by Elle Adams
“Did any of those wizards look capable of brewing up a complicated poison?” he queried.
I considered this. “I guess not. Unless she already brewed it and left it lying around, but one of them might have ended up poisoning himself.”
Archie had been among the wizards who’d found Harriet’s body, though. I couldn’t ignore that connection, nor his inexplicable lapse in mentioning his affair with her. Those things put together painted a picture that didn’t look good for the wizards, to say the least.
All the same, the image of Mina Devlin’s face kept coming to mind, and a not-insignificant part of me wanted to confront as well. She must know everything that went on within her coven, yet she seemed to be doing absolutely nothing to solve the murder of the former healer. She’d even refused to cooperate with the police.
And I thought I was inept at dealing with people.
We entered the restaurant, where the lunchtime crowd was on their way in. Within ten minutes, a familiar group of wizards arrived, talking raucously amongst themselves.
“Which one is Archie?” I asked.
Drew made a beeline for a wizard who wore a long grey cloak and matching hat and looked altogether more alert than he had the night he and the others had levitated Harriet’s body out of the river.
“Excuse me.” Drew stepped out in front of him. “You’re Archie, right?”
The wizard looked startled. “Something wrong, detective?”
“New information has come to light concerning Harriet’s death,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions. We won’t keep you for long.”
His face fell. “Seriously?”
“Like I said, it won’t take long.”
His friends watched and muttered among themselves as Archie sloped after us into the inn’s lobby. Not the most private place for a chat, but the rain had started in earnest and the wizards would only be here for their lunch break. That meant we needed to be quick. At least the only people around were the resident ghosts, who departed when I gave them a warning look.
“What is it?” asked Archie.
“We found out that you and Harriet were involved in a relationship prior to her death,” I said. “You didn’t mention that when we last spoke to you.”
His shoulders slumped. “I… I didn’t know how to bring it up. It felt disrespectful to her memory.”
“It’s still evidence, though,” added the detective. “I’m sure you understand why I have to ask you a few more questions.”
He gave a frantic nod. “All right. Um, the truth is, it was a fling. It didn’t really mean anything. I think she knew that Maxwell guy was cheating, and she wanted to get back at him, but she was more focused on that coven healer position anyway.”
“Was she on her way to meet you the night she died?” I asked.
“If she was, she didn’t tell me,” he said. “I was on a night out with my mates, that’s all. Didn’t expect to find her like that. I was here all evening. Ask anyone.”
“When was the last time you saw her alive?” queried the detective.
His forehead scrunched up. “Let’s think… maybe two days before she died. We usually met at my place, but after her ex moved out, she usually invited me to hers. It was easier that way.”
“You never met him?” I asked.
“Not in person, no,” he said. “She talked about him, though. Said she planned to break things off, but it was complicated, what with the house and everything.”
“So that’s why he stayed,” said Drew.
He shrugged. “I guess. We didn’t know one another, so I can only go by what she told me.”
“Did she mention he was cheating, too?” I asked.
“Oh, she knew,” he said. “You don’t think he killed her? Because I doubt he did. He already had what he wanted. Lisa did, too.”
“Was Harriet acting oddly before her death?” I asked. “The last time you saw her?”
“Odder than usual?” he said. “I mean, she’d been buried in books for weeks, trying to prove herself to the coven leader and get the position of healer. She was obsessed, you know what I mean?”
“I think I do,” said the detective. “What about Angie? The former healer?”
“Her?” he said. “Oh. She died, right? This week. I heard.”
“Murdered,” I said, and watched the last of the colour drain from his face.
“Oh.” He sagged on his feet like a balloon deflating. “You think I did that? I don’t even know how she died.”
“Poison,” I said. “Have you been living under a rock for the last week? She was poisoned with herbs from her own shop.”
“Oh.” His expression cleared. “If it was poison, then I couldn’t have done it.”
“How so?” said Drew.
“I don’t know one herb from the other. Only way I might have poisoned someone is by accident with my cooking.” He gave a nervous laugh which rapidly petered out.
“Have you spoke to the coven leader this week?” I said. “I know some of you want to start your own coven…”
“That’s more Bernard’s idea,” he said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Nothing. Except for Mina Devlin’s apparent stranglehold over the witches and wizards in town. “I just think it odd that there’s only one coven and one healer to go with it. Cathy seems snowed under with work. Have you seen her?”
“Cathy?” he said. “Oh, the new healer. Nope. I didn’t know her, though Harriet talked about her a fair bit. We never crossed paths.”
“What did Harriet say about her?” I asked. “She talked about her a lot?”
“Sure,” he said. “She said that Cathy was less talented as a healer, but she expected her to get chosen because Mina always picks someone she personally likes.”
“I wasn’t under the impression she liked anyone,” I commented.
