Rituals: A Faye Longchamp Mystery (Faye Longchamp Series)

by Evans, Mary Anna

  “We wait.” Dara had now repeated this statement several times and in several ways. She sounded firm and open, yet not demanding. This, in itself, was a gift. Even if she had no others, this gift was worth having. She breathed deeply, and the others followed suit. Myrna’s breath rattled in her chest. Faye’s subconscious took note.

  Two women had stood in the way of Marlowe, Willow, and Ennis. One of them was dead. The other one had suffered health reverses that would have been stunning, if they hadn’t been obscured by age. Why was Myrna getting sicker by the minute? And why were the people around her so happy to pump her full of mystery drugs? Yes, Sister Mama enjoyed a reputation for fine root doctoring, but she wasn’t prescribing Myrna’s tinctures any longer. Ennis was.

  Myrna lowered her head and used her shoulder to stifle a cough. She was too much a woman of Rosebower to break the circle to raise her hand to cover her mouth. Nothing was worth breaking the circle, not if her sister might be near.

  “Speak to us, Mother.”

  The lamp beneath Tilda’s crystal ball flickered, and its weak light illuminated Dara’s glowing curls. Faye knew it was silly, but part of her hoped that the dancing fire heralded the arrival of Tilda Armistead, the only person who had a prayer of telling them how she died.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Avery was approaching the most dangerous moment in a stakeout, the moment when boredom makes a watcher careless. She almost welcomed the barely audible noise in the shrubbery of Myrna Armistead’s back yard.

  She understood Joe’s strategy of making himself plainly visible as a way to forestall trouble, but she preferred being inconspicuous. Crouched by the back doorstep, she had a decent view of most of the yard. She would have been easily visible in daylight, but a shadow cast by a nearly new moon yields all-but-complete darkness. She could only be seen by someone who already knew she was there. To anyone else, she was invisible, so long as she stayed motionless.

  Her eyes flicked toward the noise. A few heartbeats later, she saw the branches of a shrub tremble, four feet to the left of the original noise. She might be tracking an intruder or she might be tracking a raccoon, but at least she knew its direction of travel. She waited.

  After a breathless moment, another faint sound came. The intruder/raccoon was still moving to her left, and the massive house would soon obscure her line-of-sight. Slowly—and soundlessly, she hoped—she crept from the dark shadow of the stairs and into the slightly less dark openness.

  ***

  Joe heard nothing. Or, rather, he heard only the breath of a noise, so faint that it was hardly more than a vibration of air across his cheek. He forgot that Avery had said his first priority was to open the séance room door. Instinct told him that his first priority should be to keep any intruder from entering the house. He was on his feet and running before the vibration stopped.

  ***

  Faye’s intuition had taken her this far. Someone was poisoning Myrna, using Sister Mama’s herbs to do it. Someone had tried to kill Sister Mama herself, possibly with her own herbs soaked into the soporific sponge. The obvious conclusion was that Ennis was the culprit. Every day, he brought Myrna an unlabeled concoction to put in her tea. Every day she drank it. And he had total access to Sister Mama. Thus, he was the poisoner. She should feel the satisfaction of solving a riddle, like the solid clink of the last puzzle piece fitting into place, but she didn’t.

  What was the question left unanswered by this scenario?

  The lamp and its fire drew her eye again, and it asked her the critical question. Fire had killed Tilda quickly, while Myrna was fading slowly away. Sister Mama, too. If the same killer was at work, driven by the same motive, why were the murder methods so different?

  It seemed to Faye that the difference lay in access. If Ennis had shown up daily on Tilda’s doorstep, carrying some weird concoction and claiming that it was a tonic straight from Sister Mama, Tilda would have downed it without question. It would have been the easiest murder in history. It made no sense for Ennis to burn down her house.

  Would Tilda have taken the same tonic from Willow? No. She wouldn’t have even accepted a piece of his licorice candy.

  Faye tested her theory and the pieces fit, in a twisted and Rosebower-like way. Dara was innocent because Faye’s intuition said so. Marlowe had no motive to commit murder himself, not when he had sycophants like Willow and Ennis to do it for him. Ennis had no need to risk arson to dispatch an old lady who was in his way, not when he could have poisoned her without attracting attention. Willow was the one who couldn’t kill Tilda any other way.

  Willow burned down his motherin-law’s house, with her locked inside. Faye was sure of it. There was no other way to get his hands on his wife’s inheritance before Marlowe bolted, because Tilda didn’t trust him enough to let him poison her.

  But there was something else, some other message in the timing of Tilda’s quick death and Myrna’s slow failing. What was it?

  A cold fact clicked into place. As of this morning, Myrna was much more of an obstacle than she had been. The resort could possibly be built without the property she had always owned, but not without the larger property that had been Tilda’s and was now hers. Now that the knowledge was out that she was Tilda’s heir, rather than Dara, Myrna was a direct impediment. Until today, the resort deal could proceed while Myrna died slowly, with Dara and Willow eventually selling Marlowe the less-important piece of property she’d always owned. Now, there was no deal until he held the land she’d inherited from Tilda. As of today, Myrna was vulnerable to a murder attempt that was not slow and stealthy.

