by Delia James
“Yes. She’s been away finishing up her veterinary degree, but she arrived home this morning.”
Julia added another grape to her line. Both Max and Leo flopped down on their doggy tummies and watched, curious to know how it would all end. “Rachael wanted to be sure I knew that Ramona’s funeral will be held tomorrow. Did you want to be there?”
“Yes, I did. I do.” I finally managed to pick up my sandwich and take a bite. It tasted fabulous, and now I was having to try not to wolf the whole thing. Magic seemed to have one universal side effect. No matter which side of the spell you were on, it left you hungry. “That is, if it won’t upset Wendy,” I added carefully. “She didn’t sound happy when she left.”
“Wendy seldom sounds happy,” said Julia. “Especially when she cannot get her own way.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by that, but her expression did not invite extra questions.
“Do you want me to let Val know about the funeral?” I asked instead.
“If you would.” Julia got to her feet. “Now, I really should get myself back downstairs. I have left Gabrielle to carry the day long enough.”
I swallowed my last bit of sandwich and got up too. I also stashed my wand back in my purse. If I was handling it a little more gingerly than usual, I suppose that wasn’t too surprising.
Julia laid her hand briefly on my shoulder. “Continue to ask your questions, Anna. Continue to use your gifts, all of them. The answers will come to us.”
Julia’s eyes sparkled. It seemed to me that magic she had worked had restored her strength to her. Even the dachshunds looked happier. So why was a cold shiver running right up my spine? And why was I wondering even a little bit if there was something my friend and mentor hadn’t told me?
“I’ll try,” I told her. It was the only truly honest answer I had.
“And you will call me if anything significant occurs?”
“Right away,” I said, and I hoped she didn’t notice I was hurrying just a little as I pulled on my coat and hat and paused to give Max’s and Leo’s ears a farewell ruffle. I suddenly felt like I wanted some space, so I could settle down and think. I was moving into new magical territory here. Julia usually advised extreme caution with my training, but this time she was the one behind me and pushing hard.
But only because it’s really important, I told myself. Only because I agreed. I could have said no, but I was trying to be clever. Guilt and worry surged inside me.
Julia touched my arm. “You know that I agree with Kenisha,” she said. “The true craft should not interfere with law enforcement. And we are not interfering. We are unraveling the thread of magic that binds this wrong, so that Kenisha and the police will be able to do their job. That is what I promised, and this is how we will fulfill that promise.”
I made myself stop fussing with my purse and my gloves and my hat and meet Julia’s gaze. We stood there like that for a long time, until I decided I believed her.
At least, I decided that I wanted to.
• • •
I WALKED DOWN the stairs and out onto the square and took a deep breath of bitter November air.
So, what do I do now? I mean, it was one thing for Julia to say I should just go about my business. How had she put it? Ask my questions and use my gifts. It was another to actually try to do that. Especially when I was standing here feeling something that I could only label as witch’s remorse.
I put my hand over my purse as if I thought I’d be able to feel my wand through the thickness of my winter glove. I kept waiting for the tug of a kind of invisible string, or maybe a voice in the back of my head, saying, Hey, Britton! This way!
Of course nothing happened.
I sighed. Okay. One thing I knew for certain. Whatever else I was supposed to be doing, I had a job waiting on me. I would go home and hole up in my studio for a while. I could stay quiet and work on my coloring book until I got a little more comfortable with what had just happened. Maybe Alistair had found Ruby by now. Maybe I’d get an answer from Val when I called again. Or maybe I could go over and talk to her and maybe find out what Kristen had been saying to Pam Abernathy.
I turned right and plowed straight into a lawyer.
26
“MS. BRITTON!” CRIED Enoch Gravesend as he caught my elbow. “A thousand apologies! My mind was unforgivably distracted. Are you quite all right?”
“I’m fine, really.” I laughed. “Are your baked goods okay?”
