by Sharon Pape
“This is Kailyn,” I said. “Who’s calling?”
“Rusty Higgins—you know, from the school?”
That reminded me of how some of the kids used to call him Rusty Hinges. But that aside, I couldn’t imagine why he was calling me. “Hi, Rusty,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about that poor woman who was killed tonight, you know, Amanda?”
My gut reaction was to ask him what he knew, but I made myself slow down “Rusty, if you have information about the killer, you really need to go to the police.” I wasn’t exactly Duggan’s favorite citizen, and I didn’t want to be charged with obstruction of justice. Unfortunately, I was too curious about what Rusty knew to let it go. I straddled that fence for another few seconds before taking the plunge. “How about this, Rusty? Tell me what you know, and if I think it’s worthwhile, I’ll go down to the precinct house with you in the morning.” That way I’d be the one who encouraged him to come forward.
“I suppose that’s all right. When can you be here?”
“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”
“Nope, I’m not saying anything on the phone.” He sounded determined to stand his ground, and I was just as determined to stay put.
“How is tomorrow morning?” I asked.
“It’ll do. Seven o’clock and don’t be late. I’ve got to finish getting the school gussied up for the new term.”
I took down his address. “Seven sharp, I’ll be there.”
Chapter 4
Rusty lived ten minutes west of New Camel in a small Cape Cod with a steeply pitched roof. The other houses on his street were a mixture of Capes and small ranches, all bearing signs of neglect from lack of money, lack of interest, or a combination of the two. Rusty’s house looked tidier and better cared for than its neighbors. The lawn was mowed, and the red salvia and white impatiens beneath the living room window abloom. I parked at the curb at two minutes to seven and walked up the cement path to the house.
On closer inspection, I could see that the cement was cracked, the paint was peeling on the front door, and the window frames and weeds were winning their battle for supremacy over the grass. An old black pickup truck sat in the driveway along with a shiny new snowplow. Rusty probably picked up some extra cash plowing out driveways during the winter months. He was clearly not lazy. It struck me that although I’d known the man for decades, I knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he was the school’s custodian. I had no idea if he was an ethical person or if he treated animals kindly. He could be a liar, even a sociopath. I rang the doorbell, wondering how much faith I could put in the information he wanted to impart.
Rusty opened the door while it was still chiming. “C’mon in. Glad to see there are still folks who agree to a time and place and don’t keep you waitin’.”
I stepped inside. It was easy to see that a single man lived there, a single man with no interest in interior décor. He led me into a shabby living room dominated by a large flat screen TV on one wall. Facing it was an old recliner, the plaid fabric worn away on the armrests and the cushion back where he rested his head. Rusty had his priorities.
“Have yourself a seat,” he said, nodding in the direction of a sofa that was catty-corner to the chair. “Mind if I call you Kailyn? It’s how I knew you as a kid.”
“Kailyn is fine,” I said, perching on the edge of the sofa. It didn’t look as distressed as the chair, but I had no desire to lean back and be enveloped in its oversized cushions.
“You can call me Rusty,” he said, dropping into the recliner.
“Okay, Rusty. When you called you said you had information about Amanda.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and lowered his voice as if he suspected his house was bugged. “Yup, that’s right. I was cleanin’ up last night when I overheard Beverly talkin’ to some folks. I wasn’t eavesdroppin’, mind you. That woman was never taught to use her inside voice.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “What did she say?”
“That she knew for a fact Amanda was all for granting the Waverly’s rezoning request. She believed the hotel would bring in more tourists and lower everyone’s taxes.”
Since the information came from Beverly, I made a mental note to check it out. She had a reputation for embellishing on the truth. If she knew part of a story, she didn’t see anything wrong with filling in the missing pieces, using her own brand of logic. “Was there anything else?”
“Yup, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts Hugh Fletcher hired the killer.”
“Fletcher?” The name was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“He owns Winterland, the ski resort outside of town,” Rusty explained.
“I thought the owner was Eric Ingersoll.”
“Ingersoll is the manager. Fletcher spends most of his time in Manhattan. The resort is just one of his businesses. He’s what you call an entrepreneur.”
“So you’re a skier?” I asked. “Is that how you know all this?”
“Nope, never seen the point in paying to ride to the top of a hill in order to slide down it. I just keep my ears open.”
“But why would Fletcher want to kill Amanda?” I asked.
“Easy. If the town grants Waverly’s rezonin’ request, there’ll be competition for his hotel. As things stand now, the only other hotel is almost an hour away. Winterland’s been pullin’ in a fortune, chargin’ sky-high prices for rooms.” Rusty leaned back in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest and a grim but triumphant expression on his face. “There you have it.”
I didn’t want to reject his theory out of hand, but it made no sense for Fletcher to risk killing off a board member while negotiations were still ongoing. Besides, he had no guarantee that Amanda’s replacement would be against the deal. I pointed this out to Rusty, trying my best to let him down gently
“I get what you’re sayin’, but I have this here feelin’ in my gut about it.”
