Dead Witch on a Bridge

by Gretchen Galway

  Birdie laughed. “Oh, you’re smitten, aren’t you? He peed all over, and you still let him sleep on your bed.”

  “I know, right?” I glanced at the clock. “So, what brings you by? I kind of need to get back to cleaning up this mess.”

  “Sure, sure, of course.” She grabbed the envelope from under her arm and held it up. “I have pictures of Tristan. Livia said you were collecting pictures for the memorial, and I had a few I thought you might look at. They’re probably not good enough but—”

  “Great, thanks. I’ll scan them in. I haven’t even started working on that yet.” I washed and dried my hands before I took the envelope from her. “Why did you have pictures of Tristan?”

  “You might not want them. You’ll probably find better ones. Somebody dropped them off at the store.”

  “Somebody just dropped them off? Why there?”

  Birdie shrugged. “We’re kind of like the unofficial community center. Biggest building and business in town, right on Main Street. Everyone uses our bulletin board. I figured Livia put the word out that the memorial would need pictures.”

  I pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten portrait of Tristan in full glamour, clean-shaven and well-dressed, smiling at the camera. Just like last week, he was blond and handsome with perfect teeth and held a wineglass in his hand. Bottles of Silverpool’s finest vintage were artfully arranged beside him.

  “It looks like an old head shot,” I said, peering more closely at the bottles. “Those labels aren’t in production anymore. I think that one is from twenty, maybe twenty-five years ago.”

  “Huh. He ages well, doesn’t he?” Birdie asked. “Until he died, I mean.”

  “Until then, yeah.” I realized I shouldn’t have dated the photograph, drawing attention to the fact that Tristan hadn’t visibly aged five years since then. “Maybe he took old bottles out of storage for the shot. Anyway, this is great. Thank you so much.”

  “There’s another one,” she said. “A candid.”

  I reached under the eight-by-ten and found a strip of black-and-white pictures from a photo booth. Tristan’s companion was a giant stuffed teddy bear with plastic saucer eyes and a glittery bow tie, like the kind they gave away at carnivals. He and the bear were both smiling, as if the date was going really well.

  In this one Tristan looked more ordinary and relaxed in just a T-shirt. He was unshaven, a little scruffy.

  “I wonder who took this one,” I said. “She must’ve hidden it from him.”

  “Why do you say that? How do you know it was a she?”

  “Look at his face,” I said. “He doesn’t look like that when he’s with other guys. That’s a man who just got some, probably more than once and only got out of bed to make her happy.”

  Birdie took the picture from me and stared at it. “Oh,” she said.

  “He looks like he just rolled out of bed and hasn’t shaved or had a shower yet. He hated to be caught unprepared.” I thought about his ugly death on the bridge, how much it would’ve bothered him, how much it surely did bother him, and felt tears well in my eyes.

  I turned aside, clearing my throat. “Thanks again. I’ll stop by the store myself and see if anything else gets dropped off.”

  Birdie hesitated. “I have some floor cleaner that’s got a nice lemon scent…”

  “It’s late. You go home. Don’t worry yourself about my stinky house.” I ushered her to the door. “I’ve got it under control. Thanks again!”

  I closed the door before she could argue and got back to work. After I coated the floors with pee, I had some acacia branches that needed boiling and shaping.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A text message from Jasper just after dawn woke me from a deep sleep. Random was still groggy at the foot of the bed, although he did peek at me out from under one heavy eyelid when I jumped up to get my phone.

  Jasper knew I wasn’t a morning person and would only send a text this early if it was urgent.

  Phoebe and older guy on their way to your house right now.

  Older guy? My first thought was that it had to be Thomas Lorne. But surely the big cheese himself wouldn’t make the trip to Silverpool…

  Sure he would. A precious amulet was missing, and Tristan was dead. Even an incompetent director of a minor Protectorate satellite would step out of his office and travel a few miles for that.

