Witch Hunt

by Cate Conte

  After I’d snuggled him for a few minutes, I deposited him back on his perch. He sat there most of the day watching the town goings-on. It was his kingdom and he ruled it. I’d hung a bird feeder off the window so he could have some feel of a country life, which kept him entertained.

  I dug around in my freezer until I found a frozen Indian food meal and stuck it in the microwave. While I waited for it to heat up, I absently chose a Lindt truffle—my drug of choice next to coffee—from a bowl on my coffee table and popped it in my mouth as I wandered the apartment. I felt restless.

  I changed out of my clothes and pulled on my favorite fleecy pajamas, the ones with crystal balls on them. When the microwave buzzer sounded, I took out the food and stirred it around, then gingerly took a bite. Too hot. I set it aside. I’d felt hungry, but now that I had food, I didn’t really have an appetite.

  I made myself take a few more bites, then abandoned it and went into my bedroom. I closed the blinds and crawled into bed. It had been a long time since I’d gone to bed in the middle of the day, but I desperately needed this right now. Just fifteen minutes, I promised myself, pulling a pillow over my head.

  It took me a while to fall asleep. When I woke, bleary-eyed, to the sound of my doorbell ringing repeatedly, I opened the blinds and realized it wasn’t just dark in my room, but dark outside.

  What the heck time was it? I stumbled out of bed, wondering fleetingly if I should change, but it sounded urgent. I hurried out to the door and peered through the peephole, frowning when I saw two uniformed policemen standing there.

  The bad feeling returned in full force like a punch in my gut. What was going on? Had something happened to Todd? Josie? The store? Oh God, had there been a gas leak after all and she’d been taken to the hospital? Swallowing hard, I took a breath and pulled open the door.

  “Yes?”

  I was surprised at how calm I sounded. The two officers regarded me, unsmiling. The tall one glanced at my pajamas, then glanced back at my face, assessing.

  “Violet Mooney?” the other one asked.

  CHAPTER 10

  I nodded. “What’s going on? Is it my store?” I would’ve heard if there’d been a gas explosion, wouldn’t I? It occurred to me that was a terrible thought, even as it ran through my mind.

  “Can we come in?” the shorter cop said, already moving past me into the apartment, ignoring my question. The pair was almost comically different in height, although they appeared to be roughly around similar ages. Older than me, maybe forties. Or maybe it was their job that made them look older. The taller one wore a hat and carried a plastic shopping bag. Monty, sensing unwelcome company, jumped off his perch with a thud and skulked into the bedroom, probably to hide under my bed.

  “Um, sure,” I said, glancing self-consciously at my outfit. It seemed I didn’t have a choice.

  The taller one motioned for me to move inside and followed me, closing the door behind him.

  “I’m Sergeant Haliburton, this is Officer Denning,” the short one said.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, then immediately felt stupid.

  “Can you tell us where you’ve been this evening?” Haliburton asked. “Specifically between five thirty and six?”

  I frowned, trying to sneak a glance at the clock. I had to do a double take though. It was almost seven thirty. How had I slept that long? “Here,” I said. “I came home for lunch and to take a nap. I guess I took a longer nap than I’d planned. There was a weird smell at my store and Josie—Josie Cook, I’m sure you know her—was going to take care of it for me. Are you sure she’s okay?” I was babbling, but couldn’t help myself.

  Neither of them looked like they were about to answer my question. “Where were you before your . . . nap?” Haliburton asked, and his inflection on the word nap suggested he either didn’t think much of people who napped, or he didn’t think I had actually been napping. A flutter of nerves invaded my stomach, and I pressed a hand there.

  “I was at my shop.” I jerked a finger toward the window, then realized I was pointing in the wrong direction and pivoted my thumb. “The Full Moon. Well, actually, I was at the town hall. I left my shop to run an errand and didn’t go back.”

  Haliburton pulled a notebook out of his back pocket and wrote something down. “Where is your shop?”

