Hexes and X's (Z&C Mysteries, #3)

by Kane, Zoey

  SIXTEEN

  There were two people standing at the bottom of the stairs—Judge Huff and a council woman. “What’s going on?” barked the judge.

  “We have a murder,” Zo said. “Please, someone go get Nurse Debbie and Deputy Jones.” More gathered at the bottom of the stairs while the judge made his way up and the council woman ran for the nurse and deputy.

  “This puts a whole new face on these proceedings,” said the judge, more to himself.

  Soon Deputy Jones came bounding up the stairs, and Debbie was running as fast as she could go with an emergency kit in hand.

  The deputy questioned Claire while the nurse looked Matilda over. “She is dead,” Debbie confirmed, who rather sat motionless next to her long-time coven sister. She said with a distant tone, “I have places for the wounded and sick, but I don’t have any place to put the dead.”

  Pretty much everyone had gathered, including Cynthia and Pat, who ascended to the upstairs hall. The judge yelled to all, “Even if the storm is over tomorrow and everyone wants to go to a beach, anyone—I say anyone—who leaves this house without my permission, which you won’t get, will be considered the murderer!” He continued, “Take this body of Matilda Dread and wrap it in a blanket and put it in the large canning pantry that I saw. The rest of you go back to bed! And, if you can sleep, I will be amazed. Now get out of here! Deputy, if you see anyone trying to leave, shoot them and take them into custody. In that order! Hear that people? You will be shot if you try to leave!

  “Deputy, I presume you have business to take care of now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, get at it!”

  Most of the coven sisters stood around Matilda, some in tears. Eventually, they rolled her up in a blanket and then zipped her into a sleeping bag. Jones asked them if they saw or knew anything that would help explain the murder. They said they didn’t, but Judy offered that Matilda had quirks and secrets that she was certain she didn’t even know about. “Matilda spent a lot of time alone in her bedroom.”

  Zo and Claire, along with the deputy, headed down the hallway to the left of the stairway landing; the other direction was the entry to the attic. They didn’t think to ask which of the six rooms would be Matilda’s, so the deputy swiftly opened each door they passed. Voices could be heard halfway down the hall. Soon they were standing in front of the door with audible arguing. “Now that Matilda is dead, those pearls are up for grabs, and I am going to get mine.”

  The silky voice of Cynthia followed. “You won’t be able to find those pearls by yourself, darling. We will just lay claim to this house and then take our time to find them, possession being nine-tenths of the law.”

  “I am tired of you telling me what to do!”

  “Okay, you are on your own. If you are so smart, do it. And in fact, I am tired of your dimwitted arguments with me. Everything I ever told you was for your own good.”

  “Yeah? I just look at it as you being a first class bi—”

  (Knock, knock, knock.) “Sorry, ladies. Just looking for Matilda’s room.” Deputy Jones had opened the door and stepped in.

  “At the end of the hallway,” said Cynthia smoothly, and smiled with lips that invited a kiss.

  “I think Cynthia offed the old frump to get her husband and her pearls,” accused Pat.

  “You have gone too far, Pat.” The witch looked at her with murder in her eyes.

  “Oh, what?! You are going to curse me, witch? Everyone knows that speaks of your personality disorder, not any power you pretend to have.”

  “Get out! Or shall I throw you out and we will see who has the power, you or me!”

  Pat looked a little startled, licked her lips and left.

  “I’m so sorry, Deputy. She has been eroding in some kind of persecution complex, mostly about her weight. This argument has been coming on for a while, and with the stress of the storm and all, I guess it was just too much for her.” Cynthia changed her position, throwing a hip out a little, and flipped some hair over her shoulder.

  “Come to breakfast, Cynthia,” Zo said around the deputy’s shoulder. “I have something to tell everyone.” The invitation was eyed with a how-dare-you-address-me expression. “I’m going to show everyone the treasure map discovered by me. I think with Matilda dead, the treasure is up for grabs.”

  Her expression took on a new respectfully-interested attitude. “I will be there, Ms. Kane.”

