That Olde White Magick

by Sharon Pape

  “No suspects, huh?

  “Actually, too many.”

  It sounded like Duggan was having the same problem Travis and I were facing. “He must be leaning in someone’s direction,” I prodded gently.

  “He doesn’t confide in me much, and to be honest I don’t like to ask.”

  “I can empathize,” I said. “I’ve had more dealings with him than anyone could possibly want or deserve.”

  Curtis laughed, and I felt our connection strengthen. He must have felt it as well because he leaned over the desktop and whispered, “He’s had Alan Boswell in for questioning at least twice that I’m aware of, not that it’s surprising. The Boswell house has been party central since Amanda was killed. It’s only a matter of time before he’s busted for drug possession.”

  “He certainly doesn’t sound like the grieving husband,” I said, “but maybe that’s because he’s innocent and isn’t worried about how it looks.”

  “If you ask me, he’s one of those sociopaths you hear about. You know, the type with no conscience at all. My mom went to elementary school with him. She told me he had a pet snake and he just loved feeding it live mice.”

  A chill flashed along my spine and took my stomach for a spin. It seemed that all my suspects were as multilayered as Russian nesting dolls. “Thanks so much for your help,” I said, getting to my feet and tossing my cup in the wastebasket beside the coffee machine.

  Curtis jumped up as well “You bet. And if anyone finds Rosan...your cat, I’ll let you know ASAP.”

  * * * *

  The first customer of the morning was newlywed Dana Whitcomb, who came through the door with a white mountain of a dog she called Louie. He was gently mannered and looked like a huge furry cloud with a face. He and I were instant pals. I can’t say as much for Sashkatu. He opened one eye enough to evaluate the newcomers and came fully awake in a flash. He leaped to his feet on the ledge as spry as a cat half his age. He arched, his ears flattened against his head, and his hackles stood at attention. There was no misunderstanding how he felt about Louie. But when he started hissing, Louie responded by barking. Had Sashkatu been any closer, the force of the bark would have bowled him over. On the plus side, if a thief tried to break into the Whitcomb house, one of Louie’s barks would surely send him on to another less-threatening abode.

  “Maybe I should leave,” Dana said without much conviction. From the moment she walked in, her gaze had been flitting around the shop with unconcealed curiosity. “I can come back another day without him.”

  “Don’t be silly. If I were Louie, I would have barked too. My shop welcomes customers of all species.” I turned to Sashkatu, who was still in combat mode. “Go to Aunt Tilly,” I said sternly. “Go get a cookie.”

  He jumped from the ledge to my chair without the benefit of his steps. Maybe he didn’t want to appear weak in front of the enemy. But I saw him wince when he landed. My heart ached for him—and for me. I didn’t like to think about how old he was getting.

  “I’ve never seen a cat that obedient,” Dana marveled.

  “He’s obedient when it serves his purpose, and he loves my aunt’s baking.”

  Dana introduced herself while I petted Louie. She told me that she and her husband, Gavin, had moved to New Camel in time for the beginning of the new school year. She’d accepted a teaching position in the elementary school. He’d be teaching math in the high school. I welcomed her to the town and asked if there was anything in particular she was looking for or if she’d prefer to browse.

  “I was hoping you might have an herbal cure for Louie’s itchy skin,” she said.

  “As it happens, I do.”

  It was a lotion my mother had whipped up for one of her newer familiars who also suffered from allergies. We had found that it worked wonders on dogs as well. Dana and Louie trailed after me to the aisle where I kept skin products but didn’t follow me in.

  “We’ll wait here,” she said when I motioned for her to join me. “One wag of his tail would knock everything off the shelves.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but she was probably right. I brought the jar of salve to her. “It’s composed of natural herbs and plants like coconut, peppermint, and chamomile—and a wee bit of magick,” I added with a wink.

  I’d found that a well-timed wink gave customers the freedom to believe it was magick or not, as they wished. In the salve, as in most of our products, a magick spell was an intrinsic part of the recipe. It’s what set them apart from the more common and less effective competition sold elsewhere. “If you give me half a minute, I’d like to see if I have a fresher jar in the storeroom.”

