Witch at Odds: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 2 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries)

by Juliette Harper

  The scene on the square was even worse than Beau described. All the parking spots around the courthouse were filled. Some people in pickups were even tailgating. A television crew had set up on the sidewalk in front of George and Irma’s grocery store two buildings down. They were talking to Irma under the glare of lights rigged to illuminate the immediate area. I opened my own door just enough to hear what the reporter was saying. Thankfully he was one of those pompous types, so I could hear him over the noise of the crowd.

  "Over the past few days in the sleepy community of Briar Hollow, citizens have been plagued by a rash of paranormal events," he said, in a mock dramatic voice. "We are speaking with local businesswoman Irma Reynolds, who captured images of a levitating packaged pastry on her store’s security camera. Irma, would you describe this horrifying event for our viewers?”

  "Well," Irma said, matching his melodramatic flair perfectly, "first off, it was a Twinkie, which isn’t really a pastry because it doesn’t have a crust, but there is cream filling, so that might count. Anyway . . .”

  And there you have it, folks. Investigative journalism at its finest.

  Just before I closed the door, I caught sight of Howard McAlpin standing on the front steps of the courthouse. His face was screwed up in a look of intense concentration that made his cheeks bulge out as if he was trying to blow up a balloon. A crowd of people were standing at the base of the steps holding smartphones at the ready.

  I felt Beau float up beside me.

  “What the heck is Howie trying to do over there?” I asked the colonel.

  “I believe he is trying to make himself visible again,” Beau said. “He doesn’t have a complete understanding of the process just yet. On his last attempt he was only successful at materializing his left arm.”

  Just then I heard a woman cry, “Hey! Look! I see a foot.”

  That touched off a firestorm of camera flashes. From across the lawn, the hellfire and brimstone voice of the self-appointed minister thundered, “It’s the devil’s claw!”

  Well, yeah, but only if Lucifer was buried in his Hush Puppies.

  Shaking my head, I closed and locked the door. Tori and I went out the back, using side streets to make a wide circle around to the other side of the square. The Baptist Church was on the edge of town, and the oak tree Alexander Skea described to me sat smack in the middle of the front parking lot.

  I parked the Prius behind the Sunday School building and we sat quietly surveying the scene of our impending crime.

  “Now what?” Tori asked.

  Beau, ever the practical one, said, “I believe I should reconnoiter the location before the two of you expose yourself to view.”

  I chose not to explore the modern meaning of the phrase “expose yourself” with him.

  In less than a second, Beau disappeared from the backseat and reappeared in front of the tree. “Dang,” Tori said, “I wish I could do that. It sure would make getting around Walmart during a blow-out sale easier.”

  “Glad you’ve got the whole metaphysical realm in proper perspective there, Tori,” I said, keeping my eyes on Beau.

  “Somebody has to stay realistic around here,” she deadpanned.

  In spite of the tension I was feeling, I snickered.

  “Does this remind you of anything?” she asked.

  Of course it did. The first and last time we decided to try cigarettes, for some unknown reason we’d parked behind the church to light up. I think our reasoning was that no one would be there on a Friday night.

  “I still say you were blowing smoke in my face on purpose,” I said.

  “I wasn’t blowing it anywhere,” Tori said. “I was just trying not to choke to death and catch the fastest case of lung cancer on the planet.”

  We’d turned to look at one another while we talked, so neither of us caught the fact that Beau had blipped again. His voice from the backseat made us both jump.

  “There is an object on the back side of the tree,” he said, “but at a rather shallow depth for a grave. I think it’s possible the roots of the tree have pushed the body closer toward the surface.”

  “It’s about time we caught a break on something,” I said. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Tori and I got out of the car, each extracting a shovel and a pair of work gloves from the backseat.

  Beau said, “I suggest you advance across the open ground at the double quick.”

  “Huh?” Tori said.

  “It’s military guy speak for run,” I explained.

