by Ami Diane
He glared at her. “What are you on about?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Forget I asked. Just remember what I said about the you-know-what. Not a word, or else…” She backed away, using her hands to indicate a fish then eating it.
His eyes grew to the size of saucers, and she had to turn away to keep from laughing. When she looked back, Jackson had the man loaded in his vehicle.
“Deputy Burt’s going to get your statement,” he called out over the top of his car before ducking inside.
With a crunch of gravel, he pulled away. The next half-hour dragged by as she meticulously gave the other officer a blow-by-blow account of her evening, leaving out the invisibility component.
Gratefully, she was interrupted when Marge’s car came screaming up the drive. Gravel flew out as it slid sideways to a stop, knocking over a potted palm tree.
She ran up the porch steps and squeezed Libby in a tight hug, both talking a mile-a-minute. Marge proudly sported a black eye while Max dug up Libby’s flowerbed.
Deputy Burt clicked his pen a few times, cleared his throat, then finally called Libby back over to finish her statement.
It wasn’t until early in the morning, after Deputy Burt and the others took photos and collected evidence and left, after she and Marge swept up the broken glass and tacked a board over the kitchen window, did the duo finally collapse on the rarely used couch in her living room.
Libby was equal parts exhausted and amped up after such a day. As she sipped a cup of chamomile tea, she mentioned the boarded-up window in the other room.
“Can I borrow that potion of yours we used at Shelly’s bookstore? The one that temporarily transmutes material into glass?”
“Sure, I’ll bring it by tomorrow. You should probably clean those cuts on your face.”
After she said she would, Libby told her story again, this time, including the bits about potions, then she listened as Marge told hers. It was agreed that both Max and Orchid were the heroes that evening.
They fell silent, and Marge stirred the steaming liquid in her cup. “I’ll call an emergency meeting tomorrow. We’re going to have to do a lot of damage control.”
“Actually,” Libby said into her cup, fighting a grin, “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Rodney.”
After she told Marge about threatening the man, they laughed then chatted until they’d both calmed down and were yawning. Libby offered up the guest room upstairs, warning that the bed had been known to end up in the hallway.
Later, the floorboards creaked above her with Marge’s steps as Libby took down the bag of treats from on top of the fridge. The officers had told her to avoid the room, but she couldn’t very well not use her kitchen.
Orchid circled between her legs, purring.
“Tonight, you get extra helpings.” She scratched the Norwegian Forest cat’s chin. And just because Jasper made such a fuss, she gave him more of his treats too. Upstairs, she heard a soft bark from Marge’s room as the Max settled in for the night.
Chapter Thirty-One
LIBBY’S BLACK DRESS fluttered in a sea breeze. She stood apart from the church, watching Beatrice’s family—two sons and a daughter—as they were comforted by those exiting the building. At least nine grandchildren around Libby’s age and a handful of great-grandchildren mingled outside on the lawn.
A handsome man in a suit shook hands with the family. His gaze snagged on Libby, and he ambled over. Eric Jackson’s hair was combed, and his eyes matched the patches of blue sky breaking through the clouds.
“It was a nice service.”
Libby nodded. “Bea would’ve enjoyed it. She would’ve dozed off during her eulogy, but she would’ve enjoyed it, nonetheless. And that organ music…”
“Yeah, what was that?”
“I’ve never heard Stairway to Heaven quite like that before.” She shivered as the notes still echoed in her ears.
After a moment, she changed the subject. “Did Rodney confess?”
“Yep.” His brows were pinched together, making the scar through one prominent.
“What is it?”
“It’s just—the footprints. He claims he acted alone, won’t fess up to who else was with him, but unless he wore heels to the crime scene, he wasn’t alone.”
“Or,” she said, “someone else came in afterward.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that too. I asked around the neighborhood, figuring it might’ve been someone nearby who heard the noise and came running, but no one did. At least that’s what they’re saying, anyway.”
“Maybe they came to help her, got spooked, and were too scared to call the police.”
“It’s possible. I know people get frightened, but seeing a dead body and not calling the police, that’s a bit much.”
