The Strongman's Spell

by Amorette Anderson

Two towels were crumpled up on the little platform around the jacuzzi bath, as if someone had just used them. Two more were folded neatly in a stack.

  A few glass bottles of bath salts were also on the edge of the tub, including one that was open. The cork was off to the side. Other than that, I also saw a wicker basket with a folded face cloth, and three little tubes of liquid—I knew they were the shampoo, conditioner, and body wash that we provided to each guest.

  While my eyes moved from the bath to the sink, Carlisle started to talk. “Let’s see... you left me at the door. I started to unpack. I like to—”

  “Wait,” I said, “I asked for details. “Did you close the door, after I left? Did you lock it?”

  He groaned. “I need some coffee if I’m going to go through all of this with you in minute detail.”

  “You’re a ghost,” I said. “You can’t drink coffee. For that matter, are you sure you even need sleep?”

  “Hrmph.” He didn’t have an answer.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Old habits die hard.” I gave him time to think that over, and then I waited for him to answer my question. He scratched his messed-up hair for a while, and I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

  The sink was almost bare, except for a black leather toiletries bag. I stepped over to it and eyed the contents without touching anything. It was open, so it was fairly easy to see the few contents inside: a small comb, a toothbrush in a travel case, a tube of toothpaste, and a box of dental floss. That was it.

  Carlisle spoke. “I didn’t think about that. You really think I don’t need to sleep any more?”

  I shrugged. “Seems to me like you don’t have a body. Physical bodies may need sleep, but you’re entirely different now. If I was you, I’d just try to feel into it and see. Keep an open mind.”

  “Hrmph,” he said again. Then, “The door... you asked about the door. I supposed I closed it, but didn’t lock it. I only lock my hotel room doors if I know I’m going to be sleeping, which I wasn’t. So I left it unlocked. Then, like I was saying before you interrupted me, I unpacked my suitcase. I travel a lot. Unpacking and settling into a room helps me feel more at home. I put my clothes in the closet out by the bed, and my toiletries in here.”

  “How long did all that take?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” he fired back.

  “Just take a guess.”

  “Okay... maybe twenty minutes?” he said. “I wasn’t moving fast. I spent time hanging a few shirts and my spare blazer, and I puttered around a bit with one of my suitcase zippers that wasn’t working properly. I couldn’t fix it, and I was upset about that. I figured after I wrote up a review of your center, I’d go after the suitcase company. I mean, what is it with companies these days? They don’t make quality products. It’s like they want the darn thing to break, so that you have to buy a new one. That’s just bad business. I only bought that suitcase a year ago. I’ve probably zipped it and unzipped it a total of twenty times, at the most.”

  “Great,” I said flatly. I didn’t want him to get fired up about the malfunctioning suitcase again, so I moved on before he could continue his rant. “So that puts us at about 3:30. What did you do next?”

  “I was upset about the suitcase. Writing always helps me calm down. So I took out my pen and pad, and started making notes about this place.”

  I was afraid to know what he’d written. Since I didn’t want him to dwell on his poor initial impression of my center, I pushed onward again. “How long did you write for?” I asked.

  I crouched down, so that I could take a closer look at the floor. There were a few blotchy marks that I could see. They looked like places where splashes of water had dried. Maybe, since the water had bath salts in it, it left some sediment when it evaporated.

  If someone had walked through a little pool of splashy water, was there a chance they left prints?

  I started examining the floor, inch by inch. Skili, who had flown into the bathroom along with us, joined me on the floor and followed suit.

  “It’s hard to know,” Carlisle said. “I was in the zone. I wasn’t keeping track of the time.”

  “I don’t need an exact number,” I said, “Just an estimate. We know it was less than forty minutes, because I found you dead at 4:10. Was it just a quick little writing session? Five minutes? Or more like thirty?”

  “I guess if I had to say, I’d guess twenty minutes. That’s because I’d barely had time to pour my bath and get in before the incident occurred, and I blacked out. Then the next thing I knew, I was a ghost and you were in the room.”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time,” I said. I wanted to pick apart everything he’d just told me. But first, I had to communicate with Skili. “Hang on one minute, Carlisle,” I said.

  I turned to my familiar. “I’m seeing lots of prints,” I said. “Are you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You girls walked all over this space after you found Carlisle’s body.”

  “Shoot!” I said. “We did, didn’t we? So, you think examining this salt residue on the floor is kind of worthless?”

  “I do,” she said.

  I nodded in agreement and stood. “We’d need to really know what we were doing in order to make sense out of these marks on the floor,” I told Carlisle. “Since we’re not really detectives, I think it’s a bit beyond us.”

  Carlisle interjected. “What an attitude!” he exclaimed. “That’s how you’re going about finding my killer? No wonder you haven’t made any progress.” He threw his ghost arms up into the air.

  “Calm down,” I said. “We’re doing our best. We’re just acknowledging our limitations. We’re not giving up.”

  I moved over to the little bathroom stall. The door was ajar. Beyond it, I could see a toilet, with the seat up.

  I opened the door and stepped in. From inside the little room, I called out, “Okay, so you wrote for maybe twenty minutes. That brings us to approximately 3:50. Then what?”

