That Olde White Magick

by Sharon Pape

  After the ambulance took Amanda away, Curtis secured the area where she died with stakes and crime scene tape. Merlin and I gave it a wide berth as we made our way over to stand with Tilly. We each put an arm around her, though she was no longer unsteady on her feet. To be honest, I was finding the contact comforting. Maybe Merlin did too. Beverly was nearby, telling anyone who would listen about the horror of discovering “poor Amanda.” With each retelling, the story became more dramatic and her relationship with Amanda more intimate.

  “Give her another ten minutes, and she’ll be Amanda’s long-lost sister,” Tilly said with dry distaste.

  “Are we waiting for a polite time to leave?” Merlin wanted to know. “I find so many of your social conventions vexing.”

  I tried to explain it was actually a matter of the law. “The police will want to speak to Tilly, because she was one of the people who found the body.”

  “I don’t like being grilled,” she mumbled.

  I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Come on now. It’s not like they dragged you down to the police station and browbeat you under the glare of a naked light bulb the last time.”

  “It was very unpleasant all the same.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to another round of interviews by Detective Duggan either, but I didn’t want to stoke her distress. “We made it through then and we’ll make it through now,” I said. “Let’s leave the theatrics to Beverly.”

  You have to know your audience. Comparisons to her nemesis enough to shore up her courage, Tilly squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. I was glad my friend Elise hadn’t been able to attend the meeting. She had wanted to come, but with Jim gone, she was a single parent, and no one was available to keep an eye on her boys. The last thing she needed was to be party to another homicide. Two short months ago, she had been arrested for killing her husband. She had been placed in a squad car and taken away. Her children, already traumatized by the loss of their father, had watched it all from their front porch. It’s not the kind of experience you can simply shrug off, when the police let you go with an “oops, our bad” apology. Her kids were still waking up with nightmares.

  Curtis’s voice interrupted my thoughts. He was calling for quiet, not an easy endeavor. The crowd, which had been silent and respectful while Amanda was placed in a black body bag, loaded into the ambulance, and carried away, was now venting its collective shock and fear. When it came to the issue of motive, there were all kinds of theories being floated. But it was pure conjecture. All we knew for certain was that we had another killer on the loose in our once-safe town, and until he or she was caught, we were all potential targets.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Curtis said once he finally had everyone’s attention, “this is an active crime scene, and you will all have to remain here until Detective Duggan arrives and we can sort things out.” His words were met by a chorus of groans and complaints. He had to raise his voice and outshout them. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience, but if you leave the premises before being cleared to do so, you will be held to account. This is not a block party. This is now a murder investigation. I know you want us to catch the killer as soon as possible. To do that we can’t take shortcuts or give anyone a free pass because we happen to know them. I need everyone to go back inside through the emergency doors in an orderly fashion. This crime scene has been trampled enough.”

  “We didn’t know it was a crime scene until they found Amanda,” one man boomed.

  “I understand that, sir,” Curtis replied. “I’m not assigning blame. I just want to protect any evidence that might still be viable. So if you’ll return to the gym, I’ll get the process underway while we wait for the detective. Thank you.”

  In spite of his instructions, the crowd surged forward, rounding the building toward the back doors, no doubt recalling how few chairs were to be had. Bleachers might be bearable for an entertaining sports event, but sitting on backless wooden slats while waiting to be questioned didn’t have the same appeal.

  “Why are we standing here?” Merlin bristled when I didn’t lead him and Aunt Tilly in a dash to the doors. “If we are among the last to enter the building, we may well be here all night.”

  My nerves were as frayed as everyone else’s, so I took a deep breath to settle myself before replying. “First of all, that’s not how this process works. The police have their own system. I’m pretty sure it isn’t first come, first served. And second, I don’t want Tilly to be pushed and shoved trying to get in there. You saw how wobbly she was.” But even as I was explaining things to Merlin, I was wondering how to find her someplace decent to sit.

  Curtis had taken up a position at the emergency doors. He used the small pad of paper he carried for notes to write down the names of everyone as they filed past him into the gym. As I expected, all the folding chairs were occupied before we made our way back inside. One became available when the young man sitting there left to join a woman in the bleachers.

  The chair quickly became the subject of a heated argument between two men who apparently reached it at the same time. They each had a death grip on the back of it. I debated the use of magick to wrest it from them, but it was the sort of magick Merlin was handier at. How could I ask him to do what I’d forbidden him to do earlier in the evening? The implications for dealing with him in the future made my head spin. I was still weighing my limited options when Tilly squeezed past me and plopped down on the contested chair.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, smiling up at them. “You’re lifesavers. I don’t know how I would have managed, what with my arthritis and all.” She could make disingenuous look downright sincere.

  The men stood there with their mouths hanging open, unable to come up with a response. They shared a glance of bewilderment as if they were cohorts and not rivals. For a moment, I was worried they might join forces to dump her out of the chair. Tilly must have sensed it too because she added another stanza to her praise.

  “These men have restored my faith in humanity,” she said to everyone within hearing distance. “They deserve recognition for their selflessness.” She started clapping, and others soon joined in.

