Lace and Lies

by Nancy Warren

  “I believe it was something like that, Lucy. And then she met Horace Crisfield. He was an older man and a great deal wealthier. She’d already begun social climbing. She joined a charity to promote literacy in schools. It seems Enid joined organizations in order to meet wealthy men. She was on the board for a medical charity in the hope of meeting a doctor.”

  “I’ve heard about people like that but never really believed they were real.”

  Rafe looked at me a little sadly. “I’m sorry to say they exist. In both sexes.”

  Theodore cleared his throat, which silenced Rafe and me. “Enid Fielding, as she was then, and Horace Crisfield, who was a married man, began an affair, and she soon became pregnant.”

  “Seriously?” What was it with this woman and pregnancies?

  “It was a bit of a scandal at the time, as he was a rising man in the government. But he did the right thing, or so he told his colleagues, and he left his wife and married the now-divorced Enid Fielding.”

  “You said she was pregnant?”

  “Yes. She had another daughter, Guinevere, now twelve years old. The family moved to Stow-on-the-Wold. She sent both girls to boarding school as soon as they were old enough. She continued her social climbing and, it seems, she wasn’t entirely satisfied with Horace Crisfield.”

  “What a surprise!”

  Theodore ignored my outburst and consulted his notes. “It seems she was dissatisfied with the house and undertook a large-scale renovation.” In his dry tone, he continued, “She began an affair with the building contractor, Michael Vincent. I haven’t uncovered the details, but the marriage ended.”

  I glanced at Rafe. “That sounds like the seeds of a deep betrayal that could make a man violent. First Horace Crisfield left his first wife because Enid was pregnant, and then after he does the ‘honorable’ thing, she does a completely dishonorable thing and betrays him with another man.”

  I glanced at Theodore, feeling like we might have cracked the case already. “Does Horace Crisfield have an alibi for last night?”

  “The best alibi a man can have. He’s dead.”

  “Darn it.” And why was his name so familiar? “What did he do in the government?”

  “He was a senior bureaucrat in the immigration department.”

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s it. Of course.” Maybe Horace was dead, but I thought he still might have something to do with his ex-wife’s murder. “I heard his name mentioned when Enid and Annabel arrived at the book signing together. They were having a strained conversation the way two strangers have when they’re sort of stuck together. They must have met outside on the street and walked in together. Anyway, I overheard Enid tell Annabel that her ex-husband worked for the immigration department.”

  I closed my eyes and recalled the scene. I could see Annabel’s face clearly in my mind. She’d suddenly stiffened. “I’m sure that Annabel asked her to repeat her husband’s name, as though she might know it. She looked sick. Her people are from Jamaica, and there was that awful Windrush scandal not so long ago.”

  Theodore watched me intently. “I haven’t begun looking into the class participants, but I can.”

  Nyx jumped off my lap, and, following her lead, I stood and stretched. “I don’t know. Just because Annabel’s family originated in Jamaica, doesn’t mean she was caught up in the Windrush scandal.”

  Theodore made a careful note. “I’ll put her name at the top of the list and see if I can find any connection between her or anyone in her family and Horace Crisfield.”

  I still wasn’t satisfied. “Would Annabel really have killed Enid because her ex-husband had deported her grandfather or something?”

  Rafe said, “With Horace being dead, maybe Enid was as close as she could get. Punishment by proxy.”

  Theodore went back to his notes. “Enid Selfe was now in her forties and began visiting a plastic surgeon.” He allowed himself a little smile. “It seems she began an affair with her plastic surgeon.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. “Of course she did. She bagged her doctor.”

  “She did. Dr. Liam Selfe.”

  “Don’t tell me, he nipped and tucked her until she figured she could use her new looks to trade up.”

  “To a football player. Antonio Herrera.”

  The name meant nothing to me, since I didn’t follow sports in the UK. About the only thing I knew was that football in the UK was what we called soccer. “How come she didn’t marry him? Did he wise up to her?”

  “No. Mr. Herrera sustained a career-ending knee injury.”

