The Sweets of Doom

by Wendy Meadows

  “Okay, Rick,” I reply. “That’s all we needed to know.”

  I nod to David and we leave. We both slump in the car. “Well, we’re batting a perfect zero.”

  David chuckles. “That’s another one off the list. Who do we have next?”

  “I don’t have any more suspects. I was thinking we could follow up a lead I just picked up in the office.”

  He cocks his head. “Really? What lead is that?”

  “Jose had an appointment the day before his death with someone named Tana Ness-Scott at George Washington High School. It must be Michael’s teacher.”

  “Okay. I’m game.” He fires up the engine, and we drive to the school.

  8

  David parks outside George Washington High School, and we both stare through the chain-link fence. Not a single soul mills around the halls between the buildings or on the playground. No cars occupy the parking lot. The place sits vast and empty and deserted.

  “Summer vacation,” I murmur. “I completely forgot.”

  “Check the office,” David tells me. “They can probably tell you where Tana Ness-Scott is.”

  I go to the office and find a lone secretary sitting behind the desk. I catch her in the act of reading a racy romance novel and picking her teeth with a plastic dental flosser.

  “Can you tell me where I can find Tana Ness-Scott?” I ask. “It’s related to Jose Santiago’s murder investigation. His son, Michael, is a student here, and I believe Ms. Ness-Scott was his teacher.”

  The secretary perks up and a palpable wave of relief sweeps over her. “Sure! She’s a counselor out at Fire Ridge Summer Camp right now. It’s between here and West End, right off the highway.”

  “Thank you.” I return to the car. “Do you know where Fire Ridge Summer Camp is?”

  “You bet,” he replies. “It backs right up to town.”

  He drives there, and I consult with the camp leader to locate Tana Ness-Scott. We finally find her standing outside the horse corral coaching a young girl in her riding form.

  I ease up to the fence next to her. “Hello, I’m Margaret Nichols. You must be Tana Ness-Scott.”

  She shoots a fiery glance over her shoulder at David. She measures him up and down. “What business is that of yours?”

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Jose Santiago, Michael’s father. I know you had an appointment with him the day before his death.”

  “Yeah, but that appointment was strictly school business,” she returns. “I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re trying to imply.”

  “I’m not implying anything. I just want to ask you about your meeting with him, especially since school isn’t currently in session. Can you tell me what it was about?”

  “It was about Michael, of course,” she snaps. “I don’t have meetings with parents that don’t concern their children. I don’t go sticking my nose into parents’ private lives.”

  “I never said you did.” I keep my voice low. The more shrill and agitated she gets, the calmer I become. “So what did you talk to Jose about? I understand Michael’s a model student. Were you concerned about his academic achievement in the upcoming school year?”

  “It wasn’t his academic achievement that concerned me,” she replies. “It was his creative genius. That boy is the most talented artist to come through my class in years, and that petty, narrow-minded father of his was just going to let it all go to waste. I tried to convince him to send Michael to art school. That’s what the meeting was about.”

  “What did Jose say about it?” I ask.

  “He refused me flat. I couldn’t believe it. All he cared about was the money. He couldn’t see the forest for the trees. He cared about one thing and one thing only, and that was college. I tried to tell him Michael would be a lot happier getting an art degree than going to a regular college. I also told him he could get scholarships and student loans to cover it, but Jose just shook his head and walked away. He didn’t care about his son at all.”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as that,” I murmur. “He worked insane hours to provide for his son. If he couldn’t afford art school, he probably didn’t see any point in discussing it. Maybe the whole subject made him upset that he couldn’t give his son those luxuries.”

  “Luxuries!” she gasps. “You call that a luxury? Giving a talent like that the training he needs to become a successful professional artist is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.”

  I purse my lips. I should let it go, but her attitude irks me. “Food is a necessity. Clothes are necessities. A roof over your head and a heater that runs in the winter—those are necessities. If he couldn’t afford art school, he would have no reason to short Michael on real necessities trying to make it happen. I’m sure you rubbed him the wrong way making it out to be a necessity when it wasn’t one.”

  She pierces me to the marrow with devilish brown eyes. “You’re just like him. You people just don’t understand the value of the arts. All you see is the bottom line.”

  I heave a sigh. These questions have drained me of all energy. “Okay, Tana. We can agree to disagree on that one. Can you tell me where you were from nine in the morning on August fifteenth and seven-thirty the same evening?”

  “I was right here. I never left the camp.”

  “Can you prove that?” I ask. “Can anyone confirm that you were really here all that time?”

  She waves her hand at the forest surrounding us. “Well, look at this place. I left my car in Peterborough, so I couldn’t exactly leave. I would have to walk twenty-five miles to get anywhere.”

  I nod. “Okay, Tana. Thanks for your time.”

  She turns back to what she’s doing. David and I return to his car. “What do you make of that?” he asks me.

  “She was awfully defensive about talking to us,” I remark. “She seems upset about something.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” He starts the motor and crunches down the dirt road to the highway.

