The Magic of Murder

by Susan Lynn Solomon

  Hmm, I thought, this might be better.

  Elvira hissed.

  “Yeah, what?” I said to her. “It’s kind of like he’s got the Devil in him.”

  I swear, the cat shook her head.

  “Okay, what then?” I flipped a few pages forward.

  After a minute, Elvira let out what sounded like a sigh.

  “This is it?” I examined the page.

  Written there was, Rub cumin seed on the doorway every week while all others sleep to bring peace to the house and all within.

  “I can do this,” I said to the cat. “Set my alarm for five in the morning, bundle up, and tiptoe to Roger’s house—”

  Elvira slid from the desk to my lap.

  My finger on the page, I looked down at her. “This won’t stop him from gunning for Jimmy’s killer, will it?”

  She craned her neck so far back, her irises seemed to roll into her skull.

  “Need something stronger, huh?”

  She blinked.

  “I thought so. Better call Rebecca. She’ll know what to do.”

  I don’t know how she did it, but the cat shrugged.

  Chapter Five

  Do it Yourself

  I leaned against the kitchen counter, and punched seven numbers into the phone.

  As if she were waiting for my call, after the first ring I heard, “Black Cat. This is Rebecca.”

  “What in heaven’s name is mugwort?” I said. “I looked in Webster’s dictionary. It’s not there.”

  She hesitated a moment, to digest what I’d blurted out, I suspected, before she said, “Hello to you, too, Emlyn.”

  “Yeah, yeah, hello and all that. Now tell me about mugwort.”

  Her tone grew concerned. “What are you fooling around with?”

  I felt my face go warm. “Uh, nothing,” I said. “I just need to know what it is.”

  “Slow down. I feel as though I’ve walked into the middle of a conversation. Start from the beginning.”

  “Okay.” I took a breath. “I’ve told you about my neighbor.”

  She listened while I explained what happened, and what I feared Roger intended to do.

  “How can I help?” she asked when I finally panted to a stop.

  “I need a spell or maybe an amulet that’ll keep him from doing it. But if it’s an amulet, I’ll have to bury it in his backyard so he won’t find out I’m working a spell on him—”

  I heard a long laugh. “What you need is air. Inhale deeply. You’re about to hyperventilate.”

  I held the phone in front of my face and shouted, “You don’t understand. I have to do something now!”

  Rebecca was laughing so hard at this point, it sounded as though she couldn’t breathe. At last she settled down enough to get a few words out. “First thing you have to do,” she said, “is stop drinking whatever potion you’ve concocted. I’ve told you, haphazardly mixing herbs isn’t something to fool around with.”

  I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth a couple of times—a relaxation technique I’d learned in the yoga class I took after Kevin and I broke up.

  “Okay, now,” she said. “Tell me what you did.”

  “Nothing. Well, nothing but read a few pages in Sarah Goode’s book.”

  “Sarah’s…? What book?”

  I told her.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “My mother sent it to me.”

  She didn’t respond for more than a minute. When she spoke again, it was at a slow, measured pace. “Listen to me carefully, Emlyn. I’ve read what Sarah Goode was up to. The first Rebecca Nurse wrote about it in a diary that’s been passed down through my family. From what I can tell, she was casting some very advanced spells with her herbs. You’re not near ready to try anything you find in her Book of Shadows.”

  “But you can. Or maybe together, we could—”

  “I don’t know enough, either.”

  “We were able to slice the legs out from under Kevin,” I insisted.

  “Your ex is a fool. It didn’t take more than a nudge to push him over the edge.”

  “But, I’ve got to do something. Roger’s about to walk into a field of quicksand.” If I sounded as though I were begging, it’s because I was.

  After another moment of silence, Rebecca said, “You’re really into this guy.”

  I twirled a lock of red hair around my finger. “Well, maybe. A little.”

  “You poor thing.” She clicked her tongue. “Love is what got your ancestor hanged.”

  Love? I thought. Nothing I’d read about the Salem witch hunt said anything to suggest such a predicate. It didn’t matter. At the moment I was too desperate to wonder about my ancestor’s arcane history. “I’ve got to do something,” I repeated.

