Frozen: a ParaNormal mystery

by Amsden, Christine

  “I got books about a lot of things. The hell hounds don’t fill a whole book. You saw ‘em in A History of Medieval Witchcraft, which mostly talks about witch trials. They made out everything they didn’t understand as evil. Talked about the devil a lot. Pacts with the devil. Demons. The dogs, which have red eyes and are fierce strong, got called hell hounds.”

  “So what you’re saying is, the name is a misnomer?” I asked.

  Mr. Wolf shrugged and blew out a lungful of pipe smoke. “Never believed in hell myself, but who knows? Point is, I don’t think the people who wrote out that book knew much about the creatures. Too scared to think straight, I reckon. Can’t trust a man too scared to think straight.”

  “So the book didn’t have much to say about them at all?” Evan asked. He sounded disappointed.

  “Nope. Just said they’re black, got red eyes, are fierce strong, only come out at night–”

  “They only come out at night?” I interrupted. “You mean if we went back now, they wouldn’t bother us?”

  “That’s what the book says.” Henry Wolf shrugged. “It is six hundred years old. Almost as old as I am.” He chuckled, and I wondered if he was joking.

  “How do you kill a hell hound?” Evan asked. “They fired dozens of bullets at it last night, but it didn’t make a dent.”

  “Underbelly,” Mr. Wolf said. “You gotta get to them from underneath. Rest of the hide’s real thick, like armor.”

  “Thanks.” Evan started to stand, but apparently changed his mind. “Who’s your new apprentice, by the way?”

  “Pat Malloren.”

  “Pat?” Evan stared at his old master as if the man had finally lost his mind, but I nodded thoughtfully. True, the Mallorens were generally a bad bunch, but I had reason to think that maybe Pat wasn’t as bad as the rest. Given a chance, he might even grow into a decent man.

  He was also Evan’s cousin, but Evan didn’t like to be reminded of that.

  “Kid’s got heart.” Mr. Wolf nodded, as if that was that. Maybe it was.

  “We really do have to get going,” I said. “I’m sorry to run off, but now that we know the hell hound’s not going to attack during the daytime, we need to go back to the scene and try to find out who killed two people.”

  “I get it. You just be sure to stop by soon for a real visit. The both of you. I want to know how the dreamin’s going.”

  “We will.” Evan stood and offered to shake Mr. Wolf’s hand, but the old man got to his feet and caught Evan up in a fierce hug instead.

  We were halfway back to the car when I thought to ask Mr. Wolf something else. “Hey, do you know anyone in town who could cause a sudden and powerful freeze?”

  “Freeze? You mean cold?” Mr. Wolf stared at me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. “That what happened to whoever died?”

  I nodded.

  “Heh. That’s … a very unusual power. Human body don’t create cold.”

  “Are you saying whoever did it isn’t human?” I asked.

  “Nope.” But he didn’t elaborate.

  * * *

  I called the sheriff as Evan drove us back to Jared’s house. He met us there twenty minutes later and waited with me while Evan unmade the ward Scott had put up the night before.

  “What did you learn?” the sheriff asked.

  “Not much.” Briefly, I told him what we did know. “The important thing is that we should be safe during the daytime.”

  “But Evan’s still here.”

  “He needed to take down the ward.” That wasn’t entirely true, though. I had the feeling that Evan was going to stick by my side during this one, especially after what Mr. Wolf had said about the human body not generating cold. His words kept echoing through my mind, but I had no better idea what they meant now than I had half an hour ago.

  We’d brought our winter gear with us, but we didn’t end up needing it. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I could tell that whatever cold had descended upon this place, it had evaporated. The air temperature was a brisk forty-five degrees, the same as it was across most of the countryside. I put on my light jacket and headed for the house, braced for what I would see there.

  Death has a smell. It’s hard to put into words, but when you’ve experienced it, you never forget. Any fleeting hope I had that Nadine and Jared might have thawed out disappeared the second I opened the front door and caught the scent in the air.