  I get out my phone and bring up a map. When the car stops, David startles me out of a deep thought. I look up to find we’re parked in front of the police station. “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “I’m checking a map of the area.” I hold it up. “I’m checking to see how far it would be to walk from that camp to West End. It’s right over that mountain over there.”

  He cracks a grin. “So you thought of that, too. I should have known you would pick that up.”

  “I don’t buy her alibi that she couldn’t leave the camp.”

  “She might have been able to leave it, but that doesn’t mean she did. Campers and other counselors would have seen her around the camp that day. They would have noticed if she suddenly disappeared.”

  I put my phone away and round on him. “Here’s what I don’t understand. That note in his calendar said, ‘Tana Ness-Scott, George Washington High School, ten AM.’ When I first read it, I thought he meant he was meeting her at the school, but if it was summer vacation, they probably wouldn’t have met there. They would have met somewhere else, but if she was at camp, they would have had to meet there. Don’t you think?”

  He scowls at the trees around us. “You’re right.”

  “I don’t really see her doing that, and here’s the other thing,” I go on. “She might be working as a live-in camp counselor, but she has to have a day off sometime. What does she do then? Does she just mooch around the camp all day? She might have had time to walk into town.”

  “If she did, everyone would see her walking away in broad daylight. We know this killer is detail oriented and meticulous about covering all the bases. If she killed Jose, she wouldn’t make a mistake like that.”

  “I wonder if there’s any way to connect her with that poisonous plant. A plant as unusual as that is bound to leave a trail of its own.”

  He starts the motor and drives me into town. “You go worry your bone somewhere else, Miss Nichols. I have to get back to my desk.”

  He parks in fron
t of the candy store, but before he can say anything or I can say goodbye, Zack comes rushing out. He sticks his head in David’s window. “Thank God you two are back. Would you please come inside for a minute, Detective? There’s something I have to show you.”

  “I can’t stop to look at it now,” David replies. “I have to get back to work.”

  “No, you need to come take a look,” Zack insists. “This is directly related to Jose Santiago’s murder.”

  David and I exchange glances. This isn’t like Zack at all. We both get out of the car and go into the store. I look around. “I don’t see anything so shocking.”

  He waves us to the back room and shuts the door behind us. Then he fishes a stack of paper scraps from under a box of gummi bears. He shoves them at David and his voice quavers when he speaks. “Look. I found these all over the store this morning. When I unlocked the door, they were everywhere. Look at them.”

  David and I study a bunch of cryptic squiggly lines and designs decorating each piece of paper. No words. No calligraphy incantations. Just weird curves, dots, arrow points, and spirals.

  David leafs through them. “Who would leave these lying around?”

  “Whoever it was,” I reply, “they’re guilty of breaking and entering. I don’t know how they got into the store with the doors locked, but that’s against the law.”

  “It looks like something related to witchcraft,” David remarks. “Maybe the coven over on the other side of town had something to do with this.”

  “They aren’t real witches,” I tell him. “I spent an evening with them. They’re just a bunch of frustrated housewives who get together to vent and share a few laughs.”

  “Then who drew these?” He holds up the sheets. “That scene at Jose’s house might not have been the real deal, but this sure looks like it.”

  “Keep your shorts on, sonny,” I tell him. “Don’t get all hysterical about witches and stuff. That scene at Jose’s house was a set-up to distract us and to throw us off the case, and this is more of the same. The killer probably knows we’re investigating the occult, so they’re playing on our suspicions and our fears.”

  “Maybe, but I’m taking these into evidence.” He stuffs the papers into his pocket. “I’ll send the forensics team around to dust this place for prints, but I don’t like our chances. It’s been hours since someone put these in here, and your prints will have wiped theirs away if the person didn’t already do it for us. I’ll see you two later. Call me the minute anything else comes up.”

  Zack goes back to work. He looks relieved to have the dastardly evidence out of the store, and I walk home.

  The minute I set foot in the neighborhood, a prickle sparks over my nerves. I sense something out of place long before I get to the house. I dread going inside, and when I turn the key in the lock, my heart nearly stops beating.

  Thousands of those tiny scraps of paper flutter over the floor, on the dining room table, on the couches and chairs, down the stairs, and into the hall. They form a carpet of confetti all over my house—my house!

  I gape at the sight. My brain refuses to comprehend what happened. From my position in the doorway, I can clearly distinguish the curlicue patterns on each small piece. Each of those thousands of scraps of paper bears a different symbol: a spiral ending in an arrowhead, parallel lines with a few dots strategically positioned around them, a stick man with a lightning bolt coming out of one hand.

  I shudder, and the spell holding me shatters. I step backward onto the porch and pull the door closed. My hands fumble getting my phone out of my pocket.

  I touch the button to text David. You said to let you know the minute something came up. It’s here. Come to my house right away. Send.

  I sit on the front porch until he pulls up in his squad car. I would give anything to smoke a cigarette right now, but I never touched that stuff before and I’m not about to start.

