“Nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone, is there?”
He grinned at her. “Not in my book.” Then he looked at me and held out his hand. “I’m Deputy Steve Brighton. And you are?”
“Opal Ravenswind, from Wind’s Crossing.”
His eyebrows raised. “I believe I’ve heard a thing or two about you.”
“Word about me does tend to get around.” Especially as my sister was married to a prominent member of Oak Hill.
“So, what can you tell me about this?” Patricia motioned toward the barn.
The deputy scratched his head for a minute, staring at the smoke still rising from the wooden remains. “Not much, I’m afraid. The fire marshal will be back with a team later on today, or maybe even tomorrow, once things cool down here a bit. We’ll know more when they’re done.”
“The kids are all okay, though, right?” Sorry, but my priority would always be children above all else.
He nodded. “Scared and shaken, but okay.” He shook his head. “If it hadn’t been for that zip line, that sure as heck wouldn’t be the case.”
“Do you think the fire was an accident?”
That was rather smart of Patricia to word it that way. I’d have been more likely to ask if they knew who set it. But then, we might just know more than they did at this point.
All sign of a smile was now gone from his face. “No. We don’t.” He motioned for us to follow him and walked around to the back of the barn. A little off to the side was a discarded red gas can.
He stopped us before we got too close to it. “Sorry, ladies, but that’s evidence, and I can’t let you closer than this. The sheriff has been delayed. I’m here to keep the scene undisturbed. I could use some help putting up the crime scene tape, if you’re up to it.”
“I’ll be glad to help you, deputy,” I volunteered. Of the two of us, Patricia was the one with the most investigative experience. It just made sense for me to provide her with a bit of a distraction.
Of course, my offer of a distraction was wasted when she followed along right behind us. If we would be working together on this, we needed to work on our signaling process. Come up with a code or something to let the other know the plan.
Too late for that now. It did rather surprise me, though, when she pulled out a pair of binoculars from her trunk and put the strap around her neck. Huh. That was a good idea. With those, she could see that can up close and personal and keep her distance at the same time.
I was starting to have a very healthy respect for the woman. More than I had by her just being a council witch, which was substantial as it was. One didn’t get on the council of witches easily.
While I helped the deputy string out the crime scene tape, I watched her walk around the corner of the barn out of the corner of my eye. Maybe she didn’t get her signals crossed after all. A glance at the deputy showed me he wasn’t too concerned with her disappearance. He seemed much more interested in pumping me for information about her.
“How long have you known Patty?”
I thought for a minute. “Going on a decade or more now, I reckon.”
He nodded. “Are you friends or co-workers... what?”
“Friends mostly, but we do work together now and again.”
“Don’t suppose you’d want to tell me how you knew about the barn in time to get here before the sheriff?”
I looked at him. “Ever hear of a police radio?”
Not once did I say that we had heard of the fire on the police radio. Not once. I was merely asking an honest question. If he made the assumption that we heard it on a police radio, well, you know what they say about assumptions.
He grunted. “I see.” He glanced back in the direction that Patricia has gone. “You happen to know if Patty is seeing anyone right now?”
I finished tying off the piece of yellow ribbon that I was working on before straightening up and looking him square in the eyes. “I kind of thought maybe the two of you might be an item.”
He took a deep breath. “My work gets in the way a lot.”
If he’d been going to say more, Patricia’s appearance around the corner of the barn stopped him. She didn’t look happy.
In point of fact, the woman looked downright worried.
Chapter 8
“We need to have another talk with Arch.”
I looked over the car at her. “Okay. Want to tell me what you learned back there?”
“What do you think? I found another one of Arch’s spell marks. In just about the worst place I could find it too.”
I closed my eyes for a brief second. “Let me take a wild guess. His mark is on the gas can?”
“It is. And not a teeny, tiny one either.” She hesitated. “If the council gets wind of this, Opal, they won’t hesitate to pull him in until they can do a full investigation. I’m halfway tempted to take him in myself. Missing spell journal or no.”
If Patricia was that close to doing it, then she was right. The council wouldn’t hesitate. They didn’t like to run the risk of rogue witches being out and about. Their policy was more of a contain the situation (and the suspected witch) first, investigate later. Sometimes, the investigation happened fairly quickly. Other times, it kind of fell through the cracks.
Not that we would let that happen to Archie, but still. The council’s wheels turned slowly. And Archie would be in a magical limbo cell until those wheels reached their destination. However long that took.
It wasn’t a good scenario.
“You think he’ll be home today?”
I nodded. It was Sunday, and my sister was pretty adamant when it came to the whole one day of rest thing. Archie might be putting in all kinds of hours and working six days a week, but I was fairly certain Sapphire would put a stop to him working on a Sunday.
I hated to interrupt their one restful day, but priorities were priorities. I thought keeping Archie out of a limbo cell counted as a fairly big one.
“I’ll call them and let them know we’re coming.”
“You think that’s wise?”
I just looked at her. “What? You think he’ll do a runner? From us? Come on, Patricia. You know better than that.”
