Death of a Wicked Witch

by Lee Hollis

  They walked out the front door to see Sergio poking around the woods behind the Garber house as Officer Donnie waved a flashlight around near the yard where Mary had claimed to have seen Trudy loitering on the property.

  Hayley crossed around to the back of the house where Mary’s bedroom window was located and used her phone’s light to illuminate the patchy grass and dirt. She scanned the ground and was about to move on when she flashed over something shiny that was almost completely buried in the dirt. She quickly moved closer and bent down, using her hand to brush away the dirt, revealing a small ruby teardrop birthstone.

  Exactly like the one Trudy was wearing at the viewing in the church.

  Hayley shuddered at the sight of the piece of jewelry. It appeared as if it was the exact same one. But Hayley distinctly remembered Trudy was wearing it in the casket when she was buried. They had had a conversation with Ted about it. So how on earth did it suddenly wind up here? She reached down, picked it up, and stared at it, dumbfounded.

  “What did you find?” Bruce asked, suddenly behind her.

  Hayley jumped, startled. “Bruce! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I was walking. Like a normal person. There was no sneaking. What is that you’re holding?”

  Hayley held out the palm of her hand with the birthstone.

  “What is that?” Bruce asked.

  “Trudy was wearing this same birthstone in the casket at her funeral. You would recognize it if you had been able to open your eyes!”

  “Where on earth did you get it?”

  “I found it on the ground near the window, the same spot where Mary claimed to have seen Trudy.”

  “But how did it—?”

  “I don’t know,” Hayley said anxiously.

  “It can’t be the same one,” Bruce said, his mind racing. “Or maybe someone took it off Trudy at the funeral when no one was looking.”

  “No, I saw with my own eyes Trudy still wearing it when they closed the casket following the service.”

  “Come on, that can’t be the only ruby birthstone around. There must be at least a dozen people in town who own one of those.”

  “Yes, but how many look exactly like Trudy Lancaster?”

  Bruce stared at the birthstone in Hayley’s hand, muttering more to himself than to Hayley, “There is no earthly explanation for any of this if Mary is telling us the truth.”

  “Should we give this to Sergio?”

  Bruce nodded. “Yes, but do it quietly. There is no sense in letting Mary see it, at least not yet. She’s upset enough as it is.”

  Hayley and Bruce headed back inside the house. Officer Donnie was sitting outside in the squad car filling out a report.

  As they entered the living room, they found Sergio sitting with Mark and Mary, going over all the facts one more time.

  “Don’t worry, Mary,” Sergio said soothingly. “We will get to the butt of this.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Mary asked, drying her wet eyes with a tissue.

  “I said don’t worry, we will—”

  Hayley interrupted him. “Get to the bottom of this.”

  Sergio threw her an annoyed look. “Yes, that is what I said.”

  Hayley decided to let it go.

  Mark took his wife’s hand in his own. “Honey, why don’t you go to bed and get some rest? You’ve been stressed ever since Trudy died at our party. You haven’t slept hardly at all. You could be so tired you’re seeing things that aren’t real.”

  “I’m telling you, I saw Trudy’s ghost! Why won’t anyone believe me?” Mary squealed, wrenching her hand free from her husband and shooting up to her feet. She dropped the tissue on the floor and fled to the bedroom.

  After a protracted pause, Mark turned to Sergio, who had stood up and was getting ready to leave along with Hayley and Bruce. “Chief, there’s something you should know. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mary because I didn’t want to get her more riled up than she already is.”

  “What is it?” Sergio asked curiously.

  “Mary has been downing her favorite Bone-Dry Martinis all night long, and whenever she drinks too much and gets too inebriated, she sometimes becomes paranoid and starts imagining all kinds of things. Last week she swore her grandmother, Elsa, called her in the middle of the night.”

  “And Elsa never called?”

  Mark shook his head. “No, sir. Elsa has been dead since 1986.”

  “I see,” Sergio said with a sympathetic smile.

  Mark turned to Hayley and Bruce. “What do you two think?”

