The Midsummer Murders

by Jill Nojack

  Charity Barnes rounded the corner in front of them and walked purposefully down the hall to address the aide. “Susie, do you remember Tildy Bentwhistle having a perfume bottle and mirror in her room? It appears that Janie may have removed some items in addition to taking the Captain’s medals. If not, she’s not the only one responsible for our recent crime wave. I’d like to establish when the disappearance might have happened.”

  Susie shifted to one leg with a hand on her hip, and her head cocked to the side as her eyes rolled up to the left. The other hand swiped at her mouth briefly as she concentrated.

  “I think so. Yes, she did. There was a metal mirror—the back had a green plastic overlay and fancy metalwork on it. The bottle...oh, that’s right! It was really nice. Sort of like, what’s that style called?” She paused for a minute, thinking, then emphasized her words with a jab into the air with her pointer finger as she said, “Art something. With ruby rhinestones all around the lid. Classy. Her granddaughter was always bringing her little gifts like that. But it definitely wasn’t there when I packed her stuff.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Right after Chief Denton was here and said it was okay to go into the room again. I packed things up while Ella vacuumed.”

  Natalie could tell Barnes was ticking off a checklist in her head. Tick one: Susie couldn’t have taken the bottle while she was packing things up. She hadn’t been alone.

  “Do you remember when you last saw the items?”

  “The day before she died. I took her down to the sunroom to enjoy the flowers after her granddaughter left.”

  “Thank you. I’ll check with the night shift to see who helped her get ready for bed to see if they noticed them missing. But you’ve been very helpful.”

  The nursing manager continued down the hall, and Natalie could hear her greeting a resident behind them as she and the aide continued on their way. Clearly, this Barnes was not only serious about the care she provided, but she was efficient as well. She’d gathered her data the exact way Natalie would have done it.

  Now Natalie didn’t have to try so hard to keep the questions flowing. She’d been handed an excuse to push forward as she distributed medications while making rounds.

  “Have there been a lot of things go missing at the home?”

  “Hard to tell. I mean, this is a great place to work and most of the staff are super. But people are saying that the girl who died, Josie, got into the rooms after people passed—with their bodies lying right there—and ripped them off. How awful is that, right? But I guess if I was going to steal something out of Tildy’s room, I’d sure go for that bottle. It was unique. I’ve never seen another like it.”

  “How so?”

  “It really drew the eye. The rubies were still super shiny despite how old the bottle had to be.”

  “Rubies, you say?” as she handed a paper cup of pills to a waiting resident. What was it about rubies that rang her internal fire bell?

  Susie, who was returning from the bathroom with a glass of water to wash the pills down, replied, “Well, I mean, you know, cut glass. Rhinestones. I’m sure they weren’t really rubies. But it was a pretty bottle.” She crumbled a now-empty paper cup and tossed it into the small trash receptacle near the door. “I hope when I’m old, I have a granddaughter who loves me enough to visit me that often and bring me nice surprises.”

  “Better to hope you’re still up and moving around on your own, dear.” But she also wondered silently how long Marcus would visit her if she landed here. Would anyone bother to bring her pretty things?

  Rubies. Ruby.

  She stood stock still in the hallway. Then took a deep breath and asked, “Have you ever had a resident here named Ruby Averill?”

  “No. Not that I know of. Why do you ask? Because I’ve only been here for a couple of years.”

  “Oh, nothing dear. An old acquaintance. Your description of the bottle reminded me of her. She had rubies on many of her things. It was her “brand”, as they’d say nowadays.”

  As they walked through the lobby on their way to the other wing, she didn’t add that Ruby Averill was also rumored to be the last skinwalker. Her grandmother had once told her they had disappeared with their people, the native Americans who had been all but eradicated in the push westward to fulfill the white man’s belief in Manifest Destiny. The rumor likely persisted because of Ruby’s heritage. There had still been a great deal of racial animosity against native Americans back when a very young Ruby had been brought to Salem by her much-older husband. He was something of a local celebrity himself, having been rumored to have ridden with Butch Cassidy’s gang in his youth.