  “And Enid dumped him?”

  “She did.”

  “Maybe he was so bitter and broken-hearted that he killed her.” I could imagine that losing a career, a knee and the woman you loved could make somebody crazy.

  “I’m still trying to track down Mr. Herrera’s whereabouts, but I think it’s possible he returned to Spain.”

  “Who was her prospective fourth husband? There must have been one.”

  Theodore nodded. “I haven’t found out too much about him. He is the newest and the most difficult to learn about. He’s minor royalty, with a great deal of private wealth. He seems a very private person, keeps his distance from people.”

  I had to ask, “What was he doing with her? You’d hardly call her reticent. She told all of us around the knitting table all her business, from the baby she gave up to the many marriages she’s had.”

  Theodore nodded. “It does seem to be an odd match. Still, I can confirm that they’d seen each other a few times.”

  “Money and a title. She was a determined woman.”

  “I believe she was a woman who always set her sights higher. Whatever rung of the ladder she was on, she was looking to the next one up,” Rafe said in a dry tone. I had the feeling he’d come across people like this in his life. Probably many times. That was one thing about living so long—there wasn’t much in human nature he hadn’t seen or experienced.

  Theodore nodded. “I tend to agree with you. Of course, there are the other dalliances between the marriages, but when she married, she married up.”

  “She sure kept busy,” I couldn’t help but remark.

  I traced my fingers around the stem of my now-empty champagne glass. “She was always moving on. These men must have realized that she wasn’t the sticking type, and yet, they married her. Maybe there was somebody who wanted to marry her so badly that they went kind of crazy. Like, if he couldn’t have her, nobody could.”

  Rafe nodded. “Or it was one she did marry who was enraged that she’d left him.”

  Theodore looked somewhat perturbed. “Lucy, I can’t recall the last time I had this many suspects to investigate for a single crime.”

  “I know. The trouble with Enid Selfe was that nearly everyone who ever met her had a reason to want her dead.”

  Rafe nodded. “Back in my more…bloodthirsty days, we used to say that sometimes following our instincts left the world a better place.”

  I shivered slightly but then reminded myself he was from a different time and different world. He seemed to fit so well into modern society, though there was always that slight edge. He said that old embers could suddenly spring to life, and the person who’d been merely resentful suddenly became murderous. Could it also be true for him? Was it possible that this veneer of civilization covering the bloodthirsty animal part of him was only a thin veil? I wondered what it would take to provoke the vampire. I wondered and hoped I would never find out.

  I opened my shop as usual on Wednesday. It worked out well, as my customers had expected me to be closed on Tuesday anyway for filming. In fact, we’d been closed due to Cardinal Woolsey’s being a crime scene, but that wasn’t known outside of Harrington Street. And we Harrington Street retailers tended to stick together. I trusted that no one would blab my unfortunate news.

  Once the police had finished, my downstairs neighbors had helped get rid of the carpet and scrub the plank floor beneath. Theodo
re arrived with the perfect rug, and then the vampires helped me put my shop back to rights. The film people would turn it back into a set again this coming weekend, but for now, we were back to being a wool shop.

  It was a relief to find my normal customers coming in with no clue that when they walked across the middle of the floor, they stepped where a dead woman had lain. I found myself stepping around that area. I didn’t know whether it was my perfectly human horror or my witchy senses, but I felt a cold space where the dead woman had lain, and even going too near it made me feel dark and sad.

  When Violet came into work and saw me walking around that bad space, she said, “Lucy. Stop this.”

  I shook my head at her. “I can’t. Some part of Enid Selfe’s spirit is trapped here in the shop. Do you feel it?”

  Violet closed her eyes and took a breath, and as she let it out, she nodded. “You’re right. We need to release her. Annoying as she was, her spirit needs to move on.” Unlike me, she seemed quite pleased at finding essence of dead woman among the mohairs and the alpacas. I soon found out why. “We’ll need Margaret Twigg and my grandmother, and together we’ll do a spell that will set the dead woman’s spirit free.”

