Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels)

by Juliette Harper

  George and Irma had come up with a mostly bogus list of haunted sites in Briar Hollow. Under Beau’s direction, every one of those locations could become a guaranteed ghost goldmine. That meant, however, that we had to up the ante on our cover story and reveal that our Beau was the descendant of “the” Colonel Beauregard T. Longworth killed in the foothills outside of town in 1864.

  Once Beau began making his spectral appearances, Linda Albert, who is both the town librarian and the head of the historical association, began looking into the possible identity of the soldierly apparition. She found an account written by James McGregor, Chase’s grandfather (whose ghost shows up from time to time in our basement), detailing the day Union soldiers ambushed Beau’s cavalry unit.

  The Yankees wiped out the entire Confederate troop. James found Beau’s body and identified him from the inscription in his pocket watch. Realizing he was a brother Mason, James, who was the Worshipful Master of the local lodge, arranged for Beau to be buried with full Masonic rites.

  Linda wrote the story up for the Briar Hollow Banner, surmising that the late Colonel Longworth was the Confederate ghost on the courthouse lawn. Which was fine, so long as she didn’t recognize the late and present Beau are one and the same. That was a real danger since she managed to locate a photograph of Beau taken in Tennessee in 1860.

  When that issue of the paper came out, Beau stared a long time at his image on the front page. Finally, I said, “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yes,” he answered, his eyes still on the picture. “I was just remembering the idealism with which I entered the conflict you call the Civil War. There is great truth in saying it was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. We should not have been so obdurate in our dealings with the North, especially in the matter of the Negro slaves.”

  “You told me you freed your slaves when your father died,” I said.

  “I did,” Beau answered, “and I did not support that abhorrent institution. I went to war in the name of states’ rights, a political topic that would appear to still color aspects of public debate in our great nation. I fear my conflict resolved nothing in that regard. Men are always the poorer for taking to the sword in place of calm words and reasoned conversation.”

  “That’s true,” I said, “but you did look handsome in your uniform.”

  Beau laughed. “Uniforms are, in general, a kind enhancement to the men who wear them.”

  “This likeness is good enough that someone could recognize you, Beau,” I said. “Stay misty, my friend.”

  He didn’t pick up the bad beer commercial pun, but he got the idea. The next time Beau made one of his appearances, I noticed he kept his broad-brimmed Panama hat pulled low over his face.

  Linda Albert would be at the meeting that morning. Thankfully, Beau got ahead of the situation by introducing himself to her as an “amateur Civil War enthusiast and genealogist” with an “avid interest in assisting with the compilation of material ahead of the planned festival.”

  Together they’d assembled profiles of the local sites advertised as “haunted,” which put Beau in perfect position to orchestrate his covert band of merry spirits set to descend on Briar Hollow.

  During all of this, one spirit cropped up we weren’t counting on, however; the late Howard McAlpin, former mayor of Briar Hollow and now the bumbling courthouse haunt.

  When I accidentally raised all the dead in the cemetery after a bit of ill-considered Internet-based magical research, Howie was among those resurrected. He refused to return to his resting place when we got everything sorted out. Instead, His Honor the Mayor moved back into his old office, which, coincidentally, was also the scene of his death.

  Depending on who you talk to, Howie either fell into the protruding bill of a brass swordfish and killed himself or was stabbed with the trophy by its rightful owner, the real winner who was cheated out of his angling glory.

  Version number two is the truth, and since the mayor’s office is on the list of local ghost-infestations, Howie decided to take full advantage of the festival to re-establish his reputation.

  A fairly sizable amount of jealousy threaded through his enthusiasm for the festival. After months of practice, Howie can still only materialize from the waist down, which, according to Aunt Fiona, is perfect since in life he was always the trailing end of a north bound horse.

  Beau’s carefully crafted manifestations at the monument irked Howie to no end, so none of us really bought the mayor’s declarations of “a sense of post-mortem responsibility for the economic future of our fair city.”

