“I’m sure it isn’t news to anyone why the board of Nationwide Paper is here. Employees of the local mill have put together a plan to purchase the mill from Nationwide. This plan is a laudable enterprise, and shows the strength of what our employees can do once they put their minds to it. The demonstration of the reworking of old company equipment impressed both myself and the board. It is a splendid indicator that manufacturing can be done with far less impact on the environment.”
Paine shot a smile at his daughter. Cindy remained still, emotionless.
He flipped to a new card. “The timing of this effort is somewhat troubling. We have many investors in the corporation, many stockholder employees whose shares have not vested. A vote on this matter, predating the vesting of stock for our workers in Louisiana and Texas, might appear unfair. At the same time, I’ve had to weigh this against the years the mill here has sat, partially dormant, our local boys waiting for action from this company, and this board.”
Roger Paine flipped to the next card. Nann saw there was only one left. Zinnia’s hand gripped hers. Nann nearly yelped at the pressure.
“Without further ado, let me make this decision, for once and hopefully for all, for all our company’s hard-working men and women. It is my direction that the mill at Amity Corners be—”
Roger coughed, turning away and covering his mouth. Nann saw sweat had broken out on his brow, his face florid, when he faced the audience. This is why she preferred the back row. Next to her, Zinnia was shaking. Her face was as red as Roger’s. “Take a breath,” Nann whispered.
“Excuse me. It is my direction that the mill at Amity... Amity Corners.”
Paine fell forward, slumping into the podium. The mic squealed with feedback. The wave of a concerned murmur washed through the meeting hall. Paine managed to right himself, his panting breath amplified. Opening his mouth in a silent scream, he fell to the floor.
The council leapt up from behind their bench. Audience members surged forward. Miller, Fitzgerald and Laden followed Cindy to the fallen man. Nann’s eyes were locked on Paine. From the inner pocket of his suit coat, a tiny white doll emerged, squeezed out, dropping on the carpet.
A poppet, Nann recognized. She saw the pin through the little doll’s heart. Sympathetic magic, what people popularly thought of as a voodoo doll, had taken the CEO down.
Magic murder.
“Everybody, return to your seats.” Deputy Schwenk raced to the podium. Nann didn’t realize he was here. “Is there a doctor—”
Keith’s eyes locked on the doll, it’s tiny blue three-piece suit, a frowny face, white stumps for hands and feet, an enormous hat pin thrust through the middle. For a second, he looked at Nann. Nann couldn’t hold the look. Her eyes darted away. For a split second, she saw something white, something shining, out of the corner of her eye. When she focused, she saw only the board members rising from beside their fallen leader.
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Keith finally found his voice. He mumbled something into the mic pinned to his lapel. An elderly man moved forward with more speed than Nann would’ve given him credit for. The crowd around the fallen man parted. He knelt over the fallen Roger Paine. A gnarled finger moved to the CEO’s neck. After a tense second, he began CPR.
Cindy remained at her father’s side, whispering. Keith Schwenk pulled a glove from his pocket and picked up the poppet. “I need everyone seated until the deputies arrive,” he said. “An ambulance is on the way.”
The old doctor, panting from his exertion, sat back on his haunches. He shook his head at Schewnk and checked his watch. Roger Paine was dead.
FOR A MOMENT, THE ROOM went silent, save Cindy’s quiet sobs. The doctor stood, nodded to Schwenk, and left the meeting room. Calamity Corners didn’t have local police, only a County Sheriff’s outpost. Most of the staff, Keith Schwenk, was already present. Sirens sounded, but as a city girl, Nann knew it was an ambulance. It would take a while for the police to arrive.
“Wait just one dang minute here,” Bob Reynolds stood up. “I didn’t show up to this meeting on accident. What did he decide about the mill?”
“A man just died here, Bob,” Schwenk still had the mic. “We might want to be a little more respectful.”
A low but emotional wave of conversation moved over the attendees. One of the reporters, Nann didn’t know him, spoke up. “Wouldn’t finishing Mr. Paine’s speech be a respectful way to honor his last words?”
