Having caught her breath, Lorna did one last big reach over to Larkin’s office and found it quite easy to grab onto the windowpane and look in.
The interior of the office was empty. A light on the desk was illumined and homework papers were strewn about. That was a good sign, but there was still the window itself to contend with. Lorna was miraculously able to jimmy the bottom of it with her fingers and pull it up. It opened with ease, as though inviting her in.
Lorna pulled her body through the window and landed head-first onto the floor beneath. The window slammed behind her and a book fell off the bookcase.
She was beginning to think that they should have sent Bumblethorn after all. Even he could have made it all look more graceful.
Lorna cautiously got to her feet and went to return the book to its original position. She tiptoed. Although, there was no point in doing that anymore because she had already made a crash landing.
Where to begin? She wasn’t feeling very 007-like at the moment, and was confused as to what it was that she was looking for.
Lorna examined the desk and started going through the papers. She picked up one which was a report on Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens and read the whole thing. It was a really good paper, but there was a big red “F” scribbled on it.
“Such nonsense,” Lorna said. Truly, the paper was so engrossing that she couldn’t see how it would get such a terrible grade. She crossed the “F” out with a red marker and drew an “A” beside it. If nothing else was achieved by breaking into Elizabeth’s office, then at least that one poor child would experience the taste of justice.
Lorna was pleased, and moved onto another paper. Noting that that one hadn’t received a fair mark either, she changed it to a “B+.” Unfortunately, this just kept happening and Lorna pulled herself away before she found herself grading papers for the better part of the afternoon.
She went to the bookcase. Lorna didn’t know what kind of evidence would be found there but was very amused by Elizabeth’s collection. She pulled out a paperback copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but upon inspection she saw that it was only the jacket of Atlas Shrugged covering a bit of Ayn Rand erotica.
“Saucy tart,” Lorna grinned.
There was commotion down the hall. Footsteps. Lorna didn’t know what to do. It would be one thing to be caught in Elizabeth Larkin’s office, and quite another to be caught reading her erotica as well. Lorna put the book back in its place and looked for a place to hide.
Oh, if only her powers could make her invisible. She knew that her ancestors could do such a thing, but that power was lost on her. Just to make sure, Lorna closed her eyes and concentrated very hard on disappearing. She felt like a teenager again.
No, that didn’t work. She needed to think of something else. Lorna spotted a little closet and ran towards it, eased in, and closed the door behind her. It was cold in there, and Lorna prayed that she wouldn’t sneeze.
The footsteps were fast approaching, and finally Lorna heard the door to the office open and someone walk in.
The person, whom Lorna assumed to be Elizabeth Larkin, walked over to her desk and sat. Then she sighed. A weighty sigh that expressed fatigue. Moments later, the phone was picked up and Elizabeth spoke into it.
It was hard to make out what she was saying, because the door to the closet was made of rather thick oak. Lorna thought she could make out the sound of Elizabeth asking for tea over the phone, a moment before she slammed the phone back down and exclaimed, “I can have tea wherever I want!”
Lorna heard that bit clearly because Elizabeth practically yelled it. Lorna had to smile to herself because it was clear to her what must have happened: Elizabeth had phoned down to Rachel to deliver tea, and Rachel had told her that she can’t have tea in her own office. Really, someone had to fire that old biddy.
Elizabeth picked up the phone again, but her tones were more hushed this time, and Lorna had to press her ear against the door in order to hear.
“Hello, it’s me,” Elizabeth said. “I tried to call earlier but I couldn’t get away.”
It seemed like a clandestine phone call, and Lorna was convinced that she was about to hear something scandalous.
“Don’t say that, please. It hurts me when you say that,” Elizabeth went on. “You’re too sensitive about these things. Really, it’s rather absurd.”
If only Lorna could hear the voice on the other end of the line. Then she’d be getting the dirt that she so desperately needed.
