By Familiar Means

by Delia James

  But Julia didn’t get a chance to ask the questions hovering behind her stern eyes.

  “Annie-Bell?” Miranda let go of Jake’s hand and made her way over to us or, rather, to Grandma B.B. “Oh, my gosh, is that you?”

  My grandmother turned her head to see who was talking and promptly did a double take.

  “Miranda?”

  In the next second, Miranda and Grandma B.B. were hugging each other and exclaiming, their words tumbling over one another.

  “I heard you were back in town but . . . !”

  “Had no idea you were still . . .”

  “Can’t believe it’s you!”

  “I can’t believe it’s you!”

  I stood back, thinking, Annie-Bell? I looked to Julia. She just pressed her mouth into a thin, tight line. She was radiating a kind of high-frequency disapproval, and although she stared at the old drugstore, the police and the crowd, I had the distinct feeling that extra-special tension in the air around my mentor wasn’t for any of them.

  “Julia . . .” I began, but she just shook her head.

  “We cannot have this conversation here.” Julia nodded toward Pete, who was standing listening to the uniformed cop but was watching all of us with real interest. “But we will have it.”

  Suddenly, answering questions for Detective Simmons seemed like it was going to be a walk in the park.

  “Come meet my husband!” Miranda grabbed Grandma’s hand and pulled her over to Jake. “Jake! This is Annie-Bell Blessingsound! She used to babysit me!”

  “Oh, hey.” Jake held out his hand. Grandma took both of his and shook them warmly.

  “So wonderful to meet you, Jake,” said Grandma. “Is this your shop? I was so excited to hear that you and Miranda thought of my granddaughter for your decorations!”

  Miranda slapped her forehead. “Your granddaughter! Of course, Anna Britton. I didn’t put the two together. Fate!” she called toward the sky. “It’s fate!”

  “Yeah, problem is, it ain’t the good kind,” muttered Jake.

  Grandma took both of Miranda’s hands. “What’s the matter, dear? Why are the police here?”

  “Yes,” said Julia tartly. “Why are the police here, Anna?”

  Miranda hesitated, but Grandma shook her hands encouragingly. “Oh, come along, Miranda; you can tell Annie-Bell.”

  Something was wrong. Something was shifting underneath the surface, and it wasn’t just that sweet and innocent Grandma routine, which I never trusted. I felt a distinct prickling on the back of my neck and up my hands, and, yes, in both my thumbs.

  Magic.

  My little old white-haired grandmother was working a spell on Miranda.

  “Gosh, Grandma, you know, I’m really sorry about all this!” I said loudly. “Maybe you can go and wait somewhere until the police say it’s okay for us to go! Have you ever been to Joe King’s Chowder Shack? It’s right around the corner this way . . .”

  Unsubtly and unashamedly, I grabbed my grandmother and started pulling her back toward the fence of cars and sawhorses. I didn’t make it very far. My grandmother has always been stronger than she looks.

  “Annabelle Amelia.” She shook me off. “What on earth is this about?”

  “That was about you working some kind of spell on Miranda,” I whispered harshly. “Without her permission!”

  “Oh, good heavens, Anna,” she murmured. “You are entirely overreacting.”

  “I am not overreacting! We’re the good witches! We’re not supposed to do that.” I looked back toward Julia for confirmation, and what I got in return was a glare that reached right down inside me and turned me from a grown woman to a badly behaved toddler.

  “May I remind you, young lady, I’ve been practicing far longer than you’ve been alive,” said Grandma, softly but very firmly. “I know the rules. Perhaps you’d care to tell me what you were doing that got poor Alistair so upset he had to come get us?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again.

  “We found a dead body,” I said.

  “Oh, dear.” Just like that, the lecture was over and I was being hugged by my grandma. I held on, hard, and for a long time.

  “’Scuse me,” called Pete Simmons. He’d come back from his other conversation and was waving his pencil to try to attract our attention. “I know this is tough on everybody, but the sooner we’re done, the sooner you can get home.”

