The Innocent Dead: A Witch Cozy Mystery (The Maid, Mother, and Crone Paranormal Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jill Nojack

  Cassie felt relieved again, although she didn’t let on. But a public place would work really well. She was sure Lou was just a harmless old flirt, but it was reassuring to know that he definitely couldn’t try anything weird on such a nice sunny day with half of Giles out on the streets.

  ***

  Cassie wasn’t exactly hanging on Lou’s every word, but she did find the man interesting, and he really was an engaging conversationalist. If he could tone down the flirting a little, Tom might even like him; judging from the contents of the picnic basket, Lou Frank knew and appreciated good food and wine.

  She had refused the wine, but she recognized the label. Lou put it away immediately and brought out a bottle of sparkling water instead.

  The wild mushroom pasta, still warm thanks to an insulated serving dish, was beyond amazing. The freshly baked bread, also still warm and brushed in butter with the smallest hint of garlic, was crisp on the outside and perfectly fluffy on the inside. She wouldn’t normally allow herself to take in that many carbs in one sitting, but, well . . . there might be another whole being inside her now who needed feeding, right?

  And the dessert? Yep. She committed at least two of the deadly sins while savoring her own portion, plus a little extra.

  The biggest pleasure of the meal, besides the carb coma that Lou countered with steaming hot shots of espresso from a silver flask, was his never-ending store of the latest arts talk from New York. In a place like Giles, despite Dash’s enthusiasm, you didn’t get the latest version of anything. But Lou was tied in. In big ways. With big galleries that represented big artists.

  Who was she kidding? Tom would hate him. And he would probably be right. The artist said all the right things, got the food and wine right, and dropped all the right names. He was exactly the kind of pompous jerk Tom would accuse him of being. He would hate it that she was having a great time listening to his stories.

  “Are you comfortable enough?” he asked. “Now that the shade is skimming along here, it’s getting cooler.”

  Cassie hadn’t noticed. She’d been completely absorbed in the story he’d been telling about the old days of The Factory. The man had known Warhol! “I’m good, but we’ve been here for . . .” Cassie looked at her watch. It was two-thirty in the afternoon already. “I’ve left Dash alone for almost three hours! I need to go.” She jumped up.

  “Give me a minute to pack up and grant me the pleasure of walking you back?”

  “Sure,” she said, pulling her cardigan around her.

  They walked back briskly once she’d helped him put the leftovers back into the basket. “What brought you back to Giles, anyway?” she asked him as they headed toward the gallery. “You’re too sophisticated for such a small town.”

  He smiled at her and raised an eyebrow, flirting again. “There are some things in Giles that are worthy of my notice. But, truthfully, I hadn’t thought much about Giles for years. Then I heard that that fellow—” he pointed to the statue of Giles Corey, the town’s namesake and hero to many local witches, which stood on pedestal farther down the street—”was damaged in a freak storm during the Witching Faire. Since I’m the artist behind the statue, I felt that I should be the one to repair it. It’s made of hammered brass—I don’t know what I was thinking, really. Lost wax casting would have been easier in the end, if more expensive, but it was my first major work. I suppose I wanted the hands-on experience. Of course, now the repairs are all tied up in the city council. I’m quite concerned the small crack will become a bigger one while they wrangle over what they can and can’t afford.” His words sounded clipped by the end. He obviously wasn’t happy about the situation. “Anyway, that got me to thinking about how the pace of New York is starting to wear on me after all these years, and I didn’t have a tenant for my parent’s home, so setting up housekeeping seemed like a good idea.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that the repairs are being held up. It sounds like you’re attached to our statue.”

  “It was my last project in Giles before I decided to leave town. At the time, it was a . . .” He paused as if looking for the right word, “. . . significant moment for me. I wouldn’t want the statue ruined by cheaper, shoddy work.”

  “Absolutely. I had no idea. I’m friends with Robert Andrews, the mayor. Maybe I can put in a good word.”

  “Would you? I’d appreciate that. I know Robert superficially from my youth here, as you do in a small town, but the word of a close friend couldn’t hurt.” He patted the hand that was still wrapped around the crook of his arm.