Keith was already casting around. Nann looked, too. None of the index cards could be seen. Had someone stolen Roger Paine’s speech in the commotion following his collapse?
“Anything in the victim’s possession will be considered evidence until an investigation is complete.” Despite the dismay widening his features, Keith recovered. His eyes moved from Cindy to the seated board members. “Unless any of you know what Mr. Paine’s announcement was, and would like to speak.”
Miller, Fitzgerald and Laden traded I-dunno frowns. Sam Laden spoke up. “We don’t, Deputy.”
The old doctor returned with a blanket and laid it over the late Roger Paine. He whispered condolences to Cindy, who shook her head. “It’s not possible. He just had a physical. The doctor said he was in perfect health. He didn’t have any heart conditions.”
Officialdom arrived in stages; first the EMTs, once vital, now useless; sheriff’s deputies, who huddled around Keith to ascertain the situation; followed by guys in suits—the brass, no doubt.
Nann’s eyes swept the room. The redevelopment types whispered together. The mill employees, and especially the ones on the buy-back committee, were louder. Guys with cameras wrapped up. Reporters tried to get statements, but the cops weren’t talking.
Just as the room exceeded maximum occupancy, the deputies fanned out, each taking a door. “We’re evacuating the room,” Keith said into the mic. “One row at a time. We’ll start with the council. Please have your IDs ready so that we can get this done quickly.”
FOR ONCE, SITTING IN the front row proved a good thing, as the three of them exited the town hall first. “I can’t believe it,” Zinnia said. “He died before finishing his announcement. The suspense is killing me.”
They walked toward Cemetery Street washed in the blue and red light from the emergency vehicles. “Funny, but I didn’t see any of the guy’s index cards after he died,” Tink said.
“I noticed that, too,” Nann said. “So did Deputy Schwenk.”
“Not Keith anymore?” Tink said.
Nann ignored her. “Look. We all know someone in this town has some big, bad magic. My bet is on Shoreline Properties. They want to buy the mill property. I think they are the ones who summoned that creature this summer. I’m pretty sure they just murdered Roger Paine.”
“Murdered?” Zinnia’s mouth fell open. “Roger had a heart attack or something.”
“You didn’t see the poppet?” Nann turned to Tink. “Did you?”
Tink frowned. “Puppet? Like Kermit the Frog?”
“Kermit’s a Muppet,” Zinnia said. “King Friday is a puppet.”
“Not a puppet, a poppet. You know, an effigy for sympathetic magic.” Nann received blank looks. “Okay, like a voodoo doll.”
“Oh!” Zinnia said. “Okay. Well, yeah—no. No voodoo doll.”
Tink shook her head.
Maybe Keith Schwenk snatched it up before anyone could see. Anyone but those attuned to magic. “Anyway, I heard him arguing with Barb Buford and one of the Port Argent supervisors. They were really PO’d. It had to be because Paine was going to accept the employee offer and re-open the mill. We know they’re up to no good already.”
“Well, if arguing equals motive, we saw Roger getting into it with Sam Laden at the demonstration,” Zinnia said.
Nann held up an index finger. “That doesn’t necessarily change my theory. Maybe Laden didn’t think the new operation could make enough money.”
“Change your theory? You need to hold your horses, Nancy Druid,” Tink said. “The guy co
uld’ve just dropped dead from natural causes.”
“Tell me you don’t sense dark magic in this.”
Tink bobbed her head like a seesaw. “It’s in the air. It always is around here. But yeah, okay, there’s something very dark about it. You might be right about a magic murder. Why would you think whoever did it is from here? Five people show up from out of town, one of them dies. Why not look at them first?”
“Yeah, Nancy Druid, you know the cops always look at the family first,” Zinnia said. “Maybe Sam Laden is next in line to be corporate president. Maybe Cindy is.”
“First of all, stop calling me Nancy Druid. Second of all, none of the board members were here when the Piper started stealing little kids.”
They walked in silence for a while, remembering the summer. Three children were drawn from their homes by an extra-dimensional being. It took a person with a lot of power to summon a Pied Piper. That someone had started long before Nann arrived.
