by Tegan Maher
Aunt Hattie and I exchanged a look, and my gaze shifted back to Victoria just in time to see her collapse into a heap on the floor.
Someone was shouting to call for help, and another was yelling something about finding a doctor, but as I stared down at Victoria, I knew there was no one that could help her now—well, except maybe a medium—because Victoria McMahon was definitely dead.
3
It had taken less than five minutes for Matt and a handful of police officers to arrive on the scene and even less time for them to slap handcuffs on Brunhilda and escort her to a police car. All it had taken was a very helpful bystander to point out rather loudly that Victoria had eaten part of the cookie Brunhilda had given her mere minutes before she died. The part I found suspicious though, even more suspicious than Brunhilda’s cookie, was that the one who had pointed it out, a troll with a bald head and a flashy orange suit, had made his proclamation and then, once the crowd was abuzz with accusations, he’d slipped away. Slipping away was no easy feat for a troll, which meant it hadn’t been unintentional.
I scanned the crowd for him on the off chance that he’d stuck around to see how things played out, but I wasn’t having any luck.
Ember had found me before I’d even had a chance to start panic calling her, and as I waited on a bench out of the path of the festival for Aunt Hattie and her to collect their free cup of cocoa that Harold was offering, I felt a shift in the energy around me. It was a presence that brought with it the sensation of a shadow being cast over me. I could feel him moving behind me and the hair on my arms stood up, my magic rising suddenly in my chest to stand at full attention, but he came around the side of the bench and sat down at the opposite end.
The man I’d seen having words with Victoria. He slumped against the back of the bench and loosened his tie in one quick motion.
I started to consider that maybe he had been too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even notice me, when he said, “That was kind of a rough way to go, huh?”
He was still looking straight ahead, but unless he was talking to the little devil on his shoulder, he had to be speaking to me.
“I mean,” he lifted one leg, resting it at the ankle across his opposite knee, and revealing Rudolph trouser socks. “A cake smashed in your face. Utterly humiliated with zero redemption before you drop dead in front of a crowd.”
His salt and pepper mane had been slicked back, but a lock had fallen loose, and he ran a hand over his hair to push it back into place. “And think about it… you’ll forever be known as the cake-faced lady who dropped dead at the Christmas festival.”
“It isn’t a great way to go out,” I agreed, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
I wasn’t sure if he recognized me as the woman who had seen him arguing with Victoria or if he’d even noticed me at the time.
I decided to feel him out, gaining a little extra courage given the fact that a dozen police officers, including the world’s most protective brother, were within shouting distance.
“You know they arrested someone, right?” I asked.
He nodded, smoothing his hand over the top of his hair again. “I know those two got into it tonight, but that feud goes back a little further than this festival… and it’s about a lot more than cookies.”
I had no way of knowing whether or not he was lying. Still, I figured it was better to get as much information as he was willing to give and verify its accuracy later.
“I had no idea,” I said, trying to maintain a cool tone, “Do you know what it was about?”
He shrugged a single shoulder and began fidgeting with his pant leg. I was afraid I’d messed up by asking a question and not just letting him ramble, but he finally let out a deep breath and folded his hands across his lap.
“Victoria—that’s the name of the lady that died, by the way. She worked for the Beachy Keen Resorts franchise. She’d been in the finance department for years, and the owner, Kaiser French, finally promoted her to Financial Controller. It was going well, or so Mr. French thought, until… well, until it wasn’t. Turns out that Victoria, little miss better than everyone else, had been embezzling from the corporation for quite a while.”
He paused to shake his head in contempt, and I held my breath in anticipation.
“Mr. French is a fair and honest vampire, but Victoria’s betrayal hurt him deeply. He was nearly heartbroken if I can be so candid. He decided that instead of turning her in to the police right away, he wanted to see if he could make some kind of deal with her.”
“Deal? What kind of deal?”
“Restitution.” He shrugged. “Like I said, Mr. French is a fair and honest guy. Frankly, I think he’s a little too fair, and he’s most undeniably too forgiving.”
“She certainly lucked out,” I mused. “most thieves don’t have a shot at restitution.”
He chuckled softly to himself before glancing over and letting me in on the joke. “She denied his offer.”
“Seriously?”
“One thousand percent. And it was a killer deal, by the way, which only makes her decision more idiotic.”
“I don’t understand why she would turn it down,” I said.
“Beats me. I tried prying it out of her every time we talked, but she was a fortress.”
“You’re not Kaiser French, though,” I said, my mind conjuring up an image of the hotel mogul from the local newspapers and tv news channels.
“No, just his lawyer. I’m the one that drafted up the paperwork and was tasked with convincing Victoria to take the deal so that we didn’t have to turn her in. She refused, though. So stubborn, that one.”
I nodded, trying to take in the information so I could relay it to Matt. “And what does any of this have to do with Brunhilda Dunkel?”