  I try not to lie to customers unless it’s in their best interests. I’d made the salve just days ago, but I wanted a minute out of sight to give it a booster shot of magick. Given our recent inadequacies, the booster shot seemed to increase the potency of the products. Better for the customers; better for business, in general.

  I closed the door to the storeroom. I didn’t have all the necessary items for an advanced healing spell, and I couldn’t ask Dana to wait while I gathered them, so I used a spell that didn’t rely on props but had served me well in the past.

  Let illness be purged

  And good health flow forth.

  Let nothing coerce

  Or make matters worse.

  Hear my humble plea,

  And let it so be.

  I repeated the spell three times. When I returned to the front of the shop, I found Dana in the customer chair with Louie lying beside her on the floor. “Here we go,” I said, handing her the salve. There are larger jars, but you should start with the small one to see if it works for him.”

  Dana came out of the chair, but Louie seemed content to remain where he was. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Now I have the daunting task of looking through his mounds of fur for the hot spots. If I decide to adopt another dog one day, I think I’ll go with a shorter-haired one.”

  Louie lifted his big bear head and grumbled as though he’d taken umbrage at her remark. He stood up and gave his coat a vigorous shake.

  “Just teasing,” Dana said, rubbing his ear. “I wouldn’t change a single tuft of your fur.” She turned to me, smiling. “I swear he understands every word I say.” As if to prove her right, he wagged his long, plumed tail with fervor.

  After she paid, I handed her a canvas mini tote with her purchase and asked her to let me know if the salve helped. She promised she would, adding that she’d be back soon to explore the shop without the wrecking ball otherwise known as Louie.

  * * * *

  Travis called later that morning to ask me out to dinner. “Why don’t I cook dinner?” I suggested. I wanted to see if he was comfortable enough to eat my cooking and hang out in my house for more than an hour at a time.

  “Sure,” he said after a brief hesitation that may have been due to my unexpected invitation. “I’ll bring the wine. Red or white?”

  “I’ve got a couple of steaks in the freezer. How are you with grilling outdoors?”

  “I’m a master of the grill. Prepare to be dazzled.”

  “Then let’s go with the red.”

  It was a good thing my whole commute was just around the corner because a woman I’d never seen before walked into my shop five minutes before closing. She wandered around and asked a lot of questions. I thought she was one of the looky-loos I get now and then, the ones who monopolize my time and leave without buying anything. But she proved me wrong to the tune of two hundred dollars and said she’d be back once she decided what spells she wanted to try. She even took a handful of my business cards to distribute to her family and friends. So much for judging people too quickly or by some arbitrary standard.

  Back home I fed the felines, tidied up the house, and defrosted the steaks before running upstairs to comb my hair and slap on some lipstick. Travis was at my
door at six on the dot, one of the perks of dating a reporter. At least it was a perk when he wasn’t working. Sashkatu joined me at the door to greet him. I wondered if that meant he’d given his royal approval. The other cats fled to their hidey-holes, clearly reserving judgment.

  Travis handed me the bottle of wine and a bakery box tied closed with string. I’d completely forgotten about dessert. If he’d brought pie, I had a pint of vanilla ice cream that had been calling to me all week. He followed me to the kitchen.

  “What’s in here?” I asked, hoping Tilly didn’t drop by. Whenever someone brought bakery fare, she always found it necessary to point out its deficiencies.

  “Blueberry crumb pie,” he said.

  Uh-oh. She would have plenty to say about that. By the age of five, I’d learned that she preferred mixed-berry pie for its more complex blend of flavors. In her opinion, for blueberry pie to shine, the crust had to be above reproach. Of course, the only crust to ever attain that status was hers. My aunt had few faults, but a lack of humility about her baking prowess could easily have counted for two.

  “I turned on the grill fifteen minutes ago,” I said, taking the steaks from the refrigerator. “It should be ready to go.”