  But no skinwalker would be content to grow old and die in the same skin, not from what Natalie’s grandmother had taught her about them. They were intelligent but dangerous beings that moved from host to host seeking out a new body every few years. No skinwalker could be content to wear the young indian girl’s skin into its old age. And the obituary she’d seen a few weeks ago seemed cut and dried; Ruby had been ninety-nine and still sharp at the time of her death, with a long list of descendants, many of whom still lived in the area. If there had been anything unusual about her demise, that news would have gone out on the witch’s grapevine within hours.

  Ruby had been an evil old witch—there was no doubt of that—but she was dead and six feet under. The deaths weren’t her doing; she couldn’t reach out from beyond the grave. And anyway, she didn’t recall a single story that said a skinwalker left a body that looked like anything other than a newly dead corpse. But of course, little was known about them. They had been expert at concealing themselves. But no...the idea that a skinwalker had survived what her ancestors called the great Western purge was too far-fetched even for Giles.

  Still, she tapped her companion on the shoulder and said, “I need to make a quick call, dear. I’ll catch up with you.”

  She left a message on Cassie’s voicemail to add skinwalkers to her research just in case.

  10

  Marcus was engulfed by his mother’s hug almost before she had the door open. Seriously, thought Twink, she’s like a mama octopus wrapping him up and sticking to him with all her suckers.

  “My baby boo,” Jasmine Wilkerson said, squeezing him even tighter. “I missed you this week! How long can you stay?”

  “My case worker says since we can have unsupervised visits now, I can stay up to three hours once per week to start. And she told Natalie that she expects her to keep an eye on the time real close. We need to leave around four so we can be home by five, depending on traffic.”

  “We’ll follow all of the rules.” She brought up her phone and tapped it a few times. “There. I’ve set an alarm so we don’t have to keep looking at the clock. And you said ‘we’?”

  Marcus stepped aside so she could see Twink standing behind him.

  “You brought her! Twink! Go on, you get in here, girl.” Jasmine spread her arms wide and beckoned her in with her fingertips. “I’ve been dyin’ to meet you ever since Marcus told me about you. You’re every bit as pretty as he said!”

  Twink felt hot blood welling up in a blush, but she didn’t worry about it. With her dark complexion, no one would be able to tell it embarrassed her. Blushing just gave her a little more glow.

  But truth was, she was both embarrassed and terrified to finally be meeting Marcus’s mother. What if Mrs. Wilkerson didn’t think she was good enough for him? Marcus was devoted to his mother despite the problems she’d had with drugs and alcohol. If Twink didn’t pass the mama test, she knew she’d end up being just a bug on the windshield to him sooner or later.

  She wished she’d done more with her appearance. Her hair was down and loose with her curls doing whatever they wanted. She wished she’d worn it up and more controlled, tidier. She also wished she hadn’t experimented and worn her new gold eyeshadow. It looked so good on the shop’s tarot reader, Cinnamon Brown, who had a sexy, boho-glamorous look for somebody who was like forty, but
she was afraid it just looked tacky on her.

  Still, she hadn’t been rejected yet; Jasmine Wilkerson pulled her into a hug that matched the intensity of the one she’d given her son. Twink wondered how she was supposed to breathe. When mama octopus backed away and gave her the once over again, Twink returned the favor, glad to have the full capacity of her lungs back.

  It was clear where Marcus got his eyes and smile. But where Marcus was thin, his mother was round. A nice round, a motherly kind of round. And even though she wasn’t dressed up or wearing makeup, Twink could see the potential. She probably looked real good when she went out clubbing.

  She reminded herself not to bring up night clubs, drinking, nothing like that. Marcus wouldn’t want to remind his mother of the things she’d given up to try to get him back home with her.

  She said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, too.”

  “So get in here! Both of you. I’ve got lunch ready.”

