He used his pincher fingers to pull the bullet from his vest. He looked at it distastefully. “This little bugger almost cost me my life,” he said as he held it out to me.
I accepted the bullet. It was cone shaped, with two little ridges on one end. I slipped it into my vest pocket.
“You used a spell to conjure a bulletproof vest?” I said. “Why not just use magic to protect yourself?”
“These things are magical!” The Miser shouted. He patted the vest. “I’m here, talking to you, aren’t I? Despite the fact that I woke up to the sound of a gunshot, and saw some lunatic in my window with a gun pointed at me!”
“True,” I said. “I guess technology can be pretty magical....” I eyed his open door. Was Hal in there, battling it out with the intruder at that very moment? I didn’t hear any sounds of fighting.
“You saw a figure at your window,” I said. “Who was it?”
“I couldn't tell,” he told me. “It was dark, and I only glimpsed their silhouette before they disappeared.”
“Through the window?” I said. “But this is the third floor.”
“I know, I know!” he said. “You’ve got to catch them!” He waved me toward his suite again, and this time I did as he directed, and stepped inside. Blueberry was at my side, her fur spiky along her spine.
The interior of his suite was dark, lit only by the moonlight streaming through the windows on the far side of the room. The open floor plan of the space allowed me to see everything, from his bed to the sitting area to the kitchenette, and it all looked empty. The only room I couldn’t see was the master bath.
I noted that a window over by the king-sized bed was open. A breeze blowing through it caused the gauzy white curtains to wave around in an eerie, ghostlike manner.
Hal emerged from the bathroom. His gun was drawn, and he held it up near his face as he walked purposefully out into the open area. “Bathroom is clear,” he said.
“Thanks,” I murmured. I was a bit confused about what gave him the authority to clear the bathroom.
Who is this guy? I wondered to myself as I watched him stride over to the window.
“It looks like whoever tried to shoot The Miser just now descended through this open window, likely using this ladder that’s propped up against the exterior wall,” he said, as he looked down and out of the open window.
I hurried over to his side and looked out over his shoulder. He was right; there was a ladder that I’d never seen before, propped up against the center’s wall. It was the tallest ladder I'd ever seen, made of metal that reflected the bright moonlight. Far below, the yard stretched out to the point where it merged with the shadowy forest. I tried to peer into the woods to see if I could catch sight of any movement or forms, but it was useless. It was too dark to see anything.
“We’ve got to try to find them,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at The Miser, who was watching Hal and me.
A voice sounded at the door. “What is happening in there?” It was King Midas. “Is Polly in there? I can’t find her anywhere! And where is June? She’s not in her room, either, and Snowflake is awfully frightened, in her bed. She needs some attention and I can’t touch her. What was all that noise? Was that a gunshot?” he sounded worried.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered. I put my hand over my mouth. “Tonight’s the full moon! It’s the night that Polly usually disappears!”
I said this so quietly that only Hal heard me. He eyed me with curiosity.
At the same time, The Miser called out. “Come in, brother! We’re in here. I was shot!”
“Good heavens,” King Midas said as he bustled into the room. “Shot? But you look fine!”
“Bulletproof vest,” The Miser said, motioning to his attire. “Life saving, magical technology it is. I used a spell to have it magically delivered from the army surplus store. It was on sale, too. Only cost me two gold coins, and I’d say it was worth it. Maybe I can stitch up this hole and sell it again, used.”
“It saved your life!” King Midas said, as he beamed at his brother. “Glad to hear that, you old miser, you!”
“Me too,” The Miser said, sounding happier than I’d ever heard him. “It was a close call, but I’m still here!”
“Tell me,” King Midas said in a more serious tone. “Have you seen Polly? I can’t find her anywhere.”
I watched The Miser’s color change to beet red again. “Brother—we have to talk about your wife. In private.” He eyed me and Hal.
“We can leave you two alone,” I said. “Right Hal?”
