by Mona Marple
I shook my head and smiled. These people had all been superior to me in school, or at least they’d told me that and I’d believed them. With their Trust Funds and more sophisticated magic, their summers in St Barts and winters in Aspen. I’d looked up to them as if they were on pedestals, and yet they all sat or sprawled before me and looked like every other regular Joe. They were approaching middle-age faster than any of us would care to admit.
There was never anything wrong with me, I realised with a start. They were never superior to me. I straightened my shoulders a little just as Crystal returned to me, her eyes wide and a grin on her face.
“What?” I asked. “You saw something, didn’t you? And if it was a vision of our caffeine-loving hunk, I want every single detail.”
“Nothing that exciting my dear, sadly,” Crystal said with a disappointed sigh.
“Why are you grinning like the Cheshire Cat, then?”
“Could you see it too?”
“The vision? Of course not. Are you okay?” I asked. Usually, Crystal recovered quickly from a vision, but occasionally I’d seen her faint. Once, she had a vision of a school bully drowning in the waters surrounding the school. We’d laughed about that, until it really happened a few days later.
“I’m really, really good,” Crystal said, the grin back on her face. “It’s just funny you called me the Cheshire Cat. Anyway, it actually worked.”
“You saw something?”
She nodded like one of those annoying nodding dogs some people insist on having in their cars. Yes, they’re cute. My issue with them? Whenever I saw one - like if I were following behind one in a line of traffic - I’d start to copy the nodding. I didn’t realise I was doing it, but it’s apparently such an in built reaction that four separate people have pointed it out to me. Four separate people! How many journeys have I spent imitating a dang nodding dog without even knowing?!
“It worked just like you said it would. I just focused on the hair, like I cleared my head of everything else - even the hunky love God - and just focused. And then I saw it all happen.”
“You saw the murder?” I said with a gasp.
“Well, no, not that bit…”
“Crystal, that’s kind of the main thing we’re working on…” I said through gritted teeth. Sure, I was happy that she’d controlled her magic. It was a big deal for her, I knew that, but it only helped us if she had worked out who the hair belonged to. “That hair being there is a huge clue. Whoever left it had to have been there when Sid died. I mean, almost certainly, the hair belongs to the killer.”
Crystal tried to stifle a giggle. Geeze. What was wrong with her? Maybe the vision had made her a little, erm, unstable?
“Do you need to sit down?” I suggested.
“I’m fine, it’s just kind of funny how much weight you’re putting on this little old hair,” Crystal teased, her voice high and perky as if she were talking to a toddler. She saw my expression and sighed. “Okay, okay. The hair isn’t the killer’s.”
“What?” I exclaimed. She controlled one vision and all of a sudden she thought she was Jessica Fletcher? “You just said you didn’t see the murder happen.”
“Ellie, it’s not even a clue,” Crystal said. She took hold of my hands as if she were breaking bad news to me. “We need to focus on other things.”
“You’re making no sense,” I said. I could be stubborn when I wanted to be, and I refused to hear what she was saying. “Just tell me who the hair belongs to.”
“Fine,” Crystal said with a shrug. “It’s the cat’s, Ellie. It’s not even a darn human hair.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “You mean that cat… that darn cat has been wasting our time? Sid Snipe couldn’t stand the animal!”
Crystal let out a small smile. “We actually disturbed the cat when we went into the office, I just saw it all now. And Ellie, try not to laugh, but I think he was about to leave a poop right by Sid Snipe. Turns out the cat couldn’t stand him, either.”
23
Violet
Of all the suspects I would need to speak to, Bryan Derby was the one I was most apprehensive of. He had an air about him of being untouchable, which I guess a protective army of the dead would give a person.
And it hadn’t escaped my attention that he’d been leaving the room throughout the night, following after Ellie. I’d tried to cast a distance spell of protection around her but her own powers had rejected it, I’d guess without her even realising. Every time I saw her come back into the dining hall, I breathed a sigh of relief.
She was strong, that girl. She just didn’t realise it.
“Mr Derby,” I called out. He gazed across at me from an empty table. More and more people had abandoned their seats and were collapsed on the floor, asleep. “I’d like to speak to you next.”
“Me?” He asked, a bony finger stabbing himself in the chest.
“Yes,” I said. “Alone, please.”
He gave a smirk and rose to his feet, then followed me across the room. The production booth had begun to feel like home for me, but the stale smell still made me gag a little each time I entered.
“What a delightful place,” Mr Derby simpered. I gestured and he sat down. “You must be awfully annoyed that old Snipey’s got in the way of your Golden Sceptre.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, it’s the main thing on my mind at the moment.”
“Well, no, clearly not. A Winifred’s award is still something to covet, though. Despite this mess.”
I frowned. I’d paid enough attention to my mother’s troubles to realise nothing was worth coveting.
“Go on, then, ask away.”
“Where have you been going tonight? I’ve seen you leave the room. Everyone was asked to stay in here. Don’t the rules apply to you?”
He raised a sculpted eyebrow. “Bladder isn’t what it used to be.”
