by Jane Hinchey
I straightened, leaning on the rake. "But I can afford a gardener," I pointed out.
"That may well be the case dear, but this"—she waved a hand at me—"screams poverty." I stiffened at the thinly veiled insult. Yes, my jeans weren't designer label, and my T-shirt was from Target. So what? And how she collated me doing the gardening to mean I was poverty-stricken was beyond me.
"Actually I'm glad I got you." I smiled sweetly. "I was hoping to ask you about your nephew, Brett."
She blanched and clutched her pearls. "I have nothing to say about that boy." With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared into her house, no doubt to polish her silverware. Or pearls. Or whatever it was she did with her time when she wasn't busy spying on her neighbors.
I continued to rake the lawn, despite it being entirely unnecessary, while I pondered the riddle of Brett Baxter. Given Mrs. Hill's reaction when I mentioned him, maybe she hadn't pressured Ben to take his case after all. I'd have to wait for Ben to return from visiting with his dad before I could discuss it with him. Not that he remembered the details, but simply talking it over out loud would give me some insight. Which reminded me. Had Thor turned up yet? I'd just returned the rake and was preparing to put my Chrysler in the garage when Mrs. Hill's front door opened and she stepped outside.
"Audrey, dear," she called with a little wave. I stopped on the driveway and watched as she hurried across the lawn. "I've considered what you said and I may possibly have been too hasty. Perhaps you'd like to come in for a cup of tea and I'll tell you what you want to know?" I blinked in shock. Mrs. Hill being nice and inviting me in for tea?
"Ummm. Okay, yes. Sure," I stuttered, totally thrown. Wiping my palms on the seat of my jeans, I followed her across to her front door.
"Take your shoes off, dear."
"My shoes?"
"Yes, dear. We don't want you leaving a scuff mark, do we? She looked pointedly at my feet and I sighed, toeing off my shoes to leave them on the doormat. She tsked dramatically, bent and lined them up with perfect precision. "You know I found the best way not to leave scuff marks is to only wear leather." I glanced at my ten-dollar canvas shoes. Definitely not leather.
"Tea?" She smiled sweetly and beckoned me to follow her to the kitchen. Her house was everything I'd expected. It smelt like lavender and beeswax. Doilies abounded, and vases with flowers adorned every room. A scrambling scratching noise on the floorboards heralded Percy's arrival. The rotund pug waggled his way down the hallway with great excitement, sniffing and snuffling around my ankles, licking the top of my foot and making me giggle.
"Hey there, Percy," I greeted him, ruffling the top of his head.
"Percival," Mrs. Hill corrected.
"Sure." I shrugged. I didn't mention that Percy's claws were probably scuffing her floors more than my shoes ever could have. I followed her into her kitchen. Her house had a vastly different layout to Ben's. Where his was an open plan with big comfy sofas and an overall casual style, hers was a cottage, with a very feminine vibe. Florals and lace was the theme throughout, and rather than open-plan she had a separate living room, dining room, and kitchen. Floral curtains hung from the window and the countertops were adorned with a collection of miniature figurines—mostly pugs. I stood awkwardly while she put a whistling tea kettle to boil on the stovetop and lifted down a royal blue teapot.
"Why don't you make yourself comfortable in the dining room, dear, rather than hovering over me, hmmm?"
I nodded and brushed past her. Her kitchen was galley style, with a door either end. The dining room was dominated by an oval table with a lace tablecloth and a huge vase of flowers in the center. The windows overlooked her back garden, although you couldn't see much due to the heavy lace curtain obscuring the view. Taking a seat, I fiddled with the tablecloth, wondering what had made her change her mind and invite me in for tea. It was so out of character for her. Although to be fair, I didn't really know her, just that when we first met she didn't seem to like or approve of me and we'd continued to butt heads ever since. Maybe because we were going to be neighbors she'd had a change of heart. And maybe I should take a leaf out of her book and make an effort.
"Sugar cookie?" she called from the kitchen. "I baked them myself."
