Trace of Evil
Page 21
He nodded. “For an hour.”
“Good. Just the interview then,” Natalie said. “We’ll schedule the polygraph for some other time.” She stood up. “See you at five.”
30
Natalie took a right onto Harvest Lane where Lindsey Wozniak lived, pulled into the long driveway, parked behind Lindsey’s BMW hybrid, and cut the engine. The sign out front read WOZNIAK LANDSCAPE AND INTERIORSCAPE DESIGN—WE WORK WONDERS. The residence had major curb appeal—ornamental pots, a marble fountain, fruit trees around the perimeter. The elegant Victorian was built in the late 1800s with a spacious front porch and a turret. Lindsey was constantly changing the look of the place. Last year, she’d painted the exterior smoke gray with winter-flannel trim. This year, it was pewter with bone-china trim.
Lindsey answered the door looking elegantly professional in a suede pantsuit, a tailored white blouse, and Italian flats. Her sharp features contributed to her predatory corporate look. “Natalie,” she said with a bright smile. “Long time, no see.”
“Hello, Lindsey.”
“What do you think of the new color?”
“It’s very pretty.”
“I was aiming for a mountains-in-the-mist type of thing. C’mon inside.”
Like her closest childhood friends—Daisy, Grace, and Bunny—Lindsey Wozniak was thirty-six years old. The four of them used to watch The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday together. They used to party together. They’d once formed a coven together—Lindsey had been the leader. Now Lindsey was a successful landscape designer and flower stylist who did weddings, parties, and formal occasions. She maintained half the gardens on the north side and gave flower-arranging workshops at the community college. Lindsey was a big deal in this town.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Sure, Natalie. Anything to help. I’m heartsick over this. The whole town’s reeling. Grace and I talked for two hours last night. Come into my office.”
The house was full of stunning period detail—original hardwood floors, stained-glass windows, pocket doors, and a domed skylight. The home office was a welcoming space full of period armchairs, floor-to-ceiling drapes, and all the trappings of a small business—steel file cabinets, top-of-the-line equipment, excellent lighting.
Natalie paused to admire the glossy promotional photos on the walls—airbrushed images of elaborately manicured courtyards and gardens full of expensive stone statuary, interspersed with professionally framed garden design awards and certifications.
“Impressive,” she said.
“I’m lucky to have such a strong client base. Espresso?”
“No, thanks.”
“Have a seat,” Lindsey said, reaching for her iPhone.
“Brandon mentioned that he hired you to do some landscaping?” Natalie began.
“That’s right. Initially, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. We went over his options, and I got him to focus on his main concern, which was the holiday season. So I told him about winter landscaping, and he dug it. He got involved with the design and execution.”
“Is that typical? For homeowners to get involved in the landscaping design?”
“Depends. Some do. Some don’t. I’m flexible. That’s one reason why I’m doing so well.” She smiled.
“When did you start working for the Buckners?”
“About two months ago.”
“And when was the last time you were over there?”
“On Monday. With my maintenance crew.”
“Since you’ve been working for them, have you noticed anything unusual?”
“Unusual how?” Lindsey asked. “What do you mean?”
“Let me put it this way. Is there anything you can tell me about Brandon and Daisy’s relationship, since you’ve been spending so much time over there? Were they happy? Unhappy? Any disagreements? Fights?”
“Well, there was tension, for sure.”
“What kind of tension?”
“Little things,” Lindsey said. “Normal couple things, I suppose.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I was the first to suspect that Daisy was pregnant. I asked her about it, point-blank. She pleaded with me not to tell a soul, so of course I kept my mouth shut.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, about a month ago, I walked into the living room while she was on the phone, and she freaked out a little. You know how sensitive her skin is, right? Redheads. She turned crimson and hung up immediately, then mumbled something about school. Anyway, it didn’t sound job-related to me. It sounded pretty friendly. So I wondered—why the secrecy? What’s the big deal? I don’t know.” Lindsey waved it away.
“Any guesses as to who it could’ve been?” she asked Lindsey.
“Not even. But she was acting so flustered and distracted—something was up.”