  So we did. Scrunching down a little to make our silhouettes less obvious, we made a straight line for the tree. I doubt we looked all paramilitary, but we did at least arrive on the back side of the trunk without tripping and breaking our fool necks. Thankfully, whoever paved the lot left a nice big circle of undisturbed turf and dirt around the tree.

  There were no lights on in any of the church buildings and none in the houses across the street, so it was possible we were going to get away with this. While Beau kept watch, Tori and I started to dig. Any of you Baptist Sunday School kids who lost your Hot Wheels in the parking lot? Come by the store. We’ve got’em.

  I don’t know how long we worked. The little pile of long lost treasures grew on one side of the growing hole while dirt piled up on the other. It was hard working in and around the roots. Ultimately Beau had to leave his post and bend over us so his glowing form would give us extra light.

  Thankfully, neither of us were strangers to working a shovel. As little girls, we’d alternated between playing with dolls and digging in the dirt, which graduated to helping the moms put in their annual gardens. Kelly and Gemma do not think small in this regard. They plant enough to feed a small South American country.

  A couple of times we froze when we heard a dog bark or a car pass on the street, but no one turned into the lot or came to investigate. My shirt was damp with sweat by this time and my shoulders were starting to ache. More than once Tori asked Beau if he was absolutely certain there was something buried where we were working, and each time, he said he was.

  I think we were about four feet down when the blade of my shovel hit something, making a dull metallic clank that echoed in the night. Without being asked, Beau bent down beside me as I brushed loose dirt away with my gloved hand to reveal the lid of an old-fashioned strong box.

  It took another 20 minutes of digging, punctuated with grunts and some words we shouldn’t have been using in a church parking lot, but Tori and I finally pulled the box free. Then we just stood there looking at each other.

  “Well,” she said, giving me the innocent eyes, “open it.”

  “I don’t want to open it,” I replied. “There’s a dead guy in there. You open it.”

  Beau cleared his throat. “Given the size of the strong box, there will, at most, be bones inside,” he said. “Please forgive my forwardness, ladies, but you really must screw up your courage. You have been quite fortunate to remain undetected up to this point, but I do think you should not . . . what is phrase?”

  “Push it,” Tori said grimly. “Yeah. Okay. Point taken.”

  The box wasn’t locked, instead the hasp was secured with a metal pin with a clip on one end to hold it in place. Tori took off her gloves and slid the pin free. Then she looked up. “On three?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, putting my own hands on the lid as well. We’d open it together.

  “Okay . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . ”

  As gross as it sounds, whoever put Alexander in that hole waited until there was nothing left of him but bones, which were now neatly stacked inside the box with the skull sitting on top.

  Yes, I let out a little girly-girl squeal when I saw the empty eye sockets looking up at me, but Tori said something unladylike so we managed to maintain some game points for bravery.

  Right in front of the skull, almost as if Alexander was about to start reading it, a small black leather book rested on what I think were his shin bones.

  Without
having to discuss what to do next, we closed the lid and Tori slipped the pin back in position. The box was heavy, but we were able to heft it up out of the hole and lug it across the field to where the car was parked. We were going to go back for the shovels and our gloves, but that’s when we saw a late model sedan pull into the parking lot.

  “Jinksy,” Tori hissed, “what are we going to do?”

  “Hush,” I said. “Let’s see what he does.”

  As soon as the car door opened, I recognized the man; Lamar Weston, the Baptist preacher. He started toward the door of the church with a Bible and a stack of manilla folders under his arm. But then he stopped and peered cautiously toward the oak tree.

  He probably saw one of the shovels, but anyway, something caught his attention. He walked over to take a closer look . . . and promptly fell in the hole. Right before he dropped out of sight, we saw his toupee flip up, exposing an expanse of shining bald scalp. Then, a cloud of what I suppose to be sermon notes fluttered up out of the hole.

  “That’s our cue,” I said, starting the car and gliding as quietly as possible onto the street behind the sanctuary. I didn’t turn on the headlights until we were two blocks away. Then the giggles hit. We laughed so hard I didn’t think I was going to be able to drive. Even Beau was chuckling in the backseat.

