“I don’t expect you to manipulate anything. All I’m asking is that you report the truth, without the innuendoes, without any religious superstitions. Is that too much to ask?”
“Are you offering me an exclusive?”
“Yes, that’s it! If you promise to listen with an open mind, to let me explain everything from our point of view, then I agree to answer all of your questions honestly and to speak to no other reporters.”
It was exactly the sort of break Mac had been looking for. He should be ecstatic over his good fortune. Then why the hell couldn’t he appreciate his good fortune without feeling like such a heel?
He shuddered when he thought of what Cassie’s reaction would be when she discovered which paper he worked for. The Inquisitor was the most notorious sleazy rag of all the tabloids. Somehow he had to keep her from discovering the truth, at least until after he had gotten all he needed for his story.
Chapter 3
“And bail is set at one million dollars,” the judge intoned. The single rap of his gavel expressed the finality of his decision.
Ben Jacobson, Myra’s attorney, rose to his feet, and sank slowly back to his seat without uttering a word.
“Where’d they get that old geezer?” Mac asked Alan Boatright who sat beside him on one of the spectator’s benches.
“I believe Ben Jacobson was the only attorney who would take Myra’s case,” Alan replied. “Pity, isn’t it? Fat lot of good he’s likely to be.”
Mac glanced over at Sheriff Whitaker, noting a smirk of satisfaction on his bulldog face. Though he seemed pleased to have Myra Adams in a position where she was not likely to be set free before her trial, Mac was certain that the man would do whatever it took to see that the entire coven quickly followed its leader behind bars.
“I suppose that depends upon who you’re talking to. I’d say he’s likely to make the State’s job a hell of a lot easier than it should be. Your Sheriff over there,” he nodded his head towards Whit Whitaker, “seems more than a little pleased with the choice of attorneys.”
“If you ask me, Jacobson should be on the State’s payroll, not Myra’s. Any other lawyer would never have allowed her to be charged, considering the State’s flimsy excuse of a case. I can’t believe the Grand Jury could have recommended an indictment. And a million dollars bail! Where did they find these people, in the middle ages?”
“I must agree with you,” Alan replied. “The Grand Jury, and the judge too, are acting like leftovers from the Inquisition. And just as in the ‘good old days’, superstition seems to have replaced all rational thought.”
Mac had placed himself in a position where he had an unobstructed view of Cassie’s face. What he saw in her eyes pained him. Even from this distance he could see the glitter of unshed tears. Although she held herself stiff with pride, he could see disbelief and the beginnings of panic flickering across her expressive face. God, he admired her courage!
His eyes shifted for a moment to the group of people seated directly behind Cassie and his stomach clenched. It was that damned crazy preacher and his bunch of harebrained followers. People like that made Mac nervous. He couldn’t count the times he had witnessed people just like them turn peaceful gatherings into riots.
“Who is that guy, anyway?” Mac asked Alan, indicating the wild eyed preacher. “What’s his story in all this?”
“Oh, that’s our resident savior, Reverend Samuel Hicks. Why, according to his followers, this town was doomed to perdition until he arrived.”
“And was it - doomed to perdition, I mean?” Mac asked sarcastically.
“Sorry, I couldn’t tell you. He got here before I did by a couple months or so. The place seemed pretty great to me at the time, but then maybe he had pulled off a miracle and saved Port Bellmont from the unspeakable before I arrived.” His tone of voice matched Mac’s. Obviously his opinion of the good Reverend Hicks did not match those of his fanatical followers.
The radical frenzy the Reverend’s followers exhibited did nothing to alleviate Mac’s tension. They were too close to Cassie. He gauged the distance between himself and them, asking himself if he could get to her in time if things suddenly got ugly.
As the session closed, the police were far too interested in getting Myra back to her jail cell without any mishap to be concerned with protecting her daughter and the other witches from the angry mob. Cassie and her Wiccan sisters drew closer together as they edged towards the double-doored exit, trying to ignore the ugly taunts and epithets that were hurled at them.
