by Rhys Bowen
“So what do you do next?”
“Me, nothing, I expect. Hughes will no doubt bumble his way through, insulting everybody, unless he puts Watkins and his partner on the case.”
Bronwen reached out and touched his hand. “You know you’re cleverer than any of them, and they know it too. What are your thoughts so far?”
Evan shrugged. “It could be any of them. His wife took sleeping pills, but not the same kind as were used on him. Betsy took him a cup of coffee that could have contained the sleeping pills but she doesn’t know who poured the coffee.”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be any of them, does it?” Bronwen asked. “I mean, you said this man was a famous psychic in America. I’d imagine men like that make enemies.”
“Someone came over here specifically to kill him, you mean?”
Bronwen laughed. “It does sound rather ridiculous when you put it like that, doesn’t it?”
“No, but …” Evan paused, staring at the flames dancing in the fire.
“You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?” she asked gently.
“Emmy Court is American,” Evan said. “She just appeared over here, right before this happened. Why pick this place to start doing her research?”
“I’d have someone look into this man’s background in America,” Bronwen said, “and maybe check out Emmy Court too, while they’re at it.”
Evan kissed her forehead again. “Smart girl,” he said. “I’ll suggest it to Watkins if I can catch him between his training sessions.”
“Training?”
“They’re promoting him to inspector, didn’t I tell you?”
“Oh.” Bronwen looked up. “Does that leave a vacancy, do you think?”
He stared past her, into the fire. “Not that I’ve heard. They’ve just taken on Glynis Davies, haven’t they?”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Your turn will come. And there’s really no hurry, is there? You were quite content here to start with. You said you liked the quiet life—and your hiking and climbing.”
“Yes, that was before …” He paused. Before I thought of supporting a wife and family, he didn’t finish out loud.
That evening Evan was attempting to cook a leg of lamb. Rather stupid really, he thought, to cook a whole leg for one person. But he liked leg of lamb on weekends, and he was considering using the bone to make Bronwen a lamb stew. His mother always served him lamb stew with dumplings when she wanted to build him up. Maybe he’d have a go at dumplings tomorrow and take some over to Bronwen.
The lamb was beginning to smell appetizing and Evan was just putting frozen peas into a saucepan when there was a tap at his front door.
“Ooh, smells good. What are you cooking?” Betsy asked.
“Roast lamb.” He saw her eyes light up. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No, and there’s nothing in the house except baked beans. The old man’s down at the pub already and I didn’t fancy baked beans on my own.”
“You’re welcome to join me. I can’t eat a whole leg on my own.” Evan stood back to let her in.
“Lovely! Diolch yn fawr, Evan bach.” She gave him a beaming smile as she came in. “Do you want me to lay the table?”
She had opened the kitchen drawer and was taking out knives and forks without being asked, laying them swiftly on the table in the living room. Then she went back into the kitchen and perched herself on the counter again as Evan took the roast from the oven. “I’ve never carved one of these things before,” he said. “Where do you think I should start?”
“Absolutely clueless, aren’t you?” Betsy slid from the counter. “Your mam must have spoiled you something rotten. Look you—this is how you carve a leg. You make a vee in the top like this and then you work backward. Got it?” Her hands covered his and he was conscious of how warm and real her hands felt after Bronwen’s fragile icy ones.
“All right. I’ve got it now.” He laughed her off awkwardly. “Let me try it. I’ve got to learn.”
Several large and not very elegant chunks of lamb were put on each plate, followed by roast potatoes and a generous spoonful of peas.
“I’ve got a jar of mint sauce on the shelf, I think,” he said, “but I’m not sure what to do about the gravy. Mrs. Williams used to make lovely thick gravy with lamb.”
“I make mine with gravy mix,” Betsy said, “but I’ll do what I can with the drippings.”
“You’re quite handy in the kitchen,” Evan commented.
