Rise & Fall

by Wendy Meadows

She reached for her phone and scrolled through the received texts. One from Deputy Jones (though in her address book it came up as ‘James’) and another from Patty, as well as several missed calls from the sheriff’s station. “What is it? Anything important?” She opened the first message and scanned it.

  “Jones called us when he couldn’t get through to you,” said Patty. “I didn’t know how long you were going to take so I sent you a message.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve got this.” Cassy looked again at the text. Dr. Bloom had performed an autopsy on both June and Leena Donnahue. The results were conclusive and the same.

  “What’s Thallium?” asked Dot.

  It was the closest thing Cassy had ever witnessed to a real life, present-day miracle when Dot’s car made its spluttering entrance across the Havenholm town border. With Dot at the wheel, the sheer feat was doubled in Cassy’s estimation as neither her driving skills nor the vehicle’s near shuddering demise spoke to a safe return home at all. She felt like she had to hold on to the door in case it fell off should they go anywhere near 30 miles an hour.

  In the back seat, Patty was turning an unpleasant shade of lime. This could only mean that the rear suspension was shot to hell and back. As for Dot, she seemed oblivious to the convergence of stars that must have happened to allow her ancient and poorly maintained car to make the round trip. She was even quietly humming to herself without a care in the world.

  “So it’s a common poison, is it?” questioned Dot after a long bout of silence, marked only by a suspicious rattling from somewhere under Cassy’s feet. The mere thought of poison made Cassy’s stomach churn too.

  “Not really. It’s been outlawed for a while now, for use as rat poison at least. It’s still used in the industry though.”

  “Why would you want to use poison for that?”

  “Thallium is only a poison if you use it as poison. It has several other uses too. I think it’s a by-product in producing other metals.” It was also used in very small doses in some of the more arcane and obscure spells she kept at the Spicery. She’d never performed them herself and had to take the word of her mother and the huge tome of ‘Applied Uses of Magics and Spells’ that they worked.

  “How do you know so much about it?” came Patty’s weak voice from behind.

  “That’s really the extent of my knowledge. It’s my business to know about potential alchemical and magical ingredients. Thallium is one of them.” And maybe the girls at Hocus Pocus would know about it too. It made sense that they might, though that would go against what she’d just learned from Amanda Beal. The ‘sisters’ were charlatans, so maybe they wouldn’t know what it was after all. There was of course one thing preying on Cassy’s mind. If two people had died because of Thallium poisoning and both had shopped at Hocus Pocus…

  A smile threatened to spread across Cassy’s lips. She had them now. If the circumstances hadn’t been so terrible she might have punched the roof of the car in triumph, but then it would have fallen apart, so she resisted the urge.

  Even if they were innocent (which they really, really weren’t) Cassy now had all the info she needed about their dubious practices. She considered it an odd turn of events that the governing body for Homeopathy might be her greatest ally in taking them down. The irony was not lost on her that she could accuse Hocus Pocus of selling nothing but water—which of course had always been the case. But this wasn’t even homeopathic water, not that there was any difference.

  She laughed out loud, earning her an odd look from Dot.

  “Anything I need to know?” she said.

  “So many people consider what I do a complete sham. Old world rural medicines, potions made from nettles and the like; salves that blend wormspit with bee fur, incantations to improve memory. I get it, I really do. It seems a bit kooky and weird, but most of all it seems unbelievable. It’s not even close to being scientific and that’s the thing. But there really is something to be said about the knowledge that we in the west have just given up on. There’s that saying that when you don’t believe in anything, you end up believing everything. The same is true with Hocus Pocus. Not to belittle their clients, because most of them are mine, too.”

  “We’re yours.” Patty’s weak voice came once more. Cassy ignored her.

  “But they see the Spicery and they see Hocus Pocus and they don’t recognize that there’s a real difference. It’s all ‘mystical’ and ‘witchy.’ I owe it to the people of Havenholm to show the sisters as the frauds they are.”