  Twink couldn’t help but notice Marcus’s eyes taking in the place as they walked to the small table where sandwiches and a pitcher of what looked like Kool-Aid were waiting. She knew he was looking for signs of drink or drugs. His mother had gotten clean before, but she never stayed that way for long, and he’d learned not to get his hopes up too high.

  But still, he had his hopes high enough. You could see it in the way he looked at his mother with equal amounts of pride and worry in his eyes when she held out a big coin and said, “I got that sixty day chip at my meeting last night. I never got more than a thirty before. They’ll let you come home any time now, baby boy. I can feel it.”

  Twink wanted him to be with his mother. She did. But then he’d be back in Boston while she had to stay in stupid Giles. And that kicked around the back of her brain being ugly when she didn’t want it to be.

  She wouldn’t see him much, even if his mother liked her. He’d probably forget all about her.

  But she smiled and laughed with them during lunch, and she pretended she didn’t have a worry in the world. She’d taken the day off just for this, and she would not wreck it for him.

  ***

  “You gotta stop worrying about it,” Marcus said, his eyes on the road as they left Boston. “She liked you. She did. Who wouldn’t?”

  Twink rummaged through her purse. “I just should have stuck with what I know works for me. Purple shadow. Hair in an updo. I bet she thought I was a mess. Oh, here it is...”

  She pulled her hair back on one side and affixed the ruby comb to hold it in place. She checked it in her hand mirror to be sure nothing was sticking up funny; there, perfect. That’s what she should have done in the first place. Then she took a kleenex out of her cosmetics bag and rubbed it across her eyelids. “I probably looked like a tramp with that gold all over my face.”

  “You did not look like a tramp. Or a ho or a skank, okay? You looked like my amazing girlfriend that my mom will love as much as I do. Don’t be so down on yourself, girl.”

  Twink slumped in her seat, at least as much as she could slump when restrained by a shoulder and lap belt. She sighed heavily.

  “The thing is...”

  “Tell me. Come on.” He darted a glance her way.

  “If things go good for you guys, you’ll move back to Boston. I’ll never see you. And you’ll meet someone...”

  “Nope. Even if I go back to Boston, it won’t change anything between us. Not gonna happen. And realistically, I know she wants me to come home, but....”

  “It might happen. Both things.”

  “We can’t talk about this on the freeway. If you wanna talk, it needs to wait ‘til we get home. ‘Cause I can’t hold you and whisper in your ear how much I care about you when I’m driving.” His eyes darted to her and then ahead again. There was nothing he could do about how upset she was right now. And the look on her face meant he wouldn’t be able to lessen her fear much when they got home either.

  Above the road in the distance, a loose, black mass winged its way toward them.

  ***

  Natalie was sure she’d gotten into Boston without Marcus spotting her while he was on his way back. Boston traffic was always heavy, and the freeway was wide and divided. And she knew absolutely that she could count on him to leave his mother’s in time so that there was no unexpected meeting at her apartment.

  She couldn’t let him know what she was up to. She had an excuse ready if he had spotted her, but she didn’t want to use it. She wouldn’t feel right telling the boy a lie, not when he had always been so honest with her. But there was always the chance her plan might go wrong, and she didn’t want him to be hurt if it did. The only way to make sure of that was to keep it a secret.

  When Jasmine Wilkerson answered the door, Natalie stepped back as the woman leaned in for a hug. She’d been too slow the last time she’d visited and had had to endure a crushing embrace. She wasn’t going through that again.

  Jasmine read the body language and gave her an enormous smile instead. “Miss Taylor! Come in, come in. You’re taking such good care of Marcus. He’s so happy...” She looked anxious then. “I didn’t let on that you’d been around. Just like we said.”

  “Thank you.” Natalie sniffed deeply of the room and the woman’s scent as she walked behind her to an old but clean upholstered chair in the small front room of the apartment. Natalie’s nose was acutely aware whenever it was around alcohol because she was not a drinker herself. But there was none of it here. “You look good. Have you continued to take the pills I gave you?”

