She wrung her hands. “Here’s the honest truth. I was kind of thinking crazy. I thought, since he couldn’t open the bar, he might be alone for a change. And drunk. And I might be able to hit him with the pan again, this time so hard….” She started to cry, her shoulders heaving.
“Luanne….” I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I covered her hand with mine, but I couldn’t quite give her a hug. Something was holding me back.
“Yes,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “So you see, if the stars had aligned and things had fallen the way I wanted them to, I would have been the one who killed him. My luck ran out is all.”
“Oh Luanne.”
“Like I say, I was thinking crazy. Here’s how crazy. I even thought I might be able to blame it on you. Nice, huh? I was thinking I was covered because you had shown up trying to get your bar back. So they would think it was you.”
I pulled my hand back. At this point, I didn’t think I wanted to touch her at all. “Wow Luanne.”
“I know. I’m a terrible person. But you don’t know how trapped I’ve felt for so long.”
I studied her for a moment. “You mean, trapped by your relationship with Scotty?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just leave him?”
She shook her head, staring at me, her eyes red. “I couldn’t. You see, there’s something else.”
And suddenly I was pretty sure I knew what that was. “Krissy?”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”
I shrugged. “I heard she’d been one of Scotty’s conquests.”
She sobbed for a moment, then blinked back tears. “Yeah. He got her pregnant.”
Ouch. “That I didn’t know.”
She nodded. “She’s living down in San Francisco with her little girl, Carly Ann. She’s three and so adorable. But they can’t make it without help.” Her voice hardened. “So I stayed with Scotty to make sure she got the money she needed from him every month. I do his bookkeeping. I make sure she gets paid first, before any of his creditors. They just had to wait in line.”
“Did he know you were doing that?”
“Are you kidding? Of course not.”
“Oh my goodness.” I just didn’t know what to say. But I did have a question.
“Did you hear me last night when I came looking for Scotty myself?”
“You were here too?”
“Yes. I wanted to see Scotty. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t…well, never mind that now. Nobody answered the door but I could tell someone was in here.”
She blinked. “That wasn’t me.”
“Were there other cars parked out back when you came?”
She shrugged. “Only Scotty’s Jeep. So since he didn’t seem to be here, I thought he might have gone off with one of his buddies. I looked around, then when I didn’t see him, I went back to the beach. Then I had to get Molly back for practice early this morning. So I came back over here and when Scotty still seemed to be missing, I went on out to the workshop just in case….and there….” She gasped for air. “There he was. Lying there so still. And the blood….”
She broke down completely and it took some time to get her calm again. I spent that time, feeling sorry for her, feeling a lot of conflicting thoughts—and going over the suspects again.
We had Luanne who had motive and was here at the Bar and Grill at the right time—and wanted to kill him. We had Rennie who probably brought over a gun to kill him with. She had motives, access and time. Then there was her husband, the mayor. He had motives, anger, weapons at his disposal, the time, the physical pain and suffering—he had it all. He was still my favorite candidate.
But Luanne was a sentimental favorite. I felt like she deserved to be the one to get back at him for what he’d done to her and her family. But then, she didn’t deserve the prison sentence, did she? And that would have to be part of the deal.
When she realized she was late at picking Molly up from afternoon swim practice she finally got herself collected and felt strong enough to leave. I watched her go, then realized there was one person I kept leaving out of the equation. What about Crocker Harris?
Well, that was kind of a long shot, wasn’t it? If he had motive, I didn’t know what it was. But he had been in the area at the right time. And from what I understand, Rennie had brought a gun to Scotty’s place, and that seemed to have been the weapon of convenience used. And I was starting not to like him again. So that was a real mark against him. I laughed at myself for that one and went out to get the dog and we headed for the motel.
I fed Toto, grabbed myself a snack, spent a half hour looking through the book of spells and other witchcraft that my grandmother had sent me. Some of them were quite elaborate and were going to take a lot of work to perfect. Others—such as an incantation turning people to stone-didn’t seem like anything I was ever going to be using myself. But there were a few that seemed quite simple and the chants to use them were easy one-liners. I memorized a few and put the tablet away in my back pocket.
Chapter Thirteen
Finally, I left Toto in the room after whispering sweet promises that I would be back soon and went out. I was heading for the sheriff’s station. I was hoping to see what Shane had found out, but also to see if I could get a chance to talk to Rennie. I just didn’t want to believe she was the guilty one.
It was obviously dinnertime at the station. There was hardly anyone around. I moved in slowly, trying to stay unobserved, and found Rennie being interrogated in the small room near the back. Deputy Decker was the one questioning her. I could see them through a window in the door. No one else was anywhere nearby.
I plastered myself right outside the door to the room, closed my eyes and ran through the chants I’d memorized, looking for one that might help, finding one pretty quickly. I recited it twice, then used my head voice to tell the Deputy, very much like Bentley had done with Rennie the night before, “Deputy Decker, you are very sleepy. Just a few minutes sleep will leave you feeling refreshed and renewed. Close your eyes now. I’ll wake you in five minutes.”