  “The best thing is to stay out of it,” Rebecca advised.

  “I can’t.”

  She sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

  “So?”

  “You could try to work on the case with your boyfriend. With you along, he won’t dare kill anybody.”

  I unwound my hair from my finger, but a few strands got stuck. “Ouch!” I cried as I yanked my hand loose.

  “What did you do now?”

  “Nothing. And he’s not my boyfriend!” I don’t know what Rebecca thought, but to my ears I sounded like a petulant child.

  “Uh-huh.” She laughed again. “He doesn’t know it yet, is that it? I can give you a simple spell to fix that.”

  Outside my kitchen window, a car horn blared. When I looked, I saw I saw a yellow Volkswagen slide into a snow drift to avoid a BMW racing around the curve in the road. Feeling as though I were as much a wreck as what I just witnessed, my worry about Roger turned to annoyance. “This isn’t helping!” I shouted into the phone.

  “Okay, how about this: the only way to keep him out of trouble is to solve the crime before he does. Once the killer’s in jail, it’ll be too late for Roger to go after him.”

  “Easy for you to say. I’m not a detective. Where do I begin?”

  “Why, at the beginning, of course. Every story has a beginning. You’re a writer, you know that.”

  “Okay wise guy, where’s the beginning? Go on, tell me that.”

  “You’re Sarah Goode’s heir, you’ll figure it out,” Rebecca said then added, “But, Emlyn, while you go about it, don’t mess around with anything you find in her book. At least, not until I see it and we figure out how to keep you from blowing up your entire neighborhood.”

  “Thanks a whole bunch,” I said.

  “Always happy to help a friend.” She hung up.

  I held the phone away and muttered, “Some friend. Go ahead, leave me hanging with no idea of what to do.”

  I tried to slam the phone down, missed, picked it up with two hands, and grumbled into the receiver, “Just wait till you need help with something, Rebecca Nurse. ‘Sure’, I’ll say. Then I’ll pack a bag and go away for the weekend. That’s what I’ll do.”

  When I tried again to hang up, I smacked my pouting lip with the receiver—but only hard enough to feed my annoyance.

  Finally rid of the phone, I dropped onto a stool by the counter.

  Elvira poked her head through the kitchen door. As if she were uncertain whether it was safe to come in, she peered around.

  I turned on her. “And you, fur ball—you’re no help, either.”

  She backed out of the kitchen.

  I sat hunched over the counter, flicking the point of the pencil I kept near the notepad I write my shopping lists on.

  As if she were in the room, I heard Rebecca say, Don’t sit there sulking. Start at the beginning.

  I lifted my head. She’s right, I thought. I’m Sarah Goode’s heir. I can figure this out.

  Elvira tiptoed in.

  I smiled down at her. “It’s okay, cat. I’m over my snit.”

  She sat at my feet, as if waiting for me to share my plan.

  “Rebecca said I should start at the beginning,” I told
her. “Where else can the beginning be but at Jim Osborn’s home?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m glad you agree,” I said.

  She turned her back on me, and sauntered to my wingback chair. I guess cats don’t like sarcasm.

  I didn’t have time to worry about sensitive feline feelings. From the refrigerator, I pulled the casserole I’d baked a few days before when I got stuck for the next scene in The Swamp Witch (changing my focus to cooking sometimes helps me get past a bout of writer’s block). I uncovered the baking dish. The ziti and cheese with chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli would serve my purpose. After a funeral, people expend so much energy in mourning they don’t prepare proper meals. This casserole would disguise my real reason for stopping by.

  ***

  Most of the houses on the Pine Avenue side of downtown Niagara Falls were two-story wood-frame homes built before the Second World War. The Osborns’ was newer—a brick ranch set on a well cared-for plot of land. In the spring and summer, the driveway and the front of the house would be lined with tulips, sunflowers, black-eyed Susans. When Jimmy was off duty, while Marge sunned herself on a lawn chair, he would be on his knees gardening. That is, when he didn’t go off to hoist a few at Flannery’s, the neighborhood bar the Falls cops frequented. On this late winter afternoon, the perennials hadn’t yet begun to poke through the frozen soil, and, as if it, too, was in mourning, the leafless willow on the front lawn drooped under the weight of snow.