Mac fought off the urge to rush to her side, realizing that it would be a mistake. He didn’t dare let on, even to himself, the strength of his attraction to the young witch. He forced himself to remain far enough from the witches not to reveal their connection, yet close enough to help protect them if things really got out of hand.
When Mac noted that the town’s Catholic priest had managed to wedge himself between the coven and the religious zealots, he decided it was time to forget about remaining separate from the story and get involved. He was damned if he would allow one more religious nut to torment her. But then he held back as he realized that the priest had managed to form a small barrier between the women and their tormenters, allowing them to pass out of the room unharmed.
The five women bravely passed through the gauntlet of angry jeers, drawing from each other’s strength throughout the ordeal. Reverend Hicks and his band followed closely behind the women, railing at them about salvation and damnation, stirring the rest of the mob to an even greater frenzy.
“Does that guy ever shut up?” Mac asked, his nerves nearly to the breaking point.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Alan replied dryly. “As I see it, if it weren’t for the good Reverend, none of us would be capable of staying upon the path of righteousness.” Alan’s words dripped with sarcasm.
“I take it he’s not one of your favorites among the locals …”
“He’s a dangerous man, my friend, and a powerful one. You don’t want to get on his bad side. If he takes a notion that you’re not one of the ‘chosen’, he’ll crucify you one way or another.”
Mac lifted his chin towards Alan, acknowledging the information as he pushed his way through the mob. He’d had all he could take of standing back and observing. He couldn’t bear seeing Cassie being mauled and abused by the good pastor’s flock for one second longer.
She held her head high, riveting her eyes upon the open door ahead. It wasn’t so far; she could make it. Please, just let us get outside, she prayed silently. Everything will be fine if I can just get out of this horrible place.
It was all a blur of noise and bodies. None of it was real. Not real, not real. The momentum of the crowd carried her towards the door as her vision began to take on an ominous gray tinge. She heard a ringing in her ears. If she could just get some air!
And then she felt him by her side. Mac reached out and steadied her, guiding her past Reverend Hicks with his wild eyes and taunting words. Mac’s hand on her waist became her focus, her one point of reality. Mac would help her, just as she’d known from the first moment their eyes had met.
He felt the tension ease from her body as they neared the opened door. A burst of male pride flowed through him when she leaned into him, accepting his protection. At that moment he realized he’d have faced a fire breathing dragon to protect the woman beside him.
The realization hit him hard. He didn’t give a damn about anyone, he reminded himself. Now was not the time to change philosophies.
* * *
Mac felt a bit out of place sitting in the parlor of Mary Beth’s and Naomi’s quaint bed-and-breakfast inn. Balancing a cup of herbal tea on his knee, he took a couple of sugar cookies from the plate Mary Beth held out to him.
“A million dollars!” Edith Norris lamented. “How in the world are we supposed to get a million dollars?”
“We’re not,” Shelly answered in a flat voice. “That judge has no intention of letting Myra out on bail
. That’s why he set it so high.”
“But couldn’t Mr. Jacobson petition the court or something? Isn’t that what attorneys are supposed to do?” Mary Beth suggested.
“Are you kidding? Myra will be lucky if that old man manages to stay awake during the trial.” Shelly never had approved of the attorney Cassie had hired for her mom, but she had to accept the fact that the only other choice had been the public defender, and, given the climate of local sentiment, a public defender was no choice at all.
Mac realized how distressed all of Myra’s followers were at the thought of her being forced to stay in the jail cell, but he couldn’t help but feel that perhaps it was the safest place for her at the moment. Although it was true that not everyone in town was convinced of her guilt, there were enough hard core witch haters around to make him fear for her safety outside of those steel bars. Hell, he was already in a panic over how Cassie and the rest of the coven could be protected from some over-zealous nut out to prove himself and save humanity.