He grimaced. “The whole coven is scared of crossing her. Everyone is. But she didn’t like Harriet, so she never had a shot at being picked. That’s what she told me.”
“Then why try?” I felt the detective’s eyes on me, and I knew I’d gone off script, but I still wanted to hear what he had to say. “Why did she try for the position, then?”
“I dunno, it was an obsession, like I said.” He shrugged. “Maybe she thought if she studied hard enough, she’d be in with a chance of proving Mina wrong. Do you really think Harriet was murdered?”
“I didn’t at first,” I admitted, “but then someone killed Angie the night after we visited and questioned her about the last time she saw Harriet alive. That suggests they had a reason to want to quieten her.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
Why indeed.
“Would your friends have anything to add to your story?” asked the detective.
“Maybe. I dunno.” He frowned. “I’m not a suspect in Angie’s death, am I?”
“Depends if you have an alibi for late Tuesday night,” I said. “Do you?”
His expression cleared. “Oh, I was here at the inn. Then I went home, and I could barely walk in a straight line. Bernard can back me up. So can my other friends.”
“I’ll have to check with him,” said Drew.
“Sure.” He nodded, edging towards the glass doors to the restaurant. “But none of us did it. We liked the old healer and we didn’t have any reason to pick a fight with the coven.”
I was inclined to believe him, but I went with Drew into the restaurant and found Archie’s friends at the bar. There, Drew launched into questioning each of them to confirm the wizard’s presence here at the inn at the estimated time of Angie’s death. Not that we knew for certain, since my Reaper senses had chosen to stay quiet for reasons I had yet to figure out.
Bernard, the wizard who’d pulled Harriet’s body out of the river, looked especially uncomfortable. He fidgeted more and more the longer the questioning went on. Finally, he said, “Did Mina send you?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “Why?”
“Nobody is getting arrested,” said Drew. “Unless, that is, you have something to hide, concerning Harriet or Angie’s deaths.”
Bernard was quiet for a moment. “Not exactly, but… I never told you that I saw weird markings on Harriet’s body when we pulled her out of the river. And I don’t think the police noticed, or anyone else, either.”
“Like what?” I said. “What kind of markings do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “They were like… symbols, written on her hands. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I was in shock, to be honest. I didn’t think it might be important until later on.”
“Did anyone else see?” I looked among the others.
“Um,” said Archie. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I did.”
I turned to Drew. “Didn’t you see?”
“No.” His brow furrowed. “Are you implying the marks were magical in nature?”
“Some spells use runes which are only visible to wizards or witches,” I said. “Didn’t you examine the body?”
“The coven took her body away,” said Archie. “I thought they were going to look into it.”
“Without telling the police?” I said.
You’d think Mina would want to cooperate with the police if she wanted to find the killer, but if Mina had been the one who’d taken Harriet’s body away, perhaps her secrecy had been for a reason.
To be honest, I was starting to run out of excuses to believe she was innocent. But how could I go about accusing her? I needed more proof than I already did, and what I did have was tenuous at best. As for the detective, I wouldn’t let him take the risk on my behalf. Especially as we only had the wizards’ word to go on about the markings on her body.
Drew finished up the questioning and left the wizards to their lunch break, while I walked with him into the lobby once again.
There, I turned to the detective. “What do you reckon?”
“Nothing ties Archie or his friends to Angie’s death,” he said. “Their alibis are solid. Even with Harriet’s death, it seems unlikely he was involved. Unfortunately, the only person likely to know about these marks on her body is the coven’s leader. Especially as it was the coven who took over the funeral and buried her.”
“Yeah.” Unease skittered down my spine. “We need to figure out how to handle it. If we make enemies of the whole coven, it’ll be our necks on the line next.”
“I won’t act without proof,” he said. “I intend to check in with my colleagues and see if they can confirm the markings are worth looking into.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “I wish I could say I knew what it all means, but I don’t. I’m in the dark.”
“You and me both,” he admitted. “I expected this case to be straightforward, but as soon as the coven got involved, and all this extra information came up…”
“I’m wondering why my Reaper senses only reacted to Harriet’s death and not Angie’s.” Was it simply that I’d been close to the scene of Harriet’s death, or was it more to do with the manner in which she’d died? It wouldn’t usually make a difference, but with my abilities dormant for so long, I couldn’t begin to guess at what had caused their resurgence.
Drew took a step closer to me. “I didn’t mean to put pressure on you by getting you involved.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “I wanted to get involved. I just wish my Reaper skills were a little more reliable.”
Aside from when they sprang up and inconveniently dragged him into the afterworld, that is.
“They alerted you to the first murder, but not the second,” he said. “Right?”
“You’ve got it,” I said. “I don’t know whether it was because I was closer to the scene of the first death or if my Reaper skills were already on full alert because I was wandering around a haunted house at the time. Never heard of that happening, but I’m not exactly a typical Reaper.”