  As Tori and I sat talking over our coffee that Friday morning, I heard Beau’s boots on the stairs leading up from the basement where he lives in a comfy bachelor pad Myrtle created for him before she left. When he came in the espresso bar, Beau was still beaming from his team’s victory the night before.

  “All hail the conquering hero!” Tori called out. “Would Caesar care for coffee?”

  In response, Beau inclined his head deferentially and said, “Ah, yes, thank you. But as to the conquest, Miss Tori, I would recall to you the words of the Auriga.”

  “The who?” Tori asked as she reached for a mug.

  “The slave with the status of a gladiator who held the laurel crown over the head of a triumphant general,” Beau replied, “while whispering repeatedly memento homo.”

  “Meaning?” she asked.

  Before Beau could reply, I said, “Remember you are only a man.”

  Tori let out a low whistle as she put Beau’s coffee down on the table and reclaimed her chair. “Listen to you, Latin Girl,” she said.

  The smile on Beau’s face broadened. “Jinx is proving to be an adept student.”

  Burying yourself in your work to forget the fact that your heart is breaking will do that for a girl.

  But I didn’t say that. Just a tip. Making your friends feel awful isn’t fair. Misery may love company, but trust me, the company isn’t in love with the misery.

  Instead, I bobbed a sort of sitting curtsy and said, “Thank you, kind sir.”

  Tori coughed in her hand to hide the words “suck up,” which made us all laugh.

  Just then we heard a rap on the front door. George and Irma were early. Pasting a smile on my face and muttering “show time” under my breath, I let them in.

  Irma clutched a huge portfolio overflowing with notes, flyers, and miscellaneous papers while George balanced a wobbling column of doughnut boxes in his beefy arms.

  “Just put those down on one of the tables,” I told him. “We’re planning on putting out coffee carafes and letting people serve themselves.”

  Typical for my luck, George headed straight for the table holding the ornately carved musical chess set, the evil fox in our magical hen house. The board originally belonged to the composer Franz Liszt, crafted through a deal with a dark entity to allow Liszt to steal musical ideas from his rivals.

  One of our nemeses, a Creavit wizard named Irenaeus Chesterfield, planted the chess set in the store to spy on us along with a pint-sized witch, Glory Green, to collect and transmit information through it.

  Rather than being a villain herself, Glory was one of Chesterfield’s victims; a lonely nostalgia buff who worked at the state archives and lived for Elvis. When she foolishly crossed Chesterfield, he miniaturized the poor woman and pasted her on the side of a coffee cup. Her only motivation for infiltrating our lives was the vain hope Chesterfield would restore her to normal.

  We’ve managed to get Glory enlarged from her original three inches to Barbie size and enlisted her services as a double agent. She’s getting nicely settled in a dollhouse replica of Graceland down in the lair, and although she still laments her bilious green complexion, I think she's coping remarkably well.

  Unfortunately, during the course of events culminating in Glory’s defection to our side, we tried to move the chessboard, activating a locking spell. Now it won’t budge; a fact George reaffirmed as he strained to get the board out of the way. />
  “What the heck is wrong with this thing?” he demanded.

  “Oh,” I said lightly, “that’s my fault. When I varnished the table, I put the chess set down too soon. It’s stuck solid. We work around it. Don’t worry about it, just use another table.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “A little work with a knife should get it loose.”

  Great. Just what I needed. Glancing around quickly, I saw that Irma had deposited her portfolio on the counter and was talking to Tori and Beau with her back turned to me. The instant George bent to examine the chessboard; I lifted the portfolio into the air with a flick of my hand.

  Tori’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t say anything. Bringing the portfolio a couple of feet away from the counter, I flipped it over, raining papers, several pencils, a calculator, and one of Irma’s paperback “historical” romance novels down onto the floor.

  “Oh, my gracious!” Irma cried, wheeling around and clutching her chest with one hand. “How on earth did that happen?”

