I glanced through a few pages of each notebook, determining that everyone had written something. “You’ve done well on a confusing day,” I said. “I’m going to dismiss you early. Get some rest. Kelly, Mr. Pennington has checked with your dad, and he says you may stay with Therese tonight, rather than go home so late. He’s had an extra cot moved into her room. Everybody, we’ll all be back here by eleven thirty. Got it?”
They all agreed. Duke sounded hesitant but said he’d be there. I grabbed my purse and jacket and went to the diner, where Pete had somehow commandeered a booth for the two of us.
“What a day,” I said, sliding in beside him. “I’ve got so much to tell you, but first, how’s Thom?”
“He answered a few questions. Then his dad showed up with a lawyer, so we didn’t really get much. Except that he swears he didn’t do it.”
“And Joe? What’s going on there?”
“Joe’s not talking, either. Chief told him not to leave town and let him go. Too bad, but we’ll probably need Kelly’s testimony eventually, and it’s unlikely that we’ll get it if we arrest her father now. Anyway, moving a body gets lower priority than a murder case.”
“I see,” I said, hoping Kelly wouldn’t ever have to testify against her father or her best friend. “I’ve been up to the top floor, and it looks a lot different than it did when you saw it Christmas night. And I got to talk to Megan today. You’re going to enjoy meeting her. She answered all my questions.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I found out that Tabitha wasn’t crazy, and we were right about Mary Alice running away to West Virginia with the baby’s father,” I said proudly. “And Joe Greene is actually Mary Alice’s grandson, and Mary Alice had a couple of boxes of the gold coins. And, Pete, I know where the gold is. It’s in a playroom somewhere down in the old tunnel. How’s that?”
“Did I ever tell you you’d make a good cop?”
“Several times,” I said. “And that’s not all. I found out how she was mailing all those letters to the president and to Captain Gable, even though she was locked up.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute.” He held up his hand. “Who is Captain Gable?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? He was the captain of the gunrunning boat. When they were trading guns for cocaine.”
Pete reached for his notebook and flipped through the pages. “Gable. Here it is. Lee, where is Sammy Trout right now?”
“Sammy? Why? I dismissed the class. Told them all to be back here at eleven thirty.”
He tapped the top of the notebook. “Because Sammy’s cell mate when he was in prison was one Benny Gable, commercial fisherman.”
“Captain Gable is dead, Pete,” I said. “Aunt Ibby checked. Do you think Sammy is at the Tabby because of something the captain told him when they were in jail together?”
“It’s possible. Either that or it’s one huge coincidence.”
“You don’t believe that,” I said.
“I work with facts, Lee. I’ve seen some awfully strange things happen.” He put the notebook in his pocket. “So I’ll just say it’s possible.”
“Megan knows all about Tabitha sending gold to the captain’s wife,” I said. “Maybe she knows some more about him. Want to go up and meet her?”
“Sure do,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We climbed the three flights of stairs to the Trumbulls’ penthouse apartment. I could hardly wait to see Pete’s face when he saw the transformation of the place. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Wow. It must have looked almost like this when they lived here.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s going to look wonderful on TV tonight. Come on. I think Megan and the other witches are in the ballroom.”
“Isn’t that the room with the messed-up piles of furniture ?”
“Was,” I said. “Not anymore.”
I led Pete through the series of revamped rooms to the open double doors of the ballroom. A square table covered with a black velvet cloth had been placed in the center of the room, beneath the glittering chandelier. Men and women stood here and there, their figures reflected in huge gold-framed mirrors. It looked like a normal social gathering, except, of course, for the fact that every person there, other than Pete and I, wore a long hooded black robe.
“Look, there’s Megan,” I said, pointing. “And River, too.”
Megan sat in a throne-like chair, and River, standing by her side, motioned for us to join them. We hurried across the vast polished floor. I knew introductions were in order and desperately wished I’d asked River for the proper form of address for a witch queen or goddess, or whatever Megan’s title might be. Thankfully, River bailed me out.
