Miss Hawthorne Sits for a Spell

by Katherine Hayton

  After a moment spent frowning, Jake reluctantly agreed. “Probably yesterday when I went to the hospital to visit Sheryl.” His eyes filled with tears and he sniffed loudly.

  “Then we’re not going to lose anything by leaving it until tomorrow. We’ll be able to find out a lot more from folks on a Monday morning than a Sunday evening.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Make up that list and I’m sure we’ll get it sorted.” Emily edged towards the front door, her stomach rumbling. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Set your alarm for six tomorrow morning, and I’ll be here, ready to go, on the dot of six-thirty.”

  Without giving Jake a chance to talk her out of it, Emily scooted out the door.

  “I feel like I should remember him, but my memory is all out of whack, except for the car accident.” Wanda tapped her knuckles on the side of her head. “I’m sure it’s all up here somewhere, I just can’t get it out.”

  Emily, whose memory of her own car accident was almost completely excised, offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s hard enough for people who survive to keep their memories going, I can’t imagine what it’s like when you died on top of everything else.”

  “Why don’t you just magic up a spell to put it all back into place?” Cynthia sat on the edge of the bed, folding her arms. “Or isn’t that in your repertoire?”

  “I do have a vague recollection of him,” Wanda continued, ignoring the other ghost. “Perhaps he was Sheryl’s boyfriend, and I found the thought so disturbing, I blocked it out.”

  “He seemed fine to me,” Emily said, wrestling with her T-shirt. Over Harvey’s protestations that she didn’t need to dress up to get fish ‘n’ chips, she was changing into a sundress and cardigan. Or trying to, at least. “The tattoos and scars are a bit frightening but once I got past that, Jake was a very nice young man.”

  “You need to think harder, Witchy-poo. If Jake isn’t your sister’s beau, then we don’t want to follow up false leads. If he’s lying to us about that, he could be lying about anything.”

  “I am thinking hard but it’s not like we lived in each other’s pockets. We shared a house, but I didn’t keep tabs on Sheryl for every minute of the day. She used to go out all the time, overnight even, and not tell me where she was going. Apart from that, it’s just all a bit hazy.”

  “Great. Hazy is all we need.”

  Emily clicked her tongue at Cynthia. “Leave her alone. It took you long enough to remember you were murdered, then you couldn’t even think who’d done you in.”

  Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “I was hit on the back of the head.”

  “You still should have heard her coming.”

  Harvey knocked on the door. “Are you all right in there?”

  Emily glared at Cynthia. “I’m fine. Just getting changed.” She could hear him at the door, waiting, and bit down on her tongue. This was her house. She didn’t owe anyone an explanation.

  “Only…” There was a long pause. “Only, I heard voices.”

  Emily sighed and opened the door before retreating to the bed. “I talk to myself sometimes. Usually, there’s no one else around to hear.”

  Harvey stared around the room, not meeting her gaze. “I do that, too.”

  “Was there anything else? Or are you calling the looney bin because I occasionally mutter to myself?”

  “What’s going on with your hand?”

  With a start, Emily realised she was petting Peanut and stopped. “Nothing. It’s just a muscle spasm. I get them since the accident.”

  Although he closed the door and walked back through to the lounge, Emily could tell her brother didn’t believe a word.

  Emily walked up the stony beach with a wince. Although she remembered Pinetar Beach as being lovely to walk on, there was a couple of metres of pebbles to navigate before reaching the soft sand. Once she reached the bench where she’d left her shoes, she gave a happy sigh.

  “Do you remember how Dad used to take out the Optimist sailboat, even though the Easterly always blew against it so hard, it could barely get away from the shore?”

  “I remember him yelling at me when I jibed,” Emily said, scrunching up her nose. “And for a while I thought ‘you’re luffing’ was my nickname.”