  When Claire got to speak to her mother discreetly in the hallway, she asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “Do we need money? No. And, now there has been a murder. It is safer for us to let everyone in on it. It will be very entertaining, I’m sure. Everyone will have an equal opportunity…, and may the best man or woman win. There are no more heirs.”

  “Okay. We still have a mystery to solve, but this time it involves murder. Are we not looking for the treasure anymore?”

  “We are. And if we find it, we say where it goes. All’s fair.”

  “Okay then, all is fair and fun. Yo ho!”

  “Exactly. Sail on!”

  SEVENTEEN

  Across the hall was Pat’s room. Claire knocked and the door was yanked open with a double-dare look from the irritable woman.

  “Please go down and join the others for breakfast, and my mother will be down in a bit to show everyone the treasure map. You’ll all have a chance to find it. There is no more heir, now that Matilda is no longer alive.”

  “Everyone?!” She slammed the door in Claire’s face, after which something shattered from within the room. The door jerked open again when the three had turned to continue to Matilda’s room. “And Claire, you city slut! Don’t think I don’t know about you and Slobber!” The door slammed again.

  “She is such a lovely maniac. Don’t you think, Mom?”

  “Absolutely! If she gelled her hair and patted it down a little, there is no telling what she could accomplish… Spontaneous combustion, for instance.”

  They finally found the room that was Matilda’s. They entered with reverence. When something was looked at a little more carefully and up close, it was done with fingertips quietly. “Look, Mom—it’s Matilda’s journal.” Claire flipped some pages in a book on the bed. “Oh, here is an interesting entry: I called on a mother-daughter team to come in and help me find the pearls. Better them than me. I know what the crazy old lunatic did to keep his treasure safe. So how genius am I?! I get the treasure and don’t have to go through the hexes (traps).”

  Claire flipped through to a couple of pages at the end. “I followed Claire’s ex-boyfriend down the attic floor’s door. I needed his help to reverse a couple of automatic locks, but he betrayed my trust. He took the master key and tools with him and then evidently decided that my sloughing off that there wasn’t any real treasure was a lie, and continued on by himself. Fool!

  “I got the key back when I found him in the gate room, injured and snake-bitten. I didn’t think he’d still be living today. We both got caught there at the end… Scary for a moment. Good thing I heard Zoey and Claire talking in the maze, so I could put those old gunnysacks over our heads after tying up his and my own hands. Agile is my middle name.

  “Jack had continued to reverse the locks all the way to the sewer so that this key would prevent door-traps. That will prove very useful to me, while the others, should there be any more, may have the same luck in the snake room as Jack. Grandpa would be proud of me.

  “Anyway, after the Kanes found us, they continued on at my blubbering request for help. We had a ceiling moving down to crush us in the gate room. I pretended I couldn’t get out. Then after some hours, there was a loud, mechanical sound and the ceiling went up. Zoey Kane and her daughter, Claire, had made it through and out. Amazing! I give them their due.” Claire peeled back tape that held a key to the page.

  “Matilda was so sneaky. She had this extra key,” Claire said, wagging it.

  Next entry: “Claire and Zoey Kane ended up at the bowling alley. I didn’
t know about that exit. Too bad I had to risk their lives; but, like I said, better them than me.”

  “Final entry, Mom: ‘Pat Bule stopped me in the hallway and asked to see me early tomorrow morning at five a.m. Said she has something to talk to me about. She said she has a pearl that proves there is treasure and she wants to talk some business with me.’”

  “Well, we know who stole your pearl now, don’t we?!” said Claire, looking at her mother with narrowed eyes.

  “Correct,” Zo said.

  The windows began to rattle in whistles and blusters of day two of the record breaking storm, ever raging on.

  *

  Zo suggested to go down for breakfast, and then confront Pat Bule later. Accusing her of being a suspect for murder would be wiser later, rather than in front of a bunch of other guests. Deputy Jones agreed. Zo stopped into her suite first and picked up the pouch and the notes Claire had written down about the painting. Then the three proceeded to the kitchen.

