by V. V. James
I throw the newspaper down on Tad Bolt’s desk, trying to keep my voice even.
“Your son, the prime witness in accusing Harper Fenn—no, actually, the only witness thus far accusing Harper Fenn—whose testimony we agreed should be kept confidential so as not to compromise the investigation, has given a front-page interview to the local press?”
Bolt pulls the paper toward him. Can it be possible that he’s not seen it, either? Chester brought me this, hands shaking, after doing a coffee run. Apparently a stack of freebie copies is dropped off at the police station at the end of the delivery, once sales outlets have gotten theirs.
I watch a flush of red creep up from the snug collar of Bolt’s uniform, until his cheeks are scarlet with it. What is it: embarrassment? Anger? He can’t have known. Will he back me on this?
He finishes the article. Scans the interview with Abigail Whitman that immediately follows it. Turns back to the front page. Reads again.
Then those large, pink paws turn the paper around and slide it back toward me across his desk.
“I guess he got tired of waiting for you to actually do something, Detective. I can’t say I blame him. You’ve got a witness and hard evidence. What’s taking so long?”
So that’s how it’s to be.
I need to think fast. Do I, an outsider, need the town chief on my side for this investigation? Or is he too close to it all? Is there too much conflict of interest? Because the look in Bolt’s blue eyes is shrewd and truculent.
Does he seriously want me to push his son’s allegations to their logical conclusion?
“Tad, if your son is correct, then you have a teen girl, a lifelong resident of this town whose mom you surely know”—(Does Bolt’s gaze flicker at that?)—“guilty of murder by witchcraft. Or to give it its proper name, homicide by unnatural means. And d’you know something about that particular crime in Connecticut? Thanks to an ancient, unrepealed amendment, it brings the death penalty. Harper Fenn would be executed.”
Bolt is silent a moment. Have those words landed? Does he realize that he is the one who can stop this? That even now, it’s still not too late?
But his words demolish any such hope.
“Are you saying you’re not acting on this case ’cause you’ve no stomach for our country’s justice? Don’t you call yourself a lawman—woman, whatever—Detective Knight? Isn’t that your job, to uphold the law?”
“Of course it is. And I will. But on the one hand I’ve the word of your traumatized son and a shaky video, and on the other hand I have no record, held by any authority, that says Harper Fenn is a witch. I’d appreciate it if you can tell Jacob that this sort of thing isn’t helping.”
Not the crushing retort I’d hoped to deliver, goddammit. I snatch up the newspaper and go find Chester. I’ve had enough of this bullshit. We need that magical investigator here right now.
Thirty-One
Abigail
“Drop it?” I cry at my husband. “This is your son’s life you’re talking about!”
Michael stoops and catches me by the wrists. He squeezes them together in one large hand—the template of Dan’s clever, ball-throwing hands—and it hurts.
“Abigail, you are not behaving rationally. You need to leave this to the police, or you’ll make a laughingstock of us both.”
“I don’t care what people think. I’m not going to give up fighting for Daniel.”
“Have some dignity,” my husband says. “Every single good thing in your life is off my back, and this is how you respect me—by sharing our business with this rag. How do you think it reflects on me?”
He has no idea how wrong he is. Every good thing Michael has, he owes to me. His professorship. This house that it bought for us. The Vermont ski chalet, the European and Caribbean vacations. All my doing, because I went to Sarah.
I bite back the words. I can never say them—not while I want this marriage to last. Not while I want Daniel to have a family to come back to. Dan reveres his dad—brags about how he’s a Yale professor. He never bragged about his housewife mom, but I never cared. His father’s success was one more gift I gave my boy.
“Even now that he’s gone, you’re still putting Daniel before me. He’s dead, Abigail. Let. Him. Go.”
And something in me snaps.
“Is there anything more contemptible than a man jealous of his own son? How about a man jealous of his dead son and taking it out on his grieving wife?”
Instantly, Michael’s bent over me, his finger stabbing the air barely an inch from my eye. I flinch, hating myself for doing so.
“You do not speak to me like that. Not now. Not ever.”
As he withdraws, I lift my chin. My head is level with his chest, so I have to look up into those eyes that only recently acquired wire-rimmed glasses for reading. At that thick hair which even at fifty shows no sign of receding, though it’s turning silver at the temples. The very image of an eminent professor.
He’ll have his work to outlive him. His contributions to science. Those dazzling filovirus studies that may one day bring him even greater recognition—“the Swedish lottery,” he and his friends call it, when they joke about being awarded a Nobel Prize. Except when I look at Michael, I know it’s no joke for him.
I’ve only ever had my son.
There’s a rap at the front door. Michael grabs my arm and shakes me out like a coat that’s hung unworn in a closet too long.
“Pull yourself together before you answer,” he says. “I’m going upstairs. I have a paper to finish.”
And the look he gives me as he goes is so full of contempt that I wonder for a moment if a tiny bit of him is glad that Daniel is dead, because it hurts me so much.
Thirty-Two
Abigail
It’s Jake Bolt at the door. With him is his pops, the chief.