  ***

  Misdirection and camouflage are the only real weapons in a stage magician’s arsenal. Being in possession of impeccable timing doesn’t hurt, either.

  Willow sat motionless, shielded by the same viburnum bush that had sheltered him for hours, since just after his wife walked out on him. He wore the matte-black elasticized jumpsuit that he had often used when working as a magician’s assistant in stage shows where he didn’t want to be seen. He’d worn it two nights before, when he’d slipped in and out of Sister Mama’s bedroom. Their current auditorium was too small for him to do invisible onstage magic, but on a properly lit flat-black stage in a large hall, this suit rendered him invisible. It made him capable of things that looked impossible from the cheap seats. Outdoors, in the shadows on a dark night, he was almost as impossible to see.

  He had known Dara would come here again, looking for her mother. She was hardly out their door before he was out of the house, dressed to be unseen. Thus camouflaged, he had waited for the chance to torch another house. Anonymous hands-off murder gave the same kind of rush as a successful illusion, magnified a million times.

  His wife and her aunt Myrna were the only things that stood between him and the money Marlowe was dangling for the Armistead sisters’ land. Sister Mama, too, needed to go, not because she was an immediate and direct impediment but because Marlowe wanted a little more land for his golf course’s clubhouse, and she had some. Ennis would sell it to Marlowe, and they would both enjoy the financial benefits of his pleasure, but Willow would be the only one holding the secret of why the three old ladies had died with such convenient timing.

  Willow liked having this kind of private knowledge. There was power in secrecy. Secrets were magic.

  Willow would have liked to continue dispatching Myrna and Sister Mama slowly and unobtrusively with medicinal potions and toxic candy, and he wouldn’t have minded staying married to Dara, as long as she shared the proceeds of selling her inheritance. She was entertaining, she kept their home and business running, and the sex was amazing. But she’d said she was divorcing him, and Dara never failed to live up to her word. Now he had to kill her, and he had to do it quickly, before a divorce court severed his claim on her inheritance.

  It would have been better to find another way to kill Dara and her aunt. A second house fire was too obvious, but he was short on time and he’d gotten away with the first
one. It didn’t matter if the arson inspector hiding in the shadows of Myrna’s house suspected foul play, as long as she couldn’t pin it on him. Next to him, hidden under an opaque black shroud, sat a stout board, a hammer, a jar of nails, a can of gasoline, and a large box of matches, all of them stolen from Myrna’s own storage shed. In the darkness, the shroud would serve as his cloak of invisibility while he transported these tools into the house. Dara and Myrna would be dead in an hour, and he would be the sole heir to both their estates. Whoever else sat with them around the crystal ball would be collateral damage.

  But first, he needed to dispatch the arson inspector who thought she was hiding behind the porch steps. A moment ago, he had struck the ground lightly with his hand, making a sound like an errant footfall. That must have gotten her attention. He wasn’t even slightly concerned that it also gave away his position.

  After giving her a moment to echo-locate him, he had reached out a long leg and shook a bush just enough for her to see it. Without moving from his original position, he had diverted her attention to a new spot. Then, to finish the illusion, he had thrown a small rock in the direction his leg was pointing. It dropped to the ground. Its impact was softened by fallen leaves, but it was still audible.

  Misdirection. Human senses were so very vulnerable to its lies. Avery was now watching someone whom she believed to be moving toward the front of the house, while he remained in his original position, perfectly camouflaged. When she gave chase, he would be just behind her, waiting with a rag soaked in the tincture of many things he’d stolen from Sister Mama’s garden. They would have killed Sister Mama effectively, if the Longchamp-Mantooth women had left the soporific sponge in place long enough. All he would have had to do was sneak back into her room after she was dead and pluck out the sponge.

  The tincture wasn’t chloroform or ether, but it would serve the same purpose equally as well. Applied to a healthy adult, it was a toss-up as to whether this tincture would sedate or kill. Either way, it would help him take Dara’s inconvenient guard out of the way.

  ***

  Willow had planned his illusion perfectly. He could see Avery running. The excellent spatial skills that marked the true illusionist plotted her trajectory for him. She was headed for the precise spot he’d chosen. Once she passed his hiding place, she would have her back to him. She would be utterly blind to his attack, and the anesthetic he held would render her unconscious in seconds.

  The flaw in his perfect plan was Faye’s husband. Even though Joe had placed himself in full view of everyone passing on Walnut and Main Streets, he had done so after Willow took up residence in the bushes. Before this moment, there had been no way for Willow to know that Avery had backup. Now, Willow sank back into darkness and asked himself how to handle two adversaries, one carrying a gun and the other huge, who were both running full-tilt for a spot just a few feet away from him. In a fraction of a second, he would have to decide what to do.

  In addition to excellent spatial skills, talented illusionists have remarkable coordination and razor-sharp senses. These things are also true of trained law enforcement officers and natural-born hunters. Three elements of a human explosion were gathering in a single spot at the heart of Rosebower.