Except, Libby thought, they wouldn’t have seen Bea’s body or the blood. But they would’ve seen the lab in shambles, making it obvious something untoward had occurred.
“Maybe it was someone driving by.”
“Maybe.” He let out a deep breath. “I guess we’ll never know.” Nodding, he turned to leave.
“Hey, booger butt,” she called out.
His face reddened.
“Nice suit, by the way. I mean, you don’t fill it out as nicely as Mr. Goldstein over there.” She nodded towards an elderly gentleman using a cane to shuffle down the sidewalk. The man wore a plaid shirt eerily similar to the walls in her laboratory, plaid pants of an entirely different color, and topped off the ensemble with a bright yellow plaid golf hat.
Jackson opened his mouth, then he shut it and walked away. A Volvo screamed up the street, jumped the sidewalk, and came to a halt inches away from Libby.
Marge stuck her head out her window. “Ready, Red?”
Libby shot a last glance at the mourners before hopping into her soon-to-be coffin. A few minutes and a couple of blown stop signs later, they pulled into a parking lot next to the beach. Incidentally, it was the same lot where they’d had the carwash a little over a week earlier.
A few people roamed the sand, bending into the wind. Overhead, a kite flapped about.
After Libby and Marge joined the circle of other potionists already gathered on the sand, Caroline passed around differently shaped conch seashells. They whispered private messages to Beatrice into the shells. When everyone had finished, they approached the surf. They went around saying kind words about the woman, their voices mostly drowned out by the roar of the wind and waves.
One by one, they tossed their shells into the waves. Libby held hers and sidled up to Marge. “Won’t they just come back with the tide?”
“No. Caroline dips the shells in a special potion that carries them out to sea.”
“Interesting. I wonder why she made something like that in the first place.”
“For this.” Marge indicated all of them. “This is our tradition dating back a couple of generations. This is how we send off one of our own.”
Libby swallowed, turning the shell in her hands. They must’ve done this for Arlene too.
Death was part of life. Leaves turned golden and fell. Summer became fall. Yet, the ache in Libby’s heart remained. A hole deep in her soul, an emptiness that would forever remain from the loss of her mother. And now, a new, smaller one for Beatrice.
But it wasn’t an emotion to shove away. It was one she needed to live with and carry, a new reality to accept. She’d fled her home, trying to expunge the pain, but she would run from it no longer.
Facing the wind, she lobbed the shell high. It arced and plopped into an incoming wave. Marge still stood beside her, and the others milled about, out of earshot. The older potionist’s hair, which was standing on end, waved about like a passion flower.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” Libby said, her eyes still transfixed on the waves. “Rodney didn’t take Bea’s potion book. He didn’t even know what I was talking about.”
“You believe him?”
“I do.”
Marge agreed. “We should be welcoming another into our fold right now.” A gull cried and swooped low over the water. “Someone else showed up and took it.”
“The question is, who? And where is it now? And how did they know Bea had died?” Libby wondered aloud.
She sighed and let the wind carry her worries away, questions for another day. “Did you give Rodney’s family his winnings?”
Marge nodded. “Shelly did yesterday.”
Overhead, the clouds were burning off, promising a beautiful day. She tilted her head, watching the birds.
An oddly-shaped one grew larger as it neared. Libby’s tranquil expression pinched into a frown. As it expanded, getting ever closer, the shape coalesced, clearly not a seagull. Was it a plane?
She tensed and yelled, “Look out!”
The others looked up in time to scatter. A large object hit the sand with a thunk, spraying bits of beach everywhere.
“Hey, look,” Libby said brightly, “it’s the table.”
After they gathered up the demolished card table, they strode back to the parking lot. Libby’s phone rang when she reached Marge’s car.
She set down the broken table leg she had been carrying and looked at the caller ID. James was calling her. That chapter of her life was over, but in order to truly turn the page, she needed to do it right this time. She had been wrong to end it the way she had.
This new beginning was no longer about running from her past. Swallowing her pride, she answered.
Hello, friends!
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Ami Diane
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