Witch at Heart: A Jinx Hamilton Witch Mystery Book 1 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries)

by Juliette Harper

  “Thank you for this,” he said. “I really mean that. And if you're interested in camping with us, I'll speak with my father.”

  Since the conversation was starting to take on that tone of polite pre-termination, I told a white lie. “I love to camp,” I said with faux enthusiasm. “And the grounds here are so beautiful.”

  I used the statement as an excuse to turn around in the spot and survey my surroundings. In the distance, down the slope and to the right of where I was standing, I spotted the majestic old hickory exactly where I expected it to be.

  What I didn't expect was a small building that was obviously a recent addition to the compound. A tidy little sign hanging from the eave said, “Museum.” Perfect. I could use that to buy myself more time.

  “You have a museum on the property?” I asked with interest. ”What’s in your collection?”

  WJ brightened considerably. “I specialize in Native American artifacts,” he said. “Not just the tribes in this area, but also groups that extend up into New England and all the way to the border with Canada.”

  “Oh,” I said, making the word sound a little breathy. “That's fascinating. Is there any chance you might show me?”

  Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, I might have fluttered my eyelashes a little bit when I said it.

  WJ flushed with pleasure. “You're really interested?” he asked.

  The way he posed the question, I suspected that even though his museum was smack in the middle of his property, he didn't get a lot of foot traffic through the front door.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I'm very interested.”

  This time, his response shifted into full-blown gallantry. “Then of course I'll give you a tour,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

  I fell in beside him as we walked across the campground. The longer that I could keep him talking, the better chance I might have to learn something about his eccentric father.

  “How in the world does your mom put up with your dad being so grouchy?” I asked.

  WJ answered in an almost hushed voice. “My mother died when I was 12 years old.”

  “I'm so very sorry,” I said. “That was a very presumptuous thing of me to ask.”

  “No,” he said, “not at all. I think Dad would be so much better if she were still here to keep him company. She really was the only person he got along with.”

  As we approached the small building, I said, “It must have been very hard for him to be out here raising you by himself all these years. What year did she die?”

  “Nineteen-eighty-two,” WJ said. Then he added sadly, “I can't believe that she's been gone 33 years.”

  In my head, I did the math. In 1985, when Beth disappeared from the party, WJ was 15 years old.

  “Was this an interesting place to grow up? I asked, as he held the door of the building open for me.

  “It was, ”he said. “When you run a campground, there are always new people to meet and watch during the season. The winters can get a little lonely, but otherwise, I've always liked the business.”

  “Are you here for a visit?” I asked.

  “No.” he said. “I've just recently moved back home. Dad is getting on up there in years and he needs more help than he's willing to admit or accept.”

  Something told me that was an understatement.

  Just as WJ finished his sentence, he flipped the light switch by the door and flooded the interior of the museum with brilliant light. I have to admit I was immediately impressed by the collection, which appeared to be lovingly and meticulously curated. Antique display cases lined the walls, no doubt rescued from stores in the area. Many of them looked like the cabinets that filled my own shop in town. The shelves contained perfectly aligned groupings of artifacts, all carefully labeled. As I took in more detail, I realized the cases were arranged in regional groupings, with individual cases dedicated to particular tribes.

  “This is an incredible private collection,” I said. And meant it.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I've been doing this since I was a boy. I saved my allowance to buy my first pieces. Many of the things in my collection now are of museum quality.”

  “What was your first artifact?” I asked.

  “Oh,” he said, giving me a boyish grin, “that's easy. It was a Seneca throwing tomahawk. I still have it. Let me show you.”

  He crossed the room, opened one of the cabinets, and took out a long-handled tomahawk. The head was slightly elongated with one broader, crooked end. The piece strongly resembled a modern hatchet, but it had clearly been worked by hand.

  WJ held the artifact out to me. “Hold it,” he said encouragingly. “The balance the Seneca were able to achieve in their throwing tomahawks is a testament to the sophistication of their workmanship.”

  I didn't want to tell him that I wouldn't have been able to recognize balance in a tomahawk to save my life, but I took the weapon he held out to me.

  That's when it happened. I should have known that touching an artifact that old would likely trigger a vision, but I was still so new to psychometry, I simply forgot to exercise the correct amount of caution. The instant my hand touched the wood, the modern scene around me disappeared.

  I was still looking at the Tomahawk in my hands, but now they were the hands of a young male. I could see my feet and make out a pair of moccasins, but my legs were bare. At my waist, I could feel the weight of a belt.

  From somewhere in front of me, a girl’s voice called out to me. Looking up, I realized it was nighttime, but off to my left I could make out a strange light. It didn’t fit the rest of the picture. The illumination seemed to be oddly mechanical.

  The girl spoke again. Squinting in the half-light, I tried to locate her, only to realize I was looking at Beth tied to the trunk of the hickory tree. She met my eyes directly, and said in a pleading voice, “Please, you don't have to do this.”

  The words echoed in my mind, and then the room righted itself and I was back in present time. WJ was looking at me with a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You were here with me one minute and then you were just gone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “Yes, uh, yes, I’m fine. I zone out like that sometimes when I get hungry. It’s a blood sugar . . . thing. I skipped breakfast this morning. Bad idea.”

