From Herring to Eternity Read Online Free Page A

and a matching cotton cloak. This was not a woman who went anywhere anonymously.
    She came through the restaurant like a slow-moving squall, oblivious to the unoccupied tables she nudged aside by her passage. She pulled back the seat across from Mad, sat, turned toward A.J., and raised her hand.
    A.J. was behind the counter filling sugar containers. She looked at me. It wasn’t an imploring look, it was a “this is yours, honey” look.
    I went over with pen and pad at the ready.
    “Raisin Bran, please, with extra raisins,” the woman said before I had arrived. “And ham and eggs and coffee. White bread toast, extra butter on the side.”
    “Will that be all?” I asked.
    I wasn’t being facetious and hoped the woman didn’t take it that way. I asked that of every customer.
    She didn’t seem to take the remark ironically. “Yes, thank you,” she said with a little wink of her tattooed eye. Unlike someone who could wiggle their ears, this was a skill the woman had to have trained for. And not, I suspected, for secular showboating in public places.
    The rest of my staff was coming back inside as I handed the order to Luke. Even he—who ate too much of every bad thing—scowled at this one. I stayed behind the counter to stack the clean coffee cups.
    “It’s true,” Thom said gravely. “Lippy’s dead, poor guy. K-Two has been taken into custody.”
    “I heard her tell the cops she didn’t hit him hard enough to do killin’ damage,” Raylene said. “She said he blew his horn in her ear as she passed and she just reacted.”
    “Maybe he hit his head,” Thom suggested—just as she turned and saw Mad’s companion. “Ginnifer?”
    The big woman looked over. “Thomasina?”
    Thom hurried over and threw her arms around the upper half of the new arrival, who had made a heroic effort to stand but ultimately remained seated. “Ginnifer, what are you doing back in Nashville?”
    “Oh, just call it an impulse,” she said. “Visit with some friends. How have you been? Still at the same church?”
    “Still at Baptist,” Thom said, stepping back. “Nothing changes in my life.”
    “Be grateful for that,” the big woman said.
    “You still in Atlanta?” Thom asked. “With that—that fella?”
    “Fred, the Luciferian? No, that was just a ‘thing.’ I’ve been in New Orleans for five years now.”
    “Great town! What do you do there?”
    “I give all kinds of palm readings in the French Quarter.”
    “How many kinds are there?” Thom asked. “Like, for people and dogs and cats?”
    “Just people, dear.” Smiling sweetly, Ginnifer took Thom’s left hand gently in her right and held it palm up. She turned with surprising grace and raised her thick left index finger. ”There’s chiromancy, which is the reading of lines,” she said as she teasingly traced a delicate path along Thom’s skin. Then she opened her own left hand and lightly grasped the sides of Thom’s hand from above. “Next there’s chirognomy, a divining form that uses the shape of the hand and fingers to see into the future. And, finally, I use dermatoglyphics, the study of fingerprints.” She touched the tip of her index finger to Thom’s own.
    Thom snapped her hand back as though she’d been burned. It took a moment for her to recover her poise.
    “I see,” Thom said. “So—you make a living at that?”
    “Lord yes,” Ginnifer said. “Folks do things on vacation they would never spend money on at home. And then there are the devout locals. People walk past palmistry shops in Nashville every day. But in New Orleans, the city of mystery—it’s very different there.”
    Bending, Thom gave her old acquaintance a brief parting hug and returned to the cash register. Her eyes were a little bit wide and her mouth was a lot open. Thomasina looked as though she’d seen a g-g-ghost, as the old cartoon used to say.
    “That was very strange,” Thom whispered. “Almost like she was trying to seduce me.”
    “I noticed. Who