“Ah!” Enoch smiled fondly at the bakery bag he clutched in one black-gloved hand. “You have caught me indulging in one of my many vices. French crullers.”
Enoch Gravesend, Esq., is not just any lawyer, or even just a fellow member of the over-the-top-old-family-name club that so many of us New Englanders belong to. He was a fully fledged Character. Yes, the capital C there is on purpose. Enoch deserves it. But his flamboyance was built on a world of experience. That and the fact that his family had been in New Hampshire long enough that they’d been on visiting terms with this mouthy young upstart named Daniel Webster. That sort of thing meant a lot in these parts.
Enoch was a big, broad, white-haired man who tended to dress like he’d just stepped out of a courtroom drama from a hundred years ago. Today he wore solid black, from his boots to his creased trousers to his overcoat with its velour collar turned up against the wind to his bowler hat. To tell you the truth, he looked like he was on his way to audition for the role of a banker in Mary Poppins.
I remembered the spell Julia had laid on me. My mouth went a little dry and I tried not to think about it too much.
“Actually, Enoch, I was hoping to talk to you, if you’ve got time?”
Enoch glanced up at the clock in the North Church tower. “We are both in luck. I can give you an entire twenty minutes of my undivided attention. If you will be so good as to walk to my offices so we can get out of this truly foul weather?”
Of course I agreed, and I fell into step beside him. I also tried to ignore the feeling of being watched that was creeping into the back of my head.
• • •
ENOCH’S OFFICES TOOK up half of a Federal-style house in the historic district. The furniture, the paneling and the shelves filled with law books were dark, polished wood. Everything conveyed an air of steadiness and patient solidity. Enoch took my coat and hat and hung them on the bentwood rack by the door. He also pulled out a chair for me before settling himself behind his desk.
“Recognizing that doughnuts are more traditionally associated with law enforcement than the precincts of the courts, can I tempt you to a cruller?” He held out the bag to me. I smelled sugar and vanilla. I folded my hands across my purse.
“No, thanks,” I told him. “I just ate.” Twice, actually.
“Very well, then.” Enoch set the bag aside. “What can I do for you today, Ms. Britton?” Enoch spread both hands, indicating that he, his office and his library were entirely at my service.
Cheryl Bell’s voice as she talked to Lieutenant Blanchard rang through the back of my mind. “I need to find out about the Attitude Cat lawsuit,” I said. If Cheryl Bell really could profit from Ruby’s disappearance, then I needed to know how and why. Cheryl wasn’t a witch, but it was possible she was getting some magical help. There was a lot of that going around just now.
Enoch steepled his fingers at me. There was also a certain amount of looking down his nose. “What specifically do you want to know?”
“Whether or not there’d be any reason for somebody . . . involved in the suit . . . on either side . . . to have Ruby be . . . well . . . not around anymore.”
Enoch arched his bushy white eyebrows. “Do you mean would it give them an advantage in court?”
“Something like that, yeah,” I said. “Or maybe if there’s no cat, there’s no reason to fight about her?”
He smiled, and I got the distinct feeling i
t was at my naïveté. “When it comes to the motivations behind the particular suit filed by Mrs. Bell, the ownership of the cat in question is fairly symbolic. The actual item value here is the intellectual property, the invented character of Attitude Cat, if you will. Ms. Summers and Ms. Abernathy were fairly intelligent and careful about how they approached matters. No matter who has possession of the living cat, Ms. Summers would continue to own all the character and branding rights.”
At this point, Enoch launched into a long speech about trademarks and intellectual property and incorporation. I tried to keep from nodding off or reaching for a cruller. I did absorb enough of it all to realize that what Enoch was telling me was that the Attitude Cat brand, and the money and the cottage industry built up around it, wasn’t about the real cat. It was about the idea of the cat.