I went to the window and looked in to see if it had actually worked. There was the Deputy, sound asleep in his chair, and Rennie, sobbing quietly in hers. I opened the door and let myself in.
“Hi Rennie,” I said, pushing back the deputy’s chair and standing where he’d been.
She looked up suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”
I smiled at her. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Do you need anything? Pajamas? Toothbrush?”
Her eyes filled with fat tears. “Are they going to keep me for the night?” she cried.
“Could be. I just wanted to make sure someone looked after those little things you might need at the last minute. So here I am, Haley on the spot.”
“Oh Haley,” she wailed. “They think I killed Scotty.”
I watched her closely. “Did you?”
“No! Well, I wanted to at one point. I even went running over there with a gun. But it didn’t work out.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Where did you get a gun?”
“Right here at the sheriff’s station.” She said it proudly. “You know I have the run of the place. I just slipped into the evidence storeroom and found one that had bullets with it and I took it. I’ve taken lessons out at the range. I know what I’m doing. Anyway, I was so mad at Scotty after what he did to my hubby, I could have killed him on the spot. Did you see how he made my baby bleed? The rat!”
I couldn’t help it—I was on her side. I was hoping more and more that she could convince me that she wasn’t the one who ended up pulling that trigger.
“So what happened once you got there?”
She sighed heavily. “Oh, the usual. I screwed up. I shouted and waved the gun at him and he came at me and took it from me.”
“What did he do with it?”
“First he hit me with it.” She pushed back her hair so that I could see the bump on the side of her head.
“Then he put it on a shelf. A high shelf that I couldn’t reach. Then he yelled at me and made me go home.”
“And did you go home?”
“Yes. Just to check on the mayor. He was out like a light from all the pain medicine the doctor gave him. So then…” Her eyes lit up. “So then I went looking for you. I’d heard you were in town. And I found you eating with Bentley. And you know what? Just seeing you there brought back so many memories. I just knew you and I were going to be teaming up again and conquering the world.”
I nodded. “So you mentioned at the time.”
She was crying again, crying with regret that she hadn’t been able or allowed to shoot the man. Well, I couldn’t really blame her.
“But the whole time, I really wanted to go back and take another shot at Scotty. I was so mad. And I was embarrassed that the first try hadn’t worked.”
“Did you go back over there?”
She nodded. “I did. I didn’t go in, though. Scotty was talking to somebody. I could hear it through the door. And I…I realized I wasn’t going to be able to find my gun. So I gave up and went home to check on my hubby again.”
“And when you got home, he was gone. Right?”
She stared at me and whispered, “How did you know?”
I didn’t know. I’d guessed. I was pretty sure he was the one she’d heard talking to Scotty.
“And that gun you took over to Scotty’s--that was the murder weapon?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Bad luck, babe,” I said.
She sighed heavily. “Don’t I know it.”
“Listen.” I leaned in close. “Do you think your husband could have gone over there and finished the job for you?”
The look she flashed me told me pretty much what I wanted to know. She was afraid of that very thing having happened—but she wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t going to say so. She wanted to protect him the same way he’d been protecting her. Did he need protecting? That one I didn’t know.
“Where is the mayor right now?” I asked her.
“He’s home in bed.” She grabbed my arm. “Listen, I don’t want him to know about this—about me being here and suspected and all-- until he’s stronger. He lost a lot of blood from that stabbing that stupid monster did to him. He kept trying to run around like usual and he ended up collapsing at the house. I’ve got a nurse looking after him, but if he hears about this, he’ll get up and try to help me and it’ll kill him for sure.”
She was obviously sincere in her affection and concern about her husband. I found it rather touching. Because at this point, I was pretty sure her husband was the one who had killed Scotty. Why not? First the mayor goes over and fights with Scotty. Scotty stabs him. He leaves. Rennie hears about it and grabs a gun and goes over to shoot Scotty, but Scotty gets the gun away from her. The mayor hears about that and goes over to the Bar and Grill again, sees the gun, uses it to kill Scotty for what he did to his wife. Logical progression. Only—did we have any real evidence of the mayor being at the Bar late last night? Rennie wasn’t going to talk. Maybe I was going to have to snoop around a bit more.
I sensed Decker was coming back to life and I slipped away. I watched him sit up and blend right back into his role as interrogator without a stumble or a question. Rennie didn’t seem to notice a thing. Wow. I did a pretty good job of seamlessly getting my questions in, didn’t I? I was pretty pleased with that.
But I needed more. And what I needed most—and what I’d been forgetting all about-- was to see who had authorized Scotty to take over my property. I had a feeling that was going to figure into the identity of the murderer pretty heavily. Back to the Hall of Records.
It wasn’t far, but the sun was going down and wisps of fog were beginning to thread their way into the center of the park. It was time to get this done. I glanced around and saw no sign of my raven. That’s what happened when darkness fell. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be out again tonight.
My phone buzzed. A text message. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. Shane. I popped open the message.
“Stay away from Crocker. He’s bad news.”
What? I frowned at the words, not quite sure what it meant.
“No problem,” I whispered to myself as I put away the phone. “I’ll stay as far away as possible.”