  Caught up in the spirit, Merlin let out with a rousing “Huzzah! Huzzah!” The men knew they were beaten. They let go of the chair and stalked off in different directions, no doubt wondering how they’d lost control of the situation.

  “I, too, should like a seat,” Merlin announced when things quieted down. He and I were standing along the side at Tilly’s row. “I could easily encourage one or two people to vacate theirs,” he added. “It would be no bother.”

  “No magick,” I warned him.

  “Then you would have no objection were I to yell, ‘Mouse’? Women on the TV are always running from the furry little creatures. We would have our choice of seats in no time at all.”

  Before I could answer him, Rusty entered the gym, pushing a hand truck loaded with chairs. Curtis must have urged him into action. It had been years since I’d seen Rusty around town. Or maybe I simply hadn’t recognized him. He’d aged a lot since my childhood. Most of his distinctive red hair was gone, and his once-round cheeks were sinking into bloodhound jowls. People who greeted him received a quick bob of his head, but his lips stayed compressed in a grim line. Back when I was in school, my mother used to say he was the youngest curmudgeon she’d ever known. He’d apparently grown into his personality.

  He got right down to business. As fast as he was unfolding the chairs, people were claiming them. It was like watching a game of musical chairs, minus the music and fun. One woman sat before Rusty could snatch his hand away. He yowled like a cat and treated her to some words I’d never heard him use when I attended the school. Another woman slid onto a chair at the same time a man was sitting so that he wound up in her lap. After those kerfuffles, Curtis came over to supervise the rest of the chair setup. I would have expected Amanda’s murder to foster mor
e civility among the citizens of New Camel, but tensions, which had already been running high in anticipation of the board meeting, had warped into something uglier after her death.

  Lolly Donovan chose that moment to rush into the gym, her face all pink and shiny and wisps of dark hair that had escaped her barrette stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She stopped dead in her tracks, clearly confused by the scene before her. She’d expected to find the town board meeting in full swing, not a bunch of grim-faced townies milling restlessly around the room or talking in tight clusters. I told Merlin not to move, and I made my way across the floor to her.

  “Kailyn, what’s going on here?” she asked, latching onto my arm as soon as I reached her. “What happened?”

  I explained about Amanda, trying to break the news gently. She’d known Amanda much better than I had. They’d lived on the same street for years. Lolly fell back a step. I grabbed her arm, afraid she was about to faint.

  “No, that’s...that’s not...possible,” she sputtered, her eyes welling up with tears. “I just saw her this morning as I was leaving for work. First Jim and now Amanda? How did we go from never having a murder in this town to having two in as many months? It makes no sense.”

  I let her go on for a while, trying to wrap her mind around this latest tragedy.

  “Why is everyone still here?” she asked, finally running out of steam. “What are they waiting for?”

  “Detective Duggan. We can’t go until he’s cleared everyone. Curtis is holding down the fort until he arrives. I’m sorry, Lolly,” I said. “I should have called and told you not to come. With all the turmoil, I didn’t think of it.”

  I’d known she was going to be late. She had one of her fudge-making classes after closing. The date had been booked weeks before by a women’s club from Watkins Glen. As important as the town board meeting was, business considerations trumped it. And now that Lolly was in the building, Curtis would never let her leave. In fact, her late arrival might be seen as incriminating. Duggan would want to know where she’d been at the time of Amanda’s death.

  “It’s okay,” Lolly said, “I probably would have forgotten my name under these circumstances.” Biting her lip, she glanced around the gym. “Maybe I’ll just scoot back out before anyone realizes I’m here.”

  “Too many people have already seen you. You don’t want to give Duggan any reason to think you’re evading him. The best thing you can do is cooperate. You have nothing to worry about. The women in your fudge-making class will vouch for you.”

  “You’re right. What was I thinking? Can you see me as a suspect on the lam?”

  I would have laughed if I weren’t so worried about my aunt’s situation. Merlin and I might be the only ones who saw her go outside and knew she wasn’t out there long enough to kill anyone. But how much weight would our statements carry, being family and all? Then again, who would seriously consider Tilly capable of murder? I had to remind her not to say too much. Lawyers are always telling their clients to answer questions succinctly. The more you embellish, the more likely you are to hang yourself, even if you aren’t guilty. Tilly had done all right the last time, but that was no guarantee. She had a tendency to ramble, especially when she was nervous. My thoughts were tripping over each other, pinging around my brain like balls in an old-fashioned pinball machine.

  “Where are you sitting?” Lolly asked.

  “Tilly is over there on a chair,” I said, pointing in her direction. “Merlin and I don’t have seats yet. He’s waiting on the sidelines near her.”

  And judging by the empty hand truck, we weren’t going to have seats anytime soon. Lolly spotted Merlin and waved. He waved back enthusiastically, possibly hoping she’d brought along some of her wares. To no one’s surprise, Merlin had embraced her chocolate with as much gusto as he had pizza. One evening he polished off an entire pound of the candy while waiting for Tilly to finish preparing dinner. After that, she started hiding her personal chocolate stash at my house.

