That Olde White Magick

by Sharon Pape

  By the time he’d finally called my name, I’d gone from feeling anxious to not caring to just wanting to go home. Duggan had sounded tired too and bored. He had me account for my time that day, describe my relationship with the deceased, and rate her performance as a board member. He also wanted to know which side of the Waverly controversy I supported. Although I was staunchly opposed to the large hotel and what it would mean for the charming, provincial character of our town, I didn’t know what Amanda’s position had been. And I definitely didn’t want to sound like I was at odds with her. I’d learned that it doesn’t take much to become a person of interest in our town. Instead, I said that I wanted to keep an open mind until I heard the give and take at the now aborted meeting. I could only hope that my aunt had had enough presence of mind not to commit herself either. She was uncharacteristically reticent after her interview, deflecting my questions with a shake of her head.

  “I refuse to attend any more of your meetings,” Merlin announced once we were underway. “Meetings are an insufferable waste of time. Apparently it matters not if it’s the Knights of the Round Table or your backwater town board meeting.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied. I could have told him that our meetings don’t usually include a murder and a police investigation, but I didn’t bother. Experience had taught me that arguing with Merlin was more frustrating for me than it was educational for him. Better to save my breath for more important matters. Besides, now that we were away from the detective, I wanted to hear about what my aunt called her “grilling.”

  “Did Detective Duggan warn you not to talk to anyone about the interview?” I asked her.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He said if I discussed the interview with anyone and influenced their answers, I’d be charged with interfering with the investigation.” The words flew out of her mouth like pent-up lava from a dormant volcano.

  Although my knowledge of the law was limited to what I’d read in books or seen on TV and in the movies, it sounded like an empty threat. It wasn’t hard to understand why Duggan used it. He wanted to keep people from coaching each other to avoid contradictory statements. Even the innocent worry about saying the wrong thing. I know because I’d been worried about undermining Tilly with my responses.

  “I don’t think there’s any law that says you can’t talk about a police interview,” I said as I swung my car into her driveway and brought it to a stop. “Duggan never mentioned that when he questioned me about Gary. Did he warn you about it back then?”

  “No,” she said indignantly. “You’re right! The nerve of that man! What do you want to know, Kailyn? Ask me anything. I’ll sing like a bird.” Without waiting for a question, Tilly gave me a complete rundown of her interview. The questions were basically the same ones he asked me but more detailed.

  “Did he ask where you stand on the Waverly hotel?” I asked.

  “I told him I haven’t decided yet. Only a fool would have grabbed that noose and looped it around her own neck.”

  I heaved a quiet sigh of relief and then chastised myself for thinking she wouldn’t know how to handle herself. “That was it?”

  “No, now that I think about it. He wanted to know who reached Amanda’s body first.”

  “Who did?” I asked, annoyed I hadn’t thought of that earlier. Talk about an important piece of information. Rest easy, Nancy Drew. I still have a lot to learn.

  “Beverly did. She was standing over the body when I got there.”

  “But she didn’t scream until you screamed.”

  “Maybe she was in shock, and when she saw me, she snapped out of it.”

  “Howsoever that may be,” Merlin piped up from the back seat, “we are not going to solve this crime tonight regardless of how long we remain in this vehicle. I beg of you, ladies, let us go inside.”

  “When he’s right, he’s right,” Tilly said. “Besides, I could do with something to eat.”

  “Ice cream,” Merlin proposed in a more jovial tone. “Is there more hot fudge to be had?”

  “I’m not sure, but there is whipped cream.”

  I wished them good night, and they got out of the car debating the relative merits of hot fudge to whipped cream, if one had to choose. On the short drive to my house, it hit me how exhausted I was. I didn’t need ice cream. All I needed was my pillow and a good eight hours of sleep. But when I turned onto my street and saw Travis’s car parked at the curb in front of my house, those were the last things on my mind.

  Chapter 3

  Travis met me in the driveway as I emerged from my car. He was dressed in chinos and a blue button-down, a leather messenger bag slung across his chest. His hair looked like he’d been raking his fingers through it, a habit he had when he was frustrated. He looked good but tired. I must have looked worse after the ordeal at the gym. But tired or not, my heart did its little jig for him. I made a point of not letting it show. The way things were between us lately, Travis didn’t need any added pressure about our relationship.

  “Hey, Kailyn,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  The words were right, but the tone and delivery were perfunctory, as if he felt obligated to say them before he broached the real reason for being there.

  “Good, I’m good,” I said, aiming for carefree nonchalance and missing by a mile. Neither of us was on our A game tonight. I shut the car door and set the alarm. The proverbial ball was in his court, but he was studying his Docksiders, presumably working out what he wanted to say. It was unusual for a reporter who normally had his patter honed down to an art. I gave him another twenty seconds to say something, before I headed for the house.