  Their bodies had slumped together since the first time I’d seen them. I tried not to look; that was the sheriff’s duty, not mine. My job was to take a look around this house and find some clue as to what had happened here yesterday.

  “I got a team coming to dust for prints.” Sheriff Adams handed me a pair of latex gloves. “In case you have to touch something.”

  I took the gloves and put them on absently, searching the room for clues as to what had happened. I more than half expected to see evidence of a casting circle, despite not having noticed one the night before. I’d had less than a minute, after all, and I didn’t get much past the front door. But the house was neat. Orderly. Almost too neat and orderly.

  I walked through the living room to the attached kitchen, noting the absence of so much as a single cup for water. Even organized people had to drink.

  The kitchen trash contained an empty two-liter bottle; I had to restrain myself from putting it in the recycle bin instead. Come to think of it, there was a blue recycle bin not two feet from the trash. Why hadn’t they recycled the two-liter?

  Pushing the bottle aside, I peered inside for a closer look at the trash, knowing that such things could be a veritable fountain of information. Aside from the two-liter, there were a few pizza crusts. I glanced around for a take-out box, but didn’t see one.

  “I’m going to look for a trash bin outside,” I told the sheriff. I went through the front door even though I suspected the bin would be in back, so as not to disturb more of the scene than I had to.

  Evan stood sentry outside, leaning against his car. He arched his eyebrows when he saw me, but I just shook my head before walking around back.

  They had two large, round metal trash cans. One was empty, the other only half-full, suggesting they’d had a trash pickup in the last couple of days.

  Resting on top of the other debris, I found the pizza boxes – one large, one personal size.

  “Who else was here?” I whispered to myself. Returning to the house, I told the sheriff what I’d found.

  “There are a bunch of toys in one of the bedrooms, but I don’t think they have kids.”

  “Why not?”

  “Didn’t come up on the background search and anyway, there’s no bed. Just the toys.”

  I decided to have a look for myself and indeed, in the first bedroom on the left, I found a neatly laid out playroom. There was a shelf full of books and games, bins of carefully stacked and labeled toys, and a closet with more of the same. There were also a few rolled mats and stacked blankets that I assumed could be used for naptime.

  “They didn’t have a license to run a daycare, did they?” I asked. It all looked a bit too well organized for casual babysitting.

  “I’ll get Janie to check into it.” He went outside to make the call, leaving me to continue my inspection of the house.

  There was a bathroom across the hall from the playroom. Again, it was immaculate, with a pump bottle full of liquid soap the only thing near the sink. No toothbrushes, I noted. I checked under the sink, where I found a few spare toothbrushes and toothpaste, but none had been opened.

  Moving along, the second door on the left turned out to contain a treadmill, an exercise bike, a set of weights, a yoga mat, and various other equipment. A small TV hung from the wall, much like in the living room.

  If they had kids, they wouldn’t have the space in this small house for a dedicated workout room. Yet they definitely had kids over regularly enough to have a dedicated playroom.

  I moved to the last room in the house, the master b
edroom, directly across from the workout room. Here, I found the first signs of clutter. The bed was unmade, a few clothes were on the floor, and a basket of clean, unfolded laundry lay on the bed. The attached bathroom contained toothbrushes, hairbrushes, razors, and hair care products.

  I didn’t touch more than I had to. At some point, I might return for a more detailed search, but the forensics team needed as clean a scene as possible. Mostly, I had been looking for evidence of magic use – candles, books, potion ingredients, or even just some herbs. I found nothing of the sort. Not even a basil plant on the windowsill.

  Returning to the living room, I let my eyes do one last sweep of the room. They fell on a DVD case half sticking out from under the couch where Nadine and Jared still embraced one another. I hesitated, not wanting to get close to them, but needing to see that DVD case.

  Finally, holding my breath, I ducked to my hands and knees and pulled it out as quickly as I could, managing not to touch either of the poor souls in the process.