  ***

  In the bedroom where she had slept since she was twenty-nine years old, Sister Mama lay quietly. There was no light in the room and no sound. The only sensory stimulus was the downy softness of the quilt covering her twisted limbs. In such comfort, she should have slept straight through until morning, but something troublesome brushed through her dreams. Her eyes opened suddenly, dark and wise. She studied the ceiling and wondered what kind of trouble was afoot.

  ***

  Only one magician’s tool was on Willow’s side now. It was the element of surprise.

  He allowed Avery to run three steps past him, until Joe came within arm’s length. With an arcing swing of his hammer, he brought the big man down.

  Avery swung her weapon around in a very similar arc and tried to point it at him, but no one can take perfect aim while running and Willow was prepared for her. The hammer knocked the gun far out of her reach and his. It also broke two bones in her hand, and its impact sent her sprawling. She lay curled on the ground, cradling her hand, and her violent collision with the ground left her unable to even look up at her attacker.

  A killer who sets fires and delivers poisons to helpless octogenarians is not of the same breed as the killer who beats a human being to death by hand. Arsonists don’t like knives. Poisoners don’t like guns. Neither breed is likely to strangle. They are as evil as the hands-on murderer, but they prefer the remote exercise of that evil.

  Willow needed them both out of his way while he dispatched his wife and her aunt. He could have ensured this by bashing Avery’s brains out with his hammer, then doing the same thing to Joe. Instead, he held the dripping cloth over their faces until they slept almost as deeply as the dead. Perhaps they would never wake up. Willow didn’t care. He merely didn’t want to be involved in the messiness of it all.

  He gathered his instruments of death and draped the dark shroud over them. Then he mounted the rear steps of a house where four people sat in a claustrophobic little room. He should have been invisible as he went about this task. He thought he was invisible. He would have been invisible, if there hadn’t been someone unexpected coming his way. A magician cannot misdirect a person when he doesn’t know that person is watching.

  ***

  The voice wasn’t Dara’s. It wasn’t Amande’s. It didn’t sound like Myrna’s, but it had to be, because Myrna’s lips were moving. The words were slurred but Faye heard power in her voice.

  “The viper in the bed…broken trust…you are not safe. No one is safe.”

  She shook her head back and forth, fighting for words. Faye was not prepared for the words that came.

  “Get the hell out of this house.”

  Amande stared, wide-eyed. Dara and Faye both instinctively broke the circle and reached a hand out to Myrna. They had lived long enough to know the symptoms of brain injury, and Myrna was showing a lot of them. Her face had lost expression. Her vocal quality had deteriorated. Raving uncontrollably in a spiritual setting was beyond inappropriate for a woman of her religious background. And cursing? Faye wouldn’t have thought Myrna knew how.

  “Can’t you people hear? I want you gone. Get my sister out. And my daughter. Keep her safe.” Myrna’s head lolled onto Dara’s shoulder. “Keep her safe.”

  The repeated impact of a hammer striking wood reverberated. It told them that it was too late to heed Tilda’s warning. An oily scent penetrated the room that was organic but not herbal, and it was unmistakable. Nothing else smells like gasoline.

  “Get the door,” Faye barked, and the other three women obeyed in an instant. They lunged together at the door. Even Myrna threw herself at the stout slab of wood, but it was no use. The door was nailed shut.

  No one had to be told to hit the floor. They all had recent and painful memories of the things fire-hot smoke could do to a human being’s lungs. Faye pressed her cheek to the time-worn oak and reached out for her daughter’s hand.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The tiny oil lamp still rested on the table, casting its weak light around the room. Even from the floor, Faye could see that the crystal ball was gone. She looked at Dara, lying three feet away. She was clinging to Myrna with one arm and the crystal ball with the other.

  The ball taunted Faye. Several scenarios had been proposed that attempted to explain how Tilda and her crystal ball had escaped her burning house. Faye didn’t believe any of them.

  She didn’t believe that Tilda ever removed it from its spot in her séance room. It had sat at the heart of her house as if it must always be there.

  The practical part of Faye also understood that it was heavy and awkward to carry. Moving it would have required a second stand to hold it, or something else to keep it from rolling around in its new location. When Faye pictured
Tilda’s actions after she and Amande and Myrna left on that fatal night, she imagined her leaving the room and closing the door with the ball still inside. Or she imagined her lingering there to spend a few more moments in spirit. She didn’t picture her hauling a heavy lump of crystal out of the room for no reason.

  This meant that the ball was still in the room when the killer nailed the door shut. Tilda was in one of two places, outside the room or inside the room. If she’d been outside the room, the question was, “How did she get the ball out?” And if she’d been inside the room, the question was, “How did she get the ball and herself out?”

  Since Faye needed rather desperately to get herself, her daughter, and her friends out of an identical room, she decided to go with the second question. It implied that there was a way out of her predicament. If Tilda got herself and the ball out of an identical room in an identical situation, then Faye could do the same. This room where she was trapped had served as a site for spiritual readings for generations, and she had seen letters from one of those Spiritualists to a known faker. Everybody around Faye believed in the traditional honesty of the Armisteads, but this didn’t mean that they were right. Maybe this room had secrets.