Chapter 4
Nann should’ve driven home to feed Pokey. Instead, she followed her instinct. It led to Port Argent City Councilor Blake Simmon’s house. Barb Buford and her council cronies had tried to buy her out of her house, trick her out of her house, and she’d seen their scheme to remake this whole part of the shore a resort. Her inherited home had been burglarized, records stolen, including part of a summoning ceremony that would have banished the Piper. Nann had only defeated the creature by the skin of her teeth. Whoever brought the Pied Piper to Calamity Corners was still out there.
The bottom of her conjure bag served as a sheath for her Athame, a small knife she used in ceremonies. A chill breeze blew through Cricket’s window. Nann waved the blade through the air before her eyes.
“Divulge to me what my eyes can’t see,
cast away all anonymity,
disregard the forms my mind finds real,
let any magic stand now revealed.”
The blade glimmered, first blue, then red. Nann tried to focus on the house. Where was it coming from? Then, Cricket’s interior filled with light. Bright white, and red, and blue. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the police car pulling to the side of the road behind her. She glanced at the knife. Put it on the dashboard. Uh-oh.
Squinting past the bright flashlight, she saw Deputy Keith Schwenk.
“Nann? Is that you? What are you doing here?” Keith lowered the light.
I’m looking for evil magic was not the thing to say to a cop. “I was just thinking.”
“You should probably think someplace else. The people in the house are freaked out. It probably didn’t help that one of them just saw a man die.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Nann knew she was a terrible liar, so she didn’t bother. Cops were paid to be suspicious to begin with.
“Don’t tell me you suspect Blake Simmons for Roger Paine’s death—don’t tell me for two reasons, the first of which is we were both there and Simmons didn’t get anywhere near Paine, and second, it isn’t your job to suspect anybody, it’s my job.” His words were stern, but not unkind. His eyes strayed to her dashboard. “What’s with the black potato peeler?”
She stopped herself from saying it wasn’t a potato peeler. “My lucky charm.”
“Well, it’s working. Go home, Nann. I do have some questions for you, but they’ll wait until tomorrow. That was quite a shocking scene tonight. Get some rest.”
AFTER A NIGHT OF TOSSING and turning, Nann finally gave up before sunrise. After a shower, she headed down to the kitchen to boot up Mr. Coffee.
“You should’ve worked up some fake tears,” Pokey said through the radio. “That always got your Aunt Nancy out of trouble.”
“I didn’t have time. Besides, I wasn’t in trouble. I don’t think. I mean, I guess it’s pretty easy to tie me to some recent weirdness around here.” Nann chopped up some root vegetables for Pokey and poured herself a bowl of Apple Jacks. “Probably doesn’t help that I get caught stalking.”
“You should stalk someone more interesting. Like Josh Gates, or Jeremy Wade.”
Nann scowled at the pig. “Why would I stalk Josh Gates or Jeremy Wade?” She set a bowl down for him.
“They go to interesting places. I’ve never been anywhere. Other than the Finger Lakes. That was no vacation.” Pokey dug in. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well.” Nann dug a spoon out of a drawer. When she put it in her bowl, she realized it was full of chopped up root vegetables. She looked down at Pokey. His snout was covered in milk. Thankfully, Mr. Coffee made the horrible digestive sounds that signaled a full pot. With a sigh, she put the veggies on the floor next to the empty cereal bowl.
FOUNDERS HOUSE, INHERITED from Aunt Nancy, sat on a forest bluff above Port Argent. Nann wound down the Bluff Road and through the little town. There were chain restaurants, a couple B&Bs, a couple chain hotels, two supermarkets, gas stations on the corners. People came for the beach in the summer, for hunting in the fall, for whatever people did in the snow for winter. Several winding miles later, she entered Amity Corners, which was the flip side of Port Argent. There were no chain anythings, not even a McDonalds. Few cars traveled the streets, people hung out on porches, most businesses featured boarded windows. Locals called the place Calamity Corners for a reason.
She parked in front of Amity Center (the locals called it Cemetery Center, and, yes, for a reason) and unlocked the store. After booting up the computers, she sat back to finish her coffee. Cemetery Center, she thought to herself, because the place was almost always dead.
