When Mag’s response only included repeating the term in a questioning voice, Gertrude Granger elaborated.
“Golf club cozies. We run an annual sale at the club’s pro shop, and the proceeds all go to charity. We’re getting geared up for this year’s sale.”
Naturally, Gertrude’s contributions looked like candy canes.
“And people actually pay money for them?” She hadn’t meant it to come out as an insult, but Mag knew it sounded that way the second the question left her lips. “They’re lovely, but what do they do?”
“Protect the clubs during transport,” Maude answered, and Mag nodded.
Conversation turned to civic matters, and it was amid the clicking of Mag’s knitting needles and the silent working of a dozen crochet hooks that she realized how things really got done in the small town of Harmony.
Within a half hour, the group had verbally drafted a petition to force Reggie Blackthorne into filling in the pothole at the end of Victory Lane.
The conversation flowed around Mag, who hadn’t bothered to put names to all the faces and had too little experience with Harmony’s inner workings to provide any input.
Still, she listened closely in case there was a chance to glean any useful information.
How that man gets away with such substandard work is a mystery to me.
Toss in a handful of loose patch and not even bother to tamp it down. Disgraceful.
Should give more business to that young fellow over in Blanville. My sister says he’s doing a great job on the roads.
Talk to the planning committee, but you’ll be wasting your breath. They won’t give the work to anyone else.
When Mag left the library an hour later, she had more questions than answers about why Reggie Blackthorne’s name had been in Taylor Dean’s book, and she was also carrying a golf-cozy pattern.
Clara might not be happy about it, but Mag had volunteered her to make two dozen of them before the next meeting. Without remorse.
Chapter Fourteen
Back at Balms and Bygones, the sisters closed the shop half an hour early when a sudden, drenching downpour effectively killed business for the day.
Taking advantage of the extra time, they set about getting things restocked and ready for the next morning. While they worked, they mulled over all the evidence collected so far, and concluded it was time to look more deeply into Reggie Blackthorne.
A ruckus coming from the back room alerting Mag and Clara to Hagatha’s presence, interrupting the debate on how to do that without raising suspicion.
Well, the ruckus and the buzz of a honey pixie’s wings beating outside the window. A big one if it made that much noise even through glass.
Over the past few weeks, the sister witches had stopped expecting to find a dangerous intruder of the garden variety and still couldn’t figure out a way to keep Hagatha from trespassing. It must have been or Hagatha to give up the home she'd had since before Harmony became a town and move in with her niece.
It was clear Romilda Crow possessed a less than watchful eye, considering Hagatha continued to break back into her old house at least three times a week. Mag wondered whether she would have the nerve to behave that way had the place been purchased by a non-witch, and had come to the conclusion that Hagatha would never have allowed that to happen in the first place.
“Hagatha, what are you doing here? You know you’re supposed to warn us before you pop over.” Clara called hesitantly. “If she’s messing with my product supply again, I swear to the Goddess you’re going to have to hold me back from ripping her head off.” She muttered under her breath to Mag.
“I heard that, little Missy. Any day you think you can take me, I’m happy to rise to the challenge.” Hagatha poked her head out of the supply room and directed a pointed look at Clara, whose confidence wavered under the intense heat.
She knew good and well Hagatha’s power was far greater than her own, and possibly hers and Mag’s combined. If that were the case, attempts to sabotage her exploits were likely to prove futile.
Unless Hagatha wanted them sabotaged, and Clara wouldn’t put it past the old crone to have motives layered under motives.
“I just needed to borrow a little bit of combustion powder. Romilda won’t let me keep it in the house. Thinks I’m going to burn the place down or something.”
Mag and Clara exchanged a worried look. “What exactly do you need it for?”
“Why, the honey pixies, of course.” Hagatha had a way of making both the Balefire sisters feel like children, even though half of what came out of her mouth sounded like complete nonsense. Well, at first anyway.
The rest evoked an uncomfortable feeling of dread.
