“Exactly. Why didn’t she lie to her daughter, tell her not to come, or tell her she was busy? Why did she pick the phone at all?”
I consult my notes.
“Then there were the totems found around Margaret.”
“Wait, totems?” asks Mitch. “Like the ones found with George?”
“Yes. And then the sudden shock that Margaret had been involved with witchcraft, along with most of the women in town.”
“So, what did this cop do?”
“Nothing. There was enough panic over the witchcraft. He didn’t want to fuel it by suggesting that Margaret had been killed because of her involvement. Even if he believed the details of her death were questionable, he had no leads, absolutely no suspects with a motive. Years passed, the controversy faded. McMillan went back to patrolling the highway, handling cases of theft and domestic violence, the occasional teenage vandalism or underage drinking. Then, in the seventies, the mill closed.
“There were three more suicides, one of them Michael Poste, and just like with Margaret’s suicide, he was uneasy about the details.”
I find the notes in my journal.
“The toxicology report for Poste showed his blood alcohol level to be .32, enough that the coroner doubted he could have been conscious when he died. The gun was in Michael’s hand, but the coroner also reported that Michael’s thumb was broken. When McMillan asked if it could have happened when the gun went off, the coroner was skeptical but couldn’t rule it out. Poste also had contusions and a vertical laceration on his face from his right temple to his lip. Earlier, witnesses had seen him fighting in the Corner. McMillan wondered if Poste had struggled with someone later that evening, someone who attempted to knock him unconscious. Any injuries he sustained would have been blamed on his earlier bar fight.
“Who found him?” asks Rita.
I clear my throat. “Martin Fisher.”
Jeremy looks up. “My uncle was there?”
“The first one there, yes. But that’s no secret. Charles Donneville wrote about the case in A Practical Guide to Demonology.”
“Maybe he fought with Michael?” asks Mitch. “Martin Fisher does not abide trespassing.”
“True. But he can also see down to the Throne from his cabin. He would have been the first one to see him that morning.”
Jeremy is chewing his bottom lip, staring into the fire.
“What else, Thea?” asks Mitch.
“The rest of it, the last twenty pages or so, he writes about his theories. He believes every unexplained death in Portico over the past century is connected. At least, the five notable ones he knew about before he retired: Jesse Root, Enora Roman, Margaret St. Ives, Michael Poste, and Jane Simmons. His reasons, besides the connections all the deceased had with witchcraft and the Throne, are the similarities that suggested staging of the bodies—their placement sitting up against the Throne and the presence of the totems. He also mentions a talisman found around Margaret’s neck. Michael wore a similar one.
“His theory is that Jesse Root’s drowning caused someone local to believe absolutely in the witch’s curse, so much so that they acted to sustain that belief.
“He thinks Enora Roman, then Margaret St. Ives and later Michael Poste all stumbled into information of which they hadn’t considered the dangers. They were all deeply involved with witchcraft.
Rita is sitting on the edge of the breakfast table, arms crossed over her chest. “Sounds like Roger McMillan doesn’t just think the murders were connected. He thinks all these murders were committed by the same person?”
“That’s crazy,” says Mitch. “The first one happened almost a hundred years ago.”
“Not necessarily. Jesse Root could have been an accidental drowning that caused the belief to take hold.”
“Wait,” Rita points to Jeremy. “Your uncle is how old?”
Jeremy jumps. “I don’t know. Ninety-something.”
“And he’s lived here all his life.”
“Yeah, but—”
“What about Jane Simmons?” says Mitch. “Technically, she was missing, not killed.”
“He writes about her, too.” I read the final passage aloud to them:
After Jane Simmons went missing, I had the same sense of foreboding as before at the deaths of Margaret and Michael. Information started coming in about Jane, how she was involved in witchcraft, how she was seen with a talisman, how she had sat on the Throne. I went to the Throne, expecting to find her there.
But she wasn’t.
Relieved, elated even, I announced my retirement the very next morning. Two weeks later, I left Portico.
I’m ashamed. I didn’t solve the deaths of Margaret St. Ives or Michael Poste, and I was terrified at yet another mysterious death I had no chance of solving. I gave up. I left while Jane Simmons was still missing, because I was afraid to discover the truth. There was a murderer in the town I was supposed to protect, and I ran away.
I close the manuscript. “That’s how it ends.”
“Jesus.”
“Thea.” Rita presses her fingertips to her temples. “We’re here to find out what happened to George, but we’re letting ourselves be distracted by these old cases he was trying to solve.”
“There might be something here that could help us.”
“Thea…”
“Stop saying my name so much. I hear you.”
“Fine. We should talk to the Donnevilles today. Right now. We should find out what they know about Martin Fisher. If they ever had any problems with him.”
“He had a stroke,” says Jeremy. “He can barely move.”
“Only for the past few months. These deaths go back decades.”
Jeremy blinks rapidly, contemplating.
Rita stands again. “We’re going to the Throne. Now.”
I sigh heavily and close Roger McMillan’s manuscript. “Okay.”
“Really?”
“If we can talk to Annalise Simmons first. She lives here in town. We can stop on the way.”