  Our gasps were punctuated with phrases like “bad rug” and “pit of hell.” I don’t remember any outright blasphemy, but the irreverence was so thick you could have sliced it with a butter knife.

  Tori finally managed to get enough air to say, “We did it, Jinksy.”

  “Did what?” I asked, wiping mirthful tears from my eyes.

  “We finally made the Baptist preacher flip his lid.”

  That touched off fresh gales of laughter. We were still chuckling when I pulled the Prius into its spot behind the store. Just to be safe, I unlocked the back door and propped it open with a brick before we unlatched the trunk and lugged the strong box inside.

  “Hold on a second,” I said to Tori. “I want to see what’s going on out front.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m going to pop into my place and clean up a little.”

  Looking down at my own hands, I decided a date with a bar of soap wasn’t such a bad idea. I ducked in the downstairs bathroom and turned the water on, feeling guilty about getting the space dirty after all of Darby’s hard work.

  When I was done, I rinsed off the soap and wiped the sink dry with a paper towel. I pumped out some hand lotion in my palm and walked to the front windows, rubbing my hands together to spread the lotion as I went.

  The crowd on the square had thinned a little, but the stalwarts appeared to be in for the long-haul ghost hunt. Some people had even put sleeping bags down in their truck beds, and I spotted a few cameras mounted on tripods. At least the news crew had packed up and moved on to the next breaking story, ratcheting the whole carnival atmosphere down a notch or two.

  Howard McAlpin was now sitting on the courthouse steps looking completely exhausted, with the councilmen hovering anxiously around him. I pointed him out to Beau when the old soldier joined me at the window.

  “What’s up with Howie?” I asked.

  “I would imagine he is attempting to regain sufficient energy for his planned protest tomorrow,” Beau suggested. “This evening’s display must have left him quite depleted.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, “but he’s still visible.”

  “As I warned you,” Beau said, “they are all growing stronger. I fear the good Mayor may actually be able to put on something of a show tomorrow.”

  “What about the rest of them?” I asked.

  The other spirits were wandering aimlessly in the crowd or talking together in little clumps. If I hadn’t known that at least 50% of the crowd was dead, the scene looked just like the aftermath of the annual Fourth of July fireworks display

  “They are all becoming increasingly frustrated,” he said. “Many are fueled by a desperate longing to contact their loved ones. Do you see the lady there, on the bench near the wisteria?”

  My gaze followed his pointing finger. The woman sat with her head in her hands, her shoulders heaving with sobs.

  “Oh my God,” I said, my heart instantly breaking for her. “Why is she crying?”

  “She has been trying to speak with her daughter for three days,” Beau said. “She fears that because her daughter will not answer, the silence is an indication that the young woman did not love her.”

  His words made my gut clench, but at the same time, they strengthened my determination.

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s get downstairs.”

  As soon as Darby saw me and Tori lugging the strong box down the steps, he disappeared into the shelves and came back with a thick blanket that he threw over the work table.

  I mean seriously, performing magic with a dead man’s bones is no reason to scratch up the furniture, right?

  When I withdrew the latch pin and opened the lid, Myrtle peered inside the box, reaching confidently for the leather bound book. She carefully opened the pages, turning them curiously until she stopped at a spot marked by a frayed satin ribbon.

  “This is it,” she said. “The incantation Knasgowa wrote to imprison Brenna. Now we must find the blood of Alexander’s blood.”

  Remember how I felt about dissection in biology class? Metaphysical chemistry is right up there in the same class of grossness, just dustier.

  In an entirely too bright a tone of voice, Myrtle said, “Okay, pick a bone and we’ll grind it up.”

  Affecting a deep bass voice, Tori said, “Fee fi fo fum . . .”

  “Don’t got there,” I warned.

  “I smell the blood of an Englishman . . . ”

  “That’s enough, Tori!”