  As they neared the town center, the car seemed to quiet down. This was not reassuring, as it seemed to Cassy that cars should at least be a little noisy.

  “Don’t you have them pegged for the murders though?” asked Dot.

  She wanted to say that she did. It really was them and there was no other possibility. Only for one crucial missing thing in the whole case. There simply was no reason for them to do it. Despite her mounting doubts about them, there simply was no feasible or logical need for Morgana, Esme and Circe to kill off their customers.

  And yet their customers were dying.

  “I need to talk to Willy,” decided Cassy.

  “Sure thing, boss,” said Dot, adding, “Hold on!” Like some kind of geriatric stunt car driver, Dot gripped the handbrake, locked the steering wheel all the way to the right and down shifted the gear stick. Two things passed through Cassy’s mind. One: Who has a stick shift anymore? Two: Please don’t let me die right now.

  Willy wasn’t at home but this wasn’t a problem for Dot. He was known to frequent The View, formally known as Hag’s End. It was an upmarket bistro, which Cassy had heard referred to as the awkward sounding ‘Bistroraunt.’ The name made her cringe. But no matter how you packaged up what was essentially a bar for small town folk to go to after a long day’s work, you still got the same customers. No one ever called it The View and it continued to go by the name simultaneously gruesome and quaint, Hag’s End.

  Make no mistake, it was a pub in a very traditional sense and the sooner the owners understood this, the better it would be for everyone.

  “Are you guys wanting a drink?” asked Cassy as the Dot-mobile churned up the driveway and came to a clunking halt. The question was met with a weak no from the back seat and a vociferous no from Dot.

  “I don’t know about you, Hon, but I have a job to go to in the morning,” she said pointedly.

  “Okay, I get it,” countered Cassy. “But I’m the boss so I’m allowed to slack off.”

  She watched as, once again defying all known physical laws, the car gained speed and was eventually gone from sight. It had only been a couple of days since the death of his wife, but Cassy was confident that she would find Willy Donnahue with his regular drinking buddies. During times of bereavement it was normal to seek comfort in the familiar.

  While she was considering how to broach the subject of his sadly deceased wife, she also had something else to casually insert into the conversation. She had to see if he had a reason to kill his wife. At this point, she was purely eliminating the impossible to get to the truth. It could have been possible that he had poisoned his wife. It certainly wouldn’t have been a novel crime. But that would mean that he also had a vendetta against a young June, as well.

  “Hey Willy,” she said as the older man came to the bar. Beyond him, Cassy saw a table of men dressed similar to Donnahue; blue shirts, gray pants. An unofficial uniform that men of a certain age seemed drawn to.

  “Cassandra,” he said, seemingly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just trying something new.” She was aware that she was doing a terrible job at lying. “Once again, my condolences.” He nodded grimly in response.

  “Say, are you alone?” he asked, looking around. She of course didn’t have a date. “Do you want to have a drink with me and the boys?”

  Cassy took her drink to the table of middle-aged men and realized with some shame that she fit right in with them. It was about time that she came
to terms with the type of men she was going to have to get romantically engaged with. Cute Deputies with honey-thick Texas accents were perhaps out of her league.

  As far as spontaneous nights went, it was better than a few Cassy had lived through. Formally speaking, it was a sort of wake for Leena. The funeral wasn’t for a few days but everyone had known her well enough to commemorate her. Far from being a dour affair, everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Before long, Cassy was thinking twice about having gone for the lemonade (it was a work day tomorrow after all). At the far end of the table, glass raised above his head, one of Willy’s co-workers even gave a heartfelt yet funny speech, which was met with cheers.

  Either Dom or Derek (Cassy couldn’t retain all the new names at the table), a man with an impressive mane of silver hair, had got talking to her soon after that. Willy was still her target, but conversation had to arrive organically, so she couldn’t force it.

