“Thanks, ma’am.”
The cops left.
“Last night I met with Craig Wilde,” I said. “He confessed to setting the cow on fire.”
She blew out her breath. “If you’d told me that a few days ago, I’d have wrung Craig’s scrawny neck. But with his mother dead …” She shook her head, sorrow creasing her face. “What a terrible, terrible thing.”
“I know.” I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. If I’d pushed Craig harder, sooner, would Tabitha have died? “It’s why Craig came forward. He knows the cow arson is muddling the investigation.”
“Who else was involved?”
“I didn’t get their full names, and they took off before Slate could grab them.”
She arched a brow. “Detective Slate? I thought he was on leave?”
“I wasn’t going to meet Craig on my own. And Jason seemed—”
“Jason? You’re on a first-name basis?”
My cheeks warmed. “He was off duty. Calling him Detective Slate all the time was getting weird.”
“Ah.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“Of course not. He seems like a very by-the-book sort of person. I’m surprised he allowed you to talk to Craig.”
“Craig called me,” I said. “I was only being a responsible citizen bringing Ja—Detective Slate along.”
“Of course you were. So what happened?”
“Craig said he overheard a conversation—at his house—between his mom and Bill Eldrich. He said it sounded like she was taking bribes. But I wonder if he misunderstood?”
My mother sipped her cocoa. “Bribes.”
“What would Tabitha have been taking bribes for?”
“Exemptions from regulations, favorable council decisions like that grant funding … Power corrupts, and even in a small town like this, there are temptations. And it was a bit odd the way the Wine and Visitors Bureau lost the funding at the last minute. Everything I’d heard indicated they’d be getting something, and then it all went to the Dairy Association.”
“But bribes?” Ignoring my mother’s pointed look, I rested my feet on the coffee table. “Bill wouldn’t pay a bribe on behalf of the Dairy Association out of his own pocket, would he? It would have to come from the association. Wouldn’t their bookkeeper have something to say about it?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “The Dairy Association does a lot of lobbying on behalf of its members. A bribe could be disguised—as a donation to a favorite charity, for example.”
“A ‘donation.’ That’s what Craig overheard.”
“It might have been an innocent donation to an actual charity that he heard them talking about.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s assume it’s true, and Bill was paying off Tabitha. Now they’re both dead. Who would kill them? A third party to a bribe who wanted to keep it quiet? Someone angry that a bribe resulted in a council decision they didn’t like?”
“If the latter, that points to Dean with his raw milk or Penny with her lost income for the Visitors Bureau.”
“Why would Penny kill over that?” I toyed with the zipper on my hoodie. “She may treat the Visitors Bureau like it’s her own, but—”
“But that’s the point. The Wine and Visitors Bureau would be nothing without Penny. She was the one who got the funding for the building they have now. She started the wine tastings. She expanded the staff. It’s her baby. But I have a difficult time imagining her committing murder too.”
We mulled that over.
“There is, of course, another possibility,” she said. “That Tabitha’s husband, Tom, knew about her affair with Bill.”
“And if she was taking bribes,” I said, “he’d have to know about that too, wouldn’t he?”
“He’d have little reason to kill his wife over some bribes, as despicable as that may be. But if he was hurt … angry about the affair …?”
“Have you attended any of the town council meetings lately?” I asked.
My mom adjusted her squash blossom necklace. “Between the holidays and Ladies Aid, I haven’t had the time. Why?”
“If there was something hinky going on, maybe we can figure out what it was from the minutes.”
“The minutes only list the topics discussed, not the content of the arguments,” she said, rising. “But who knows? I’ll get my laptop.”
She left the room and returned a few minutes later, the open laptop in her arms. She handed it to me.
I zipped to the town council’s website and the meeting minutes. My mom was right. The minutes weren’t terribly informative.
I did a web search for raw milk and Dean Pinkerton’s name and turned up a newspaper article on the conflict. “This is interesting,” I said, skimming the article. “Tabitha Wilde is quoted in it.”
“What did she say?”
“That it’s the town council’s duty to protect the health of its citizens, and the safety of unpasteurized milk is debatable. It sounds like she was planning on voting with team Eldrich.”
“Do a search for Tabitha’s name. See what else you find.”
I did. Once I waded past the articles about her murder, it was all small stuff—an appearance at the annual Christmas Cow launch. A quote about funding for education. A plea to vote yes on a bond measure …“This is going to take a while.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’s the Chinese food.” She stood up. “I’ll get it. Keep looking.”
I did and got nothing more out of my time than a fortune cookie. It read: Ignore Previous Fortunes.
Alone in my mom’s kitchen, I tossed empty boxes of Chinese food into the bin beneath the sink.
My cell phone buzzed in the pocket of my hoodie. Frowning, I checked the number and my heart skipped a beat. Jason Slate.
“Hello?” Leaning against the granite counter, I studied the open-front cabinets with their display of red plates and mugs.