Tad peers at me, and I wonder how bad I look. Usually, if anyone sees me after I’ve had a row with Michael, I have to make up some excuse—like arranging flowers that set off my allergies. But not now. There’s nothing more unnecessary than a woman whose son just died trying to explain why she looks a mess.
Tad steps forward and folds me in a bear hug. “Let’s get you inside,” he says.
“No, wait. Michael’s working. I don’t want him disturbed.”
I want to be away from my husband’s anger. And I’ve had enough of being shut up with only my grief for company. Dan was never an indoors boy. He was outside every moment he got. Training. Coaching. Spending every summer on the beach and coming home with his skin golden and warm from the sun.
So we get in Tad’s patrol car, and he drives us to the water. I look away as we pass Bridget’s. I don’t want to remember that night, barely a week ago, when I was still happy. Can I ever be happy again? That all depends on Sarah.
I know she can do this. I know it.
When Tad pulls into the parking lot at High Pine Point, I cringe. The other road that leads here is from Anaconna, where the Garcias live. This is one of the spots where Alberto and I used to meet.
I hadn’t been loved like that before—so passionately and intensely. I thought about Berto so much I could barely function. I’d forget to drop off Michael’s clothes at the dry cleaners—or forget to collect them. I’d even sit during Dan’s games not watching my son, but refreshing my messages every five minutes in hope of a new one.
I confided in Sarah that I’d fallen for another man. That if it weren’t for Dan, I would leave Michael. But I could never tell her that it was Julia’s husband, because even Sarah’s sympathy would have stopped there. After Alberto cut off contact, there were days I thought I’d burst from holding the pain inside. It felt like a bereavement—or so I thought. Now I know what real loss is.
But being in this place makes Alberto’s absence ache all the same. I thought he saw me. Not Professor Whitman’s wife, or Daniel�
�s mom. Just Abi Anderson, the one-time high school volleyball captain from the Upper East Side, who dreamed of being a shrink at Mount Sinai. Who loved summer cookouts at her family’s Connecticut beach house and could never resist a second helping of s’mores.
What would that girl make of the woman I’ve become?
How could her heart not break for me?
I’m grateful when Tad starts talking as we start down the track that’s popular with dog walkers. The scent of the pine trees rises up, sharp and cleansing.
“Here’s the thing, Abigail—and I’ve already had this conversation with Jakey here, but I figured the three of us needed to talk it through. Witchcraft? Turns out there’s some Connecticut law that’s never been repealed that says the punishment for witchcraft is death.”
“Death?” I wonder if I’ve heard him correctly. “Connecticut doesn’t have the death penalty.”
“Yup. Except for witchcraft we do. The founding fathers wrote it into the Constitution—us and Massachusetts, on account of what happened here and in Salem back in the day.”
“That’s insane.”
It is. There’s no other word for it. I look at Jake. Has he processed what this means? That on his say-so and his evidence, a girl he’s known all his life might go to her death? Jake has looked as fragile as I feel this past week, and he doesn’t have my hot coal of hope glowing secretly inside to keep himself going—that Sarah’s magic might restore Dan to us.
But as I look at him now, there’s something burning inside him all the same. Anger fierce enough to destroy Harper Fenn for what she’s done. And for a moment the intensity of it shames me. Shouldn’t I feel the same?
As a mother who’s lost a child, could I condemn another mother and another child to the same fate? Could I do that and still be human? Shouldn’t we end this now?
I hunch over. It’s cold here in the forest, in the shade, without a jacket.
If Harper killed Daniel by witchcraft—and she did, she did, a voice inside me persists—then she’ll die, too. No juvenile facility. She’ll be executed.
But it would never come to that. Connecticut is one of the bluest of blue states. Our governor would ban guns if she could—probably jails, too. She’d never let an execution happen on her watch. The sentence would be commuted.
Harper wouldn’t die.
But the threat of it? No mother would risk that. You’d do anything to turn away that danger from your child.
And I realize that I’m not scared of this death penalty. In fact, it’s perfect.
Since the interview, I’ve left Sarah voicemails asking if she’s ready to bring Dan back. To “do what we discussed,” as I put it—nothing that would make me sound deranged if she played the messages to anyone else.
But Sarah has been silent.
I know she can do it, and I’d thought the mere accusation against Harper would make her comply. But so far, it’s not been enough.
I’ve been raking my memory for any compromising details that I know. All those times she bent the rules or broke the law because her kind heart sometimes gets the better of her. I’ve considered threatening her with revealing those, if she won’t help.
But this? A death penalty? It’s perfect.
Maybe I’m already too late, though.
“Why are you telling me this, Tad? Do you want me and Jake to drop this because of some law that’s not been used for centuries and never will be? You know the governor wouldn’t allow an execution.”
“Exactly!” Jake blurts out.
And his pop nods grimly.
“I wanted to make sure you knew all the facts, Abigail. And if you and Jakey want to drop this, I’ll support you. But if you both want to carry this all the way, well, I’m right behind you. It’s your call.”
They’re both looking at me: father and son. Burly, buzz-cut Tad and slim Jake, his mousy hair already flyaway fine. I always found Jake’s devotion to Dan a trifle ridiculous, even pitiable. How readily he accepted life in my son’s shadow, just to be near him.