“This particular breed lives in the section of the Faelands where fire and water meet. During the mild months of what’s considered winter there, they pollinate a jungle-like area surrounded by beaches. In the summer, they migrate south and copulate amid exploding geysers of lava. The males who don’t get burned to a crisp are considered the cream of the crop and can have their pick of the females. I thought you said you were familiar with this species, Margaret.”
Chagrined, Mag scowled in Hagatha’s direction but declined to respond. Instead, she passed her sister the proverbial baton, an unspoken Tag, you’re it evident in her expression. While Clara attempted to talk Hagatha into displaying a modicum of caution, Mag began to tidy up the shop for the next day’s business.
Clara’s turn with Hagatha lasted under five minutes before she claimed to hear Pye calling and escaped the room without looking back.
“Mag, you know where we keep the supplies, if you could just … I’ll be right back.”
And if Mag believed that, she was three kinds of a fool.
Turning to Hagatha, she said, “How much do you need?”
“Half an ounce should do it.” There’s a look a kid gets when asking for cake before dinner—half hopeful and half pure mischief—and Hagatha’s face sporting that expression creeped Mag out more than a little.
“That’s enough to blow up the whole town. Try again.”
“Fine. Ten grains, then. Okay? What a killjoy.” A potion bottle appeared in Hagatha’s hand and she lifted an eyebrow when Mag opened it and took a sniff to make sure it was clean. “You know, not a lot of witches would have known to check for aconite or sulfur residue.”
“Not my first time,” was all Mag would admit. “Listen, you’ve been in this town practically forever. What can you tell me about Reggie Blackthorne?”
Even after a late-night brainstorming session, the Balefires hadn’t come up with a way to verify Reggie’s whereabouts at the time of the murder.
“He had chubby thighs when he was a baby.” A prompt and useless reply.
Mag closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and asked the goddess for patience before elaborating. “I could have done without that mental image.”
The problem with old Reggie was that Mag couldn’t see him for the murder. Nothing about him was ringing her bad-guy bell, and there was no one other than Hagatha she knew well enough to pump for information.
She tried a different tack. “Who do you like for the mailman’s murder?”
“Not Reggie Blackthorne, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s crafty, but not mean enough for murder.” Hagatha confirmed Mag’s impressions.
“Even if Taylor Dean were in possession of sensitive information, Reggie wouldn’t want made public? Everyone has their breaking point.”
“Blackmail is it?” Conjuring up an old cotton pillowcase in a pretty rose pattern, Hagatha used it to cushion the vial of combustion powder. The resulting ball of cloth disappeared into her pocket.
“It’s a theory.” Mag wondered if she should have held out for only five grains of the volatile substance, but it was too late for that now. “But I have no evidence.”
Wanting to take the conversation out of Clara’s earshot, Mag gestured for Hagatha to follow her out the back door.
A slanting
ray of sunlight filtered through the slate blue of dispersing rain clouds, lighting the gardens up as if they were covered in diamond dust.
Out of the line of Mrs. Green’s sight, Mag flicked her wrist as if tossing a yo-yo made out of Balefire. Flickering tongues of heat licked over a pair of cast iron patio chairs and dried them thoroughly enough for both witches to take a seat.
“What are you waiting for? Christmas?”
“I’m walking a line here.” Hoping she wouldn’t end up being cursed into the middle of next week, Mag faced off against Hagatha. “You don’t have to tell me what you’d do in this circumstance because I already know. Slap him with a truth spell, or a compulsion charm, and he’d fall all over himself to confess his every sin.”
“Bet your booty.”
Mag stifled a chuckle over Hagatha’s command of outdated slang, and let some of the tension fall out of her shoulders. “And if he’s not the murderer? Where would that fall on the scale of harming none?”
Hagatha’s answer, as illuminating as it might have been, never came, because a honey pixie dropped out of the sky to land on her shoulder. It cast a baleful eye at Mag, fluttered wings that glistened with an inner light, and grasped the curl of Hagatha’s ear with a tiny hand.
