Rise & Fall

by Wendy Meadows

  “Okay, sure. Sounds good. I’ll be there,” said Cassy, then without waiting for a response she dashed to the entrance of Hocus Pocus. Beyond the door, she saw figures moving—the sisters. Cassy bobbed her head under the shutter and pushed the door open. She was met with protestations. “Sorry, we’re closed. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” But she pushed on through into the shop floor. With the lights out, the space took on an eerie feeling.

  “Mrs. Dean?”

  It hadn’t taken them long to recognize her at all. Cassy almost felt flattered. Without slowing, she looked back to see the three sisters (she still couldn’t get that name out of her head) before heading directly to the back of the store.

  “Excuse me!” The patter of feet swelled behind her, as did increasingly angry shouts. “We are closed! You can’t just come in here and—”

  “OH, CAN’T I?” Cassy was as surprised by her outburst as the tall woman behind her who came to a juddering halt, unsure and a little confused. “Well, I don’t think you can come into this town and start selling your crap to people.” She’d wanted to say something a lot less delicate than that but somehow had held back. “You’re charlatans with absolutely no respect. No respect for yourselves, no respect for people like me, and absolutely no respect, not one mote of respect for all your customers—who should be MY customers by the way—who put their faith in you. You are the lowest of the low. You take advantage of people and sell them tap water. That’s right, I know your dirty little secret. All of this is fake, isn’t it? Believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me but even by the very low standards of you people this is practically subterranean.”

  In front of an astonished audience of three, Cassy began to systematically take each of the small vials from the shelf next to her and empty the contents onto the floor. Water splattered and pooled at her feet, the puddle expanding with the addition of every new bottle.

  “What are you doing?” Circe stepped forward, still cautious.

  “This is what I’m doing!” Dealing with every last bottle on its own was not going to get Cassy very far so she decided to up her game. With a long sweep of her arm, she threw the entire contents of a shelf to the ground. In the dark, it clattered with a satisfying sound, a sound that she wanted to hear again.

  “I’m calling the police,” said someone, but by this stage, Cassy didn’t care who.

  “Do it. I’m not the one who has anything to worry about.” She moved to the next shelf and grabbed handfuls of the offending vials. In a great cascade, they crashed once more to the floor, spreading wide. Cassy had to tread carefully to avoid toppling over. “I know all about you. I know what’s in these. Probably better than you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The overhead lights flickered into life. The fluorescent strips flooded the room with a harsh light that caused all present to wince. All around Cassy’s feet were the smashed remains of hundreds of bottles. She stepped back, her feet catching one of the small vials. It cracked under foot with a satisfying sensation.

  “I know what you’ve been up to,” said Cassy. “Going from town to town pedaling your wares. When you get found out, or the people you work with become suspicious of your ways you simply close down and move on. You can’t keep on doing this. Sooner or later you were going to be stopped, you had to know it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” protested Circe. Esme stood behind her, not daring to get any closer. Cassy had a wild look in her eye.

  “Sure you don’t,” said Cassy casually. “I bet you weren’t aware that your stuff is killing people, too.”

  There was no reply other than surprised gasps.

  “Yeah, that’s right. You must have heard about the two tragic deaths. A girl, her name was June, fell out of one of the hunting towers by the lake. But it wasn’t the fall that killed her. It was this.” Cassy held the offending item between her thumb and forefinger. “For all I know, they’re all contaminated with poison.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous…” Cassy wouldn’t let the witch finish.

  “Then there was Leena Donnahue. I knew her personally, so it hit me pretty hard. A simple woman, used to give beauty therapy from her home. Dot, the woman I work with used to go there all the time. She died, too. Poisoned. The only thing linking them was what they purchased. From your store.”

  “Are you seriously accusing us of willfully murdering our clients?” It was Morgana who spoke now. She was practically shaking with rage. “That’s scandalous. That’s crazy. That’s outrageous!”

