by Madelyn Alt
“But what are they doing here?” Margo this time. “I thought that kind of thing was limited to the cities. Like New York and L.A. You know, where people are more—”
Open-minded? I filled in.
“—apt to give . . . alternative lifestyles a try. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I’m as forgiving as the next person,” Margo asserted, puffing herself up as usual. “But . . . well . . . you know what I mean.”
Small towns were filled with forgiving people like Margo. Of course, forgiveness and acceptance were two very separate concepts. And unfortunately, tolerance wasn’t always a part of the deal. Repentance . . . their way . . . now that was another story entirely. Everyone loves a sinner who is willing to get down on his knees and cry Uncle. Especially if his story is a particularly good one.
I kept a low profile until Margo left fifteen minutes later, feeling fortunate that I wouldn’t have to suffer her presence for longer than that. In the last few days, I’d seen her more often than in the whole twelve years since graduation. I must say, I preferred things the way they’d been before she became Mel’s cohort and confidante. Why couldn’t Mel have shown better taste in friends? Had she conveniently forgotten all the stress Margo, as Resident Mean Girl, had put me through in high school?
I made my way to Mel’s room and stood in the doorway, my hand on the brass lever, until she looked up.
“What?” she asked, all sweetness and light.
“You weren’t supposed to tell her all of that.”
“All of what?”
“About Liss, and Marcus, and . . . you just weren’t supposed to say anything.”
She waved away my irritation. “Oh, don’t be such a worrywart. Margo won’t tell anyone. If there’s anything Margo knows how to do, it’s keep a secret.”
Somehow, I didn’t see that. At all. “And did you ask her to keep it a secret?” I grated out.
“Well . . . no, but . . . I really don’t think you have anything to worry about, Mags. I really don’t think she’ll tell. Why would she? She wouldn’t want to be associated with that kind of thing by default, you know. She has her reputation to consider.”
And Liss didn’t? And while we were at it, what about my reputation?
It was a pointless argument. Mel was never going to get that her need to gossip often left others at the wrong end of the double-sided barrel. And I was always destined by virtue of family ties to be caught in the crossfire. And the end result, my friends, is rarely pretty.
“So. Mags. Tell me. What’s with all this witchy stuff anyway?” Mel pinned me with one of her famous dig-deep-and-dig-hard stares. “You aren’t really involved in anything like that, are you? It’s just your friends, right?”
I avoided her gaze while I thought about her loaded question. Was I involved? To a certain extent, yes, it was fair to say I was—if involvement meant being accepting of their spirituality, respectful of their experience and knowledge in matters heretofore unbelievable to me, and newly open to the possibilities within myself that I had found so very empowering. Was I a witch? I didn’t even entirely understand what that meant in the modern sense of the word, despite all my reading, and I was long past beginning to suspect that the issue was far more complex than the have-spells-will-hex image most people associated with the word. But did I seem to have a natural flair for certain things that fell into the metaphysical scheme of things? You bet your booties I did . . . and how cool was that?
On the other hand, how much of this did I feel comfortable revealing to Mel, aka Have Gossip, Will Spill? You guessed it.
So I did what any intelligent, worldly, self-preserving girl would do. I changed the focus back on her. “Whatever gave you that idea? I mean . . . jeez, Mel.”
“Hey, I’m just checking. You never know.” She laughed then. “It’s a good thing you’re not. Mom would have a cow.”
Yeah, and unfortunately the deflect-and-duck method didn’t work as well on mothers. More’s the pity.
“Then it’s a good thing Mom doesn’t know any of this. And let’s keep it that way.”
She held her hands up in a stopgap motion. “Hey, hey. Would I talk?”
I think we all knew the answer to that question.