  “Be he alive or be he dead . . .”

  She was going to do it no matter what I said.

  “I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

  Great. Now I could never look at flour the same way again.

  “Are you happy now, Beanstalk Girl?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she grinned, “it had to be said.”

  Giving her a look, I turned back to Myrtle, “I’m not grinding anyone’s bones.”

  The older woman blinked at me a couple of times, obviously puzzled. “But you need to pulverize the bone to work the locator spell.”

  “Fine,” I said, “but I’m not going to be the one to do it.”

  I swear to you, Myrtle, whom I’m guessing is like a bazillion years old and super powerful herself, rolled her eyes at me.

  “As you wish,” she said, sounding unbelievably put upon.

  We watched as she reached into the box and came up with what I think was a finger bone. Or toe maybe. Anyway, the bone was little. Out of nowhere, Darby appeared with a black cloth and a hammer.

  Myrtle spread the cloth on the table, put the tiny bone in the center, folded the material over it, and slammed the hammer down so hard the hinges of the strong box rattled.

  “Ewwww,” Tori said. “Myrtle! That’s disgusting!”

  Ignoring the reaction, Myrtle unfolded the cloth and carefully dropped the bone fragments into a mortar, working them with a pestle until she had a fine, white powder.

  “There,” she said, “that is as much as I can do for you. You have to do the rest.”

  “The rest of what?” I asked.

  Myrtle opened a map of Briar Hollow and spread it out on the table. “We have enough powder to work the spell twice,” she said. “I have written the words out.”

  She reached in the pocket of her sweater and brought out a long, translucent green stone hanging from a silver chain.

  “Take a pinch of the powder and dust it over the map,” she said. “Hold the amulet perfectly still over the center of the map and read the spell. The amulet will point us to the area where the person with the strongest concentration of Alexander’s blood resides. You can then go to that location and work the spell again to find that pe
rson.”

  Even though I wasn’t pleased about dipping my fingers in bone dust, I did as I was told. Then I held out the amulet and stared at the words on the little piece of paper. Myrtle had obligingly written them out phonetically.

  “Okay,” I said, “here goes nothing.”

  As I started to speak, I felt a frisson of energy move down my arm and into the chain. The amulet began to pulsate faintly, the light slowly intensifying to a steady emerald glow. Then the chain stiffened and moved in jerky circles over the map, right before it lifted out to a 90-degree angle and pointed straight at Tori.

  25

  One of the things I love about Tori is that she doesn’t back up from anything. She backed up from this. As she looked down at the green crystal standing taunt at the end of the chain pointing right at her chest, she might as well have been staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol.

  No. Wait. I’ve seen her do that.

  When we were both waitresses at Tom’s, some drifter off the highway came in and robbed the place. Tori did as she was told and opened the cash register, but she was giving the guy a piece of her mind every second she was doing it, telling him that he was taking money from hard working people.

  Afterwards, when she was giving her statement to the local police chief, the cop said, “Tori, for God’s sake, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

  Still fuming, she snapped back, “Well, he made me mad.”

  So what I was seeing on her face that night was worse than the whole loaded gun thing.

  Without asking if it was the right thing to do or not, I dropped the amulet and reached for Tori.

  I couldn’t believe it, but she wouldn’t let me touch her.

  “Tori,” I said, too worried about her to be hurt, “whatever you’re thinking right now, just stop. Talk to me.”

  Her eyes darted to the crumpled chain of the necklace, back up to me, and over to Myrtle. She’s the one who saved the day, coming around the table and taking hold of Tori’s arms.

  “You are not like Brenna Sinclair,” Myrtle said simply. “I never would have let you walk in the front door of this shop if you were.”

  Myrtle has this habit of literally illuminating objects with beams of light, typically in answer to my question about where the heck something is in the store. But she’d done the same thing the night we brought Darby home from the graveyard. Now, as I watched, even though Myrtle was in human form, a warm glow spread out from her and over Tori who immediately relaxed.