“I think we’re going to need some evidence before we can take that feeling to the police. Can I ask you something, Rusty?”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you call me and not someone else? We hardly know each other.”
“I know all I need to know about you. You’re the one who caught Jim Harkens’s killer.”
“That’s not entirely true. I poked around in the right places until he came after me.”
“And that’s when you nabbed him.” Rusty was clearly not willing to let go of his over-inflated opinion of me.
“Yes, I guess you could say that.” Although there were some scary moments when it could have gone very differently. “I’d rather if you didn’t repeat that to anyone else,” I added.
“You got it. But just so you know, it’s been all over town since the day it went down.” Great. I was sure Duggan enjoyed hearing that little refrain over and over again. “I appreciate the information,” I said, rising from the couch. “Thank you.”
* * * *
I stopped home long enough to take Sashkatu with me to the shop. He’d accompanied Morgana every day until her passing and did not take kindly to being left behind with the five new interlopers. I found out the hard way. The first day I left him at home, the six of them must have had quite a tussle because when I got back that evening, the house was topsy-turvy. Anything not nailed down was on the floor. The curtains in the living room were half off their rods, and someone had peed in my split-leaf philodendron.
When the culprits slinked from their hidey-holes for dinner, they were all missing tufts of fur. I could only assume that Sashkatu had vented his foul mood on his brethren, and they didn’t take it lying down. That was the first and last time I left him home for an entire day. Besides, walking across the street to the back of my shop was the most exercise he got anymore. That and using his custom-built steps to ascend to perches he could no
longer reach on his own.
We walked into the shop, and I turned off the alarm. In spite of his arthritis, Sashki made it up the steps to his down cushion in the front window before I could turn on the computer. Although it was more than an hour before opening, I had to pay bills, order more of the complimentary tote bags, and check my inventory for other items that might be running low.
The computer had made all of those chores so much easier. It was still a sore point with Morgana and Bronwen, though. When I’d tried to show them how it worked, their white energy clouds had contracted into angry red fists, and they’d zipped off with a crackle and a snap.
I should have known better. They never liked being proved wrong, another thing that hadn’t changed after they shuffled off their mortal coils. I still didn’t have a good handle on where they resided now, and it seemed they weren’t permitted to tell me. Left to imagine my own theory, I thought of it as a transitional plane, a death-lite, until they were willing to relinquish their ties to this world and continue on their journey.
I was logging off the computer when two elderly women toddled into the shop, arms linked as if they were holding each other up. “Good Morning, ladies,” I said, standing. “Welcome to Abracadabra. What can I do for you today?”
At first I didn’t think they heard me because they didn’t speak or look at me. They appeared transfixed by the merchandise arrayed before them. I was on the verge of welcoming them again when the taller of the women turned to me.
“Hello, dearie,” she said. “Please excuse us, but we’ve never set foot in a magick shop before.”
I came around the counter to them. “In that case, I’m twice as pleased that Abracadabra is your first. I’m Kailyn.”
They unlinked arms to introduce themselves and shake my hand. “I’m Flora,” said the taller one, “and this is my sister, Daisy.”
Daisy bobbed her head. “Our mother, rest her soul, loved flowers. She would have named all her children for them, but the boys posed a bit of a problem.” They smiled simultaneously.
“I imagine they would. Is there anything specific you’re looking for today?”
“We need a memory spell,” Daisy said. “We’ve been spending so much time searching for things we could have written the great American novel.”
“Well maybe not the great one,” Flora put in with a chuckle.
“I have just the thing.” I wanted to offer them a seat, but I had just the one chair. My desk chair was too large to fit in the space beside the one already there. I really should keep an extra one in the storeroom for times like this. Maybe Tilly could spare one for a little while. “Flora, Daisy, please have a look around while I run next door for a moment.”
“Take your time, dearie,” Flora replied. “We love to browse.”
“So many interesting things to see,” Daisy murmured.
The sisters linked arms again and wobbled down the first aisle, exclaiming over the products like children in a toy store. I headed to the back of the shop and through the connecting door to Tea and Empathy. My aunt’s shop had the same square footage as mine, but the spaces were divided differently. The back of my shop was a storeroom; the back of hers, a kitchen. The front of my shop was larger because I needed to display my entire line of products, whereas the front of hers only needed to accommodate a few small tables and chairs. She conducted her psychic readings at one of the tables. The others were elegantly set for an authentic English tea, which most of her clients opted for after their readings. Tilly did all the baking herself but imported the clotted cream straight from the finest English dairy.
That morning I found her bustling around in the kitchen. As usual, Merlin was perched on his stool in the doorway awaiting samples. He was back in the burlap pants and dingy shirt he was wearing when he arrived in the twenty-first century. The shirt had improved somewhat after Tilly put it through several washings, but it couldn’t rightly be called white. In any case, Merlin had made it clear that these were his garments of choice, and he would wreak vengeance on anyone who disposed of them.