  “Sorry, Detective,” I muttered and went back over to stand with Jake and Miranda. Naturally, Julia and Grandma followed.

  “Now, Mr. and Mrs. Luce.” Pete flipped his notebook open. “We were talking about . . .” He turned over another page. “The tunnel. Who found it? Was it the two of you?” Pete sort of waggled his pencil at the pair of them. “Or were all three of you together?” The pencil, and Pete’s attention, now pointed at me.

  I glanced back at Alistair, looking for a little moral support. He had come out from behind the tire, but he had also hunkered down on the pavement with a calm you got yourself into this one, human, air.

  “I found the tunnel,” I told the detective. “Miranda and Jake were giving me a tour of the space. I’m going to be painting some murals for them—”

  “On the basement floor?” asked Pete with perfect calm. He’d probably heard stranger things.

  “I tripped over a brick,” I lied. “It was loose.”

  I looked at Pete. Pete looked at me. I was not going to be able to keep this up for long. You cannot win a stare down with a cat—or a cop.

  “How long has he . . . the body . . . been there?” I asked, hoping to sort of, kind of change the subject.

  Pete shook his head. Kenisha looked grim. They’d both been down to have a look at the corpse. “Rough guess, I’d say it was at least a week.”

  “Oh.” Miranda covered her mouth, and Jake, who had been trying to maintain at least a little calm while the police trooped in and out of the old drugstore, was looking a little green around the gills.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Luce?” asked Pete gently. “Do you need to sit down?”

  But Miranda waved him back.

  “Jake, that is, we”—Miranda squeezed her husband’s arm—“we’d been experiencing some strange phenomenon over the past month, including some thumping we couldn’t explain. We thought . . . we’d been thinking, the building might be haunted.”

  “Haunted?” said Pete.

  “It was one explanation,” replied Miranda firmly. She might not have believed Jake’s claim, but she was not going to talk him down in front of the police. “But, now, I mean, what if . . .”

  “What if we were hearing that poor guy pounding on the trapdoor, trying to get out?” Jake reached up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, man.”

  I couldn’t help shuddering. My Vibe had been all about secrets and wanting to be discovered. What if that had been an echo of the man’s desire to be rescued? His very desperate and dying desire?

  “We can’t tell anything yet, Mr. Luce,” said Pete. “When did you start hearing these noises?”

  “We’ve really only been in the space for maybe a month,” said Miranda. “Regularly, I mean. We’ve been in and out for longer. Cleaning, and like that. I guess we’ve been hearing things for maybe two weeks?” She looked at Jake for confirmation. “But the contractors say they’ve been hearing things almost since they started.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure the guy we found could not have been trapped in that tunnel for a whole month,” said Pete. I think he meant it to be reassuring, but he in no way succeeded. “And you didn’t see any signs that anybody else had been down there recently?”

  “No. None,” said Miranda before I could even get my mouth open.

  “Detective Simmons!” shouted a new voice. A paunchy, pale man wearing a bright red blazer and Clark Kent glasses was striding up the stree
t. The wind from the river blew his black tie over his shoulder as he edged his way between the police cruisers. Kenisha moved to intercept him, but Pete waved her back.

  “Mr. Hilde,” said Pete coolly. “Sorry to pull you out of your office.”

  Mr. Hilde was not a big man, or a young one. In fact, he was only a couple of inches taller than me, and if the lines around his face and the sag in his jowls were anything to go by, he was already on the far side of middle age. His hair, though, was an incongruously dark chestnut brown, and he slicked it back nervously with one hand as he came to stand in front of the detective.

  “And I’m sorry to bother you,” Mr. Hilde said to Pete. “But I’ve got guests wondering what’s going on.” Now I could see the hotel crest on the pocket of that bright red blazer. He must be connected with the Harbor’s Rest hotel. Then I remembered Jake guessing the door we’d found might open into the hotel.

  “I was hoping I could tell our guests there’s nothing to worry about.” Behind their thick lenses, Hilde’s eyes fastened on Jake and Miranda. Jake grinned back at him and flashed the peace sign. A small, satisfied smile tightened Mr. Hilde’s sagging mouth. “But maybe I’m wrong. What’d they finally catch you at, Luce?”

