by Delia James
“I know. I was thinking the same thing.”
Kenisha watched me, and for once I was very glad for my transparent face. The last thing I wanted right now was for Kenisha to think I had started lying to her.
“Pete’s asking questions,” she said. “About Julia and the rest of the coven—especially about you.”
“Oh.”
Kenisha nodded again. “He’s being nice about it, really trying to cover my rear, but he’s getting worried.”
One of the many reasons we all liked Pete was that he was Kenisha’s biggest booster on the force. He saw her talent and her dedication and set about teaching her everything he knew. He’d run interference between her and Lieutenant Blanchard at least once that I knew of.
“We should have had this thing cleared up by now. But there are too many pieces, and it’s like . . .” Kenisha moved her hands like she was trying to rearrange the air between them. “It’s like they’re all from different puzzles, so Pete’s started looking at how those puzzles line up. And Pete knows about the coven,” she added quietly.
“He does?”
“Well, a little. He knows we’re all part of a group, anyway.”
“A group?” I felt my brows knitting. “What kind of group exactly?”
I don’t often get to see Kenisha squirm. “The Portsmouth Area Ladies Book Group and Bonfire Appreciation Society.”
I will not smile. I will not smile. I will not . . . “Seriously?”
“Come on, I couldn’t tell him the whole truth, and it had to sound like something Julia might join.”
“Kenisha, I hate to tell you this, but that does not sound like anything Julia would ever join.”
“That’s not the point here, Britton. The point is, Pete is starting to wonder if our group has got anything to do with Ramona’s death.”
“You’re serious.” It hadn’t occurred to me that the police might actually notice how many . . . book readers and bonfire enthusiasts were part of Ramona’s life.
“Most murders are committed by somebody the victim knew,” said Kenisha. “Which means after family, that community becomes the biggest target for suspicion, and this whole thing started when you and I”—she waved her mug gently to indicate the space between us—“found the body.”
And then we lied about why we were even there. I swallowed but couldn’t manage to say anything, at least not right away. Under the table, Alistair curled around my ankles and head butted my shins. I picked him up and settled him back on my lap.
“Well, Julia should be glad to hear the news, anyway,” I said. “If she really thinks magic was involved.”
Kenisha nodded, slowly and reluctantly. “But it means we all might be about to come under a whole lot of scrutiny. I need you to keep an eye on Julia, Anna. Make sure she isn’t planning anything stupid.”
Stupid? Julia? Inconceivable.
“I know she feels bad about Dorothy’s death, but—”
“Julia blames herself for Dorothy’s death,” said Kenisha. “She thinks she didn’t do enough back then. What happens if this time she does too much? What if she starts slinging accusations around the community that she can’t quite prove?”
My jaw dropped. Literally. I sat there with my mouth open as what Kenisha was actually saying settled into my mind. “You’re talking about this thing turning into a witch hunt. A literal witch hunt.” With the witches themselves doing the hunting.
“Yes,” said Kenisha. “That is exactly what I’m talking about, and I’m asking you to help me make sure that doesn’t happen.”
I had no answer. None at all.
“Please, Anna,” she said. “Everything’s riding on this.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I promised, and I hoped that would be enough, because for the life of me, I had no idea how I could possibly stop Julia if she was determined to do something. Even something truly dangerous to herself and others.
Thankfully, Kenisha didn’t ask me to elaborate.
“Does Pete really think the coven is getting in the way of the investigation?” I asked Kenisha softly.
“Not yet, but he will. Especially once Val’s name gets roped into this.”
Because Pete was a thorough, methodical detective. He wasn’t going to miss the fact that there were a whole lot of Kenisha’s . . . book group . . . clustered around this mess. He was going to be wondering if we were trying to protect one another from . . . well, from him and the rest of the cops, and how far we might go to do that.
Then I remembered something else, and when I put it next to the fact that Kenisha had come here asking specifically about Kristen Summers, it did not look good.
“Kenisha, I was over at Val’s on Saturday. She was talking to Kristen, and she invited her to stay over until things get sorted out.”
“I know,” Kenisha said. “Pete’s there now.”
21
WHAT? I JERKED back, splashing coffee onto the table. Alistair meowed in protest at this abrupt motion and vanished.
“Pete is over at the B and B talking with Kris Summers and Val,” said Kenisha. “And I’m over here, talking with you.”
“But . . . you can’t possibly suspect Valerie of anything,” I said. Except she’d just been sitting here telling me Pete suspected all of us now.
And as I thought that, a memory bubbled to the surface. I saw again how nervous Ramona had been during Cheryl and Kristen’s argument, and how certain I’d been at the time that there was something going on. And then I had to go and remember how I’d wondered whether Kristen had really left town for Minnesota like she said she did.
“I don’t like it either,” Kenisha said. “But until we’ve got some real answers that we can take to Blanchard, we have to keep everybody in this mess under suspicion, especially the part of everybody who already has a record.” She stood up. “I’ve got to get going, Anna.”
“Sure. Okay.”
I walked her to the door. Alistair padded after the both of us, but only as far as the stairs. He sat at the bottom, watching Kenisha put on her jacket. I got the weird feeling that he wanted to make sure she was really going to leave.