I eyed the open window, and then the woods beyond again.
Hal agreed. “The shooter is still out there,” he said. “We need to try to catch him. My best guess is that he circled around the center, stashed the gun somewhere, and then entered through the deck and the side entrance to the lobby.”
I eyed the woods. “Or they could have run out into the woods,” I suggested.
“Let’s split up and search,” Hal suggested.
I still didn’t know who Hal was, and I didn't know what motivated him. But my options were limited. Either I accepted his help or not, and I was feeling pretty darn scared. A little help sounded nice.
“Good thinking,” I said.
I hoisted Blueberry up into my arms and motioned for him to step aside. Then I lifted one leg over the window ledge. Once I had both feet over and was sitting on the ledge, I whispered a levitation spell under my breath. I didn’t know it well enough to actually fly broomless with it, but I’d used it several times to get down from trees that I climbed when out hiking. I was an expert at using it to float slowly to the ground. Once the spell was cast, a passing cloud dimmed the moonlight briefly, which confirmed for me that the spell had worked. I pushed myself off the ledge, and hovered in the air.
When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Hal looking at me with awe. “Wouldn’t it be easier to take the ladder?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Probably,” I said, “But this is faster.” I started floating slowly downward, with Blueberry clutched in one arm.
Hal leaned out the window. “I’m going to take the stairs and search the interior,” he called out. “Be careful, Marley!”
“You too!” I told him. My feet touched the ground. As I placed Blueberry down in the grass beside me, a flash of red caught my eye. It was an object, stuck in the grass at the base of the ladder, right below the bottom rung. Even though it was dark out, I could make out the form from my standing position. It was a shoe. A bright red sneaker with a thick white orthopedic sole, to be exact.
I bent down and picked up the shoe. I held it up in the moonlight. “Now I know who we should be searching for,” I whispered. “Polly.”
I stuck the shoe in my vest pocket. It was a good thing the pockets were big, and even so the shoe barely fit.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do if I found Polly.
All I knew was that it seemed Polly had tried to kill her brother-in-law. At this very moment, she’s probably out in the woods with a gun in her hand, I thought. It’s time to put a stop to this madness.
It’s time to catch Polly.
With Blueberry on her sparkly pink leash leading the way, I charged out into the woods.
Chapter Thirteen
Though Blueberry and I searched for hours, by two in the morning we were exhausted. Skili, who had joined us to fly over the woods above, swooped down to land on my shoulder.
“That’s it,” I said aloud. “It's been four hours. I’m exhausted. I don’t think we’re making any progress.”
I slid down next to a tree and leaned my back against it. My legs were weary; my muscles ached from hiking up and down the trails.
We’d decided that I would take the ground search while Skili managed our “bird’s eye view” of things (literally). Blueberry had even seemed to be on the scent of something several times, especially while we were on the north-facing slope of the Hillcrest Mountain. But though I followed her zigzagging, nose-down f
orm for long stretches of time, the search was fruitless.
“If Polly is out here,” I said wearily, “I don’t think we’re going to find her tonight. I wonder if Hal’s had any luck.”
“Is that really his name, then?” Skili asked me telepathically.
“No, but I don’t know what else to call him,” I said aloud in response. “And I don’t want to knock on his suite door at this late hour. Let’s wait until the sun comes up. If Polly’s not back by morning, and Hal hasn’t found her either, I’ll call in the ladies and we’ll do an organized search for her in the daylight.”
“Wise decision,” Skili transmitted.
Blueberry was too tired to even offer up a yip of agreement, but I knew that she was on board with my plan, too. She crawled onto my lap and laid her head in the crook of my elbow. Within a few seconds, she was snoring.
I was almost about to fall asleep myself, but I knew that if I did, I’d have one heck of a back ache in the morning. I’d slept in the woods before, on the ground, and though it was always wonderful to fall asleep in nature out under the stars, it was rarely wonderful to wake up on the cold, hard earth.