  The case was light, suggesting the DVD had been removed. But it was the title that captured my attention: Frozen.

  Sheriff Adams walked back in through the front door. “What’d you find?”

  I held up the case, absolutely unable to speak. It was a movie, just a movie. A cartoon, for crying out loud! And yet, some part of it had come to life in this house with devastating consequences.

  Sheriff Adams walked over to the DVD player and pushed the eject button. The missing DVD popped out.

  “What does this mean?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “I have no idea. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.” But I didn’t believe it and, I could tell, neither did he.

  Chapter 7

  NADINE AND JARED DID RUN A daycare out of their house, we discovered as we began the laborious process of uncovering the secrets of the victims’ lives. It was not, however, licensed. Their nearest neighbor provided that tidbit almost gloatingly, and Nadine’s mom confirmed it through sobs that threatened to tear her apart.

  “They just got engaged.” Mrs. Young buried her face in her husband’s chest, refusing to look at me or the sheriff. “They needed the money and she was so good with kids and the state only lets you take care of four kids at a time.”

  “Do you know the names of the kids she was taking care of?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “Can you ask your questions later?” Mr. Young asked, putting an arm around his sobbing wife and drawing her close to his ample chest. “You just told us we lost our daughter. Have a heart.”

  “I understand, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss. But there might still be a danger.”

  “From preschoolers?” Mr. Young asked, and I could see tears glistening in his eyes too, though he fought to hold them back.

  “From somebody with serious power.” Sheriff Adams stared into those glistening eyes and did not back down. “You know what kind of power I mean?”

  Mr. Young’s eyes flickered to me briefly, betraying fear. “We don’t … we never … not in our family. My wife and I moved to this area thirty years ago during the tourism boom, thinking to open a little antique shop.”

  Downtown Eagle Rock was full of antique shops, but as far as I knew, this couple didn’t own one. I had to assume that their dream hadn’t come true and judging by the ramshackle condition of their small, dilapidated home, they had fallen on hard times.

  “How did she die?” Mrs. Young’s voice was so small, I barely heard it. It wasn’t even a whisper, more a croak.

  “We don’t have an official report from the medical examiner yet,” Sheriff Adams said diplomatically.

  “But you know,” Mrs. Young said, again in that croaky almost whisper.

  “It was magic.” I stepped in, sensing that we’d get further by being direct. I watched both Mr. and Mrs. Young carefully for a reaction, and was somewhat disappointed at not getting much of one.

  “Not in our family,” Mr. Young repeated. “Jared’s, maybe.”

  We didn’t get anything more from the grieving parents, and after a few short minutes I encouraged the sheriff to back off. We’d be back later, when they had a chance to process. I couldn’t even imagine what it must feel like to lose a daughter. I thought of Ana and my heart clenched with dread.

  Evan had gone back home, much to my relief. If he’d been there, I don’t think the Youngs would have said anything at all. I rode along with the sheriff as he went from place to place, questioning neighbors, family, and friends. After the first hour, we no longer had to tell people about the murders. They already knew. The upside and the downside of living in a small town.

  By the time we tracked down Jared’s dad (his mom was dead), the man was more than halfway drunk. Mr. Turner looked a lot like his son – tall and thin, with dark hair and thick eyebrows. In Mr. Turner’s case, the hair was starting to go gray. He sat in a camp chair by the fog-shrouded lake, a fishing pole lying forgotten by his side as he took a pull from yet another can of beer. At least eight cans were strewn about him, crushed and empty.

  A neighbor had told us he’d gone fishing. The neighbor hadn’t mentioned that he’d phoned Mr. Turner to share the news.

  I stared out over the misty water, remembering what the sheriff had said about there being something in the air. Standing this close to the shoreline, closer than I’d stood in many months, now that I thought about it, I could almost sense what he meant. I shuddered, then turned my attention to Mr. Turner.