"Oh. Errr. Sure." Okay, this was weird. I felt like I was in an alternate universe. My toes curled against the rug on the floor and I glanced around, a sense of unease settling over me. I wished Ben were here to lend moral support. An old fashioned wind-up clock sat on the dark wood dresser pushed up against the wall, its ticking the only other sound aside from Mrs. Hill bustling around in the kitchen.
"You want to know about my nephew?" She appeared carrying a tray, two cups complete with saucers, and a small plate with scalloped edges that held an artful array of sugar cookies.
"If that's okay?" I felt like I was on the back foot and I watched her shrewdly, wondering if that had been her intention. For I was on her home turf now, she had the upper hand.
"It depends on what you want to know, dear."
I took a cookie and nibbled on it. "I've inherited Ben's business, along with his house, and he'd recently taken Brett on as a client," I explained.
She stiffened for a nanosecond before busying herself setting out the teacups. "Oh?"
"Well...Brett's case is somewhat...fanciful, I guess you could call it. I'm surprised Ben agreed to take him on as a client at all."
"Brett is a conspiracy theorist." She sniffed. She may as well have said drug dealer for all the disdain in her voice.
"Conspiracies? Such as?" Elbows on the table, I leaned forward.
"He thinks everyone who works at the hotel is Illuminati." She straightened the floral apron around her waist. I only just noticed she was wearing one, it blended that well with her dress.
"Illuminati? As in the secret group? The one that is supposedly set to create a new world order?"
She shrugged. "I really don't know who or what the Illuminati is, my dear, some sort of group, yes, I suppose so."
I frowned, picturing the pins on Brett's wall.
"He also believes that a UFO really did crash in Roswell in the forties and that the aliens on board—along with their spacecraft—are being held at Area 51." He wasn't alone in that theory, plenty of people thought that. The shrill whistle of the kettle boiling negated further conversation, but I heard Mrs. Hill say something about reptilians as she bustled back into the kitchen to finish making the tea. I chewed on the sugar cookie shaped like a Christmas tree as I digested what she'd told me.
22
The tea, when I took a sip, was incredibly bitter and I couldn't help my reaction. My face screwed up like I'd sucked a lemon.
"Sugar?" Mrs. Hill had taken a seat opposite me after pouring us both a cup from the blue teapot that now sat between us. She pushed a crystal sugar bowl closer to me.
"Sorry." I schooled my face. "It has quite an...unusual...flavor. What sort of tea is it?" I'm not a big tea drinker, but this was nothing like the tea I'd had at the care facility when I was visiting Ben's dad.
"It's an herbal blend I made myself. From the flowers in my garden." My gaze shot to the window and the garden outside. The bitterness lingered on my tongue and I hoped whatever she'd used in the tea hadn't been laced with weed killer. I stirred in a teaspoon of sugar, and then added another just to be safe. Mrs. Hill took a sip of her own tea, so I figured the weed killer theory wouldn't hold water.
"So has Brett always been a conspiracy theorist?" I picked up the conversation from where we'd left off.
"He's always had fanciful notions." She nodded her head ever so slightly, her eyes glued on me.
"Did you know he'd asked Ben to investigate one of his theories?" I choked down another mouthful, my eyes watering. I was doing my best not to be rude, but the tea was awful. I ran my tongue over my teeth which was when I realized my face kinda felt numb.
"I did not, no." This time a slight shaking of her head. I frowned down into my teacup. I'd gulped down half the
contents when a terrible thought occurred to me. What if I were allergic to one of the ingredients? My lips were tingling, my face was numb, I was having some sort of reaction without a doubt. My heart skipped a beat. What if it spread? What if my throat closed over and I couldn't breathe? Okay, stay calm Audrey, just get yourself to hospital.
"Methers Hill?" I lisped, struggling to get the words out, "Coll bulnce."
She cocked her head. "What's that, dear? You'll have to speak more clearly. That's the problem with people today, they don't enunciate."
I stood so fast my chair tipped over, crashing to the floor, while I clutched my throat, panic sweeping through me. "Help," I croaked.
