by Susan Breen
He puffed up his cheeks and blew out.
“I said no. I hadn’t made any in a long time, and I didn’t want to risk it. My career as a doctor was going well and I didn’t want to jeopardize it. I could get arrested. I could kill somebody. But when Domino wanted something, she was ruthless. She told me I didn’t have a choice. She would report me. She didn’t care if she got into trouble. She was famous for getting into trouble. She’d already been public about being a witch. But if word got out about me, I’d be ruined. I’d lose everything.”
“So you continued making the ergot for her?” Maggie asked.
“I had no choice. I kept begging her to find another supplier, but she said no one’s was as good as mine.”
“This must have gone on for years,” Maggie said.
“Decades,” he said. “It haunted me. I couldn’t stop.”
Maggie thought of how disorganized his office was. Fear and anxiety had a way of filtering down into all aspects of your life. This poor man had been distracted for decades.
“But when I heard she was coming back to Darby, I figured finally I would have my chance. I would talk to her, or her husband. I would give them the formula. I would train someone else. I just had to make it stop.”
“So that’s why you went to see her?”
“Yes,” he said. “But she wouldn’t meet with me. She said there was nothing to discuss. I knocked on her door and tried to get in, but she wouldn’t talk to me.”
That must have been the day Maggie saw him on the property, she thought.
“But on the night of the party, I finally got hold of her.”
“And she said no?”
“No,” he said. “She said yes. She said it was all right, she had another source. She told me I was a fool. She said I was a coward, and she never would have reported me if I’d just said no in the first place.”
He clasped his hands together. Poor man, Maggie thought, so trapped by his fears.
“I ran out of there, I was so relieved. I knew she was laughing at me and I didn’t even care. I went home and destroyed all the equipment, and then you were at my door. You were following me. I thought she sent you. It seemed like the kind of game she would want to play.”
“I am sorry,” Maggie said.
“I was so glad when I heard she died,” he said. He looked at the people around him, all covered up. “We Wicca, we don’t mean anyone harm. We worship the earth. We celebrate love. We’re a gentle faith.”
Maggie nodded. She didn’t like the horns, or the whole vibe, what it represented, but she believed he spoke the truth. She didn’t think he wanted to cause harm.
“You’ll leave me alone now?”
His nerves were shot, she thought. He reminded her of one of her students who’d been posted to Afghanistan and came home war-weary and jumpy.
“Yes,” she said, beginning to step back. But instead she froze, startled by a low rumbling sound. “What is that?” Trudi said. Grant began to shiver.
“It’s nothing,” Maggie said, but she recognized what it was. It was Agnes snoring. She’d fallen asleep, standing against a tree.
Chapter 44
Maggie woke Agnes and they started for home. She had no other avenues to pursue in her investigation. She didn’t think Grant had the nerve to hurt anybody. Maybe what everyone said was true. Maybe Domino, high on ergot, had fallen off the balcony. Maybe Passion, startled, had fallen down the steps. Maggie had been so eager to find cause and connection, but perhaps that was due to nothing more than her desire to prove herself as a private detective. She had so hoped her first case would lead to something. But now she didn’t have a client, she didn’t have a witch to track down. It was hard to justify continuing on.
Slowly they made their way through the woods.
“How many of those Xanax did you take, Agnes?”
“Just two,” Agnes said. “I feel great though. I haven’t felt this relaxed in years.”
“It’s very nice that you’re so relaxed, but I think it’s a bad idea to overdose on prescription medicine.”
“I didn’t overdose. I just doubled the dosage.”
“Agnes, don’t do that anymore.”
“Okay,” Agnes said, smiling. Maggie remembered a story a friend of hers had told about her mother. She had always been a difficult woman, but then she developed Alzheimer’s and her entire personality changed. She went from being mean and querulous to being a kind and gentle soul. Maggie had wondered if that gentleness had been inside the old lady all along, and whether there might have been a way to bring it out earlier. That made her think of Madame Simone. They might as well take a route that would bring them past Stern Manor, she figured, as long as they were wandering around in the dark, and as long as Agnes was so cheerful, she wanted to see it one last time. Soon she would move on to following around poor Hal Carter and checking up on his marital indiscretions. But for now she wanted one final view of her first real case. She wanted to see Stern Manor in the dark. She wanted to see if it looked different to her, now that she knew more of its secrets.
They paused for a moment to look at the house, and that was when Maggie saw a ghost in the window.
Chapter 45
Maggie wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts, but she knew one when she saw it. The white billowy creature seemed to hover at the window, and then just as quickly it disappeared. Racine and Madame Simone were alone in the house, Maggie knew. Lucifer and Milo had moved out.
“We have to check on that,” Maggie said. “Are you up for it, Agnes?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling genially. “What do you want to do?”
Maggie couldn’t get used to this new more pleasant Agnes. Was it unethical to prefer your detective partner sedated?
“Agnes, we might be in danger. How are your reflexes?”
“My reflexes on a bad day are a thousand times better than yours, Maggie Dove. Now come on,” Agnes said, leaning back against a tree for a moment, closing her eyes and then opening them quickly. “Let’s go.”