“Do you remember Daisy’s suicide attempt?” Natalie asked.
“Wow, yes,” she said, taken aback. “That was a long time ago, Natalie. It’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? You grow up in a small town, and people will inevitably throw your past in your face. Look, it wasn’t serious. She scratched herself with a knife. Created a little drama.”
“I remember how upset she was,” Natalie said carefully. “But I don’t recall any other details. There are conflicting accounts about what happened. For instance, somebody told me that you and Brandon had a fling back then—this must’ve been your senior year in high school—and that’s why Daisy attempted suicide, even though the cuts were superficial.”
Lindsey sighed hard, suddenly looking thin and drawn. “Oh God, Natalie. It’s all water under the bridge.”
“I also heard she became distraught when Brandon hired you.”
“Seriously?” She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. “I doubt that’s true. We came to terms with it a long time ago.” She heaved an impatient sigh. “Affairs are messy.”
“But you and Daisy were so close back in high school. What happened? How could you betray her like that?”
“Betray her?” Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Are you judging me now? Do you want to see a grown woman break down and sob buckets over her dead friend?”
A heavy discomfort settled between them.
“I’m sorry. Let me rephrase that,” Natalie said. “Tell me what happened between you and Brandon during your senior year of high school. How did it transpire?”
“We had a fling, okay?” Lindsey said flippantly. “It was dumb. But once Daisy found out about it, that put the kibosh on everything, because Brandon went crawling back to her. And that was fine with me.”
“You aren’t still attracted to him?”
“Brandon? Are you kidding me? He’s a goofball. No. We’re friends. He can be funny as hell, though. He makes me laugh. Bottom line, he pays his bills on time. That’s all that matters to me.”
“So you and Daisy…”
“Daisy and I were good friends in high school, but after the whole Brandon drama, we sort of drifted apart. We became … less-intense friends. Look, she was a sweet kid who could be a real drama queen, overreacting and getting intensely emotional about everything. But in this town, you have to let it go. Eventually we put it behind us. I mean, look, the three of us still got together for drinks occasionally—Grace, Daisy, and me. The Witches of Eastwick, we called ourselves. We laugh about it now. Maybe cast a few spells, for yucks. White magic only.” Lindsey exhaled. “You want the truth? There was a point when I was jealous of Daisy way back when. I’m not afraid to admit that. She had such gorgeous green eyes and gawd … such perfect teeth. Me? I had an overbite and no-color hair, and my eyes have always been too close together.” Her phone buzzed. “Sorry.” Lindsey paused to check the message. “God, this is my worst habit. I have to check, like, a million times a day.” She quickly texted back. Her phone buzzed again. “Sorry, it’s like a tic.”
“Lindsey, please … put that thing away and talk to me.”
She set the phone aside. “Apologies. Go on.”
“Monday, like I said.”
“No phone calls since?”
“I don’t think so. I’d have to check my logs.”
“Where were you on Wednesday?”
“Working. I’m always working, Natalie. Constantly on the go. My day starts at five and doesn’t let up until midnight. No weekends off. Everything blurs together after a while,” she said with a strained smile. “But it’s all good. Business is booming. I have deadlines up the wazoo. Consulting with clients, maintenance, talking to suppliers, marketing, the list goes on. I pride myself on my attention to detail, but it keeps me running around like a crazy person, twenty-four/seven.”
“You sound busy.”
“Ha. Busy ain’t the word. By the way, I’m also in charge of the flower arrangements for Daisy’s funeral. I want everything to look stunning.” She brushed a sheen of sweat off her brow. “Anyway, you asked if I’d seen anything unusual lately at Brandon’s house? I just remembered something. Last week, my work crew was digging up the backyard, and they found an old poppet doll buried in one of the flower beds. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. You know, things like that are a dime a dozen in this town. I told the guys to toss it out, but it still might be in one of the leaf container bags.”
Natalie furrowed her brow. Poppet dolls were used for magic, supposedly for healing and love, but they could also be used for darker purposes. Revenge curses, bad luck, ill health, even death spells.