  When the mother and daughter entered, it was like seeing a community of lemurs standing at different heights, staring at them, especially Zo, for the sure-to-be-awesome announcement.

  “Before I give you the details of the map, I just want you to know that we have papers brought here by Matilda’s ex-husband, confirming she was indeed heir to Captain Dread’s property and fortune.”

  Everyone was quiet and unmoving. Even the judge, town council, and lawyer Kendaloaf.

  “And now that she has passed, there is no heir. This means the treasure is up for grabs, for whomever finds it first, and I have the map.”

  Their eyes widened more. Zo was about to share the anticipated, and critical, information, when Debbie could be heard from the infirmary: “Lay back down, John. You need to lay back down.”

  An agitated grunt responded, followed by a swish-thump, swish-thump. John soon appeared, as haggard as ever, sliding a foot along the wood floor and stamping down with the other, until he stood before everyone. “Half the estate was mine,” he breathed hoarsely, his grey skin over his gaunt features. “Our divorce… wasn’t final. Now that she’s dead, it’s all mine.”

  A glass crashed loudly by Pat Bule, though she was staring straight ahead beside the butcher’s block with an emotionless face. People shifted their weight, and looked to each other, perplexed. “I guess that ends the hunt,” one said.

  “Not for me,” answered Cynthia. “John and I are rather a couple.”

  John raised his brows in agreement, and as if speechless by the pronouncement.

  “That is not what you said to me last week!” accused Pat.

  “There is no accounting for LOVE, Patricia dear.”

  “You make me sick!” growled Pat.

  Debbie stood beside John, and ordered, “You should lay back down, hon.”

  John squinted at Debbie as if seeing her for the first time, and exercised his jaw back and forth in annoyance. “The treasure is mine.”

  “Okay, hon. Just come with me, and lay back down.”

  With one last hurrah, he turned back to everyone, raised his arms crookedly in the air, and proclaimed, “The treasure is… MINE!”

  Just as lightning flashed, spotlighting the situation, John fell to the floor with a THUD accentuated by a thunder’s BOOM.

  The kitchen returned to its gloomy, dimly-lit atmosphere. All was silent, until a timid Mrs. Lane said, “Maybe he was murdered. Maybe you murdered him, Ms. Debbie.” She eyed the room warily. “I don’t trust any of you.” She passed a look around the room at everyone. And it was no wonder—some actually looked elated that John was dead. One wearing a pleased grin with raised eyebrows was Pat, looking at Cynthia. “Oh, so sorry for the loss of your fiancé, Cynthia dear.”

  “Shove it!” The witch picked up her pen and paper.

  “Every man for himself!” announced Judge Huff. “Law breakers will be hanged. Keep that in mind. Get on with the map, Ms. Kane.”

  Deputy Jones and Debbie swiftly brought John back into the infirmary for a moment’s resting place. When they returned, Debbie had a prescription pad and pen to take notes. Everyone was ready and waiting. Only the officer stood without note-taking material, the muscle of his jaw working and his eyes fixed on the crowd.

  “Okay. We found five trap doors with hexed rooms, or rather booby-trapped rooms,” Zo explained. “The start of the game is up in the attic, through a hatch in the floor and down a ladder. If it closes, it locks you in, making you finish the course. Use caution when going forward. We made it through a few of the scary rooms already. In my estimation, no point in going back through where we have already been and found nothing.”

  “What if we want to go through for ourselves?” asked Kendaloaf, seriously.

  “You are entirely welcome to do that—at your own risk,” Claire confirmed. “Though, if you decide so, beware of the room that will gate you in and lower its ceiling down on you. Then there’s the spider room, which is probably harmless but creepy, followed by the snake room that can definitely kill you. If you make it that far, the next is a sewer, of which you saw and smelled the evidence on us from head to toe.”