  “Mary’s never lied to me about anything,” Hayley said before holding up the ruby birthstone. “I also found this outside.”

  Mark looked at the stone blankly. “What is that?”

  “A birthstone. Trudy Lancaster had one just like it. In fact, she was buried with it.”

  There were several moments of tense silence.

  “Are you sure, Hayley?” Sergio asked, disturbed.

  “Yes. So unless someone is deliberately trying to gaslight poor Mary, then I believe she did see someone outside the window, and if it wasn’t a woman who looks just like Trudy and has the same ruby birthstone as her, then the only other explanation is that Mark and Mary actually got a visit tonight from Trudy Lancaster’s ghost.”

  Chapter 23

  The next day during her lunch hour, when Hayley pulled her Kia up in front of the small house on Ledgelawn Avenue that Ted and Trudy had rented shortly after moving to town, she spotted a “For Sale” sign taped to the side of Trudy’s food truck, Wicked ’Wiches.

  As she got out of her car, Ted emerged from the truck in a loose-fitting dirty T-shirt and scruffy jeans, carrying a box full of sub rolls, deli meats, wrapped cheeses, and wilting vegetables. He promptly tossed the food into a giant rolling trash bin he had borrowed from the Bar Harbor Solid Waste Facility. He turned to head back inside the truck when he noticed Hayley.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Ted said. “What am I doing wasting all that good food?”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” Hayley said. “But maybe it’s because I’m a little hungry, like always.”

  Ted wiped the sweat on his forehead away with his arm. “The Food Pantry only accepts canned goods for donations. They don’t take perishables, and I have to get this thing cleaned out and washed before I show it to any potential buyers.”

  Hayley nodded sadly. “Whoever ends up with it will sure have a tough act to follow. Trudy’s sandwiches were some of the best I ever tasted.”

  “She was a real talent,” Ted said. “I thought about holding onto the truck, but...” His voice cracked. “I don’t cook, never have, and I already have a job at the church, so what’s the point?”

  “I understand,” Hayley said. “Can I help?”

  “No, thank you,” Ted said. “I’m just about finished. I got a potential buyer coming around at two to take a look at it. Fingers crossed he makes an offer.”

  “Do you know if he’s thinking of keeping it as a food truck?”

  Ted shrugged. “Beats me. He can strip it down and use it to haul wood for all I care. I just want it out of my sight. I can’t look at it anymore.”

  Hayley stood on the sidewalk awkwardly, not sure how to respond.

  Ted suddenly realized how callous he sounded and added, “It’s just a constant reminder that she’s no longer here. The memories are too painful, I guess.” He paused a moment, thinking to himself, and then a lightbulb seemed to go off above his head. “Hey, I hear you’re a whiz in the kitchen, why don’t you take it off my hands and start your own business? I’ll give you a really good deal.”

  “Oh, no,” Hayley said with a laugh. “Not me! I could never do what Trudy did. It’s way too much work. And I lack the kind of drive and ambition it would take to make an enterprise like this a success.”

  “I get that. Sometimes I felt Trudy was more married to this truck than she was to me. Which is pro
bably why I don’t mind getting rid of it,” Ted said absently.

  Hayley waited for him to expound on his last statement but he didn’t. He just turned around and went back inside the truck.

  After about a minute, he came out carrying another box, this one full of used cooking utensils. “Trudy sure did put a lot of hours into this truck. It must have been hard on you.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sometimes jealous of this truck. Don’t get me wrong. We were both devoted to our jobs. Once Reverend Staples officially steps down, I’m going to be at that church pretty much twenty-four seven. And I was thrilled Trudy had something that made her so happy. But like every marriage, things weren’t perfect between us,” he said casually, almost as an afterthought.

  But it was the opening Hayley had been waiting for. “I know, Ted...”

  Ted tossed the box of utensils in the trash bin and turned back to Hayley. “Did Trudy say anything to you before she died?”

  “Oh, no,” Hayley said. “I just heard something about her filing for divorce...”