  It was a lame excuse, but in a pinch, blaming your blood sugar generally works. Or at least it always did with my mom, who is, admittedly, a little bit of a hypochondriac.

  “Oh my goodness,” he said, “do you need to sit down? Should I find you something to eat? Like a piece of candy?”

  “No,” I said, “but thank you. Really. I’m fine. And I should be going anyway.”

  “Are you sure you’re alright to drive?”

  “I feel much better now,” I said. “I just need to get back to the store. I’ve been away too long. I don’t have any help, you see. It’s just me, so I had to close up this morning. I’ll have something to eat when I get back.”

  “I’d be happy to follow you into town to make sure you get there okay,” he said.

  I declined his offer with more assurances that I would be fine and thanked him for showing me his collection. “Maybe I can come back sometime,” I said, “and we can finish the tour.”

  “Any time,” WJ said. “I'll make sure you get a more cordial reception from my father on your next visit.”

  Thankfully I didn’t say what immediately popped into my head. When pigs fly.

  WJ walked me back to my car and thanked me again for the pie.

  As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror to see that he was watching me closely. I wondered if WJ, like his father on Saturday, wanted to make sure I really was leaving the property.

  At the time, however, I wasn’t nearly as interested in understanding the motivations of the Evers men as I was in trying to figure out how in the world Beth managed to get herself killed by a Seneca Indian in 1985.

  26

  The store f
elt like an oasis of calm after my experience with the tomahawk. When I came in the door, Myrtle dimmed the lights and a package of chamomile tea came scooting to the edge of its shelf.

  “It’s that obvious, huh?” I said.

  The lights dimmed again.

  “Thanks Myrtle,” I said. “But the tea will knock me out like a light. I’ll have it tonight before I go to bed.”

  I carried the tea box with me into the storeroom to show Myrtle I appreciated her consideration. Rodney stuck his head out from between the liniment cans and wiggled his whiskers at me.

  “Don’t you start, too,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  As if he needed proof for himself, Rodney held out his paw and motioned me over. When I came close and put out my hand, he scampered up my arm and settled on my shoulder.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “We can hang out.”

  I walked over to the chair and sat down, taking out my phone to text Tori and let her know I was okay. My message didn’t mention anything about the vision, however. Some things can't be described via thumb typing. I’d save that story for later when we talked.

  Normal activities kept me occupied for the rest of the day except for the fact that Beth hovered two steps behind me most of the time asking endless questions about her impending funeral.

  The fact that her casket would hold nothing but bones really bothered her.

  “I mean,” she said, “it’s not like I’m going to be looking my best.”

  There you go. Conclusive proof. Vanity survives death.

  “Honey, I’m sorry to tell you this,” I said, “but nobody is going to be thinking about that and they’re certainly not going to be looking at you. You have to understand that the people who will be coming to the service won’t be there for you. Funerals are for the living.”

  Oh my God. Did I just said that? I am turning into my mother.

  Beth seemed to be thinking about my statement with the same confused concentration she would have applied to one of those algebra equations where the value of X defies calculation.

  “I don't know,” she said finally. “Since I'm the dead person, I think it ought to be all about me.”

  Oddly enough, I found that a fairly difficult point to argue.

  When I related the conversation to Tori that night over Facetime, she burst out laughing. “God,” she said, “Beth really was the head cheerleader wasn't she?”

  I giggled since I knew we were both thinking about Darla Sue Bumiller.

  Yes, I know, her name was tragic, and she way over-compensated in her quest to be “fabulous.”

  Darla Sue was our graduating class diva, whose crowning achievement in life when last I saw her was the fact that she had been named head cheerleader all four years in high school.

  “Now, now,” I said, struggling to regain my composure. “We sound like the passably popular girls, who hate the thoroughly popular girls.”

  “Well, duh,” Tori said. “That’s because we do.”

  “Tori,” I said, in my best grown-up voice, “we're almost 30 years old. I think we can let old high school grudges go.”

  “For your information, I intend to remain 29 for life,” Tori declared. “And besides that, you know as well as I do that we will still hate Darla Sue at our 50th class reunion. Age has nothing to do with our high standards.”

  Suppressing another giggle, I said, “Beth doesn’t mean to be self-absorbed about all this. She confided in me that she was killed before her senior prom. I think she's regarding her funeral as her final big event.”

  “I’d say death was her last big event,” Tori groaned. “At the hands of a completely out-of-place Native American swinging a scary hatchet thing.”

  “Out of place is right,” I agreed. “That was the last thing I ever expected to see.”

  “Jinksy, you're going to have to be more careful about what you pick up,” Tori said. “You really do not have this psychometry thing under control.”

  Gee. Ya think?

  “I kind of do and I don’t,” I said a little defensively. “Here in the store I can pick something up and sort of make my mind go blank and get a vision when I want to.”

  “Yeah,” Tori said, “but how about blocking a vision you don’t want to have?”