  Travis took the plate from me and headed outside through the French doors that connected the kitchen and patio. While he did his outdoorsman thing, I set the kitchen table, made a salad, and baked a couple of potatoes in the microwave, feeling very domestic. I always think it’s a small miracle when all the components of a dinner are ready at the same time, especially when there’s no magick involved.

  During dinner, I brought Travis up to date on the reason for Patrick’s reversal and told him that Elise had confirmed that there was an EPA program at the high school recently.

  “Okay, that corroborates what Patrick told you, right?”

  “Yes, except for the part about the spokeswoman stopping off to speak to him.”

  “If that’s nagging at you,” Travis said, “it’s easy enough to find out the truth. Call the EPA and speak to the woman who did the presentation.”

  I groaned. “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.”

  “Well to be fair, there are an awful lot of trees in this case. By the way, I heard that the board is going to meet tomorrow night to vote on the zoning. I understand it’s going to be a closed-door secret ballot.”

  I had a mouthful of salad to finish chewing, but after I swallowed, the words burst out of me. “Can they do that?”

  “The town charter says they can if there are safety concerns. And you can’t invent a better concern than a murder committed at the site of a previous meeting.” He cut a chunk off the New York strip and forked it into his mouth. I swear I heard a groan of pleasure.

  “It doesn’t sound like the democratic way to handle things,” I muttered.

  “Cool your engine,” Travis said with a chuckle. “I know you’re curious about how each of them votes, but all that really matters is the outcome. If the mayor was going to do any arm twisting or bribing, that wouldn’t have happened in public anyway.”

  “Just because he didn’t kill Amanda doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, lady. I haven’t liked the guy from the day he was sworn in.”

  “You’re a reporter. You should be busy digging up all his secrets instead of calmly advising me to be patient.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been investigating him about a number of other matters. But I’ve learned it’s not a good idea to jump the gun unless you want to be sued for libel.”

  “It sounds like that wisdom comes from personal experience,” I said.

  “Yes, but luckily the plaintiff settled with the network before the trial. The crappy part was that I had to make an on-air apology.”

  “You never said anything about it.”

  “It’s generally not what I lead with when I’m getting to know someone. You probably don’t introduce yourself as a sorcerer when you first meet people, although I guess your shop kind of does that for you.”

  “You’d think so, but most people don’t take magick seriously. Being in my shop is fun, but they don’t want to believe I’m the real deal. That would take the fun train too far down the track to Scaryville. It’s why my family’s policy has always been not to show off with our magick.”

  “Then what was the little demonstration of telekinesis you treated me to on my first visit?”

  “You were such a smug disbeliever; it was like teasing a bull with a red cape. No self-respecting bull would have ignored the challenge. And in my defense, no one else was in the shop when I did that.”

  We were enjoying the blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream when the phone rang. Jane Davies was on the other end. She sounded agitated. “I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Wilde, but something happened today, and I don’t know what to do about it. Could you possibly stop by tomorrow? Anytime is fine. I’d be ever so grateful. I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

  “Why don’t you tell me right now?” I asked, not eager to make another trip to Hassetville.

  “I don’t trust phones. You never know who else might be listening.”

  “Okay, how about going down to the police station?”

  “Oh no,” she shot back so quickly that she must have already considered and rejected the idea. “Not the police,” she said vehemently. There was no mistaking the fear in her tone.

  “Okay, I can be there after work tomorrow.”

  “Bless you,” she said with obvious relief. “I’ll make a roast chicken.”

  I told her it wasn’t necessary, but she couldn’t be talked out of it. After I hung up, I told Travis what she’d said and, perhaps more important, how she said it. We dissected her words down to the bone, but the only conclusion we could reach was that it had to involve her son, Dwayne.

  “Or maybe she’s just desperately lonely and wants a companion for dinner,” Travis said.