  “If you came to say my boy’s dead, I already know.” He didn’t stand. Or even look at us.

  “We came to ask you when you saw him last.” Sheriff Adams kicked at a couple of the beer cans as he drew nearer, then motioned me closer.

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust, but got within smelling distance. It reminded me a little bit of my mom, though she tended to get drunk on wine.

  “Seen him last week. We go fishing together every Sunday. Never showed today.” Mr. Turner finished off the beer he was holding, crushed the can, and tossed it to the side before reaching into the cooler beside his chair to grab another.

  “Maybe you should go easy on that,” Sheriff Adams said.

  “What for? My boy’s dead. You got kids, sheriff?”

  “No, sir. Never had that pleasure.”

  Mr. Turner laughed, mirthlessly. “Pleasure, is it? Doesn’t seem pleasant right now.” He finally looked up, and spotted me for the first time. “What’s she doing here?”

  “She’s consulting on this case.”

  “Consulting? Word is she only consults when something weird is happening. Something weird happening, Sheriff?”

  “Possibly. You got any practitioners in your family?”

  Mr. Turner didn’t answer right away. He was too busy staring at me, especially at my chest, and in a way that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. Nobody had looked at me like that since I’d married Evan. No one sane would dare.

  “My daughter’s mixed up in that occult nonsense.” Mr. Turner took another pull on his beer and then belched loudly. I turned my head away, unable to hide my disgust.

  “What do you mean, mixed up in the occult?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “You know. She calls herself a witch. Chants nonsense and burns incense. Hangs out with her witchy crowd. Disappears at the full moon, probably dancing naked or something. We don’t talk about it much.”

  The sheriff glanced at me as if inviting me to ask questions, but I shook my head. This man was either too drunk or too ignorant or both to tell us anything. The daughter, on the other hand, might be worth talking to.

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” I asked.

  “Jessica. Little Jessie.” He belched again, the smell noxious.

  “Where can we find her?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “On a Sunday? Sleepin’ it off.”

  * * *

  It was late afternoon by the time we arrived at Jessica Turner’s small ranch house in a quiet residential area of Eagle Rock. The place wasn’t far from a ho
me I’d once lived in, back when I’d chosen to room with Madison and Kaitlin. In fact, the floor plan was probably identical. She even had similar pots full of ivy, a plant often used for protection, hanging from her front porch.

  The sheriff knocked. He rang the doorbell. I glanced at the open car park nearby, seeing a bright red pickup truck. Somebody was home.

  “When he said she was sleeping it off, I didn’t think he meant all afternoon,” I said.

  The sheriff grunted and rang the doorbell several more times. Finally, I spotted a flutter of movement through a front window, heard a sound almost like a snarl, and the front door burst open.

  She looked feral, her blue eyes flashing with undisguised anger. I got the instant impression she wanted to bite. She wore nothing but a blue housecoat loosely tied around her waist. It fell to mid-thigh, revealing long, lean legs. Her red, obviously dyed hair hung in matted clumps to the middle of her back.

  “Ms. Turner?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “What are you doing here at this indecent hour?” She flung some of her red hair back over her shoulder, letting the lapel of her housecoat fall open slightly to reveal the swell of one pale breast.

  “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, ma’am.” The sheriff tipped his hat. “I am sorry to have to wake you, but I’ve got some bad news. Your brother is dead.”

  For a moment, her angry, feral expression remained. Then shock replaced it. Followed by anger once again. “How?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Your father seemed to think you might be a witch. Is that true?”

  She snorted, an indelicate sound. Then she seemed to notice me for the first time, standing a few feet behind the sheriff. “Well, well, little Cassie Scot.”

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “I know you.” And with that, she turned slightly to give the sheriff her full attention, effectively dismissing me. Well, then. If that wasn’t a clear sign of what she thought of me …

  “Were you and your brother close?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  Jessica hesitated, and once again her feral expression slipped. “Sometimes.”