A ding of the front door startled her. Deputy Keith Schwenk, still in uniform, stepped in as promised. Nann tensed. Not just because she was trying to bury feelings of guilt (mostly misplaced), but because even if she didn’t want to admit it, she was attracted to the guy.
“Wow, I love your store, Nann.” Keith walked in a tight circle, taking it in. His eyes paused for a long time on the extensive occult section. “Is there a new Steven Pinker book?”
Book talk. Nann relaxed a little. “I haven’t seen a new one in the Viking catalog. Have you read The Ape that Understood the Universe? You might like that if you like Pinker. I loved it. Or is this an official visit?”
Keith smiled. “It’s not an official official visit.”
“Do they know how Roger Paine died yet?”
He shook his head. “Awaiting autopsy, and I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
“Of course.”
For a long moment, he hesitated. His eyes swept back to the occult section. “I do know that Greenpoint Books is world-famous for specializing in occult books. I figured maybe you were the only one in town who might know a thing or two.”
“A thing or two about what?”
He withdrew a photo from his breast pocket. Nann drew it closer once he placed it on the counter. It was the photo of the poppet from Roger Paine’s suit pocket.
“You saw this fall out of the victim’s pocket at the meeting, right?”
Nann nodded. “I did.”
“Do you know what it is?”
The nod continued. “A poppet, an effigy used in sympathetic magic. I guess the popular view would be to call it a voodoo doll, but this kind of sympathetic magic is endemic to many belief systems.”
“That’s what I thought,” Keith said.
It was Nann’s turn to pose a question. “You don’t think someone killed Roger Paine with magic, do you?”
Keith chuckled. “No. Not killed. Threatened, maybe.”
She tried to press him. “Pretty silly threat.”
“You think?” He eyed her, silent. It was a trick, she knew, to make her talk. So she didn’t.
But Keith did. “I’ve lived here all my life. My parents were friends with your great-aunt and -uncle. Most everyone liked them. They threw one hell of a barbecue. But some were afraid of Nancy. They were afraid because despite how depressed Amity Corners is, how booming Port Argent is, there’s always something very, ver
y weird going on. Rumor had it, much of the weird was connected to Nancy, her kooky friends, the big ceremonial garden in her backyard. Creature sightings by the truckload. Vampire hunters. Alligators in Ten Mile Creek. Shadows that block the stars. Kids that wander out of their homes in the middle of the night and disappear for weeks. Naked old people dances. I could go on.”
She waved a weak hand. “That’s okay.”
“The point is, a voodoo doll in your pocket might be a silly prank somewhere else, but here it takes on a much more sinister meaning. It’s in the atmosphere. That’s the point, now here’s the question: has anyone purchased books or other information from you relating to the construction of voodoo dolls?”
But Pansy and Clancy Szymanski didn’t raise no dummy. “Without getting all First Amendment-y on you, do you suspect someone?” Nann neatly turned the tables.
“Until the autopsy comes back, there’s no reason to suspect anyone. But I think you might have someone in mind.”
Dammit, he was good. “Why do you suspect that I have a suspect?”
“Because I found you stalking one of Port Argent’s town supervisors.”
Oh. Yeah. That. “You know, that Lakeshore redevelopment company tried to swindle me out of my house—twice. They’re up to no good.”
Keith nodded. “I’m well aware of Lakeshore Properties LLC and their below-board practices. But the state auditor general has been monitoring them, and she hasn’t come up with any solid evidence of criminal activity. I know it’s easy for them to hide it, since some of the company are also in city government.”
It was good to hear that she wasn’t the only one who thought Lakeshore Properties was a bunch of crooks. But still. “Those are the people who have the most to benefit if the mill closes for good. You get that, right?”
“Sure, I get that. However, since we don’t know what Roger Paine was going to announce, we don’t know that they wouldn’t benefit. You see what I’m saying? If Paine announced that he wouldn’t allow the employees to buy out Nationwide, then the redevelopers come out on top.”
The Witch is in the Details Page 3