I went down the street to the City Hall and walked right in, waving at the officer at the desk. I looked through the double glass doors, into the Hall of Records. That same unpleasant clerk was sitting there, standing guard. But this time, if all went well, she was not going to be a problem.
I looked back at the desk officer. He was leafing through a magazine. A pair of clerks were coming down the hall, heading for home. I slipped into a small alcove just off the main entrance and pulled my tablet out of my back pocket. For this one, I was going to need a refresher moment at the incantation.
I found it quickly and looked out to make sure those two clerks were out of the building before going on. They were on their way. As soon as they went out of sight, I closed my eyes and repeated the incantation twice, then opened my eyes to check if I’d recited it correctly. I had. I actually seemed to have a talent for this stuff. I took a step out and looked at the desk officer. He was still as a statue. I moved quickly to the double doors and looked in at the records guardian. She was poised reaching for something from her printer, her arm extended in midair.
I’d done it! I’d stopped time. I’d done something similar when I’d saved Toto from the speeding car, but that had only lasted seconds. This one was supposed to give me at least ten minutes. I hoped and prayed that it would do just that as I hurried into the hall and headed for the huge file drawers lining the end of the room, just under the high horizontal windows.
The drawers were very conveniently organized and marked with labels. It only took a minute to find the section regarding land and property transfers. I guessed at the date and hit pretty close. Pulling out the folder for that year, I saw the one I wanted right away.
A bright yellow copy of a Quit Deed on my family’s land and the two structures built on it. According to this document, my father and mother gave up all rights to the property just three years ago this month. I pulled out the deed I’d had since the morning in the motel room. The signatures didn’t match, though it was plain someone was trying to copy the real thing. But the form was notarized. The stamp used was almost obliterating the notary’s signature, but when I narrowed my eyes and focused, I could see it fine.
Crocker Harris was the name. Why did that not surprise me?
Crocker Harris. Of course. I’d seen him quickly leave Scotty’s place when I first arrived. And I’d seen that car behind the bar when I’d tried to see Scotty. Now his name was on the bogus quit deed that handed my family café over to Scotty to run as a sports bar. I had no idea why he would have been a partner with Scotty, but the signs were there. For some reason, he’d been behind the theft of my property.
Had he also been behind Scotty’s death? I thought of the text I’d just had from Shane and I shivered.
I pocketed both deeds, then went searching for a file copy of the one I had, the one giving ownership to me. How strange. The file held no copy of that one.
I glanced up, wondering how much time I had left, and at that moment saw a car pulling up by the entrance. It was a silver sedan and Crocker himself was getting out of it. I watched as he came into the building, my heart in my throat. If all went as it should, he would go immediately immobile, caught in the lost moments of time just like everyone else in this place.
But he didn’t. I could just catch a glimpse of him and he was coming fast. He was just coming into the entryway, just passing the still rigid officer, just probably realizing that something was wrong.
And so was I. Crocker wasn’t affected by my magic.
Maybe it didn’t work that way. Maybe I had to give him a fresh spell. I tried it, working fast, but he didn’t stop. It didn’t work on him. Though no one h
ad ever told me, I instinctively knew what was wrong. That could only mean one thing. Crocker was a demon.
He might not have always been a demon. When we were in kindergarten together, he’d probably been a nice kid. But now, he was a demon. And the only way to fight a demon was full out war. Wasn’t that what Bentley had said? Too bad I didn’t yet have the weaponry or the experience to wage war effectively. I had to get out of here. And fast.
I turned and headed for the high horizontal windows. Some had been cracked open for ventilation. I jumped like a gymnast, vaulting over one set of tables and reaching for the top of the bookcases. Somehow I made it, somehow I made myself flat as a pancake and slid right out the window, landing with a thump in the grass outside.
And now I had to run. I couldn’t run toward the sheriff’s station. I would have to pass right by the entrance to the City Hall and Crocker would cut me off at the pass. I had to run in the other direction. And that meant I would have to go through the park.
No, I didn’t want to go through the park. My grandmother had warned about that. I didn’t want to stir up any of my hidden magic, not until I knew how to handle it. There had to be another way. I looked quickly to the left and to the right and headed for a crowded area. Where there were people, I was hoping there would be safety. If I could just blend in with the crowd.
No. Too late. He was coming the same way I’d gone and coming quickly. I slipped into an alley and ran for the other side. Looking back, I could see that he was right behind me. I turned a corner and made a radical change in direction, hoping to gain myself a moment. No, once again, he had me. This time I was cornered, up against a pair of closed garages with no way around them. I turned to face him, my heart in my throat. There was no way out.
“Gotcha, Haley,” he snarled, coming to a stop just a foot or so away, but positioned so that I had no chance to run. He was dancing on the balls of his feet like an athlete, ready to strike. But worse, he was changing before my eyes. His face wasn’t handsome any longer. It was contorted with lumps and scaly red skin, and his mouth was huge, the teeth crooked and broken. I gasped, looking at him. He was turning into the monster he’d secretly become.
Even Witches Get the Blues (Wicked in Moonhaven~A Paranormal Cozy Book 1) Page 14