Enoch paused for breath, and I saw my moment. “So, Cheryl Bell isn’t really trying to get hold of Ruby. She’s just after a payment from the Attitude Cat bank account?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said. “Large retail corporations such as Best Petz are notoriously skittish about controversy. If she can cast doubt on the wholesome nature of Attitude Cat, she can damage the brand’s earning potential for all concerned.”
“In other words, if Cheryl can drag Kristen through the mud, that mud might start sticking to the idea of Attitude Cat, and people decide they don’t like the brand quite so much, and everybody stops making so much money.” Including Kristen. Including Abernathy & Walsh.
Enoch watched me without blinking. “Of course, I would not ever comment on an ongoing lawsuit, even one that was not mine. I can say, however, it is not unheard-of for people to file nuisance suits in the hope that they will be paid to go away quietly.”
“What if it does go to trial?” I asked. “What are Cheryl’s chances?”
“That, at the moment, is an open question. We here in New Hampshire are a fairly staid group. Despite the occasional flirtation with flamboyance,” he added with a reasonable attempt at modesty. “We do not like drama or interference, especially from outsiders. Our judges are no different. Mrs. Bell’s attorneys have been fairly aggressive in their approach and have wrangled a number of court orders and filed all sorts of motions. Mrs. Bell herself has been public and indiscriminate in her accusations. The media”—he pointed toward the window—“is lapping it up, but the judge on the case is believed to take a dimmer view. Like some other honorable members of the bench, she is less than amused at all this trouble over a house cat.”
“That doesn’t sound exactly impartial.”
He smiled. “No. I’m afraid it doesn’t. We don’t often admit this, Ms. Britton, but in court, matters frequently come down to which side can tell the best story, and when judges are mulling over that story, they can take into account behavior outside the court, whether they are supposed to or not. If I were a betting man, I’d put Mrs. Bell’s chance of claiming ownership of the feline in question at roughly three to one against. That is if”—he held up his index finger to cut off my comment—“Ms. Summers, or Best Petz, continues to choose not to settle.”
Well. That certainly sounded like enough motive for Cheryl to take drastic measures to keep from having to go to trial. But would those measures really include making Ruby vanish? How could that possibly help her case?
Whatever was showing on my face, Enoch clearly didn’t like it.
“I suppose, Ms. Britton, that it’s too late to advise you to stay away from what appears to be a colossal mess?”
“Sorry.”
He waved his hand. “I suggest you keep my number on speed dial.”
Unfortunately, that felt like a really good idea. “Thanks, Enoch.”
“At your service, Ms. Britton,” he answered. We both stood, we shook hands and I put on my coat and pulled my hat down over my ears, and, because I was standing in a lawyer’s office, I thought of something else. I’d been wondering if Ramona’s death had really had anything to do with Ruby’s disappearance, or if maybe we were all being distracted by the glamour of Attitude Cat.
Here was a chance to find out.
“Enoch?” I turned around. Enoch was busy flipping through the papers in an open manila folder.
“Yes, Ms. Britton?” he said, but he did not take his attention away from the papers.
“Have you heard any rumors about Ramona Forsythe being in any kind of trouble before she died?” I paused.
Enoch closed the manila folder before he spoke. “That, Ms. Britton, I’m afraid I cannot tell you,” he said. “To mention whether Dr. Forsythe or anyone else in this case, like, say, Ms. Abernathy, was having financial difficulties would be a breach of client confidentiality.”
I looked at my lawyer and my lawyer looked at me, and we both decided to pretend he had not just answered my question.
27
RAMONA FORSYTHE’S FUNERAL was packed to the rafters, or it would have been if we had been inside.
As it was, the service was held in Prescott Park. A white pavilion had been set up over the rows of folding chairs, with standing heaters all around. While it was brisk, it wasn’t bitter. There wasn’t any rain, and the sun even put in a brief showing. I suspected that some of the mourners might have helped ensure that particular bit of good luck. Ramona Forsythe might not have had a coven, but she had a lot of friends. According to what Julia and Val told me later, pretty much every practitioner of the true craft in three states was there.
