by Harper Lin
My thoughts went back to Jake, who had made so much sense last night. I wasn’t going to enjoy telling him he was utterly, completely wrong about Tom’s mother and he was to never give me advice on meeting parents ever again.
I went into the kitchen just in time for Treacle to slink inside.
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.
“Tom’s mother is out there. She wasn’t very nice. I’m just waiting for her to leave.”
“There is something wrong with her. I sensed it before.”
“You did warn me.” The cat slunk over and rubbed against my leg.
Just then, we heard some shouting.
Kevin turned around. Treacle’s ears perked up. I held my breath.
“I know exactly what you are!” It was Aunt Astrid. “You are no longer welcome here! Not now! Not ever!”
Quickly, I scooped up Treacle and burst into the dining room. Patience looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Aunt Astrid looked like a wild woman. Her eyes were wide with judgment. Her hair had fallen from the clips in wisps around her face, and she stood as straight as an arrow, pointing at Tom’s mother.
“I see you!” was the last thing my aunt said, and it was enough to make Patience turn and stomp out of the café.
There were two other patrons in the room, who looked on in shock. But they remained in their seats as Aunt Astrid apologized for the disturbance and gave them each a complimentary oatmeal cookie. They were the size of hubcaps, so it was a pretty good deal.
“What in the world? I leave the room for a minute, and look what happens!”
I set my cat on an empty table as I watched Patience hurry past the café window, keeping her head down.
“What’s gotten into you?”
My aunt sat down at her table but said nothing.
“Bea?”
Bea looked as if she had an idea of what happened, but since it involved her mother, she was going to wait for permission to say something.
I walked over and took a seat across from Aunt Astrid.
“Are you going to spill it, or am I going to have to resort to torture? You know how much I hate torture. So messy.” I shivered then smiled helplessly at my aunt.
She had tears in her eyes.
“Cath, I am afraid you may not see Tom anymore after this.” She looked down. “I’m sorry. It was not supposed to turn out this way at all. Things were supposed to be so different.”
“Okay, well, I didn’t think Patience liked me. After my conversation with her, I was right in my assumption. But what were you yelling for? I thought I handled it just fine.”
“You did, Cath. You handled that woman with class. I was very proud of you. But she was not playing fair.”
“What do you mean?”
My aunt took a deep breath and looked past me out the picture window.
“Tom’s mother has a handful of psychic powers.”
“Really?”
It made sense. Tom said he had experienced some strange happenings as a kid. A premonition here, a dream that came true there. He had to have gotten it from somewhere, I guessed.
“But she doesn’t use it the same way we do.” Aunt Astrid’s voice was quiet, as if she were telling me not to worry about the thunder as she was putting me to bed. “First of all, she’s not nearly as equipped as we are. She didn’t know that I could see it the second she showed up here. She thought she was being rather slick studying you, looking for chinks in your armor.”
“Why would she do that?”
“From all I could gather, she did it because she could.”
“It wasn’t to protect Tom? Make sure he wasn’t being hoodwinked or maybe put in harm’s way?”
I looked at Bea. Her head was tilted to the side. She knew I was recalling what Jake had told me the night before. He’d made it sound so simple.
“Perhaps in her mind, she thought it was to protect Tom. I don’t know for sure. But she thought she was getting away with something, and I wanted to make sure she knew she wasn’t.”
“What was she trying to get away with?” I didn’t even really want to know, but the words slipped out anyway.
“Breaking you two up.”
“But why?” I was angry and upset and confused all at once. “What’s so bad about me?”
“Nothing. There is nothing bad about you, Cath,” Aunt Astrid practically yelled. “There are people who see in you what they will never be. Patience Warner saw in you something she coveted. I don’t know what it is, but I could guess. You didn’t stand a chance because she’d made up her mind long before she ever saw you.”
I felt rejected. Maybe I hadn’t made the best first impression. Had I tried a little harder and focused on anyone else that wasn’t me, maybe she would have liked me.
“She’s done it before,” Bea piped up. “When I shook her hand that first time, there was a layer of deceit so thick I could cut it with a knife. Somehow, Tom didn’t follow the career she wanted. He’s got a pretty strong aura. I would expect him to be a tough nut to crack. But when it comes to the women he’s dated, well, she hasn’t approved of any. They all seem to leave, and Tom hasn’t put the pieces together yet. He has no idea it’s his mother stirring the pot.”
I sat there for a second and thought about this. There was part of me that wanted to say I’ll show her and go find Tom right away and hold him tight and kiss his lips.
But then I wondered about the other women he’d dated. Who was to say I was his soul mate? Maybe his mother had chased her off. Maybe he was supposed to be married to someone else, right now, expecting their third baby, and living in a nice house somewhere.
If I went out with Tom now, it would be for spite, to show that woman I was here and I wasn’t going anywhere. Even though I don’t love your son…
Where did that thought come from?
“Aunt Astrid, what should I do?”