  Harvey laughed, placing his hands on his hips while he stared out to sea. The froth of spume on top of the waves would deposit itself on the beach, only to be caught up and dragged back out by the next one. Even in the short time they’d been out there, eating their meal, the tide had crawled a good metre up the beach.

  “When we had a school trip down here,” Emily said, hooking her arm through Harvey’s elbow. “I stood on the end of those concrete blocks until the tide came in. Gemma snapped a Polaroid of me walking on water and they published a copy in the paper.”

  “This town might not have been good for Mum or Dad, but it sure gave us some nice memories.”

  Emily frowned as she got in the car, happy to let Harvey drive. She couldn’t think what he meant by his statement. As far as she knew, their parents had enjoyed the town. They’d stayed on when their children fled.

  Her legs protested as Harvey parked the car in the driveway. She rubbed them, waving away her brother’s offer of help. “It’s just the muscles playing up. They’ll come right in a moment.”

  Of course, one day they mightn’t come right at all, but Emily didn’t want to think about that now.

  “Emily?” Harvey’s voice sounded strained and her pulse skipped a beat. “Did you leave the front door unlocked?”

  She closed her eyes and clutched her handbag to her chest. The hard shape of the puzzle box pressed its angles into her skin.

  “Oh, no.”

  Feeling returned to her legs in a rush and Emily got out of the car and strode to the door. Harvey stood there, a hand over his mouth. He turned to her with eyes open wide with shock.

  “We’ve been burgled.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Déjà vu. Emily pushed past her brother to see the cabinets sitting open and the drawers not closed all the way. Unlike Jake’s house, there’d be no attempt made here to cover up tracks.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Emily warned, turning to see Harvey had his phone out.

  “Police. We’ve been robbed.”

  She carried on through the rest of the house, unwilling to turn on the lights since the switches might hold fingerprints. Her stomach turned in a lazy spiral as she saw the covers on her bed messed up and the jewellery box open on her bedside table.

  Emily didn’t own anything other than costume pieces but the thought of someone going through her private things made her dizzy. The violation was too large to comprehend in one go—the knowledge washed over her in waves.

  “The police said not to touch anything we think the burglars might have handled.” Harvey stuck his head around the side of the door and looked around Emily’s room. “I think they got in through the laundry window.”

  “Are they coming?”

  “Yeah. The man I spoke to said they’ll have a fingerprint expert come through tomorrow. He’ll give you an incident report, which you can hand over to your insurance company to claim for anything missing.”

  “The police aren’t coming down here now?” Emily frowned, certain she must have misunderstood.

  But Harvey was shaking his head. “No. Since the intruder’s gone, they won’t be able to do anything. The sergeant also said to make a list of anything you know is missing, especially distinctive items so they can flag them with pawn shops and online vendors.”

  “Give me that phone.” Emily snatched it out of Harvey’s hand before he could pass it to her. She stared at the options in confusion. “Which one’s redial?”

  “Don’t do that. I called 111 so they won’t be very happy to hear from us again.”

  “Fine.” She shoved the phone back. “I’m visiting the station, then.”

  Harvey stood very still. “Are you sure you should do that? Wouldn’t it be better to let them
deal with this in their own timeframe? They are the experts after all.”

  Emily stared at him for a long minute, her face a mask of concentration. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Eh?”

  A crawling sensation spread over Emily’s back and dug into her scalp. “You turn up on my doorstep, unannounced, needing a place to stay, and now my house is—” She gulped and waved her hand in circles. He could see exactly what her house was without her needing to speak.

  “Are you asking me if I arranged someone to steal from you?” Harvey’s lips were so pale they were almost blue. “Do I have that correct?”

  She stared at her brother, feeling the gulf of years between them. She didn’t know this man, not really. Emily only knew the boy he’d sprouted from, and him not well.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”

  He shook his head, his gaze drifting to the floor while his arms folded tightly across his chest. “I didn’t.”

  “Fine. I’m going down to the police station to give them a wake-up call. Are you okay staying here alone?”