  “A few doors down from here.”

  “What time did you leave there?”

  I shrugged, trying to recall. “Around ten.”

  “And from there?”

  “I went to the town hall. To pay my car tax bill.”

  “So what time did you come back here?” Haliburton asked, pen poised above his pad like a reporter waiting for a scoop.

  “Around eleven, I guess,” I said.

  Haliburton regarded me with blank eyes. “You guess, or you know?”

  I frowned. Why was he being snotty? “I’m pretty sure,” I said. “The lunch crowd was out already when I got back.”

  “So you didn’t stop anywhere after you left town hall.”

  “ No.”

  “You came straight back here and you haven’t left since?” Denning this time.

  “That’s right. I ate some lunch then laid down for a while. What is this about, anyway?” I asked, tired of all the questions. Was it suddenly against the law to take a day off from your own shop and stay in bed?

  Denning stepped forward and opened the shopping bag, holding it out to me. “Do you recognize this?”

  I peered inside and saw a pile of pink fabric. “Oh! Is that my scarf? I thought I’d lost it.” Smiling, I went to reach into the bag, but Denning held it just out of reach.

  Using his pen, he lifted it halfway out of the bag. “So this is yours?”

  I moved closer to study it, just to make sure. It definitely was, but it looked rough. There was a fairly big orange stain, and when I got closer, I caught a whiff of something smelly. Something familiar but slightly rancid. It hovered in the back of my brain, just out of reach. Feeling a pang at my scarf’s current situation, I nodded. “I lost it this morning. But what is that smell?”

  They looked at each other. Denning tucked the scarf in the bag and closed it. He didn’t answer my question.

  I was starting to get a bad feeling. Cops didn’t usually deliver lost-and-found items, I was guessing. Especially in pairs. “Can I have it?”

  “Do you know Carla Fernandez?” Haliburton asked, ignoring my question.

  The flutter of nerves turned into a yawning chasm. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Denning asked. His face hadn’t changed, but his tone signaled his interest.

  I turned to him. “I mean, she’s part of the town council. Most people know her if they live in town and if they’re paying attention to anything.”

  “Did you see her today?” Haliburton asked.

  “I did actually. This morning. At The Friendly Bean.”

  “And was there an altercation between you two?”

  I hesitated, looking from one to the other. How did they hear about that? And why did they care? Had she rushed over to file a report against me or something? And how could she think she’d get away with that when she was the one being abusive?

  Haliburton’s hand was poised over his notebook, eyes on me, ready to write down whatever I said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The altercation was more on her side,” I said. “She has her nose out of joint about my shop. Thinks I’m having a séance—which I’m not—and she came up to me in the coffee line to rant and rave about it.”

  “She approached you?” They glanced at each other.

  “Yes. Started yelling at me in front of everyone.” I sniffed, remembering.

  “That must have been upsetting,” Haliburton said.

  “Of course it was upsetting. She embarrassed me in front of half the town. She has no right to say those things about me and my shop. She doesn’t even know what I do. And I’m not having a séance. I’m having a healing circle. There�
��s a big difference!” I realized my voice had gone up a couple notches and cleared my throat. They both watched me, blank faced.

  “So what, now she’s trying to blame me? That’s just like her. So what are you going to do? Let her file a complaint about me? Because I can file one too. And mine will have more merit.” I crossed my arms defensively over my chest. Whatever. Let her file a stupid complaint. She’d be the one who looked unstable.

  Haliburton and Denning exchanged a look.

  “Did you see her again?” Denning asked. “After this altercation?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re positive?” Haliburton asked.

  “I’m positive, seeing as I was here and she didn’t come over.”

  They both looked like they didn’t believe me. But why wouldn’t they? What was Carla saying about me now? I felt a rush of anger at this woman. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?

  “And you said you were asleep?” Denning asked.

  “Yes.” For the twentieth time.