Leaning close, the pixie spoke in a fluting voice and whatever it said put a wide grin on Hagatha’s face.
Another spate fell into Hagatha’s ear while the pixie continued to look at Mag, this time ending on an upward note that sounded like a question and her little face softened with hope.
“Maypole wonders if she might be allowed access to a small corner of your dill bed.” Hagatha translated. “She says you have some of the fernleaf variety.”
Mag raised an eyebrow, “Dill weed?”
“Not a weed and not just for pickles. The flowers carry small amounts of pollen. It’s considered a delicacy, and the fernleaf type is an essential ingredient in producing the healing serum that goes into their honey.” A first for Mag, seeing Hagatha go into teaching mode. The old girl must have been something in her day.
“With the right combination of pollen and nectar, pixie honey has amazing curative properties—wound healing, counteracts certain poisons. It’s said a pixie-honey potion could bring a person back from the brink of death."
Hagatha gave Mag a saucy wink, "Puts the wood back in a man's stem, too. Gives him plenty of staying power, if you know what I mean." Mag wished she didn't.
“The mature females like to crush dill fronds and rub the oils on their skin on for the scent. Draws the males like flies to a fresh pile.”
“Tell her to knock herself out.” Mag waved a hand to indicate the direction and watched the tiny body flit in a zigzag down the path. Soon her nose picked up the sharp and tangy scent of dill wafting on the breeze.
“What was that all about? And don’t tell me the only reason she showed up here had to do with raiding my gardens for medicinal herbs.”
Mag had to ask because she’d bet her last dollar the pixie farming had nothing to do with keeping down the mosquito population.
“I’ll be honest, I brought them here for the pest control, but they’ve proved useful in other areas. They’re small, and they can be quiet when they want to be. There’s one sitting on the edge of the rain gutter not three feet over your head, and you never noticed.” Hagatha pointed upwards.
“Spies. You’ve cultivated an army of spies.” Immediate tension corded Mag’s shoulder muscles, and she felt a headache inching up toward the back of her eyes. “Great goddess, Haggie. That’s—”
And then she thought about it.
“Genius.”
“If I do say so myself,” Hagatha agreed. “It’s a good thing you released the pair you caught, too. And don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.”
Hades’ teeth, what had she said in front of the big-mouthed denizens of Fae? A frantic search of her memory turned up nothing more damning than her opinion of Hagatha’s mental faculties. Nothing, she was certain, the old witch hadn’t heard from multiple sources.
“Then you’ll get them to help me?” Mag implored.
Hagatha didn’t miss a beat, “What’s in it for me?”
Feeling her butt settle into that unenviable spot between the rock and the hard place, Mag offered the tentative answer, “it would be fun.” She waited for Haggie to decide.
“Throw in another ten, and we have a deal.”
Feeling like she’d struck a bargain with a crossroads demon, Mag added ten more grains of combustion powder to the vial. If the town of Harmony got blown off the map, at least she’d go with it and not have to face an angry mob later.
Cold consolation.
“How do you get them to do the work? It can’t all be about bribing them with dill.” Mag sailed right past the point of no return and threw her lot in with Hagatha. It wouldn’t be mosquitoes biting her in the butt if this went south, but what was life without a little risk? Boring. That’s what.
“Best you leave that to me, and I’ll handle the payment.” What went unspoken—yet fully understood—was that Mag would be better off not knowing certain details of the arrangement. “Get me within fifty feet of him, and we’re in business.”
That was how it came to be that with Mag behind the wheel and Hagatha riding shotgun, leaving Clara none the wiser, the VW bus rolled out from behind Balms and Bygones on a mission.
“Any idea where we’re going?” Hanging on for dear life, Hagatha’s voice quavered a little.
“As it happens, I know where the crew should be today, and I’m betting the rain delayed them enough this afternoon that they’ll still be there trying to hit a deadline. Rolling Hills Road. It’s our best bet.”