I let out a sigh. “From where I’m sitting, Mr Derby, you’re fairly high on the list of suspects. So you can help me out now, or I can explain to the Magick Squad that you wouldn’t co-operate.”
“I’m sure they’ll consider me to be a very naughty boy not to engage with your amateur sleuth work,” Mr Derby said with a wink.
“Fine,” I said. I did not have time for his game playing. “Off you go.”
Mr Derby blinked at me. “You need my help.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But you won’t give it, and I don’t beg. So, off you go. I’ll speak to other people.”
“Oh, go on then. Clearly you can’t solve this case without me,” he murmured as a dark cloud began to swirl around him.
“I said alone,” I snapped. Not that I expected him to listen.
The cloud settled and the ravaged faces of his ghost crew gazed across at me.
“I don’t control where they go,” Mr Derby said. “They’re not my pets.”
The word pet reminded me of the hair found by Sid Snipe’s body. A hair as dark as Bryan Derby’s, plus there was the distinctive pen. I reached for it and watched his expression stiffen as he saw.
“Missing something?” I asked.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He reached across for the pen but I moved it out of his reach.
“I suggest you tell me everything,” I ordered.
Bryan Derby pursed his lips but gave a slow nod. “They say that necromancy is a dead magic, excuse the pun. As if a power will be forgotten if they remove it from the curriculum. My subject’s already tainted by a reputation as a dark art. Take it away from the curriculums of the finest schools and it simply moves underground. We’ve seen it already. Regular teenagers who don’t realise they’ve got an ounce of wizardry in them conducting seances. Who has to send those spirits back? True craftsmen like me, of course. Which is fine, until I die. Then what? No future generations of necromancers will be a disaster.”
“And that was Snipe’s plan, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Mr Derby said. “Snipe was harmless enough, he was just foolish. Turn
ed by a pretty face, or a good offer…”
“So he wasn’t going to remove your subject?”
“He wasn’t, but the Academy would. Winifred’s would have been their eighth school takeover this year alone. In every single one, they’ve waded in and removed the Classics from the curriculum. Necromancy, Latin… how on earth are students supposed to understand the art of crafting spells without Latin?”
“You shared your concerns?”
“We all did, endlessly. For what it’s worth, Snipe saw the school failing. He had one offer on the table that promised to take away all of the problems, and he didn’t have the brains to work out another solution. I do believe he was truly doing what he felt was best.”
“But you weren’t going to let the plans go through, were you?”
He let out a small cough as the undead around him swirled, restless. I tried to stop my hands shaking.
“No, of course not.”
“You killed him,” I said.
Bryan Derby laughed. “No, I did no such thing.”
“You were in there with him, your pen was there… and you’ve been trailing around after Ellie all night terrified she might discover the truth.”
“Is that really what you believe of me?” Mr Derby asked, his dark eyes piercing my own. “I followed the red head to ensure her safety. As you’ve said, an order was given to remain in the room. She’s the one who has insisted on leaving. I wanted to make sure she was safe.”
“Why should I believe that?”
Mr Derby raised that eyebrow again and gave a chilling smile. “Because she’s still alive?”
It was a fair point. If he’d wanted to hurt Ellie, he’d had the perfect chance.
“Explain your pen being in there, then,” I said.
“I must have dropped it,” he muttered.
“Mm-hmm,” I said with an eye roll, just as Ellie burst in the room. “Ellie, I was just questioning Mr Derby about the pen. And the hair, of course.”
From behind Mr Derby, Ellie shook her head and made a flapping gesture with her hand, telling me to stop. What was wrong with her?
“What hair?” Mr Derby asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Ellie said. She grimaced towards me, mouthed a silent apology. Whatever she’d discovered, I was about to find out about it at the same time as one of the prime suspects. “It’s a cat hair, but the cat’s not talking.”
“Of course not,” Mr Derby said. “It’s got no powers. Why are you wasting my time with cat hairs? His office is full of the things, I bet.”
“It’s really the pen we’re focused on,” I backtracked as I gave Bryan Derby a scowl, hoping to convince him he’d gone off topic. “You just dropped it? We’re really meant to believe that?”
“I’m so sorry,” Bryan Derby said. “Have I given you the impression that I care what you believe?”
I rolled my eyes. “He said he was following you to protect you, Ellie.”
“He was,” she said, her voice low.
“He was?”
“I told you I was!” Bryan Derby said. “I’m not the bad guy.”
“Then start telling us what happened. You went in there, you got him to sign something with your pen. I’ve seen it in a vision.”
Bryan Derby groaned. “I had to get him to pull out of the Academy plans. He was going to ruin the school, and he just couldn’t see it. Everyone was against it. Even Helen was against him, and she could convince him black was white.”
“How did you get him to agree?” I asked.
Bryan raised his hands and a shot of green burst from each palm upwards, transforming the undead by his side into hideous figures, the things of nightmare. Skin peeled from their translucent faces and the endless holes where eyes should have been fixed on me as they strode past Mr Derby and came at me. Helpless, I covered my face and felt the blood race through my body.