“Ah, right,” he said, “years ago, Victoria and Brunhilda worked at the same bank. Brunhilda caught Victoria messing with some financial documents, reported her, and Victoria was promptly fired. A while later, after she’s already been working for Mr. French for a bit, Brunhilda gets wind of her new job and calls up Mr. French to warn him. Mr. French never checks references or past employers, by the way. Says he doesn’t need to because he’s a good judge of character.” He rolled his eyes and snorted back a laugh. “Anyway, Victoria was such a huge brownnoser that by that time, Mr. French thought she was some kind of saint, and he blew Brunhilda off. That is until he became suspicious of Victoria. He tracked down Brunhilda, the only person he knew with information about Victoria’s past, and after that phone call, he was convinced.”
“Well, that story certainly gives Victoria motive to kill Brunhilda, but it doesn’t make much sense for it to be motive for Brunhilda to murder Victoria,” I said.
The man slid to the end of the bench and stood, turning around to face me. “No, it doesn’t. If I were investigating Victoria’s murder, I wouldn’t even be looking in that direction. Victoria knew far more dangerous people than Brunhilda Dunkel.”
4
I pulled to a stop in front of the mortuary and watched Aunt Hattie’s taillights growing smaller as they carried Ember and her to my house at the end of Shadow Lane. She had offered to drive Ember home since I needed to meet Matt and the Medical Examiner for Victoria McMahon’s autopsy. One of the things I’d appreciated when I’d owned my own funeral business in Seattle was that autopsies took place in either a hospital morgue or at the medical examiner’s office. In Mystic Key, however, things were run a bit differently. It was one of the positives of living in a place where magic could be used freely out in the open, but it was also one of the drawbacks. Assisting in autopsies and embalming and all of that other stuff was always handled by my father, but since he and my stepmom were enjoying mai tais on a Mexican beach for the next three days, I didn’t have any choice but to fill in.
Just as I turned off the engine, my cell phone rang. I rifled around in my purse until I found it and saw my brother’s name lighting up the screen.
“Hey, what’s up?” I an
swered.
“Did you make it back okay?” He asked, and I had to strain to hear him over the chattering of voices in the background.
“Just pulled up.”
“Okay. Listen, I’m sorry, Shay, but I got a little hung up here, so Doc Hyde is probably going to beat me there, but I’ll do my best to get there as soon as I can, okay?”
“Sure. Is everything okay?” I asked, hoping he’d learned something about what had happened to Victoria.
“Yeah, but I’m following up with a witness right now who has some pretty wild information.”
“Oh? And I don’t suppose you could share it with your sister since you’re making me help out Doc Hyde alone. You know I hate the exam stuff, Matt.”
He was silent for a moment before he let out a small sigh. “Okay, fine. But don’t you dare tell a soul.”
“Who would I tell?”
“According to the witness, our victim really had been embezzling money from The Beachy Keen.”
“You think Kaiser French killed her?”
“I’m not finished. Guess why she was still in debt up to her ears?” Matt didn’t wait for a response before answering. “Gambling.”
“Gambling?” I scrunched up my nose. “Really?”
“Really. I guess she liked to bet on underground minotaur fights.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Go figure, huh? Anyway, the witness I’ve got here says that she was in deep to more than one bookie in town, and they’d started to come calling with a little more… persistence than before.”
“I thought guys like that, I don’t know, smacked you around and broke your legs and stuff. Poisoning seems out of character.”
“Don’t stereotype, Shay. Criminals can bake.”
“No, I know that. But how could someone have baked an exact replica of whatever Brunhilda gave Victoria? No one could’ve known ahead of time except someone with visions, but that seems like a stretch to me.”
“Okay, Detective, so what are you thinking then?”
I stared out my windshield into the graveyard. It was unusually bright thanks to the white layer of snow that covered everything, and I replayed the moments leading up to Victoria’s death.
“What if it wasn’t the cookie, Matt?”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember I told you that she took a bite and then spit it out and chugged a drink from that travel mug on her table? Maybe someone slipped something into her drink instead.”
“That’s actually not a bad theory.” He was silent for a moment before he added. “I’m going to look into that possibility as the best working theory we have right now. Nice work, Shay.”
“Thanks.”
“That might mean that I’m running even a little more behind, but I’ll be there. Promise.”
I said goodbye to my brother and pulled the keys from the ignition, gripping them tight in my hand as I climbed from my car. I parked directly in front of the main entrance, and I absentmindedly thumbed each key on my ring until I found the one that would unlock the main door to the building. Dieno had his own code to access the door closest to the medical room, but I’d need to leave the door unlocked for Matt and Dr. Hyde.
I pulled my coat tighter around myself and shivered, picking up my pace as I made my way to the front door, my mind racing as I tried to remember exactly what I needed to do to make sure this thing was over as quickly as possible. It might sound silly, a funeral home employee with such an aversion to things like dead bodies, but it wasn’t the bodies themselves that disliked so much. It was the medical part that I hated. Frankly, it was gross, and the clean-up was a bear. I much preferred my job, styling hair and painting away until the deceased resembled a version of their living selves. My mind then bounced to thoughts of Victoria McMahon and whether I should opt for soft curls or something sleeker, and whether or not people like Kaiser French and Brunhilda Dunkel, who may not have killed her but most certainly despised her, would show up at her funeral when a voice called out.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, my heart pounding in my chest as I spotted Obie standing near his headstone and waving at me. “Sorry if I scared you!” he called out.