Chapter 13
The added duties of caring for Mel and the girls after putting in a full day of work were already starting to wear on me, I had to admit as I found myself yawning all the way into the store the next morning. Minnie was in her carrier on the seat next to me, bright eyed and bushy tailed—literally—as she watched me turn the wheel. Liss was right about one thing, though—it seemed to me that the atmosphere in the apartment had taken on a more relaxed feeling with Minnie there. Or was it only that I was so taken with watching her play with bits of paper and found treasures like the fringe on a dish towel that I didn’t have time to notice any of the more unusual happenings? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Whatever worked was just fine by me.
Christine seemed to like her, too. Halfway across town, the old radio suddenly tuned in and began to blare “Stray Cat Strut.”
“You’re too young for strutting,” I told Minnie. “Wait until you have a little bit of life under your paws.”
Just another day.
The store was quiet as we entered. Liss wasn’t in, but it was early yet, so I let Minnie out to have her way with things while I set about preparing the store for customers. A knock on the glass at the front door startled me. I glanced up to see Tom standing just outside. He waved at me through the window.
Smiling happily to myself, I hurried to open the door. Minnie made a race of it, circling around my feet to show that she was much faster than me. I picked her up out of the way as I pulled the door open. “Tom!”
“Thought I would pop in before I headed home for some much-needed sleep,” he said, grinning tiredly at me and stretching out a finger to Minnie’s black nose. She grabbed it with both paws, claws gently out, and started to nibble on it, her bicolor eyes wide and bright.
I noted the weariness that had settled into the faint squint lines around Tom’s eyes. “You haven’t been home yet?”
He shook his head. “Too much going on last night. I don’t know what has gotten into people lately, but it’s been crazy, that’s for sure. There’s talk of adding people to the department, just to try to keep things under control. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen it like this. If I were a superstitious bastard, I’d credit it to the full moon. Except it isn’t full moon.”
I had my own theories on this, but I’d been chalking them up to general nervousness about the weird undercurrents I’d been experiencing myself. I really didn’t think he’d want to hear them.
He looked me in the eye, his expression softening. “I didn’t get a chance to call you last night. Sorry.”
I shook my head. “No need. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. I was at Mel’s until ten thirty, waiting for Greg to get home.”
“We haven’t been very good at getting together lately, have we. Things keep getting in the way.”
“Life is full of complications, even when you don’t want it to be.”
He nodded, then put out a hand and hooked me around the neck, pulling me to him. I set Minnie down on the counter and leaned into him, enjoying the moment of warmth. Not heat, just nice, warm, comfortable, comforting. That was Tom. But the weariness he’d walked in with hadn’t left him, and the kiss ended all too soon. He leaned a hip against the counter, watching me as I made him a hot cup of coffee.
“Anything new on Joel Turner?”
“I looked up that doctor you mentioned.”
So he had heeded my recommendation. “And?”
“The phone book is a handy thing. Dorffman’s a psychotherapist out of Fort Wayne.”
“A psychotherapist?” That wasn’t what I had expected to hear. Though I’m not certain what I was supposed to expect. The nudges I sometimes received weren’t exactly specific; they just called attention to detail I might otherwi
se miss. Unfortunately my nudges also didn’t always pan out, which made it all seem a bit too random to put much faith in. Still, though I didn’t have anything more than first impressions to go on, Joel Turner hadn’t seemed the sort of man who’d be open to therapy and introspection. To me he’d seemed wholly a man’s man, an alpha male, tough and impenetrable. “What was he seeing a psychotherapist about?”
“I don’t know. I plan to give the good doctor a call, but his office doesn’t open until noon and I need some shut-eye anyway. Four hours should do it.”
“Four—Tom, that’s just crazy. You can’t do your job on no sleep.”
“Someone has to do it. Besides, you’re one to talk, Miss Overtime.”
I could have argued, but what would be the point? Of course, half of the overtime I put in was because Liss and I had gotten to talking about things that made Tom nervous. Ahem.
“What about the medical examiner’s preliminary report?” I asked. “Anything in on that yet?”