She shook her head and climbed into the car. “I’d like to say I do, but I’ve been surprised before.”
Patricia didn’t say if that surprise had come because of her investigative life or because of her marriage to Archie. Truthfully, right at this moment, I didn’t want to know. I was that afraid it might be the latter.
And if so, I was that worried as to just what my sister had gone and gotten herself into.
Sapphire answered on the first ring. She seemed more than a little worried when I told her Patricia and I were on our way to see them.
“There’s been another incident, hasn’t there? With Archie’s spell mark?”
I hesitated in answering. I’m an old-fashioned kind of witch. It had taken the girls years to get me to carry a dang cellphone. And even now, I still didn’t trust having personal and confidential conversations over them.
“Yes, but we’ll talk more when we get there. I’m guessing we’re about ten minutes out right now.”
“I’ll throw together some eggs and sausage then. Drive safe.”
WE WALKED INTO THE heavenly smell of freshly fried sausage and eggs. My stomach immediately reminded me I hadn’t eaten yet this morning. Not even a cup of coffee, either. It wasn’t very happy with me.
That didn’t mean I was willing to go along with Sapphire’s new rule of not talking business over meals, and I told her so.
She nodded. “Just this once, I agree.”
We sat down, and I immediately started stuffing my face. As far as I was concerned, at this point, I would let Patricia take the lead. She and I were both on the council, but she was an enforcer. I wasn’t. That made a difference. By letting her handle this, I was hoping to get the message across loud and clear to both Archie and my sister that this was a very serious matter.
Right now, they were dealing with Patricia who, for the most part, could be reasoned with. That would change if the full council got involved.
But Sapphire didn’t even give Patricia a chance to start the conversation. She did. “Whatever it is this time, he has a rock-solid alibi. Me.” She looked from me to Patricia and back. “Archie hasn’t left my side since the two of you left last night.”
Normally, with a witch, that assertion might not mean all that much. I mean, you can work magic spells and send them out into the world from the privacy of your very own home. Sapphire knew that too.
But this time, it did mean something. The fact was, someone had to have been on the scene at that barn to pour that gas. If Archie was here, then that someone wasn’t him. I glanced over at Patricia and saw her shoulders drop just that little bit.
Good. She got that too.
I continued to eat while she filled them in on the barn fire and the spell mark on the gas can. “I will guess you have a reason for that spell mark to be there?”
He frowned down at his plate. “I’ve only ever spelled one gas can that I can recall. And it wasn’t for the owner of that barn. It was for old man Grayson.”
“Why on earth would you spell a gas can?” I asked. So much for letting Patricia do this, but my curiosity was too high on this one. I hadn’t been able to come up with a single workable reason to do that, and it was worrying me.
Archie took a deep breath. “Some kids were messing around out at Grayson’s farm. One of them put sugar in his gas can. Ruined a perfectly good riding mower. He came to me and asked if I could put some kind of a warning on the can to let him know if someone had messed with it.”
I looked at Patricia over the table. “Okay, so that makes sense. And we already know that whoever did this also had access to Grayson’s farm, as they’d already visited it with one of their little pranks.”
“I wouldn’t consider it a little prank, Opal,” Sapphire said. “Putting an old man that high up in a tree? Archie’s protection spells are powerful, but not invincible.”
“Sorry. I agree whole-heartedly. I guess in my mind, I was just comparing it to setting a barn on fire with kids inside.”
Archie almost came out of his chair on that one. “There were kids inside that barn?”
Oh yeah. Patricia had left that little fact out, hadn’t she?
His eyes locked on Patricia. “If that’s the case, then this thing just got really serious, really quick.” His face was a lot whiter than usual. “Please tell me they are okay.”
“They are,” Patricia said. “They got out and clear with only very minor injuries.”
Archie leaned against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. “Praise be to the Goddess.”
I pushed my plate away. I’d finished all the food on it, and I held my hand up when Sapphire started to dish me out some more eggs. “No thank you, Sapphire, I’m trying to cut back. That’s hard to do with your cooking, though.” I smiled at her, then glanced around at the others. “Eat up, everyone, we have a lot of brainstorming to do.”
Being around Orville had taught me a lot of things. One of those things was to carry a notebook and pen wherever I went, no matter what. That served me well now. I reached down into the bag at my feet and pulled them out. Then I uncapped the pen and wrote ‘list of suspects’ at the top.
“Okay, so we know that Fran Goldman and her daughter, Shyla, have reason to be upset with you right now, and that they have full access to your office and the spell journal.”
Archie didn’t look happy, but he gave me a nod. “We do, but I really don’t believe either of them would do such a thing.”
“Neither do I, Archie, but that doesn’t matter right now. We need to list everyone that might have had access to that journal that also might have a reason to use it against you. We can’t let our personal feelings into this. Everyone has to go on the list.” I glanced around the table. “Agreed?”
Everyone nodded.
“Well, if everyone has to go on the list, then I top it,” Sapphire said. “I have full access to Archie’s office. I even have my own key and everything.”