“Unlike Patience, I’ve got to leave you to make your own decisions. Whatever it is, your cousin and I love you.”
“I think maybe I should go wash my face and…”
Just then, Jake and Blake came into the café, looking as if they’d both been punched in the gut.
“What’s the matter?”
“We just found Patrick Fouts,” Jake said. “He’s dead.”
17
Asphyxiation
Jake and Blake said that a neighbor had called to say they heard screaming.
“The brownstones in that neighborhood are right on top of each other,” Jake said. “The neighbor who called it in said that Patrick was a jerk. He often made a lot of noise since moving back in with his mother about two years ago.”
“They also said he’d stumble home drunk and on more than one occasion would be passed out in the courtyard with the door open all night,” Blake added.
Quickly, Bea told her husband that we had just come from there and that we’d said hello to his mother and had a talk with Patrick about his relationship with Niles.
“It couldn’t have been more than two hours ago.” She looked at Jake apologetically.
“Did you see anything strange while you were there?” Blake asked.
“No. Except that he did leave the door open. We yelled inside to wake him up,” I added. Without holding back anything, I also added what he told us about his relationship with Niles.
“How did he die?” Aunt Astrid asked.
“A combination of asphyxiation and blood loss,” Blake said as he eyeballed some of Kevin’s delicious blonde brownies. I got up and put a few in a sack and handed them to him.
“Blood loss?” I asked.
“He was sliced up pretty good before he had about ten pounds of dirt crammed down his throat.” Blake took one brownie and devoured it in seconds. I couldn’t help but notice that the more gruesome the case, the bigger the appetite.
“So was it the same person who got Niles?”
Aunt Astrid wedged herself behind the counter to get two large paper cups and filled them with coffee
for the detectives. She handed one to me, and I carefully added the cream and sugar for Blake. Jake drank his black.
I also grabbed two veggie subs that were new on the menu and put those in another sack. The guys were going to need to keep up their strength with this one.
I handed that to Blake too.
“For lunch,” I said.
He winked as Jake continued talking. I felt a skip in my chest but ignored it and went to pet Treacle, who had come to say hello to Blake.
Bea leaned over the counter to hold Jake’s hands.
“We are pretty sure it’s the same person. A very distinctive knife made the wounds on the body. If we find the knife, we’d find the killer. But what would really help is if the murderer just waltzed into the station and turned themselves in,” Jake joked.
“If you ladies spoke to Patrick, you’ll need to come to the station,” Blake said after washing down his second brownie with a sip of hot coffee.
“Of course.”
Bea hurried around the counter, squeezing past her mother, to grab her purse, then rushed up to Jake and slipped her hand in his. I sort of moseyed. It had been a really lousy morning, and this was just the cherry on top.
“We’ll call you if we need bail money,” I said.
I had finished answering questions first. We weren’t as unlucky as I’d thought since the neighbor who called the police had mentioned seeing two women leave Patrick’s place just a short while before all the screaming started.
Since that witness said that the redhead looked a little woozy, Jake was in a dither, fussing over Bea as if they’d reported she had been bleeding from her eyeballs and her lower intestines had fallen out.
“It’s been a long morning,” I told Blake. “Can you tell Bea I’m heading home?”
“Sure,” he mumbled, barely looking up at me. “Do you want me to call your aunt too?”
“That would be nice. Thanks.”
“No problem, Cath.”
He had been scribbling something that only he could read in a file before he quickly shut it, jumped up from his desk, and stomped to the office at the end of the bullpen, where Bea and I had waited when we first got there.
I looked around. No one even noticed me. So I slung my purse over my shoulder and walked out of the station.
It wasn’t a long walk back to the café or home. I was a little worried about the heavens opening up, as the sky was gray. But I managed to make it. I was exhausted, and this wasn’t like me. Maybe I was coming down with a cold or something. But it felt as if ten days of drama had been crammed into the past few hours.
Between Tom’s mom, Patrick Fouts, and this whole murder case, I couldn’t tell what to focus on first. The fact that focusing on Tom wasn’t at the forefront of my mind was another issue to cause me angst.
“What is wrong with you, Cath?”
18
Aura Wrap
I decided to do a cleansing. I filled my house with the sweet smell of burning sage and just wallowed in it. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years. There were short, simple spells for witches to perform on themselves that acted like exercise did on regular people. I needed to get out of my rut.
In my closet, behind a stack of sweatshirts and a beautiful hatbox filled with keepsakes, was my own spell book. Certainly it was nothing like the library at Aunt Astrid’s place. But it was mine.
During the past couple of years, I had collected a spell here, a chant there, and organized them in my little notebook—complete with stickers and happy doodles.
“So let’s see,” I mumbled. “Psychic alignment? Maybe a hydrating aura wrap? Aromatherapy for a depressed animus. That might work. No. Here’s the ticket.”
The next page was marked with hearts and smiley faces.