He was prevented from making such an observation by the ringing of the telephone. Naomi answered the phone, listened for a moment, and handed it to Cassie.
“Hello?” Mac could hear the tension in her voice. He realized just how abandoned she must feel at this moment.
He rose to his feet when he saw the color drain from her face. Damn! What more could go wrong? But then her expression changed to one of wonder and utter happiness.
“Oh, Mr. Jacobson, that’s wonderful news! But who paid the bail?”
Realization hit everyone in the room at once. Shelly let out a whoop of joy before Cassie had even replaced the telephone receiver. Naomi and Mary Beth embraced each other, tears of happiness streaming down their cheeks. Edith sat with her head bowed, whispering words of thanks, while Shelly rushed across the room to Cassie.
“Someone paid Mother’s bail!” she squealed in delight. “She should be out of that horrible place in time for dinner.”
“I’m sorry, I know I should be ecstatic that someone has posted my bail, but I keep getting the feeling that something is very wrong with this whole set-up.” A wary expression filled Myra’s eyes.
Myra, Cassie and Mac sat together drinking tea in the small side room of Myra’s shop, Nature’s Way. Advertised as a natural herb store, it was no secret that Myra also kept a stock of more unusual items, items that she and her followers used in their special ceremonies.
One of the biggest customer attractions of the shop was the small room where the three now sat, the room where Myra read Tarot cards. Now, instead of a spread of Tarot cards, a lovely antique tea service was set upon the table. The aromatic scent of one of Myra’s specially blended herb teas drifted on the slow moving air currents, helping to soothe jangled nerves.
Mac sat back in his chair, absent-mindedly stirring his tea. After taking one sip, he decided he would rather stir it all night than actually ingest the stuff.
Though his slumped posture and half-closed eyes gave him a look of total indifference, nothing could be further from the truth. His mind had not been so alive in months, no years. He saw everything and questioned everything he saw. In fact, he had so many questions battling each other in his brain, it was nearly all he could do to maintain his insolently lazy facade. But he managed. It was his persona, and one that had served him well over the years. He studied Myra without allowing a shadow of his thoughts to reach his face. The more he watched her, the more fascinated he became. She was something else, all right. But a murderer? Possibly, but somehow he doubted it.
Still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when she had been arrested two days before, any other woman would have looked a mess. Not so Myra Adams. On her, the rumpled cream colored slacks and matching sweater looked fabulous. Mac doubted that the woman could put on anything that would detract from her dark beauty.
Her looks and obvious charm explained a lot to him, the first being Alan Boatright’s eagerness to believe in her innocence. Mac had sensed that Alan had more than a reporter’s interest in the woman, now he could see why.
“It was the worst experience of my life,” Myra said in a shaky voice. “The only thing that made it bearable was knowing that the rest of the coven had been spared. I never thought I would be grateful for a case of the stomach flu, but if Mary Beth hadn’t gotten sick the night Mr. Elkins was murdered, forcing us to cancel the ceremony, you would all have been facing that judge with me today.”
Cassie rose from her chair, crouched down beside her mother and wrapped her arms around her, resting her head on Myra’s shoulder. “If only you had come with me and Shelly to work at the shop after we canceled the ceremony, you wouldn’t be going through this either. It’s not fair that, out of all of us, you were the only one who didn’t have someone to swear that you couldn’t have been at the meadow that night.”
“Now, what have I always told you about dwelling on ‘if onlys’? We’ll deal with this, baby. And I want you to stop tearing yourself up over it, okay?”
“But I feel so responsible, Mom. I should have done something, but I didn’t know what.”
“Sweetheart, it wasn’t your fault. What could you have done? What could any of you have done? It was something I had to deal with in my own way. Thank all that’s good in the universe that it’s over.”
Myra’s words, meant to comfort her daughter, deepened the frown on Mac’s brow. Could these women be naive enough to believe that the ugliness was over? The woman was out on bail, for God’s sake. Didn’t she realize she still had to stand trial?