It was not a feeling I enjoyed. At all.
But Kenisha did leave, and I did lean my forehead against the surface of the door and wonder what on earth I’d gotten myself into this time.
“Merow?” said my familiar from his post by the stairs. “Merp?”
“Yeah.” I sat on the bottom step. Alistair climbed up into my lap and settled down.
“Merp?” he said again.
“I don’t know either,” I told him. “I mean, what am I supposed to think? Julia’s worried because a witch might have had something to do with Ramona’s death. Pete is thinking the same thing, and he might be looking at Val. Val is worried because Kristen might get accused of murder and robbery. Cheryl Bell is ready to lie for Blanchard to keep from getting accused of it.”
I lifted my cat up so I could look him in the eye.
“Alistair, you have to find Ruby,” I told him. “Please, big guy. This is all getting out of hand, fast.”
I put him back down on the floor. Alistair licked his tail vigorously for a minute, blinked up at me, and vanished.
I folded my hands on my knees and settled my chin on top of them. I also tried to set aside the idea that for a split second, Alistair actually looked guilty.
• • •
I SAT ON the steps for a long time after that, trying to sort out what all the things Kenisha said might possibly mean, and what I should or shouldn’t do about any of it. I would have kept on sitting like that, with my head resting on the backs of my hands, but the kitchen phone rang.
“Let it go,” I counseled myself. “It cannot possibly be anything good. Let it go.”
But I didn’t. I got up with a groan and went to answer it.
�
��Hello?” I said with the level of enthusiasm I normally reserve for political pollsters and sales calls.
“Anna! Is that any way to answer the phone?”
“Grandma B.B.!” I exclaimed. “How’s Arizona?”
“Oh, just lovely. Hot, and goodness, I’d no idea how much stuff I’d managed to get into this house.”
I could picture my plump, cheerful grandmother clearly. She’d be standing in the middle of her overflowing living room wearing a brightly colored print top, with her bobbed hair swept back from her forehead and tied in a matching chiffon scarf so she could stare at her surroundings, all but willing them to get in line.
I laughed. “I say that every time I move.”
“Yes, well, you have many talents, Anna, but traveling light has never been one of them. I, on the other hand . . . But that’s not why I called, dear. I’ve been hearing about this horrible situation with Ramona Forsythe, and a little bird told me you might just be involved . . .”
A little bird. Right. When it came to her grandchildren, Grandma B.B. had a finely tuned radar. I wondered if she had some kind of spell set out on us, but I’d never quite gotten around to asking.
“Yeah,” I admitted, because trying to put one over on Grandma B.B., even long-distance, was a pointless exercise. “I’m involved.”
“And is . . . is Ramona Forsythe related to the old Forsythes?”
“Yeah. She is.” I rubbed my forehead. Of course Grandma B.B. would know the Forsythes. She hadn’t lived in town for a long time, but she still knew all the old families in Portsmouth.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “Julia must be very upset.”
“She is, Grandma.” Upset enough that nobody had heard from her in a couple of days.
“Tell me everything.”
So I did, and while I did, I looked out the window at my wilted garden. As I did, I saw some of the stems I really should have trimmed back rustle. Alistair picked his way delicately out of the flower bed. From this distance, it looked like he had something in his mouth. I hoped it wasn’t the rabbit. I’d developed a strange admiration for the elusive little parsley chomper.
Alistair looked in the window, and he vanished. Not, I swear, before that same guilty look I’d seen before crossed his furry face. Which was ridiculous, but there it was.
“Anna?” prompted Grandma B.B.
“Yeah. I’m here. Sorry. Distracted there for a second.”
“I knew something was wrong. I can tell from your voice.” Oh, great. As if That Face wasn’t bad enough, I apparently had That Voice to go with it. “Now, what is it that’s really bothering you?”
“What’s really bothering me?” I repeated. “Grandma, what’s really bothering me is I can’t figure out which of six or eight possible messes got Ramona Forsythe killed. I mean, is it the mess with Val and Kristen Summers, or the one between Julia and the Forsythes, or the one between Kristen Summers and Cheryl Bell? Or is there another one entirely that we haven’t even heard about yet?”
“Now, Anna, calm down, dear. You’ll work it out. I know you. You just have to put your mind to it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to put my mind to it,” I muttered. “Maybe I’m tired of putting my mind to it.”
“I understand how you feel, dear, but this is family. We can’t just give up.”
Which reminds me. “Speaking of family, Grandma, you are coming back to Portsmouth, aren’t you?”
“Anna! Such a question.” She paused. “Did Ginger call you?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Well. She’s so sweet, but she’s got so much going on right now. I should have realized she might misinterpret a tiny delay.”
“Oh, no. You do not get to put this on Ginger,” I told her. “This is about you.” And just maybe about Dad.
“I never said I wouldn’t be there.” I could hear her getting her back up, but it wasn’t going to work this time.
“Grandma, this isn’t like you.” I said. “Have you been fighting with Dad?”
“No, of course not! Well, not recently.” There was silence, which also wasn’t like her. “Well. I suppose there’s no getting around it. Anna, I want you to reconsider your decision to tell your father about your magic.”