She closes her eyes. “Who is that?”
“Jane Simmons’s sister.”
“Right.” She sighs loudly but then nods.
JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 31
Feeling nervous? It’s Day 3 since you sat on the Throne. I’m taking the girls into Medford today to the movies or something. We need to get out of this town for a day.
This morning, I listened to the interview you recorded with Annalise Simmons and wrote a draft of her story here for the book. I’ll leave my journal on the desk for you—read it!—and I’ll add what I have on Randle Garrety when I get back this afternoon.
Are you sure you want to include Jane in the list of Throne-related deaths? Technically, she’s still missing. She was never found at the Throne the way the others were.
1992 – Jane Simmons
On March 2, 1992, Annalise Simmons watched her older sister Jane leave their house and walk down the front walk. Jane wanted to go to Medford, and was going to try to find a ride by walking out of Portico to Highway 199 and finding someone headed that way.
Annalise barely turned her head from the television as Jane left. The two sisters were only eleven months apart in age and fought constantly. They’d had a heated argument only moments before when Jane grabbed the last can of Pepsi after school before Annalise arrived home minutes later.
Annalise spent the next half hour in gradually compounding excitement as she imagined all the punishments to befall Jane. When her parents pulled in the drive, her heart leapt with joy.
Annalise regrets that now. “I was happy she never came home. I was thrilled. I never thought, not for one minute, that something bad had happened. I was just a kid.”
Hours passed, night fell, and still no Jane. Her parents called all her friends. Annalise had told her parents that Jane had hitched to Medford, but no one had seen her there. None of her friends knew where she was. The police were called. Roger McMillan and his deputy patrolled the highway. Still no Jan
e.
Morning came and Jane had not come home. Frantic, Mr. and Mrs. Simmons interrogated Annalise, and under pressure, Annalise told everything she knew. No, Jane didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t have any friends their parents didn’t know about.
But she did have a secret.
Annalise showed them the box under Jane’s bed that she had found when snooping in her sister’s room the last time she’d been gone after school. The box held a deck of tarot cards, talismans like the stick figures, a notebook filled with drawings of pentagrams and lines of spells that looked like poetry.
Hours later, Annalise confessed the worst. Three nights earlier, at a sleepover party, Jane had sat on the Witch’s Throne. Everyone at school knew. She had sat on it after a dare, and the whole group of girls snuck out and went to the Throne, but Jane was the only one who sat on it.
They interviewed all of Jane’s friends at the sleepover, and they all confirmed: Jane had sat on the Throne. For days, the town expected to find Jane dead. Groups of people sat at the Throne, waiting for...whatever. For Jane to appear, for the witch to appear, for something. Posters went up with her school photo. Police in Medford worked with the Portico officers to search both Medford and Portico and to continue patrolling the highway between. Volunteers linked arms and walked through the forest. Nothing.
Days went by, then weeks. Rain soaked the posters, and they peeled from bulletin boards. The weeks added up to a year, then two.
“Jane was reckless,” says Annalise. “She was wild. She took that dare to sit on the Throne. But she was also smart. She wouldn’t have gotten into a stranger’s car. It was 1992. No one hitchhiked. We walked out to the highway and waited for anyone from town who was going that way into the city. That way we weren’t really asking for a ride or putting them out of the way, we were waiting for whoever was going that way. She would never have accepted a ride from a stranger.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN | OCTOBER 28
Annalise Simmons lives in the house from which her sister disappeared twenty-four years ago. Her parents moved to a retirement community in Arizona and left her the house. She works as a receptionist for an insurance agent in Medford. She never had children.
We pull into her driveway around 1pm. Inconceivably, the rain is falling heavier, permeating the already soaked ground. I had forgotten about this rain, this rain that lasts forever and washes away all memory of the sun and warmth. Rain like this set in the day George died, the last time I was in Portico. And now it’s back. I take it personally. I believe this rain has been waiting for me to return.
Jeremy insists on riding along. I wonder what his motive is. He is a fan of George’s, but he’s also the nephew of Martin Fisher, the man who didn’t want George exposing the truth about the Witch’s Throne. Why is he here? Why did he drive all night to obtain Roger McMillan’s unpublished memoir? It’s almost like he’s trying to make up for something...like he’s guilty.
Jeremy Fisher sits next to me in the back seat, his long, skinny legs cramped in the back of our rental car. He’s still jumpy, sipping from a to-go cup of coffee from the Apple that Mrs. Lowry made for him as we left. Jeremy turns toward me, his eyes red-rimmed.
“Hey,” he says, “what did George think happened to Jane Simmons?”
“That she was killed, probably by someone she knew. That’s what her sister thought, too.”
“Then why are we going to talk to her?” Rita asks loudly, turning around to glare at me. “Why are we talking to any of these people? We should be talking to Beverly Donneville.”
“You think she’s going to back down? You think you can intimidate her?”
Rita turns back around, arms crossed.
“We can go out there and cause a spectacle for their videos,” I continue, “or we can finish what George started. There must be something here that proves these people died tragic, but logically explainable, deaths. That’s my defense against Beverly Donneville. Every question we answer about these deaths puts another crack in this stupid curse. Every rational explanation shines a light on her trickery.”