  “No, her fear was real,” I said, taking another scoop of ice cream. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  Chapter 24

  Travis offered to come with me to Hassetville. As much as I would have enjoyed the company, I worried that bringing a stranger along might keep Jane from being forthright with me. It would be even worse if she were to recognize him as a TV reporter. If she didn’t trust the police, she surely had no welcome mat for nosy journalists.

  With Tilly once again on cat duty, I locked up the shop and headed straight out to see Jane. She must have been sitting near the window watching for me because she opened the door before I rang the bell. I stepped inside to the fragrant embrace of roasted chicken, a homey smell if ever there was one. It reminded me how hungry I was. Lunch had been a slice of pizza I’d gobbled in the ten minutes between when the morning bus tour left and the afternoon one arrived. Hunger and comfort food were a match made in heaven. But first I wanted to let Jane unburden herself and hopefully enlighten me.

  We sat in her cozy living room again, she on the sofa and I in a wing chair. She appeared less dazed but more anxious than at my last visit. Her makeup had suffered in the transition. She’d given up on eyeliner and made do with mascara, which didn’t rely as much on a steady hand, and her gray roots had marched farther across her head.

  “I’m so happy to see you, Kailyn,” she said for the third time since my arrival. Travis may have been partially right about loneliness prompting her call, but there was something else, something bigger, going on too.

  I assured her it was my pleasure to be there. “What happened?”

  Her shoulders twitched. Whatever it was, merely thinking about it seemed to rattle her. She looked down at her brown skirt and smoothed it over her lap several times, though it wasn’t wrinkled.

  “A man came to see me yesterday,” she began, her voice so soft I had to lean forward to hear her. “I never saw him befor
e in my life. He was wearing suit pants that were too short, a T-shirt, and dirty old sneakers. His face was clean shaven, but his hair needed a good washing. I could smell the greasiness through the screen door. He looked so disreputable I was sorry I hadn’t looked through the peephole before opening the door. He said he was looking for Mrs. Jane Davies. It scared me that he knew my name, like he’d Googled me or something. On the news they’re always talking about scams that target the elderly. So before he could say another word, I told him I wasn’t interested and was about to shut the door when he said, ‘Dwayne sent me.’”

  I waited for her to continue, but she looked like she was straining to swallow. I asked if she was okay.

  “I could use a glass of water, if you don’t mind fetching it?”

  Having been in her kitchen, I knew where she kept the glasses, and I was back with the water in seconds. She drank it all before setting the empty glass on the side table.

  “At my age I get dehydrated very easily,” she said. “I guess I forget to drink enough during the day. My mouth gets so dry I don’t have enough spit to swallow. The doctor keeps telling me I’ll wind up in the hospital if I don’t drink more.”

  “Do you want me to refill it?” I asked.

  “Not just now, thank you. That glass should hold me till dinner. I left the chicken and potatoes in the oven keeping warm,” she added. “Now where was I?”

  “The man said he was sent by your son.”

  “Well, when he said that I couldn’t shut the door on him, could I? Of course not,” she answered her own question. “But I kept my wits about me. He asked if he could come in. I told him in no uncertain terms that wasn’t going to happen. I made him talk to me through the locked screen door. He said Dwayne paid him to bring me a letter. He had to go through all his pockets before he found it. I wasn’t surprised the envelope was crumpled and had stains on it. Lord only knows what they were from.”

  She shuddered. “I opened the screen door just enough for him to slip the letter through. My hands were shaking terribly by then. I was afraid to believe Dwayne was alive after all these weeks without a word from him. I mean how awful would it be to get my hopes up just to have them dashed again? I asked him where Dwayne was. He swore he didn’t know. He’d answered an ad for a messenger. He said Dwayne sent him half the money up front and wouldn’t send the rest until he received my signature in return. He pulled a pen and a little pad out of his pants pocket and asked me to sign my name on it. I did that and handed it back to him. He stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, like he was waiting for a tip. My son was paying him. If he wanted a tip from me, he should have cleaned up some. I just thanked him and shut the door. I double locked it too, like I do before I go to sleep at night.”