I swallowed. “It means that much to you, Grandma?”
“I know it seems like I’m just being a coward, but, dear, sometimes it’s, well, it’s kinder not to tell everything you know.”
“I don’t want to keep secrets from my family.”
“I understand that, dear, but sometimes it’s necessary, for your own sake, not just those you love . . .”
“Secrets come out, Grandma, in bad ways, and when they do . . .”
“I couldn’t save your mother, Anna.”
Everything froze solid—my thoughts, my breath, my heart, everything.
“When we found out that the chemotherapy wasn’t working, Robert came to me, and he asked . . . he said he was sorry about how he’d acted when I told him I was a witch. He begged me to find a spell, something, anything that would save her. I had to tell him . . . I had to tell him it was beyond my power.”
“Oh, Grandma . . . ,” I breathed.
“I will never forget how he looked at me. Never.” She was crying. I knew it. I wished I could reach through the phone and hug her and not let go.
“I don’t want you to ever be in that position. If someone gets sick or hurt again. If Ginger, or Ted, or . . . or . . .”
Bobby III. Or Ginger’s new baby. “It’s okay, Grandma. You don’t have to say it.”
“But you do understand, dear? You see what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Yeah, I do see.”
“So you’ll at least think about it?”
“Yeah, I will,” I said. “I promise.”
“Thank you, Anna.” She sniffed.
We couldn’t hug, but we could talk, and we did, about the family and about moving, and all those tiny little things that help you ease your way back from the hard, cold places inside. When we both knew the danger of either one of us breaking down had passed, we said the kind of extended good-byes you do when talking with someone you’ve known and loved your whole life. But these did wind down eventually, and I hung up and collapsed back on the bench in the breakfast nook with a sigh.
“Well, gang,” I said to the house and the garden outside and my missing cat. “Looks like we’re staying in the broom closet. So, now what?”
There was no answer from any of them.
Surprise.
22
MY CONVERSATION WITH Kenisha had left one thing abundantly clear. The only way my family and my coven were staying out of trouble was if Ramona’s murder got solved as quickly as possible. Every day the questions dragged on, people I cared about were left open to suspicion, which meant they’d be tempted to make decisions we’d all regret.
So, ten o’clock Tuesday morning found me downtown again, in my dark pencil skirt and sensible black boots, following the directions I’d scribbled on a page from my notebook to the offices of Abernathy & Walsh.
It turned out those offices waited on the third floor of a square, uninspiring box of building that had been sandwiched into its space sometime during the seventies. It would be easy to tell I’d found the right place even without the company name painted in gold on the glass door. The walls were covered with posters of various professional cats. Of course Attitude Cat was well represented in various settings, rejecting various unsatisfactory items in favor of the Best Petz brands.
The two desks in the front office were occupied by a pair of young men who looked like they were straight out of college. The one on the right had light brown skin and dark black hair. The one on the left was trim and tan with blond hair that might have been highlighted. Both wore brightly colored button-down shirts (purple on the left, electric blue on
the right) and khakis. Both had headsets attached to their ears and were typing away at lightning speed on their laptops.
Neither one of them so much as noticed me as I stepped onto the thick new carpet.
“. . . No, Dave, seriously, you’d be doing me a solid . . . you’re the man! Thanks, bro! I totally owe you.”
“. . . Judy, there’s nothing to worry about. We will make the deadline. Yes, yes. You will be getting it today . . . yes . . . great . . .”
Eenie, meenie, miny, moe . . . I turned toward the right-hand guy in the blue shirt, just as the interior door flew open and Pam Abernathy, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose, leaned out.
“Zach! You were supposed to have Oliver Campbell on the phone ten minutes ago! What in the h—” She saw me, and she froze. “Can I help you?”
Zach, who was the left-hand guy in the purple shirt, and his counterpart in blue both froze, but there was no covering the fact that they were both noticing me for the first time. Or that Pam noticed them noticing and did not like what she noticed, at all.
Zach started to his feet, smoothing down his blond highlights, and then his bright purple shirt. “Um, sorry, Ms., um . . .” I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing to me or to Pamela.
“Sit down, Zach,” Pam snapped. “Damon, you find out what is going on with Oliver. And, Ms. . . . ?”
“Anna Britton.”
“Ms. Britton. Please do come in.” Pam stood back to let me walk past her into her private office. “Damon . . .”
“Oliver Campbell. On it.”
Pam Abernathy’s office was small, but it gleamed with glass and chrome. In addition to the desk and the pair of visitors’ chairs, there was a long table covered with what I recognized as mock-ups of posters and magazine ads, and even some real sample bags filled with kibble. All of them featured Attitude Cat and the name BEST PETZ ULTRAPREMIUM BRANDS, followed by some variant of the phrase “For the cat who accepts only the very best.”
Best Petz was clearly rolling out a new line of feline goodies.
Pam closed the door. She walked around her gleaming desk and paused to scribble a quick memo on the paper blotter, which was already densely covered with notes and numbers. Then she dropped into the red leather chair, tossed her reading glasses down beside her open laptop and sighed deeply.