  In the face of such anger, Cassy relaxed as if purged of her own emotion. “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think you did because you know as well as I do what’s in here.”

  “And what might that be.”

  “Just water. You’re innocent of nothing more than deception. Of course, proving any wrongdoing is impossible, but that’s not the point. Nothing I do to expose you as the liars you are will have any effect, but being linked to a poisoning scandal will. Do you know a man by the name of William Donnahue? He shops here for his wife, Leena. Yes, that Leena.” It was clear by the expression on Circe’s face that she knew who Cassy was talking about. “Can you picture the story when it’s revealed that he used your store as a means to kill his wife? Hocus Pocus on the front page of every local newspaper. Hey, this might even go nationwide.”

  The sisters looked to one another. Cassy knew exactly what they were thinking. Once a story like that breaks, everything unravels. It wouldn’t take much of a journalist to look back through their history and uncover what Patty had in an afternoon.

  “In a bid to conceal his efforts to kill his wife, Willy Donnahue contaminated your entire range of snake-oil. When your customers started dying one by one, including his wife, a regular of yours, the finger would point directly at you. You’ve been unwitting fools in this whole endeavor.”

  Circe seemed to relax. This was the last thing that Cassy wanted to happen. She wanted them to be angry. She wanted to be thrown out. She wanted a fight. They had to be scared and they had to leave town. ‘Relaxed’ was not what she wanted at all.

  “William Donnahue didn’t buy anything from us,” said Circe, smiling. “It was always his wife that came in to get stuff. She’s one of our favorites.”

  Morgana stepped forward, confident now. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you, Cassandra of the Spicery? Sure he came in, but he never did anything. Unlike your ratty old store we have security cameras. Anything like that we would have spotted. Besides, why would he want to kill his wife? You have a motive, I assume?”

  The thallium, thought Cassy. But he’s been stealing thallium. He had a secret lover—that’s the reason. That’s the motive. That was your motive. Only that wasn’t enough…

  She sagged. She had nothing.

  “I think you should get out, don’t you?”

  It didn’t matter who had said it to her, Cassy was in total agreement. She’d made a fool of herself and there was nothing left to do other than apologize.

  “I’ll clean up,” she said meekly.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said one of the sisters. “After all, it’s just water,” said another.

  How had it come to this?

  Cassy knew exactly how. She’d been so obsessed with linking the murder to Hocus Pocus in any way possible that it had clouded her judgment. Her theory was sound, of course. Poisoning the supply of something that you knew your victim would be purchasing would be a useful way to remove suspicion. And Willy was cheating on his wife, and he was stealing thallium. Derek had said so.

  So it must be true. It was so clear that Willy had something to do with this.

  But she didn’t even know Derek. She’d trusted him without question when he’d given her the solution because… Because…? Was she attracted to him, to his car, to his silver hair and large wallet?

  Cassy needed to have a cup of strong tea.

  “Here you are, Hon. I thought you mi
ght need this.” Cassy took the cup from Dot’s hand. Dot had a preternatural sense of when to hand out cups of tea. It smelled good and the color was a deep brown. No milk.

  It was early but the sun was up and filled the Spicery with a clear white light that made everything seem fresh and new.

  “Is this the new stuff?” asked Cassy, inhaling the aroma of the tea.

  “Fresh in this morning. It’ll do you all the good you need.”

  Cassy wasn’t so sure about that.

  “I think I need a vacation, Dorothy,” said Cassy between long deep sips. “I’m losing it a bit.”

  “You’ll find no argument from me, Honey.”

  “I went into Hocus Pocus and trashed the place for no good reason, based on the loosest of evidence. Really I was just venting. I was angry with them for having a better business model than me. Maybe I should go corporate and have promotions and sell ‘merch’ with our logo printed on it.”

  “Do we have a logo?” asked Dot, taking a seat beside Cassy at the window that looked out on the street. It was a regular thing for the two of them. They would watch the sun rise while indulging in a strong brew and watch Havenholm as it came to life.