He leaned in close until he was nose to nose with me. His gray eyes sparkled in the muted lights from the coffee bar. “That would be official information, darlin’.”
I raised a brow at him. “Hmph. As if the psychotherapist info wasn’t?”
“Weeeell, here’s how I see it. Since you made the suggestion, I figured I wasn’t giving out anything that you couldn’t have found out yourself by looking in the phone book or on the Internet.”
True, that. Actually, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of looking it up myself. Too much on my mind, I guess.
“Well . . . I have a strong hunch that there was more to Joel Turner’s death than meets the eye, and I’m also thinking that the M.E. is going to corroborate that. I can’t help it!” I said when he gave me that long-suffering, sideways-through-the-lashes glance. “I can’t help the way my mind works.”
“If I thought you could, I would have reminded you of your promise to me to keep your nose clean. I guess I’ll just have to stand by with the hanky.” He winked at me.
A thought struck me. “You know, I keep thinking about that dummy at the feed mill the other day. The timing of it was too coincidental for words. If the M.E.’s report comes back as not accidental or inconclusive, wouldn’t it be nice to have a head start on the investigation as a whole?”
“You’re just not going to give up, are you.”
“I’m not very good at giving up.”
“Lucky for me.”
“Well, do you?” I persisted.
He looked up at the ceiling rather than at me. “As a matter of fact,” he said finally, “I have been working on that angle. Just in case.”
“I knew it! I knew you weren’t satisfied with the timing of things.”
He shrugged, not looking at me. “You aren’t the only one who gets hunches. Cops are known for that, you know.” A small smile played around his mouth. “Even those who don’t believe in them.”
This was even better than I’d hoped. Proud of him, I asked, “Is this the same Tom I’ve been kissing for the last few months, or are you too tired to think straight?”
“Maybe a bit of both.” He edged a little closer to me and put his hands on my hips, gazing down at me. “I’ve been thinking I’d, uh, like to do more than kiss you one of these days. I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
I opened my mouth, and . . .
And it was at that very moment that Liss chose to come breezing into the store. Wouldn’t you know it? Even Liss was conspiring against us.
“Oh, hello, you two. Don’t mind me. Maggie, you’re here early, aren’t you?” She bent down and scooped up Minnie, who was staring up at her with eager eyes. “And good morning to you, too, little one. I don’t suppose you’re hungry for a treat, are you?”
Tom had backed away the moment Liss had walked in. “I’d better be going.”
“Oh, don’t let me chase you away. I’ll just get out of your way—”
“No, really, ma’am, I’d better be going anyway. I’ll see you later.”
I walked him out. “You are going to let me know what you find out about the psychotherapist, aren’t you?”
“Hmm . . .”
“Considering what you were just talking about, you’d think you might be a bit more accommodating . . .”
“Is that bribery of a public servant I hear?” He laughed, and reached out to brush the hair away from my cheek. “We’ll see how things work out, okay?”
The first customers of the day arrived, brushing past us. I smiled a little self-consciously. They seemed to be watching us out of the corners of their eyes, so I took an awkward step backward and waved to him. “Well . . . bye. Talk to you later.”
When he’d gone, I turned toward the two middle-aged ladies who had come in. I didn’t recognize them as regulars, so I broke out in formal Enchantments discourse and lexicon. “Good morning, ladies. First time here?”
Both looked at me as though the language I had spoken wasn’t plain English. Oooookay . . . Still smiling pleasantly, I backed away. “Well, if there is anything that you are looking for in particular, I’m sure I could help you find it. Please give me a shout if you require any assistance, all right?”
But they didn’t. And they were only the first. Throughout the morning, customer after customer filed into the store, stayed for a while, looked at all the merchandise, and then departed, often without saying much of anything. Liss gave up on the whole process by ten o’clock and told me she was going upstairs to the Loft to meditate, and to let me know if she was needed for anything. I kept myself busy by playing with Minnie using the new feather teaser that Liss had brought in that morning as a surprise. It wasn’t until Marion Tabor, the local librarian and aunt to Marcus, walked in around lunchtime with Marcus on her heels that I saw a familiar face. Well, make that two.
