by Ward Parker
While he was there, she had ignored her ringing phone. Now the message light was blinking on her answering machine. She still preferred to use a landline over her smartphone. She pushed the play button.
“Hello, Mrs. Denton. This is Jerry from The Shooting Shop. I did some forensics on the bullet and cartridge you brought in. Please give me a call.”
She did, and Jerry continued with his report.
“It’s an eight-millimeter, and based on the really distinct rifling marks on the bullet, I would guess it was fired from a J.P. Sauer Mauser K98. They were used by the Germans during World War Two and are highly prized by collectors. Coincidentally, I found one at a gun show two years ago and resold it in my store.”
“Oh, who did you sell it to?” Josie asked.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t divulge that. Except to the police. Does this involve a crime? If so, I should report it.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she lied. “Did the person who bought it work for the police?”
“No. I’ll tell you that.”
“Thanks for your help, and I’ll stop by soon to pick up the bullet.”
She hung up, frustrated. This information didn’t really help her. Would Jerry have known whether Affird was a cop? Maybe the person who bought the rifle sold it to Affird. Or maybe the rifle Jerry sold wasn’t the murder weapon. She drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter while she considered what to do.
If Affird was a rare gun collector, he might belong to a club to which he would have bragged about buying the rifle. Russ, who lived at Seaweed Manor, was a real gun enthusiast. Hopefully, he could point her in the right direction.
She looked him up in the community directory and called him. He answered straight away. After the obligatory small talk, she asked him how she should go about finding the person who bought the J.P. Sauer Mauser. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her why she was asking.
“That’s funny,” Russ said. “One of us here at Seaweed Manor owns a Mauser K98. My buddy, Kevin O’Doodle. He loves historical weaponry, just like me. And his rifle is in excellent condition. He brought me with him to try it out at a gun range. Fantastic craftsmanship, that rifle.”
Josie thanked him, her mind reeling. What did this mean? Was this just a bizarre coincidence? But she remembered that Kevin was their driver on both nights when the shootings took place.
It was time to look seriously into Kevin O’Doodle.
Kevin wasn’t the kind of guy who stood out in a crowd, but in a retirement community, when women outnumbered men, even a stocky, bald guy like Kevin was a hot commodity. As Josie had guessed, he had a little thing going with Mary Beth before she was killed. Tanya, soon afterward, filled Mary Beth’s shoes by filling Kevin’s bed. And there were rumors of other women. Was the slain Teresa one of them?
Josie and Thelma Lou did an exercise walk on the beach every morning at 9:00 a.m., unless an extreme high tide made walking too awkward on the soft sand near the dunes. The following morning, once the conversation slipped into gossip, Josie asked Thelma Lou what she knew about Kevin.
“He’s not your type, Josie.”
“Of course he isn’t! He’s also much younger than me. I want to know what kind of secret life he leads. I hear he may own the particular kind of gun used in the shootings. At least the one that killed Teresa.”
Thelma Lou stopped dead in her tracks. “Kevin?”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but he was there on both nights. He stayed behind with the bus when everyone else went hunting. Who knows what he was up to?”
“He loved Mary Beth.”
“Since the beginning of time, men have killed the women they loved,” Josie said solemnly.
“But really, Kevin was beaten up the night Teresa died.”
“That could have been self-inflicted. So we need to find a motive. That’s why I asked if he had a secret life.”
“I don’t keep up with what those youngsters in their sixties are up to,” Thelma Lou said. “I love gossip as much as the next girl, but there’s too much Viagra-popping partying going on with that crowd for me to keep it all straight.”
Josie agreed. Young people assumed that retired folks were all the same, but Seaweed Manor residents had a wide range of ages. You had to be fifty-five years old to buy there, but a younger spouse could live with you. On the older end of the spectrum, there were Josie and Thelma Lou, plus even a few old birds in their nineties.
“We should speak with Tanya,” Thelma Lou said. “She knows more about the party crowd here.”
“Tanya is not exactly my biggest fan.” In fact, Tanya was the one most likely to challenge Josie’s status as their pack’s alpha.
“We’ll interrogate her after the club meeting tomorrow,” Thelma Lou said. “I’ll do the talking.”
The Wednesday Werewolf Women’s Club meetings were fairly brief business affairs in the clubhouse with light refreshments served. Only the five committee chairpersons plus Josie attended. Tanya was chair of the social committee which was why Thelma Lou wanted to speak with her.
“No,” Tanya said, “Kevin and I are not an item. We’re just good friends.”
“You would make a cute couple,” Thelma Lou said. “So who is the little rooster dating then?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s still in mourning over Mary Beth. I really ought to be getting home now. I have a stew simmering.” Tanya gave a fake smile and ducked out of the clubhouse.
“She didn’t seem very eager to talk,” Josie said.
“She knows something.”
“You called him a rooster. But Kevin doesn’t seem like that type. He makes it no secret that all his parts are in working order, but charisma is not his strong suit. To be a true ladies’ man, you have to be good at flirting.”
“And dancing,” Thelma Lou said.