Applying the gas pedal with abandon, Mag sent the bus rocketing toward the golf course, and coincidentally, toward the scene of Taylor’s murder. Funny how things come full circle sometimes.
There was Reggie’s truck in all its overblown glory, parked along the side of the road. The man himself strutted around with a shovel in his hand but never seemed to apply the tool to any use.
“There he is. Now what? Can you deploy the pixies from here?” Deploy the pixies. A combination of words Mag never expected to say.
“Drive on past and pull into the turnaround down by the cement bridge where I can have a little privacy.”
Before the bus came to a final halt, Hagatha let out a whistle that raised the hairs on the back of Mag’s neck and set her back teeth vibrating.
“A little warning might have been nice,” she said once the sound died away.
“Duck,” was Hagatha’s reply and delivered with a sardonically raised brow.
“Huh?” A second too late, Mag caught on. The first of six pixies managed to pull up but the second got tangled up in the fuzzy white strands of her hair. “Ow! That hurts.”
A minute or two passed painfully while Mag and the pixie worked to untangle from each other and Hagatha shook with silent mirth.
“It’s not funny,” Mag groused, touching her scalp to make sure she didn’t have a bald spot.
“Told you to duck.” Not much to argue with there, so Mag let it go. “Get out and come around to my side,” Hagatha said. “Hold your arms out, and once they land on you, don’t make any sudden moves.”
A thrill of anticipation tickled over Mag’s skin. Apprentice pixie whisperer, that’s what she was about to become. She did as she was told and listened to the series of hoots and whistles that she assumed was Hagatha speaking their language.
Finally, at a nod from the wizened witch, a flutter of iridescent bodies touched down upon her arms, their tiny toes pinching as they dug in for purchase, but Mag never flinched. She stood next to the bus window and waited for instructions.
“Now what?” Fae energy tingled along the tips of Mag’s ears and fingertips.
“Take them just far enough so you can see Reggie, but stay out of sight. Here, this should help.” Without warning, Hagatha spit into Mag’s left eye. As Mag blinked to c
lear away the gob of saliva, her vision sharpened measurably.
“Nice trick. You’ll have to teach me that one.”
“Nothing to it. Two parts pine pitch to one part powdered yak hair, with a splash of carrot juice. I keep a wad between my cheek and gums for just such occasions. Once you have him in your sights, give them the all-clear, and they’ll go scout around and report back anything they hear. Piece of cake.”
Sounded easy enough, so Mag—minus the ever-present cane and moving slowly for its loss—made her way back toward the construction crew and her quarry. She only bobbled once, and got a vicious pinch for her efforts before the figure of Reggie Blackthorne appeared in the distance.
Mag halted and made ready to give the pixies the signal when she realized Hagatha had neglected to tell her what it was. Frozen with her arms outstretched and feeling the pressure in her shoulders to hold them in position, she cursed the old witch and decided to try a few things before making a pixie-laden return trip.
“Hsst!” didn’t work. Neither did any other voice command she tried. Finally, arms aching with effort, she gave them a little flap to demonstrate the pixies should do the same. Off they flew, leaving a few welts to mar her skin.
“Old bat. I swear that women is demon-born.” Mag returned to the VW and shot Hagatha a dirty look while she rubbed at the painful spots.
“What are we sitting here for?” Hagatha’s voice cracked the silence. “Maypole will find me when she’s ready. Take me back to your place.”
Passing back through the construction zone, Mag waggled her fingers and grinned at Reggie who paid no attention to the birdlike creatures flitting over his head. If she’d had any forethought, she’d have tried harder to make friends with the pixies instead of caging a couple of them for a short while. Handy creatures to have around if you didn’t turn them into enemies.
Maypole beat them home by a matter of minutes, according to Clara, who had no idea why the pixie had been trying to get into the house the whole time.
“It’s like we’re under siege,” she complained. “Hagatha, call off your minion if you please.”
Murder on the Backswing Page 10