  Stepping smoothly into the breach, Tori said, “Oh, I am so sorry! I used some new wood polish on the counter yesterday, and it’s just slick as glass. Let me help you.”

  “George,” Irma ordered, “leave that silly chessboard alone and help me find my colored pencils. All of my notes are color coded. I can’t afford to lose a single pencil.”

  Obediently, George closed his knife and returned it to his pocket before getting down on his hands and knees to search for the scattered pencils. I used the opportunity to shift the doughnut boxes to another surface while shoving the chessboard table back against the shelves.

  By the time some order had been restored to Irma’s notes, other people had started coming in, touching off a flurry of greetings and doughnut grabbing. George thankfully forgot about the chessboard, and Tori and I got busy serving.

  Our next door neighbor, art store owner Amity Prescott, was the first to arrive, followed by Aggie who runs the dress shop two doors down. Linda Albert and Pete were right behind them along with the rest of the committee members — including Chase.

  He was carrying his coffee cup and looked distinctly uncomfortable as he took a seat in the back. For just an instant I felt sorry for him, but then a surge of anger canceled out my longing to go over and put my arms around him. When our eyes met, I gave in just enough to offer him a nod, which he awkwardly returned.

  “Is it just my imagination,” Tori whispered, handing me two carafes of coffee, “or did the temperature just drop twenty degrees in here?”

  I accepted the containers without acknowledging her comment. “Are these regular or decaf?” I asked.

  “Regular” Tori said. “The one with the arsenic for Chase isn’t ready yet.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “And if you’ll notice, he brought his own.”

  “Smart man.”

  Irma called the meeting to order and reminded everyone of the need to emphasize the number of “potential” hauntings in Briar Hollow. “We need to stress quantity,” she said stoutly.

  “Over quality?” Amity asked acerbically. “I still want to know what you’re going to tell people when no ghosts show up.”

  The rest of the committee members shifted nervously. This was a conversation that had been going on for weeks with no resolution.

  Setting her mouth in a firm line and drawing herself up to her full five feet, Irma said, “Now, Amity, we have been over this several times. I’m not asking anyone to lie. Just play up the potential of each location. Honestly, haven’t you ever watched Ghost Hunters? Half the time they just wander around in the dark and talk about creaking floorboards. At least we have my Twinkie video.”

  Ah, yes. “The” Twinkie video, also captured during my accidental raising of the dead. Apparently, somebody in the afterlife was itching for chocolate and fake cream. Irma’s security camera caught the levitating Twinkie box, which the hungry ghost deposited on her front counter in an honest effort to pay.

  In honor of the festival, George and Irma had installed a big screen TV in their front window playing the Twinkie video on a continuous loop. And they’d laid in triple their usual stock of Twinkies, just in case the video inspired patrons to binge on junk food.

  At the mention of the video, Amity made a face. “Irma, if I have to watch that silly video one more time . . . .”

  Linda, hoping to forestall yet another confrontation between Irma and Amity, skillfully interrupted. “I’m happy to report the festival website is up and running, and we’re ready to host any evidence participants gather. We can handle audio, video, and still photographs.”

  That information was enough to distract Amity, who was hosting a week-long paranormal photo contest with entries displayed in her store window. The winner would take home a brand new digital camera complete with infrared lens for low-light ghost shoots.

  “You’ve posted the photo contest rules?” she asked briskly.

  “Yes,” Linda assured her, “and they’re prominently placed on the site.”

  “You’ve made it clear we’re not accepting any of that orb nonsense?” Amity demanded.

  “Crystal clear,” Linda assured her.

  “It's going to take a lot more than dust in the air to convince me that ghosts exist,” Amity went on. “Tourist money or not, this paranormal business is just plain ridiculous.”