But then Myra’s eyes met his and the message he read in them told him that, yes, she was fully aware of the problems that lay ahead, but for these few moments she chose to pretend they no longer existed. Right now all she wanted to do was to comfort her daughter.
Pulling away from her mother’s embrace, Cassie turned to Mac, looking at him with eyes that threatened to melt the stone hard core of his cynicism. Hope glimmered in their depths, a hope so intense he felt a stab of guilt at the thought that he might be forced to deny it.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mac, and you’re wrong. They wouldn’t have let her out if they believed she did that horrible thing. How could they have?” She continued on before Mac could explain why the system allowed suspected criminals out of jail on bail before their trials. “And why would someone have put up that much money if they didn’t believe she was innocent? A million dollars! Whoever has that much money must have a whole lot of influence to go with it, don’t you think? Somewhere out there we have an ally and I’m going to use every ounce of energy I possess to influence that person to come forward and convince the judge of what he must believe himself.”
Cassie’s mention of the mysterious donor set Mac’s thoughts on another track. A myriad of questions raced through his mind, each one vying for attention. Why would anyone have done such a thing? Who had that kind of money? Why remain anonymous? Was it someone who truly believed Myra innocent, or maybe he had some special feelings for the woman. Perhaps that was it. Being in Myra’s company for mere moments was enough for Mac to sense her unusual magnetism.
Or could it be that Myra’s mysterious benefactor was someone who enjoyed stirring up the pot, so to speak? Could he have arranged her release simply so that he could sit back and watch the commotion it would cause?
One thing was certain: nobody in a town the size of Port Bellmont had that much money without having acquired a great deal of power to go with it. He’d used his influence to gain her release. How was he likely to use it next?
Cassie looked up at Mac, a tremulous smile on her lips. “Everything’s going to be all right now, isn’t it, Mac?” Her eyes begged him to reassure her.
Common sense told him to be straight with her, to remind her that the worst was most likely yet to come, but he couldn’t do it, not yet. Why destroy her chance at a good night’s sleep with his doomsday predictions?
He remained silent. No glib lies came quickly to mind. Rats! Just when he c
ould use a good lie, the devious side of his brain let him down.
Cassie’s hand shook as she set her tea cup in its saucer. Why wouldn’t he answer her? Was he hiding something from her? She glanced at her mother, and returned her gaze to Mac. He could see the fear rising in her eyes.
“It will be okay now, won’t it, Mac? Don’t you think the judge would have refused bail altogether if they really had a case against Mom?”
“The one lesson I’ve learned over the years, Cassie, is to never try to read a judge’s mind. But then, I’ve never had the option, have I? I don’t have the ‘gift’ like you,” he said, hoping to lighten the mood a little. “Why don’t you give it a try? Or Myra, maybe you should deal yourself a future with your Tarot cards.”
Myra gave him a look that said, I know you mean well, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. “I don’t think that would be such a good idea, at least not at the moment.”
“It wouldn’t work, not for either of us,” Cassie tried to explain. Although he had made the suggestion in jest, Cassie had taken it quite seriously. “We both need to be able to reach into our inner peace to be able to tap into the truths of life. Too many disturbing things have been happening for us to reach that core of peace.”
“Actually, neither one of us have ever been inclined to look into our own futures,” Myra interrupted. “I’m not sure it’s even possible. But whatever the case, I think I’d rather not look too closely. I may not like what I see.”
Myra’s words made a lot of sense to Mac. If it were possible, it would be one thing to look into someone else’s life and quite another to look into your own. If you actually believed you had the ability to see the future, would you dare look into your own life? Mightn’t the reality of what you saw be too terrifying to face?
This was getting to be way too metaphysical for his cynical mind. Besides, it was getting late. They had all had enough excitement for one day. It was time he got a little distance between himself and these women.
A Witch's Tale Page 4