  Ted froze, stunned that this information was out there. Hayley could see his mind racing for a few seconds as he thought about what he should say. Ultimately he chose to make light of the whole rumor. “Oh that. Yeah, we had a fight over something silly and she threatened to divorce me, but I knew she would never do it.”

  “But she did put the plan in motion,” Hayley said quietly. “She filed papers at the courthouse.”

  Ted stiffened, struggling to keep up his calm exterior. “Yeah, I know. But we made up pretty quick after that and she told me she was going to withdraw the papers. She just never got the chance.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  Ted sighed, obviously not eager to talk about it, but he was also anxious to put this whole divorce story to bed. “Trudy was keenly aware that Reverend Staples had a crush on her. She showed up at the church with sandwiches for us one day, and she was wearing a tank top because she had been slaving over a hot grill all morning, and I could see the reverend leering at her. I just got all stupid and jealous, and stupidly blamed her for flaunting her sexuality, which of course she wasn’t, and it led to a fight between us. I realized later that day I was totally overreacting and I apologized. And Trudy admitted that sometimes she could get too dramatic and do outrageous things like filing those divorce papers. So we kissed and made up. It was completely over by the time she left in her truck for the Garbers’ Witches Ball.”

  “Speaking of the Garbers...”

  “I already heard,” Ted said, chuckling. “Mary Garber saw Trudy’s ghost last night. I’m sure she sees a lot of things given how much that woman drinks.”

  “She was quite shaken up by it. I was there.”

  “I know you were,” Ted said pointedly.

  “You do?”

  “Chief Alvarez stopped by this morning to ask me about the ruby birthstone you found on the ground outside Mary’s bedroom window.”

  “You have to admit it’s kind of a strange coincidence, Mary claiming to have seen Trudy, and then me finding that birthstone,” Hayley said.

  Ted grabbed a handkerchief from the back pocket of his grimy jeans and started brushing the dust and dirt off his bare arms and face.

  “I’ll tell you what I told the chief. I have no idea how a similar birthstone found its way to Mary Garber’s backyard, but I do know one thing: Trudy was buried with the birthstone that belonged to her. And short of digging my wife up to prove it, which I absolutely refuse to do and said so to the chief, there is no way we’ll ever really know for sure how it got there. And frankly, I don’t care because solving that little mystery is not going to bring my wife back!”

  He was done talking. He checked his watch. “This guy’s coming to look at the truck in a bit, Hayley, so I need to get it looking presentable.”

  She knew she had outworn her welcome. “If there is anything you need, please call me.”

  “Will do,” he said gruffly.

  Although she knew he wouldn’t.

  Chapter 24

  Hayley stirred awake in bed, her eyes still closed, and she heard Bruce snoring softly next to her.

  Or at least at first she thought it was Bruce.

  It was odd that he wasn’t pressed up against her like he normally would be during the night, one arm slung around her waist, keeping her body close to him. She would always feel the hot air at the nape of her neck as he slowly breathed in and out. But tonight was markedly different. He wasn’t touching her and didn’t appear to be anywhere near her in the bed, and yet she could hear this unfamiliar whistling sound coming out of him. Usually he was a typical “nasal snorer,” which sounded as if he was suffering from congestion, very low and deep and through the nose. But this sounded like someone completely different. Hayley slowly opened her eyes and listened some more. No, this was definitely not the Bruce she had been sharing a bed with every night since the day they had gotten married last summer. Which begged the question, who was in bed next to her?

  Hayley considered jumping out of bed and grabbing the lamp on the night table next to her to use as a weapon. She had seen that famous 1970s horror movie When a Stranger Calls when she was a kid where the heroine believes a killer is somewhere in the house and tries to wake up her boyfriend in bed next to her only to realize the boyfriend is gone and it’s the killer in bed with her! It was shocking and scary and Hayley didn’t sleep for weeks after watching that scene! But this was real life, and the odds of a serial killer in bed with her were at best, she hoped, remote.