“Yes, but you don’t have the whole reason to use it against him.” I hesitated for the briefest of heartbeats, looking at her closely. “Do you?”
She smiled at me. “No, you have me there. Not a single one. So, I don’t go on the list?”
“Not yet,” Patricia said. “I’m with Opal on this. I think we need to start with access and a grudge. If that doesn’t pan out, then we’ll narrow it down a bit from there.”
“So, Fran and Shyla. Who else?” I asked.
Archie didn’t look happy. “You know I can’t discuss private client affairs. It’s a legality.”
Patricia shook her head. “We aren’t asking you to. Not yet, anyway. But if you have a client with a grudge, we still need them on the list.”
I just looked at him. “You have a perfect court record. Why would you have clients with a grudge?”
He didn’t say anything, but Sapphire did. “Maybe they had to pay a bigger fine than what they felt they should have. Maybe they had to plea out to a lesser charge. It could be any one of a number of things, dear.” She paused, looking over at Archie. “It could also be any one of a number of clients that you turned down to take on the Tomlin case, too, you know.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “There are a couple that were very vocal about my choice on that. But again, they wouldn’t go to these extremes...”
“You weren’t listening, Arch. Opal said our personal feelings don’t count for this list, and I agree one hundred percent. We need as comprehensive a list as possible. So give us names already,” Patricia said.
He did. We started at the table and then, once everyone else had finished eating, we all moved to the living room. We ended up with ten names of possible suspects.
Then I noticed that Sapphire had a very thoughtful look on her face. “What?” I asked.
“Well,” she started, glancing over at Archie. “There was a young attorney a couple of weeks back, right before all this began in fact, that was very adamant about joining the firm. As a partner, no less. He didn’t take too kindly to being told it was a family affair.”
“Was he ever in your office?” Patricia asked, her sharp eyes watching for Archie’s reaction.
“Yes. He was. Briefly.”
“When’s the last time you recall marking a spell in your journal? Or remember noting that it was still there? Before or after his visit?”
Archie rubbed his face. “I’ve been so caught up in this Tomlin case, that I honestly couldn’t recall when I did my last spell. It’s been a while. And as for how long the journal has been missing?” Another face rub. “I honestly couldn’t even begin to guess.”
Before I put my notebook away, I had a couple more questions to ask. “Whoever is behind this obviously knows you’re a witch. Don’t suppose that narrows it down any?” They all just looked at me. “Yeah, I kind of thought that was public knowledge, but I wanted to be sure.”
“That brings up another point, though, Opal. The call this morning mentioned the council.” Her sharp eyes went to Archie. “Any idea who on this list would know about the witches’ council?”
He looked a bit confused. “None of them that I know of. I mean, it’s not something we talk about, now is it?”
Well, that was that then. Eleven people to start with.
And time was wasting.
Chapter 9
On the way back to Patricia’s to pick up my car, I called Orville. I still hadn’t invited him to Kimberly’s impromptu backyard picnic. Good thing it was his day off and he didn’t have any plans.
When I hung up from him, I glanced over at Patricia. “I’d be happy if you could come too, you know. We might have time to talk a bit more about what’s going on.”
“With the sheriff around? You really want to bring him in on this?”
I gave that some thought but finally nodde
d. “Orville is a good man to have on your side at any time. I’m thinking right now that could only be a good thing. Plus, he knows Archie too. I think it would be safe to bring him in.” Not to mention the fact that as the investigating officer on the whole old man Grayson up in a tree thing, he was already in it to begin with.
She shrugged. “Your call, I guess. I have to admit, right now I’m more worried about the council than I am about the local law enforcement agencies.”
“Yup. Another reason having Orville on our team wouldn’t be such a terrible idea, in my opinion.”
“I get that. If you want to fill him in, it’s all right by me. But I think I’ll give the picnic a pass, if you don’t mind. My day’s gotten off to a rocky enough start as it is. Need to go play catch up now.”
Not sure that I believed her on that one. But then, I wasn’t super relishing the idea of sitting outside freezing my buns off either.
When we got to Patricia’s, I switched over to my car, and she went inside. It was still a couple of hours before the noon time picnic. Not really enough time to do anything on all this, and I was sure that even though Kimberly had said she had the food handled, that she could use a little help all the same.
I stopped by the market and picked up some charcoal, hamburger, hotdogs, and buns. It wouldn’t take long to fire up the grill and throw some meat on it. Extra variety was always a good idea when it came to food. And besides, men had a tendency to take over the fixing of food if it involved a grill. That was a winning situation in my book.
When I walked in the front door, sure enough, Kimberly was in a state. Her hair was wild, baby Pearl was crying—something the child rarely did—and Mason and Nancy were nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, Opal! I’m so glad you’re home. Do you think you could watch the kids while I make a quick run into town? I totally forgot to get the hamburger for the meatballs. And I promised Mason!”
The girl looked close to tears. It had been a really long time since fixing a meal for a man had thrown me into such a tizzy. But not so long that I couldn’t recall the feeling.
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