“I’ve had to be, haven’t I? With my mam gone all these years and my tad only good for staggering to the pub? And I’m learning a lot by watching the way they do things at the Sacred Grove. You should see how lovely they make the food look. Little swirls of color and bits of flowers and things on the plate. Ever so pretty it looks.” She sat down opposite Evan, took a mouthful of meat, then looked up. “That crabby old cow wants me to stop working there,” she said.
“Mrs. Powell-Jones?” Evan smiled. “Yes, she gave me a long lecture about it this afternoon.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Betsy said. “Going on about devil worship and all that nonsense. I think Rhiannon makes a lot of sense. Why shouldn’t the spirit of the universe be all around us in nature? She’s asked me to help her with the ceremony this week—you know, the Galan Mai? It’s going to be so exciting—lots of people coming from all across Britain, all wearing white robes and then the fire and everything. I always did love Guy Fawkes Night when I was a little kid.”
Evan watched her as she spoke, her face alight with excitement like a small child’s.
“This is cozy, isn’t it?” She beamed at him. “I’ve waited a long time to be asked to dinner alone with you, Evan bach.”
Evan couldn’t think of the right thing to say and went on eating.
“So Bronwen’s no better yet, is she?” Betsy asked suddenly.
“A little better, but not much,” Evan said. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long. Those bloody doctors just say it’s an unknown bug and leave it at that. I hate to see her as weak as this. She still won’t eat—” Suddenly a picture formed in his head of Betsy sitting on the counter as he carved the lamb. She had sat on his counter like that on the evening that Bronwen became ill. She had been in the kitchen as he prepared the meal. And she had asked him that question—if there was no Bronwen, would he notice her then? Was it too absurd to think that she might have put something in Bronwen’s food? Was it also too absurd to think that she might have spiked Randy Wunderlich’s coffee?
Chapter 20
Excerpt from The Way of the Druid by Rhiannon
The Cycle of the Druid Year
We believe there is a deep and mysterious connection between our individual lives and the life force of our planet. Therefore, we recognize eight occasions during the yearly cycle that are significant to us and we mark them by special ceremonies.
Four of our special ceremonies are solar, four are lunar—a balance between the feminine and the masculine, the Goddess and the Sun God.
At the solstices the sun is revered—in the glory of its maximum power in midsummer and in the quiet of its near-death in midwinter. At the equinoxes day and night are balanced. These are the times of planting and of harvest. In spring we sow and in autumn we reap the fruits of our toil.
Then there are four more ceremonies, during the year. This is the cycle of the land of planting and harvest.
At Samhuinn, on October 31st, livestock used to be slaughtered before the winter when there was no fodder. At Imboic, on February 2nd, lambs were born. Beltane, on May Ist, was the time of mating and purifying. Lughnasadh, on August 1st, was the time of harvest.
We celebrate these festivals to remind us that our lives are intervowen with the cycle of the year. We see them as more than festivals of farming. On October 31 time stands still. The veil between this world and the other is lifted. The spirits of the dead walk among us. We make contact to share their wisdom and inspiration. The
dead are honored and feasted as guardians of the tribe.
The winter solstice, called in the Druid tradition Alban Arthan—the Light of Arthur—is the time of death and rebirth. In the darkness we throw away those things that have been holding us back. One lamp is lit from flint and raised to the East. A year is reborn and a new cycle begins.
On February 2nd, called Imboic in the Druid tradition, is the celebration of the first snowdrop, the melting of the snows. Lambs are born. It is a gentle festival in which the Mother Goddess is honored with eight candles rising out of the water at the center of the ceremonial circle.
It is interesting to note that the Christians have adopted our ceremony as Candlemas. Our aspect of the Goddess is as inspiration of poets and healers. We celebrate in poetry and song. It is a good time for the eisteddfod.
At the spring equinox we celebrate the equality of night and day, the flowers of spring, and the time of snowing.