  Harvey nodded, still not meeting her gaze.

  “I had to ask.”

  “No,” he said in a soft voice. “No, you didn’t.”

  Emily took the guilt she felt about doubting her brother and unleashed it as a tirade against Sergeant Winchester. “How dare you leave me and Harvey alone for the night, when someone’s been through our house and stolen half our stuff? How can you call yourself a police officer when you can’t even be bothered to lift a finger?”

  “As I told your brother, there’s nothing we can do tonight.” The sergeant stood at the front desk, his eyebrows drawn so close together they formed one hairy line. “Until we have fingerprints to load onto the system, we’ve no way of tracking who might be responsible.”

  “What about the other evidence?” Emily smacked her hand on the counter. “There might be boot tracks at the window where the thieves broke in, or they might have left DNA on the drawer handles.”

  “All of which will wait until tomorrow.”

  “There’s something else.”

  The sergeant raised his eyebrows and Emily gave a pointed glance at the constable nearest the counter. Winchester sighed and pushed away from the desk, walking out the back and into his office. She shuffled to catch up with him.

  “What else is going on?”

  “There’s a ghost.” Emily flicked her eyes towards the door then back again. Wanda stood there, cupping her elbows and with a pleading expression on her face.

  “Unless your burglary is connected to—”

  “It’s Miss Hawthorne’s sister.” When he didn’t respond, Emily prompted, “You know. From the hospital.”

  “You’re talking to a coma patient?”

  “No. The sister who died is with me. I think the thieves were after this.” Emily pulled the puzzle out of her bag and placed it onto the desk. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Wanda Hawthorne was a practising… Um… Wiccan. There’s a spell book that’s very valuable which is also connected to this item. It was stolen, probably yesterday.”

  “From you?”

  “No.” Emily clenched her hands together in her lap, thinking of Jake’s insistence they leave the police out of it. Well, things had changed. “It was in the possession of a man called Jake. I’m not sure of his surname.”

  “Jake the snake.” Sergeant Winchester gave a large sigh.

  “You know him?”

  “Oh, yes.” He offered her a rueful smile. “Our station is very familiar with Jake’s work.”

  “Anyway, he had the book stolen from his house and then this evening, someone’s broken into my place. It can’t just be a coincidence.”

  “And who do you think is responsible?”

  Emily swallowed. Her throat was dry, and it took a few goes to clear the spittle in her mouth. She thought of Terrence at the roller derby, staring at the puzzle in her hand with such intensity he’d tripped, and knocked over half the players.

  “Terrence Salem.”

  Wanda shook her head as they stood outside the house. “I really don’t want to go in there.”

  Sergeant Winchester stood at the doorway, talking to Agnetha and Terrence.

  “Why don’t you sneak in the back while we’re speaking to them? I can’t imagine it’ll take long, but it might be good if you can find confirmation of the spell book being here.”

  The witch’s face brightened at the thought. “Okay. If Agnetha sees me though…”

  “Yeah.” Cynthia gave a snort of laughter. “If she sees you, you’re dead.”

  Wanda exchanged an amused glance with the other ghost. “That’s right.”

  “Emily?”

  She followed the sergeant’s call and joined him on the step. Agnetha scanned her up and down, wrinkling her nose.

  “My brother has been here all day,” Agnetha said with a sniff. “We didn’t even leave the house to go to the dairy.”

  “No, he hasn’t.” Emily’s voice was so strong the sergeant took a step back. She shrugged, adding, “I gave him a lift earlier this afternoon.”

  “Where to?”

  “Back here. I don’t know where he’d been out to, but I picked him up closer to town and drove him here.”

  “And what?” Agnetha glared at Emily while Terrence shuffled from foot to foot behind her.

  “I was out,” he said. “But I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.”

  “Lying to the police isn’t a great start, Ms Salem.” Sergeant Winchester straightened his back and leaned forward. “I’ll need to ask you and your brother some more questions. I’m sure in a few minutes, we can get this matter sorted out.”