  “Did you know that the body they found in the woods this week might be the victim of a copycat killer? Like the murders that happened in the sixties. Did you still live here when those happened? My friend Natalie is sort of investigating them—although don’t tell the police that, of course. I don’t think they’d like it much. She was close with the man who was accused of the murders and would like to see his name cleared. A number of my friends and I are going to the funeral tonight. We didn’t know Caroline well, but . . .”

  “Is your friend Natalie Taylor?” he interrupted.

  “Yep. That’s Nat. You know her?”

  “Like I said, Giles is a small town, and it was even smaller when I lived here.”

  As they walked by Cat’s Magical Shoppe on the other side of the street, Cassie noticed an older black car driving slowly past, the driver looking up to the upper windows. She looked up, too. Twink was in the window, her hand raised to the driver of the car, but she closed the shades when her eyes drifted to Cassie. Cassie ducked down to look at the driver through the passenger window as the car passed.

  It was Twink’s boyfriend, or at least, he was wearing the boyfriend’s black hoodie and red ball cap. She couldn’t get a good look because the car sped up and was gone as soon as Twink disappeared.

  He was probably in town to talk to the cops. Those poor kids. What a mess they’d gotten pulled into.

  8

  “Thank you for coming,” Gerald said as he shook Robert’s hand after the brief ceremony at the crematorium that night. Gillian couldn’t help but see how overwhelmed he was. His pocked skin was pale, and he looked barely able to stand. The smell of the lilies that filled the hall took her back to her own Martin’s funeral for a moment, and she nearly had to sit down herself. Even years later, with Robert standing by her, thinking of Martin’s death could make her feel alone.

  Robert frowned. “We’re both very sorry about your loss.” He put his arm around Gillian and pulled her tight to his side. “It’s a terrible thing to lose a wife or a partner, especially when it happens before her time.”

  Gillian exchanged a glance with him and added, “We both know exactly how difficult it is. I don’t want to seem like I’m fussing, but do you have someone to drive you home?” Her eyes scanned the room behind him, but there was no family, no one she didn’t know. Only locals, who had known Caroline briefly, had shown up.

  Gerald’s eyes followed hers. “I held the ceremony at night, hoping that her friends and clients from Boston would be able to attend,” he said, “but Giles must just be too far for them to travel on a weeknight. Maybe I should have scheduled for the weekend, but I . . . “He shook his head.

  Having met Caroline, Gillian wondered if the lack of attendance was more about who Caroline had been than where the ceremony was held, and she immediately felt terrible about having thought it. She couldn’t judge the woman on only a few brief council meetings, could she?

  She said, “Gerald, I don’t think Robert will mind if he has to find his own ride back to City Hall. I’d like to see you home safely tonight.”

  “I can’t inconvenience either of you that way.”

  Robert intervened. “No inconvenience at all. I insist. I’ll flag down Cassie before she finishes talking to that young man over there. I’ll be fine.”

  Gillian followed his gaze, finding Cassie just inside the door, talking to Sean, the handyman she’d hired and who Gillian now knew had been Carol
ine’s lover. She’d been surprised to see him in the reception area, and even more surprised when he’d gone, hand out, to offer his condolences to Caroline’s grieving husband before the ceremony.

  She hugged and released Robert, then turned to Gerald. “I’ll make myself scarce until you’re ready. Please don’t rush on my account.” She patted his suited shoulder soothingly, then moved away toward the food table as the funeral officiant approached him.

  ***

  Twink kept her voice low and her mouth close to the phone. Even though Daria had let her stay out of school all day because the cops were going to interview her, her cousin now seemed as convinced that Marcus was trouble as her own mother had been. It had been tough to get a call out to him after the interview with Daria looming over her, offering to make her hot chocolate or a sandwich or a bowl of ice cream. She’d had to eat an entire bowl of rocky road just to get her off her back.

  Twink had to admit she’d kind of fanned the flame by saying she and Marcus had spent the night together. Didn’t matter. It wasn’t the cops’ business where he’d been that night. She whispered into the phone, “How did it go with the cops?”