And then, as quick as they came, they retreated, back to their master’s side.
“Like that,” Mr Derby confessed.
“They hurt him?”
“They had no need. You must understand, the power of the necromancer is the threat of what the undead can do. A true necromancer has no need to resort to violence. Snipe agreed to sign the page and he did. I left it there on his desk to be returned. I must have left my pen as well.”
“You’re saying you terrified the poor man with these spirits but didn’t hurt him?”
“He was alive and well when I left his office,” Bryan Derby said. “His ego was bruised, of course, and our friendship may never have recovered, but he was most certainly alive. Why on Earth would I kill him? I wanted the Academy plans cancelled, and he did that… with a little persuading from my friends here. I had nothing at all to gain by killing him.”
24
Ellie
“What do you make of him?” Violet asked as she patted at her forehead. The temperature in the production booth was enough to liquidise my foundation. I daren’t look in a mirror.
“Mr Derby?” I asked, as I peered through the window out to the dining hall. Mr Derby had decided his chat with Violet was over and had left, sauntering across to an empty table where he now sat, gnawing away at a fingernail. She’d rattled him, that was clear. “He gives me the absolute creeps. But he’s right, if he wanted to hurt me, he’d have done it.”
“All that proves is he’s particular about who he kills,” Violet muttered, then groaned. “Oh, I don’t know. Everything he said makes sense. He wanted to stop the Academy plans, and he put the frighteners on Snipe, that’s for sure. But why kill him?”
“What if one of the undead got carried away with the scare tactics and went too far?”
“I can’t see it,” Violet said. “They might not be liked, but you’ve got to admit he keeps his army under control. Decades they’ve been here and there’s never been a complaint about his spirits.”
“So what do we have? We know the hair isn’t a clue,” I reminded her. I began to flap my arms a little to create some air in the stuffy space.
“And the pen’s been explained… perhaps.”
“The lipstick then,” I suggested. “It’s got to be Kathi Salt’s.”
“Hmm,” Violet said. She picked up the lipstick and examined it. “Honey blush. What does that even mean? Look at it, Ellie. It’s clearly a light pink. Why not call it that? Light pink lipstick. Whoever gets paid to sit around a big table and say, here we have a light pink lipstick, let’s call it honey blush.”
I stifled a giggle.
“It’s nonsense,” Violet snapped.
“Are you tired?” I asked. I realised my mistake immediately.
She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Are you suggesting I’m too old to stay up late?”
“No, I…”
“Because trust me, I can still show you a good time. Kids nowadays, you think anything over 40’s ancient!”
I knew when to shut up, and we sat in awkward silence for a few moments, until a shriek pierced the air. We were both up and out in a second to see what the commotion was.
Lizette Anderson-Pugh and Helen Sculley were in a brawl in the middle of the room, and we spotted the scene just in time to see Lizette grab a fistful of Helen’s hair.
“Ladies!” A bleary-eyed Kathi Salt called from the stage. She was at the podium, making the most of any chance she had to address the audience from there. “Control yourselves, please!”
“How could you?” Lizette screamed in an almost indecipherable slur. She let go of Helen, who immediately faced up to the drunk wife of her dead lover, ready for battle.
“I don’t answer to you,” Helen spat.
“Oh, Ellie!” Crystal said as she appeared at my side. “I was worried you’d miss the fun!”
“Poor Lizette,” Violet murmured.
“Ain’t no fury like a woman scorned… you know, I heard that old Snipey was buying Helen cosmetic surgery using school funds.”
“What?!” I asked, incredulous.
She nodd
ed. “A little nip here, a tuck there… even buttock implants.”
“Is that even a thing?” I asked, but I couldn’t help but study the neat shape of Helen’s rear in her gown and found myself ready to believe it was indeed a thing.
“You’re a homewrecker!” Lizette cried in between big, gulping sobs.
“Oh, please. You flatter your late husband. He was a distraction at times, but I can assure you I never wanted him full-time.”
I gasped.
“Is she in shock over his death or is she really this cold?” I asked.
“Well, what did I tell you,” Crystal said.
“What did you tell her?” Violet asked her, with an eyebrow cocked.
“There’s always one person who loves the other more in a relationship. Here we have Lizette, who loved Sid more than he loved her. But Helen? She definitely loved him less than he loved her.” Crystal explained, enjoying the rare opportunity to pretend to be a love expert.
“And let me guess, you read that in a woman’s magazine?”
“It sounds kind of kooky, but I think there’s some truth in it,” I said.
Violet nodded. “In this case, I think you’re right.”
“How dare you? Show some respect! He was the only reason you worked here! You turned his head and he was weak! At least respect his memory while he lies in there…” Lizette stopped to let out a sob which transformed into a pig-like snort. “In fact, don’t respect his memory. You’re completely unimportant. He was a great man, and you’re just a harlot…”
“Excuse me?” Helen shouted in a tone reserved for unruly pupils. “A great man? He was ruining this school. Whoever killed him has done us all a great service.”