Lindsey’s phone buzzed. “Sorry, I have to take this.” She stood up. “Do you mind, Natalie? I hate to cut it short, but…”
“Sure. Thanks for your time.”
Lindsey escorted her to the door. She had a warm handshake. “You should try one of my flower-arranging workshops, Natalie. You know what’s exciting? When you push yourself out of your comfort zone.”
“Yeah, right.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “If I had any extra time, Lindsey, I wouldn’t spend it rearranging flowers in a vase.”
Lindsey laughed. “Same old Natalie.”
They paused on the threshold.
“You never answered my question, though. Where were you last Wednesday?”
“The Applewhites, I think,” Lindsey responded. “I’ll check my datebook and get back to you.” She gently shut the door in Natalie’s face.
31
Natalie parked in the Buckners’ driveway and got out of the car. The fluffy clouds had blown away, and the air was crystal clear. A few of last autumn’s brittle leaves blew across the asphalt, making a dry ticking sound.
She took out the house keys and entered through the Buckners’ garage. Brandon’s top-of-the-line gardening tools were stored in here, along with the lawn mower, a custom-made Zektor men’s bike, and various lawn care products—bags of fertilizer and bottles of herbicides. Natalie couldn’t find any leaf container bags inside the garage, so she locked up and went around back, where a dozen newly tagged bushes lined the cedar fence. Beyond the tall fence were the conservancy lands—white spruce, red pine, bear oak, balsam fir. The distracting smell of pine sap blew across the landscape.
Spring was a time for weeding and fertilizing. The flower beds had been recently mulched, and the grass was several inches high. Seedlings had started pushing up through the ground, straining to catch the sun. The wheelbarrow held a precarious pile of polished river stones. Natalie found the leaf collection bags leaning against the back of the house. Four heavy-duty natural-fiber bags with Lindsey’s company logo printed on the front—a green and white design with the annoying tagline, WE WORK WONDERS!
Natalie unsealed the first bag and rolled down the top. Using her phone’s flashlight, she peered inside at a messy collection of pinecones, twigs, nettles, leaves, and weeds. She worked her hands through the lawn debris and poked her flashlight beam down into crevices, but couldn’t find any poppet dolls. Bag two—same thing. Bag three—she spotted something farther down, scooped out a few handfuls of grass and lawn debris, pushed aside more foliage—and there it was.
She scratched her finger on something sharp, then reached down and took out the dirt-stained doll. Most people had never heard of poppet dolls, but everybody knew about voodoo dolls—those creepy little forces for evil. Unlike their voodoo counterparts, poppets could be used for harm or for good.
Many years ago, Natalie and her friends had made a poppet doll. It was easy. First, you drew two identical “gingerbread man” outlines on a piece of fabric, then you stitched them together around the edges, leaving a small enough opening to stuff the doll with cotton. Then you tucked a few “magical” items inside, such as herbs, crystals, talismanic objects, and a personal item or two you’d swiped from your intended target. Finally, you sewed up the opening, added buttons for the eyes, yarn for the hair, and anything else that created a magical link to your victim.
According to local Wiccan lore, poppets were meant for “sympathetic” magic only. Love spells, friendship spells, healing spells, good luck spells—all were encouraged. Anything negative was discouraged. Because whatever you did to the poppet doll allegedly affected the person it was meant to represent.
The soggy poppet in Natalie’s hands was made of a dirt-stained pink felt material, with two green buttons for the eyes and short red yarn for the hair. It was about a foot tall, stitched together with black thread. Red stitches formed a ghoulish mouth. It was unmistakably meant to represent Daisy Buckner.
Even more troublesome, the doll was bent backward and bound with a heavy piece of black cord, then stuck with straight pins—one of which had pricked Natalie’s finger. Natalie examined the pins. Witches stuck straight pins into poppet dolls in order to cause pain. This was a negative curse, for sure. And the target was Daisy.