  Dom (or Derek) clearly had interest in her, but Cassy was not in the mood. She played along regardless. She saw the mark on his ring finger; a pale white band of unblemished skin. His divorce had been recent. When Willy announced he was ‘going to take a leak’ and staggered to the men’s room, Dom leaned in close.

  “He’s taking it well, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “I was there when the police were called,” said Cassy, remembering the incident. “He seemed pretty distraught to me.”

  “Sure he was. But you know what happened, right?”

  Cassy said nothing but willed him to continue. She didn’t want to come across as eager.

  “He was having an affair before she died and she found out.”

  Something about this revelation didn’t surprise Cassy, or maybe it was because she’d become so jaded about relationships. It did not, however, mean that Willy had killed his wife. “Is that so uncommon?” she asked and Dom idly rubbed the place where his wedding band should have been.

  “I guess not, but…” He pulled back from Cassy and smiled. For a moment Cassy thought he was smiling at her, as if they were sharing something unspoken which she couldn’t decipher, but soon saw that he was greeting Willy who had returned from his break.

  “Willy, my good man,” he thundered. “I didn’t know you knew so many lovely ladies such as Cassy here.”

  Willy gave Dom a frustrated stare, which warmed immediately to a grin. “I’ve been a long-time customer of Cassy’s. Leena loved your shop too,” he said. “Cassy owns the Spicery in town.”

  “The little magic shop?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it—” she did not have time to answer properly as Dom continued to speak over her.

  “I’m engaged in a little alchemy myself. Yes. It’s not gold into lead,” he continued, oblivious to the inversion he’d made, “But at the plant, we take in all kinds of ore. The raw rock of the earth, and we smelt it down.”

  “And you two work together, right?” asked Cassy, pointing alternately from Dom (or was it Derek?) to Willy.

  “Not really,” added Willy.

  “On occasion we liaise,” said Dom. “We work in different departments. But whatever, I don’t need, the by-product of the process we employ, I ship off to him.”

  “You’d think that being part of the same company the process would be simple, but no.”

  Cassy sensed herself becoming trapped in a superbly dull conversation about inter-department politics. She really was regretting not getting a harder drink now. She tried her best to back away from the conversation but Dom put an arm around her, keeping her in.

  “It’s actually really interesting,” he said, patting her shoulder. “As head of the department, he has to buy the waste material off me so he can use it in his own fabrication.”

  “Wow,” cooed Cassy. “It sure is interesting.”

  “It’s all just red tape. A lot of it is to do with tax, as you’d expect,” added Willy.

  Cassy felt a question coming on as if she was compelled to join in and spur them on. Right then, she hated Derek for getting her involved. “What is it you buy then? If it’s all waste product then what’s the point?”

  Willy laughed. “He calls it waste to knock me down a peg. What he’s actually doing is refining it for me.”

  With a wave of his silver hair, Dom/Derek laughed. “Whatever keeps you going, Big Will. We ship off anything from selenium, rare earths, cobalt, indium; to molybdenum and tellurium or thallium.”

  With that final word, Dom loosened his grip on Cassy’s shoulder and relaxed back in his chair, going so far as to turn away from her. It was clear that he had intended to make a statement. Could it be that he knew something about Leena’s death and was trying to pass the information on to her? And if so, why?

  Either way, Willy hadn’t picked up on it. He continued to regale Cassy with stories of the many uses of base metals until Cassy began to slip into some kind of waking coma. Her eyes glazed over and her hearing went on mute as she thought about the implications of what had been revealed. If Willy had access to thallium, then clearly that put him right at the front of the list of suspects. One thought overrode all others at that moment. She had to tell James this news. There was a plausible theory about what had happened growing more concrete in her mind. It tied everything together, even June.

  She excused herself to go out for a cigarette, even though she didn’t actually have one and hadn’t smoked since her sister had visited. It just wasn’t her style. She took a moment in the fresh air to think about what she’d just learned. It opened up so many questions, especially about what she had been told. What did Dom have to gain by revealing it and just how did he know about the thallium? Cassy had only just learned about it a few hours earlier.