I wanted my sleeping pad and pillow.
With the snoozing Blueberry in my arms, and Skili soaring above, I managed to traipse back down the narrow, winding path and out into the trimmed grass of the center’s back yard. I skirted around the labyrinth, and turned the corner to the side yard.
I tilted my head up to The Miser’s third-story window. It was still open, and the suite beyond was dark. However, the suite to the right had lights on.
My witchy intuition tickled my gut.
I could see two figures, clearly silhouetted in the lit-up window. One round, portly figure was clearly King Midas. The other was just as short, but slighter. The Miser.
If both of them are in King Midas' suite, that means that The Miser’s suite is empty, I thought. I should go have a little look around.
This idea gave me an energized feeling, and I took it as a sign. Sometimes witchy intuition works like that; I’ve learned that when an idea makes me feel energized, I’d better listen to it.
I deposited the still-sleeping Blueberry Muffin on the grass and instructed Skili to look after her. Then I cast a Sticky Spell on my palms and feet, and carefully climbed the metal ladder that was still propped up against the center’s outer wall. I landed lightly in The Miser’s suite.
As my eyes adjusted to the limited amount of natural moonlight that was able to stream through the windows, I stood still. Once I could see a little bit better, I began snooping around.
I rifled through The Miser’s suitcase first. It contained a mixture of clean, if worn and ratty, folded clothes, as well as rumpled dirty laundry (which I tried my best not to touch). I also saw an old-fashioned counting machine—an abacus. There was a calculator, too, and even that was outdated. It was very large, and half of the numbers on the buttons were rubbed off.
I also saw a red leather-bound journal. I opened it up and leafed through it. The yellowed pages contained nothing but lists of numbers. They were monetary amounts, I assumed, given the placement of the decimal point with two digits after it. I snapped a few photos with my phone so that I could look over them later, when I wasn’t feeling freaked out about snooping. Then I tossed it back into the suitcase.
At The Miser’s bedside, I saw a book. How to Scrimp and Save Your Way to Happiness! it was titled. I leafed through it quickly and then moved on. The pillow had a few gray hairs on it. The covers were wrinkled, as though he’d just jumped out of bed. I saw a few stray flecks of gray, which must have been the filling from his vest.
I snapped more photos and then continued my search.
The desk had a few papers on it. I saw the papers that The Miser had mentioned to me—the ones that had been rifled through. I carefully took a photo of each page in the stack. If Hal was interested in the papers, there was a chance I should be, too. Then, I moved over to the dresser. A few objects were on top of it, but nothing caught my eye.
I moved to the master bath.
His toothpaste had a little clip on the end of it, so that he could carefully squeeze every drop from within. His toothbrush bristles were smashed almost flat, as though he’d been using the same brush for years. Instead of using the soap I’d provided in all the suites, I saw that he carried a plastic bag of bits of leftover soap with him. All the little chips, in a mix of colors, were melded together in one rectangular mass. I was in the process of photographing his strange collection of used soap, in case there was a clue there that I just wasn’t recognizing, when I heard a muffled voice.
It sounded as though it came from the hallway just outside of The Miser’s room. I recognized King Midas' jolly tone, and The Miser’s grumpy one. Then I heard the door open, and the voices grew louder. I jumped into the shower stall, which was enclosed in frosted glass. With any luck, neither man would come into the bathroom.
“But what now?” King Midas asked. “How can we ever move on from this, as a family?”
“We have to tell Mother,” The Miser said. “She would never forgive us if we didn’t.”
Silence. “But I love Polly,” King Midas said. “I find this impossible to believe.”
I pressed my ear to the glass, listening intently.
King Midas went on. “If word gets out, Mother will insist I divorce her. I don’t want to do that. I love her!”
“How can you love her?” The Miser cried out angrily. “She lied to you! And she’s a disgrace to the family! She betrayed us!”