  Marcus’s quiet voice made her feel better. “Not bad. He didn’t keep me long. It was just the police chief. But I didn’t like making him think I’d climbed in your window. I don’t want people believing that about you.”

  “Like I care. It’s what my mother thinks we’ve been doing anyway, so we might as well let the cops think it too if they leave you alone because of it.”

  “But baby, once people think something of you, it’s hard to make them change their mind,” he crooned.

  “Tell me about it. Sometimes I think Daria is on my side, and then she goes and lets her friend turn me in to the police for something I had nothing to do with. I’ve had it with everybody, you know? Everybody but you.”

  “I hear ya. But just stay cool. Don’t make a bigger mess. If I don’t come around for a while, maybe it’ll all die down.”

  Twink heard Daria’s footsteps on the stairs and whispered urgently, “I gotta go, but you remember that you were with me all night just like you told the cops, right? You have to stick to that.”

  ***

  Natalie attached herself to Cassie as soon as Sean left the crematorium. “I hope you paid close attention to everything that young man said.”

  Cassie hissed, “Are you serious, Nat? This is a funeral, show a little respect.”

  Robert joined them before Natalie had a chance to hiss back. She supposed she should store up the verbal venom for a more deserving victim—Cassie was right, after all. It could wait until they were in the car.

  “Robert.” Natalie dipped her head slightly in greeting as he approached. Cassie echoed her.

  Robert nodded to Natalie. “Cass, could you drop me at City Hall on your way home? Gillian’s driving Gerald, and I’d like to check in on how the investigation is going. Denton’s in overdrive. I’ll catch a ride with him the rest of the way home. It may be the only way I can convince him to leave the building.”

  “No problem,” Cassie said, “I’ve got Nat tonight so the more the merrier. We were just heading out since Nat can’t manage to behave herself.”

  Nat’s mouth tightened, but she fell in behind Cassie and Robert as they exited through the short hall to the parking lot.

  As soon as she was inside the car, she asked, “What did that Sean fellow say?”

  Cassie buckled up and put the key in the ignition. “Oh, I forgot about that . . . yep, he said he killed Caroline and that he was going to go after you next if you didn’t leave him alone.”

  Robert coughed in the back seat, but it sounded suspiciously like a smothered chuckle.

  ***

  Gillian heard the click of Gerald’s seatbelt. If she’d known she would end up driving, she’d have insisted on taking her own smaller and easier to maneuver sedan. Although she’d stopped by and introduced herself at Natalie’s suggestion two days before, bearing baked goods and soothing words, it had never occurred to her that Gerald would be alone on the day. After Martin died, the members of the coven and her yoga classes hadn’t left her to herself for weeks. Her life had been an unending round of casseroles, herbal teas, and friendly shoulders of varying quality.

  “She didn’t want to move here, you know. Did I tell you that?” Gerald said as Gillian looked left, then right, and made a wide left-hand turn at the edge of Corey Woods, heading for the narrow street that ran along the outline of the lake for a few miles. Most of the homes along its path were the newer and more expensive ones in Giles, built in the seventies on generous acreage. The trees between each house were thick, blocking them from the watchful eyes of prying neighbors.

  “No, I didn’t know that.” Her tone was meant to encourage. She was there for him if he wanted to talk. Robert wouldn’t mind if she showed up at home a little late.

  “She never liked a relaxed pace of life. She’d rather be a minnow in a big pond than a frog in a small one. But I always liked it here. I always wanted to come back and be a part of the community, even though we were just summer people.”

  Gillian reached over, after darting a glance away from the dimly lit road to make sure she was aiming correctly, and gave his hand a pat. “I’m sure you’ll fit in fine when you’re ready to get out and meet people. We have a lot of opportunities to volunteer for community events. Everyone’s welcome to join in. Did your family rent one of the cabins, or did they own a place here?”

  “We rented. But we had the cabin for the whole summer. The summer kids whose folks owned a second home here looked down on us. You know how things are. And, of course, my parents looked down on the ‘townie’ kids I met. There weren’t that many families here they considered to be up to their standards. I never really made many friends, but there were a few boys I met who made time for me until . . .”