At the front door, Maggie hesitated. It was now 1:00 in the morning and it went against every principle she had to wake up people in the middle of the night. She’d always been so law-abiding and thoughtful.
But she’d seen a ghost, and Racine and Madame Simone were alone with it. Perhaps the house really was evil come to life. Maggie pressed her finger to the doorbell. The whole house shuddered with the noise. But no one answered.
“I think we have to go in,” Maggie said.
“Duh.”
“Hello,” Maggie called out, opening the door.
No answer. They both started up the stairs. Maggie clenched the railing as they made their way up, and suddenly she heard Agnes go clattering down behind her.
She ran down to grab her, but fortunately Agnes was loose enough that she hadn’t hurt herself.
“What happened?”
“I felt like someone pulled my leg.”
“You walk in front of me,” Maggie said.
When they got to the top of the stairs, Maggie saw a light on in Madame Simone’s room. She walked to the door and knocked, but there was no response. Pushing the door open cautiously, she found Racine sitting by her mother’s bedside. Madame Simone’s eyes were closed. She looked so pale and still, and Racine’s whole posture was of grief.
“Has she passed?” Maggie asked, briefly wondering if perhaps the ghost she’d seen was Madame Simone’s spirit.
But the old lady opened her eyes at Maggie’s question. “Not yet,” she said.
Agnes sank into one of the soft chairs, and Maggie approached Racine. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Has anything been going on here?”
Racine shook her head. Lines of stress clawed her face. Her eyes looked sunken. She seemed to be deteriorating under Maggie’s eyes. She even smelled of decay. In some ways, Maggie thought, she seemed closer to death than Madame Simone, who stared at Maggie with her bright blue eyes. Madame Simone shivered then, and Maggie re
alized how cold it was in the room. She noticed the open window and looked to Agnes to ask her to close it, but she was asleep. So Maggie went to shut it herself.
It was a large window that opened out, like doors, over the river. Maggie couldn’t help but pause for a moment to admire the view. The full moon shone over the new bridge being built and there was something ghostly and magnificent about its lines. Towering cranes stood on either side of it, giant dinosaurs glinting in the light. She’d been spending a lot of time with Edgar, she realized. Dinosaurs were on her mind. She leaned forward then to tug the windows closed and as she did so she felt movement behind her. She thought she saw a white reflection in the window. Whipping around, Maggie saw Madame Simone standing in front of her, but not Madame Simone as she’d ever seen her before. Gone were the merry blue eyes. Instead they were hard. There seemed to be a blue color emanating from her. Even her teeth looked different. She looked feral.
“It’s almost over,” Madame Simone said, smiling sweetly. “You’re the last of it and then it’s all done.”
“What’s done?”
Racine still sat by the bed. She began to whimper. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
“What’s going on,” Maggie said.
“You just need to jump,” Madame Simone said. “Just jump out the window.”
“I’m not going to jump out the window,” Maggie said. She looked over at Racine, waiting for her to pull her mother away. Because although Maggie weighed more than Madame Simone, and although she was younger, there was a mad strength in Madame Simone’s eyes.
“Domino jumped when I told her to,” she said.
Maggie paused. Poor Domino, high on ergot, up on a tower, and then this vision appeared to her. She could well believe it—Madame Simone looked like a ghost.
“But why would you want your daughter to kill herself?”
“She wanted to take money away from Racine. That wasn’t fair,” Madame Simone said. She put out her hand to Racine, and as though in a trance, Racine walked over to her and held it. “Racine is the only one I’ve ever loved. She’s the perfect daughter. I always knew she’d do whatever I asked. She’s like her father. Not Leonard. Not that horror. But her real father. Eric. He died. He left me alone and then Leonard came and rescued me. I thought I could get by without letting him touch me, but then he fell in love with that woman. He kept trying to separate me from Racine. He sent her to France,” she cried out.
She grabbed onto Racine’s hand so tightly that Racine staggered forward slightly.
Agnes snored.
“He wanted to keep me from my daughter. Well, I took care of that. I took care of him.”
“How?”
She leaned toward Maggie. “Ergot, of course. Dangerous stuff if you don’t get it quite right, and it can look just like a heart attack.”
Racine began making a keening noise.
“Then I put the doll in that girl’s locker. I knew everyone would blame Domino for it, and she was happy to get away. I gave her whatever she wanted. I’ve never cared about the money. I’ve only ever cared for Racine.”
She looked so pleased with herself.
“And Passion?”
“That foolish girl. She had all sorts of plans to move into this house. I saw the way she looked at Racine. I knew the moment I died, she’d kick Racine out.”
She leaned toward Maggie conspiratorially. “I left one of my little balls on the top step. She tripped right over it. She flew.”
She laughed at that. Agnes coughed a little. Maggie thought she might wake up, but she didn’t.
“Racine,” Maggie said. “I think this has gone far enough. Your mother’s sick. She needs help.”
“No,” Racine said. “She’s my mother. She gave me life, and all she’s done, she’s done for me.”