“Maddie, it’s Jason.”
“Hi. What’s up?”
“Have you learned anything more about the curse?”
“My contacts in Ladies Aid believe they’ve found the source of the recent hysteria.” Credit where credit was due.
He chuckled. “Ladies Aid, the true power in San Benedetto.”
“Invisible and everywhere and super powerful, if you know how to use it.”
“So who amped up the curse rumors?”
Yawning, my mother ambled into the kitchen.
“The wife of one of the victims from the ’80s,” I said.
“Jennifer Tassi?”
“She’s Jennifer Falls now. She’s remarried. Apparently her current husband’s had a couple minor accidents recently, and she’s been telling people she’s worried the curse is happening all over again.”
“Who is it?” my mother whispered.
I covered the receiver. “Detective Slate.”
“May I?” She extended her hand.
“Mom,” I hissed.
“Madelyn …” She waggled her fingers impatiently.
“Um, Jason, my mom wants to talk to you.” Dread puddling in my chest, I handed her the phone.
“Detective Slate, this is Fran Kosloski. I wanted to thank you for saving my daughter’s life. It was remarkably brave of you … Yes … Thank you … I understand you’ve been moved to curse duty …? Yes … Yes …”
I shifted my weight and leaned closer, but I couldn’t catch Jason’s end of the conversation.
“Oh, I can arrange that,” my mom said. “How soon would you like …? Then tonight it is. We’ll see you shortly.” She hung up. “Detective Slate is coming over.” She returned the phone to me and left the kitchen.
I tugged on the strings of my museum hoodie and trotted after her. “What? Why?”
She walked to her work roo
m, cluttered with empty boxes marked Xmas. Opening a drawer in the battered desk, she withdrew a tattered phone book. “Because there’s no time like the present. If you’re going to talk to Jennifer Falls, you may as well do it now.”
“I don’t even know Jennifer …” I folded my arms across my chest. “But you do, don’t you?”
“She’s not in Ladies Aid. But we have crossed paths.” My mother squinted at the open book. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be.” She grabbed the phone on the desk and dialed. “Hello, Jennifer, this is Fran Kosloski …”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I returned to the kitchen.
If I was going to put a damper on this curse hysteria, talking to Jennifer was the next logical step. And if my mom knew her, all the better. But I wasn’t sure whether my mom was pushing me toward ending the curse or toward Jason Slate. Either way, it was embarrassing. He would come over, and she’d grill him, and then he’d think that she thought we were an item.
I groaned and fitted the last dishes into the washer.
“You’re all set.” She strolled into the kitchen. “Jennifer’s expecting you and Detective Slate.” Her eyes widened. “He’ll need a Christmas plate!”
“I don’t think—”
“Nonsense. It’s just good manners. Besides, I’ve given my police watchers plates.” She peeled a lid off a plastic container and arranged cookies on a red and white paper plate.
Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang.
I bounded from the kitchen and opened the door.
Jason stood on the step. A thick blue scarf looped beneath the collar of the parka draped over his shoulders. His sling was white against his navy sweater. “Cold out tonight.”
“Then you’d better come in, Zorro.”
Grinning, he stepped inside, and I shut the door.
My mom bustled into the entryway bearing cookies. She thrust two plastic-wrapped plates into Jason’s free hand. “One for you, and one for Jennifer and her husband.” She bustled us out the door. “Have fun investigating!” She waved and slammed the door shut.
Jason’s lips quirked.
“I’m not responsible for my mother,” I said.
“I like her. And she’s right. It is late at night for a police visit.”
“Good thing you’re on leave. At least we have cookies.”
“I have cookies,” he said. “You get your own.” Chuckling, he strode down the pathway and past the nodding reindeer. He held open the sedan door for me and I got inside, reaching across to unlock his door.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked when he slid behind the wheel.
“By now I think I know this town.” He started the car and we drove off.
A car approached, its high beams on, blinding. Jason flipped his headlights and the car roared past.
“You say she’s afraid for her new husband?” he asked.
“Right.” I filled him in on what Cora had told me.
“He’s a farmer?”
“He owns Falls Yogurt.”
“Really?” Jason cast a quick glance at me. “I love that stuff.”
“I know, right? Especially since they’ve started making Icelandic yogurt.”
We chatted easily, and he let me steal a pfeffernüsse cookie.
Jason’s sedan drifted to a halt in front of a small brick two-story house. He checked the address. “Either they live simply, or Falls Yogurt isn’t as successful as I thought.”
“My sources at Ladies Aid did imply Mr. Falls was frugal.”
He grinned. “Are these confidential sources?”
“You better believe it.” I unbuckled myself. “I’m not crossing that crew.”
We walked up the darkened concrete path, Jason carrying the cookie plate. On the porch, a light flashed on beside the simple front door. I rang the bell.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and a woman with graying hair gazed at us through the screen. “Yes?”
I stared, trying to remember where I’d seen her before.