  “That I can’t do,” I said, “but in all seriousness, I’m not sure I could have stopped this one even if I had tried. It was really powerful. Whoever was holding the tomahawk was breathing hard and I could feel his heart pounding in my chest.”

  “Whoa,” Tori said, “that's intense.”

  “You have no idea,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get it out my head all day.”

  “I don't blame you,” she said, “and we should probably stop talking about it now so you can get some sleep tonight. I'm going to work the breakfast shift, and then leave to drive over. The funeral is at 3 o'clock, right?”

  “That's what the funeral director told me,” I confirmed, “but let's get there early, so we can get a seat in the back.”

  “You want to get there early so we can get a seat in the back?” Tori said skeptically. “Don't you have that kind of turned around?”

  “Nope,” I said. “We need to be able to watch everybody who comes to the service.”

  “Come on,” Tori scoffed. “That would be way too easy. The killer isn’t just going to show up at the funeral with a sign on that says, ‘I did it!’”

  “I know,” I said, “but I still want to get a good look at everyone’s who’s there. Nothing we’ve learned so far, including the vision I had today, gets us any closer to finding out who killed Beth or figuring out if the same person killed Jane. At this point, I’ll take any clue I can get.”

  We said our goodnights, and I quietly transferred Rodney, who had fallen asleep on my shoulder, to the soft confines of his nest box. He let out a cute little rat snore, but otherwise didn’t move.

  On my way up the stairs, I called out, “Night, Myrtle.”

  A soft chime answered me. I switched off the lights, and she turned them right back on again with a sound effect that sounded very much like maternal clucking.

  “Don’t trust me on the stairs?” I asked. “Okay, then turn them off for me when I get up there, okay?”

  At the top of the stairs, as soon as I turned the doorknob to step into the vestibule, the lights downstairs went off. And I didn’t even have to do that “clap on, clap off” thing.

  The cats, who were all piled up on the couch, woke up for their bedtime snack, but Beth was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t last.

  The next morning, I awakened under the usual combined glare of all four cats with the addition of an excited ghost concerned that we were going to be late for her “thing.”

  Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I brought the clock into focus and stifled some very not-nice language. The cats had heard it all before, but I was trying not to swear like a sailor in front of Beth. “Honey,” I said with bleary patience, “your ‘thing’ isn’t for another ten hours.”

  As I said it, I swung my feet over the edge of the bed only to be greeted with Beth’s shocked pronouncement, “Does your hair always look like that when you wake up?”

  I glanced in the mirror and had to admit I was sporting an epic bed head, which probably meant one or more of the cats has been grooming me in the night. I know that may sound gross to you clueless non-cat people, but those of us in the know take it as a major compliment.

  Ignoring Beth’s assessment of appearance, I ran both hands through the tangled mess and achieved at least a semblance of order. We all went into the kitchen where the order of business was: feed the cats so they’d shut up, make my coffee so I could wake up, and explain to Beth she needed to not talk to me before the sun was up.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re one of those people in the morning. Okay. See you downstairs. Bye.”

  If only living people who were being annoying could catch on and blink out that well.

  The instant I walked downstairs at 7 o�
��clock, Beth said, “You’re not dressed for the funeral.”

  That would be the funeral that was now 8 hours away.

  When the bell on the front door jingled at 10:30 announcing Tori’s arrival, I felt like the cavalry had just arrived.

  Beth greeted her with the same critical eye she had applied to me. “You’re wearing pants to my funeral?”

  “Would you rather I go in my underwear?” Tori shot back.

  If a ghost could blush, Beth would have turned beet red. Instead, her form wavered a little around the edges, which caused Tori to take pity on her.

  “Fashions have changed in the last 30 years, sweetie,” Tori said. “It’s acceptable now for a woman to wear pants to a funeral.”

  “I don’t know,” Beth said doubtfully. “I was studying to be a Kappa Kappa Gamma and that just doesn’t sound right.

  Studying to be a Kappa Kappa Gamma?

  For those of you who have no clue what we’re talking about, see A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Paris Hilton Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma by Maryln Schwartz.

  “Let me guess,” Tori said. “You were a legacy.”

  “Well, yes,” Beth admitted haltingly. “But they would have wanted me. Excuse me. I’m going to go check on the cats.”

  After I was sure she was gone, I turned to Tori, “Normally, I’d tell you that wasn’t very nice, but since she was driving me insane with all this funeral talk, I wish you’d gotten here an hour earlier.”

  “Quickest way to shut up a would-be sorority girl,” Tori grinned, “call her a legacy.”

  Over the next four hours, Beth popped in and out several times until she finally wore us down and we left for the funeral home at 2:15. Since it was a 5-minute drive, we not only nabbed seats in the back, we had the whole place to ourselves.

  Beth instantly floated to the front of the room to evaluate the casket, which looked like something Snow White would have been laid out in. The box was sparkling white, with shiny silver handles, and little pink roses entwined in a border around the lid. Banks of floral arrangements surrounded the casket, including a massive spray of red roses with a black banner bearing the words, “BHHS Class of 1985, We Will Never Forget.”