  Her mother cut in. “You will have to leap over Poop Falls and there is no Rock Candy Mountain. But I did find a rather sizable pearl there, proving that the treasure does exist.” Zo pulled the pink pearl out of her pocket and showed it, which brought “Woos” and “Oh mys” because of its beauty and size. Then she flattened out the pouch for everyone to see the writing. It says, “Four more. Follow the finger.” She put the dismembered finger on the table along with the X map and pouch-clue.

  “In our bedroom we found an oil painting which may have clues. We can’t be sure.” Claire went on to say, “But since we’re all in on this together now, I’ll explain. Captain Dread was a pirate. The possible clues are ‘Dead men do tell tales.’ Also, we saw a Bible passage underlined, painted in his picture, Habakkuk chapter two, verse one, that says, ‘I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.’”

  Zo added, “We will let you study the painting from two to four o’clock to see what else you might see as a clue. That is it. You can eat your breakfast now.”

  A couple of people grabbed a bagel and cream-cheesed it, and then took off in separate directions. Others poured cereal and ate quietly, going over their clues. Kendaloaf stuck a banana in his suit’s inside pocket after checking his cell phone, only to find out it still didn’t work. The judge leaned back and looked like he was sleeping, but every once in a while he would peek at the notes he had taken; finally, he got up and said to the duo, “I will see you at two” and left.

  The deputy came gliding back from helping Debbie in the infirmary over to the table where Zo and Claire had sat down. “I don’t think there is any room for any more bodies,” he said, with a mean smile and twinkle-eyes. “Can I fry you ladies up some eggs and ham?”

  “I’ll have some,” accepted Claire, delighted at the offer.

  Zo said simply, “Thank you.” She noticed for such a large man with big hands that had long fingers, how he had graceful dexterity in cracking eggs without breaking yolks. She broke at least one egg in four. She continued her thoughts, admiring how the veins ran over his biceps and into his hands.

  He flipped the eggs with one skillet and turned the ham with a fork in the other. Soon he was over with Claire’s breakfast, including toast and milk. Next he came over with Zo’s plate, toast and milk. He leaned down with the plate and spoke with a smooth voice, “Hope you like your eggs sunny side up, ma’am. That’s all I know how to cook.”

  Zo returned a look at his eyes which were riveted on hers. “Oh, I don’t know, Deputy, I think you can cook a lot of things…”

  “Double entendre, ma’am?” The determination of his unblinking fix upon Zo was unrelenting.

  Zo found herself girlishly looking down, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. “Where’s your breakfast, Deputy Jones?” she asked,
looking up again into the turquoise fire framed with dark lashes.

  “You might as well pass the dynamite, Ms. Kane,” he said, not accepting a change of subject. “The fuse is lit—ma’am. I can’t keep my mind off you.”

  “Hellooo. Still here,” interjected Claire with an amused smile.

  “Okay, let’s eat!” He smiled big over teeth that flashed both top and bottom when he talked, which was totally mesmerizing to Zo.

  Eating was suddenly uncomfortable, since a knot in Zo’s stomach formed from self-consciousnesses. She thought her chewing sounded loud, and then there was this horrible sense of a burp that had to be fought down.

  Loud, angry voices broke through to the diners’ earshot. The deputy’s demeanor turned serious, and he pushed his chair back and stood at the same time. Zo and Claire also left the table to see what the ruckus was all about. Several people were joining up when a voice came yelling over the crowd, “The painting has been cut out and stolen!”

  “How would you know?! Remember what I said about being hanged if lawlessness occurred?” yelled the judge. “That is breaking and entering an occupied room of the Kanes and destruction to private property! Any more behavior like that and I will throw the book at the perpetrator and then become very creative in sentencing. Deputy! …A room to room search.

  “Nobody leaves this spot until I say so.” The judge’s white hair over bushy white eyebrows and moist blue eyes, made him look like an avenging angel.

  “The people you find that are not in this group, escort over here, Deputy,” instructed the judge in a normal voice. Then he started up the hallway, the officer following closely behind.

  Those left behind started a course of conversation. “Are things going to start to get nasty?” The lights blinked as the storm continued to rage outdoors. Everyone looked up and around a moment, then continued the debate.