  “I just told you. I ran the bath. I got in. I died.”

  “Try to break it down for me,” I said. “You started the bath. What did you do while the water was running?”

  “I undressed,” he said. “I looked in the mirror. I suppose I used the bathroom, too.”

  “Like, the toilet?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Did anyone knock on your door, at any time, while you were unpacking, writing, or running the bath?”

  “No,” he said. “I would have told you that.”

  “Did you hear any strange sounds?”

  “The water flowing into the bath was loud,” Carlisle said. “It echoed off the walls in here. I remember thinking that it was rather annoying.”

  “So the water was running, and you were in here, in this master bath, getting undressed and using the toilet.”

  “That’s what I said,” he told me. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Carlisle, I think we’re making some progress. Let’s keep going. Did you wait for the bath to be full before you got in? Or did you get in while it was running?”

  “Is that really important?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m just trying to get an accurate picture of the minutes leading up to your death. Try to remember.”

  “I guess I stepped in while the water was still on. I adjusted the temperature a little bit—ran some extra hot, I recall—and then turned the water off. I added a few bath salts, turned on the jets, and then laid back and started to relax.”

  “With eyes closed?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. Eyes closed.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Hm.” I said. “Interesting. The jets weren’t on when we found you.” I stepped over to the bath. “Maybe they’re on a timer and turn off automatically.” I leaned over the tub and depressed a big silver button on one edge. The underwater jets fired up, with a sound that was almost as loud as the runnin
g water.

  “That’s loud, too,” I said. I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to process all that I’d learned.

  Then I opened my eyes. Carlisle was now sitting on the edge of the bath. I pressed the silver button, and the jets turned off. The silence was refreshing.

  I turned to Carlisle. “So, you were in the bath, eyes closed, jets on. Tell me about the very end of your life—those last few minutes.”

  “I was just starting to really relax. I was thinking that this place might not be so bad after all. The hot water felt good. Then, there was an awful splash. I tried to open my eyes, but my whole body seized up before I could. I was paralyzed—twitching like mad, unable to control my body. There was intense pain, but very briefly. The next thing I knew, I woke up in ghost form. I was standing by the bathtub.”

  “Was anyone in the bathroom when you woke up as a ghost?” I asked.

  “No one at first,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Then I saw you walk in.”

  “Darn,” I said. I started to pace. “Okay, I think I know how someone got in here and snuck up on you. They could have entered while you were running the water and using the toilet. I think it’d be nearly impossible to hear the door open with all the extra noise. Or, they snuck in while you were in the bath, with the jets on. That was a lot of noise, too.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Awful acoustics in this room,” he said.

  I continued. “You were lying with your back to the bathroom entrance. Your killer may have snuck up to the room. They would have had to act quickly and very quietly—moving from the door to that outlet over there—” I pointed to the outlet by the sink. “They plugged in the dryer, tossed it into the tub, and then backed out of the room before you even had a chance to die and wake up as a ghost. It must not have taken you long to transition, by the way, since our timeline shows that you were likely in the bath around four, and I found your body at 4:10.”

  “Lovely,” he said sarcastically. “Where does all that leave us? Nowhere. We still don’t know who snuck in, which is the whole point.”

  My shoulders slumped. He was right. I sighed. “Can you just try to be nice, for a change?” I said. “I’m really working hard to figure out who killed you. I’m on your team.”

  “I’m just stating the facts,” he said.

  We were both quiet for a moment. I was thinking hard, with my finger to my lips, tapping away. It’s a thing I only do when I’m thinking hard. Then I narrowed my eyes. “Carlisle, when you were done using the toilet and then you went to get into the bath, how did you leave this little toilet room? Door open or closed? Fan on or off?”

  Carlisle thought for a minute and then said, “I ‘m sure I left the fan on, and closed the door to muffle the sound.”

  “That’s strange,” I said. “Remember when I came in here, and found you as a ghost? You were naked, and you had to step behind the bathroom door. You couldn’t actually open the door—you’re a ghost, you can’t move physical objects—so that means the door was propped open. Remember, I could just see your head as you peeked around it? Also, the fan was off.”

  “Yes, but so what?” he said.

  I moved toward the little toilet room. “So, you said you left the bathroom fan on, and door closed. When I got here, the fan was off, and the door was open. That means someone turned off the fan and opened the door.”

  “So?”

  “So... why?” I asked.

  I let my eyes rove over the floor around the toilet. That’s when I spotted it—a little swatch of fabric that was drab, gray, and had unraveling threads around the edges. It was so small, it was barely noticeable. But I picked it up, pinched between two fingers, and held it up before my eyes. I had seen fabric like that recently—very recently. It was an exact match to the fabric of Kitty Ghupta’s gray cloak.

  “Bingo,” I said under my breath. “I think it’s time to talk to Kitty again.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Skili and I decided to split up, to search for Kitty Ghupta again. Skili took the outside area, while I took the inside. It wasn’t long before I got a telepathic message from Skili. “Found her. She’s in the greenhouse.”

  “Got it,” I sent back with my mind. “I’ll be right there.”