  I knew that the four of us together created a very powerful energy, but I was nervous about what that energy might do. “You’re sure? All we are going to do is release this poor woman’s spirit? Nothing can go wrong?”

  “Lucy, we’re your sisters. You need to have more faith.”

  She was right, I knew. It wasn’t only faith in the other witches that I lacked, but faith in myself and my own powers. Because I’d come to witching so late, it was as uncomfortable as trying to converse in a new language. I always thought I was going to slip up, say or do the wrong thing. She said, “We’ll come tonight, just before midnight. Be ready for us.”

  I might have argued, but the door opened and Margot Dodeson walked in. I thought she walked a little straighter and stood a little taller now that she’d been chosen for the show. She’d done something different with her hair. Lightened it and had it styled. Even her dress looked new. I was so pleased I’d been the one to make that phone call. “Margot, how nice to see you. I like your new look.”

  She blushed with pleasure at the compliment. “I was so thrilled to get your phone call. I’m here, as you can imagine, to pick up my wool and needles so that I can get caught up before Sunday. I’ll practice, of course, before I even attempt to work on anything on television.”

  “You don’t need to practice. Teddy will tell you everything you need to know.”

  She shook her head. “It is such an honor to be chosen to be on the program, I don’t want to let him down. Isn’t he the most wonderful man?”

  “He is.” It was nice to see her genuine excitement at being part of this program. The excitement we’d all had before tragedy had struck. I gave her the new package with her name on it that would contain an assortment of wools and a guide to lace knitting. However, she insisted she wanted to start something else before opening her kit. Since she had her proof copy of Teddy’s book, she’d already chosen the pattern she wanted to make. It was a beautiful lace sweater, and she chose a lovely shade of teal, which fortunately, I had in stock from Larch Wools. She walked straight to the side wall where the wools were kept, not bothering to browse the shop. She went away so happy that I thought she’d bring some genuinely nice new energy to Teddy’s class.

  And we needed new energy quite badly.

  But first, I needed to get rid of that bad energy that was making my shop so depressing.

  Chapter 16

  When we closed, I went upstairs and opened the glass case where Gran had kept some of her special books. I’d added a few of my own, and tucked away in its accustomed spot was the family grimoire. I kept it spellbound at all times now, since the book of magic had almost been stolen. Once I released the book from its spell, I sat on the couch and opened the cover. As soon as Nyx smelled it, she jumped up beside me. I knew she was my familiar, but she was also my pet and my comfort. “We need a spell to send poor, dead Enid Selfe on her way. Too much of her essence is stuck in the shop.”

  Nyx’s head bobbed up and down. It was easy to imagine she was agreeing with me when she was just doing regular cat behavior. Then I realized she hadn’t been in the shop all day. “You felt it too, didn’t you? We’re going to try and release her tonight.” I flipped through the book until I found the spell that I wanted. Then I made a list of the ingredients we needed: sage; black and white candles, a lot of herbs I knew Gran had grown in the garden. Since it was summer, most of those herbs were fresh for the picking. I had always assumed she had such a well-stocked herb garden because she liked to cook, but what she liked to cook up was spells. And now it was my turn.

  Nyx wandered out with me as I made my way into the herb garden. I picked them fresh and then carried the herbs upstairs with me. I’d picked fresh sage, but really it should be dried and bundled so it could be burned to smoke out bad energy and spirits. Both Gran and Margaret Twigg had encouraged me to keep my supplies stocked and ready at all times and I felt bad I hadn’t listened. I hung the sage to dry, even though it wouldn’t be ready in time.

  I needed to up my game I realized as I looked through Gran’s stash of candles. I needed pure beeswax candles and black candles. I dug out the last of the black candles and began making a shopping list. I was a witch, I had to start acting like one and be more prepared.

  Before Rafe could show up to drive me back to his place, I texted him to let him know what was up and that I’d be spending the night here.

  He texted back. “I’ll wait downstairs until you’re ready to leave.”