I greeted Merlin and poked my head into the kitchen to ask about borrowing the chair.
“Sure, sure. You’re welcome to it,” Tilly said, kneading dough. “My first client isn’t until eleven.”
“Linzer tarts?” I guessed when I passed the kitchen again carrying the chair.
“Hardly a brilliant guess,” Merlin said, “when one can plainly see the smudges of raspberry jam on her apron.”
“I’ll save one for you,” Tilly called after me. She always does. The day she forgets, I’ll know her memory is fading.
On the way back to my shop, I crossed paths with Sashkatu, who was heading over to visit them. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, Merlin was like human catnip to all the felines. They simply couldn’t get enough of him. On the other hand, it was no mystery why they adored Tilly. She was not only a devout cat lover but also the Santa Claus of fresh-baked goodies.
I found the sisters in the last of my three jam-packed aisles. They followed me and the chair up to the counter as if I were the Pied Piper.
“How thoughtful of you,” Daisy said, lowering herself onto the seat as soon as I set it down.
Flora gave an appreciative sigh as she took the other one. “Thank you. At our age, our energy tends to run out before our curiosity.”
I leaned over the counter, grabbed a pad and pencil, and held them out to Flora, who was closer to me.
“Oh good,” she said. “I misplaced my pad a few days ago and I was afraid we might have to memorize the spell.”
Daisy laughed. “Talk about a wasted trip.” Her laughter was as honest as a child’s; I couldn’t help laughing along with her.
“I’m a great believer in backup,” I said, “especially when it comes to memory spells. This is an easy one, but it should serve your purposes. Ready?”
Flora nodded.
“You’ll need to have a mirror, a piece of paper and a pencil. A pen won’t do.” I paused to let Flora finish writing. “Begin by thinking about what you’ve lost, write it down on the paper, and then lay the paper facedown on the mirror. Leave it there until you find the object.”
“How long does it take to work?” Daisy piped up.
“It differs from person to person, but it shouldn’t take long.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“After half an hour, try it again. There’s no limit to the number of times you can use it.”
“That’s the whole shebang?” Flora sounded deflated.
“Except to stress that magick works best with the active participation of the practitioner. You can’t just sit back and wait for the object to fall into your lap. You have to continue looking for it throughout the process.”
“I guess I expected there to be some mumbo jumbo involved,” she said.
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll give you another spell free of charge, one that involves words. You can alternate using the two, until you decide which works best for you.”
Daisy beamed. “What a lovely thing to do. Isn’t it, Flora?”
“It most certainly is.” Flora had the pencil poised over the paper again.
“Okay, for this one, you need to find something that reminds you of the lost item. Set it down in front of you. Then chant the following three times:
‘Lead me to what I must find,
‘Restoring it and peace of mind.’
Flora didn’t seem any more convinced of the spells’ ability to work.
“I know the spells seem too simple,” I said, “but magick is what you make of it. It helps you to focus your attention and connect with the universe.”
Flora tore off the paper with the spells and returned the pad and pencil. “Thank you for explaining that. It puts one in the proper frame of mind to succeed.”
“We’ll dig deep and give it our al
l,” Daisy promised.
“I wonder how much of our ‘all’ we still have at our age?” Flora said, causing both of them to dissolve into giggles.
In spite of their age and physical frailties, they managed to be as lighthearted as a couple of kids. If anyone had the right attitude to make the spells work, they did. They thanked me again, and I told them to come back soon. I often say those words but rarely mean them the way I did with Flora and Daisy. I’d been tense and stressed since the events of the previous night, but they’d lifted my spirits with their own brand of magic. A good thing, because they weren’t gone five minutes when Merlin ambled up to the counter with Sashkatu for a shadow.
“Tilly has exiled me while she conducts business,” he informed me.
I’d completely forgotten I was wizard-sitting. I tried to come up with some chores to keep him busy, but I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t carry the risk of disaster in his hands. “Do you want to use my computer?” I proposed. He loved modern technology almost as much as he loved pizza and chocolate. After being introduced to Tilly’s computer, he proclaimed it to be the most magickal object he had ever encountered.
“I would be most appreciative,” he said with an adventurous twinkle in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare buy anything,” I warned him.
Tilly had made the mistake of giving him her username and password to log on, never anticipating where that might lead. He happened upon one of the home-shopping websites where he clicked his way to a gold-and-diamond bangle bracelet for her. Although his intentions were fine, he didn’t understand the modern concept of money. He should have been stymied at the checkout, but Tilly had bought some bedding on the site in the past, and it had her credit card on file. All Merlin had to do was click again, and the bracelet was on its way to her. For the better part of a week, my aunt and I couldn’t figure out why he was so unbearably full of himself. The mystery was solved when the bracelet arrived, followed closely by the credit card statement. If the numbers on the statement didn’t give Tilly a heart attack, perhaps nothing ever will.