  “Listen,” he said with five seconds to spare, “I’m sorry to drop by like this, but I’m here to run down the story about the woman...the one found dead behind the elementary school? When I got there, the cops had the school grounds roped off. I couldn’t get two words out of any of them.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was there.” I needed to get off my feet, so I started up the slate walk to the old Victorian my family had called home for almost a hundred fifty years. The land itself had been owned by the Wildes for closer to four hundred. Travis fell in beside me. We took the steps up to the wraparound porch in tandem. I stopped at the door to root around in my purse for the keys.

  “Was the victim a close friend?” he inquired, clearly trying not to make the same foot-in-mouth mistake he made shortly after we met.

  I gave up on the Braille method of finding the keys, and I peered into the depths of my purse. “An acquaintance,” I said, finally locating them inside the wrong compartment. I really had to get a smaller purse.

  “In that case, maybe you can help me out?”

  He kept his voice low as if he were in a funeral home to pay his respects to the deceased. I could tell by the twinkle in his eyes, though, that I was the answer to his prayers. Not long ago I could have elicited the same response by just being home if he happened to stop by. A sigh ambushed me, but I covered it by faking a yawn. “Give him time,” I heard my mother say. “Give him time.” I glanced around to make sure I’d only heard her in my head and she wasn’t actually there with us. The last thing I needed was for Travis to meet my dearly departed. Although he seemed to take the proof of my paranormal abilities in stride that night two months ago, things hadn’t been the same between us since then.

  I opened the front door. It shuddered inward, the wood swollen by the August humidity. I’d been meaning to find a spell to return it to its proper dimensions or hire a repairman. I turned to Travis. “Would you like to come in?” Talk about a ridiculous question. The man had been waiting for me to come home and followed me up to the front door like a lost puppy. Unless he was there to sell me Girl Scout cookies, he wanted to come in and talk.

  “If you’re not too tired?”

  I toyed with the ide
a of telling him I was too tired, but our current problems were not entirely his fault. He and I had both had a rough time that day in June. Tilly, Merlin and I, facing a killer who intended to add us to his list of victims and Travis racing back to us, afraid he would find all of us dead. In retrospect, it wasn’t the best time to have further complicated matters by proving I wasn’t the woman he thought I was. Since then, the easiness between us was gone, replaced by a wariness I could almost smell. It radiated from him like a pungent new cologne. But I didn’t blame him. If the situation were reversed, I would probably have run for the hills. Life was hard enough without a sorcerer in it—my own included.

  “It’s okay,” I said, holding the door open for him. “Just shake me if I fall asleep.” I left my purse on the table in the foyer and led the way into the living room where Sashkatu was stretched out along the top of the couch. He’d always been an “up” cat, preferring to survey his domain from above. His eyes blinked open when Travis dropped heavily onto the couch, but after determining there was no imminent danger, he promptly fell back to sleep. The five other cats were probably bedded down for the night.

  Travis set his messenger bag beside him on the couch, in the space where I would have been sitting in the pre-revelation days of our relationship. I tried not to take it personally and made do with sitting on the wing chair across from him. He pulled out his mini laptop and asked me to begin.

  I laid out the sequence of events as I remembered them, which is harder than it sounds after witnessing a traumatic event. I kept to the facts I knew for certain: Amanda’s name, where she was found, and the sharp, bloody line across her neck. Travis kept his head down, taking notes without a word. He didn’t look up until I stopped speaking.

  “Can you tell me more about this Waverly Hotel deal?” he asked.

  “The chain wants to build a hotel where the marsh is at the entrance to town.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “They’d have to dam the stream that feeds it and drain the land, a pricey proposition before you even calculate normal building costs. Is there any opposition to it?”

  “Plenty, but Waverly is also asking for a change in the zoning laws. They claim the hotel has to have at least ten stories, a hundred rooms, for it to turn a profit.”

  “Folks are divided on that?”

  “Well, it would change the look of the town, the quaint atmosphere that tourists find so appealing. As things are now, there’s no building over two stories.”

  “And once the zoning is changed, they’re worried it will snowball.”

  “Exactly, but that’s still not the whole story. If you ask ten people, you’ll get ten different reasons why they’re in favor of the hotel or against it. I’ve never seen anything raise people’s hackles like this before. That’s why the board called the special session.”

  “Do you know where Amanda stood on the project?”

  “No. I went to the meeting because I wanted to hear what everyone had to say.”

  “Any thoughts about who might have killed her?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that question ever since I saw her lying there. Maybe the killer wanted to eliminate a vote that conflicted with his or her agenda. It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who knows which way Amanda was leaning.” Someone like Beverly, who was also a board member. I could feel the Nancy Drew juices stirring in me. Another investigation might be the perfect way to distract myself from the issues between Travis and me.

  “Kailyn?”

  Travis’s voice dragged me out of my thoughts.

  “You’re not thinking of going after another killer, are you? Because this time it’s different. It’s not a matter of trying to keep your best friend out of prison. There’s no good reason for you to take the risk.”