Maggie could feel a breeze blowing in from the window. She had dressed warmly for the woods, but that decision restricted her mobility now. She thought she could take on Madame Simone, but not her daughter too. She wasn’t even sure she could take on one person. She was a 62-year-old Sunday School teacher. What was she doing fighting an insane murderer and her daughter?
“Racine, you still have a life in front of you. You’re not that old yet. You could travel. You could go back to France. You could sell this place and go somewhere new. You can have a life.”
“She will never leave me,” Madame Simone said. She looked at her daughter. “I told you what that man did to me. How he raped me, over and over again. He said I was his wife. He said I had no choice, that if I wanted him to save me, I had to give something to him. Everything was a deal with him, and I kept my end of the bargain. Now it’s time for you to keep yours.”
“Racine, whatever she’s suffered, remember how you came to me and said you felt evil, and you did feel evil. You were right. There was evil in this house, it’s just coming from a place different than you expected. Closer to home. You don’t want to surrender to the evil. That’s why you sought me out in the first place.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Push her,” Madame Simone said. “Come on, you can do it.”
Racine started toward her and Maggie began to recite the 23rd psalm. Those beloved words popped into her head and she said them as loud as she could. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” She looked directly at Racine. “I will fear no evil.”
Racine stopped.
Madame Simone looked at her daughter and then ran at Maggie, grabbing her around the neck. Her hands were like claws. Maggie couldn’t get them loose. It was a death grip. She pried at them, conscious that every step was taking her closer to the window.
“Help,” she called to Racine. “Please.”
She staggered right at the edge of the window, and then suddenly Agnes was there. She grabbed hold of Madame Simone’s hands. The old woman was thrown off balance. She slipped, fell forwards, and out the window. She screamed all the way down.
Chapter 46
Maggie’s bruises had required medical attention. Doc Steinberg brought her to the hospital and bandaged her up, and Maggie recovered quickly. By Thursday she was back at work. The bandage around her neck drew a lot of attention on Main Street, and Iphigenia, at the sight of it, wept, and promised she would never get upset with her again. She even had an idea for a special haircut, she said, that would play off Maggie’s new neckline. Friendship with Iphigenia was worth anything, so Maggie said what the heck. And Iphigenia was right—she did look quite nice afterward.
As she left the salon, Trudi ran out of the candy store and gave her a little bag of Snickers.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Maggie Dove,” she said.
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry. All that business with witches and it wound up having nothing at all to do with witchcraft.”
“Thank you for not telling anyone about us.”
Later, when Reverend Sunday called, Maggie told her about how she used the 23rd psalm to give her strength.
“But of course,” she said, “there is no weapon stronger than our faith. Now, as long as you’re feeling better, Hannah Murchison needs a dinner brigade. Would you be up to organizing that?”
“Of course,” Maggie said. She thanked the reverend and hung up as she walked into her office. It felt so familiar, and yet so different. She thought, as she settled into her chair, alongside her two partners, that there was a heaviness to the three of them that hadn’t been there before. They were more serious than they had been. She noticed that Agnes had taken away the trophies and Helen had removed the track medals. It looked like a detective’s office, which it was.
“You know what threw me off?” Maggie asked. Agnes brought her some coffee. Poor Agnes seemed to think that the only way to atone for almost sleeping through Maggie’s potential murder was to keep bringing her coffee. It was unnecessary, but Maggie figured anything that made Agnes feel a bit guilty was a good thing. She needed something to su
ppress her a little.
“It was the prodigal son,” she explained. “That’s what confused me. I’ve always loved that story. It feels right to me that the father would be so happy to have his son come home. I could understand the younger son going away, dissipating his fortune and then seeking forgiveness, because isn’t that what family’s about? It never occurred to me that Madame Simone wouldn’t be happy to see her daughter.”
“She must have hated Domino,” Agnes said. “But what sort of mother hates her child?”
“Maybe she was frightened of her,” Helen said. She was playing with a pen, rolling it up and down her hands. Maggie noticed she’d written the word “Edgar” on her palm. Maggie knew she had yet another school meeting to go to. “You don’t always know who your children are going to be. Do you suppose she really killed Leonard Stern?”
“Walter wants to exhume the body. It’s been in the Stern vault all this time, so he thinks there may be a trace of poison remaining.”
“She was a monster,” Agnes said.
“She was very selfish,” Maggie added. “I knew that. I saw that all along, but I guess over time it became something toxic. It started off as a survival skill, a defense mechanism, and then it turned into something aggressive, something poisonous.”
“Do you think Racine really would have let her kill you?”
Maggie thought of the way Racine had looked. The way she’d stopped when Maggie said the 23rd psalm. She thought of how people get themselves twisted around into a terrible place.
“I hope not,” she said.
“What do you think will happen to Racine? Will they arrest her?”
“I don’t think so,” Maggie said. “She should have reported her mother, but I think she went into shock over the whole thing. I don’t think she knew from the start or she never would have hired us. That’s what’s been tearing her apart all this time. She really has been suffering from terrible guilt. She must have known for years that something was not quite right with her mother. That’s why she kept her away from people.”