  Lolly and I were still talking when Duggan arrived. He marched into the gym, a man on a mission. His craggy face was set in an attitude that didn’t invite greetings. Curtis met him halfway across the floor and led him the rest of the way to the podium, where they put their heads together to confer privately. I saw him give the detective the list of names he compiled. After a couple minutes, Curtis stepped down to the gym floor, appropriated two chairs, to the chagrin of the men already in them, and dragged them to an unoccupied corner of the room. Apparently Duggan deemed him competent enough to handle some of the interviews. Or he realized that without the younger man’s help, we could all be holed up in the school for days.

  Given the options, I would have preferred Curtis talk with my aunt. He was younger, more affable, less threatening, and therefore less likely to give Tilly a stroke. But I had no illusions. Duggan, himself, would be questioning Beverly and her. Lolly excused herself to find a seat in the bleachers. We hugged and wished each other an easy time of it.

  Duggan settled himself in one of the chairs originally meant for the board members and glanced at Curtis’s list again. I could only imagine what he was thinking when he saw Tilly’s name there.

  “Matilda Wilde,” he said in that clipped, military tone meant to strike fear into the hearts of miscreants.

  I knew from experience that it did a fine job of rattling innocent people too. She rose from her seat and sidestepped out of the narrow row, trying not to stomp on anyone’s toes. With surprising agility and grace, Merlin swooped in and took possession of the vacated chair. I gave my aunt the crook of my arm to hold and escorted her up the few steps to the podium.

  The detective scowled at me. “You can’t remain here with her.”

  Tilly’s arm tightened on mine like a toddler on the first day of preschool. I felt a tremor move through her as I helped her into the chair next to him.

  “It’s been a really hard night for her, Detective,” I said in what I considered a deferential tone. “Maybe I could sit somewhere behind her for a bit of emotional support, you know, somewhere I wouldn’t be able to influence her responses?”

  “Good try, Ms. Wilde. You’re going to have to step down—now.”

  There was no wiggle room in his tone or in the hard set of his jaw. I left the podium, feeling Tilly’s eyes following my retreat. While I’d been preoccupied, Rusty had set up a portable table at the front of the gym. I watched him lift a large coffee urn off a cart and place it at one end. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his work pants to mop his forehead and stuffed it back in. He wasn’t a young man anymore, and his job was largely physical. Unfortunately, his second in command had given one day’s notice before setting off in search of greener pastures, a path well trodden by his predecessors. The word around town was that Rusty wasn’t an easy man to work with.

  He left the gym with the cart, and when he returned minutes later from the direction of the cafeteria, the cart was holding plastic coffee cups, spoons, plates, napkins, and fixings for the coffee. I ambled in that general direction. After Rusty’s third trip, the cart carried three platters piled high with donuts, the refreshments promised in the email about the meeting. The moment he stepped away from the table, everyone who’d been watching his progress made a beeline for the food. Nerves, boredom, and discomfort made for a bad case of the nibbles.

  I was among the first to reach the table. I took two paper plates and put a chocolate donut on one for Merlin and a jelly donut on the other for Tilly. I had to do a slalom run around the people still trying to reach the table, protecting the donuts from the jostling and bumping on every side. While we were stuck in there, they were a commodity as valuable as gold.

  When I reached Merlin’s row, he was the only one still in his seat. The others had decided they needed coffee and donuts more than a comfortable chair. The few who had brought a sweater or jacket left the clothing behind in hopes of saving their sea
ts. I didn’t put the odds in their favor. Without feet or knees to navigate around, I slipped easily into the row and handed Merlin his donut before heading to the podium. I wasn’t looking forward to Duggan’s reaction, but I knew a donut would go a long way to improving my aunt’s emotional state.

  The detective was too focused on my aunt to notice my approach. Since surprising him didn’t seem like a good strategy, I cleared my throat to let him know I was there. He was not happy to see me, but Tilly’s eyes lit up when she saw the donut.

  “This isn’t some little meet and greet we’re conducting,” he growled at me. “If you continue to interfere, I’ll have Officer Curtis haul you down to the holding cell and lock you up until morning.”

  “My niece is worried about me, Detective,” Tilly said, finding her mettle now that the donut and I had been threatened. “I have a problem with low blood sugar. You don’t want me passing out on you, do you?”

  Duggan chewed on that for a moment before turning back to me. “Give your aunt the damned donut, but I don’t want to see you up here again until I call you. Got that?”

  I thanked him and reached up to put the plate in her outstretched hand. “It’s okay, dear girl,” she said, making the most of her new role as a woman with a condition. “Not to worry. I’ll be just fine.”

  Two hours later we piled back into my car. It was easy to find, being one of the last cars in the lot. After Tilly was excused, the detective had called Beverly and then Merlin. At that point, I hadn’t worked out if I should tell the wizard to stick to the truth. If he took that advice too far, he might end up in the psyche ward of the nearest hospital. Instead, I went with “answer every question with as few words as possible.” His interview was mercifully short, but judging by Duggan’s confused expression, I was afraid to ask Merlin for details. I hoped to be called next, but Duggan kept me waiting and waiting, until the end. My comeuppance for irritating him? Or maybe his nose was still out of joint because I captured Jim’s killer before he could.