The air practically crackled with suppressed power.
Of course it wasn’t just witches who attended. The reason to hold the service outside was so that anyone who wanted to could bring their pets, and plenty of people had wanted to. There were dogs of all sizes and breeds. Cats crouched in carriers and on leashes. There were birds, on arms and gloved hands or in cages. I saw a chameleon in a small terrarium, a hamster in a plastic ball, and a pair of fish in a bowl. Even Alistair put in an appearance, a discreet one, crouched under my folding chair next to Max and Leo, who sat on the grass at Julia’s feet wrapped in their doggy sweaters.
Then there were the colleagues from the veterinary community, and those who were just friends. Roger was there with Val and baby Melissa. Martine had not been able to come, but Sean McNally was there, along with his father, Sean Senior, aka Old Sean.
I sat with the other members of the guardian coven in a row toward the back. Faye and Shannon, Allie and Trish passed Kleenexes around. Val and Roger held hands. Even baby Melissa seemed to sense this was a serious occasion and remained quiet in her sling under her father’s coat.
Kenisha was there too. She wore a black overcoat and flared black maxiskirt, which might have meant she was just there as a mourner or that she’d been asked to go lightly undercover to keep an eye on things. She certainly wasn’t talking about which it was, or about anything else for that matter.
Julia sat ramrod straight, silent and dry-eyed, watching the Forsythe family, who sat in their own rows beside the lectern that had been put in place for the speakers.
I think I would have been able to spot Ramona’s daughter, Rachael, among the family, even if Val hadn’t pointed her out to me. She sat next to her formidable aunt Wendy looking very small and very young in her long charcoal gray coat and broad-brimmed hat. Her mind was clearly not on the people who stood at the lectern to offer their condolences or remembrances, though. Her gaze kept drifting from the speakers to the assembled mourners.
Who are you looking for? I wondered. Is somebody missing?
I made myself sit still and keep my eyes straight ahead. But that didn’t stop me from running over all the faces I’d seen so far, and the ones I hadn’t. Only one stood out, though.
“Is Kristen coming?” I murmured to Val.
“No,” she answered as she leaned over to adjust the fold of Roger’s coat around little Melissa’s shoulder. “She said she didn’t want to cause problems.”
But Val just shook her head.
The reception was held immediately after the service. People stood around the space heaters holding plates of food in gloved hands, or milled through the park with their pets to talk and share their memories of Ramona. The Forsythe family filtered through the crowd, shaking hands, saying thanks, offering comfort and being comforted. My coven sisters were pulled off in different directions to talk with friends and acquaintances. Me, I was approached by a tall, good-looking Irishman in a vintage black suit that really looked quite fetching on him.
“Hi, Anna.” Sean bent down and gave me a peck on the cheek. He smelled of soap and the clean outdoors. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t think I even know where to start.” I looked up at his concerned eyes and tried not to imagine how very much I’d welcome a hug right now. If Val saw, I’d never hear the end of it.
He smiled. “You’ll figure it out. I have confidence.”
“Failing that, you have alcohol.”
He chuckled. “One of the many advantages of dating a bartender.”
Dating. Yes. Right. That was what we were doing, wasn’t it? Except everything around me had been turned on its head, yet again, and I barely had time to handle my own life let alone explore any social possibilities. I should tell him I needed a break. I should tell him . . . Well, there were a lot of things I should tell him, but I couldn’t make myself say any of them. The part of me that was not sensible, and didn’t seem to understand that Sean would be better off if whatever it was between us never went any further, also seemed to be the part currently in charge of my vocal cords.
“Sean . . . ,” I began.
He cocked his head toward me. His eyes were twinkling. I swear, he could make that happen on command. It wasn’t fair. “You’re not standing me up, are you?”
Panic hit. “Did I forget something? Did we . . . ?”
“Easy, Anna.” He laid his warm hand on my shoulder. How did he manage to have warm hands in this weather? “I was joking.”