Lorna closed her eyes and concentrated; if her witchy powers couldn’t make her disappear, then maybe they’d at least make it possible to hear what the other speaker on the phone was saying.
Lorna said a little incantation in her head, one that reminded her of a Milli Vanilli song, and then she actually started to pick up on something.
“Don’t be like this,” Elizabeth said.
“Beachman’s is the Queen’s choice when it comes to all of the flavor and none of the guilt,” the voice said.
How curious. Were they talking about food?
“I can’t stand it when you say such things,” Elizabeth replied.
“Did you know that the average can of soup provides more than your daily recommended allowance of sodium?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a fool. Do you think you’re better than me?” Elizabeth said, her tone becoming more heated.
“Packed with nutrients and flavor, you can be sure that a warm bowl of Beachman’s will send the chills running for the hills.”
“You’re disgusting!” Elizabeth yelled. “I don’t need your services anymore.”
“The next time you’re at the market, ask for Beachman’s and you’re sure to be amazed.”
“Oh, geez,” Lorna said to herself, and pulled her hand up over her mouth.
Elizabeth looked towards the closet, and Lorna had to use every fiber of her willpower to stifle a laugh that would surely lead to her being discovered.
So, she hadn’t been able to pick up the voice on the other end of the line, but she’d very much picked up on the charming ad for Beachman’s Soup that was playing on the radio. Although it was all quite humorous, it still left Lorna with no evidence. Who was that person on the other end of the line that infuriated Elizabeth so?
She’d said “I don’t need your services anymore.” Lorna had heard that bit clearly. Was it a hired killer, perhaps? And if so, why was Elizabeth so enraged by him? Was she having an affair with her hired killer? Was her hired killer also her hired lover? Was her hired killer and lover also her hired chef, preparing Beachman’s Soup?
Lorna was confusing herself. She needed to stop and listen in again. Were those tears? Yes, Elizabeth Larkin was crying. How dreadful.
Her cries were soft at first, with a few sniffles here and there, but then there was out-and-out wailing. Elizabeth Larkin had dissolved into ugly tears of the snotty, wet variety.
Lorna really wished to get the woman a tissue. She searched in her own pockets and found some, but how to get them to her target without being discovered in the process?
Lorna heard vicious nose blowing, but oh God! She couldn’t hear it being caught in a tissue and feared that Elizabeth might be using her cardigan sweater. How could she do such a thing?
More nose blowing, only that time it sounded like the headmistress had done it into her hand. Oh, this was just too awful to endure.
In desperation, Lorna pulled out one tissue and slid it under the door, hoping that Elizabeth might stumble upon it and think that she had happened upon it by chance.
Sure enough, Elizabeth spotted the tissue through her tears, got up from her desk to pick it up and noted her good fortune. There was one more round of nose blowing, and this time Lorna was confident that it took place in the tissue. She sighed with relief as the ugly crying seemed to ease up a bit.
Desperate to see what was going on, Lorna found an open keyhole and practically kicked herself for not finding it sooner. She placed her eye in front o
f it and saw Elizabeth sitting at her desk, her blond hair as perfect as ever.
The woman looked up to the heavens, her eyeliner running down her face, the tissue in her hand, soaked beyond all utility. And then she began to speak.
“Why, God, why?!” she cried. “I miss him so much. Oh, he didn’t deserve to go like that.”
Lorna couldn’t believe her good fortune. This was precisely the sort of private moment she needed to witness. The truth was about to be revealed.
“He was a terrible husband,” Elizabeth went on. “I mean, simply the worst. I don’t think he’s even up there with you, Lord. I think that he is with Lucifer, and perhaps that is just. I’m no angel either, I must admit.”
Oh Lord. All of a sudden, Lorna wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of this conversation between Elizabeth and God.
“Call me a tart, if you must!” Elizabeth cried. “But he’d been cheating on me for so long that I just had to do the same. And so I hired Hugh to be my lover.”