  David scowls at me. “So what’s going on?”

  I jerk my head toward the door. “Take a look for yourself.”

  He swings the door open…and stops. He doesn’t enter. He just stares straight ahead the same way I did. “Oh my God.”

  He shuts the door without entering. His hands tremble as he taps buttons on his phone. Then he holds a clipped, one-sided conversation with someone. “Hey, Bruce. Yep. I know what I said, but I need you to divert to 65 Chestnut Street. Yeah, I’ll meet you when you get here.”

  He hangs up and sinks into a chair next to me. “The forensics team is on their way right now. They’ll do a full work-up on the house.”

  I nod, too stunned to answer.

  “I think it’s time I picked up Cheryl Whitfield,” he mutters. “I think she has some questions to answer.”

  I snap out of my stupor. “The coven didn’t do this.”

  “That’s what you keep saying, but I don’t hear you coming up with any other suggestions about who would do this.”

  “Think about it,” I tell him. “The members of the coven are mothers and wives. A bunch of them are single mothers who work their fingers to the bone keeping their kids alive. They would never jeopardize that by doing something illegal like this. Whoever did this has no one depending on them. They don’t care about doing something illegal because there’s no one waiting for them at home. I’m telling you the coven didn’t do this.”

  He nods. “I hear what you’re saying. I’ll play it your way for now, but if you don’t come up with something pretty quick or if they pull anything else around this town, I’ll have no choice but to intervene. Understand?”

  I close my eyes and bow my head. “I understand.”

  He lays his big hand on my knee and gives it a squeeze. “Maybe you and Zack should find another place to stay for a few days. The house is going to feel pretty creepy for a while. You know what they say about that house anyway.”

  I snort. “I know, and there’s nothing creepy about it. The forensics people will take all the papers away, won’t they?”

  “Yes. They’ll take them into evidence along with the ones Zack found at the store.”

  “Then I’m staying,” I declare. “This is my house, and I’m not going to let some moron with a sick sense of humor drive me out of it.”

  “Okay. Take it easy. I’ll check in on you later.”

  9

  The next day, I pace up and down behind the counter at the candy store, casting sidelong glances around the street outside. I don’t like to admit it even to myself, but the events of the last twenty-four hours really are freaking me out.

  I don’t want to be alone even in my own candy store, but I refuse to tell Zack or David that. I put on a brave face and muscle through.

  The whole town seems to cower under a cloud of apprehension and uncertainty. Hardly any customers come into the store, and I don’t see anybody on the street outside, either.

  While I make one lap after another back and forth behind the counter, a familiar bony figure emerges from my right. A tall gaunt woman in a tweed riding suit takes a few steps down the sidewalk, stops to cast a wary look over her shoulder, and then proceeds the rest of the way to my door.

  Simone Peretti, the proprietress of the antiques shop down the street, steals inside. Instead of greeting me, she peers through the windows at nothing in particular.

  I do my best to sound cheerful. “Good morning, Simone. How are you today?”

  She doesn’t answer. She stalks down the windows without taking her eyes off Main Street. I wait.

  After a few minutes’ silence, she casts an anxious look around the store. “Have you experienced anything… anything unusual lately, Margaret?”

  I have to chuckle. “Nothing more unusual than anything else, now that you mention it. Why? Did something unusual happen to you?”

  Her scrawny hand drifts to her pinched mouth. I’ve never seen her so pensive and on edge before. She always carries herself about seven miles above everything around her.

  “I was in my shop just now…” She pauses
to take another long, nervous look up and down the street.

  “You were in your shop just now,” I prompt. “Did anything happen?”

  “I was making myself a cup of tea the way I always do, and you know that big mirror behind the front desk?”

  I nod.

  “I poured the boiling water into my teapot, and I looked up into the mirror the way I always do. I could swear I saw a face in the steam looking back at me. It was a most distinct human face with hard, bitter eyes…” She drifts off. Her voice dwindles to a whisper.

  I study her from behind. This is definitely out of character for her. I always rely on her dry sense of harsh reality to counteract some of the more flighty and suggestible members of the community.

  If all this witch stuff is getting to Simone, what might the other residents of West End be thinking?

  In answer to my thoughts, a door slams across the street. Simone and I both turn to see Mr. Stewart hustle out of his dog grooming parlor directly opposite the candy store. He checks both ways and tears across the street.

  He bolts through my door before he notices Simone standing there. He barely gives her a passing glance. He barges right up to the counter and lowers his voice to a husky whisper. “Do you know what just happened over in my shop, Margaret?”

  “No,” I reply. “What?”

  “I was in the middle of shampooing Jonah Davidson. You know!”

  I know Kyle Davidson’s enormous Alsatian very well. I greet that dog every morning when I leave the house. A more sedate, intelligent, insightful dog never graced God’s green Earth.

  “I was in the middle of shampooing him,” Mr. Stewart whispers, “and he suddenly decided to shake all the soap and water off of his coat.”