  I might have argued, but while I’d been sitting here with Nyx, I’d felt the cold, bad feeling start to creep upstairs and into my home. It reminded me of the time a rat had died in the walls of our house in Boston and we’d only known about it as the smell began to permeate the whole house. Enid Selfe’s remaining spirit was the psychic equivalent of a decomposing dead rat. Until I was certain she was gone, I really didn’t want to stay here.

  Besides, William had cooked me breakfast this morning. Eggs Benedict on a savory scone with coffee from a fancy machine that ground the beans fresh for each cup. It wasn’t exactly a hardship to stay at Rafe’s.

  With no William to cook me dinner, I looked in my fridge and cupboards, which were distressingly bare. I had half a dozen tins of the tuna Nyx liked. I opened one for her and then, with a shrug, opened a tin for myself. I had half a loaf of bread in the freezer, so I toasted a couple of slices, spread some mayo on the toast and tried not to compare the uninteresting tuna fish sandwich with the gourmet fare of the night before.

  Then, with a sigh, I decided to catch up on paperwork. In spite of murders, television shows, and a rather complicated love life, I still had a business to run.

  Just before midnight, I headed down to my shop with all the supplies and my grimoire, feeling unaccountably nervous that it was so late and I was once more alone in the shop with Enid. Well, Nyx was with me, but her eyes were wide, and she was so skittish, she made me worse.

  I really wanted Enid out of my shop. I hadn’t liked her in life, and I didn’t like her any more in death. Even though her death was tragic, her aura was sticky and unpleasant, like an oil stain on the driveway or gum that catches on the bottom of your shoe and won’t let go. I couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

  One thing I will say about my local witches, they were prompt. At exactly eleven-fifty, Violet, Margaret Twigg, and my great-aunt Lavinia knocked on the door. I’d contemplated asking Gran to join us, but I was worried that her energy had changed too much when she had moved from witch to vampire. I had a feeling that for this kind of a spell, we needed pure witch power.

  Margaret Twigg entered first. She tended to do that, as though she were the queen and everyone else should fall back in line. Naturally, since she could turn you into something unspeakable at the snap of a finger, we tended to let her go first
.

  She walked in holding a small cauldron and a black bag that bulged. I didn’t entirely trust Margaret Twigg; the last potion she’d brewed for me had been a love potion that went terribly wrong. Still, it hadn’t completely been her fault, and at least we couldn’t do harm to someone who was already dead. Could we?

  She no sooner stepped in the shop than she recoiled as though she smelled something horrible. “Oh, dear, I can see why you need us. That murder victim has not moved on.”

  I was pleased that she could feel it too and it wasn’t overactive imagination on my part. She walked unerringly to the exact spot where Enid had died and looked down, almost as though she could see the poor woman lying there dead. “Right. You’ll make sure we aren’t disturbed?”

  I’d spoken to the vampires downstairs and could assure her that we’d have the place to ourselves.

  She nodded briskly. “Good.”

  Nyx stayed right beside me. Margaret had catnapped her once, and my cat was wary of her. Understandably.

  I discovered that everything didn’t have to be magic. Margaret Twigg had bought along a small camping stove. On it, she placed the small cauldron. From her capacious black bag, she pulled out a bottle of what I assumed was distilled water and poured it into the cauldron.

  I showed her the herbs I’d brought in from the garden. The bundle of sage looked like greens that had been in the bottom of the fridge too long. She looked at the floppy, sad bundle and shook her head. “Really, Lucy. You must always be prepared.”

  Then she pulled out two fat bundles of dried sage and one of lavender and three small bottles.

  However, after dissing my fresh sage, she looked at the rest of the herbs carefully. “Are these the ones Agnes grew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Harvested today?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine.” She nodded. “Clover, asafetida, we just want a little, and some nettle and, perhaps a pinch of the rosemary.” She took the herbs and threw them into the cauldron with the liquid. She added several drops from the tiny bottles and I smelled basil, then the licorice scent of anise. “The steam will help cleanse the space. Everything we do is about taking solid and turning it to air, light enough to float away.”