This doll had been underground for an unknown period of time and was coming apart at the seams. Some of the cotton balls were popping out. They smelled of herbs and earth. She carefully ripped one of the seams loose and found unidentified herbs among the cotton balls, along with two personal items—a red Bic ballpoint pen like the kind she’d seen on Daisy’s desk, and a torn piece of paper, folded in half. Natalie opened the two-inch square, just the corner of a page. Written in red ink on lined white paper, it read: Good job, B-. There was nothing else written on the torn piece of paper. Also tucked inside the doll was a twelve-inch-long length of heavy red twine, knotted nine times.
32
Natalie waited in her car with the engine running. As soon as the bell rang, the school’s exit doors flew open and hundreds of students came streaming out, chatting excitedly now that their boring-ass day was over.
She spotted Ellie heading across the lot with India, Berkley, and Sadie. Angela wasn’t with them. The four girls looked as if they’d waltzed straight out of the Teen Rebel Handbook—black T-shirts, black skirts, black jackets, black leggings, black shoes. They reminded Natalie of any other group of teenage girls, though, tilting their heads together and whispering conspiratorially among themselves.
Now Grace’s Mini Cooper pulled up to the curb and Ellie bid farewell to her friends and hurried off. Natalie watched her get in the car and ride away.
Meanwhile, India and her crew continued on their way past the school buses and across the parking lot. They moved like ballerinas, their heads positioned elegantly over the midline of their bodies. They paused to chat with a boy in a fleece hoodie. He had an appealing smile. The girls crowded around him, laughing and talking.
Natalie rolled down her window to catch the conversation.
“Don’t look at me, Caleb,” India said. “Quit staring.”
“I wasn’t looking at you,” the boy objected, his voice cracking.
“Holy shit, dude, you’re making me uncomfortable.”
“But I wasn’t—”
“Seriously, dude. If you don’t stop staring, I’m going to report you.”
Caleb’s face collapsed. He gave up, turned, and hurried away.
“Snowflake!” India called after him, and she and her friends burst out laughing. They continued on their way across the lot, until they came to India’s silver Lexus. The girls piled in and drove off.
Natalie snapped on her directionals and followed the Lexus through downtown Burning Lake, past boutiques, barbershops, bistros, and bed-and-breakfasts. She kept a safe distance between herself and the car as it detoured onto Lakeview Drive, where birch trees loomed across the road like Roman centurions. It was a nasty, bumpy ride. The asphalt was all chewed up here. Last summer had been especially loud and splashy, with too many tourists and lots of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Now that it was spring, the work crews would be filling in the potholes and causing rush-hour bottlenecks.
Ten minutes later, they drove past the lakefront with its four-star restaurants and boat-rental businesses. A broad swath of marsh grass gave way to a sandy beach dotted with lifeguard towers. In early June, white sand was trucked in by the ton. Orange buoys delineated the swim area. Today the water was calm, but that could be deceptive.
Natalie followed India’s Lexus toward Abby’s Hex Peninsula on the south side of the lake. The vehicle took a right down a deserted two-lane road and drove for another three hundred yards or so before pulling into a gravel parking area. The girls spilled out of the car and headed for the trailhead, while Natalie hung back and watched them slip like sprites into the woods.
Once the girls were out of sight, she swung into the parking area, fetched two evidence bags from the trunk, and took the trailhead onto the wooded peninsula. The trail was long and winding. A bed of shiny dark needles and fall leaves muted her footsteps. The peninsula was two hundred and fifty yards long, and the hiking trails looped around the perimeter. It was a beautiful April afternoon. Birds swooped down from the treetops to scoop up the seeds on the forest floor.
Natalie had lost sight of the girls through the trees but could hear them faintly up ahead, their reedy laughter light and frothy. She followed their musical voices along the winding aromatic path through a dense growth of coniferous and deciduous trees, until she came to a fork in the trail. She paused to listen, then took a left. After another fifty yards or so, the thinning woods gave way to a clearing at the tip of the peninsula, where gentle blue waves lapped against the rocky shore. Several rustic benches were provided for park visitors, offering an unobstructed view of the lake. The three girls sat huddled together on one bench, speaking in hushed tones—confident India, multiply-pierced Sadie, and snooty Berkley.