“Hey!” Aunt Tillie pinched Landon’s wrist to get his attention. “That’s ageist!”
“Are you saying you could climb into a tree and shoot someone?” Steve asked, his eyes somber as they latched onto Aunt Tillie’s.
“I could figure a way to do it if I really wanted,” Aunt Tillie said. “I didn’t do it, though, so don’t look at me.”
“I don’t think you did it,” Steve said. “From what Chief Davenport told me, you were furious when you found out your great-nieces were at Viola Hendricks’ house. You didn’t want them talking to her. Why?”
“Because Viola is a crazy person,” Aunt Tillie replied. “She’s nuts. Craziness rubs off on people. It’s a proven fact.”
“I can’t argue with the ‘being nuts’ part,” Thistle said. “That woman has, like, fifty ceramic clowns in her house. That doesn’t denote sanity.”
Landon shuddered. “I thought you were joking about the clowns.”
“Oh, I never joke about clowns,” Thistle said.
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Steve pressed, refusing to let Aunt Tillie off the hook. “Why don’t you want your great-nieces investigating this? I greatly respect Chief Davenport, and he believes you know something that could help us. I want to know what that is.”
Aunt Tillie blew out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know anything. How many times do I have to tell you people that?”
“Until we believe you,” Mom replied. “Aunt Tillie, I don’t know what’s going on here, but enough is enough. Bay could’ve died yesterday.”
“Me too,” Clove said.
“And Clove, too,” Mom added. “Just tell us what you know. We know you’re hiding something.”
“That’s it!” Aunt Tillie slapped her hands against the table as she stood. “I’m the matriarch of this family. Me!” She thumped her chest. “I don’t ask you people to do everything I say or to listen when I talk, but when I say I don’t know something it’s your job to believe me.”
“That’s crap,” Landon said, slumping back in his chair. “I know you well enough to realize you’re blowing smoke, because you’re trying to cloud our vision. You don’t want us figuring out what you’re hiding. You’ll eventually tell us, so it would be great if you would just get it over with and do it now.”
“No!” Aunt Tillie extended a warning finger and wagged it in Landon’s face. “You’re not the boss of me, Fed. I like you almost eighty percent of the time. This is none of your business, though.”
“Aunt Tillie, you’re being unreasonable,” Mom argued. “Do you want something bad to happen to Bay, Clove or Thistle? They’re on a killer’s radar now. You can stop this.”
“I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to any of them,” Aunt Tillie said. “Well, that’s not exactly true. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them unless I do it. They’ve almost always earned it when that happens.”
“Oh, the love here is almost overwhelming,” Thistle deadpanned, pressing her hand to her heart.
“That’s it, smart mouth! You’re on my list.”
Thistle groaned. “Again? Fine. Whatever. Stay away from my pants, though. I’m in no mood to wear tracksuits for a week.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Aunt Tillie said, her gaze even as it landed on Steve. “Your answers are in this town, but they’re not with me.”
Those were her final words before flouncing out of the room. I expected Steve to complain or order Landon to go after her. Instead he chuckled.
“I’m really starting to like her,” Steve said. “Are there more eggs?”
Thirty
I watched the door Aunt Tillie disappeared through for a few moments before turning back to my breakfast. “She’s definitely hiding something.”
“Oh, what was your first clue?” Thistle asked.
“I’ll talk to her,” Landon said, digging his fork into his hash browns. “I’m going to eat breakfast first, though. Where is my bacon? I smelled it when we walked through the kitchen. I know it’s here.”
Twila handed him the plate hidden by her elbow. He almost looked relieved when he saw it.
“We wouldn’t let Mr. Newton have it,” Twila said, her eyes twinkling.
“Yes, they guarded the bacon with their lives,” Steve said. “May I have some now?”
Landon shifted the plate closer to his chest. It was heaped with greased goodness, yet he didn’t appear ready to share. “This is mine.”
“There’s like half a pig there,” Steve argued. “I want some.”