“And Kevin is good at neither. Maybe we’re going at this the wrong way. Instead of speaking to a friend of his, let’s find an enemy.”
“Does he have enemies?”
“Last month at the Full Moon Social, I was at the bar when he had a very uncomfortable exchange with Wanda Broder.”
“Oh, really?” Thelma Lou asked in her catty voice.
“Yes. I’d love to know what that was about.”
They caught up with Wanda after she attended a pool aerobics class. The top-heavy blonde in a mauve one-piece was frank.
“Kevin is a creep,” she said from her lounge chair. “He was trying to get me to go out with him for months. I told him it was too soon for me to start dating again. But he was so persistent. He turned into a, well, a stalker. He would magically show up wherever I went, whether it was the clubhouse or the Chinese buffet in town. He’d leave phone messages, slip notes under my door. One time, I was walking on the beach and he appeared out of nowhere. And wouldn’t leave me alone. He followed me all the way home like it was a date. He even tried to kiss me.”
“Gross,” Josie said.
“Exactly. So I finally told him—it was at the Full Moon Social—to give me some space. And he didn’t take it well. He was pissed.”
“I thought he was dating Mary Beth,” Thelma Lou said.
“He was. He’s just that kind of guy. He sees every woman as a potential conquest. Not that he wants to get to know them. He wants to know he can have them. That he did have them. I wasn’t surprised that Mary Beth was trying to get out of their relationship.”
“What happened after you brushed him off?” Josie asked.
“He wouldn’t speak to me, which was fine with me. But he continued to stalk me. I was worried, frankly, but after Mary Beth died, he left me alone.”
“What were you worried about?” Josie asked.
“He has a temper. I was worried he would threaten me like the others.”
“Come on, Wanda, tell us what you mean,” Thelma Lou said.
“He threatened Teresa.”
“Teresa?” Josie and Thelma Lou said at the same time.
“You didn’t know about t
hem?”
Both women shook their heads.
“Teresa and Kevin had a little fling after Mary Beth died. Before he had his fling with Tanya. Candidly, I don’t know why she would let that creep in her bed, but she confided in me that she was very lonely and just wanted a little intimacy. She broke it off not long afterwards. Kevin was not happy, let me tell you. Teresa said Kevin was taken by surprise and begged her not to break it off. When she did, he stalked her and actually threatened her.”
“Threatened to do what?” Josie asked.
“He said he’d make sure she never dated anyone else. Ever.”
The women were silent while that sank in.
“Did he threaten Mary Beth?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I wasn’t a close friend of hers. But Teresa told me the reason Kevin volunteered to drive the bus, and kind of pushed Tony out of it, was to keep a close eye on Mary Beth.”
“How creepy,” Thelma Lou said.
“Kevin told Teresa that he volunteered because he wanted to be around Mary Beth as much as possible. That was when things were good between them. But when Mary Beth wanted to break up, Keven admitted that he kept driving the bus because he knew it would intimidate her.”
“Do you suspect that Kevin killed Mary Beth and Teresa?” Josie asked in a low voice.
Wanda looked at her nails, then glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot.
“I’ve wondered sometimes,” she said. “As horrible as it sounds. But I don’t want to believe that anyone I know could do something so evil.”
After they left the pool, Thelma Lou asked Josie what she thought now about Kevin.
“I was so certain that Affird killed our friends,” Josie said. “He knows we’re werewolves, and he’s one of the cops believed to take it upon himself to execute supernaturals. He tried to kill me, for Pete’s sake.” She stopped and stared at the grassy area where she almost met her death. “But you know what they say: Suspect the husband or boyfriend first. I’m feeling strongly that Kevin did this. He’s the kind who wants power over women to the point of harming them if they don’t submit to him. He guessed correctly that we would first assume a hunter did it and, later, that it was someone targeting werewolves. We would never suspect it was a werewolf who did it.”
“He actually used silver to make the bullets,” Thelma Lou said. “That’s so sick.”
“Now, the question is, did he leave his gun at the hunting grounds before we went out there, or did he hide it on the bus? Let’s take a look at the bus.”
21
They're Coming for You
After treating a vampire for a urinary infection, Missy returned home exhausted. The clock by her bed read 3:07 a.m. when she turned off the light and fell promptly to sleep.
The clock read 4:13 a.m. when her eyes shot open after her jewelry box fell off her dresser and scattered its contents across her hardwood floor.
“Was that you, Don Mateo?”
“Yes, it was I. My apologies. I am glad you’re awake, however. I have alarming news.”
“What is it?” Missy didn’t really want to know. There were so many things in her life right now that could be classified as alarming.
“The gnomes are coming,” the ghost replied. “They’re coming for you.”
Missy sat up in bed. “Again? Are you serious?”
“I suggest you get dressed and see for yourself. But first, you need to cast a protection spell.”
Missy did the work to establish the protection spell around the entire house. It would be weaker than one around just herself, but she didn’t want gnomes coming in the house before she could form a plan. She put on sweatpants and sneakers and went into the living room.
“They’re in the back,” Don Mateo said.
She turned on the exterior light in her back, screened-in porch. She gasped.