  I jogged to the bathroom to wash up, then threw on some clothes and raced around the house, locking up my beads, hiding my staff, cleaning up my dirty clothes, putting out guest towels and fresh soap.

  Thank Brightness I’d already put away all my spell ingredients from the night before. After Birdie had dropped by, I’d gotten paranoid about other surprise visitors asking me about my unusual floor wash or the nasty-smelling incense with its faint hint of prickly pear, so I’d tidied up a little.

  The smell lingered, however, so I set out bowls of lavender and gardenia blossoms and stuck a loaf of bread in the oven. It seemed to help. I didn’t want Lorne to think I lazed about, wallowing in my own filth, peeing on myself.

  Then again, why not? What did I care what that jerk thought of me? After they canned me, why would I still be trying to impress that overpaid windbag?

  Because I couldn’t help it. I was still human. Magically gifted, but human.

  I opened the back door, sent a warm, safe thought to Willy, and walked across the yard to find one of the last suggestions Helen had made before sending me home. It had been too dark to find one last night, but in daylight it was easy. I was just tucking the oak leaf into my bra, smoothing it over my left breast, when I heard them arrive.

  I closed my eyes and reached out to the new spells I’d cast around my hearth and home. I sensed the power humming along like an electric engine, quiet but strong, steady. It had been worth giving Helen a vial of springwater for what she’d taught me. My defenses were at least twice what they had been. And now I felt a sizzle of active, aggressive energy that hadn’t been there before.

  I smiled. Come and get it.

  “She doesn’t use the front door,” Phoebe was saying from the front yard. “We’ll have to walk around to the back.”

  Standing in the middle of my patio with the oak leaf over my heart, I waited for them to appear and wondered how Phoebe knew which door I used.

  “Hi, Tommy,” I said. “Phoebe. So nice of you to drop by.”

  Thomas Lorne, my former boss, stopped walking and shot an annoyed glance at Phoebe. “I didn’t think she would be expecting us.”

  “I didn’t tell her.” Phoebe didn’t look as surprised as Lorne to find me waiting for them, and I wondered if she’d told Jasper and if he’d get in trouble with her for texting me. For all his sarcasm, I thought he’d love to be included more in Protectorate business.

  “Won’t you come in?” I gestured to the kitchen door. If it still smelled like a subway station elevator, I’d blame it on the dog again.

  “We have important matters to discuss,” Lorne said.

  Because I would be even more powerful inside the house—and them weaker for being under my roof—I invited them into my kitchen.

  “Canned coffee?” I asked. “I can warm it up if you like.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Phoebe snapped. “Answer Mage Lorne’s questions.”

  “He hasn’t asked any yet,” I said.

  Lorne turned to me and gazed at me with the hard, tense-jawed look that suggested he was attempting a verity spell. “Did you know the Protector Tristan Price was dead before the car hit him?”

  “No,” I said. The power in my body matched the notes of the spells singing in my floorboards. I could’ve told him I was Genghis Kahn, and he would’ve believed me.

  “The nonmag police have lost interest,” Lorne said. “They’ve ruled the cause of death a heart attack. He was run over later. The only crime, they believe, was in not reporting the collision. They’re not looking for a murderer, just whoever fled the scene. They’re convinced he was walking
at night near his home, collapsed on a dark road. A small SUV, possibly a Jeep, ran over his corpse.”

  “We’ve noticed what you drive,” Phoebe said.

  “Half the town drives compact SUVs,” I said. “Probably more.”

  “The Protectorate is trying to get nonmag officials to forget everything,” Lorne said, “but they have the body, so the wisest step is to let procedure run its course. Police have too much to do to chase down a car who ran over a dead body in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Then again,” Phoebe said, “if the person driving the car was also the only known living relative of an infamous thief on the same night a precious object was stolen, then the accidental death seems not so accidental.”

  “Your father is talented with telekinesis, is he not?” Lorne tried to use his verity spell on me again, and the effort was making his eyes bug out. “A simple matter of aorta manipulation would look like natural causes.”