  Parked at the curb in front of the house was the green ’67 Chevy Malibu Sean Ryan had restored.

  I pulled into the driveway behind a silver Pontiac. Of indeterminate age, the car had a dented rear fender and a tied-down trunk. The trim around all the doors was rusted. This was the vehicle Jimmy drove the fifteen blocks to the police station each day. Next to the Pontiac was a sporty new Corvette.

  Not the kind of car a cop owns, I thought as I lifted the casserole from the seat beside me.

  The Osborns’ daughter answered the door when I rang the bell. I handed her the casserole and said, “Jenny, I’m so sorry about your father.”

  She offered me her right cheek to kiss. Though she turned away, I again saw the dark ring under her left eye. At another time I would have said something about the bruise. This day, though, my mind was locked firmly on what brought me here.

  “Is your mom up for company?” I asked.

  Silently, Jennifer stepped aside to let me in.

  Other than the bedrooms and kitchen, the house consisted of a single large room—what decorators call an open design. The living room set was in a semicircle around a low glass coffee table. These furnishings were oriented with the couch placed in front of the oriel window. Farthest from the front door was a formal dining area: a glass table, six chairs upholstered in a light fabric, and a heavy china cabinet. In contrast to Marge’s appearance at the funeral, the house was perfectly neat.

  I leaned in to look around the wall at the entry. Marge was stretched out on the couch. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail, and she’d changed from her funeral dress into a floral housecoat that almost hid an expanded waistline.

  What kind of friend have I been, I thought, not to have noticed how she’s let herself go?

  Jennifer held the casserole to her chest. As I’ve mentioned, she was a younger version of her mother: same color hair, same delicate features. But she was several inches shorter (in that, she took after her father). At twenty-two, gravity had already pulled her upper body down around her waist and thighs.

  “Mom’s resting,” Jen said, but didn’t move. Though she’d had her adenoids removed along with her tonsils when she was six, she still spoke with a decidedly nasal undertone.

  “Is it all right if I see her?” I asked.

  Jennifer glanced over her shoulder before she said, “Sure. I’ll…uh, put this in the kitchen.”

  I’d expected to see a house full of people, chattering away in the hope they’d take Marge’s mind off her loss for a short while. Instead, it seemed as though Jennifer was afraid to let anyone in. And if no one else was here, who owned the Corvette?

  Once in the living room, I dragged an armchair next to my friend. As I reached for her hand, I said, “I won’t stay long. I just want to find out if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  Marge sniffed and shifted her body to gaze through the window. “I can’t believe he—” She shook her head then glanced around the living room, as if searching for her husband. “No, I can’t believe…”

  Over the years, Marge had become quite taciturn. That was, I supposed, her mechanism for coping with the fear always present in the mind of a cop’s wife. Jennifer tended to be the same. I used to think she’d learned this behavior from her mother. Before the week ended, I would find out this wasn’t the case.

  I pulled Marge’s hand onto my lap. “Do you know what happened?”

  She slid her hand from mine and took a tissue from the box on the end table. “That’s what’s so crazy. Jimmy just went out to have a drink with the guys.” She didn’t wipe her eyes. “It was after dinner. He said he’d be back in an hour. Three hours later…” She folded the tissue, and stuffed it in her sleeve. “I’ve always been scared something like this would happen. Every day of our lives it made me crazy.” Leaning on an elbow, she turned to me. “Don’t ever marry a cop, Emmy. Promise me you won’t.”

  My thoughts flashed to Roger, but only for a moment. I quickly buried the idea beneath the rubble of my past. After my time with Kevin, I had no intention of marrying anyone else. As they say, once blistered you shy away from the stove.

  “Do they think it might have had something to do with a case he was working on?” I asked.

  Marge slid up against the cushions of the couch, and shrugged her shoulders. “I asked Woody, but he said he can’t talk about an open investigation.”