A crowd of gnomes filled her backyard in a semicircle, like a pod of dolphin herding a school of baitfish. She blinked, and they were suddenly closer to the house.
“In the front now, too,” said Don Mateo.
She went to the front windows. Sure enough, the gnomes had now formed a circle around her house. A circle that was growing smaller. And each time she blinked, there were more of them joining the mob.
Ambient light glittered off their tiny eyes, making the gnomes appear alive. How could such cute, hokey objects seem so evil?
She cast her warding spell, the same one that had driven them from her yard before.
It didn’t work. They kept coming.
“Wait, I have the Red Dragon talisman!” she said to Don Mateo. “I can order them to leave.”
“You wish. The talisman compels only sentient beings, not manmade figurines.”
“But it worked with my gnome before.”
“Yes,” Don Mateo said, “because it was your gnome. These others do not belong to you. To complicate matters, you also have the demon to contend with. The talisman can’t compel demons you haven’t summoned yourself.”
“Look, I know I need my mother to call the demon off. But in the meantime, I just want to get these buggers off my lawn.”
When they were just a few feet away from the window, they stopped advancing. They had hit the bubble of the protection spell.
“Perhaps if you hold them off until dawn, they won’t attack in daylight,” Don Mateo said.
“Nope. I saw them running amok in daylight yesterday. They’ve grown bolder. Or maybe stronger, too.”
“They’re so tiny. Perhaps a windstorm will disperse them.”
Missy knew a wind spell. The one time she’d used it, though, she only produced a breeze to drive mosquitos away. The windstorm would require a lot more power. The talisman could help with that, at least.
She went into the kitchen and drew a magick circle on the floor with chalk.
“I never needed a circle when I was a wizard,” Don Mateo said.
“You know that demon that killed you? If you were inside a magick circle, the demon wouldn’t have been able to get to you. Now keep your comments to yourself while I work.”
Within the circle, she visualized a five-pointed pentagram and lit a candle on the point corresponding to the element of air. She performed her usual gathering of energies from within herself, from the earth, the ocean, the flame of the candle, and from the air. As she felt the power growing, she recited a simple verse in Old English. Then she directed all the power into the air element, holding the talisman in her pocket for extra effect.
“Byre!” she shouted.
A wind immediately picked up outside. Trees bent, palm fronds whipped back and forth, lawn debris blew everywhere.
Finally, one gnome rose from the ground and went flying.
Right into her window, shattering it but not breaking through.
Then another gnome was swept into the air. And smashed into a different window.
Now more gnomes, singly and in small groups, were blown into the air. And always into the exterior of her house. Many smashed into her concrete walls, but most shattered her windows.
She tried focusing on the wind, to change its direction. But invariably, no matter which direction the gnomes were launched, they ended up circling around and hitting her home.
Soon, every single window was shattered. Every single very expensive impact window would have to be replaced. What was it with garden gnomes and her windows?
“Blinnan!” she shouted and erased part of the magick circle, ending the spell, leaving the gnomes scattered all over her property.
But when she looked out the window again, they were back in formation: a giant circle growing smaller as if to strangle her home.
“Heat could melt the plastic,” Missy thought out loud.
“I don’t know what plastic is,” said Don Mateo’s ghost.
“You’re better off not knowing.”
She had conjured heat once before, when she had battled a spell that attacked her with extreme cold. She had
stopped the cold, but ended up with everything she touched catching fire. It wasn’t pretty. So she was a bit leery of once again playing with fire.
“I believe it’s too late for your heat magick,” the ghost said.
He was correct. Because there was a gnome in her home. A fat little bugger in a chef’s uniform, standing just inside the front door. A door she hadn’t seen opening.
Make that two gnomes in her home. A woodsman-themed gnome stood just outside the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
Three gnomes now. Four. Soon the kitchen where she stood in a broken magick circle was the only part of her home without a gnome.
“How are you going to get out of this mess?” Don Mateo asked.
“I was hoping you would have suggestions for me.”
A gnome appeared in the kitchen doorway. A rustic little guy with an ax molded to his shoulder. He would have been cute if he wasn’t intent on killing her.
Scuffling sounds echoed throughout the house as more gnomes entered, and the mass shifted forward toward the kitchen in six-inch intervals, too quickly for the human eye to register.
"How did they get through my protection spell?" Missy asked.
"I am not certain," Don Mateo said, "but I would wager it has something to do with the black magic and the demon."
"What should I do?"
"I will think of a solution. Elsewhere. Adios, mi amiga," Don Mateo said as he faded from sight.
Great. Abandoned by a man once again.
She formed a protection spell around herself. It was much stronger and denser than the one around the entire house, but she no longer had much confidence in this spell.
A block of ice formed in her stomach and her heart raced. The doorway to the kitchen was completely blocked now by gnomes, with a crowd pushing up behind them like throngs of kids trying to get into a concert. The shattered kitchen window showed a backyard packed with the possessed lawn ornaments.
She took her largest chopping knife from a drawer and advanced toward the horde, waving the knife menacingly. The gnome with the ax seemed to pause, but then continued its minuscule, unseen slides toward her. Others followed it into the kitchen.