  “My father is not a murderer,” I said. The hairs on my arms stood at attention, drawing from the magic laced through the wood frame of my house, the earth around my property, the oak leaf over my heart. “If you suspect my Jeep of running him over, then you should suspect me, not him.”

  Phoebe smiled. “Come now. We know better than anyone you’re incapable of that. You were let go for a reason.”

  “You don’t have to take the blame for that man any longer,” Lorne said. “You’re obviously a soft, gentle soul, and he’s been able to bend you to his Shadows since the day you were born. We don’t blame you.”

  “We pity you, but we don’t blame you,” Phoebe added.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “The timing of the theft of the torc on the night of Tristan’s death is too perfect,” Lorne said. “It cannot be a coincidence.”

  “My father is not a murderer,” I repeated, this time lacing my words with the force of my new protective spells. “If you suggest such a thing again, you’ll be forced to leave.”

  Did they hear the crackling in the air as I spoke? It was like the sound of thin ice breaking.

  “Your father has committed more crimes than you know,” Lorne said. “For the torc I’m sure he’d commit another—”

  Suddenly he clasped his throat, unable to speak. I heard another sliver of ice break. My hands began to shake.

  “Out,” I said. “Get out.”

  The door flew open of its own accord and sucked Lorne through it, as if the vacuum of space had claimed an astronaut from a broken space ship.

  “You can’t—” Phoebe began, but then she was tipped onto her side and propelled headfirst through the doorway, a dainty cannonball with her mouth spread open in a silent scream.

  Crackling with power, I followed them outside, walking slowly, not in any hurry because this was my home and I didn’t owe anyone a thing, least of all two officious witches who didn’t respect me.

  I allowed their bodies to land near Phoebe’s BMW. As fun as it would be to watch them float out of sight, I didn’t want her car left in my driveway, blocking my Jeep. And with each inch they floated away from my house, my power weakened; they were lucky I didn’t drop them from ten feet in the air.

  Phoebe got to her feet first and was as red as Willy’s velvet coat. “How did— How could you— You don’t have the— You—you’re not what you seem,” she sputtered. “Uncle Thomas, see? See what I told you? She’s powerful. She’s hiding it! I tried to get in to look for the torc, and there is no way she should’ve been able to stop me, but she did. She’s powerful, Thomas. You don’t believe me but—”

  “Her father must be helping her,” Lorne—Uncle Thomas, which explained everything—said, staggering over to the passenger side of the car. “Alma couldn’t possibly do this on her own. That criminal is more dangerous than you realize.” He pounded the roof of the car. “Open the door, damn it!”

  Phoebe fumbled with her purse, and the doors opened. They both fell inside.

  “So nice of you to drop by,” I said, trembling with the drain on my strength. Then added, “Don’t come back.”

  “We could’ve done this nicely,” Lorne said.

  “Too bad you didn’t,” I said.

  I used the last burst of my power to slam both doors shut. It was Phoebe’s foot on the pedal that sent the car spinning into the road and down the hill, away, away from me and my home.

  Where I was, finally, safe.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A full day later, after sleeping around the clock to recover from the confrontation with Phoebe and Lorne, I drove to Tristan’s house at the winery.

  Silverpool Vineyards was a boutique winery perched on the rolling hills on the east side of town. The coastal fog and cool temperatures made the climate ideal for pinot noir, and Tristan had worked hard to make the best bottles he could—but not too good, which would draw unwanted attention and visitors to Silverpool. He’d told me once that most of his wine was sold private label, but he couldn’t resist making a few with his own logo on the bottles.

  Such as in that photograph Birdie had brought me.

  Thinking about that old picture, I got out of the Jeep and went to the side door Tristan had used for his friends and neighbors. The main entrance led to the tasting room, banquet hall, and little shop where he’d sold wholesale bottles, T-shirts, branded glassware, corkscrews, that sort of thing.