“She’s a good woman,” King Midas said. “She can’t help her condition.”
“She should never have married you,” The Miser said. “She knew all along the risk that it posed. Mother has been very public about her opinions. This will ruin our business. No one will buy peanuts from a family with such a tarnished reputation! We’ll lose all that we’ve worked for. Ah—here’s my budgeting book. Let me show you what this will cost us. Think of the money, brother. Think of the money!”
“I will not!” King Midas shot back. “That’s all it ever is to you, money, money, money. Aren’t you hearing me, brother? I love her!”
“How can you love her, now that you know the truth?” The Miser asked. “She’s a werewolf, brother! She shifts forms, once a month! And who knows what she does when she’s in wolf form. I’m telling you—she’s dangerous!”
I gasped reflexively, and then placed my hand over my mouth in an attempt to stifle the sound.
King Midas launched into a monologue about the redeeming qualities of his relationship with his wife, but his voice faded, and then I heard the sound of the door closing. It seemed that they’d come in to get The Miser’s budget book, and now they were retreating back to King Midas' suite.
I waited a minute and then jumped out of the shower and made a beeline for the exit. I wanted to get out of that suite before The Miser got so tired and fed up with his brother that he decided to pop back over.
I’d gotten the information that I felt my witchy sense was leading me to. I knew Polly’s secret. I knew why she disappeared every month, and lied to her husband about her whereabouts.
She wasn’t cheating on her husband with some secret lover.
She was disappearing so that at least once a month, she could shift into her alternate form. Polly was a werewolf.
Chapter Fourteen
After a fitful night of sleep, I awoke eager to tell my witch sisters what I’d discovered the night before.
I went about my morning routine with Polly’s secret in mind.
What did it mean for our case?
“It’s the mother of all mother-in-law problems,” I transmitted to Skili, who perched on top of my van while I brushed my teeth. Blueberry, who was already dressed in a lime green bow, was munching away on her food.
“You don’t have a mother-in-law,” Skili told me.
“I know,” I transmitted. “I’m not the one with the problem. Polly is. Remember how
we learned that King Midas' mother is very vocal about her dislike of shifters? That article we looked up on the Record Keeper Reviews site went into detail about her intolerance.”
“Yes, I remember,” Skili said.
“Imagine what that must have been like for Polly all these years,” I said. “To have to keep her true identity as a shifter from her husband. It seems that she’s been sneaking off once a month to shift forms.”
“Shifters can’t go too long without doing so,” Skili said.
I nodded, and rinsed my mouth. “Yeah, Cora told me about that,” I said. “If her husband Silas doesn’t shift, he gets really cranky I guess.” I filled a stainless steel bowl with water, and placed it on my camp stove.
Then I went on. “So Polly had to sneak off once a month to shift, and she had to make sure her husband didn’t find out—or worse, his mother. Polly’s been hiding her shifting abilities from everyone. But then June found out just last week. And The Miser, too, by the sound of it. And maybe that made Polly nervous. I bet she was freaking out because her secret was no longer safe.”
“Do you think she was nervous enough to kill?” Skili asked.
I reached for the orthopedic sneaker that I’d found on the ground right under The Miser’s window the night before, and placed it in the center of one of the outdoor carpets that I have set up by my van.
“This shoe points to the fact that she was nervous enough to try to kill,” I said. “It was in the grass right under The Miser’s open window.”
“Wonder how she lost it,” Skili said.
“Maybe she was in a crazy rush to get away and it fell off,” I suggested.
At the same time, Blueberry, who had polished off her bowl of nuggets, raced over to the shoe. She sniffed it with enthusiasm, and her tail windshield-wipered back and forth a mile a minute.
I spoke aloud to her. “Blueberry, girlfriend, you really like that sneaker, hm?”
“Maybe it reminds her of her family,” Skili transmitted to me. “It belongs to a shifter.”
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