“Lady Megan, goddess of this coven,” she said, “may I present my friend Peter Mondello? You already know my friend Lee.”
Megan extended her hand. “Welcome, Peter Mondello. We’ve spoken on the telephone.”
“Lady Megan,” he said, taking her hand and bowing easily and gracefully, as though he met witch goddesses every day. “My great pleasure.”
“You had some questions for me about a map,” Megan said, reaching for her lorgnette. “Do you have it with you?”
“I do,” Pete said, pulling a rolled paper from his inside pocket. “You spoke to River about a hidden tunnel you saw when you were a child, somewhere near the waterfront. I hope you can locate it on a map.”
He unrolled the paper and held it close to the old woman’s face. She peered at it through the handled glasses for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I can point it out if you like, but it’s easier to just tell you where it is. I pass by it on my walk every morning.”
Pete didn’t look surprised very often, but he did then. “You can?” He rolled the paper up and put it back in his pocket. “Where is it?”
“It’s in the little hillside behind the house Tabitha gave to Mary Alice. The house Tabitha’s grandfather Smith used to own. Of course, I can’t see the house anymore. It may have changed over the years, but I know it’s still there. There’s a trapdoor that goes to the tunnel. It’s hidden well, but if you go inside and quite a way to the right, there’s a playhouse back in there.” She smiled, and for an instant her pale eyes seemed to sparkle. “It had a bright red door. Tabitha had both sets of keys, but she gave one set to Mary Alice.”
“Greene’s Tavern,” I said.
“Both tunnels spread out in all directions. The city engineer says that once there were entrances and exits all over the city.” Pete shook his head. “One of them was right under our noses.”
River put her hands on the back of Megan’s throne. “See?” she said. “I told you she never forgets anything.”
“Lady Megan,” Pete said, “may I ask one more question ?”
“You may, sir.”
“We know that Tabitha sent gold coins to the wife of a fisherman named Benny Gable. Do you know about that?”
“Just that the coins were all marked with a tiny letter T and that she made him promise that neither he nor his wife would ever tell anyone where the coins came from,” she said. “By that time it was perfectly legal to have gold coins, you know, so I don’t suppose Mrs. Gable had any trouble spending them.”
“Maybe the captain told Sammy about the coins,” I said. “Maybe that’s why he came to the school.”
“Could be,” Pete said and bowed to the seated witch. “Thank you, Lady Megan. You’ve been so helpful. Thank you, too, River. We’ll be watching you tonight.”
“Blessed be, Peter,” said the goddess witch. “Blessed be, Maralee.”
Pete and I left the ballroom and went back downstairs to the diner.
“Do you want me to try to contact Sammy and ask him to come back?” I asked as we sat at the counter.
“No. Don’t want to spook him,” Pete said. “Hopefully, he’ll show up at eleven thirty with the others, and we’ll see if he wants to talk about his old cell mate.” He looked at the Coca-Cola clock on the stainless-steel-paneled wall. “That’s a few
hours away. Do you have to go home and change?”
“I do, and I’d better get going,” I said. “Mr. Pennington invited Aunt Ibby to take Thom’s spot in the invited guest section, and she’ll probably ride back with me.”
“I’ll just hang out here, then,” he said. “See you tonight.”
I stopped to check on my classroom and found it empty. Mr. Pennington had ordered the entire building closed to the public at the request of the city fathers. No one wanted to have witch protesters wandering the halls, interfering with the television production. Even the dorm students, except for those who’d made the guest list, had been told to stay in their rooms or to find another venue to watch the show. I headed down to the main floor, wished the guard at the basement entrance a good evening, walked outside, and climbed into my beautiful new car.
When I reached home, my aunt, who had not so long ago pooh-poohed such things as spirits and magic, was as excited as a kid on Halloween at the prospect of the midnight ghost hunt. She and O’Ryan met me in the front hall.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I was when Rupert called to invite me to take Thom’s place,” she said. She paused and put a hand to her mouth. “Not that I’m pleased about that poor boy’s trouble—not at all—but I’m excited to witness such a thing. Imagine that. Trying to contact a woman who’s been dead these many years.”