  He went silent.

  She glanced over to him, but he was looking out the window into the darkness.

  Finally, he said. “It was years ago. Kid stuff. And here I am with the mayor’s partner driving me home. I really am accepted in Giles now, aren’t I?”

  How curious that fitting in was so important to him. Most men in their sixties had stopped seeking acceptance from their peers years ago, but Gerald seemed to need it. Perhaps it was only a protective reaction to grief. She didn’t mind. She could help.

  “Of course you are. And Robert and I would love to have you to dinner as soon as you’re up to it. You can call me any time to arrange it. I’ll stop by to make sure you don’t need anything over the next few days?”

  She could see him nodding his agreement from the corner of her eye.

  “The driveway is coming up on the right. Just past the reflector,” he said. “The mayor wouldn’t mind me coming to dinner?”

  “He suggested it,” she said, looking to the right as she turned into the drive, which was well-illuminated by path lights along the borders.

  Gerald’s happy smile seemed out of place on a day like today.

  ***

  Gillian shrugged off her clothes and slipped under the thick down comforter next to Robert. He’d waited up for her, reading something ancient, judging by the age-worn leather binding. He didn’t use magic often, but his knowledge of it was broad and deep, spanning back centuries to when people still believed the work of demons accompanied every spell. Like Natalie, he could call on enormous natural forces at will, but his power was quieter, more inward.

  He often chided her for overusing her magic for the day-to-day things of life, but she couldn’t possibly remember where her keys were all the time, and a pie was always better with a little healing and peace baked in.

  When she slid across the big bed and snuggled against him, he placed the book on the bedside table carefully before laying his reading glasses beside it. His arm moved around her shoulders to pull her close. She rested her head on his chest.

  “How is he?” he asked.

  “I’m not s
ure. Probably just the stress of it, but he positively lit up when I told him you’d invited him to dinner. And he seems . . . I don’t know. Trapped in the past somehow. You said you’d met him a few times when he used to summer here—did something happen to him? He hinted at some unpleasant experience.”

  He was silent for a while before he answered. “I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you. I hadn’t thought about it for years, but when I realized who he was . . . but yes, Gerald was the victim of a very poor joke among the summer set that, unfortunately, became so notorious that his family stopped coming to Giles. The parents were snobs, both of them, and the older children were as bad. Gerald was the youngest, fifteen or sixteen. Before they stopped summering here, he tried to impress me, I suppose. Of course, I was older, in my twenties, and he was a kid to me. I wasn’t mean, but he was too young to be interesting. I was already plotting and planning for my future.”

  “So,” she nudged. “What happened?”

  “Oh. Yes. The incident. Thinking back on it, it must have been terrible for him. Things always seem worse when you’re young. It started with his interest in one of the local girls, I believe. I would have been mortified if it had happened to me.”

  She listened and, as Robert talked, her heart broke for the young boy Gerald had been. No wonder the man he was now didn’t want to talk about it; children could be so cruel. She was determined to make his life here easier in any way she could. Perhaps he’d get lucky and heal the old wounds along with the new.

  ***

  Natalie had refused to acknowledge Robert when he’d disembarked at the city hall before her stop, and she wasn’t any less frosty when Cassie dropped her off at home. Cassie refused to accept the same treatment. She rolled her window down and chirped, “I said goodnight, Nat! And I hope you’re in a better mood tomorrow . . .”

  “Yes. Fine. Goodnight.” She was tired, that was all. Feeling her age. And she had work to do before she could tuck her old body into bed.

  She changed into coveralls and grabbed a flashlight. On the way to Salem, she stopped at a darkened graveyard and carefully cut away a sod of earth from the center of the nearest grave. Working quickly, she scooped several handfuls of earth into a waiting jar and tamped the sod back down in place, leaving the grave the way she found it. She’d have a better chance of success if she knew where the woman’s body was buried, but she wanted to get it over with. If it didn’t work, she’d do the research, but if it did, then it would be off of her to-do list and she could get back to the more important business of investigating the murder.