  “’Course I have! And they’ve made all the difference. I’ve never been clean this long before. Never. Not since I was Marcus’s age. Whatever’s in them, it’s a miracle.”

  “Perhaps it is.” Natalie answered, knowing that miracles and magic often went hand in hand. “But I wonder if you don’t miss your old life?”

  “No. Not even a little. I’ve started doing some of the things again that I loved before addiction took over. It keeps me focused.” She walked to the corner where she picked up a large pad of sketch paper and lifted the cover, flipping through it until she found the page she then showed Natalie. It contained a very well-done sketch of Marcus sitting at the kitchen table.

  “Oh my,” Natalie said, “That’s quite good.”

  Jasmine covered it back up and put the tablet away. “Thank you. My art teacher always encouraged me, but there was no money for college. Plus, I was pretty caught up in havin’ a good time by the time I graduated, and then Marcus came along soon after, anyway.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re finding things to stay occupied. Have your friends been giving you trouble like the last time we talked?”

  “Some of them have been by looking for a party. I don’t even open the door now. I feel bad for ‘em, they got the same problem I did, but I can’t let ‘em drag me down. I see that now. You couldn’t give them the pills, too, could you? Help ‘em out?”

  “I’m afraid not. As I explained, I can’t get any more people into the trial. Just you and someone else I know in Giles.” Natalie took a plastic bag full of hand-rolled pills from her purse and handed it to Jasmine. “That’s a two month supply. Let me know when you run low and I’ll be back.”

  “Thank you. And I know you said that you couldn’t help anyone else.” Jasmine sighed as she took the offered pills. “But I sure wish that everyone could get the same help. I don’t even think about gettin’ high any more.”

  Natalie hadn’t been sure when she began that it would do much good, but with two successful recipients of her “medicine” doing well, she had to call it a success. It had also helped the local part-time, previously drunken animal warden, Junior Rangel, when she tested it for its efficacy before giving it to Marcus’s mother. He now had a growing taxidermy business on the side, preserving beloved pets for their grieving owners, all of whom sung his praises for his professional, caring, and sober manner.

  She nearly felt like some prissy do-gooder. Well, there would be none of that! No ongoing
campaign to bring her “medicine” to the masses. That sort of thing was exhausting. Plus, if anyone with a scientific background ever got hold of her pills, they’d quickly call her out as a charlatan. A mixture of skullcap, valerian root, and milk thistle ground up under laboratory conditions could do only a little on its own for anyone who took it hoping to be free of the demon of addiction. Maybe it would take the sharpest part of the edge off if they were extremely motivated. But it was her magic that activated the power of the mixture and freed the possessed from the demon’s clutches.

  As Jasmine seated herself on the couch across from Natalie, she said, “Has his social worker said anything that might mean she’s getting ready to let Marcus come home?”

  “I’ve heard nothing solid. She mentioned that you’ve been cooperative, and I get the feeling she’s pleased with your progress. But I don’t know if she’ll make a recommendation any time soon.” Natalie paused, steeling herself to reveal the next part of her plan to get Marcus the regular mothering, including crushing hugs, that she knew he craved. “I’ve been thinking about something. And it seems to me that if you were to move to Giles, it would make it easier for you to see Marcus more often. You could attend public events together, that kind of thing. I think Mrs. Dean would be amenable if I keep an eye out for any deviations from the rules. We’ve developed a pleasant working relationship.”

  What Natalie actually meant by that was that she planned on having William there when she made the suggestion. He could find a reason to touch Cheryl Dean and use his skills to nudge her toward cooperation. Otherwise, social services would move glacially slow and Marcus would have a family of his own before he got the okay to return to his mother’s home. The rules existed for an excellent reason; she didn’t deny that caution was needed when it came to the protection of children. But in this case, she could guarantee the boy’s well-being herself in a way social services never could.