically? Do you have any idea?"
"I'm not sure. I'd have to do a reading to find that out." "Oh, come on," Hicks protested. "The lieutenant came here for supper, not for mumbo jumbo."
"No, I'm interested," Decker said. "What kind of a reading ?"
"I can use an okuele."
"An okuele?"
"Jesus," Hicks said, burying his head in his hands.
Rhoda got up from the table and went across to a small side table. She took out a carefully wrapped package of purple tissue paper. She laid it on the table and opened it up. Inside lay what looked like a necklace, eight tortoiseshell medallions connected together by a dull metal chain.
"My grandmother taught me to use it. It's like the tarot except that it explains the past as well as the future, and it's much more personal than the tarot. Through the okuele, the spirits prompt you to tell them what's troubling you, instead of the other way around."
Hicks sat down and stared at his half-eaten supper. "I don't believe this. All I wanted was fried chicken and what do I get? Ghostbusters."
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CHAPTER TWENTY
Rhoda cleared the table and spread a plain white cloth on it. Hicks stood on the opposite side of the kitchen with his arms folded, looking deeply unhappy. Decker said, "I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean to spoil your supper. I'm not sure that I believe in this dark shadow any more than you do, but there must be some reason that Rhoda feels so strongly about it."
"I guess."
"There's another thing . . . Sandra said she had a premonition, too. She said she really believed that something bad's about to happen."