“An invigorating pneuma wash with an aura peel and psychic muscle polishing. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”
This was such a simple procedure that while I collected my supplies—two white candles, a handful of pink crystals, a cotton hankie, and a needle with red thread—I pondered my situation.
“She didn’t even give me a chance,” I said as I threaded the needle. That was what was really upsetting.
I lit the candles and recited the words I had carefully written down. The crystals were placed in the proper places around me, and then I blew the candles out.
Within minutes, I began to feel the soothing effects of my at-home spa treatment. It helped. After an hour, I felt as if I needed a nap and lay down.
I knew it was later in the day when Treacle hopped up on the bed. I’d gotten into the habit of leaving the window cracked enough for him to come and go as he pleased.
“You’ve had a rough day?” he asked, head-butting me and purring softly.
“I feel better now,” I said as I wrapped him up in my arms.
We both fell back to sleep. When I woke up, it was dusk. I felt like a brand-new person when I reached for the phone and called my aunt.
“No, honey. You just stay home and relax. It’ll do you some good. Bea and I can handle it. But…”
“But what?”
“Well, Tom stopped by, looking for you.”
“I’ll bet he did.”
“I’m not sure what his mother told him, but he looked like he really wanted to talk to you.”
“Was he mad?”
“No.” My aunt sighed. “But he was concerned.”
“Okay. I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Aunt Astrid.”
When I hung up, I had no idea why I had said that. I had no desire to talk to Tom about his mother or anything else. What had happened? Just two weeks ago I had been giddy and giggly over the man. Now, well, I wasn’t.
I looked at the clock on my nightstand. I had had a good rest, but now I was ready to attack the world. I wanted to show off my glowing aura and my finely toned psyche. But as per usual, I was going left when the world was going right.
“Hey, Treacle. You up for an adventure?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m thinking maybe I’d like to take another trip to Niles’s house. You in?”
“Why do you want to go back there?”
“I don’t know. Because I don’t want to just sit around, yet I don’t want to talk to anyone. Not anyone who walks on two legs, that is.”
“Yeah. I’m in.”
I got dressed in dark clothes that covered my arms and legs, even though it was a warm night. The idea of walking on the Freudenfur property gave me images of swarming mosquitos and chiggers.
Before long, we were in the car and just around the corner from Niles’s house. This time, there was no party or long line of cars for me to camouflage my car behind.
“I’m going to park a couple blocks away. We’ll have to walk.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Why? Are you picking up on something?”
“Not yet. But just give it some time.”
I parked on a quiet street around the block where a few other vehicles were parked. Treacle hopped out and sniffed the air, and we began our stroll. It didn’t take but a few minutes for both of us to feel a shift in the air.
“What is that smell?” I asked as we neared the house.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s like an old, earthy smell, like a dead tree or stagnant water or something.”
We kept walking until we were finally at the front of the house.
“How about it?” I asked.
Part of me was hoping Treacle might chicken out, and I thought he was hoping I would do the same.
“Sure. Why not? What could happen at the front of the house?”
I looked up and down the street. We were the only ones out. As I scanned the houses for any neighbors who might be keeping an eye on the place, I wondered if maybe this was too much. Sure, I was wide-awake after my home-spa day, but I could always watch some television or draw some pictures or do the laundry. Why in the world wasn’t I at home, doing the lau
ndry?
Treacle and I slowly walked up the driveway. The house sat in complete darkness, looking at us as if we were tiny, intrusive ants that could easily be squashed.
Squinting, I looked in the windows. The curtains were closed on all of them except one. Was that the creepy doll room? I tried to match the interior layout to the windows, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Stop thinking about those dolls.”
Treacle heard me think to myself. “What dolls?”
I explained the doll room if for no other reason than to hear myself talk.
There was no porch light. The crescent moon didn’t illuminate our path that much. As we got closer, I was sure I could hear something rustling in the trees that flanked the house. There were large hedges of fragrant lilac along the face of the house.
“It’s spooky out here, but I’m not picking up anything really weird. Are you?” I asked Treacle. “And I just did a whole beauty routine on my aura so I’m free of any real blockage. I don’t think Bea could have done any better.”
“I’m happy you cleared out your blockage.”
“Well, when you put it like that, you make it sound gross.”
“I’m especially glad Bea didn’t have to do it. I’m sure she is too.”
“Very funny, cat.”
We crept closer.
“Do you want to go in the house?” Treacle asked.
“I thought we’d just look around the grounds. I don’t know what I expected to find. I just thought that maybe…”
Suddenly Treacle stopped. His back began to arch, and I watched in the pale light as his hair stood on end, making him appear at least two sizes bigger than he was.
“Cath.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
Treacle stared at the carport attached to the left side of the house.
“It’s just a shadow, right?” I squinted harder. My eyes were drawn up to the window that I thought had no curtain. Strangely, it now appeared to have a curtain over it. Was it a trick of the light or lack thereof? Did I just think the window had no curtain because of the angle from which I was looking at it? Or did someone put the curtain back in place as they saw us approaching?