  She slowly, quietly turned her body around to see who it was, and a wave of relief instantly washed over her at the sight of her dog, Leroy, on his back, all fours in the air, his head turned to the side and his tongue halfway out, snoring.

  She reached out and scratched his head but he didn’t wake up. He just shifted to his side. Hayley looked around for Bruce, but he wasn’t in the bedroom. Leroy must have fervently taken his place in the warm bed after he left.

  Hayley sat up, her feet touching the cold floor, and padded out of the room into the second-floor hallway. The door to Gemma’s room was closed and there was no sound coming from inside so she assumed Gemma and Conner were both in a deep sleep. She was about to head down the stairs to see if Bruce had insomnia and was biding his time watching TV when she stopped suddenly, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  She smelled smoke.

  Not the kind of smoke that indicated the house was on fire. No, this was distinctly cigarette smoke. She glanced around and noticed that the door to the bathroom was closed, which was unusual if no one was in there. She could see a light shining through the crack between the door and the floor.

  Hayley grimaced, quietly took hold of the handle, and then whipped open the door and charged into the bathroom.

  Bruce, in just his boxer shorts, was sitting in the tub, wearing reading glasses, his laptop computer nestled in his lap as he typed, and, as she had suspected, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  Her surprise attack startled him and he dropped his computer and clutched his chest as if he was about to suffer a heart attack. The cigarette also fell out of his mouth and landed in his crotch. He frantically retrieved it before the burning ash caused his boxers to burst into flames.

  “Hayley! What the—?”

  “Aha!” Hayley cried.

  “Why would you do that?” he yelled, still holding onto his chest. “My God, are you trying to kill me?”

  She turned and closed the bathroom door behind her and locked it from the inside. “Shhh. I don’t want to wake up Gemma and Conner.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be sneaking up on me like that,” Bruce said as he stamped out his cigarette on the side of the tub.

  She noticed Bruce had the bathroom window open in a vain attempt to air out the smell of the cigarette smoke.

  “I wanted to catch you in the act.”

  “Mission accomplished, okay? I came in here to work so I wouldn’t dist
urb you.”

  “And steal a smoke,” Hayley said. “Why aren’t you wearing the nicotine patch?”

  Bruce sighed as he climbed to his feet and stepped out of the tub to face his wife. “I tried, I really did, but it was making me nauseous. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, which is why I’m up this late trying to finish my column. I got nothing done at the office today. I took the patch off, just for tonight, so I could write, but then after a little while I got a hankering for a smoke, and I remembered I had a pack in the pocket of my leather jacket so I figured I would just sneak one.”

  Hayley’s eyes fell upon an ashtray on top of the bathroom sink that was overflowing with cigarette butts. “Just one?”

  Bruce followed her gaze, and then with a sheepish look, “I guess I got so engrossed writing my column I lost track of how many I actually—”

  “Bruce, I don’t want you smoking in the house.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I swear I won’t do it again. Just cut me a little slack, okay? I’m under a lot of pressure at work. I’ll try harder to quit, I promise.”

  She wanted to berate him some more, but he appeared genuinely contrite and remorseful so she decided to let it go. “What are you working on?”

  “I’m writing a special report on Trudy Lancaster’s murder. I’m coming at it from the angle of her being a friend of ours. I talk about how the four of us—me, you, Trudy, and Ted—started seeing each other socially right before she died.”

  “So you definitely agree with me that someone tampered with that propane tank?”

  “Not just someone, I think we both know who did it.”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, Hayley, she filed for divorce on the same day someone gassed her to death inside her truck.”

  “Ted?”

  “Of course it’s Ted!”

  “How can you be so certain when there is zero physical evidence tying him to the alleged crime? You’re usually more careful than that, Bruce.”

  “Look, honey, I’ve been at this crime-reporting thing for a long, long time. I’ve written dozens of articles about possessive men who killed their wives when they tried to leave them. Given what we know now, I’m betting this case is no different from at least half the episodes of 48 Hours.”