“You can’t have it,” Landon said. “I need it.”
I rolled my eyes and snagged a piece, earning a murderous glance for my efforts. “You can’t eat all of this bacon,” I said. “You’ll get sick.”
“Fine. You can have some bacon,” Landon said. “You almost died, and I feel like spoiling you. No one else, though.”
“You cannot be serious,” Steve pressed. “I’m your boss. You’re supposed to be frightened of me. Give me some bacon.”
“Give him some of that bacon or I’ll never cook it for you again, Landon,” Mom warned, her eyes flashing.
“Fine.” Landon scooped a huge mound of the bacon onto his plate before handing it over. “I feel so unloved.”
“I love you,” I said, moving one of my slices to his plate. “You’ll be okay.”
Landon pushed the bacon slice back to my plate and added two of his own. “You need the protein,” he explained. “You’re still pale.”
“That’s because I scrubbed half of my skin off in the tub last night,” I said, taking a sip of my juice before focusing on Steve. “What do you think is going on? You’re an outsider, so you can’t lean one way or the other. With only the evidence we have, where would you look?”
“Wherever your aunt went,” Steve replied. “She knows something. I think she’s covering for someone. Who could that be?”
“It has to be Patty,” I said, rolling my neck. “No one else makes sense.”
“What could Patty’s secret be?” Twila asked. “What do we know about her?”
“She never married,” Mom said. “She volunteered a lot of her time at the daycare center. She liked reading to the kids. She never had kids of her own, and I remember thinking it was such a shame because she enjoyed spending time with them so much.”
“She thought Victor was the great love of her life,” I offered. “He was more interested in Aunt Tillie, though, and when Aunt Tillie blew him off he opted to leave town instead of going back to Patty.”
“Did Patty think he would return to her?” Steve asked.
“That’s the rumor,” I said. “Patty was a few years older than everyone else involved. It’s not a big age difference now, but back then it would’ve been more pronounced.”
“Women married younger back then,” Marnie said. “Patty probably would’ve been considered an old maid by the time she hit twenty-five.”
“And by that time Aunt Tillie was married to Uncle Calvin, Mrs. Little was married to her husband, Mrs. Gunderson was married … what about Fay and Viola? I can’t remember either of them ever marrying.”
“Viola never married, but Fay was married for a short time,” Mom said. “I don’t know what happened to her husband, but my understanding is the divorce was acrimonious. Divorce was unheard of then, especially in a place as small as Walkerville. I think it was quite the scandal.”
“Who else was part of that group?” Steve asked. “You have Fay, Patty, Mrs. Little and Viola. Did anyone else associate with them?”
I shrugged. “Just Edith.”
“Who’s Edith?”
Uh-oh. I took extra time chewing my bacon and made a big show of drinking my tomato juice to wash it down before speaking. “Oh, she was a woman who worked at the newspaper a long time ago,” I replied. “She died at her desk in the late fifties or early sixties. I can’t remember all of the details. She was young, though.”
“Why did you bring her up now?”
/> Crap! I have such a big mouth. “I was looking into all of the relationships from that period. I recognized Edith’s name, so I had to look it up. She’s kind of a local legend – even a ghost, if you will – at the newspaper office.”
“In a town this size, I guess that’s to be expected,” Steve said.
Landon gave my knee a reassuring squeeze under the table. “We’re out of people to question. Mrs. Little will either lie or refuse to answer. That leaves Aunt Tillie.”
“One of us has to go out there and question her,” Mom said, her pointed gaze landing on me.
Double crap! “Why me?” That came out a lot whinier than I initially envisioned.
“Because you almost died yesterday and Aunt Tillie was really upset about it,” Mom replied. “Besides that, for whatever reason – and I don’t truly understand it – she has a penchant for opening up to you.”
“I think it’s because she identifies with you,” Thistle said. “You share certain … things.”
“Like what?” Steve asked.