  Jennifer came into the room, followed by her husband, Sean. They were proof of the adage that opposites are like magnets. Where she was short, he was over six feet tall. Where she approached hefty, he was as thin as the maypole my dad erected in our backyard. Moving in unison, they pulled chairs up on either side of me. Then, with a quick glance at his wife, Sean lifted his chair, and moved next to her.

  Jennifer moaned, “Who would do this to us? It doesn’t make any sense.” She began to cry.

  Sean dabbed her cheek with a tissue. She winced. I presumed this was because of the sudden loss of a father she both admired and adored. I understood her emotion: Jimmy’s death made no sense to me either.

  We sat in silence for several moments, looking around for something to say. On the fireplace mantel was a display of framed photographs: one of Marge, one of Jennifer in her high school graduation gown, Jennifer and Sean’s wedding picture, a cute one of Marge and baby Jennifer playing with the puppy they’d had back then. This was a homey room. Still, that day it felt vast and empty. My eyes came to rest on the end table. There were more photographs of Marge and Jennifer and Sean.

  While I sat there, I felt as though a bug was crawling up the back of my neck. When I reached around to scratch it, I realized it was an itch of suspicion. Something wasn’t right. Reaching for what troubled me, my mind settled on the Corvette in the driveway. Sean was a reporter for the Buffalo News. It couldn’t be his car. Marge hadn’t had a job since her daughter was born. A myriad questions flooded my brain. How could she and Jimmy afford an expensive sports car on a detective’s salary? Was Jimmy involved in some criminal activity that had gotten out of hand? Could Sean have been involved in it? Did Jennifer learn what her father and Sean were up to? Was the bruise beneath her eye a warning to remain silent?

  When I asked about the car, Jennifer said for years her father had dreamed of owning a red Corvette. Marge added they’d saved every penny they could until they had enough for him to buy it. He’d taken delivery two weeks ago. With a dolorous laugh, she said, “It feels so stupid, spending that kind of money and he’s not here—” She
glanced at her daughter. Her eyes filled with tears, she pulled the tissue from her sleeve.

  Sean squeezed Marge’s hand. “At least,” he said, “Jim had the pleasure of driving it a couple of times before uh…at least he had that pleasure.” He looked in the direction of the driveway, as if he could see the red car through the wall.

  Marge’s eyes snapped in my direction. If she were sending me a message, it got lost in the mail. Looking again out the window, she said, “Woody also asked about the Corvette. Like he thought Jimmy was on the take or something. Christ, we haven’t gone anywhere on vacation in five years. I haven’t bought new clothes in almost that long.”

  Her protest sounded too vehement. What about the expensive wedding you gave your daughter? I thought. I didn’t say it, though. Instead, I remarked, “You wore a lovely coat to the funeral. What kind of fur is it?”

  Marge’s eyebrows went up. Her expression seemed to ask if I also accused her husband of stealing.

  Jennifer glanced from her mother to me. “It is beautiful, Mom,” she said, and turned to Sean. “Fake fur. Hard to tell, isn’t it? I could use a coat like that.”

  He frowned.

  “Moroni’s,” Marge said. “You know, the furrier on Main Street? Stephen Moroni gave it to Jimmy as thanks for catching his brother-in-law selling coats out of his trunk.”

  The explanation made total sense. The explanation of the new car also made sense. All at once, I felt like the world’s biggest fool for suspecting an old friend. I’d also known Jimmy since high school. He was as straight as any arrow William Tell ever shot. As for Sean’s involvement in something dirty—well, Jimmy never would have let his daughter marry someone who wasn’t as honest as he. Stupid, Emlyn, suspecting this family, I thought. Stupid, stupid!

  We talked a while longer, recalling times we’d spent together; recalling how Jimmy, silk tie undone, tuxedo jacket off, face flushed and words slurred from too much scotch, had pulled me to the floor to dance a reel at his daughter’s wedding. That was three years ago. Now he was gone.

  Leaving his wife and mother-in-law in the living room, Sean walked me to the door. When he opened it for me, he said, “Marge told me Kevin stopped by about two weeks ago. She said he looked awful. Do you know what he wanted?”