  “Unless you have enough evidence to arrest my brother for this crime, we’re not going to talk to you at all.”

  “Don’t be silly, Agnetha.” Terrence ducked around her side and pulled the door further open. “We’re happy to answer some questions. I don’t want this hanging over me tomorrow.”

  “Are you still working down at the butcher's?” the sergeant asked as he stepped past Agnetha, into the living room.

  The sister’s glare was so fiery, Emily half expected the officer to burst into flame. When he made it inside unscathed, she followed and took a seat.

  “Now, if you could account for your whereabouts this afternoon and evening,” Sergeant Winchester told Terrence, “that would clear things up nicely.”

  “I told you,” Agnetha interrupted. “He was here.”

  “But you’ve already been proven a liar, haven’t you?” The sergeant smiled sweetly. “And I’d prefer to hear everything from your brother directly.”

  “We did spend a lot of time here, this afternoon,” Terrence said quickly as Agnetha opened her mouth again. “And I went to the burger bar around four, maybe four-thirty, to get our dinner. After that, we just sat inside, watching the telly.”

  “What programs?”

  “None of your business,” Agnetha snapped.

  “We’ve been working our way through a box-set of DVDs—Crime and Lawlessness—and we saw a few episodes of that.”

  “Anything on live TV?”

  “The weather?” Terrence glanced at Agnetha. “I don’t pay much attention when it’s on, but my sister will be able to tell you what it said.”

  “And after that?”

  “Back to the DVDs.” Terrence flicked a hand toward the set in the corner where an image was paused onscreen. “Just a quiet night in.”

  “Who served you at the burger bar?”

  “Wally.” Terrence shrugged. “I don’t know if he’ll remember me. There were a bunch of teens hanging around outside with skateboards. He had his eyes on them the whole time he was serving me.”

  “Are you familiar with a woman name Sheryl Hawthorne?”

  Terrence shot a glance at his sister, then nodded. “Yes. She’s in the hospital, I believe.”

  “What about her sister?”

  At that, the yo
ung man’s expression turned to complete bafflement. “She’s dead. Do you mean before that?”

  “I was the guardian for both those girls when they were younger,” Agnetha said and Emily recoiled in shock. The woman glanced over at her with an amused expression. “They were in care and no one would take the two of them on, because of their age. I fostered them through to the end of high school when they decided to go their own way. Since then, we’d fallen out of touch.”

  “Hard to fall out of touch in a town as small as Pinetar,” the sergeant said with a deadpan voice. “People have to put in a lot of effort to achieve it.”

  Agnetha pulled a face. “I don’t think any kid who grew up in that sort of environment wants a stranger telling them what to do, all of a sudden. They put up with me only for as long as they had to.”

  “Do you have possession of an old book?” Sergeant Winchester asked. He closed his notebook and slid the pen along the spine. “Engraved leather with a gold chain. Worth a lot in antiquarian circles, I imagine.”

  “We have books but none of them very fancy.” Agnetha pointed to a small shelf in the corner. “I only download onto my Kindle, these days.”

  The sergeant stood and gave the books a cursory glance. “Right. Well, that’ll be all from me tonight.” He inclined his head towards Terrence. “If you could pop by the station sometime tomorrow, we’ll grab a copy of your fingerprints. If they don’t get a hit on the system, you’re clear.”

  “But—” Emily jerked upright, hands wringing together. “Aren’t you going to search the house?”

  “Not without a warrant,” Agnetha snarled at the same time Sergeant Winchester said, “No.”

  “But—” Emily repeated, still unable to follow up with another thought.

  “Thanks for letting me in and answering my questions,” the officer said, walking towards the front door. “I appreciate you being so generous with your time.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to help out the law,” Agnetha said in a generous tone, as though she hadn’t tried to stop it happening ten minutes ago. “We’re grateful for everything you do for our community, Sergeant Winchester.”