"We were just watching you on television!" Ingrid said, unlocking the door to the back office.
Corky Hutchinson gave her a wry smile. "I'm on a break. I don't have to be back at the station until the four o'clock news this afternoon." The mayor's wife was a glamour girl, and her features were heavily made up and exaggerated for the camera. She looked out of place in the drab surroundings.
"Are you here for a consultation?" Ingrid asked. "I'm sorry but I have to ask you to return tomorrow, as I only do those between noon and one."
"I know, your girl told me." Corky sniffed. "But I'm hoping you could make an exception."
Ingrid frowned. She knew this was going to happen eventually. There would always be people like Corky Hutchinson who thought they were too good to wait in line. She also didn't like how Corky called Tabitha her "girl"; Tab wasn't a secretary. But Ingrid knew that women like Corky Hutchinson, with their BlackBerrys and their overstuffed schedules, did not like taking "no" for an answer. "Just this once, I suppose. Come on in," Ingrid said. "So do they know what that thing is yet?"
"They're still not sure. It's been sent to a couple of labs. There was a similar case out in the Pacific a few months ago, near the Sydney harbor. And the same thing happened in Greenland, apparently. The same symptoms: dead fish, some kind of poison in the water - decimated most of the local whale population. Underwater volcanic activity, but they weren't sure."
"Curious," Ingrid said. She dimly recalled reading about it as well but had not paid much attention. "Anyway, I know you didn't come in here to talk about that. How can I help you?" She knew a little about Corky. She and the mayor made quite the power couple. Their wedding had been the social event of the year, and when he was elected there was a five-page spread in a glossy magazine about their romance.
Corky hesitated then blurted, "I think Todd's cheating on me."
Ingrid wasn't surprised. The sisters sometimes gossiped about the secrets they discovered about the people they knew, and Freya had told her that the mayor had been a lot more intimate with his computer than his wife lately. It didn't make Ingrid feel any better to know salacious facts about her enemy, and in the past few weeks she had thought of Todd Hutchinson as nothing less than her greatest nemesis. The proposal to sell the library property to raise public funds would be voted on by the city council by the end of the summer. It was on the table, and as far as Blake Aland was concerned, it was already a done deal. He had come by with his assistants the other day, measuring exactly where the wrecking ball would hit.
Ingrid tried to appear neutral. No matter who Corky Hutchinson's husband was, the woman was entitled to the same service from Ingrid as anyone else. "Why would you think that?" she asked.
"All the usual stuff. He works late. He comes home and smells like perfume. He doesn't answer his cell phone when I call, and when I ask him about it he has all these excuses. He changed the passwords on all his e-mail accounts. His voice mail, too. I checked," she said bitterly. "I was on camera all weekend because of this disaster and didn't hear from him once."
"What would you like me to do about it?" Ingrid asked.
"I don't care about the affairs. I don't want to confront him. I don't really want to get into it. I just want - I just want him back. I want him home with me. I know I've been working a lot, not just this week, but all year. But still, I don't deserve this. I love my husband. And I think he still loves me. I brought this." She thrust a paper bag in Ingrid's direction. "I heard you have to bring . . . hair . . . for the . . . whatever you do. The knots." The mayor's wife exhaled. "I mean, it's probably just some kind of voodoo and I should really just deal with it myself but, whatever."
Ingrid accepted the bag. For a moment she wanted to tell her to go away, that she couldn't do anything to help her. She found it odd that a woman like Corky Hutchinson - glamorous, confident, aggressive - would decide to solve her husband's infidelity by consulting a witch. Corky wasn't the type. She was the type to throw her knowledge of her husband's infidelity right in his face and have a screaming match. Followed by passionate makeup sex if they were lucky. Freya would know more about that.
She wasn't sure helping her was the right thing to do, especially since Corky Hutchinson had used the v word - voodoo - which meant she thought very little of Ingrid's talents. But she also knew that a go-getter like Corky would not leave Ingrid's office until she got what she came for. What could it hurt? Maybe if the mayor's home life was happy he would stop trying to sell the library from under her. Ingrid opened the bag and went to work, creating a little knot from Todd's hair, weaving it together with a thread from his wife's blouse that Ingrid had surreptitiously taken when she'd shaken her hand. She put the knot in a tiny velvet pouch and handed the little talisman to the mayor's wife. "Put this under your mattress. It will keep him from straying, and you will have him all to yourself from now on. It will keep him home, like you want. But you've got to put in the time as well. If you're not at home enough, the power of the knot will fade."
Corky nodded. "How much?" she asked as she opened her pocketbook.
"I only ask for a donation to the library fund," Ingrid said. "Whatever you think you can spare, we would very much appreciate."
"Is that all?" Corky laughed as she wrote the check. "You don't really know much about people, do you?"
Ingrid felt an instant dislike for the arrogant news anchor. She probably should not have helped her with the knot. Well, it would keep the mayor from straying but it wouldn't keep him there for long if his wife did not do anything to help him stay. She thought of that lavish six-page spread on Todd and Corky Hutchinson's fabulous new life in the local glossy. They had been bursting with happiness and love. People who were so shiny that Ingrid could not help but feel just a tiny bit jealous, the way the magazine wanted you to feel - that there were people in your midst who were living more glamorous and important lives than you could ever imagine. How funny that the truth was never quite that perfect. You never knew about people, she mused. Marriage was like the surface of an ocean, seemingly placid and serene above; yet if you weren't careful, seething and raging with underground earthquakes below.