Lorna did a little fist pump inside the closet. She was right!
“My heart was empty and I craved affection,” Elizabeth continued. “Hugh was a remarkable lover, but after a while, it seemed so petty to pay for something that could be given freely. And so I told Hugh. I said that if he was to be my lover in the future, he must give me his love for free.”
Lorna nodded her head in approval.
“And he did,” Elizabeth said, the tears returning. “And it was beautiful, God. You know that. You saw it all.”
Lorna hoped that God didn’t see all of it.
“But then I met Randolph,” Elizabeth added. “And things became ever so complicated.”
More tears followed and Lorna went for another tissue. She pushed it under the door and returned her eye to the keyhole.
It was remarkable. In her suffering, it didn’t occur to Elizabeth to think how strange it was that another tissue had appeared in the same spot. She got up from her desk to retrieve it, then sat back down.
“God, all this was to say that John was a terrible man, and perhaps I’m no better. But he didn’t deserve to die like that. No one deserves to die like that. When I went to the station to identify his body he was barely recognizable. There were just shreds of…”
Oh no. Lorna wanted to cover her ears. Elizabeth was pulling a Bumblethorn.
“Well, I won’t get into it, God. But, John!” Elizabeth said, looking from one corner of the ceiling to the other. “No, wait. John!” Elizabeth said, changing her mind and looking from the ceiling to the floor. Apparently she really did think that he was in the underworld. “I just want you to know, Johnny: I forgive you, and I don’t think you deserved any of this. I’m sorry about Hugh, and Randolph, but I’m sure you would come to understand if you were still here.”
Elizabeth blew her nose once more before continuing.
“I can only hope that your murderer is brought to justice!” she cried out, then. “It’s the least you deserve, Johnny.”
Okay, Lorna was 100% sure of it now. There was no way that Elizabeth Larkin killed her husband.
Lorna felt good about her discovery, but the all-important question remained: who the heck did it? And also, how the heck was she going to get out of that office?
Elizabeth Larkin seemed like a terse woman of few words, but on that afternoon she would prove otherwise. She sat at her desk for what felt like hours, talking to God, then talking to John. Lorna felt bad for her; perhaps the woman didn’t have anyone else to talk to.
By the time Elizabeth put on her coat and left, carrying a stack of ungraded papers with her, Lorna was suddenly very tired and in need of a cigarette—and she didn’t even smoke. It had been a long afternoon and she wasn’t looking forward to climbing back down that tree.
As luck would have it, the school day ended just a few minutes later, meaning Lorna was able to smuggle herself out of the building amid a sea of teenage girls. She looked very out of place, to say the least, but she soon found herself back on the pathway toward Tweed. Relief filled her; the mission had been a success. The roof of St. Agnes’ School for Girls would never be the same, but no one would know that until winter came.
Who was she going to tell first? Betty or Muriel? Technically Muriel could still be considered a suspect because Lorna didn’t know where she was at the time of the murder, and from what she could tell, Muriel had been thoroughly enjoying herself throughout the whole ordeal. Maybe she was like one of those serial killers that returns to the scene of the crime and takes delight in watching all the commotion. Time would tell.
No, Lorna didn’t feel like telling anyone just yet because she was exhausted and could still taste Muriel’s vegetarian chili. Needing a palate cleanser and some time alone to think, she decided to go to the Golden Bough.
She’d hoped to sup her drink in silence but that plan was scuppered as she entered to find the pub full of locals who’d popped in for a pint on their way home from work. Like moths to a flame, a couple of the older men immediately started to flirt with her, and Lorna was forced to look down at her beer and pretend to cry as she attempted to get the old geezers off her back. It worked like a charm; no one came near her after that.
Amid her fake tears, Lorna ordered herself a plate of cottage pie. The pie was delicious and just the sort of fortification she needed after a long afternoon stuffed inside a closet. The fluffy, buttery mashed potatoes wafted above the beefy casserole like a cloud, and the sauce was salty and peppery and juicy, just how Lorna liked it. She sensed that she would taste garlic for weeks.