  Jake shrugged. “Not a darned thing, Dale. Disappointed?”

  “No, just surprised.” Dale Hilde was still smiling, and it was not a nice expression.

  “Jake,” murmured Miranda. “Stay cool.”

  “Oh!” cried Grandma. Very suddenly and very uncharacteristically, she stumbled and toppled over, right into Dale Hilde’s arms. He caught her automatically and awkwardly.

  “Oh, I am so sorry!” Grandma grabbed both his wrists to steady herself, even as I lunged forward to help bring her back upright. “I caught my shoe on the curb.” She blinked at him myopically and I felt my fingers prickling. Again. “Why, you must be one of Gretchen’s boys!” she said happily to Mr. Hilde. “You look just like her!”

  “I . . . uh . . . yes,” he mumbled. He also rubbed his palms against his trousers and turned right back to Pete. “Detective Simmons? My guests? I can tell them this is nothing, right? You’ll be gone soon?”

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Hilde, I can’t tell you when we’ll be finished here,” said Detective Simmons. “In fact, I’m probably going to have to bring some of my people into the hotel.”

  Dale took at step back. His gaze slid straight back to Jake and Miranda. “What for?”

  “Can you tell me anything about an old tunnel, maybe a historic smugglers’ tunnel, that leads into the hotel?”

  Hilde’s eyes skittered this way and that, taking in the crowd, the flashing lights and the uniforms. His smile had vanished. He slicked his dark hair back again. “Well, you know, it’s an old building. There were always rumors. But I can’t say anybody’s ever found anything that I know about. Not that we’ve ever looked especially hard.”

  “That’s a shame. But I’m afraid it doesn’t make a lot of difference,” said Pete, his considerable patience finally stretched a little thin. “I hope you’ll let my people have a look inside the hotel basement. I can, of course, get a warrant if that will make things easier with the rest of the management . . .”

  Mr. Hilde slicked his hair back again. For good measure, he smoothed down his black tie. “Of course Harbor’s Rest is always happy to cooperate with the police, but can you tell me what this is about?”

  “We’ve found a body, Mr. Hilde, in a tunnel which appears to end at your hotel.”

  Mr. Hilde flushed bright red. “I cannot tell that to our guests,” he announced, as if the discovery of a corpse was some highly personal inconvenience. Detective Simmons did not even flinch.

  “They’re going to find out, I’m afraid. So, I’m sure what you want is to help us clear this all up as quickly and quietly as possible.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Naturally. I, um, would it be all right if your people used the deliveries entrance?”

  “Of course,” said Pete blandly. “We certainly don’t want to alarm your guests.”

  “Thank you, Detective. I’ll, um, I’ll go and tell my brother, and my mother, and our day manager, and . . .

  “Officer Freeman will go with you,” said Pete. “To help with the explanations.”

  “After you, Mr. Hilde.” Kenisha stepped back. Mr. Hilde slicked his hair back one more time but let himself be escorted back up toward the grand white hotel that towered over the river’s bend.

  Pete sighed and glanced through his notebook. “Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Luce, Miss Britton. I think we got what we need for now. There will probably be more questions later, once we know what we’re dealing with here. Jake, Miranda, you two try to take it easy, all right? Miss Britton.” He nodded at me, and he did not look entirely happy. I couldn’t blame him. We’d met over a dead body once before. Probably the detective did not like coincidences. I could completely sympathize.

  “Come along, Anna,” said Julia.

  I did, and so did Grandma B.B., of course. I was pretty sure Alistair was already gone in his own kind of way.

  But I also looked back over my shoulder, and I saw Miranda slip her arm through Jake’s. I also saw Pete Simmons watching us all leave.

  I shivered then, hard.

  7

  I knew Julia was upset. I expected I was going to get called onto the carpet as soon as we got to her apartment and closed the door against prying (and police) ears.

  Turns out I was wrong. Julia wasn’t upset. She was livid.