Beltane, which we Welsh call Calan Mai, is the feast of fertility, fire, and purification. We light the twin fires. In former times cattle were driven between them to assure fertility. Those who wish to conceive a child jump over the fire. Those who wish to be purified walk through it.
At the summer solstice we hold our longest ceremony. On the eve of the solstice we hold a vigil throughout the night. We mark the coming of dawn with a ceremony to celebrate the Sun God at his most powerful.
On August 1st is the ceremony of hay gathering. It is a ceremony of gathering together, of marriages. A wheel is passed around our circle to symbolize the turning of the year.
Last in our year is the autumn equinox, September 21st. In this ceremony we give thanks for the fruits of the earth and for the goodness of the Mother Goddess.
And what do these ceremonies truly mean for us? We no longer plant and sow, most of us. They represent the cycle of our lives. In the spring ceremonies we rejoice in youth. Spring makes us feel young again. The fires give us new life and vitality. In summer we celebrate the fullness of our blossoming into maturity, of parenthood, and our place in society. In autumn we rejoice in the harvest of our lives—be it creative works, children, or material success. As winter comes, we approach our declining years without fear and rejoice in the wisdom of age.
On Monday morning Evan opened up the police station at nine o’clock sharp and started on his report for the previous week. He hadn’t slept well last night. He knew he was being ridiculous to suspect Betsy, but the nagging doubt wouldn’t go away. He remembered how devious she could be when she tried—how she had shown up in her bikini and even dressed herself as a grandmother to try and get a part in a film when a film crew had come to the area a few months ago. She was a person who would take strong measures to get what she wanted, that was for sure. But to go as far as hurting somebody, even trying to kill somebody? Evan had always thought that Betsy had a kind heart. Now he didn’t know what to think, or how to follow up on his suspicions.
Wait and see, he decided. Let the detectives do their work and see what they come up with. He had only been working for a few minutes when his phone rang.
“Evan, this is Glynis. How are you?” As always she sounded bright and cheerful, full of energy and enthusiasm. Before he could answer, she went on. “Listen, I had to call you right away about that torch you found. That was brilliant of you to find it and to wrap it so carefully in your handkerchief like that. We got some super prints, not smudged at all.”
“Do you know whose?”
“Oh, yes. They all belong to Randy Wunderlich. His are the only prints on the torch.”
“Interesting,” he said. “So I was right in my hunch. He did intend to do his meditating in the upper cave, not the lower one. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would even go in that horrible place, especially not when the upper cave has such a fantastic view and is high and dry.”
“So what do you think happened? Why did he change his mind?” Glynis asked.
“I really don’t know … .”
“Oh come on, Evan. You’re really good at this. Your hunches are always spot on. What made him go down to the lower cave?”
“My guess would be that he didn’t go there. If we know that he fell asleep before he drowned, then it’s logical that the person who drugged him could drag him down to the lower cave. It’s a pity that the rocks and cave floor get so thoroughly washed over by the tides or we might have found scraps of fiber on some of the rocks.”
“So somebody knew he was planning to have a long meditation session in that upper cave and made sure he was drugged enough to put him to sleep. That’s right. You don’t have any hunches about which of them it could be?”
“That’s the tricky part. Everyone we spoke to had a good reason for wishing Randy Wunderlich wasn’t there—including his wife, I might add. But I wouldn’t go jumping to any conclusions if I were you,” Evan said. “My girlfriend had an interesting observation. She said he’d been a famous psychic in the States and people like that make lots of enemies.”
“So you think it could have been someone from outside?”
“I think it wouldn’t hurt to look into his background in the States.”
“Brilliant. I’ll run a computer search and see what comes up. I’ll let you know what I find.”
Evan smiled to himself when he hung up. At least Glynis was grateful for his help and happy to keep him updated on new developments, even if she did get the credit and he didn’t. He tried to concentrate on adding up figures for the last week. Then, some half hour later, the phone rang again.
“Evan, you’ve got to get down here and see this,” Glynis’s excited voice echoed down the phone.