“Of course there’s no guarantee that they’ll be successful,” I said, “but it’ll surely be a fascinating spectacle. Wait until you see what they’ve done to the old Trumbull penthouse.” I told her about the renovated rooms and the newly cleared ballroom. “We’ll be sitting in the balcony,” I told her, “so we’ll have a clear view of everything the witches do, but we’ll be out of the way of the television people.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said. “Rupert said that the witches are already there. That they showed up this afternoon to make their preparations.”
“That’s right. They’ve set up some sort of altar, and Megan—she’s the goddess—has a throne.”
“You’ve had quite a day,” she said. “Thanks for keeping me up to date on all the developments—although I don’t quite know how to process them.”
“It gets even more interesting,” I told her. “I learned today who Ma was. She was M. A. Mary Alice. She kept in touch with her mother all those years. Megan told me everything. You’d better sit down. It’s a long story.”
I went through everything I’d learned since leaving Greene’s Tavern, finally ending with Captain Gable and his cell mate, Sammy Trout.
“Astonishing,” she said. “Absolutely astonishing, all of it.”
My aunt and I discussed the proper attire for balcony-seated guests at a midnight ghost hunt and decided on comfortable pants, a warm top, and low-heeled shoes. I put on my NASCAR jacket, and Aunt Ibby opted for her favorite long plaid wool cape. “In case those balcony seats are cold,” she said. “We don’t know how well the heating system works up there after all these years.”
At eleven o’clock we piled into the Corvette and headed for the Tabby. I parked in my usual spot, and we stepped out of the car, pausing to gaze up at the upper-floor windows, ablaze with lights.
It was at that moment that I felt warm fur on my ankles and heard a plaintive “mrrow.”
CHAPTER 31
We both spoke at once. “O’Ryan!”
“Oh, you naughty boy,” my aunt said, bending to scoop up the wayward cat. “I heard the cat door open when you left to get the car, Maralee, but I thought he was just going out to do his business.”
I looked at my watch. “We don’t have time to take him home and get back. Mr. Pennington’s placed the building on lockdown from midnight until the show is over at two. We won’t be able to get in if we’re even a minute late, and it’s too cold to leave him in the car for two hours.”
“I’ll wrap him up inside my cape, and we’ll sneak him in,” she said. “I’ll hold him on my lap. No one will know the difference.”
“I don’t like it,” I said, “but I don’t see what else we can do. Let’s go.”
I held our “invited guest” passes against the glass door and Aunt Ibby and I, along with our four-footed stowaway, were admitted to the building.
“I’ll show you the entrance to the balcony stairway when we get inside the apartment,” I said. “Then I’m going to take Therese and Kelly to meet River and Megan before the program starts. We’ll catch up with you—and your furry friend—before midnight.”
We took the two elevators up to the Trumbulls’ penthouse apartment before I rushed Aunt Ibby through the formal parlor and the long dining room, with a promise to bring her back soon so that she could study the whole place at her leisure. The stairway leading to the balcony was a dainty spiral creation around the corner from the double door of the ballrooms.
“Hold on to the railing,” I warned.
I hurried back to the third floor and knocked on Therese’s door. “It’s Lee Barrett,” I called. “Are you girls in there?”
Therese opened the door. “Is it time? Can we see the witches now?”
“If you come with me right away,” I said, “I think I can arrange for you to meet a couple of them.”
The two tumbled out of the room with much giggling and chatter. I was pleased to hear Kelly’s laugh, and Therese’s excitement was contagious. I knew they’d enjoy riding in the sumptuous Trumbull family elevator, and I was rewarded with oohs and aahs from both of them as we ascended to the fourth floor and the glittering Trumbull suite.
River and Megan sat together on the Empire sofa in the formal living room. This time I did the introductions.
“Lady Megan, goddess of this coven, and, River North, may I present two of my students, Kelly Greene and Therese Della Monica?”