Washed down with her beer, Lorna came to the conclusion that it was the perfect meal. She looked about the Golden Bough, soaking up the history of the place. The charm of it was just wonderful.
“Everything all right?” Jackie Abrahms asked, noting Lorna’s woeful expression as she wiped down the bar with a towel.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Lorna replied. “All this John Larkin stuff is really getting to me,” she hedged.
“Crocodile tears,” Jackie said with a huff.
“How did you know?” Lorna asked, surprised.
“I have enough blokes crying in here on a daily basis to be able to spot the real thing when I see it,” Jackie said.
“Really? Like, real crying men?” Lorna said in shock.
“Honest to goodness grown men sitting about my bar and crying,” the landlady said. “Happens all the time. And then they gotta tell me the whole sordid story each and every time. They think that just because I carry around a bar towel it makes me Mother Teresa.”
“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Lorna remarked.
“Which reminds me: John Larkin himself sat upon that very stool and shed a tear once or twice.”
“Did he now?” Lorna asked, intrigued.
“Yes, indeed. A dead man sat upon the stool you’re seated in right now and wept. Wouldn’t be surprised if his spirit haunts that spot.”
Lorna wished that Jackie hadn’t said that.
“What do you suppose he was crying about?” Lorna asked.
“He didn’t share all the details with me. Something about a woman, or a black-market painting scam.”
“Those seem like very different things… Can you remember any more details?” Lorna said, taking out her pen and paper.
“I wish I could, but he was so hard to understand when he had a fit of crying.”
He must have picked that up from his wife, Lorna thought, shuddering at the memory.
“Had this terrible problem with his sinuses, he did,” Jackie went on.
“You needn’t explain more,” Lorna said drily.
“He’d go like this,” Jackie said, beginning a rather unflattering impersonation of the dead man. “Ohhhh, I’m so sad, wah wah wah,” she cried, twisting her chubby fists in front of her eyes. “Poor old me. That woman wants to get me.”
“Which woman?” Lorna asked with urgency.
“Didn’t say,” Jackie replied. “Just started going on a
bout some black-market painting.”
“A painting?”
“A Rembrandt, I think,” Jackie said.
“Really, he went into specifics?” Lorna replied, amazed.
“That was the only specific thing that I could glean through his tears,” Jackie said, returning to wiping the bar.
Lorna scribbled “Rembrandt” in her notes, but was pretty sure that that clue would get her nowhere.
“All of that is to say that men are crying in my bar all the time.”
“Jackie, did you share any of this information with the police?” Lorna asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Jackie said in exasperation. “Old Bumblethorn was sitting beside John the entire time. In that seat there! Overheard the whole pathetic display, while he was crying himself.”
“Bumblethorn was crying at the same time?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? It was like a nursery school in here that day. All the men just crying and drinking beer. At least the Irish have the decency to sing.”
Lorna’s head was spinning. She felt so close to getting to the heart of the matter, but every time she got close, things became obfuscated.
“Well, I was the only one crying in here today,” Lorna said, looking about and noting that all the men were dry-eyed. “And it was to keep them all off my back. I needed a little privacy.”
“Oh, my dear. They aren’t staying off your back because of the tears.”
“No?”
“No, there’s football on today,” Jackie said, pointing over to the television set.
Well, that explained it for sure.
“Let me get you something sweet,” Jackie said, going back into the kitchen. Lorna was full up but she could never turn down a pudding.
Within moments, Jackie reemerged from the kitchen with a plate in her hand.
“Sponge pudding, my dear. On the house,” Jackie said, placing it before Lorna.
Clearly, the landlady was having a joke. Jackie had literally just thrown a blue sponge onto a plate.
“That looks a little…odd,” Lorna hedged.
A New Witch In Town Page 9