  Tori and I could barely keep from bursting out laughing at the vehemence of Amity’s declarations, especially since she was sitting right beside Beau. Amity is a fellow witch and sees ghosts on a regular basis. Because of that, she took it upon herself to be the requisite skeptic on the committee. I have to say that in the company of the group, she fulfilled the role with gusto.

  In private, however, she and Beau spent hours together watching paranormal television programs so they could coach the spirits from the graveyard on just how much energy to put into their materializations. We wanted people to get intriguing photos, but not images so perfect the organizers would be labeled a bunch of hucksters — which they actually were, in a benign way.

  The conversation moved on to a discussion about the Halloween costume contest to be held the following Saturday. Aggie was in charge of that event, and, good fan of The Walking Dead that she is, insisted the advertisements for the contest include the words, “walker make-up strongly encouraged.”

  She made a compelling argument for winning over the “zombie apocalypse crowd,” and the group agreed if all went as planned and the festival became a yearly event, we’d dedicate a full day to zombie-themed events.

  George asked what would happen to the zombie apocalypse if the television show was canceled, and Aggie informed him solemnly, if somewhat oxymoronically, that The Walking Dead will never die.

  Next, we ran down the list of attractions for the carnival, which included face painting, fortune telling, and pumpkin carving among other tried and true stalwarts like the ring toss and the balloon/dart throw. There would be a dunking booth and even a good, old-fashioned cake walk.

  Sheriff John Johnson planned to block off the west side of the square at 6 o’clock so the band could set up to start playing at seven. All the stores on the square were staying open, and there would be no shortage of food from pizza at Pete’s to barbecue by the plate courtesy of the historical association.

  We advertised the festival as “family friendly,” but the adults could buy beer in a closed-in area near the dance floor under the watchful eye of Johnson and his deputies.

  Sunday afternoon Linda would chair a ghost tour seminar at the library before the first scheduled haunted outings that night. The committee agreed to meet Monday morning to take stock of the weekend and discuss any adjustments that needed to be made ahead of the culminating event the next weekend, a two-day carnival starting Friday and ending on Halloween itself the next night.

  Lawrence Anderson, the publisher of the Banner, raised his hand when Irma called for questions. “Lots of folks have decided to decorate their yards for
Halloween,” he said. “You know, the holiday is getting almost as popular as Christmas when it comes to putting up lights and stuff. You all think it’s too late to announce a yard display contest?”

  The group promptly voted on his informal motion, which passed by acclimation. The Banner comes out on Tuesday, so Lawrence agreed to publish an advertisement for the contest at no charge.

  One of the ladies from the Briar Hollow Garden and Beautification Committee volunteered the group’s officers to serve as judges, and Tori offered to come up with some kind of trophy to be handed out during the final street dance.

  I piped up and said we’d also give the top three contestants free coffee for a month.

  “A month?” Tori muttered under her breath as applause circled the room.

  “We’ll make it back on pastries,” I said out of the corner of my mostly fake smile.

  Irma wrapped the meeting up a little before 8 o’clock. I was grateful to see everyone filter out quickly to open up their own stores, and not so thrilled that Chase lingered.

  Beau excused himself, and Tori got busy cleaning up the espresso bar. Chase shifted restlessly from one foot to the other and then said tentatively, “Good meeting.”

  “It was,” I said flatly.

  “Uh, I’m going up to the Valley this morning, may I go through the basement?” he asked.

  “You can get to the basement from your store,” I pointed out.

  A blush crept over Chase’s cheeks. “Does it really have to be this way between us, Jinx?” he said.

  Behind his back, Tori caught my eye and gave me the “yeah, you are kinda being a bitch” look.

  Okay, fine.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. It was the opening game of Beau’s new spectral baseball league out at the cemetery.”

  “How did it go?” Chase asked.

  “His team won.” I answered. “Be sure and congratulate him when you go through the lair.”

  “I will,” Chase said, “and thanks.”

  He crossed the floor with long strides and opened the basement door, closing it quietly behind himself. We listened as his footsteps receded.