  Julia’s apartment is a converted loft above Midnight Reads. The large front room is furnished with a magnificent collection of Victorian furniture and art glass paperweights, most of them spherical. Yes, in fact, Julia Parris, head of the guardian coven of Portsmouth, has a collection of crystal balls. She keeps them on ornate stands spaced among her magnificent collection of dachshund-themed knickknacks, which cover every surface that isn’t otherwise occupied, mainly with books.

  As soon as we reached the living room, Julia sat in her mahogany and gold velveteen chair by the fireplace with both hands folded on top of her walking stick and both dachshunds at her feet. There was a china cup and saucer on the round table beside her.

  Grandma B.B. sat down on one end of the sofa. A matching cup waited on the oval coffee table. I sat down on the sofa, too, and tried not to be nervous. It didn’t work.

  “Now, Anna,” Julia began.

  “Yip!” interrupted Leo. Max was already trotting toward the window.

  We all looked, of course. Between the cream-colored lace curtains, we saw Alistair, pacing on the sill outside.

  “Merow?” His questioning voice vibrated through the pane. Julia’s home was magically warded, so it was one of the few spaces where Alistair couldn’t just pop in.

  Julia sighed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, looking for patience. “Very well. Let him in.”

  I unlatched the window. As soon as I pushed up the sash and screen, Alistair flowed onto the carpet. Max and Leo, of course, had to sniff around his ankles and belly. Alistair tolerated this for a surprising length of time.

  “Sorry, Julia.” I sat back down on the sofa. Alistair immediately jumped up onto my lap and hunkered down out of reach of Max and Leo, who yipped a few times in complaint. Alistair yawned and started washing his whiskers at them.

  “Now, Anna,” repeated Julia firmly, and the words could have been chipped out of ice. “You will explain to me exactly what you were doing at Miranda and Jake’s.”

  “You did have us worried, dear,” murmured Grandma B.B. “But I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Oh, no,” said Julia darkly. “None of this is Anna’s fault.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything!” I blurted out. “Well, nothing much . . .” There are few things worse than hearing yourself suddenly channeling your inner kindergartener. The fact that I really might have inched
closer to my grandmother at that point did not make it any better.

  “Nothing much,” repeated Julia. “I see. Jake and Miranda just suggested that you all go for a stroll down a lost tunnel and you thought, ‘Sure, why not?’”

  “Julia,” began Grandma. “The sarcasm is not—”

  Julia held up her hand to cut Grandma B.B. off. “I’ll thank you to stay out of this, Annabelle.” Leo and Max lifted their heads, noses and ears suddenly on the alert.

  “She is my granddaughter,” replied Grandma B.B. evenly. Alistair climbed up my front and onto the curving back of the sofa so he could come settle down behind my shoulders. I pulled him back down and held on to him. He tolerated this, although both dachshunds watched us suspiciously.

  “Yes, Anna is your granddaughter, but she has taken an oath as my apprentice,” said Julia flatly. “She has sworn to abide by the rules I set.”

  “And of course there could not possibly be extenuating circumstances,” murmured Grandma.

  Alistair jumped out of my arms and instead head butted Grandma’s elbow, but Grandma B.B. resolutely refused to pay attention. She also didn’t seem to notice that both the dachshunds had moved closer to Julia and raised their ears and tails.

  “The extenuating circumstances are what we’re trying to determine,” Julia said with that slow and careful patience that comes when you need to clarify something that ought to be perfectly obvious. “If you’re finished interrupting.”

  “I wouldn’t have to interrupt if you were ready to listen to my granddaughter with an open mind.”

  “This is not about your granddaughter—”

  “Okay, okay!” I held up both hands. Clearly, my earlier hopes for a speedy reconciliation between these two were a tad bit premature. “Grandma, it’s all right. Julia . . . I really wasn’t doing any magic. Jake and Miranda thought their new building might be haunted.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but nonchalant is very hard to pull off when you’re talking about the possibility of ghosts. “Well, Jake did anyway, and they wanted me to . . . give it the once-over for a Vibe.”