  I booked it out to the greenhouse.

  I’ve always loved plants. In my van, I have a whole shelf of potted herbs that I use in my cooking, and sometimes when brewing up potions. When my witch sisters and I cast the spell to build the center, I was really pleased to see that it had a greenhouse on the property. I’d been so busy, though, with setting up this weekend’s workshop, that I’d spent very little time there.

  As I neared the greenhouse’s front door, I peered through a foggy glass window, looking for Kitty Ghupta’s form within. I wanted to know where she was located, so that she couldn't jump me or anything when I stepped inside.

  I saw her near the back of the room. The entire greenhouse had about the same dimensions as an Olympic sized pool. Shelves of plants lined all four walls, and I saw many brittle dry brown and yellow leaves and wilted stems. here was a long narrow table that ran down the middle, also filled to brimming with plants that looked like they were dying.

  I had a feeling that the space had appeared because my sisters and I set the intention that the center was for “the highest good of all beings.” That wording was very powerful, I knew, and I was sure it was the reason that the greenhouse had magically shown up though none of us had thought of it in advance. Not only had the greenhouse appeared when we cast the spell to construct the retreat center, but it had also come stocked with plants. Apparently, though, those plants were not magically charmed to live without being cared for.

  As I located Kitty’s form among the plants I also wondered what, exactly, we were growing at the Greene Center for Magical Living. I also wondered how on earth I was going to add gardening duties to my growing list of responsibilities.

  “What’s the plan?” Skili asked, as she landed on the handle of a wheelbarrow that was positioned next to the greenhouse.

  “I have to go talk to her,” I said.

  “And if she tries to run again?” Skili asked.

  “I guess that’s better than if she tries to fight,” I said. “Maybe you could stay out here and follow her if she tries to escape?”

  “Sounds better than going into that crowded steam box,” Skili said.

  Since Kitty was near the back of the room, I felt confident that I had the upper hand as I stepped inside. I was the one catching her off guard this time, not the other way around. I entered quietly and saw that her back was to me. Even better. She seemed to be examining a plant on one of the shelves on the far wall.

  I tiptoed towards her. The air was humid and smelled of soil and vegetation. Even though many of the plants were dying, they still gave off a nice, earthy smell. If I wasn’t approaching a possible killer, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

  When I was only five feet away from her, I spoke. “I know you were in Carlisle’s room,” I said.

  She whirled around. In her hands she held a terracotta pot with a basil plant sprouting out of it. She hoisted it over her shoulder like it was a football she was about to throw. Thinking that she was going to hurl the pot right at my face, I raise my arms to deflect it, and squeezed my eyes shut.

  But I didn’t feel anything. Instead I heard her say, “Marley? Gosh! You surprised me.”

  I opened one eye, and then the other. I lowered my arms. “Good. You have some explaining to do, Kitty Ghupta.” I lifted the little gray clump of threads in my hand.

  She leaned in, adjusted her glasses, and squinted at it. “What is that?” she asked. “Mouse fur?”

  “Come on, Kitty,” I said. “Stop playing games.”

  “I’m not playing games,” she said. “I seriously have no idea what that is. Is it like, dust, or something? Or hair?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a piece of your cloak,” I said. “It’s the exact same material. You wa
nt to know where I found it?”

  I noticed some color begin to infuse into her cheeks. I had the distinct feeling that she knew what I was about to say.

  I nodded. “That’s right. In Carlisle’s room. Now, according to you, you weren’t in Carlisle’s room—which seems odd to me. How could threads from your cloak find their way into his bathroom—the very bathroom that he died in—if you were never in there?”

  “Um... the wind blew them in?”

  “Come on Kitty. It really is time to stop playing games. Did you kill him? Did Sarin put you up to this?”

  I tensed my muscles in anticipation of an attack, or perhaps flee—or maybe both. I was blatantly accusing her of murder, and if she was guilty, I expected her to have a strong reaction to my words.

  Since all of this was pretty new to me, I didn’t have a plan for apprehending her yet. I was hoping she might confess and turn herself in, but at the same time, I knew that was a longshot.

  Though I was tense and ready, she didn’t attack or try to run. Instead she said, “Fine.... I admit it. I was in the bathroom when Carlisle died.”

  “You admit it?” I asked. I didn’t really expect her to confess so easily. “You killed him?” I added, just to be sure I was getting it right.

  She rolled her eyes, and then turned and set the potted plant back on the shelf. “I didn’t kill him,” she said. “I was just in the room.”

  She faced me again. “I thought if I told you, you’d cart me off into some stinky Earth Realm jail or something like that.”

  I was having trouble keeping up. “What were you doing in the room with him when he died?” I asked. “Were you an accomplice or something? Do you know who killed him?”

  “I wasn’t an accomplice, and no, I don’t know who killed him, okay? Sheesh. This Realm is such a mess. There is so much conflict here. Let me know when you’re ready for a trip to the Spirit Realm. I can’t wait to get back. It is so peaceful there. None of this messy, icky stuff.” She made a face like she was tasting something rotten.

  I didn’t want to talk about the Spirit Realm, so I ignored her statement. “What were you doing in his room?” I asked.