  She heard the door behind her swing open and she turned to see Dom (it definitely was Dom, she was sure of that) exiting Hag’s End.

  “You’re not smoking,” he said, offering her his pack. She waved it away politely.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, keen to get to the point. “And why tell me at all?”

  In the dimming light, the ember of Dom’s cigarette seemed to burn more brightly as he inhaled. He held the smoke in for a moment, and then let it swirl from between his lips. The smoke was pungent, but not entirely unpleasant.

  “I know who you are. You helped a friend of mine.” Cassy raised an eyebrow. “Sheriff Noyce is an old college buddy. He told me all about how you exposed the woman he was seeing as a murderer. He trusts you.”

  She pondered the comment for a moment, not revealing anything just yet. “So you trust me?”

  Dom nodded. “I knew something strange was going on. Has been for months. Discrepancies in what was produced from my department and what was being used in Donnahue’s. You have to understand that in a place like where we work, that doesn’t happen. We’re scientists and everything is accounted for. But I let it go.”

  “Are you saying that Willy was stealing thallium?” Of all the things to steal, that was a strange one. Not only was it highly toxic, but its uses outside of industry were extremely limited. It wasn’t even used in rat poison anymore, having been banned years ago. In fact, Cassy struggled to think of a single use the layman could have for it. Unless of course Willy was using it to set up his own manufacturing plant, which was an absurd notion.

  “I’m saying that it’s gone missing, Donnahue was in charge. I’m saying that Noyce told me about Leena’s death and that she was poisoned. All I’m saying is that thallium is a poison.”

  “But if this has been going on for months in quantities that raise a few eyebrows, it doesn’t make sense. Thallium is strong stuff. It only takes a few drops to kill someone. Heck it only takes a few drops to kill dozens of people.”

  Sometimes Cassy’s thoughts got ahead of her and she had to wait for her brain to catch up with itself. The answer she had been looking for all along was now evident. She only had to put the pieces together.

  “It’s almost the perfect crime,” she muttered.


  “I knew I was right to tell you. As soon as I saw you at the bar with Willy I knew you were already onto something,” said Dom. He flicked the stub of his cigarette, still lit, carelessly down the steps of Hag’s End. Or was it The View? “So what are you thinking? Poison her food over several months? Tiny doses accumulating in her system?”

  “Not food,” said Cassy. “Just water. Simple tap water.” She had to find James, or even Noyce himself as soon as possible and warn them of the potential threat. There may be more deaths on the way if she wasn’t quick. “Do you have a car?”

  Dom’s face brightened. “Going somewhere?”

  “Can you take me?”

  He smiled and proffered his hand to shake Cassy’s.

  “The name’s Derek and my Lamborghini is parked over there.”

  The shutters were coming down on the storefront as Derek’s bright yellow sport’s car pulled up outside. It’s engine like something subliminal, insinuating itself into your brain.

  “Thanks for the lift,” said Cassy, stooping to get out of the vehicle. The low clearance from the road made her feel ungainly and awkward. She was not accustomed to such luxury.

  “Do you want me to stick around?” asked Derek (definitely Derek) “It’s no big deal for me.”

  Cassy looked at the storefront. The rolling metal shutter had barely come down a third of the way, then stopped.

  “No, it’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

  As she turned to walk up to the store, Derek called out to her.

  “When can I see you again?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Soon, I guess.” He’s asking you out dumb-dumb, Cassy told herself, say something.

  “I’ll come by the store, how about that?”

  “Lord knows I need the customers,” she said, smiling weakly.

  “Tomorrow then.”

  The shutter was still stuck in place but it wouldn’t be long before it started downward again and the sisters would sneak out under it. It was the same game that they’d play at the Spicery ever since the motorized shutter had been installed—flick the switch then race to get out before the alarm went off and you were stuck inside.