“Thea’s right,” says Mitch, and Rita huffs at him. “No, listen. I remember from the Demon Cabin case. The Donnevilles are...they are so stubborn in their beliefs. Confronting them only makes them more steadfast. George tried confronting them on more than one occasion, and it did not work.”
“Well, then no amount of so-called evidence we find or questions we answer are going to convince them to change.”
Mitch sighs. “Maybe not. But maybe we can find enough to put together a strong enough argument to fight back, keep George’s reputation intact.”
“Why?” asks Jeremy.
We all stare at him.
Mitch catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Because George is my friend. Even though he’s gone, he’s still my friend, and no one is going to tell lies about him.”
Mitch turns into the driveway of a tidy craftsman home with a well-tended yard and cuts the engine. “Looks like she’s home.”
A woman is opening the front door as we climb out of the car. She’s waving, coming down the steps to greet us.
No, to greet me.
“Thea Drake,” she says, grasping both of my hands. “It is so good to see you. Come in.”
I’m grateful, but puzzled at her reception.
She welcomes all of us inside the coziest little house I’ve seen in Portico. It makes me rethink my old Victorian sprawl. I could live in a small house, the girls and me. My stomach turns, a wave of sadness causing my eyes to tear up, my throat to close.
I could. I could live in a house by myself with the girls.
Annalise leads us to an enormous over-stuffed sectional couch centered in front of a large screen television hanging above a fireplace. The built-in shelves are lined with knick-knacks, decorative plates, houseplants. A house without children.
“Lucky you caught me,” says Annalise. “I was just leaving. We won’t have much time, but I was glad to see you pull up.”
“Did you…” I’m shaking my head, confused, “…how did you know it was me?”
“Well, we all know you’re in town, of course. I expected to see you out there, of course, but I’m glad you came by.”
She pauses, finally absorbing my complete lack of comprehension.
“Mrs. Lowry gave me a call when you left the Apple…” she says, trailing off, unsure.
“Right.”
“She said you were coming to speak with me.”
“Of course.”
She motions for us all to sit, and we settle around the living room.
She is speaking to me, holding my hand, leading me to sit next to her on couch. “So, exciting day, huh?”
I am still at a loss. I stare at her.
“What excitement is that?” asks Rita.
Annalise glances at the others, but addresses me. “Beverly’s reading. The big day. That’s why you’re in town, right?”
“Beverly Donneville,” I say, suddenly understanding. Annalise thinks I am here to watch Beverly Donneville commune with the spirit of my dead husband.
She’s still gripping my hand. She gives it a squeeze. “You must have been so happy when you heard.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m silent, thoughts spinning in my head. She believes what the Donnevilles are saying? How? Why? I don’t know how to ask without offending her, without her thinking I’m crazy or rude.
I remember listening to the interview George recorded with her. She spoke at length about how she thought Jane had been picked up by someone she knew, someone from Portico, picked up and killed. She didn’t believe in the curse.
“You think…?” I begin, but I don’t know how to finish the question.
Annalise releases my hand, sits back, confused.
“Ms. Simmons,” says Rita, “you believe Beverly Donneville is speaking to George’s ghost?”
She lifts her chin a bit. I see the defiance, the setting of her will.
“When George
talked to you a few months ago,” I explain, “you told him you thought the curse was nonsense. You believed your sister had been kidnapped by someone she knew, and you were angry that the police had never caught that person, indignant that everyone seemed to use this supernatural explanation to avoid finding her kidnapper.”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking since...since George died. There were a lot of strange things about his death, a lot of unanswered questions that no one could explain.” She looks at me. “I believed you would have thought the same way.”
“Annalise…”
“And what about Randle Garrety? Did you know he wasn’t injured at all? Not a scratch on him.”
“He drowned.”
“His car went over a bridge. His car hit the barricade, smashed up the front end, but he wasn’t hurt at all. That doesn’t happen. It’s not logical.”
“What else?” asks Jeremy. Rita scowls at him, but he ignores it and Annalise goes on.
“Well, he sat on the Throne. There’s that. Like all of the others.”
“Did Randle have a connection to witchcraft?” asks Jeremy.
“Most likely. They seem to be everywhere I look with their talismans and their ceremonies. Who knows how far their influence has reached?”
She stands, checking her watch. “I’m sorry. It’s time to go. I don’t want to be late for the filming.”
We leave without speaking, not even a goodbye as Annalise shuts the door promptly behind us, but once we’re in the car, Mitch asks, “What’s the story with this Randle Garrety?”
“No,” says Rita. “We agreed to talk to this lady. We did. Now we’re going to the Throne to find Beverly.”
“He drowned,” says Jeremy. “In Hardtack Creek. Drove his car off the bridge.”
Mitch turns to me. “Annalise said there were questions about his death. What did George think?”
“George thought Garrety’s death was suspicious, too,” I explain. “The kid drove all the time, back and forth across that bridge in all kinds of terrible weather and never had an accident before that night.”
The Witch's Throne (Thea Drake Mystery Book 1) (Thea Drake Mysteries) Page 16