Mrs. Hill stood, stacked the cups back onto the tray and carried them back into the kitchen while I stood aghast, gasping for breath. The edges of my vision were starting to blur and finally my confused brain caught up. The tea had been poisoned. I'd been joking about the weed killer, but it seemed I had misjudged Mrs. Hill entirely. Spinning on my heel, I ran for the back door, the closest exit, only my legs wouldn't obey. What should have been a sprint was more of a shuffle. But still, I gave it a red hot go, staggering toward the door, using the walls to keep myself upright, knocking framed pictures to the floor as I tried valiantly to escape.
When my legs gave out altogether, I commando crawled, my entire body starting to go numb. I looked toward the door, only a few short feet away, but it may as well have been miles as my body succumbed to whatever it was she'd dosed me with. A shadow appeared in front of me. A small shadow. I lifted my head again, its weight getting heavier by the second, and spied Thor through the glass panel in the bottom of the door.
"Human?" He cocked his head and looked at me.
I reached out a hand toward him. "Help," I croaked before my arm dropped, followed by my head. My forehead met the floor with a thunk. I don't know if Thor heard me, or understood, and I no longer had control of the muscles in my neck, which meant I couldn't turn it and my nose was now squashed into the floor, making breathing incredibly difficult. The only silver lining was that it didn't hurt. I was numb. My entire body was numb. And paralyzed. Except I was breathing, albeit with difficulty through my squashed nose. I lay in the hall and listened as Mrs. Hill moved about, clearing up our afternoon tea, I assumed. Then her footsteps were coming my way and I was flipped onto my back.
"All numb, dear?" she asked conversationally. I blinked. Oh good. My eyelids still worked. And my lungs. Although neither of those things was going to help me get out of here and away from Mrs. Crazy Pants. Seemed Brett Baxter wasn't the only nut job in the family.
She leaned down and grabbed my ankle, her grip surprisingly strong. I was even more surprised when she began to drag me down the hallway. This woman was seventy years old. How could she possibly drag a one hundred and thirty-pound dead weight?
"If people would just learn to mind their own business," she said as she dragged me along the floor, "then this sort of thing wouldn't happen."
I blame the fact that I was drugged that it took me so long to figure it out. Of course, now that we were here, with her dragging me along totally helpless, things finally fell into place. Mrs. Hill had killed Ben. I didn't know why, yet, but it was linked to Brett. That's when she'd decided to take me out too. When I asked about her nephew. Clearly it had been a surprise to her, but she'd rallied quickly, hatched up a plan to get me into her house and ingesting poison. And it worked. I'd fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
My head ricocheted off a doorframe as she dragged me into a room near the front of the house.
"Sorry about that, dear," she apologized. I lay staring at the ceiling. It had stickers on it. They were faint, but I could just make out they were stars. She dropped my leg and left me in the center of the room. I heard the sound of curtains screeching across the rails and the room was plunged into semi-darkness. The stars on the ceiling began to glow and I blinked. Cool. I tried to remember my astronomy classes from school, wondered if the stars were a certain constellation but came up blank.
I could hear Mrs. Hill moving about to my left, then she was back, and with her foot, she turned my head until I could see whatever it was she wanted me to see. And then it all became crystal clear. There, in my line of vision, was an altar. Actually it was probably a dresser, but it was draped in a black cloth and it had candles on it, and a chalice and some other stuff I couldn't actually see from my vantage point on the floor. But what sealed the deal was what I was lying on. Etched into the floor was a pentagram—well, half of one, since I was lying right on top of it. Holy heck, Brett Baxter had been right about the witches. Had he suspected his aunt? But he hadn't mentioned her specifically when I asked him about his case, and Ben had made no mention of it in his notes. But to be fair, Ben hadn't taken any notes on Brett's case at all.
I was feeling strangely calm as I lay there and put all the pieces together. Somehow Mrs. Hill must have got wind that Ben was looking into the whole witchcraft thing and killed him before he could out her. Which was a tad extreme. I also noticed something else. The numbness pervading my body was fading and I was getting a pins and needles sensation in my fingers and face. I couldn't have gotten the full dose since I hadn't drunk all of the tea. I could only hope Mrs. Hill failed to take that into the equation.