Kelly said, “How do you do?” but Therese did a curtsy worthy of royalty and knelt in front of Megan with her head bowed. “Lady Megan,” she whispered.
Megan reached a gnarled hand in Therese’s direction, touching her blond hair. “Who is this dear little witch?” the old woman said. “Why have I not met her before? Is she new to the coven?”
“Oh, she isn’t a witch,” I protested. “She’s one of my students, but she’s very interested in, um, what you do.”
“Nonsense, Maralee!” Megan lifted her hand, indicating that Therese should stand. “I know a witch when I meet one. This child is a born witch.”
“I am?” Therese’s voice wavered.
“Of course you are. Didn’t you know it?” Megan reached for Therese’s hand. “You’ll need some instruction before your initiation into the craft perhaps, but you are aware of your gift, aren’t you?”
Therese nodded. “Sometimes I can see . . . things . . . before they happen.”
Like the numbers of the keno game!
“There now.” Megan turned toward River. “River, see that this child gets some instruction. She is one of us.” She faced Therese. “Remember these words. Let it harm none. Do what ye will.”
“I always knew you were special, Therese,” Kelly whispered. “But I didn’t know you were a witch. No wonder you like Salem so much.”
The old woman faced Kelly. “You have a sadness about you, Kelly Greene. I know who you are. Believe these words. Perfect love and perfect trust.” She nodded in my direction. “Thank you, Maralee, for bringing these children to meet us.” She reached for her cane, and River took her arm, helping her to her feet. “We must cast the circle and prepare for the ritual now. Blessed be.”
Thus dismissed, I shepherded my two students back toward the ballroom.
“Look, here comes Primrose,” Kelly said. “I wonder if the guys are here, too.”
“I hope Duke came,” Therese said. “He’s afraid of ghosts and witches, but I stuck a rose quartz crystal into his hatband this morning, so maybe he’ll be brave enough to watch tonight.” Her smile was radiant. “I hope he won’t be afraid of me, now that I’m a witch.”
Primrose joined us at the botto
m of the spiral staircase. “I almost didn’t come,” she said. “I can’t stop thinking about what happened to Jonathan . . . Mr. Wilson.” The brown eyes were downcast. “And, Kelly, I hope Thom didn’t do it. I really do.”
“Perfect love and perfect trust,” Kelly said. “I trust Thom.”
Single file, we climbed the curving staircase. A television screen had been installed over a deep border of crown molding at the front of the balcony, and three rows of folding chairs faced the ballroom. Aunt Ibby sat on the second to the end chair in the back row and had placed her purse on the seat beside her.
“Lee, I saved you a seat,” she said. “Good evening, girls.” She didn’t offer a handshake, and I knew she was holding tight to the wayward cat hidden under her cape.
I recognized the president of the historical society and Bruce Doan, the manager of WICH-TV, who were seated in the front row, along with several more of the special guests Mr. Pennington had invited. My three female students slid into the second row, as did a dour-looking gentleman wearing a clerical collar. Sammy and Duke hadn’t arrived yet, but it wasn’t quite midnight. I took the end seat next to my aunt.
“How is everything going?” I whispered.
“Everything is relaxed and as quiet as a mouse,” she whispered back. “I think everything is sound asleep.”
“Let’s hope everything stays that way,” I said. “Look. Here come the witches.”
The ballroom lights dimmed, and a slow procession entered from a side door of the grand room. All wore hoods and a few had heavy veiling covering their faces. One of the mobile TV cameras rolled along beside them, while another followed River as she left the line and moved to the edge of the floor, where Megan sat in her throne-like chair.
“Why the veils?” my aunt asked.
“River told me some of them haven’t come out of the broom closet yet. Don’t want to be recognized.”
As we watched, four of the witches positioned themselves at the corners of the square table. A black iron cauldron was in its center, along with a large gold-colored pentagram. River stood beside Megan, holding a brass pot with smoke rising from it.
Tails, You Lose (A Witch City Mystery Book 2) Page 28