“Loyalty,” Landon answered. “Bay is extremely loyal, and Aunt Tillie respects that. I think you should question her, too. If you’re not up for it, though, I’ll handle it.”
Well, wasn’t this just a bite on the butt? “I’ll do it,” I said, blowing out a sigh. “Can I finish my breakfast first?”
Landon slid two more slices of bacon onto my plate and kissed my cheek. “Eat. You need your strength.”
“Oh, you two are adorable,” Steve gushed, utilizing a tone I knew would drive Landon batty. “You could be in a romance novel.”
Landon cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. “This has not been my week.”
I patted his hand. “It will get better.”
“Oh, I know it will get better,” Landon said, “once this case is solved. We have a bacon candle, and Aunt Tillie is out of the guesthouse. Things will be great then.”
“You’re a sick man,” Mom said, shaking her head.
“You love me anyway,” Landon said, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Can someone pass the hash browns?”
AUNT TILLIE was pruning a plant when I found her in the greenhouse. She rolled her eyes as I entered.
“I should’ve known they’d send you,” she said. “Do they think I’ll go easy on you because you almost died yesterday?”
“They think you’ll go easy on me because we share a gift,” I replied. “They didn’t come right out and say that in front of Director Newton, but that was the gist of it.” I trailed my fingers along the metal bench as I moved closer. “What are you doing?”
“This is a greenhouse, Bay. What do you think I’m doing?”
I opted for honesty. “Hiding. I want to know why.”
“I’m not hiding, Bay,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m just … thinking.”
I sat on a stool and rested my hand on one of the wire pieces Aunt Tillie used to shore up her tomato stalks. “Are you thinking about the secret you’ve been hiding for Patty?”
“What secret?”
“I’m not stupid, Aunt Tillie,” I said. “Well, maybe I am. Mrs. Gunderson is the one who suggested you weren’t lying to protect yourself. She said you would never put your family at risk for your own lie. Loyalty would force you to keep a secret for someone else, though. You’ve always been like that.”
“Oh, good grief,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “Fine. Do you want to hear a story?”
I nodded.
“I’ll tell you a story then,” Aunt Tillie said. “Patty was one of those people who never really fit in. She wanted the world and she thought a great boyfriend would give her that. She couldn’t see beyond Walkerville or the people in it.
“Her life was exceedingly boring, normal even,” she continued. “Then, one day people started dying. It was her best friend first. Patty was asleep in the next room and heard her screaming. There was blood everywhere when she got to the bedroom and the girl was already dead. There was no assailant in the room, though.
“After that Patty became obsessed with solving the murder. She did some stupid things along the way,” she said. “She tracked down the murderer and realized he was a local child molester who had died years before. The people of the town killed him and he came back from the dead to murder their children for revenge.”
I scowled. “That’s the plot from A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
Aunt Tillie stilled. “Oh, you’ve seen that, have you? It was on AMC the other night. That Johnny Depp is quite the looker. It’s too bad his bed ate him.”
“Okay, Aunt Tillie, enough is enough,” I snapped. “What is really going on?”
“No matter what story I tell you, Bay, it won’t live up to the hype in your mind,” Aunt Tillie said. “You should let it go.”
“I can’t let it go,” I argued. “It almost killed me yesterday. You need to let go of whatever is holding you back and tell me.”
“Fine,” Aunt Tillie muttered, shaking her head. “I think you know a lot of it. Patty was obsessed with Victor Donahue. I was never in with that crowd because Margaret was obsessed with my secrets. She was convinced I was hiding something.”
“You were.”
“That’s not the point,” Aunt Tillie said. “Margaret stalked me from one end of this town to the other for a full year. She was convinced I could magically make her happy. I told her that’s not how the world worked, but she didn’t believe me. She went out of her way to make me miserable, and I did what I always do.”
“Declared war,” I supplied.
“Exactly,” Aunt Tillie said. “We went after each other every chance we got. We embarrassed each other. When she liked a boy I took him from her. When I liked a boy she tried to take him from me. It never worked, though, because people liked me better.”