She was flicking through a book, licking her finger and pinching the corner of each page, scanning the contents, only to lick and flick again. Eventually, she settled on a page. "Yes. That should do it," she murmured before she picked up a knife. A big, sharp-looking knife that looked strangely familiar. Was it Ben's? Of course, lying here solving the mystery of Ben's murder was one thing, but seeing that knife in her hand, the way the candlelight glinted off the blade, drove it home to me. She intended to kill me, right here, right now. I had to do something. I couldn't lie here and accept my fate so meekly. Easy enough to say if I weren't partially paralyzed. I willed the drug to leave my system faster, experimented with moving my fingers, seeing how much movement had returned, all without tipping her off. Get her talking. Distract her.
I made a garbled noise in my throat and she glanced at me, almost surprised to find me on her floor. "Oh, I suppose you’re wondering what's going on, Audrey dear?" She sounded positively friendly.
"You see, my silly nosy nephew was poking his nose in where it doesn't belong and stumbled upon this." She indicated the room we were now in. "So of course he wanted to know all about it, and wanted to join my coven. I couldn't have that. The truth is, I'm just a dabbler. I needed a hobby to keep me occupied during the winter months when the garden is dormant. And I actually got the idea from Brett himself." She laughed. "He was spouting on about his theories one Sunday at lunch and he landed on magic and witchcraft and I admit, it piqued my interest. I mean it's mostly herbs and crystals and meditation, you know? But I created a wonderful tonic for my garden. Have you seen my hyacinths this season?"
I hmmd in my throat. Keep talking, Crazy Pants. "The last thing I needed was Brett telling everyone. I mean, really? Witchcraft?" She tsked. "Then the stupid boy goes and hires my neighbor to investigate! Can you believe it? He thought I was lying about not having a coven and that brain of his, well, it just doesn't fire on all cylinders I'm afraid. So of course every woman he crossed paths with was a potential witch and he just had to know. You know?"
I knew they were both bat shit crazy. Instead, I blinked and made another murmuring noise in my throat.
"I didn't mean to kill Ben." She was examining the knife now. "I popped over to make sure he understood that what Brett had hired him for was pure nonsense. He was in the kitchen, cleaning up—such a house proud young man—and he was hand washing some cutlery he didn't want to put in the dishwasher, so I picked up the tea towel and began drying. I didn't think anything of it. And then..." She paused and I gurgled for her to continue. "I got a little agitated. He's sharp. Put two and two together straightaway and asked me outright if I was practicing witchcraft. And he kinda turned toward me and I was just so sho
cked I shoved this into his belly." She indicated the blade in her hand. "I don't know who was more surprised!" Her voice went up and she clutched at her pearls. "Me or Ben. I mean, I was aghast and I pulled the knife out and he's clutching his stomach and blood is coming out and he looks at me with this stunned expression on his face." She was silent for a moment, remembering. "But then I had a thought. I could fix him. There had to be a spell that would heal him. But he was losing a lot of blood and then I remembered I'd watched something on one of those hospital shows on television that you shouldn't take the knife out? When you have an injury with a foreign body, you should leave the object in as it could be stopping the blood flow. So I put the knife back."
I blinked. Twice. That would explain the two stab wounds. "Only that didn't go so well and blood started coming out of his mouth. I thought if I could get him to my clearing in the woods where I practice moon magic, he'd be okay, the moon would help heal him while I ran back to get my spell book. I helped him outside, he was fine, doing well actually, and we got across the lawn and then he just went down like a ton of bricks. I had to drag him the rest of the way. But we got there, and I lit the candle I keep hidden in some undergrowth and made sure a ray of moonlight was touching him and then I came back here to get my spell book." She twisted her pearls. "I don't know what went wrong." Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "Maybe I took too long? It did take me awhile to find a healing spell for such an injury. Most are spells for illnesses, not for..." She drifted off, then blinked and visibly shook. "When I went back to the clearing...he was dead."
I wanted to rant at her. I wanted to rave. Why didn't she just call him an ambulance? Why didn't she try and stop the bleeding with the tea towel and not shove the knife back into him? She could have saved him! My eyes filled with tears and I blinked hard to dispel them. It was pointless. His death was pointless.
Mrs. Hill pulled herself together and narrowed her eyes at me. "Anyway," she said with a sniff, "what's done is done and it cannot be undone."