  “No, we don’t, Dot. But maybe we should.”

  They drank in silence for a moment. Over the road, Mrs. Orange ran up the shutters on her café.

  “So who did it then, Cassy? Do you think Willy had a part in this?”

  The truth was that Cassy’s suspicions still remained, but now she knew that they were tainted by her own prejudices. Everything she might have against Willy was purely circumstantial. The secret lover? So what? It wasn’t unusual. The thallium? Who would need that stuff anyway? There was absolutely no black market for that stuff. Beyond large scale industrial use, there was no use for it. Sure, Cassy had some for use in her spells, but that was rare. The amounts used were in such a small quantity it was practically… Well, it was almost homeopathic. Magical properties of certain elements weren’t bound to quantity.

  “You okay, Cassy?”

  She blinked twice, then Dot came into view. “Just thinking things through.”

  “Places to go on vacation?”

  “No, I was just thinking that in a short period of time I’ve come to be aware of at least two more, shall we say, specialist suppliers of esoteric ingredients.”

  “Witches.”

  “You could say that. With Hocus Pocus and here, that makes two in Havenholm alone.”

  “Who’s the other?”

  Cassy almost dropped her cup at the connection she just made. “The other is the secret girlfriend.”

  With a brusque shake of the head, Dot displayed her confusion. “You’re going to have to be a bit clearer than that.”

  “Amanda Beal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  In her mind, Cassy replayed the conversation with Mandy. She’d reacted strangely to the mention of Havenholm. Could it be because she was Willy Donnahue’s secret lover? She made a hurried search for her bag, then fumbled around inside it. What she was looking for was right at the bottom and was in tatters. Cassy pulled out the leaflet for ‘Really Bealy Supplies’ and quickly scanned through it. She flicked the page with the back of her hand on finding exactly what she’d expected.

  “It’s right here,” she exclaimed, returning to Dot with the price list held out before her like a trophy. “Tell me if this makes any sense, Dot,” said Cassy, suddenly invigorated. “What if you were planning to become the main supplier for alternative medicines and witchcraft stores along the east coast? You’d have to be better than anyone else and give people things they might not be able to get elsewhere.”

  “Controlled substances?”

  “Exactly. Look here,” said Cassy, pointing out a few indecipherable lines of text.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Monk’s whisper,” said Cassy. “And here, Moonshadow—old magic compounds. Esoteric stuff. We have some, but only I use it for personal use. We never sell it because, well…”

  “Because it’s thallium?” Dot was on form today. Cassy had to give her that.

  “It’s one of the many ingredients that makes it.”

  “Doesn’t prove anything,” said Dot. She lifted her cup to her lips only to find that she’d finished her drink. As Dot went to get a refill, Cassy continued.

  “Well, how about this. Say you have a grudge against some former business partners. So, what you do is anonymously sell them ingredients for their new store. Now these old business partners are frauds and have no idea what they’re putting into their products. You could basically control what they put out for sale. You could contaminate their product.”

  “And a few dead customers would look really bad when it was traced back to this hypothetical store. I’m assuming we’re talking about Hocus Pocus.”

  Cassy paced back and forth, her hands rubbing together as the pieces fell into place.

  “You know what the worst part of all this is? Willy Donnahue was selling thallium that he stole from his work to Mandy Beal. Mandy Beal then resold it to Hocus Pocus.”

  Dot’s eyes widened. “Which then led to Leena Donnahue’s death. So technically, Willy did kill his wife.”

  “Wouldn’t it be wild if Mandy Beal turned out to be Willy’s secret lover? That would be the final irony, wouldn’t it? Poetic injustice.”

  Dot had gone off the idea of having another cup and placed the teapot back on the counter. “You take too much pleasure in figuring all this out, Miss Dean. The problem is that you’re probably right. There’s only one problem.”