“I’m Detective Slate,” Jason said. “This is Madelyn Kosloski. I believe you were expecting us?”
“Of course.” She pushed the screen door open, and we walked inside.
The wallpaper in the entryway was faded. A woman’s violet-colored cloche hat sat on a hat stand on the dusty end table. Lightly, I touched the two faux-pearl hat pins sticking from its band.
Mrs. Falls shut the door and pulled her yellow cardigan more tightly about her slim frame. “Your mother said you had some information about the curse.”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s where I saw you. You were at the museum for the curse binding ritual.”
She hung her head. “You probably think I’m foolish.”
“No,” I said quickly. What I felt was guilty for inflicting the stupid cowbells on the town. It had seemed so innocent at the time.
“I’d hoped …” She looked away, then motioned us into a white-painted living room with beige carpeting.
We followed her into the room, and she sat on a brown-and-green floral-print sofa. Jason and I sat opposite her on a matching couch. A row of antique women’s hats, complete with veils and elaborate pins, lined the center of the coffee table. I felt like I was back in my college apartment. All that was missing was a poster of Magnum PI (sexy in any decade).
“The hats are lovely.” I picked one up and something sharp pricked my thumb. “Ow.” I set it down quickly.
“Sorry,” she said. “The pins are sharp. So you wanted to tell me something about the curse?”
“Madelyn owns the paranormal museum,” Jason said. “She’s an expert in curses.”
My mouth opened, closed. I was an expert? Oh, right. I was. I nodded sagely.
“Madelyn?” Jason prompted.
I cleared my throat. Time to step up, even if it did make me look like a fraud. “There’s no curse.”
Mrs. Falls blinked. “You mean the binding spell worked?”
“No, because there was nothing to bind,” I said. “The ritual was authentic. We only did it to calm people down, and because the ritual itself was interesting. But there’s no curse.”
“But those deaths … and you were hit with a car outside the museum.” She motioned to Jason’s sling. “Right after the riot.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa! “I wouldn’t call it a riot—”
“That’s exactly the point,” Jason said. “Panic has inflated this so-called curse in people’s minds. But there’s no curse. There never was.”
She laughed hollowly. “Tell that to my first husband. Every single member of that committee died within a year of receiving those horrible bells.”
“What do you remember about that time?” Jason leaned forward as if to prop his elbows on his knees. At the last minute he pulled back, remembering his sling.
“It was terrible,” she said. “All those people dying. At first, we thought the deaths were accidents, natural causes. And then people began to see a pattern.”
Jason reached into his breast pocket and his parka cascaded off his shoulders. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. He rummaged in the pockets and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is a list of people who died in San Benedetto during that period.” He handed it to her.
“There were more curse victims?” she asked, paling.
“No. Take a look at it. I think you’ll see they all had something in common.”
She scanned the paper, her mouth pursing. “So many people. I didn’t even know them.”
“That’s not too surprising. They were all over seventy-five, and you were a young woman.”
She set the paper on the coffee table. “I don’t see what you’re getting at,” she said stiffly.
“The average life expectancy in the 1980s was seventy-three and a half,” he said. “All the vic
tims, with the exception of your husband, were past that. The only curse they suffered was old age.”
She blinked, her eyes watery. “But the curse—the museum. That woman’s hand was bitten.”
“The museum has a cat.” I sent a mental apology to GD. There was no way he’d bitten those women. Sure, it was possible he’d nipped an ankle and then snuck back to his perch atop the cave. He’d bitten me often enough. But he’d never gone after a customer, and I didn’t see how he could have reached anyone’s hand. “People panicked.”
Her worn face tightened. “Your cat bites people? And you let him around the public?”
“Do you remember how the story of the curse got started back in the ’80s?” I asked, changing the subject.
She gnawed her bottom lip. “A newspaper article, I think.”
I shook my head. There had been a newspaper article—I’d found it in my initial curse research. But the article had referenced fears whipping through the town. It had reported on the curse story, not started it.
“Have you heard about the placebo effect?” I asked.
“You mean, when people are given fake drugs, but the drugs work because people believe in them?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Curses work the same way—a reverse placebo effect. They’re not real, but when people believe in them, they sometimes come true. The more people think there’s a curse, or even joke about it, the more likely it is that bad things will happen—or that people will blame everything that happens on the curse. The best thing you can do—for yourself and the town—is to stop talking about or even thinking about the curse.”
“Have you ever tried to not think of something? It’s impossible.” Jennifer Falls raised her chin. “Maybe I have been a bit foolish. But Byron is the one in danger. A part of him believes in that curse. And like you said—if he believes it, it might still come true. That would explain all those little accidents he’s been having. What if he’s made himself clumsy?” She shuddered. “Do you have any idea how much machinery he works around?”
“The original curse only applied to people who were on the actual Christmas Cow committee,” I said. “Your husband wasn’t on this year’s committee. All you need to do is explain that the curse—if it exists—doesn’t apply to him.”
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