“Your search engine turned up good stuff?”
“I’ll say. I’ve put in a call for Sergeant Watkins to come over and see it too. The D.C.I. is out at a regional meeting or I’m sure he’d want to see it.”
Evan ran straight to his motorbike. He was in on the action at a meeting where there would be no D.C.I. Hughes to ask him what he was doing there and to remind him that it was none of his business. He took the bends faster than he ever had before, now more comfortable with leaning inward and feeling the pull of gravity. “Next year, Isle of Man TT races,” he said to himself and laughed.
Glynis was sitting at the computer, printing out Web pages as he came in.
“This search engine has turned up over seven hundred mentions of his name.” She looked up excitedly.
“Popular man.”
“Or unpopular, as the case may be.” She handed him some sheets of paper. “Look what I’ve printed out so far.”
Evan took them from her and read the top headline: “Psychic Hot Line Guru Sued for Five Million.” His eyes scanned down the page. “Randy Wunderlich, whose psychic hot line has made his face familiar to every TV viewer in the country, is being sued in a Florida district court by Mary Sue Harper of Dade County. The suit alleges that Randy Wunderlich duped her out of her life savings by encouraging her to keep in daily contact via the 900 number and that his advice made her make disastrous life changes.”
“Five million,” Evan said. “So he must have been wiped out financially.”
“He won the case.” Glynis handed him another sheet of paper. “The jury decided that nobody forced Ms. Harper to keep running up phone bills by consulting him every day. But the judge warned him that what he was doing was morally wrong and he was going to recommend that the hot line be investigated by a federal commission.”
“And was it?”
“It’s all here.” Glynis waved papers excitedly. “He was investigated, the hot line was shut down, and he had to pay restitution to a whole lot of angry people who claimed he had tricked them out of money and wrecked their lives.”
“Not that great a psychic then.” Evan flicked through the pages she had given him.
“Not a legit psychic at all. No kind of credentials, anyway. Did some undergraduate work at a state college in California but that’s about it. A con man, actually.”
; “Fascinating.” Evan continued to read case after case of people, mainly women, telling stories of how Randy had kept them dependent on his advice, which often turned out to be bad.
“Do you think one of them could have tracked him down over here and then killed him?” Glynis asked.
Evan stared at the computer screen, thinking. “The person who killed him had some inside knowledge of his routine. That person knew he was planning to go and meditate in a cave. I can’t imagine he’d have announced that fact to the whole world.”
“So it still comes back to those closest to him—someone else who works closely with the center.”
“Maybe the next step should be to find out who had a prescription for the right kind of sleeping pills,” Evan said. “If it was someone from the center, they wouldn’t have had the prescription filled too far away, would they? We know which chemist handled Lady Annabel’s prescriptions. Her son went to pick one up for her that afternoon.”
“Too late to drug Randy.”
“Yes, and according to Michael, it wasn’t a drug he picked up. It was some kind of medicated face cream to get rid of wrinkles.”
Glynis grinned. “If she’s so vain, you’d think she’d go on a diet, wouldn’t you?”
“I get the impression that—” Evan broke off, staring at the computer screen. The Web page was a report of the federal commission’s investigation into the psychic hot line. Names of a lot of women registering complaints filled the page. Evan had been scanning them idly. None rang a bell. But at the bottom of the page: “Also indicted for fraud is Mr. Wunderlich’s partner, Mary Elizabeth Harcourt of Philadelphia, Pa.”
“That’s it!” Evan stabbed excitedly at the screen. “I knew something about her didn’t add up.”
“Do we know her?” Glynis asked.
“Emmy Court. It has to be. Her name wasn’t Emmy. It’s M. E. Short for Mary Elizabeth.”
“Oh my goodness. You’re right.”
“I’ve been wondering about her all along,” Evan said. “It always struck me that something didn’t add up about her. Let’s look her up on your computer.”