The two seated themselves at the coffee bar that had gone empty all morning and waited for me to come to them. I set Minnie down on her favorite shelf, where she could loom over the proceedings like a queen surveying her subjects, before heading over.
“At last!” I said, keeping my voice pitched low so that the other customers couldn’t hear me. “A friendly face. This has been the strangest morning. None of our regular customers have popped in. Dozens of others have . . . but no one has bought a thing, or even wanted help finding something.”
Marion and Marcus exchanged a glance. “Yes, well, there might actually be a reason for that,” Marion said in a tone that was perhaps a bit gentler than her usual matter-of-fact ways.
I didn’t need intuition to tell me that something was going on, that the two of them knew something they didn’t really want to tell me, but knew they were going to have to. It was written all over their faces and in every nuance of their body language. “What is it? You know something you’re not saying. Spill it.”
Marcus leaned back, resting his arm along the top of the bar stool next to him. The effect was long, lean, lanky, and somehow luscious. I kept my eyes up, up, up.
“Your little sister is the one who spilled.”
Yeah, I knew that. She’d spilled to Margo, who . . .
Sweet Mother Mary.
Had the two of them spilled to the entire town?
My mouth open, I lifted my gaze to take in the store and the “customers” milling about. And I started clocking the number of similar customers of varying ages we’d had that morning whom I hadn’t recognized.
“Oh. Oh, they couldn’t have.”
Marion nodded sympathetically. “I’m afraid so.”
“All of these people?”
Marion rounded on them. “I’m afraid it could very possibly be.”
Oy.
“I’m sorry, Mags,” Marcus said, looking at me. “Liss and I should have known better. We’re not exactly in the broom closet, but we’re not looking for publicity either. In a normal situation, we would have done the clearing while everyone else was gone. No specifics, no witnesses, no personal background needed.”
&nb
sp; “But Mel was bedridden, and so that wasn’t even an option,” I finished for him. I nodded. I understood. It couldn’t be helped. But Mel’s gossipy nature could. As usual, she didn’t think of the consequences others might have to suffer so that she could play Queen of the Subdivision Sandbox. Then again, she did live in Buckingham West, so maybe that was par for the course.
Oh, the irony.
“What are we going to do?” I asked weakly. Suddenly the unknown quality of our new “customers” took on a sinister hue. At any moment, any one of them might morph from dowdy, middle-aged lunch lizard, wiling away the last few minutes before heading back to their own version of Hell on Earth, to religious zealot bent on exacting divine retribution for presumed evils on an unsuspecting populace. That woman in the turquoise capris that clung to her broadening hips? She could have a gun in that oversized handbag, no question about it. That elderly man with the droopy handlebar mustache? Jim Jones’s Harley-riding great-uncle. The tall, distinguished-looking gentleman with the sleek head of white hair and the blazing blue eyes?
The gentleman saw me looking at him and veered in my direction. “Good afternoon,” he said, just a bit stiff in his manner. “I am looking for the owner of this establishment.”
I smiled pleasantly, trying to place him. He looked a little familiar, unlike so many of the others today. “Actually, she’s unavailable at the moment. Can I help you?”
“And”—he looked down his nose at me—“you are?”
Oh, boy. As stiff and unyielding as one of Grandma Cora’s old girdles. “Her assistant.”
“Assistant, assistant, yes, I see. You do have a name, I presume?”
I saw Marcus pull a face, his eyebrows rising high in his forehead. I dared not look at him; we had a connection in our way of thinking sometimes that was a little too close for comfort. Instead, I kept my expression as neutral as possible. “Maggie O’Neill. May I ask what the nature of your—”
“My concern, young lady,” the older man said very plainly, “is about your employer, and her activities in this town.”