  Cassy cocked her head quizzically. “And what might that be?”

  “What are you going to do with all this information? Are you going to tell Noyce? Jones? No one will believe you. It’s so farfetched. People just don’t believe that things like this can happen. They like simple solutions. Even the police. They call it Mock’em’s Razor.”

  Cassy stopped pacing. “Occam’s Razor. It’s an old philosophical—oh, forget it. You’re essentially right. But sometimes it really is the strangest thing that ends up being the truth. And you know what? I am going to call James.”

  “The dreamy deputy.”

  “Oh, stop it!” Cassy fished her phone from her back pocket and hit James’ contact. Two rings and he answered. What followed was a fountain, a cascade of wild theories and facts. Everything Cassy had gathered over the last few days came spilling out of her. Every tiny little aspect of her intricate murder plot came out fully formed. It was almost too overwhelming for James, who had to have the story repeated several times and then once more when he got to the station where he could put everything down on paper. It was a relief for Cassy to have the chance to unburden everything. It very much felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her and she was aware that she had now simply handed it over to James. It was his to carry now. He’d been given the seed of the solution. It was now up to him and the rest of the guys at the sheriff’s department to follow through. Never in a million years would they have made the connection between Beal, Willy and Hocus Pocus. It was the kind of alternative thinking that Cassy prided herself on. She imagined that the Sisters, Beal and maybe even Willy would all be getting a surprise visit soon enough. She felt ashamed of the sense of accomplishment she had. Despite solving the riddle, there was little joy to be had. Tomorrow, she would check in and see how the investigation was going. But until then, she would make a mental effort to purge herself of thoughts of murder and poisoning. It was not good for the soul.

  Cassy’s sense of relief was short lived. For the last few weeks, Patty had been coming in early to help at the store. As always, she was on time, but now as she entered, it was without the youthful spring to her step, or her infectious smile.

  “What’s up, Patty?” questioned Cassandra, concerned.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just my sister.”

  Fearing the worst, Cassy asked what had happened.

  “It’s really nothing,” continue
d Patty. “It’s just that it’s June’s funeral today. A few of the kids from her year are going, including my little sister. She’s a strong girl but I volunteered to go with her for support.” At this, Patty’s nose crinkled in an unflattering way.

  “And you’re the one who actually needs the moral support?” asked Cassy.

  The speed that Patty went from sheepish to needy was alarming. “Say you’ll come with me, Cassy. I can’t do funerals.”

  It wasn’t exactly Cassy’s favorite pastime either, but reluctantly she agreed.

  “Oh Cassy, you’re the best. We’ll go directly after work.”

  Great, thought Cassy, at least I’ve got that to keep me going today.

  By now, Cassy thought she might be able to handle funerals better, but this was a whole new experience. Even at her mother’s funeral Cassy had managed to control her emotions. She’d even been to funerals where the deceased turned out to still be alive, which was an emotional roller-coaster if ever there was one. But even that had nothing on seeing a dozen or so kids of school age standing in the local cemetery.

  Cassy had driven Patty and her little sister, Tesla. Considering that this was the young girl’s first brush with death, she was taking it remarkably well and kept a cheery disposition for the duration of the drive. They took their places alongside the rest of the mourners, but having arrived late, they were apart from the main gathering. The plot chosen for June’s final resting place was on a slight incline and Cassy, Patty, and Tess stood higher than the rest of them. This gave Cassy a wide view of the entire ceremony. A warm wind rolled over the field of headstones.

  “Are they all your friends?” asked Cassy, looking down the line of downcast faces. They were all so youthful. Far too young to be grieving one of their own.

  “Most of them,” shrugged Tesla.

  Something wasn’t quite right but Cassy couldn’t put her finger on it. Besides the awfulness of what had happened, there was something else that bugged her. A few of the kids had things to say and bravely came up to the mic that had been set up to either recite a poem or simply say a few words.