  The man had been a busy witch, protecting the town, loving women, making wine, running a business. He’d gotten away with sleeping around so much because he’d also been a good friend. Being his ex hadn’t changed that, and I didn’t regret our brief fling together. Not usually.

  I’d phoned ahead to let the housekeeper, Donna, know I was coming, and she answered the door on the third ring.

  “You didn’t bring the dog?” Donna asked, peering around me as if it were hiding behind my legs. I’d met Donna a few times, but she was only part-time, not live-in.

  As she’d requested when I’d called and mentioned Random, I had left him at my house. “I didn’t bring the dog.” And I felt guilty about it. He’d been locked inside the house with me while I slept and was stuck there again after only a brief walk around the neighborhood.

  “I didn’t want to have to clean it again,” Donna said, stepping aside to let me in. “The police were here.”

  “They probably won’t be back,” I said. “They think he had a heart attack.”

  “Terrible,” Donna said. “Who would run over somebody having a heart attack?”

  “I think it happened later,” I said. “At least that’s the theory.”

  Donna smoothed her hands over her violet tracksuit. I’d never seen her wear anything other than athletic workout gear, usually in bright colors. She wasn’t a witch but knew about us.

  “I don’t have any pictures,” Donna said. “Livia Caruso asked me for some, but why would I have any pictures? He didn’t like cameras.”

  “I know, but do you mind if I look around, see if I can find anything?”

  “You have as much right as anybody,” Donna said. “Did he tell you who he was leaving it to?”

  “What, the winery?”

  “The house, the winery, everything,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “There are things here he didn’t want anybody to touch, not even me cleaning it. Now what’s going to happen to it?”

  “I don’t know.” I’d assumed the Protectorate owned the winery, and Tristan was just stationed here as a front, but maybe not. If Phoebe and Lorne weren’t here already, maybe it had been Tristan’s personal property and they were laying low until the police lost interest. “What kind of things?”

  “I don’t know what they are. He had them in a cabinet, and he wouldn’t even let me dust it.”

  Like Tristan, I had cabinets filled with objects I wouldn’t want anyone to touch, not even with a feather duster. Even if I could afford a housekeeper, I probably wouldn’t have one because of the risk. “It was probably safer that way,” I said.

  “Yes, you’re
like him. I’ve been waiting to ask you about the cabinet because nobody else here knows what he was and I’m worried they might get hurt poking around.”

  “Good point,” I said quietly. “But I’m not really authorized to take anything—”

  “No, you can’t take this. It’s huge.”

  “Would you show me?”

  “You’ll… turn it off or whatever? Make sure it doesn’t… explode? Turn me into a toad or something?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking around to make sure nobody else was in the house to overhear me going along with the housekeeper’s crazy talk. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Nodding, Donna played with the zipper on her jacket. “Thank you. I almost wondered if I should tell the police—”

  “No. They don’t know anything. They’d think you were crazy.”

  Donna sighed, shaking her head as if she thought the same thing, and led me down the hallway to the other end of the house.

  As we walked past his private office, I noticed a framed picture of Tristan on the wall, although, like Birdie’s portrait, it was old but he looked almost the same as last week. The hair and fashions of the people next to him looked mid-1980s, but his ageless face matched the man I’d met a few years ago.

  “It’s in there,” Donna called out ahead of me, pointing into one of the guest bedrooms.

  No, not a guest bedroom. It gave the illusion of a guest bedroom. He must’ve used some stationary magic to keep the spells working after his death. I had to squint past a boring front of cream embroidered bedspread and wrought iron bed to see the massive armoire taking up most of the room. It was as big as my Jeep, a block of hand-carved wood with dozens of doors and drawers, bronze latches and hinges.

  Donna stood behind me. I turned and asked her, “Can you see it?”

  “Damn near broke my toe on it once,” she said. “I could see it after that. But not before.”

  Sometimes the nonmagical could tap into what little powers they had by getting hurt. Survival was the greatest motivator.