“It’s okay. I think if there’s one expectation of ghosts in general, it’s that they can scare you.”
Obie chuckled as he nodded vigorously. “Boy, that is so true. So how was the Christmas Festival? Did you all have a nice evening?” The smile on his face suddenly fell. “Wait a minute. What are you doing? Why are you going into the funeral home this late on a Saturday night?”
I shrugged, hoping that would be enough of an answer.
He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow. “Not at the festival, though, right?”
I grimaced, shrugging again as I took a few steps closer to the front door. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until Dr. Hyde arrived, but I wanted to get as much of the prep work done by myself. Dr. Hyde was a nice man by most standards, but he was so painfully slow that it made my eye twitch. No matter what time it was when we called or how long it took him to get there, he always looked like he’d rolled fresh out of bed and rushed over. I started to feel anxious at the possibility that he might arrive any second, and I’d be stuck splitting duties with him.
I took a few slow steps toward the door, trying to work out a nice way to blow Obie off without actually blowing him off when he raised his arm in another wave.
“All right, well, I better get back. Sorry about your night. Take care, Shay.”
“You too, Obie!” I smiled and gave a parting wave in return before spinning around and preparing to make a mad dash to the door.
“Oh, wait! Shay!” Obie called out, and I paused to look back at him over my shoulder.
“I remembered what I was going to tell you.” His expression was drawn in concern. “Now, it could be nothing, but I saw someone in the graveyard the other night.”
Like every other resting place in the world, we had hours where the cemetery was open to visitors and hours when it was closed. Fortunately, we didn’t get many teenagers sneaking in late at night because they thought it was creepy, but we did get the occasional visitor.
“Okay, thanks, Obie,” I said, preparing to offer him another wave goodbye.
“No, that’s not all. The woman was hiding something. Um…” he tapped his forefinger against his lips, and I felt a wave of trepidation wash over me.
“Hiding something? Did you see what it was?”
He nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to recall. The name of the object. It was sort of like a long half-circle. Uh… but narrower. She had it on her back at first. Oh! A backpack!” He smacked his forehead. “Good goddess, I can’t believe I couldn’t remember what it was called. Anyway, the only reason I noticed her is because she really looked like she didn’t want to be noticed. She was sneaking around, and it caught my attention. Why would anyone be sneaking around out here in the middle of the night?”
I nodded numbly. “Did you see where she hid the backpack?”
He nodded, "That’s what reminded me. I just walked past it, not minutes before you showed up. He turned and motioned toward the backside of the funeral home. “Back over there by the angel statue. Not sure if you know this but there is a hidden door there at the back of the base. It’s so the landscapers can store their tools and such. That’s where she put it.”
“How odd,” I mused.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Have you seen her since? Or maybe even before?”
He shook his head. “Not that I can recall. Like I said, the backpack is still out there, so she hasn’t been back for it. Unless maybe she was leaving it for someone else.”
“What did she look like, Obie?”
“Well, let’s see. It was dark, you know, but I could tell she had brown hair. Kind of average build, I guess.” He scratched at his chin. “And one of those faces, you know, like she’s a real mean one.”
I nodded. “
I do know, Obie. I know exactly what you mean.”
And I knew exactly who he was talking about. Obie had just described Victoria.
5
It was well hidden behind a black tarp and a handful of rakes, but Obie was right. The backpack was still there. As soon as I’d pulled it from its hiding spot, I’d been overcome with the feeling of being watched. I shuddered and tossed the backpack over my shoulder, ready to make a beeline into the safety of the building.
It was possible that Victoria’s ghost was the one watching me, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. On top of that, she most likely had left it for someone and if there was a clue inside that told me who, I had a feeling we’d find our murderer.
I called Matt as soon as I’d gotten inside, locking the door behind me, but he didn’t answer, so I left a rambling voicemail instead.
The backpack rested on top of the coffee table in the family meeting room, and I sat perched on the edge of the couch, trying to summon the willpower not to look inside without Matt. But what if Matt was right there with the killer and let him leave only to escape justice entirely. Surely, he would understand why I would peek inside without him. And that was all I was going to do, just peek, but confusion and surprise overcame my logic as I began to pull out identification with Victoria’s picture, but another name printed.
“Fake IDs?” I whispered. “What is this?”
Was Victoria planning to run away from her problems once and for all? And if so, why had she hidden her backpack here, of all places? It seemed a little ironic, until it didn’t, and the puzzle pieces finally started clicking together.
I reached for my phone to call Matt and the last thing I remembered before everything went dark, was the reflection in the window of live garlands braided with tinsel and silver bells hanging from each corner behind me. That… and Victoria McMahon standing behind me.
“Listen… Shay, is it? It’s Shay, right?” I’d only heard the voice for the first time ten hours before, but I already recognized the high-pitched nasal tone. It was coming from behind me—no, above. My head was throbbing as I tried to clear the cobwebs from my brain that Victoria’s assault had produced. Given my line of vision, I was on my belly on the floor, and while my hands were tied securely together, she was still working on my feet.