  I couldn’t decide if I was pleased with his apparent concern or irritated that he still felt entitled to have a say in my life now that we were barely a couple anymore. Travis seemed to be waiting for me to say something. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I told him, satisfied that my reply was vague enough to give me some leeway.

  He wasn’t buying it. “Have you forgotten how close you came to being killed the last time? And not just you. Your aunt Tilly and that peculiar cousin of yours might have been victims too, even poor old Sashkatu.”

  He was really pushing all my buttons. “I appreciate your input,” I said. There was more I wanted to say, a lot more, but I don’t believe in burning bridges I might want to cross again one day.

  Judging by his furrowed brow, Travis had a lot more to say too. Maybe he shared my philosophy, because he dropped the debate. “We’re both tired. Why don’t we call it a night?” he said, closing his laptop and sliding it back into the bag. “I’ll get out of your way. I appreciate your help.”

  I was annoyed with him, but now that he was on the verge of leaving, I wanted him to stay. “Can I get you coffee or anything?”

  “Another time? I’ve got to write this up.” He rose, messenger bag tucked under his arm, making it pointless for me to pursue the invitation. Just as well, I hate to sound needy.

  “Give him time,” my mother’s voice came again, this time with my grandmother Bronwen providing backup vocals. It was one of those rare instances they were in agreement.

  I walked Travis to the door. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else,” I said, stepping on his attempt to request that very thing. We both stopped and simultaneously began again. Back before everything went haywire between us, we would have enjoyed a good laugh about being on the same wavelength. “Will do,” I said quickly to put an end to our bumbling.

  “Terrific, thanks. I’ll be in touch.” And he was out the door.

  I don’t know how long I was standing there staring at the closed door when my mother popped up in front of me. Her little white cloud of energy glowing a cheerful pink. “You need to relax and give him time,” she said, getting straight to the point. Death hadn’t changed her much.

  “Yes, Mom, I got that loud and clear the first two times.”

  Bronwen popped up beside her in much the same mood. It had taken a while, but I finally had a handle on reading their moods from the state of their clouds.

  “What your mother means to say, Kailyn, is that we’ve both been through relationships ourselves and have some expertise in the matter, should you want to avail yourself of it.”

  Morgana’s cloud was turning a worrisome shade of red. “I’m quite capable of telling my own daughter what I mean,” she said tightly.

  “Of course, you have the floor,” Bronwen responded in a look-what-I-have-to-put-with tone.

  I took a couple of slow, deep breaths and reminded myself that the conversation would be over faster if I kept to the high road and didn’t take sides.

  “All right then,” Morgana said.

  I pictured her lifting her chin the way she always did when she felt vindicated, as though her victory had elevated her physical stature as well.

  “Here’s the hard truth. Every man I dated thought he was capable of handling the magick. The weakest of them didn’t last a day after finding out the true extent of my abilities. The only one who stuck around for years was your father. And I believe he stayed as long as he did because it was hard for him to leave you. But in the end, he also took off to find less complicated women.”

  “Ditto with your grandfather,” Bronwen added, “although if memory serves, he didn’t last quite as long, possibly because your mother was a rather strident, difficult child. No offense, Morgana, dear.”

  “Why would I take offense?” she snapped. “Why would anyone take offense at such a lovely characterization?”

  “Ladies,” I said, hoping to keep the contretemps from escalating into a full-fledged battle, “thank you for your wisdom and guidance. I can take it from here.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that,” Bronwen said. “T
ravis is a fine young man. He deserves a chance to adjust to this new paradigm.”

  “On that we agree,” my mother said, setting aside her pique. “It’s a good sign that he’s still hanging in there. Be patient.”

  She vanished with a little pop of energy, followed immediately by Bronwen. If I were a betting woman, I’d lay odds they were continuing their argument on the other side of the veil. I had to admit that I felt more hopeful as a result of our chat, but I wasn’t convinced that Travis was “still hanging in there” because of his feelings for me. It was possible he didn’t want to lose me as a local resource. He called from time to time to ask how I was doing. The conversations were brief and awkward. The one time we met for coffee was even worse.

  As much as I needed sleep, I was too wired, and my stomach was grumbling loudly about being ignored. I surveyed my options in the refrigerator and freezer and opted for a pint of banana fudge ice cream. One of the best perks of being an adult had to be eating what I wanted, when I wanted it. I took a dish from the cabinet, then put it back. Who was I kidding? I grabbed a spoon and took the container into the living room. I turned on the TV and clicked through the channels until I found a rerun of Charmed. The show was so far removed from the truth that it was always good for a chuckle.

  I was down to the last dregs of ice cream when the phone rang, making me jump. Who would be calling so late? I was relieved to see that it wasn’t Tilly’s or Elise’s number on the caller ID. Probably a solicitor trying to reach a quota. I answered it, intending to hang up if I was right.

  “Is this Kailyn? Kailyn Wilde?” the man on the other end asked in a raspy voice. He didn’t sound like a solicitor. He didn’t have the rehearsed patter. There was none of the background noise you hear from a call center either. But I couldn’t place the voice.