  “I see,” he said, although his tone suggested he didn’t. “Have you been down to the courtyard today behind the Steelworks building?”

  I was confused at the change of direction, but shook my head no. “I was at yoga down there this morning, but I didn’t go into the courtyard for anything,” I said. “Why?”

  After a long moment of silence, Haliburton said, “Ms. Fernandez is dead.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I stared at him. All the blood in my body seemed to rush right to my ears, and all I could hear was the roaring sound. It had to be affecting my hearing. He couldn’t have said what he just said. Could he? Dead? How could that be? Maybe this was some weird, disturbing dream. That happened sometimes when I felt off. I casually reached under my pajama top and pinched my stomach. Ow. Nope, they were still here.

  The unease and panic that had haunted me all day finally culminated with a moment of Oh, now I know why I felt so weird and awful.

  They both watched me, waiting for my response. It probably seemed odd to them that I hadn’t said anything yet. I swallowed hard and forced my voice to work. “Dead . . . What are you talking about?”

  “So you haven’t heard,” Haliburton said. Again with that skeptical tone. “Ms. Fernandez was found dead this evening,” he repeated, in case it hadn’t registered the first time. “Down in the courtyard.”

  I tried to process this. The courtyard down the street was a lovely little cobblestone area behind the Steelworks apartment building, an old factory that had been renovated into a mixed-use building of apartments and businesses. The yoga studio was one of the businesses on the ground floor. The courtyard was public, and in the summer the restaurants on that stretch had outdoor seating and bar areas where people congregated. The water fountain in the middle on the raised platform was a lovely addition in warm months, though right now it was in the bereft limbo of winter in New England. The Christmas tree that stood in its place had just been taken down, and now it was empty and waiting for spring.

  In the nice weather, people spent a ton of time out there. In the winter, it was pretty empty. No reason to be there, since there was no outdoor seating and no pretty fountain to look at.

  “How?” I asked finally, as I tried to process all this. “Did she . . . have a heart attack or something?” It wasn’t so far-fetched, especially the way she wound herself up over stupid things. Like séances that weren’t really séances.

  “It looks like foul play,” Haliburton said, watching me carefully.

  Foul play. The words echoed in my ears. While intellectually I knew what they meant, I was having trouble connecting all of this.

  “And a number of witnesses said the two of you were engaged in a nasty confrontation today.” He continued to stare at me. “Did Ms. Fernandez threaten to close your shop down?”

  I desperately wanted him to stop, to shut up, while I covered my ears and went back to bed with the blankets over my head. But he wasn’t stopping, and I couldn’t just go to bed, so I simply stared at him as he finished his terrible thought, feeling my knees go weak. I pulled out one of the barstools at my counter and sank down into it, trying to process. He couldn’t have just said Carla was dead—by foul play—then insinuate I’d had anything to do with it.

  “So you’re . . . you’re saying she was killed,” I said, needing to spell this out more for my sake than his. “And you’re asking me if I killed her.” The horror of this started to sink in. Of course I hadn’t killed her, but they didn’t know that. And I had no eyewitnesses to my whereabouts all afternoon, aside from Monty.

  I could be in some trouble here.

  “Actually, I hadn’t, but since you brought it up. Did you?” Haliburton asked bluntly.

  “Of course not,” I said, feeling tears choke the back of my throat. How could anyone think I’d ever do such a thing? Anyone who knew me would know this was complete nonsense. Not that these two knew me from Adam, but still. “How was she killed?”

  “We’re waiting on the coroner’s report.” Denning this time. The two of them were like a tennis match, playing off each other.

  “So what does my scarf have to do with it?” I asked, as my eyes landed again on the bag that hung from Denning’s hand.

  “It was found with the body,” Haliburton said.

  I straightened. “And that’s why you’re here. Well, that’s easy. I told you I lost my scarf this morning.”

  Neither said a word.

  “It’s true,” I said. “Besides, I’m sure there were other people she yelled at today. Why not go ask them?”