But after all, that makes two of us.
“I don’t want Harper Fenn dead,” I tell Tad and his son. “But that won’t happen. We all know it. I want her brought to account for what she did.”
“Understood, Abigail.” Tad actually touches the brim of his hat.
“Here’s what we do next,” I say.
Thirty-Three
EMAIL SENT TO BERYL VARLEY, NEWS EDITOR, SANCTUARY SENTINEL
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: May 22, 10:54 p.m.
Subject: Whitman murder investigation—EVIDENCE of witchcraft
Hi, Ms. Varley,
You did a great job with the article.
I told you I had proof of what I said about witchcraft. I wasn’t sure I should be sharing that with you, seeing as the police have a copy as evidence. But the state detective who’s supposed to be leading the investigation has had it for a week now and hasn’t done a thing with it.
So here are two stills from footage filmed by me at the villa party. They prove that Harper Fenn used magic to kill Daniel Whitman.
Maybe the detective’s afraid of the scandal of a witchcraft trial. But I reckon the real scandal would be for how Dan died to be covered up.
You and the folks at the Sentinel know how much Dan meant to Sanctuary. Please help us get justice for him.
Sincerely,
Jacob Bolt
Attachments: HFwitchcraft1.jpg, HFwitchcraft2.jpg
Thirty-Four
Maggie
“I’d rather not have any more front-page interventions from the local hacks,” I tell Chester. “So let’s get this done. First, we clear up the issue of witchcraft. Assuming that’s a no, we move on to a much simpler question: Murder or accident? So who have you got for me?”
We’re holed up out back in Starbucks. Sanctuary loves its independent coffee shops, so this gloomy space with sticky tables is the quietest place in town.
Chester lifts his head from the whipped cream peak of his iced caramel mocha abomination. He carefully wipes his top lip before pulling out his notebook and leafing back a few pages.
“Here we go,” he says. “Quite a few outfits across the internet; most of them look pretty sketchy. I did come across this one, though… They’ve got some awesome degree from UC Davis—double major in magical ethnography and criminology. Their biography says they’ve been a state liaison for the Moot. And most importantly, a track record of advising police inquiries, with loads of references. Name of Rowan Andrews.”
He slides his phone across the table to show me the website.
Rowan Andrews is…striking. Skin the warm, bright tones of a penny, a strong jawline, with hair that’s shaved on one side and falls in choppy layers down on the other. Her hazel eyes are flecked with brilliant amber.
“Where’s she based?”
“Oregon. And they. That’s their pronoun.”
Chester has taken the phone back and is staring at Rowan’s photo.
“Let’s move on it,” I tell him. “Due diligence. Put in a call to the Moot. You’ll need to disclose that you’re police, looking for an independent magical assessment of an incident scene, but don’t share further details or where you’re calling from. Ditto when you’re speaking to Rowan themself, until you know for certain we can use them.”
“Speaking to them?” His voice squeaks with alarm, and he colors up.
“Yes, Chester. Ask in what states they have connections among the magical community—if they say Connecticut, we’ll need to look again. Make sure they’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement, and that they’re available right away. If everything checks out, we’ll get them on the first plane.”
Chester is practically quivering at the prospect. He’s entering a brave new world of po
licing beyond arresting shoplifters and cautioning public drunks.
In the meantime, I need to go back to the Fenns. I’m long overdue getting answers from both mother and daughter.
Thirty-Five
Sarah
That article as good as named my daughter as a murderer.
The first thing I did was try to reach Harper. She didn’t answer the first time I called, or the tenth, or all the times in between. So finally I texted: Stupid story in the Sentinel. Stay where you are. I’m going to do some investigating of my own. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Love you so much. Mom. xoxo
As much as I need desperately to see my child and hold her and tell her it’ll all be okay, I don’t want Harper here in Sanctuary where she might be harassed and intimidated. I don’t want her here where the detective can scoop her up for an interview that’ll frame her on the word of Jake Bolt. I want her away from Abigail and her grief-crazed accusations.
That cop, Detective Knight, seemed sympathetic. But if this is the direction her investigation is heading, I can’t rely on her to find the truth.
I need to find out how Dan died. That magic I sensed at the villa—whose was it, and did it kill him? When I know, I can go to the police and clear Harper from suspicion.
My booth hasn’t suffered the same fate as the house. It’s still neatly closed up, the blinds drawn. I slip down the alley that runs alongside Bridge’s grooming salon and unlatch the yard gate. Aira darts off among the blooms as I check the rain barrel. Chemically treated water from a tap is useless for brewing and even worse for my purpose today, divining.
The back door of my workroom is triple-secured, as is the door that leads to it from the consulting room at the front. I unfasten the padlock. Key in the security code. Trace a sigil on the doorframe.
The wards here are like those on my house—as powerful as the law permits. Smash the padlock, crack the keypad, and you’ll find an open doorway. But unless I’ve lifted the ward or you have a token (and the only people with one of those are Harper and Bridget), you’ll be hit powerfully at the mere thought of stepping through. I got Pierre to test it for me, which ended with the poor guy on his knees on the threshold, crying and puking and unable to go any further.