“Considering the only other Reaper I know is possibly the most antisocial person I’ve met, I have to agree with you there.”
“Hey, I have the antisocial part down,” I said. “Look at how I handled the witches.”
“You lasted through a whole meeting with them.” He smiled. We looked at one another then. I could see something in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not.
“Just kiss already!” yelled Mart from behind him, making me jump.
Drew lifted his head. “Was that your brother, by any chance?”
“You’ve got it,” I said. “I think he might have an update on the ghost.”
He’d better. Mart grinned and gave me a thumbs-up, while I shot him a scowl.
“I have to report back to the rest of my team,” said Drew, with a glance in my brother’s direction. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Maura.”
12
Mart groaned theatrically when the detective left. “He’s got to make a move on you first. I’m on tenterhooks here, and I’m dead.”
“You’re also not helping by interrupting our conversations.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Go on, give me the update on the ghost.”
“Bold of you to assume I have one,” he said, “but yes, I have interesting news.”
“Like what?”
“I asked the locals about our spirit’s death,” he said. “Mandy died four years back, and nobody ever came to a definite conclusion about what caused her death. And get this… she was one of the hopefuls for the job of the coven’s healer at the time.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Really? Did the police have any suspects who they thought might have killed her?”
“No,” he said. “The coven leader ruled her death an accident.”
“The same leader who still runs the coven now?” Suspicion trickled through me. This might be the evidence I needed. If I could find a way to bring it to the surface, that is, without getting myself into deeper trouble than I already was. I doubted the witches or the police would take my brother’s ghost’s word as proof.
“Yeah, she’s been the leader for years,” he said. “Since not long after the floods, I heard.”
“The ghosts are being talkative, then?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “When I ask the right questions, they don’t shut up. It’s excruciating. Two of them tried to follow me home.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“Oi.” He put on a mock-wounded look. “I went out of my way to help you, you know.”
“And it’s appreciated.” It was, too. But I was still as in the dark as ever as to what Mina and the coven’s deal was. “Was Angie still the healer back then?”
“She was,” he said. “Sounds like she didn’t react well to her potential successor dying and decided to put off her retirement for a few more years.”
Hmm. Unless the former healer had been murdering her apprentices, which seemed unlikely, she was innocent in this and had likely met her end because she’d made the same connection I had. As for why Mandy couldn’t remember her own death? That remained a mystery for now, but the coven was certainly full of people who schemed long and hard to get what they wanted. Including, or especially, their leader.
“Maybe I can convince Mandy to tell me what she recalls of her time in the coven,” I said. “If Carey’s ghost goggles could actually pick up sounds…”
“That’d work if she could remember her death,” he said. “Does she?”
“Nope.” Which meant I needed to come up with another strategy in the meantime. If I wasn’t out of ideas, that is.
I watched as the wizards traipsed out of the restaurant, muttering among themselves.
“Want me to follow them?” asked Mart. “To make sure they aren’t plotting murder?”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Be careful, okay?”
He snorted. “Those guys couldn’t lay a finger on me even if I was alive.”
&nbs
p; My brother departed, while I went to get ready for my afternoon shift, thinking hard about how on earth I could possibly go about accusing the coven leader of a crime without ending up in deeper trouble myself. Or putting Drew’s life in danger. That, I wouldn’t do.
I rubbed my forehead. Complicated. Feelings made life complicated, all right.
Carey returned from school midway through my shift and set up her work at the same table as usual. Normally I didn’t mind being around her, but my brain was stuck on the dilemma of making a stand against the terrifying leader of the local coven without ending up in a grave of my own. Or turned into a tree. Let’s face it, witches could be scarier than Reapers when they wanted to be. More imaginative, certainly. There were only so many things you could do with a scythe.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asked. “The detective isn’t here?”
“No, he had to go back to the office,” I said. “After he talked to the wizards again earlier. The ones who found Harriet’s body.”
“They’re still suspects?”
“One of them had a fling with Harriet before her death.” I decided not to bring up the markings allegedly spotted on her body. They were in the realm of rituals and dark magic, especially if the detective hadn’t been able to see them. As if the case wasn’t confusing enough already.
She looked up at me. “Really? Do you think he killed her?”
“As of right now, no,” I said. “He has no motive for murdering Angie, either. Plus he has an alibi. All of them do.”
“Weird.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Are you going to be working on the case over the weekend, then?”
I didn’t want to drag Carey into this, either, but a pang of guilt hit me when I saw the pile of notes on haunted houses on the table next to the laptop I’d loaned her. “Want to go on another visit to old Healey House tomorrow?”
Her expression brightened. “Sure. I’m looking at ways to make ghosts more likely to show up. Maybe we can lure them out.”
“I doubt any of the books mention bringing a Reaper along,” I commented. “We tend to scare off most spirits.”