I refused to let her distract me. “How does Victor Donahue play into this?”
“Victor was handsome and sweet and going absolutely nowhere,” Aunt Tillie replied. “We engaged in a game of sorts at his expense. It ended up being at Patty’s expense, too. I’m not proud of what we did, but all I could think about was beating Margaret. I didn’t think about what it would mean for others.
“We had a bet to see who could get Victor,” she continued. “He was dating Patty, and she was in love with him. She thought they would marry. Margaret and I went after Victor with everything we had.”
“And you won.”
“I did,” Aunt Tillie confirmed. “I didn’t want him, though. I never did. I only wanted to win. There was a lot of fallout from that. Patty was broken-hearted because she thought Victor would return to her. Victor was bitter because I used him. Margaret was loathsome because … well … she’s a horrible person.
“When Victor refused to go back to Patty she picked a fight with me,” she continued. “It got physical. We had a showdown on Main Street. Ginger made me realize after the fact that I was wrong and that I owed Patty an apology. I went to her house and offered her my sincere regrets, and she told me she was pregnant. Victor was the father, and now she was alone and knocked up at a time when that was not allowed.”
“Holy crap,” I said. “Why didn’t Patty tell Victor about the baby?”
“She did. He didn’t care,” Aunt Tillie’s pruning shears clipped a bit faster. “He was more interested in me. He was jealous of Calvin, and followed me for a time. There was an incident out at the old homestead. Victor tried to … do something untoward … when he caught me alone outside. He failed, and Calvin stepped in.
“In those times the police didn’t follow every rule, so Victor was allowed to leave town for his job with the stipulation he didn’t return,” she explained. “Patty was beside herself. Her life was over. I decided to help her. She was already something of a recluse, so I supplied her with groceries and helped her with money when I could until she gave birth,” she said. “Then we took the baby to Traverse City and placed it with an adoption agency.”
“Oh, my … Aunt Tillie.”
&nb
sp; “Times were different then, Bay. You have to understand that.”
“What happened then?”
“Patty was full of guilt … and hate. Even though I helped her, she cut me out of her life after that. We kept our distance. I respected her wishes and didn’t press her.”
“How does Mrs. Little play into this?” I asked.
“Somehow … and I’m still not sure how … she found out about the baby when he was about five,” Aunt Tillie answered. “She tracked Victor down and told him she’d found the baby. I guess he always assumed Patty terminated the pregnancy. That’s what he told Margaret, anyway. He was married at that point and he caused a big fuss and claimed the boy for his own.
“Patty tried to stop him, and Victor had harsh things to say to her … I mean ugly things … but he ripped the boy from his adopted home and raised him,” she said. “Patty was devastated. Victor was raising her son with another woman. She never got over it.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “That still doesn’t explain why someone would kill her now.”
“I don’t know why someone would kill her now,” Aunt Tillie said, her tone earnest. “That makes no sense. It all stems from that time, though. Margaret, Fay, Edith and Viola all knew about the baby. They all … attacked … Patty – and even Victor a little by extension – when they found out. They told as many people as they could about the out-of-wedlock baby and went on and on about sins of the flesh.”
“They were basically jerks,” I supplied. “We’re dealing with all of the players now. I asked Edith about this, and she didn’t say a word. I’m so ticked off at her right now. She could’ve helped us.”
“Edith was scandalized by what happened, and she was always an idiot,” Aunt Tillie said. “She probably didn’t want to admit what an idiot she was at the time. You have to understand … those women were brutal. Did you know chickens peck a sick or wounded animal to death? That’s what Margaret, Fay, Viola and Edith tried to do to Patty. I wasn’t strong enough to stop them, and I had my own sins to deal with.”
“But who would kill Patty?” I pressed. “Why kill her now? What good could possibly come of it?”
Charms & Witchdemeanors (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 8) Page 28