  They exchanged another one of their glances. I wondered if cops developed some kind of telepathy they used when they couldn’t speak out loud in front of someone.

  “Give us an example,” Denning said. “Who else would Ms. Fernandez have yelled at?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The examples that were on the tip of my tongue were people I cared about, like Sydney. And Charlie Klein, who let her use his parking lot. I couldn’t force my mouth open. I saw satisfaction on their faces—see, she’s just trying to shift the blame off herself—and wanted to crawl under a rock.

  Haliburton handed me his notebook, still looking triumphant at my hesitation. “We’ll need names.”

  I glared at him. “Don’t look so smug. There are tons of people who don’t like her. But I’m not throwing anyone under the bus.”

  “Throwing them under the bus?” Denning asked incredulously. I thought it was a decent performance. “Someone’s dead. It’s about doing the right thing, not covering for a pal. If you have any information about Carla Fernandez’s death, Ms. Mooney, it would be in your best interests to tell us immediately.”

  “Well, you’ve got no worries then,” I said. “Because I’m not covering for anyone. I have no idea what happened to Carla Fernandez.”

  Silence. I almost felt like I’d scored a point, until Haliburton spoke again. His voice was colder and more distant this time.

  “Ms. Mooney. We’d like for you to come over to the station with us. We need you to make a statement about your day. And I’d like to hear who these other people are that you know of who had problems with Ms. Fernandez.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. That was not what I’d been expecting. “The police station? Am I under arrest?” I looked around my apartment, panicked. A million thoughts were flying through my head, none of them good. And Monty. I couldn’t leave Monty. He hadn’t even had his dinner yet. How could I be under arrest? How could they think I’d kill anyone?

  And how could Carla be dead? She’d been so full of life this morning when she’d been hollering irrational things at me. Despite myself, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. She wasn’t very nice, but she didn’t deserve to be dead.

  “You’re not under arrest. But it would . . . behoove you to cooperate, and we’d like to have you come with us.”

  My mind raced. Did I have to go? Should I call a lawyer? I didn’t have a lawyer, except
for the lawyer I consulted with on business-related things when I needed to. I should’ve listened to my dad all those years ago and gotten an all-purpose lawyer.

  In the end, the only thing I could think of to say was, “I have to get dressed.”

  They both looked at my jammies. I followed their gaze. At least they were cute. I supposed if one had to be arrested in jammies, it could be worse.

  “Go ahead,” Denning said.

  I fled behind the screen separating my bedroom area from the rest of the apartment and grabbed some clothes from a pile I’d tossed on the chair. “Monty,” I whispered. “Where are you? I need a hug. I promise I’ll send someone to give you your dinner if I . . .” I swallowed. “If I don’t come back.” Todd would come. Wouldn’t he? I grabbed my phone. Our maybe-date at the Thai food place was a distant dream now. And a quick glance at my alerts told me he hadn’t texted or called anyway. Sydney had, though. I wondered if she’d heard about Carla. Had they spoken with her too? She had to be on their list, given the cease and desist. If they hadn’t found out about that yet, they surely would soon.

  Monty peeped out from under the bed. I suspected the word dinner had caught his attention. I scooped him up and gave him a hug and a kiss. Tears were brimming in my eyes, even though I tried to convince myself it was silly. I hadn’t killed anyone. This would all get straightened out soon.

  Wouldn’t it?

  “Let’s go, Ms. Mooney,” Haliburton called from the other room.

  “Coming.” I yanked my pajama top off, and in my nervous haste I yanked my grandmother’s necklace along with it. I watched in horror as it fell, in slow motion, to the ground—the broken chain, the moon with its blue topaz in the center landing squarely at my feet. My whole world again felt like it was tilting. I hadn’t taken this necklace off in twenty-seven years. My grandmother had made me promise not to, ever, no matter where I went swimming or what I was doing. She’d promised me it would sustain anything I threw at it. And I’d kept my word.